Will Trump Reverse Thirty Years of the United States’ Bullying, Bribery, and Bombing the world?, by Scipio
During the Cold War, two super powers, the USA and the USSR held the world in balance between each other. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 25, 1991 as the red hammer and sickle Soviet flag was lowered from the Kremlin, only the USA remained as the sole super power. It was a golden opportunity in history for the USA to lead the world in pursuing every nation’s desire for life, liberty and happiness. Instead, America pursued an elaborate plan to plunder Russia and destabilize the rest of the world for profit and hegemony. (https://www.jeffsachs.org/newspaper-articles/bfsmbpe4plx7cc6lgxhf37lx249r22) America’s imperial method was to bully, bribe, and bomb the world into submission, and replacing international law with a “rules-based order”; and the USA began making up the rules.
Bombing any resistance to US policy is the norm. Unfortunately, bombing replaced diplomacy as the first method of resolving international conflicts. The past four years of the Biden Administration, saw zero use of diplomacy in foreign affairs. This has never happened in US foreign policy history. Instead of pursuing peace, slowly at first, then accelerating in 1995 when against international law, the USA bombed Bosnia & Herzegovina and then again in 1999 when it bombed Serbia the USA emerged as the world’s newest empire, bombing its way to the top. The US’s latest foray is into Syria. (https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/war-whores-military-industrial-complex-are-lighting-world-fire)
Teddy Roosevelt said that in foreign affairs one should “walk silently but carry a big stick”. But our diplomatic reality has been wielding the big stick constantly. Otto von Bismark, the “Iron Chancellor”, created a balance of power in Europe that saw no major wars in Europe during his tenure. He said diplomacy is an “iron fist covered with a velvet glove”. When he exercised his “iron fist” it was limited and effective. Carl von Clausewitz famously said, war is an extension of foreign policy. For the last thirty years the US has used its “iron fist” (war) as its main diplomatic tool.
Bombing has been egged on by Neocon warmongers in and outside of the government. (https://mishtalk.com/economics/deficit-hawk-hypocrites-and-warmongers-unite-apparently-hoping-to-start-wwiii/) Neocons are the visible head of the deep state. If you don’t know who they are here are some of them; Lindsey Graham, Mitch McConnell, John Cornyn, Victoria Nuland, Robert Kagan (Victoria’s husband), Jake Sullivan, Anthony Blinken, Zibigniew Brzezinski (MSNBC’s Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski is Zibignew’s daughter), Dick Cheney (Liz Cheney’s father), Bill Kristol, Mark Warner, Adam Smith, Tom Cotton, Susan Rice, Hillary Clinton, Ben Crenshaw, Richard Blumenthal, Joe Biden, Condoleza Rice, Chuck Shumer, Gen. Jack Keene, Gen. Petraeus, Gen. Milley, are to name a few. Houston, we have a problem.
When Trump 45 first came into office, he found it difficult to drain the swamp when he found himself up to his ass in alligators (Deep Staters), some of whom he appointed to his own Cabinet. Trump’s attempt to wind down American wars in Afghanistan and elsewhere were thwarted by treasonous generals in the Pentagon, career State Department officials, an agenda driven media, and Neocon foreign policy advisors like Nikki Haley and John Bolton. Therefore, minimal amounts of the bombing aspect of American foreign policy were scaled back. Trump is a man of peace, but sometimes he is misguided by his advisors, ( https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/01/28/is-trump-positioning-for-no-deal-with-russia-or-not/) which, unfortunately, continues into his second administration, aka Mark Rubio.
Bribing of both friends and enemies have been a boon for international arms dealer middlemen and bank money laundering. (https://www.europol.europa.eu/media-press/newsroom/news/23-underground-bankers-arrested) (https://libertarianinstitute.org/news/dod-ig-american-weapons-in-ukraine-funneled-to-arms-traffickers-criminals/) Spain recently expelled two US embassy personal for trying to bribe the Spanish intelligence agency. (https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/spain-expels-2-us-embassy-staff-bribing-intelligence-agents-el-pais-2023-12-07/) The January 29, 2025 eleven-year prison sentence of former Senator Bob Menendez highlights this bribing avenue is a two way street. ( https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/former-sen-bob-menendez-sentenced-gold-bar-bribery-case-rcna189044) President Obama paid Iran $1.7 billion in cash to take it easy on America in the Middle East. (https://apnews.com/united-states-government-fd4113419276444eba1d2a46d5c29752)
Some bribes go to the Middle East buying “peace” from various Muslim stakeholders. But Lebanon and Israel get more than their fair share as well. Some money pays for our “allies” in Europe to be our vassal states. Germany has to ask the US who they can buy oil and gas from. It’s a price we pay for occupying Europe after WWII supposedly to protect Europe from the USSR although the USSR has been gone for decades.
Shockingly, corrupt payments are pretty much out in the open in Ukraine. (https://apnews.com/united-states-government-fd4113419276444eba1d2a46d5c29752) Some Ukrainians are actually sleeping with American’s tax payer’s money. (https://libertarianinstitute.org/news/dod-ig-american-weapons-in-ukraine-funneled-to-arms-traffickers-criminals/)
Cash is not the only form of American foreign policy bribes. Economic aid laundered through the World Bank funds many governments around the world, especially in paying for their government’s employees. The USA is literally paying Ukrainian government employees’ salaries and retirees’ pensions right now.
But the biggest bribes are in military aid. Here is one area the military industrial complex thrives in by influencing legislation to spend more and more on the military budget. The US spent $824.3 billion dollars on defense in 2024, a 2.6% increase. Much of that was spent on foreign countries.
The US spends more on defense than the next 9 countries combined..‘ https://libertarianinstitute.org/news/dod-ig-american-weapons-in-ukraine-funneled-to-arms-traffickers-criminals/) The countries that receive the most aid are culturally very different from the USA with dissimilar values. (https://www.insidermonkey.com/blog/u-s-foreign-military-aid-by-country-top-20-countries-1334792/) America is currently pouring money into the Global South right now.
Leading American arms manufacturers such as Raytheon, Lockheed-Martin, and Boeing are revolving doors filled with past members of the DOD and Congress. For example, former Sec. of Defense Lloyd Austin, retired from the Army, went to work with Raytheon and returned to government as Biden’s Sec. of Defense overseeing, in part, the very private industry he worked for. Does anyone see any conflict of interest here? He is just one example of this charade. As we used to say during the Vietnam War, “War is good business. Invest your son today.”
In case you missed Lyndsey Graham’s statement about the Ukraine war being good for the defense industry profits back in March 2024, he said it again after President Trump’s election in November. (https://www.insidermonkey.com/blog/u-s-foreign-military-aid-by-country-top-20-countries-1334792/)
Bullying is another favorite method of American foreign policy. The CIA calls it “nudging”. America loves to put sanctions on any country that does not bend the knee to the American hegemon. Unilateral extra territorial sanctions favored by the US are on shaky international law grounds. Seldom do sanctions work to change the affected government’s actions, but the innocent population of those countries overwhelmingly face grim prospects economically. In contrast when the US tries to sanction a strong county it does