By Jun Sheng
While the US has always prided itself on being the “guardian of world peace”, preserving global and regional peace and stability is never a priority in its strategic arrangements because what it is really – and only – interested in is seeking gains for itself and consolidating its global hegemony.
In today’s world, behind almost every regional conflict, there is America’s “agitative diplomacy” at work. It manipulates public opinions, weaponizes economic sanctions, and provides weapons to countries in conflict. The superpower is making trouble and rocking boats everywhere in total disregard of international rules just to preserve its hegemony, turning itself into the biggest disrupter of world peace and development.
The escalation and breakout of the Ukraine crisis once again proved the evil intention of America’s “agitative diplomacy”. Tulsi Gabbard, a former member of the US House of Representatives, said the US could prevent the Russia-Ukraine conflict as long as it made clear that it wouldn’t accept Ukraine into NATO. But what did the US do? It arbitrarily pushed the eastward expansion of NATO five times, all the way to Russia’s doorstep.
While the Russia-Ukraine tension was at height, the US, instead of seeking to chill the crisis, kept providing Ukraine with military aid in provocation to Russia. Now as the conflict keeps worsening, it is still carrying out its “agitative diplomacy” and fanning the flames.
When the US was first founded, it promoted the diplomatic policy of “Monroe Doctrine”, drew a line to make the western hemisphere its own sphere of influence, and wantonly interfered in the internal affairs of Latin American countries. After the end of WWII, the US, having cemented its position as a superpower, was reaching its hands out even further. From Truman’s containment strategy to Nixon’s realistic deterrence, from Bush Junior’s strategy of “preemption” to Trump’s “America first” to Biden’s “Build Back Better”, US presidents over the years have all tried hard to maintain their hegemony.
American hegemony is evident to all – the starting of wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, the “Arab Spring” it orchestrated and remotely controlled in Asia and Africa, the “Color Revolution” it directed in Eurasia, the “neo-Monroeism” it promoted in Latin America, and the “peaceful revolution” it instigated around the world. The list goes on. Studies show that from 1948 to 1991, the US conducted 46 military interventions worldwide, a number that grew fourfold to 188 in the period of 1992-2017; from the end of WWII to 2001, it waged 201 out of the 248 armed conflicts happening in 153 regions across the world, over 80% of the total. These conflicts and chaos either fomented or ignited by the US took away millions of innocent lives, aggravated social conflicts, and threw the public into an abyss of disaster and despair.
“The people want peace. Why is it that our leaders always lead us to war?” This is a question asked by many Americans and shared by the international community. The world wants peace and cooperation, not war and confrontation – that’s the common wish of the majority of countries. Yet the US, always harboring something evil, is so obsessed with its hegemony that it has fallen into the habit of creating turmoil everywhere and turning itself into the most dangerous source of instability for global security. History will prove that while practicing the narrow-minded and self-centered “agitative diplomacy”, some American politicians are just digging their own graves.
