By Jun Sheng
The Ukraine crisis is putting the whole world on tenterhooks. When the international community is calling for a cool-down, the US is busy with blame-shifting and mudslinging in the attempt to cover up its true color as the initiator and agitator of the chaos and calamity today. It is the US that ignited the fuse to the Ukraine war, and the evolution of the ongoing crisis has shown again how the hegemony-obsessed America has been sabotaging global peace and stability.
Historical facts tell us that “hegemony” and “expansion” are in the American DNA. The country was born and bred in war, slavery and slaughter on its way to becoming a superpower, and has made its way to the center stage of the international arena through numerous wars. All US administrations after WWII have upheld the hegemonistic policy – from Truman’s “containment” to Nixon’s “realistic deterrence” to George Walker Bush’s “preemption”, Washington’s core strategic goal has been consistent and unchanged – establishing and preserving America’s hegemony.
The recent administrations have given their strategies different names, including Obama’s “smart power”, Trump’s “America first”, and Biden’s “Build Back Better”, which are still focused on maintaining hegemony. To do that, the US, leveraged on its military might, has directly waged wars and caused division and conflict in constant breach of the principles and purposes of the UN Charter and the rules of international law, throwing the world into turmoil and unrest.
In recent years, America has waged or participated in a series of wars overseas, including the Kosovo War, Afghan War and Iraqi War, causing a whopping amount of civilian casualties and property losses that led to excruciating humanitarian disasters. According to statistics from Watson Institute of International & Public Affairs, the Iraqi War started by the US in 2003 killed at least 180,000-200,000 Iraqi civilians. The massive use of depleted uranium bombs and white-phosphorus bombs by the US-led multilateral forces also destroyed the local ecological environment and people’s health.
The Smithsonian Magazine reported that the wars and military operations carried out by the US in the name of “counterterrorism” since 2001 cover about 40% of countries on the planet. Data from Brown University’s Costs of War project showed that these so-called anti-terror wars have claimed more than 800,000 lives and razed the homes of more than 38 million.
To be able to throw its weight around the globe, the US has kept up the world’s highest military expenditure for many years, which is equivalent to nearly 40% of the military spending of all countries. In addition to conventional military forces, the US possesses the largest and most advanced nuclear arsenal in the world and is the only country with a stock of chemical weapons, not to mention its more than 800 military bases distributed in every corner of the world that threaten global security like time bombs.
The US is not only a downright “warmonger”, but also an addict to interfering in foreign countries’ internal affairs and a black hand instigating unrest on foreign lands. For many years, Washington has been meddling in others’ internal affairs in the name of “democracy” and creating humanitarian disasters under the banner of protecting human rights. It has staged the “Color Revolution” in some Asian and European countries, remotely crafted the "Arab Spring" in West Asia and North Africa, promoted the new “Monroe Doctrine” in Latin America, and incited “peaceful evolution” around the world…The messes it has left are the reason for the political turmoil and mounting social conflicts across those regions.
Frequently putting its domestic law above international law and rules, the US has been exercising “long-arm jurisdiction” over other sovereign states and rampantly wielding the baton of unilateral sanctions, practicing the “jungle law” and hegemonism to the extreme. Since the outbreak of novel coronavirus, its long-term sanctions upon Venezuela, Syria and Iran have put a dire drain on their economy and medical conditions and aggravated their pandemic situation. Seeing this, the US has stepped up the sanctions rather than ease or lift them.
Facts have proved beyond doubt that the US is the true destroyer of international rules and world order and the root cause for all the instability and uncertainty mounting worldwide today. The fermentation and evolution of the Ukraine crisis is a fresh reminder that we must stay on high alert against the US that recklessly plays the tricks of tension-stoking, war-mongering and interference addiction.
