General Milley’s address at the Aspen Security Forum is a major piece of news and food for thought.
We live in times of media madness in which it is ever so easy to become cynical or desensitized to even the most heinous or theoretically shocking news. So it may be hard to even get excited about a quote that has nothing to do with gender issues on Twitter, but I implore you to consider the resonance of a recent statement made at the Aspen Security Forum by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Armed Forces of the United States of America…
“We’re entering into a tri-polar world with the U.S., Russia and China being all great powers. Just by introducing three vs two you get increased complexity.”
Now this isn’t a statement by some outsider, closet Eurasianist or Trump leftover lackie. General Mark Milley is absolutely a Statist (from a Biden-era perspective) who is more than happy to tow the party line on any trendy issue. As evidence of this position, for some reason it was he who really brought up “Climate Change” as an aspect of defense. He even commissioned a major report by the Army War College detailing a scenario of “defeat” for America’s “mission” within 20 years of publication due to Climate Change. Although Trump gave him his current job, he later called on Milley to resign because he failed “to defend (the American military) from the Leftist Radicals who hate (the USA) and (its flag).” This was in connection to Milley’s support for “Critical Race Theory” being put into place within America’s Armed Forces.
Image: The decline of America is a joy for some but sorrow for others.
The above is not some sort of Right Wing attack on General Milley the person, but a brief layout of his character as someone who at least publicly has shown great support for the heights of that good ole Liberal Agenda that everyone talks about. Meaning, that with his position and views he acts very much like “the system” in uniform. And this man of the system, who is at the top of the top of the military (excluding the President of course) just said that the Monopolar, the Post Cold War period of Pax Americana is over.
The other values that Milley is famous (or infamous) for like Critical Race Theory and Climate Change in a Defense Context were not invented by him, but nonetheless pushed by him. It is a reflection of the level of their “mainstreamness”, which shows that if he now is parroting “Multipolarity” then the concept may have gone mainstream within the halls of power in Washington, although not out of passionary excitement for the idea, but instead out of a sorrowful acceptance of the reality of it.
“They’ve been very clear about that. They have a China dream, and they want to challenge the so-called liberal, rules-based order that went into effect in 1945 at the end of World War II. They want to revise it. So, we have a … country that is becoming extraordinarily powerful that wants to revise the international order to their advantage. That’s going to be a real challenge over the coming 10 to 20 years, [and it’s] going to be really significant.”
This less popular quote from the speech yet again underlines Milley’s belief that Pax Americana is dead.
Today, he said, the United States, Russia, China, allies and partners are going to have to be very careful and conscious about how they deal with each other going forward and coordinated communication between the great powers will be a necessity, he added.
Perhaps we should all breathe a sigh of relief as the Post Cold War order has, or should I say “had”, a great potential for an apocalyptic scenario as the protocols and rules of engagement between Moscow and Washington broke down, while the threat of war (halfway through the Putin period to present) did not. If the U.S. is really willing to work out how this new Cold War is going to function, it will only help to keep the world safe from a nuclear winter due to a misunderstanding gone horribly wrong.
Image: Having to cooperate and discuss issues with yesterday’s great enemy is becoming a reality for Washington.
That is a cause for optimism, however the fact that General Milley only sees the rise of a Multipolar World as an excuse for a new Cold War is a bit depressing. Then again a new Cold War is an excuse to keep that military budget sky high when it could otherwise be downsized. As they say “follow the money”.
One of the selling points of a Multipolar World Order is that it eliminates the “zero-sum game” logic of the Cold War wherein every nation on Earth is either on team A or team B meaning they all must be fought over or else the other side gets the square. The Multipolar way of doing things also eliminates the inherent tyranny of Globalism with one group dominating the entire world crushing any competitor that may try to break the monopoly. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff sees this as some sort of ugly reality that has to be fought against, although he did not mention anything about reestablishing a Monopolar World Order, well at least he did not say anything yet.
For the reasons described above, General Milley’s address at the Aspen Security Forum is a major piece of news and food for thought. It could be the massive signal that the world has been waiting for that even Washington and the U.S. military especially see a Multipolar future as inevitable and already coming into being.
