Will the Death of U.S. Hegemony Lead to Peace—Or World War III?

Interview with Prof. Jefferey Sachs
Apocalypseos

Israel right now is absolutely radicalized—extremist. Israel is killing tens of thousands of people and I'm proud that our students are saying, "No! Don't do that." China is not an enemy. Russia is not an enemy. We don't need these wars. They don't make us safer. They don't make us more prosperous.

And the American people sense it. What is told to us are lies and the public is protesting. And to keep to the lies, the government is cracking down. That's where we are. It's extremely dangerous.

Structurally the US security establishment is fighting for its hegemony and it could end up creating a World War. The US has starkly divided the world because the US has said, "You're with us or you're against us." China is not out to run the world. It's not out to dominate the United States. It's not out to invade the US. It's not out to hinder the United States.

The BRICS countries want a means of settlement that isn't the US dollar. That's mainly because of the weaponization of the dollar by the United States. The second factor is that the dollar itself may become unstable for the reasons that we were speaking about. A third factor is that there is lots of technological change so different ways to make settlements. The current settlement system goes through banks but in the future, it will go through digital currencies probably Central Bank digital currencies.

The US, on the other hand, resents Russia for being big and powerful. The US has a completely neurotic fixation on China. Why we are slipping towards World War III is that America's self-image as a hegemon is completely inconsistent with the ground reality. We do what we want and we expect others to do what we want. Structurally, the US security establishment is fighting for its hegemony and it could end up creating a World War.

Islamic countries are ready for peace. The Saudis don't want war, UAE doesn't want war, Egypt doesn't want war, Jordan doesn't want war, and Lebanon doesn't want war, but they want Palestine not to live under apartheid rule, or worse under genocide, which is what's happening in Gaza right now.

Israel right now is absolutely radicalized—extremist—compared to what it was even a quarter century ago, much less in the 1970s. It's an extremist government. It is saying overtly among the major cabinet members, "This is our land. We will never allow a state of Palestine. We will dominate the land," and so forth, including the so-called occupied territories which is Palestine but they call it Judea and Samaria. It's really dangerous how extremist Israel has become. And so I think we need to say as a world community, "Stop the extremism. We need a political settlement, clear 1967 borders, a State of Palestine, capital in East Jerusalem, and we need an economic framework that can go along with that." And I think both are possible.

The US has pushed this war all along. The US has funded this war, the US has armed Ukraine. It's the US by the way that told Ukraine to keep fighting when Ukraine was ready to settle based on neutrality in March 2022 and then the US and UK came in and said, "No, no! We arm you, you keep fighting!" And that is about 500,000 deaths earlier that would have been averted but for the US insistence, I would say that its client state keeps fighting.

The US really has starkly divided the world because the US has said, "You're with us or you're against us." It said that repeatedly. It said that with regard to the Iraq War in 2003 and onward. And it says it now about Ukraine, and the sanctions against Russia, "You're either with us applying these sanctions or you're against us."

Most of the world doesn't want to be for or against, it wants to be left alone. Most of the world is trying to get on with living, trying to get on with facing many, many challenges and crises, and it doesn't want to be told by the United States, "You do what we say or we somehow punish you or put on sanctions, and so on."

It's the US that is forcing this sharp division. It's a shame and a huge mistake for the US because when countries are forced to choose they say, "Okay, we'll go with the other side because it looks like a better bargain."

The United States can't say anything good about China because China is an affront to the American arrogant claim of superiority. And so everything the US says about China is bad-mouthing. It's basically lies, fibs, misrepresentations, and misunderstandings because what China is doing is very constructive in the world. And so this is why so many other countries are saying, "Okay, you force me to choose? I choose the Belt and Road."

What the students are saying is they don't like genocide, they don't support what Israel is doing, they want it to stop, and the students are absolutely correct in this. This is a shock to the politicians who are of course deeply influenced—one could say bought off by the Israel Lobby, by the big money that entails, or by the military-industrial complex—and frankly are shocked and amazed that there's such a strong sentiment among America's young people, Pro-Palestinian. I don't think the political class expected this at all. But then again, what Israel is doing is so vulgar, so cruel, and so crass, it's not really surprising. But this caught the politicians and the University administrators completely off-guard.

Everything was exaggerated in a kind of panic and the universities wanted to prove to Congress, "Oh we're going to take care of this anti-Israel sentiment, this is absolutely terrible," and so they cracked down. They called the police across the United States. Students, faculty arrested, students expelled. Again, if they had read Pope Francis' encyclical and actually talked to the students they would have gotten somewhere.

The university administrators wanted to show both parties of Congress, "We absolutely, we understand what free speech is," which means don't allow it if it's against the prevailing policy of the United States which is to support Israel at any cost and all costs. And so they fell all over each other to impress the politicians. The politicians did their usual demagoguery and they came to the campuses and they called the pro-Palestinian protesters anti-semitic and every kind of slur and slander you can imagine, and this is where we are in America. We do not speak with each other in a civilized way.

Israel is killing tens of thousands of people and I'm proud that our students are saying, "No! Don't do that."

China is not an enemy. Russia is not an enemy. We don't need these wars. They don't make us safer. They don't make us more prosperous. And the American people sense it or know it. And they oppose the foreign policy. And, of course, in the US at this point almost all foreign policy is managed secretly, really by a small group. Everything is under classified control. What is told to us are lies and the public is protesting. And to keep to the lies, the government is cracking down. That's where we are. It's extremely dangerous.

My particular area of effort right now is to try to apply the maximum logic and geopolitical sense for the US to drop its veto on the state of Palestine because I really believe if we could have a state of Palestine in the UN, so much of the rest of making peace would follow very quickly.

Unfortunately, there's a lot of feeling across Israeli society according to the opinion surveys for very harsh continued measures in Gaza and I think that is very concerning. I'm not sure that the peace is going to come from within Israel. I think it's more likely to come from the International Community which again, putting aside the US veto, is pretty much unanimous in rejecting what Israel is doing.

China is not our enemy. This is the most important point to understand. China is not out to run the world. It's not out to dominate the United States. It's not out to invade the US. It's not out to hinder the United States. The idea of China as the enemy is a US concoction. It's a resentment of China being large and successful. It is not a measure of China per se.

And this is the most important thing for Americans to understand: stop making enemies where they don't exist. If one persists long enough in calling someone else an enemy and acting that way you'll create an enemy. But if you have more sense and understand that China is not our enemy we have no reason to make China an enemy, nor will it be an enemy.

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