Think tank report reveals perils of U.S. military hegemony

The U.S. military hegemony has inflicted humanitarian disasters upon civilians worldwide while causing serious damage to the United States itself, said a report published on Tuesday.

The report, titled Origins, Facts and Perils of U.S. Military Hegemony, was released by Xinhua Institute, the think tank of Xinhua News Agency. It outlines the formation of the U.S. military hegemony, summarizes the means Washington adopted to maintain it, and delves into its perils with facts and data.

To maintain its military hegemony, the United States has killed civilians, trampled on other countries’ sovereignty and human dignity and damaged the ecological environment, it said.

The United States has caused innumerable humanitarian catastrophes worldwide, the report said, pointing out that “the Vietnam War led to 2 million civilian deaths, the war in Afghanistan caused over 100,000 civilian casualties, and the Iraq War killed between 200,000 to 250,000 civilians.”

Moreover, the frequently reported scandals of systemic prisoner abuse by the U.S. military in recent years are evidence of blatant disregard for human rights and trampling on human dignity.

In a report presented to the 64th session of the UN General Assembly, the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism pointed out that the United States, along with its private contractors, resorted to interrogation techniques against male Muslims detained in Iraq and other countries, including but not limited to, forcing detainees to strip naked, piling detainees on top of each other naked, and threatening them with rape and sodomy.

“While the United States may verbally support environmental protection and carbon neutrality, the priorities of the U.S. military are its safety and lethality,” it said, revealing that the U.S. military is the world’s largest energy consumer of fossil fuel and its fuel consumption outside wartime along with the resulting carbon emissions exceeds that of most countries.

Serious damage to the U.S. itself

The wars launched and participated in by the United States after the 9/11 attacks have led to the death of more than 7,000 U.S. soldiers and around 8,000 U.S. defense contractors, while more than 30,000 U.S. soldiers committed suicide, four times the number killed in combat, according to the report.

The United States has spent over $5.8 trillion on wars since 2001 with more than $350 billion on medical and disability care for veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, while another $2.2 trillion have to be invested in the same field in the next 30 years, placing a heavy burden on the taxpayers, it said. 

U.S. military spending from the post-9/11 wars could have provided health care coverage through adulthood and two years of early education for 13 million U.S. children living below the poverty line, public college scholarships for 28 million students, 20 years of health care coverage for 1 million veterans, and 10 years’ worth of salaries for 4 million clean energy industry workers, it added.

Following the 9/11 attacks, the United States has invoked the term “war on terror” to justify its interventions and exertion of military hegemony, which has resulted in the development of extremist groups like the Islamic State and instability in many regions, it said.

At the same time, these actions have backfired on the United States itself, as evidenced by the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, and the New York City truck attack in 2017, it said.

The United States’ successive lies and deceptions in wars have also continued to erode its credibility. A poll released by the Pew Research Center in 2019 showed that the international reputation of the United States declined significantly from 2013 to 2018, with foreigners who view U.S. power and influence as a serious threat rising from 25 percent in 2013 to 45 percent in 2018, said the report.

Through its “endless wars” abroad, the United States has unleashed a series of political forces such as militarism, strengthened executive power, xenophobia, pseudo-patriotism, and demagoguery all of which run counter to the civic morality on which a healthy democracy relies, exacerbating domestic unrest, it added.

(With input from Xinhua)