The United States boasts the world ’ s strongest military establishment . The dominant rhetoric in the United States casts everything it does as self-defense necessitated by foreign enemies .
That justifies the government spending much more on defense than on the few internal social problems that rhetoric even recognizes . Yet the United States lost the wars in Vietnam , Afghanistan , Iraq , and now Ukraine , and these countries ’ military establishments were far from the world ’ s strongest . It turns out that the proliferation of nuclear weapons and technical competition among nuclear powers have changed military balances around the world .
The United States ’ gross underestimates of Russia ’ s warfare capacities in 2022 illustrate the change very dramatically . They also illustrate that a rhetoric stressing a refusal to be victimized by foreign militaries undercut or displaced sober analyses of a militarily changed world .
Now the world observes not only changed global military configurations but also the costly denials of them by US leaders . Political and economic leaders everywhere else are now rethinking their strategies accordingly . Rhetorics of refusal to be victimized can become self-destructive .
Another reason those leaders are redesigning their growth plans follows from the intertwined declines of the US empire and the US capitalist system . What US leaders deny , many foreign leaders have incentives to see , evaluate and take advantage of .
The BRICS members ( 9 ) and partners ( 9 ), as of January 2025 , account for nearly half the world ’ s population and 41 % of the world ’ s GDP ( in purchasing power parity terms ). Four other nations have been invited and are likely to join in 2025 : Vietnam , Turkey , Algeria , and Nigeria .
Indonesia just joined as a full BRICS partner adding its roughly 280 million population . In contrast , the G7 — the world ’ s secondlargest economic bloc — accounts for about 10 % of the world ’ s population and 30 % of its GDP ( also in purchasing power parity terms ).
Moreover , as data from the International Monetary Fund documents , recent years show a widening gap between the annual GDP growth rates of the G7-leading United States and the BRICSleading China and India .
Across the history of capitalism from its earlier times in England through the American empire ’ s peak early in the 21st century , most nations focused chiefly on the G7 in strategizing economic growth , debt , trade , investments , currency exchange rates , and balances of payments . Large- and medium-sized enterprises did likewise .
Yet over the last 15 – 20 years , countries and enterprises have faced an altogether new , different global situation . China , India , and the rest of the BRICS countries offer an alternative possible focus . Everyone can now play the two blocs off against one another .
Moreover , in this play , the BRICS now hold better , richer cards than the G7 . Rhetorics of refusal spin these changes in the world economy as the evil intentions of foreign others — who likely hate democracy .
The Trial Lawyer 81