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The US is hitting a brick wall.
The result of dissolution inside and around the US is dominating the headlines.
In the US, the House Republicans can still not get another House Speaker elected. The Republicans nominated Steve Scalise, but Scalise is not expected to get enough votes on the Floor. And some Republicans still try to get Kevin McCarthy reinstalled as Speaker. All this means that the House of Representatives – and thereby all of Congress and all the US legislative and budget passing process — is blocked for an indefinite period. The US cannot pass laws and cannot send money – not to anybody.
Scalise is a scandal. He has compared himself to David Duke, the notorious leader of the Ku Klux Klan! Though Scalise added “without the baggage.” Scalise hails the leader of an organization which lynched, killed, and tortured lots of Black people. Like the Ku Klux Klan, Scalise himself is from the US South, from Tennessee. Scalise is against Social Security and higher taxes. This will be very poisonous for solving the crisis of financing the US government.
Not only can the US not send more money to Ukraine or Israel right now. The US budget is about to explode, and the whole US government is at grave risk to come to a stop with no more funding when the temporary funding runs out on 17 November 2023 – in little more than a month from now.
Last time the House of Representatives elected a Speaker, it took them 15 rounds to agree on one (McCarthy), and that Speaker got ousted again after only nine months. It is easy to see how the remaining 4-5 weeks until 17 November 2023 can be consumed by bickering over the Speaker issue, with the US not being able to pass anything when the funding ends 17 November 2023.
In Ukraine, we see these days Russia conducting a big and successful offensive against Ukraine’s biggest stronghold in Avdiivka. A stronghold where Ukraine has bombed Russian civilians (including cluster bombs against children) in Donetsk city for nine years since 2014. Avdiivka is a factory fortress, and it is said that it is also a NATO headquarters in the war in the Ukraine, where lots of high-ranking US and other NATO generals are leading the war against Russia at the front.
Ukraine’s “biggest counteroffensive” has come to a stop everywhere. Ukraine doesn’t even have artillery ammunition left to try and hit nearly any of the Russians as the Russians advance. And with any US artillery ammunition going to Israel, it is over and out for Ukraine’s artillery.
Russian troopers are already moving freely in the open without fear of being hit by artillery grenades. At the same time, Russia advances not only around Avdiivka, but also pushes to enclose Ukraine in the North East at Kupyansk, and further South. Ukrainian reserves of men and machines have been depleted, and Russia is sucking up every kind of force which Ukraine has got left.
In the Middle East, all the analyses you can get say that Israel has “no good options.” Even the US Council on Foreign Relations writes that in their magazine, Foreign Affairs. The New York Times warns that Gaza is a “trap” for Israel.
Everything is unravelling for the US now.
Israel will always be prioritized over Ukraine. To keep funds for Ukraine, Biden is trying to link an Israel weapons package into a Ukraine package but that is meeting resistance among House Republicans. House Republicans stick to their guns, willing to make a quick package for Israel, but on Ukraine insisting to link any money for Ukraine with the border issue.
Money, however, does not change the fact that the US has run out of items like artillery shells and anti-air missiles to give away. As Ukraine has stopped all its “counteroffensives” everywhere, due to losses and being out of ammo, Israel may hope that the US might still give some of its strategic artillery shell stocks reserved for its own defense – Ukraine is not important enough for the US for that.
If the US gives artillery shells to Israel, the US will have no ammunition after a very short time in case of any conflict anywhere else. Some specialists have said that the US already now would run out of artillery ammo after just 30 days of conflict – shortening that even more is catastrophic for the US. The US is now militarily completely unprepared and incapable of managing any conflict like Taiwan. China can make any move it wants to.
With the US incapable of managing neither Russia, nor Iran, nor China, the Gaza war is pressing the US empire even more beyond is capabilities by adding one more burning hot spot which the US can’t handle.
Faced with these limitations, the war party in the US is already fuming that they want a US military “big enough” which can beat Russia, beat China around Taiwan, protect Israel, attack Iran, and intervene who-knows-where else (like Syria).
Even outgoing US Chair of Joint Chiefs Milley talked nonsense about a possible “doubling” of the US defense budget, meaning adding another nearly $1 trillion in defense spending. As if the US had a magic wand to do so.
In US politics which includes both politicians, generals, and media, we see how the US war party is adding half the world to their already impossible military to-do list whom the US wants to defeat in war. The US will not give up its ambitions to control the world with war, even as Washington is hitting a brick wall of military impossibility. And after decades of deindustrialization, the US cannot just ramp up military production, no matter the money available.
Israel is adding to this defeat of US power. After 20 years, the US could not defeat Taliban. Hamas is the same. One commentator added that Israel will lose if Hezbollah intervenes with missiles from Lebanon. Hezbollah has many-many thousands of rockets in its arsenals and Israel has no more rockets left in its air defense, meaning that a conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon will result in destruction of Israel by a rain of missiles.
The Port of Haifa faces destruction as do Israel’s government buildings. There is nothing Israel can do. The last time Israel invaded Lebanon, Hezbollah stopped the Israeli tanks just a few hundred meters inside Lebanon. At that point, a US military expert noted that the Israelis are no longer the best soldiers in the world – Hezbollah are. Two US aircraft carriers at the coast of Lebanon are not going to change that. US soldiers in Syria have now become not a force, but a bunch of hostages to Iran, if the US tries anything silly.
At the same time as everybody in Washington (right and left) demand much higher military spending, the US deficit, debt, and interest payments are exploding. US interest payments are about to go far above $1 trillion per year. The military spending of $0.9 trillion is not yet over 1 trillion, but Biden and the US war party will want to push it above. Social Security and Medicare are $1.3 trillion, and Biden cannot cut there either.
House Republicans were ready to stop all US government funding, but in the end may end up voting for far bigger military spending without being able to press through sufficient budget offset in other areas or higher taxes. As a result, US spending and the deficit therefore continue to increase. The House Republicans may stop all US spending but suddenly they realize that if they do so, they will stop money for the military as well. It’s lose-lose situation for them all in the US.
The US is therefore hitting a brick wall of military and financial self-destruction.
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Karsten Riise is a Master of Science (Econ) from Copenhagen Business School and has a university degree in Spanish Culture and Languages from Copenhagen University. He is the former Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Mercedes-Benz in Denmark and Sweden.
He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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