For a brief history lesson about the origin of The GroundUp term Pax americana it is important to note the term Pax Romana (Latin: “Roman Peace”), which was a state of comparative tranquility throughout the Mediterranean world from the reign of Augustus (27 bce–14 ce) to the reign of Marcus Aurelius (161 –180 ce). Pax americana however, can be understood as the period from 1945-2022; specifically, starting Sept. 2, 1945 (the date that Japan surrendered and WWII ended) and ending in 2022. The official end of u.s. hegemony or control does not lie in the russian invasion of ukraine and the early stages of the ukraine-russian war. And the end of u.s. hegemony is neither tied to the taliban takeover of Afghanistan nor north korean defiance but the predicate to the russian invasion of ukraine is a means to the end. Or rather, it is part of the reason Pax americana has melted.
On Feb. 18, six days before russia’s military campaign began, russia announced a yearslong deal to sell 100 million tons of coal to china. Hours before russia began bombing ukraine, china agreed to buy russian wheat despite plant disease concerns. As missiles rain down in kyiv a new axis emerges in the form of fortified sino-russo relations that have been hammered together through the past decades through the emergence of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the resolution of the last territorial issue between the two countries (territorial issues that emerged in the wake of the Peking Convention in 1860) through the 2004 complementary agreement between china and russia on the eastern section of the china–russia boundary, refined in the forge shortly following the russo-georgian war when former president of the people’s republic of china hu jintao prevented russia from using the SCO as a lobbying tool for the recognition of independence for Abkhazia and South Ossetia. And in the wake of russia’s annexation of crimea, china offered financial support to combat u.s. sanctions and likewise russia supported china’s cultural homogenization policy in xinjiang. Oaths has been uttered. A blood pact has been made.
No longer are the leaders mao and stalin but rather, they are putin and xi jinping. The publicly extended ideologies are no longer Marxism-Leninism and Maoism. Rather, they are bundles of late capitalism culture.
And what opposes this axis? Is it the united states who will fight to reclaim the hegemonic throne? The u.s., had a far-right coup attempt against congress in early 2021 supported by then president donald trump and recently there was an attempt by a constituent of the educational ideological state apparatus, the national school boards association, to militarize school board meetings against parents by hyperbolizing parental anger (mask mandate protesting and opposition) into terrorism by pleading that biden and the department of justice should look into “enforcement mechanisms from the fbi, including any technical assistance necessary from and state and local coordination with, its national security branch and counterterrorism division, as well as any other federal agency with relevant jurisdictional authority and oversight. Additionally, nsba requests that such review examine appropriate enforceable actions against these crimes and acts of violence under the gun-free school zones act, the patriot act in regards to domestic terrorism, the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, the Violent Interference with Federally Protected Rights statute, the Conspiracy Against Rights statute,” and any relevant executive orders to curb the disagreeable anger. Further, the actual deployment of federal agencies with some personnel using unmarked vehicles to nab police violence protestors occured in the 2020 George Floyd summer in Portland. Are there any powers invested in a solution to the sino-russo axis that offer an alternative via political dignity? Not in the west. And until a non-oppressive leftist revolution emerges there will not be a western political solution. And how could there be? Every superpower country given credence in the global marketplace has a political landscape of a dystopian novel.