• 24 February 2022
• Nature

Omicron’s lasting mysteries: four questions scientists are racing to answer

Ali, for much of my school years and beyond, I followed Chomsky and Howard Zinn. Of course, Zinn died in 2010, but his narratives and perspectives of the US history remain as a testament to.... Both of them are not favorites in the eyes of the US media. But, Chomsky, in particular, remains the most popular international intellectual alive. He lost a bit of popularity over COVID vaccination "mandate," but he still remains popular internationally.

On Russia-China hegemonic challenges, he's simply defining the facts on the ground, which is a must in understanding what the international community is dealing with. One question in mind is, can the duo along with the other sanctioned states come up with a new replacement for SWIFT that can be used amongst themselves to begin with? I have heard that both Russia and China each have their own financial transfer systems. Bypassing SWIFT will be a nuisance at first, but would it be feasible for them to take on?

Keefer, I am an admirer of Chomsky. he is more accurate than bias. He says it as he sees it. 

Noam Chomsky: The challenge to U.S. hegemony posed by Russia and particularly China has been a major theme of foreign policy discourse for some time, with persistent agreement on the severity of the threat.

The question becomes do Russia and China actually challenge U.S. hegemony in the ways commonly understood?

Russia is not a major actor in the world scene, apart from the military force that is a (very dangerous) residue of its earlier status as a second superpower. It does not begin to compare with the U.S. in outreach and influence.

China has undergone spectacular economic growth, but it is still far from approaching U.S. power in just about any dimension. It remains a relatively poor country, ranked 85th in the UN Human Development Index, between Brazil and Ecuador. The U.S., while not ranked near the top because of its poor social welfare record, is far above China. In military strength and global outreach (bases, forces in active combat), there is no comparison. U.S.-based multinationals have about half of world wealth and are first (sometimes second) in just about every category. China is far behind. China also faces serious internal problems (ecological, demographic, political). The U.S., in contrast, has internal and security advantages unmatched anywhere.

Take sanctions, a major instrument of world power for one country on Earth: the U.S. They are, furthermore, third-party sanctions. Disobey them, and you’re out of luck. You can be tossed out of the world financial system, or worse. It’s pretty much the same wherever we look.

If we look at history, we find regular echoes of Sen. Arthur Vandenberg’s 1947 advice to the president that he should “scare hell out of the American people” if he wanted to whip them up to a frenzy of fear over the Russian threat to take over the world.