American News
Will the U.S. Follow the Soviet Union’s Collapse?
Paris (Imran Y. CHOUDHRY) :- Former Press Secretary to the President, Former Press Minister to the Embassy of Pakistan to France, Former MD, SRBC Mr. Qamar Bashir analysis : The warning comes not from an enemy, but from within the ranks of intellectual scrutiny. Peace Studies researcher Jan Oberg has sounded the alarm that the United States is dangerously close to walking the same doomed path as the Soviet Union. His theory is not based on ideological rhetoric but on a structural analysis of declining empires—those that prioritized militarism over diplomacy, war over peace, and brute force over political legitimacy. According to Oberg, and substantiated by today’s geopolitical developments, the United States is eroding its foundational strength by investing in weapons while its economy weakens, its diplomacy falters, and its international credibility dwindles. His chilling comparison to the Soviet collapse, which came after overextension in an unwinnable arms race, holds a mirror to current American foreign policy—and the reflection is deeply troubling.
A powerful nation is not defined by its military might alone. Oberg argues that a truly enduring power must have equilibrium—military capability, yes, but equally robust economic resilience, diplomatic dexterity, adherence to international law, and a moral compass that commands global respect. America’s current trajectory betrays this balance. It has increasingly become a nation that exports weapons instead of solutions, one that supplies bombs instead of brokering peace. In doing so, it is forfeiting not just friends but also its own values. While other economies—China, India, Brazil—grow rapidly, building infrastructure, trading in goods, and cultivating partnerships, the U.S. has become synonymous with conflict zones.
Nowhere is this truer than in Ukraine. Had the U.S. and NATO been willing to acknowledge Russia’s core concern—its opposition to Ukraine joining NATO—this war may have been averted altogether. But instead of diplomacy, Washington chose to flood Ukraine with arms, sending billions in military aid, even as the nation’s own cities crumble under the weight of failing infrastructure and economic stress. By turning Ukraine into a geopolitical battleground against Russia, the U.S. prolonged a war rather than seeking its resolution. It invested in firepower, not peace talks.
Then there is the U.S. alliance with Israel, which, more than any other, has morally bankrupted America’s standing in the world. For decades, Israel has carried out operations in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria, and now first the Biden and now Trump administration have stood complicit in enabling Israel’s bombardment of Gaza—an act many are calling ethnic cleansing. A nation that once claimed to champion democracy and human rights now vetoes UN resolutions aimed at feeding starving children. Stories abound of Gazan citizens collapsing from hunger at aid distribution points, mothers whose skeletal forms mirror images from the worst genocides in history, and children dying before they can reach food lines. The world watches in horror. And at the center of this horror, the United States is no longer seen as a neutral power, but as an accomplice to mass suffering.
It is not only distant nations that recoil from American policy. Even its closest allies, like Canada, are increasingly disillusioned. Long considered America’s trusted neighbor and friend, Canada is now resisting U.S. economic pressure, building its own resilience to unjust restrictions and defining its foreign policy apart from Washington’s dictates. Likewise, Europe, once united under the NATO umbrella, is slowly seeking independence from American dominance, investing in its own defense frameworks and strategic autonomy.
More alarming still is America’s behavior toward Iran. The recent bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities—conducted without credible proof, international backing, or even meaningful justification—has shaken global confidence in the U.S. respect for sovereignty and due process. Iran, which has never been proven to develop nuclear weapons and which operates under the fatwa of its Supreme Leader forbidding such development, became a target not of deterrence, but of sheer political arrogance. Bomb first, ask later. This behavior no longer inspires awe; it invites isolation.
True strength, Oberg contends, does not lie in flexing military muscles. It lies in diplomacy that solves conflicts, not escalates them. It lies in upholding human dignity, protecting freedom of speech, and respecting sovereignty. It lies in providing infrastructure, education, healthcare, and technological innovation—not merely funding the next generation of fighter jets. And America is increasingly failing to meet those criteria.
The economic dimension of this decline is undeniable. The United States has lost a significant part of its economic sovereignty, now burdened with record debt, trade imbalances, and an eroding manufacturing base. Instead of investing in domestic welfare, it chooses to finance wars abroad. While its people struggle with rising inflation, healthcare crises, and decaying infrastructure, Washington prioritizes regime changes, proxy wars, and military aid to allies that violate international norms. The result is clear: America’s legitimacy is in free fall.
In contrast, China offers a different model of global power. It has not bombed a country in living memory. It has not participated in regime change operations. Its power grows not through war, but through trade, investment, and connectivity. The Belt and Road Initiative is a prime example—building railways, ports, and power plants from Asia to Africa without firing a single missile. China does not send tanks; it sends fiber-optic cables. It does not fund insurgencies; it builds high-speed rail. That is not to say China is perfect—but it has learned the art of gaining influence without generating destruction.
It is this contrast that should alarm American policymakers. If the U.S. continues to reject the values it once championed—rule of law, human rights, diplomacy—it will lose more than allies. It will lose the very moral compass that once made it a beacon of freedom. Even the Freedom of Press Index and Human Rights Index now show America sliding backward. A country that once condemned censorship now suppresses dissent. A nation that once prized civil liberties now spies on its citizens and arrests journalists. And all this while claiming to export democracy.
The lesson, as Jan Oberg suggests, is clear. Military power must be retained—but as a deterrent, not a default. It must protect the homeland, not destroy foreign ones. And it must be balanced with economic strength, political wisdom, moral authority, and diplomatic sophistication. No country has the right to decide another’s destiny. The notion that America must bring “freedom” through war is a relic of failed imperial thinking. Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Palestine—each a graveyard of American hubris.
To reverse course is still possible. The West is not without hope. Democratic societies can learn from their mistakes. They have the tools to self-correct—debate, dissent, elections, and institutions. But that self-correction requires courage: the courage to admit that wars are not solutions, that diplomacy is not weakness, and that power, unmoored from ethics, is merely force.
The 21st century demands a new model of strength. Not one built on coercion, but on cooperation. Not one built on regime change, but on mutual respect. The future will belong not to those who dominate with drones, but to those who uplift with ideas, dignity, and infrastructure. If the U.S. wants to lead this future, it must rediscover its soul before it loses its seat at the global table—forever.
American News
President Donald Trump is asking the US Supreme Court to review the $5m (£3.6m) civil case that found he defamed and sexually abused writer E Jean Carroll.
He has repeatedly claimed that the judge who oversaw the civil trial, Lewis Kaplan, improperly allowed evidence to be presented that hurt how the jury viewed Trump.
A federal appeals court agreed with the jury’s verdict last year and said Kaplan did not make errors that would warrant a new trial.
A New York jury awarded Ms Carroll damages over her civil claim that Trump sexually assaulted her in the 1990s, and then branded the incident a hoax on social media. He denied the allegations.
The Supreme Court is now Trump’s last hope of overturning the unanimous jury’s verdict. Whether the top US court will take the case up is unclear.
A federal appeals court declined to rehear Trump’s challenge to it in June.
Trump’s comments about the jury’s findings in the case led a separate jury to order him to pay Ms Carroll $83m for defaming her. A panel of federal judges denied his appeal of that decision in September, and Trump has now taken the next step in trying to have it overturned by asking the full bench of judges at a federal appeals court to review the case.
In the petition to the Supreme Court, Trump’s lawyers argued Kaplan should not have let jurors see the 2005 Access Hollywood tape that showed the president saying he groped and kissed women.
“There were no eyewitnesses, no video evidence, and no police report or investigation,” they wrote about Ms Carroll’s allegations.
“Instead, Carroll waited more than 20 years to falsely accuse Donald Trump, who she politically opposes, until after he became the 45th president, when she could maximize political injury to him and profit for herself.”
Roberta Kaplan, Ms Carroll’s attorney, told the BBC she had no comment on the Supreme Court appeal.
While Trump was found to have defamed and sexually abused Ms Carroll, the jury rejected her claim of rape as defined in New York’s penal code.
Ms Carroll, a former magazine columnist who is now 81, sued Trump for attacking her in the mid-1990s in a department store dressing room in Manhattan. The defamation stemmed from Trump’s post on his Truth Social platform in 2022 denying her claim.
Trump has said Ms Carroll was “not my type” and that she lied.
American News
Four potential obstacles in House vote to end US shutdown
A day after the US Senate passed a spending bill to end the longest-ever government shutdown, the budget fight now moves to the House of Representatives.
The lower chamber of Congress is expected to vote this week on the funding measure.
Unlike in the Senate, if House Republicans stay united, they don’t need any Democrats to pass the budget. But the margin for error is razor thin.
Here are four potential hold-ups for the budget, before it can clear Congress and land on the president’s desk for signing into law.
Will House Republicans budge on healthcare?
A key sticking point throughout the shutdown has been a desire on the part of Democrats to attach to the spending bill a renewal of tax credits that make health insurance less expensive for 24 million Americans.
Senate Republicans instead only agreed to grant Democrats a vote in December on whether to extend the subsidies – something they had already offered weeks ago.
And House Speaker Mike Johnson would not commit on Monday to allowing a vote in his chamber on the tax credits.
This entails a fair degree of political risk for Republicans, however. If they torpedo the subsidies, health coverage premiums could rocket, handing Democrats a ready-made campaign issue for next year’s midterm elections.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, a conservative Republican congresswoman from Georgia, has broken ranks with President Donald Trump to warn that her party must ensure health insurance premiums do not spike.
As the clock ticks down to the subsidies expiring by the end of December, Republicans are working out their plan.
They want income caps on who can receive the tax credits, and are proposing the tax dollars bypass insurance companies and go straight to individuals – although the details are unclear.
How intense will House Democratic opposition be?
Out of power in Washington, where Trump’s Republicans control the House and Senate, Democrats appeared finally to have some political wind in their sails after a handful of election wins last week in Virginia, New Jersey and New York City.
But those victories, like the shutdown fight, have accentuated strategic tensions between the pragmatic and progressive, or left-wing, factions of the party.
The Democratic left is furious at defectors who voted with Senate Republicans to pass the budget on Monday, seeing this as a capitulation to Trump.
From that wing of the party, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont said giving up the fight was a “horrific mistake”. California Governor Gavin Newsom called it “surrender”.
Congressman Greg Casar of Texas, the chairman of the House Progressive Caucus, warned: “A deal that doesn’t reduce healthcare costs is a betrayal of millions of Americans counting on Democrats to fight for them.”
However, centrist lawmakers like Jared Golden of Maine, who represents one of the most conservative districts in the nation held by any Democrat, may cross the aisle.
Golden, who recently announced he won’t run for re-election, is likely to vote for the package, his office indicated to Axios, a political outlet, on Monday.
Another moderate Democrat, Henry Cuellar of Texas, could help get the Republicans’ spending plan over the line.
“It’s past time to put country over party and get our government working again for the American people,” he posted on social media on Sunday.
American News
Fight fake news and defeat climate deniers, Brazil’s Lula tells UN talks
The world must “defeat” climate denialism and fight fake news, Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has told the opening meeting of the UN climate talks.
In a rallying cry to COP30, President Lula again made thinly-veiled references to President Donald Trump who branded climate change “a con job” in September.
The two weeks of talks kicked off on Monday in the lush Brazilian city of Belém on the edge of the Amazon rainforest.
They take place against a fraught political backdrop and the US has sent no senior officials.
On Monday thousands of delegates poured into the COP venue in a heavily air-conditioned former aerodrome, some coming from accommodation in shipping containers and cruise ships moored on the riverside.
Members of the Guajajara indigenous group, in traditional dress, performed a welcome song and dance for assembled diplomats.
Addressing the conference, President Lula said “COP30 will be the COP of truth” in an era of “fake news and misrepresentation” and “rejection of scientific evidence”.
Without naming President Trump, President Lula continued, “they control the algorithms, sew hatred and spread fear”.
“It’s time to inflict a new defeat on the deniers,” he said.
Since President Trump took office in January, he has promised to invest heavily in fossil fuels, saying that this will secure greater economic prosperity for the US.
His administration has cancelled more than $13bn of funding for renewable energy and is taking steps to open up more areas of the US to oil and gas exploration.
That puts the country at odds with the majority of nations still committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and investing in green energy.
This backdrop has put the COP talks in a difficult position as nations aim to make progress on tackling climate change without the participation of the world’s biggest economy.
Some delegates fear that the US could still decide to send officials to undermine the talks. Other environmental talks collapsed this year following US pressure, labelled “bully-boy tactics” by some participants.
Addressing officials in Belém, UN climate chief Simon Stiell initially struck an optimistic tone. He said significant progress had been made in the last decade to reduce emissions of planet-warming gases.
But then he took aim at “squabbling” between countries.
“Not one single nation among you can afford this, as climate disasters rip double-digits off GDP,” he said.
Brazil wants to use its presidency of the talks to secure progress on key promises made in previous years.
That includes moving away from the use of planet-warming fossil fuels, finance for developing countries on the frontline of climate change, and protecting nature.
President Lula’s centrepiece is a fund called the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) that Brazil hopes will raise $125bn to protect tropical forests globally.
But fund-raising got off to a slow start, particularly after the UK decided at the last minute not to contribute public money.
Nations are yet to agree on the conference agenda.
Countries with competing interests are lobbying for new items to be added, including a plea from a coalition called Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) that includes Caribbean and Pacific countries at most risk from rising seas and rising global temperatures
The group called for the COP to discuss the long-held goal of keeping global temperature rise to 1.5C.
But in recent weeks even the UN has said it accepts that overshooting this temperature is “inevitable”.
Last week UN General Secretary General António Guterres told leaders in Belém that the failure to limit global temperature rise to 1.5C was a “moral failure and deadly negligence”.
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