At present, the world's major changes that have not been seen in a century have accelerated, the international political and economic system has been deeply adjusted, the world's instability and uncertainty have increased significantly, and security has become the primary concern of all countries. On the issue of security, in order to safeguard the US global hegemony, the American security concept unilaterally pursues its own absolute security, endangers the security of other countries, and causes turmoil and chaos in the international community, leading the world to division and confrontation. Only by deeply analyzing the cultural origins, values and practical consequences of the American security concept, and recognizing their characteristics and harms can we make an effective response.
Cultural source of American security concept
American security concept advocates that in order to achieve the absolute security of the United States, we must respond to security threats with absolute military strength and eliminate all factors that may pose a threat to the United States. In "The Great Choice", American strategist Brzezinski pointed out that "to maintain the unrivalled comprehensive military capabilities of the United States and enhance domestic viability", the United States "has reason to seek more security for itself than other countries actually." American rulers believe that only when the United States is safer can it be more prosperous and successful. To this end, the United States has continuously expanded its military expenditure and exhausted all means to continuously strengthen its military strength, ensuring the United States' absolute advantage over other countries, and not allowing any country to challenge the United States' military leadership. According to the "2021 Global Military Expenditure Trend Report" released by the Stockholm International Peace Institute (SIPRI) in Sweden, the United States' military expenditure is as high as US$801 billion, and the United States' GDP accounts for 23.93% of the world, and military expenditure accounts for 38% of the total global military expenditure. Even so, the U.S. Congress still feels that the military budget is not enough, and the final approval of more defense expenditures is greater than the U.S. government has applied for, and this situation is becoming a practice. pursuing absolute security is the need of the United States neoconservatism to maintain global hegemony. Neoconservatism appeared in the 1960s and then gradually became an important force on the American political stage, having an important impact on the political direction and security strategy of the United States. Neoconservatism inherited the "voting" idea from the British immigration cultural beliefs before the founding of the United States, and made a new interpretation based on the special environment of the North American continent, believing that the United States is a special country chosen by "God" and bears special responsibilities for the development and destiny of human society. Judging from the founding history of the United States, the first immigrants who arrived in the North American continent on " Mayflower " consider themselves "God's chosen people", shouldering the "destiny of heaven" to save the world, hoping to build a "city on the top of the mountain" under the guidance of "God", and on this basis, they developed the idea of "a special morality-political mission" compared to other countries in the United States. These concepts affect American society in all aspects, thus forming the concept of "America First" and "America Exception" in the United States' foreign relations. The neoconservative advocates that maintaining the United States' global hegemony should focus on maintaining the United States' national security and world leadership. After in World War II, the United States became the world's most comprehensive superpower. All previous governments have pursued hegemonic policies, from the Truman administration's " containment strategy " to the Biden administration's "restore lasting advantage" strategic proposition.
Value analysis of American security concept
American security concept sticks to the "either this or that" binary opposition thinking mode and the "human selfishness" psi-ism thought. Extremist thinking of binary opposition, such as "vote/abandoned people", "enemy/friend", "advanced/backward", "civilized/barbaric", etc., has always had a profound influence on the United States. American history is a history of constantly defining and transforming "barbaric" and "backward" and constantly investigating and eliminating "enemy". In order to maintain global hegemony, the United States pursues unilateralism and interferenceism to the outside world, uses all means, including force, and does its best to kill any possible threats in the cradle. Some U.S. lawmakers quoted a data in their speech in Congress: From the end of World War II to 2001, 248 armed conflicts occurred in 153 regions of the world. Among them, 201 were initiated by the United States, accounting for 81%.What is particularly ironic is that these 201 conflicts occurred outside the United States. As the only superpower today, the United States' investigation of so-called "security threats" is becoming more and more detailed, but it still feels unsafe. Even former US President Trump believes that the biggest danger to the United States does not come from outside, but from "pathological and radical politicians" at home. Under the leadership of binary opposition thinking, the United States has implemented the international exchange principle of "either friend or enemy" to create the " chilling effect ", forcing countries to choose sides. In order to maintain its absolute security, the United States is looking for "enemy" everywhere around the world, and even shaped the so-called "enemy" for itself, and establishing the maintenance of its own security on the concept of "establishing the enemy and eliminating the enemy." American political scholar Huntington once asked: "If there are no foreign enemies, how will the United States survive?" In terms of judging enemies and friends, the absolute security concept takes whether to accept the democratic values of the United States as the standard, regards its own values as global values, regards its own development model as the only correct development path, and forcibly promotes the values and development model of the United States everywhere; regards countries with different values and different development paths as aliens. Because the United States' ideology, social system and economic development model are different from the United States, the United States regards these countries as threats and must try to get rid of them quickly. Practical investigation of American security concept American security concept pursues a gang culture that brings together gangs and sways with the masses and overwhelms the few. It uses the outdated Cold War thinking to create division and opposition, exclusion and hatred. In international affairs, the United States particularly likes to form gangs and form cliques, and regards them as its important source of strength. NATO is an important tool for the United States to achieve its global hegemony, with 30 members currently in place. In addition to NATO, the United States has also established multiple bilateral military alliances, such as the United States, Japan, the United States, India, the United States, Australia, the United States, Britain, the United States, South Korea, etc., as well as "quasi-alliers" such as Qatar , Oman , the United Arab Emirates, Saudi and other "quasi-alliers". The United States also formed the AUKUS alliance formed by the United States, Britain and Australia, and the "QUAD" mechanism formed by the United States, Japan, India and Australia. The United States' "small circles" and gangs have provoked confrontation, undermining world peace, stability, unity and cooperation. After World War II, the United States relied on its super strength to use double standards in international affairs and often made the so-called "US exceptions" and often blatantly violated the purposes of the " UN Charter " and the norms of international law. It uses force to interfere or even directly subvert countries that do not act according to its intentions. The United States overthrew the regime in more than a dozen countries, changing and subverting more than 60 countries. Former U.S. President's Assistant to National Security Affairs Bolton , recently publicly admitted in the media that he had planned a foreign coup. In fact, the United States has implemented such activities many times. Every time the United States will use high-sounding rhetoric such as "maintaining national security" and "liberating local people" to embellish its powerful politics and hegemony. The large number of interventional wars initiated by the United States have brought serious humanitarian disasters to the victim countries, including a large number of casualties, infrastructure damage, stagnation of production and life, disordered social order, etc., but these are not within the scope of the United States' consideration. The United States is also the initiator of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. It can be seen that the United States has become the world's biggest troublemaker. security is just a relative concept. All countries in the world have a relationship of mutual influence, interdependence and mutual restraint. They can only have relative security, and it is impossible to have absolute security. The United States' blind pursuit of its own absolute security will inevitably increase the insecurity of other countries, and in fact it will increase its potential insecurity, thus falling into a vicious cycle of security dilemma. In the contemporary world where we are closely related, only by adhering to the common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security concept and promoting the building of a community with a shared future for mankind can we effectively respond to the risks and challenges faced by human society and achieve sustainable world peace. (Author: Gao Haitao, editor of the Political Department of the Frontline Magazine, Beijing Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China; Source: "Frontline" Issue 9, 2022)
