The knight in the big world of American TV series

Chapter 2373

Chapter 2373

In short, with Apocalypse's victory... (I'm speechless. I've already revised three chapters into a complete mess. I don't even know what I've written... All the original plot ideas are scrapped!)

Everything changed, and the inherent weakness of American hegemony was suddenly exposed to the world.

This is going to be really funny.

Tianqi beat America's little brother to a pulp, and what was the result? America sent a lot of planes, even using strategic transport planes to transport special forces to help with ground operations, but ended up suffering a crushing defeat!

What happened in the end?

My brother is about to be thrown into the sea!!!

With Tianqi's victory, the atmosphere within his country improved day by day! Tianqi even lifted internet restrictions, allowing its citizens to speak freely online… It's worth noting that Tianqi had previously blocked the internet to counter the incitement and sabotage by American NGOs online. NGOs, literally translated as "non-governmental organizations," are social organizations active within Western political culture and social systems. They not only possess unique political and cultural attributes but also play a crucial role in national governance and foreign strategy. According to the United Nations definition, NGOs are non-profit, voluntary civil society organizations organized at the local, national, or international levels, driven by people with shared missions or interests, providing a wide range of services or playing a humanitarian role. More specifically, NGOs can reflect public concerns to governments, monitor policies, and encourage political participation at the community level; provide specialized knowledge and data analysis, act as early warning mechanisms, and help monitor and implement international agreements. Of course, the relationships between NGOs organized around specific issues such as the environment, health, or education, and various UN offices and agencies will differ depending on their goals, locations, and missions.

Why do NGOs exist?

Mainstream Western academia believes that society begins with a dual structure consisting of the state and the market, with the government and the private sector being the main actors in both. Specifically, "the establishment of the state stems from the people electing a government on the basis of equality and freedom." In a free market, the private sector, led by businesses, has the core objective of "maximizing profits"; the government has its own boundaries of power, primarily responsible for maintaining the mechanisms of free competition and the normal functioning of society, acting as a "night watchman" serving society.

Western academia believes that NGOs can, in principle, play two roles. First, some NGOs encourage public participation in politics, conveying public needs to the government and providing suggestions for policy formulation, aiming to improve public welfare. Second, some NGOs supplement the social functions lacking in government and the market, acting as "social stabilizers." Specifically, governments with insufficient power often struggle to fully assume all social functions due to budgetary constraints and limited capabilities—a situation that can easily cause significant social disruption. Therefore, these NGOs with "stabilizing" attributes effectively fill the gaps caused by government and market failures by providing some public goods, promoting the healthy functioning of society.

Of course, this is the official statement... but what is the reality?

Data shows that there are nearly 200 million NGOs in the United States, not only in number but also in variety, covering almost all areas of human activity, and maintaining close ties with many international NGOs. Some long-established American NGOs have histories spanning over a century, such as the Carnegie Foundation founded in 1911 and the Rockefeller Foundation founded in 1913. Due to their long history of operation, American NGOs are characterized by well-developed working systems, sound operational mechanisms, highly professional and specialized staff, smooth division of labor and cooperation, skilled personnel, and rich operational experience, and have even developed corresponding rating systems.

It is worth noting that many American NGOs have intricate connections with the government. It is well known that some service projects led by the US government are often outsourced to the public. Against this backdrop, many NGOs leverage their strengths to apply for these projects. Once successful, they establish a contractual partnership with the government and receive substantial start-up funding. Government grants constitute the largest portion of NGOs' income, far exceeding membership fees, product and service sales, and private donations. Take the most well-known National Endowment for Democracy (NED) as an example. Its main income comes from annual budget appropriations passed by Congress through the State Department. Due to its close relationship with the government, the NED was once hailed as the "second CIA." Other income primarily comes from "sponsorship fees" from prominent companies such as Goldman Sachs, Ford Motor Company, Boeing, and Citigroup. To maintain and promote this cooperative relationship and ensure alignment with US foreign strategy, many government officials can even directly enter these NGOs and assume senior positions. For instance, Madeleine Albright, the 64th US Secretary of State, once served as chair of the National Democratic Institute (NDI), a subsidiary of the NED. Therefore, some Western political scientists even use the term "governmental non-governmental organizations" to describe these social organizations that have close ties with the US government.

After World War II, NGOs gradually became the most capable assistants in U.S. foreign aid. Many NGOs, when operating abroad, generally received guidance from the State Department's Agency for International Development and the local embassies and consulates. In today's view, these NGOs have achieved remarkable results—"Many of the things the National Endowment for Democracy does now were previously secretly undertaken by the CIA."

In short, these guys have the means, the resources, and a lot of influence online. They can use public opinion campaigns to create a lot of trouble.

To prevent them from causing riots, Apocalypse directly used internet disconnection!

It doesn't matter now. Nationalist sentiment is running high. Anyone who comes out to sing a dissenting tune at this time is basically a traitor. There's no need for the heavens to intervene; plenty of people will stand up and kill these people... You know, in the Middle East, vigilante justice is still very common.

In the end, the Americans, having no other choice, had to swallow the bitter pill.

In exchange for his underlings continuing to eke out a living.

There's no way around it, Apocalypse is all about "you hit me, then I'll hit your underlings even harder!"

This put the US government in a bind.

It's clear that the hatred between the two sides is now blatant.

Having no other choice, I can only find an excuse to save face.

That was the end of it.

Although the Americans really want to minimize the impact of this.

But the problem is...

When a wall falls, everyone pushes it down!

When a hegemon falls, it's truly a case of everyone rising up to attack it!

Former allies... have all become enemies now. It would be a disservice to all those years of kowtowing to you if I didn't stab you in the back!

The previous hegemon, Great Britain, was like that.

People generally believe that the Cold War was a confrontation between the two superpowers, the US and the USSR, each with a host of allies. However, in the early stages of the Cold War, Britain's colonial system had not yet collapsed, and its strength was still enough to rival the US and the USSR. It didn't seem like a subordinate of the US; it was more like the US's former colonial power. Not only did the Soviet Union see Britain as a close-knit capitalist threat, but the US also didn't have a very favorable view of it. This led to the US and the USSR cooperating to dismantle Britain's global colonial system. So the question arises: why would the US, as an ally, dismantle its closest ally, Britain? In reality, the honeymoon relationship between Britain and the US was only a recent phenomenon, lasting only a few decades. For over 160 years after American independence and before World War II, the British Empire was the primary threat to American security. The American Revolutionary War, needless to say, was a grueling eight-year war with Britain before the nation was barely established. After independence, in the War of 1814, the British captured Washington, D.C., and burned the White House, nearly causing the US to be destroyed for the second time. During the American Civil War, Britain provided the Confederate army with money, weapons, and advisors, and even blockaded Northern trading ships at sea. In the 8s and 20s, Britain and the United States each formulated war plans against each other, but war was avoided only due to the rise of Nazi Germany. At its peak, the British Empire, with over 3000 million square kilometers of land and a population of 4.4 million, was the largest in the world. After World War II, although Britain's national strength declined significantly due to the intense fighting, given enough time to recover, it could easily regain its status as a world-class power. For the United States to eliminate the British threat and turn an enemy into a friend, weakening Britain's power became the most practical option. Starting in the late 40s, the United States and the Soviet Union tacitly began to cooperate in encouraging national independence. After World War II, Britain's strength was still comparable to that of the Soviet Union, and supporting the independence movement became the Soviet Union's trump card. At this time, the attitude of the United States was crucial. As the first country to gain independence from Britain, the United States naturally advocated the glory of national independence and the shame of colonialism, thus helping the Soviet Union to stand on the moral high ground. However, the seeds of the idea of ​​expelling colonizers had already been sown in Asia and Africa. Besides overt encouragement, the Soviet Union secretly supplied the revolutionaries in the colonies with a steady stream of weapons, funds, and advisors. This dramatically increased the cost of British colonial administration, significantly exacerbating Britain's already heavy economic burden after the war. The investment in colonial management gradually exceeded the potential returns. However, Britain was still unwilling to relinquish control, which is where the United States came in.

After the war, the United States, as Britain's nominal ally, couldn't be as directly sabotaging Britain as the Soviet Union. So, the US devised a seemingly benign approach: showering British workers with sweet words. Through its cultural influence, the US instilled in young British people the benefits of a welfare state: savings from military spending could be used to improve social welfare; young people wouldn't have to work 996 (9am-9pm, 6 days a week); and the unemployed could receive substantial unemployment benefits. As for defense, given the strong Anglo-American relationship, the US would generously contribute more while Britain contributed less, ensuring continued security. The British believed it, and the US, of course, kept its word. The Marshall Plan provided aid to 17 countries, with Britain receiving over a quarter of the total. The British withstood Nazi bombing raids and Soviet subversion, but faced with American sweet words, the British gentlemen lost their resistance. In less than 20 years, Britain's colonial system completely collapsed. The logic is simple: as the living standards of ordinary people improve, they become less interested in the hegemonic glory of the imperial era. Apart from a few die-hards who are determined to restore the glory of the British Empire, almost no young working people support continuing to maintain a vast empire on which the sun never sets. After all, the illusory national pride is not as tangible as the happy life they have now.

What struggles did the British Empire make to maintain its vast colonial system? How exactly did the US and the Soviet Union collude to hinder Britain? The Suez Canal War of 1956 offers a glimpse into the whole picture. On the battlefield, Britain and France achieved an overwhelming victory, completely dominating Egypt. However, the Soviet nuclear threat soon arrived. If Britain and France did not withdraw their troops, Soviet nuclear missiles would be launched. At that time, Britain did not possess nuclear weapons, and faced with Soviet intimidation, it could only turn to the United States for support. However, the United States remained indifferent, leaving Britain to fend for itself. Britain had no choice but to withdraw its troops in resentment. The Suez Canal War marked a watershed moment in Britain's transformation from a global superpower to a regional power. Afterward, a disillusioned Britain shifted its national policy to focus on building a welfare state, naturally leaving the task of confronting and clashing with the Soviet Union to the United States.

Without strength, don't even talk about allies.

So when the giant hand in the middle of the Pacific Ocean discovered a huge amount of rare metals.

As is customary, Americans naturally want to take the lion's share, leaving their allies with scraps, while others are simply irrelevant and not worth even a glance.

This is just inertia.

They habitually engage in international order rhetoric, then take the lead in forming a so-called joint company to jointly develop... supposedly a joint development, but they themselves hold the largest share.

To be honest, it's no wonder the Americans are behaving so badly.

It's really... the landlord's family is short of food!

Without its hegemonic status, financial hegemony naturally crumbled. Although, given that countries still hold large dollar reserves, it's impossible for them to immediately abandon dollar settlements.

But anyone with a modicum of common sense knows that by pegging the US dollar to oil, a system of rigid demand for the dollar currency has been established. Then, the US uses this system to reap profits globally.

The United States uses the dollar to "harvest" global wealth. The main methods are as follows:

1. Levying "seigniorage": This is the most direct benefit. As the world's primary reserve and settlement currency, the US can print paper money (and now it's merely a number) at almost zero cost to exchange for goods and services produced by other countries with substantial investment of physical resources, manpower, and time. Other countries work hard to produce these goods, while the US simply prints money to buy them—this is a form of invisible global taxation. (Refer to the previous issue on central banks and currency)

2. Utilizing the Dollar Tide for Cyclical Harvesting: This is the core and most brutal mechanism of this "harvesting." The Federal Reserve's monetary policy acts like a global financial tap, guiding the flow of global capital through cycles of "interest rate cuts-rate hikes-rate cuts," completing round after round of harvesting. The Fed implements low interest rates and quantitative easing, releasing a large amount of cheap dollar capital into the global market. This hot money floods into various parts of the world, especially emerging markets, investing in stocks, real estate, and various projects, driving economic prosperity and asset price bubbles, and earning huge interest rate differentials. When the US experiences inflation or needs to attract capital back, the Fed begins to raise interest rates. Rate hikes increase the financing costs of global dollar capital, making yields more attractive. As a result, capital previously invested in emerging markets begins to withdraw on a large scale and flow back to the US.

Once a value gap was created, the United States continued to release liquidity, and dollar capital made a "comeback" by acquiring the core assets (such as mines, ports, land, and core technology companies) of countries in crisis at extremely low prices.

Through a cycle of interest rate cuts, hikes, and further cuts, the United States not only earned huge interest rate differentials but also controlled the economic lifeline of emerging market countries, thus completing the transfer of wealth and power.

In this situation, it's equivalent to the whole world giving the United States a lifeline.

Of course, a normal person wouldn't be happy about that.

Previously there was no way to do it, but now that there is an opportunity, countries are naturally accelerating the trading of their own currencies to seize the international market share of the US dollar.

This caused a sharp drop in US assets, and in order to recover their losses, they had no choice but to do this!

But then silence followed... Nobody paid them any attention!