Abstract: Modern America was founded in violence; first slavery and genocide of natives, then revolution against mother England, then war as the modus vivendi in the quest for world domination. This essay, presented at the 3rd International Conference on the Decline of the United States, focuses on the US civil war and the genocide in Cambodia as a result of the war in Vietnam, and their relevance to the ongoing war in Ukraine.
1.1 US civil war 1860-1864
1.2 Compared to Ukraine
1.3 Russia's carpetbaggers and two civil wars
1.4 Counter-intuition
1.5 Staring down the monster
2.1 Cambodia in 1975
2.2 Differences between Ukraine and Cambodia
2.3 Perspectives
I am struck by the parallels between past US wars and their aftermath, and their relevance to understanding the present war in Ukraine. In particular, the US civil war against the South, and the Vietnam war aftermath, when Pol Pot carried out a genocide.
The genocidal nature of US imperialism is an enduring truth, which has culminated in the current US-EU destruction of Ukraine, the US-Israeli genocide against the Palestinians, and its determination to destroy Iran through crippling sanctions and invasion. War and genocide are the modus operandi of both the US and Israel from their beginnings (US 1776, Israel 1948) and their current joint imperialism in the Middle East. Israel plays only a peripheral role so far in Ukraine so my focus here is on the US. The actions of both are uniting the world against them and portend the decline of US-Israel as the chief enemy of the world, accelerated by Trump-Netanyahu.
US civil war 1860-1864
Reading The great big book of horrible things (2012), which lists the 100 worst disasters in history, I came to the American civil war. Bloody, but well down the list at #65. It was in the works since the founders agreed to pretend that 'liberty' was consistent with slavery and genocide. Anything to unite the settlers and get on with making lots of money without the mother country, which was already frowning on slavery. There was no time to lose as the 1772 Somersett case in Britain established that slavery did not exist in English law, and Britain would go on to outlaw the slave trade in 1807. Brother fighting brother over a defense of the equality-of-all vs white nationalism. Messy and cruel, in the end a war of attrition, with the industrial engine of the North flattening the 'enemy', the South. 600,000+ killed (far more than all the other US wars combined), the 'winners' losing more men, but then they mobilized almost twice as many soldiers.
The Union under Lincoln was initially spurned by both Britain and France. Schadenfreude for the British and Napoleonic fantasies for the French. Britain lined up with the apartheid South, even though slavery was abolished in 1833 (no one in politics has a monopoly on hypocrisy), seeking revenge against the revolutionaries and to favour the southern cotton plantations, necessary to feed the textile mills of Lancaster, which Britain used for its empire (to bankrupt Indian industry and make lots of profit).
Revolutionary France at first was just happy to see the US weakened, so didn't take sides, but when Britain sided with the South, France favoured the capitalist North. It had no real economic interests in American cotton. The British aristocracy was pro-South but the empire’s merchant rulers wisely didn’t take sides openly. As the North eventually appeared likely to win, the South was abandoned by all. Literally, as it never really recovered, even today, still mired in its past. A cold peace was enforced by the North, ensuring blacks would have the same rights as whites, though it took another 100 years till that was sort-of realized.
Compared to Ukraine
So today we have Ukraine, like the US South, a rogue racist state battling to secede from the centuries-old ‘union’ past (Imperial Russia-Soviet Union), now as a breakaway nominal republic, obscenely corrupt, a plaything of the West, with a big neonazi problem, treating its Russian speakers as second class citizens or traitors, threatening them with ethnic cleansing, threatening Russia with a hostile NATO. Russian Ukrainians, increasingly without rights, in desperation broke away and have been tormented, killed in the 10,000s ever since. Russia, like the US North, is far larger and stronger, so by brute statistics alone, it is winning and should win, but also like the US North, at a terrible cost.
Historical comparisons are compromised by the different contexts. American racism was baked into the revolution. The founders knew it would have to end but they were eager to separate from Britain, so they put the issue off, made a pact with the racist devil which ended up bringing the entire independence project close to collapse a century later.
The context for Russia was different and yet similar. The Russian revolution of 1917 was defiantly anti-racist and anti-capitalist, shocking the complacent imperial, capitalist order. No hypocrisy a la 1776 'liberty' and pursuit of profit/ private property. But a la 1776, Russia had to fight off the imperial powers, including the newbie US, to preserve its revolution. The Soviet Union faced all these powers as their enemy, right until its collapse 74 years later. But that's another story.
We are concerned here with 1991, the collapse of the Russian revolution, and its aftermath. The collapse was also hailed as a revolution but it was really a counterrevolution – a return to the bourgeois capitalist order. Russia 1991 was supposed to be like 1776, embracing capitalism, creating a new Russia and newly independent ethnic states which had made up the Soviet Union. But in fact it was more like post-civil war US, a humiliating defeat and dismantling of the Soviet economy.
Russia's carpetbaggers and two civil wars
In post-civil war US, the South was plagued by northern 'carpetbaggers', when the devastated South witnessed rich northerners (i.e., capitalists and Jews) coming to the South and buying up property and otherwise taking advantage of the wrecked economy. This is what the exSoviet 'nations' experienced after 1991, the same humiliation and trickery to steal their wealth. The 'founder' of the Soviet collapse, Boris Yeltsin, is seen in retrospect in a negative light, as he 'sold the farm', privatizing virtually the entire economy, which in the capitalist world meant giving it to the same 'carpet-baggers' – foreigners (northerners, now the 'collective West') and Jews – that exploited the US South in the aftermath of the civil war a century earlier.
Russia has in effect experienced two civil wars in the past four decades: the 1991 collapse of communism and the 2014—2025 civil war in Ukraine, which morphed into the current Russia-Ukraine/NATO war of attrition. Given the international context of US world hegemony, any major conflict by definition involves the US. Ukraine is especially important to the US, given the large fascist Ukrainian diaspora in US and Canada, which meant that when the SU collapsed and borders opened, the descendants of these fascists moved in quickly and worked to undermine the weakened Russia and revive Ukraine's shameful fascist history.
US triumphalism in 1991 was all about looting and pillaging the fallen Soviet monolith, which received no help from the West, unlike Poland and the other exsocialist countries, which were also pillaged but were given help in transforming into a workable capitalism. This sadly makes perfect sense, as the West's goal was to absorb eastern Europe and to keep Russia weak and vulnerable to invasion and collapse, so it too could be safely incorporated into the imperialist world order. They were also quickly incorporated into the EU and NATO. Ukraine was the last piece of the puzzle.
The parallel with both the post-1991 collapse of the SU and the current Russia-Ukraine/NATO war of attrition is clear: in both cases, the US and EU are duplicating the role of Britain in 1860, and the rest of the world is duplicating the role of France in 1860, recognizing the right of Russia to reassert its control over the exSoviet space (Ukraine), to which it is indelibly tied through history, culture and family ties.
Imperial Russia supported the US North in the civil war at least partly out of moral conviction, unlike craven France. True, Britain was Russia's enemy (initiating the Crimean war in 1853) but Tsar Alexander II was enlightened and went on to free the serfs (quasi-slaves) in 1861, inspired by Lincoln. Sadly, there are no friends in politics, and the US under Biden ignored the past friendship with imperial Russia and the US-Soviet alliance against German (and Ukrainian) fascists in WWII; instead, provoking Russia and instigating the current Russia-Ukraine/NATO war, eager to destroy resource-rich Russia, slavering for more pillage and looting.
The US and EU are reviving their own imperial character and their current imperial interests today. In the new neoimperialist world order, the exploitative nature of centre-periphery relations is usually masked via financial means; however, the revival of the fascist Ukrainian movement of yore, which glories in old-fashioned militarism, has meant that Russia has had to revert to a military fight, much like the US civil war of a century earlier.
Fascism means racism, national chauvinism, which Ukraine is experiencing in spades, with the banning of Russian language and culture, which is ridiculous, as Ukrainian culture is a subset of Russian culture. Ukrainian authors, composers, artists all wrote and otherwise have relied on Russian language and education for centuries. Not only ridiculous but violating basic decency and the rights of Ukrainian Russians. Almost half of Ukraine is Russian-speaking. On this human rights issue alone, Russia is justified in its fight to protect Russian-speakers now persecuted in Ukraine. But neoimperial US-EU see events through their imperial lens and hide their perfidy by labelling Russia imperialist.
Imagine if Britain, France and Russia had jumped on the American South’s civil war bandwagon from the start, boycotted the North, swamped the battle fields with arms for Americans to kill each other? That probably would have defeated the North and the US would be a few, weak Canadas today, toadies of the British empire. That's what the 'collective West' is trying to do to Russia.
Today, Russia is fighting the ‘bad guys’, fascism, singlehanded. Britain, France, the US -- the real imperialists -- are taking the side of the fascists, aka white supremacists. The pro-Ukraines are really just the latest endplay in Bush I & II's new world order. Get the Russians’ cousins next door, half of whom are Russian anyway, to act as the Trojan horse for Russia’s colour revolution, opening Eurasia to EU aka NATO aka US empire. It’s the stuff of Marvel comics and video games.
The second forum of the Free Peoples of Russia in Prague in July 2022
Counter-intuitions
This ’collective West’ is really just the same old imperial powers, with fantasies of empire. The US-EU. They’re arming their Trojan horse to the teeth right now. Yes, they. Except for Hungary and more recently Slovakia, the EU has turned out to be a bulletproof straitjacket, enforcing imperial edicts, with a compliant jingoistic media in tow.
And Ukrainian fascism is creeping into the EU and even the US. Slovakian Prime Minister Fico was shot and almost killed for his refusal to back Ukraine when elected in 2023, at the height of the conflict. Trump survived an assassination attempt by an American Ukraine-supporter in 2024. And now the EU is rigging elections in Rumania and Moldova to prevent anti-war candidates from winning and ending their role as puppets to US-EU plans to dismantle Russia. So today's world is demonstrably less democratic, more dangerous, than the world of 150 years ago, when the US civil war was allowed to burn itself out with only marginal support for either side by Britain, France and Russia. Neoimperialist is even worse than imperialism (if that's possible).
After the US, the strongest pro-Ukrainians economically, Germany and Japan, were trounced in WWII, losing their colonies and their war-making powers. Ironically, within two decades, they were richer than the US, ending up the real winners. That is, if ‘winner’ means providing a good living standard for the nation’s citizens.
And, big plus, without the arms industries sapping society and constantly whipping up more wars. Now this sensible worldview is being undermined, as the US-EU are madly increasing arms expenditures, looking forward to a long war of attrition with Russia, attempting to carry out Hitler's plan to destroy Russia, even as planet Earth burns up from our frenzy of war and consumption.
Staring down the monster
The best case scenario would surely be a cold peace enforced by Russia, ensuring Russian Ukrainians have equal rights. Ukraine will never accept any new status quo. Another North-South Korea frozen conflict is in the works or maybe Vietnam-Cambodia (see below). That, or sayonara. Sorry, imperialists, Russia is here to stay.
Hopefully (i.e., better this than nuclear armageddon), Ukraine will be abandoned, like the American South, to remain a backwater, full of bitterness and resentment, for generations. It will probably sink the EU. Already 'Ukraine fatigue' is setting in and EU governments are toppling as their economies go into freefall.
The only country with any real interest, love for Ukraine is, sorry again, Russia, just like the American North deep-down has always loved the South – they are siblings, after all. 'Novaya Rossiya' (eastern Ukraine) will soon be humming along. Maybe wiser heads will prevail in Kiev and the two warring brothers will reconcile. And at least some of the 5m Ukrainian refugees in Russia can go home, along with the 6.9m refugees in the West, who have long overstayed their welcome, and are increasingly worrisome as potential terrorists.
The ‘collective West’ will just have to come to an acceptance of a status quo that includes Russia, not that despises or ignores it, as has been the case since 1991. Just as post-civil war US was welcomed by the world, post-civil war Russia-Ukraine will be welcomed by, in the first place, BRICS nations, which have no nefarious interests in the conflict, unlike the 'collective west'.
When will the US realize that, after the initial rape-and-pillage fireworks, colonies in the long run are money losers? But then the British elite still looks back on its own Empire with nostalgia.
The lure of power and wealth is the great human weakness. Primitive slavery-era thinking. Except for loss of prestige, Britain was well rid of its pesky New England colonies. The US is finding that out now. Maintaining a huge military force for its new world order empire, aimed at destroying Russia, is getting more costly every day, tanking the 'collective West', even as environmental armageddon looms.
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Considering that we are at present living through a televised genocide of Palestinians, I would like to address an earlier genocide that the US was instrumental in instigating.
At #39 in the Great big book of horrible things (#65 US civil war was a picnic compared to this), Cambodia in 1975 was a bombed-out military dictatorship, the last gasp of the Khmer Republic, which a US coup created in 1970 as King Sihanouk refused to let the US carpet bomb Vietnam. The US overthrew a peaceful, popular monarchy to further its deadly war, and when it finally exited Vietnam in 1975, the military regime in Cambodia collapsed and ‘Brother Number One’, Pol Pot, a demented nationalist, devotee of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, took over. He managed to duplicating Mao's self-imposed genocide to a fault (Mao is #2 in the Great big book of horrible things at 40m dead). I.e., 2m murdered or starved to dead out of 6m, a megalomaniac Kampuchean uber alles, eradicating not only ‘capitalist roaders’ but all minorities, books, whatever. Supposedly communist, but in fact fascist. He took special delight in torturing and killing native Vietnamese, a tiny minority mostly on the border in contested areas. Vietnam took note, and with the Americans finally out of their hair, they took the bait when Cambodians staged border raids. Classic Bismarck.
This was another superpower stand off, with the Soviets backing Vietnam, and US-China backing the genocide, which was in full swing and publicly known. I remember this episode well, as ‘the collective West’ was backing Maoist China’s genocidal ally against newly liberated Vietnam, which was still reeling from four decades of imperialist wars and occupation. Monstrous.
To top it all off, after Mao died in 1976, the new leader Deng Xiaoping ordered an invasion of Vietnam in 1979 for its 'imperialism', its defiance of China. Vietnam had studiously avoided any kind of ‘Leap Forward’ or 'Cultural Revolution', sticking with the boring but safe Soviet planning. Of course the 'collective West' was already boycotting and otherwise tormenting Vietnam for its defiance of US imperialism.
Unbelievably in light of the televised genocide, the US-EU and China continued to support Pol Pot at the UN until 1993. It was all much like US-EU taunting Russia today for its supposed imperialism. At least China has cleaned up its act somewhat, and pleads neutrality in the Russia-Ukraine/NATO war today, providing Ukraine with drones to kill Russian soldiers (and make a tidy profit) and welcoming discounted Russian oil and gas.
So, Ukraine? Same basic dynamics: Brother Number One Zelensky turned against Ukraine’s Russians, and started a Cultural Revolution steeped in nationalism, teaming up with the US, not even hiding its fascist symbols and terrorism against Russian civilians. The same ‘collective West’ boycotts Russia and support the so-called victim, politely ignoring the telltale signs of fascism, even as their own fascists (and Ukrainian 'refugees') gain strength as US-EU declines and loses direction.
There are two big difference between Ukraine and Cambodia:
1/ Ukraine’s location in the heart of Europe, makes it very easy for US-EU to support the fascist interlopers. This has allowed the massive arming of the Slav Brother Number One, and the use of international financial shutdown on Russia, making the destruction of Russia a real possibility.
Pol Pot was a pariah, but 'our pariah'. i.e., sorry, no arms but we'll back you officially. and give Vietnam the same treatment. I.e., no thank-you to the Vietnamese liberators from genocide. Zelensky is 'our pariah' but no need to be nice to Russia. It's already stopped the genocide so we can stick it to them and not lose any sleep.
2/ China’s role as a sort-of ally of Russia (as it should have been in Soviet days). China is capitalist and fits the neoimperialist role in as much as it seeks world hegemony, but it has no plans (other than Taiwan and hundreds of nearby South Pacific islands it lays claim to) to use brute force. I (and others) suspect China has a bit of Schadenfreude, glad to see Russia forced to submit to Chinese world hegemony. It no doubt eyes Russia's vast Siberian lands (some of which have been Chinese in the past 3,000 years) longingly.
We can only be thankful that Nixon’s US was not as intent on destroying the Soviet Union as he was on leaving Vietnam a smoking ruin. We have no such statesman today. Thankfully, Mao’s China was no match for the Soviets. Ho Chi Min was no fool and weathered the mad, chaotic tempest called Maoism.
Imagine if today’s line-up – US-EU vs Russia-China -- had been the case in the 1970s? We would all be learning Russian and Chinese as new lingua francas. Citizens of socialist planet Earth. No Ukraine civil war, no armageddon.
Vietnam and Cambodia have had a cold peace, like the US North-South after the civil war, another hint about the future of Ukraine. Some minor border spats, anti-Vietnam riots in the 1990s and ongoing occasional incidents attacking Vietnamese.
Perspectives
The US civil war should have left the US licking its wounds, leading the way to reconstruction and integration of blacks, but no such thing. All the time, the genocide against the indigenous peoples was proceeding apace, even recruiting 'free' blacks before, during and after the civil war, to oppress the natives. How tragic, as blacks were not inherently racist, but merely trying to please the murderous settlers any way they could (power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely). So the genocide against natives, with the help of blacks, continued until they were almost completely eradicated, along with the buffalo, and once the west coast was 'liberated' it was on to the Philippines, etc.
The US was founded not in 1776 on liberty, but in 1619 with the arrival of the first slaves. It has been at war for 235 years of its 250 years. Which makes perfect sense, as imperialism is the quest for world domination, and the US, like Israel, has no real borders, but is always expanding, grabbing more land, more power. Trump's first announcements on his reelection in 2024 were to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, to lay claim to Canada and Greenland.
The EU's pact with the US devil was/is foolhardy, as the US is not interested in Ukraine as a sovereign nation, but only in as much as it has resources to exploit. But then, as Russia, Iran and Palestine know only too well, standing up to the tyrant is dangerous and could kill you. So the 'collective West' remains united.
US civil war North antislavery supported by Russia (out of principle. Tsar Alexander II abolished serfdom in 1864 and was a fan of Lincoln) and eventually Britain and France (when they saw the writing on the wall).
Britain secretly supported the South at the beginning (revenge but also for cotton even though British abolished slavery in 1833). but then no one supported the south except Mexico slightly (again, revenge for US theft of half of Mexico).
Russia-Ukraine is really civil war, the fallout from the sudden collapse of the Soviet Union. Ukraine is fascist, dissolute (human trafficking, donor-mother birthing capital of the world 2,000 per year for rich westerners) supported by US-NATO, which we now see as having fascist roots, which is acceptable. Canadian MP Chrystia Freeland was appointed head of Ukraine reconstruction and the new MI6 head is Ukrainian British Blaise Metreveli. Both their grandfathers were card-carrying Nazi puppets in WWII, responsible for untold numbers of murders of Jews and other untermenschen. That undercurrent of fascism was kept alive in the West after WWII, with hundreds of Nazis brought to the US and Canada to spearhead their anticommunist campaign. Germany rehabilitated all but a handful of Nazis and they kept their wealth and status. This was kept quiet but is finally out in the open but not a problem.
The US exported its civil war model and made it central to its foreign policy. Vietnam, Korea, many more (this is a great topic for research), culminating in Russia-Ukraine. Even Palestine-Israel fits the civil war scenario, though the genocide of American natives fits that horror better. Basically, both are imperialist logic: divide and conquer/ kill.
The occupier is always wrong to some extent, and pillaging of assets, adjusting borders are inevitable and not nice. Russia has slowed its war advances in purpose to avoid civilian deaths. I’m pretty sure the Vietnamese in Cambodia have been saints compared to most occupiers.
China is now the preferred partner for Cambodia, though not for its Maoist past but for cheap consumer goods and investment. Vietnam never got reparations for its 3.5m deaths and the ecological devastation (Agent Orange is still reaping its toxic fruits), but it has forgiven the US and has good relations, much like WWII losers Germany and Japan, but they are puppets of the US, while Vietnam is free and does not toady to anyone.
Vietnam is dear to my heart, as I matured politically in 1973 and still recall the exhilaration of May Day 1975 when Vietnam was finally free. The settlement of the Ukraine civil war will be like Vietnam 1975, but given Ukraine's geopolitics, the agony of the war of attrition will be longer. We can only marvel at the inhumanity of US-EU and the stupidity of Ukrainian fascists for fighting a losing war 'to the last Ukrainian'.
Now Palestine fills Vietnam's role inspiring the youth of today. 10/7 (October 2023) is the equivalent of the Tet offensive in January 1968, which marked the high point of resistance to US imperialism. So can we expect Israel to collapse in 2030?
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Bibliography
Matthew White, The great big book of horrible things (2012).
Eric Walberg, Postmodern Imperialism: Geopolitics and the Great Games, 2011.
http://ericwalberg.com Wikipedia
for 3rd International Conference on the Decline of the United States October 28, 2025 Tehran:
The Future of the Global Resistance Front and the Decline of the United States in the Aftermath of Operation Promised Victory and the Al-Aqsa Storm
