US Project Meridian” - A Symptom of American Decline, Not a Solution

October 12, 2026 (NEO - Brian Berletic) - US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth recently announced the creation of the 120 day task force, “Project Meridian.” 

On the US Department of Defense’s website it says the project aims, “to secure America's long-term military superiority by identifying the capabilities required to achieve absolute technological dominance on the next-generation battlefield.” 

At face value, the initiative serves as a further symptom of the US’ terminal decline rather than any sort of path toward “long-term military superiority” or “absolute technological dominance.” 

The necessity of the project itself is an oblique admission of current and growing US military weakness - increasingly on display amid US wars and proxy wars worldwide in which US weapons are both falling behind in capabilities and quantities. 

The stated path the project seeks to take to address this growing military weakness - “leveraging the nation's premier private-sector innovators, business leaders, and technologists” to “discover and accelerate the fielding of advanced systems” -  ignores completely the fundamentals of the US system which is directly responsible for this growing weakness and dysfunction relative to the rising multipolar world and especially China, in the first place. 

The idea that future technologies and “wonder weapons” can somehow restore US military power around the globe in the face of a rising multipolar world order ignores the pressing fundamental questions regarding why the US seeks to project military power worldwide to begin with, whether it is necessary or not, and whether it is sustainable or even possible to do so. 

The Root of the Problem 

The “private-sector” - large corporate-financier monopolies predicated on the perpetual pursuit of profit and power (driven by shareholder primacy) and which have captured and control US foreign and domestic policy toward that end - are what drives the US’ global military presence and the “need” for “long-term military superiority.” .

The multitude of wars, proxy wars, and potential wars the US is instigating at any given time around the globe are aimed at eliminating any obstacle to the power and profit of this “private-sector” and to implement the coercion of and control over nations and regions the US has already successfully subordinated. 

Thus, this military power is not used to uphold the legitimate national security of the people and territory of the United States - but as a means of undermining and overcoming the national security of other people and territories abroad. 

Proponents of US primacy would argue that if the US did not seek global primacy, others would - a false premise based on an interpretation of “realism” that assumes all people and nations are driven by the same sociobiological need to “dominate” as the special interests and the system they've created in the West. 

Back in reality - nations currently exist in parallel to the US with the ability to project military power globally but have deliberately chosen not to - including both Russia and China - and only develop and use military force in reaction to US encirclement, encroachment, and aggression (by proxy or otherwise). 

The systems of governance and economics in nations outside the West are likewise built from the foundation up in a fundamentally different manner - one in which the rational nature of humanity - not an inherent sociobiological desire for dominance - guides nations and their policies for specific people-driven purposes (accessible healthcare and education, modern infrastructure, etc.) rather than solely profit and power. 

By doing so, these nations ensure access to wealth and influence, but in a sustainable manner - the difference between hungry chimpanzees in the jungle stripping bare fruit trees and humans who have learned to to grow and farm for food. Both are driven by hunger - one chooses the most direct (and ultimately unsustainable) means of satisfying that hunger - while the other chooses to leverage ingenuity to overcome natural limitations on available food supplies. 

 

If nations do not seek to threaten the US - or even develop the capabilities to do so - this means the entire premise of “Project Meridian” is based on not only a wholly unnecessary imperative, but one at cross purpose with international law, endangering global peace and stability. There is an added irony to the growing military and economic crisis consuming the West - it is created by this unsustainable and unnecessary pursuit of global primacy - not by some threat the rest of the globe poses to the West or the United States. 

US Cannibalizes Its Proxies and Itself as War on Multipolarism Expands

September 29, 2026 (NEO - Brian Berletic) - For decades, the US has leveraged its many client states as extensions of its own military, economic, financial, and political power, recruiting the Western world and its dependencies into war, proxy war, economic coercion, and for generating the illusion of political legitimacy for US actions worldwide. 

All of this is a continuation of the British Empire’s use of its colonies to help fight its wars and maintain global primacy up to and including throughout the World Wars. 

And just as the British Empire increasingly leaned on its colonies as its power waned in its final years, extracting blood and treasure from them, draining and destroying them in the process - the US is increasingly leaning on its client states as its war on multipolarism expands against a reemerging Russia, a rising China, and a persistent Iran and many nations in between. 

Just as the British used a combination of administrative control and political propaganda to induce obedience across its colonies, the US is using its political capture of its client states and unprecedented information dominance to maneuver its client states into position for war and proxy war and to justify the growing expenditure on military power at the expense of social programs and even economic viability - both at home and across its modern day empire. 

The Burden Sharing Network 

Spanning the Obama, first Trump, Biden, and now second Trump administrations, the US has increasingly introduced a combination of political, economic, and military alliances used to consolidate US power worldwide. 

This includes everything from the “Quad,” to “AUKUS,” from an ever-expanding NATO to faux anti-US alliances like Europe’s Ukraine-centric “coalition of the willing” and proposed European Union “associate membership” for Canada. All of these arrangements are meant to streamline the administrative process of leveraging regional power across multiple client states together with political narratives meant to bring as many people within these targeted nations on board with the use of these nations against targets of US foreign policy objectives. 

The Quad and AUKUS use fabricated threats of “Chinese expansion” and “aggression” to dupe millions across Asia-Pacific into transferring tremendous and still-growing amounts of resources from national development toward military spending and potential confrontation with China itself. 

The so-called “coalition of the willing,” a recycled term from the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, along with the EU associate membership proposed for Canada is aimed at fabricating the threat of an “invading Russia” to leverage further resources for Washington’s ongoing proxy war in Ukraine. 

In West Asia, the US is using the so-called “Mecca Joint Defence Agreement” and the “Abraham Accords” to consolidate its client states in the region together despite decades of contradicting propaganda narratives maintaining a US strategy of tension across the region focused on Israel. 

Manufactured public hatred and/or fear is used to drive these various attempts to consolidate the resources and power of US client states around the world amid interlinked conflicts spanning Europe, West Asia, and building tensions in the Asia-Pacific. Adjacent conflicts are also taking place everywhere from Latin America to the continent of Africa as part of this process. 

The US “Burden Sharing Network” Takes Shape

September 15, 2026 (NEO - Brian Berletic) - In 2025, the US National Security Strategy paper would be broadly misinterpreted as a US plan to break with its historical pursuit of global primacy and instead, retreat to the Western Hemisphere while somehow reconciling or coexisting with traditional targets of US aggression. 

Many analysts even claimed there was an absence of any direct mention of Russia or China as part of long-standing “great power competition.”  

Yet, even throughout the document itself, terms like “hostile and subversive influences” simply stood in for “Russia” and “China,” reaffirming continuity of US foreign policy objectives rather than upsetting or breaking from them. 

Included within the 33 page document was a detailed explanation of exactly how the United States would continue pursuing “great power competition” against not only Russia and China, but all other nations obstructing US primacy.

Under a section titled, “priorities,” was a policy of “burden-sharing and burden-shifting” which explicitly stated: 

“…the United States will organize a burden-sharing network, with our government as convener and supporter. This approach ensures that burdens are shared and that all such efforts benefit from broader legitimacy. The model will be targeted partnerships that use economic tools to align incentives, share burdens with like-minded allies, and insist on reforms that anchor long-term stability. This strategic clarity will allow the United States to counter hostile and subversive influences efficiently while avoiding the overextension and diffuse focus that undermined past efforts.” 

It should be noted that the introduction of a US “burden sharing network” describing the coercion of other nations into serving as extensions of US power and influence, followed a section titled “primacy of nations” claiming, “it is natural and just that all nations put their interests first and guard their sovereignty” - thus, a complete contradiction. 

But that is only if one assumes the US discussed the “primacy of nations” as a general principle applied to all nations and not just a means of absolving the US - and the US alone - of its obligations under international law. 

The threat of “economic tools” to “align incentives” and to “insist on reforms” for what the US paper claims is “long-term stability” are clearly euphemisms for the coercion of nations to serve US foreign policy objectives, and specifically to uphold US primacy even at the expense of these nations’ own objective best interests. 

The Burden Sharing Network in Practice 

One of the most blatant implementations of this “burden sharing network” was actually publicly announced months before the National Security Strategy paper was published. In February 2025, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth would publicly demand Europe “double down and re-commit” to what he referred to as “Ukraine’s immediate security needs” and “Europe’s long-term defense and deterrence goals.” 

At a time when many in the public and analytical circles still believed the US under the new Trump administration was trying to either end or distance itself from the ongoing war in Ukraine - Secretary Hegseth made it clear that any shift in US policy toward Ukraine was merely - what he would call - a “division of labor” between US interests in Europe and the Pacific and realistic limitations preventing the US from pursuing both without extracting more resources from its client states.

How the US Destruction of the INF Treaty Backfired

August 29, 2026 (NEO - Brian Berletic) - Western media headlines have announced the alleged use by Russia of what is being dubbed the “Iskander-1000,” a ground-launched ballistic missile with a potential range of approximately 1,000 km (Western sources claim previous Iskander missiles had ranges of around 390 km with the current Iskander-1000 having a range of 550 km and a potential future range of 1,000 km). Should the new Iskander variant achieve ranges of up to 1,000 km it would place all of Ukraine’s territory within reach from launch positions across pre-2022 Russian Federation territory.  

The Iskander’s range had previously been capped at 500 km by the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty. However, that cap was lifted following the unilateral withdrawal of the US from the treaty in 2019 under the first Trump administration. That had followed the likewise unilateral US withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty in 2002 under the Bush administration - all part of a continuous US policy of dismantling arms control treaties and rolling out treaty-violating weapons along the borders of not only Russia, but also Iran in West Asia and China in the Asia-Pacific region. 

Among those US treaty-violating systems were Aegis Ashore installations capable of tracking and intercepting missiles fired by Russia as part of a retaliatory strike - a key violation of the ABM treaty which would theoretically allow the US to carry out a nuclear or conventional first-strike on Russia while preventing or minimizing any Russian retaliation. The Aegis Ashore system is also capable of ground-launching INF treaty-prohibited Tomahawk cruise missiles (2,500 km) offensively. Aegis Ashore was constructed and brought online in Romania and Poland during the Obama and Biden administrations respectively. 

Also following the US withdrawal from the INF treaty was the development and deployment of the mobile Typhon system capable of ground-launching conventional or nuclear-capable Tomahawk cruise missiles previously prohibited under the INF treaty. The first Typhon systems became operational and plans to deploy it began under the subsequent Biden administration - demonstrating continuity of agenda regardless of whether Democrats or Republicans controlled the US government. 

In addition to the Aegis Ashore and Typhon systems, the US also began work on the Dark Eagle hypersonic ground-launched missile (3,500 km) - another system prohibited under the previous INF treaty. 

There is also the US Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) slated to replace aging and less capable ATAMCS fired by HIMARS and M-270 launchers. PrSM is the closest US-equivalent to the Iskander with PrSM’s current range at 500 km and plans to likewise extend it to 1,000 km in future variants. 

With US-Soviet/Russian treaties abandoned by the US and a growing number of weapon systems being openly developed and deployed by Washington - Russia began rolling out its own comparable systems. 

In addition to the Iskander-1000, Russia has already introduced the Iskander-K (500 km with some variants reaching up to 2,000 km) - a cruise missile launched by the same mobile platforms used to fire Iskander-M ballistic missiles. Ground-launched versions of Russia’s Kalibr cruise missiles (1,500 - 2,500 km) and its hypersonic Zircon missiles (1,000 km) have also been developed and since deployed. 

Most notable among Russia’s rollout of systems to counter US INF treaty-violating weapons is the Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile (3,000-5,500 km) capable of delivering up to 6 multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs) at hypersonic speeds - each of which contain an additional 6 submunitions for a total of 36 projectiles. Its destructive power has already been demonstrated amid the US proxy war on Russia in Ukraine. 

US INF Treaty Destruction Backfiring 

The US withdrawal from the INF treaty (and before that, the ABM treaty) was designed to give the US an advantage over not only Russia by further encircling it with treaty-violating anti-missile and offensive missile systems - but also over China which never signed any arms control treaties with the US. However, the emerging result is a lopsided quantitative and qualitative edge for both Russia and China - saying nothing of their combined capabilities. 

US War on Multipolarism: Turning the Gameboard Over

August 17, 2026 (NEO - Brian Berletic) - The US has pursued a policy of global primacy spanning the 20th and 21st centuries, enduring regardless of presidential administration or the balance between Democratic and Republican parties in Congress, carving out what is a modern day American empire. 

The US controls not only the entirety of the Western world (Europe, Australia, and New Zealand), but also proxies in South America, Africa, and all across Asia from east to west. It seeks to maintain - even expand its domination further through military and economic power, as well as through political subversion, infiltration and capture as well as through information dominance. 

Conversely - there emerges a multipolar world which favors a balance of power between nations rather than subordination to a single nation. 

Centered on the BRICS organization led by the rise of China and the reemergence of Russia, the multipolar world is not only creating the means by which to defend against US encroachment, encirclement, and eventual capture - it is creating an alternative global system holding the potential to entirely displace the toxic US unipolar system. 

Multipolar Ships Rise on China’s Tide 

China’s rise alone in terms of economic, industrial, and military power - has by nearly every metric matched or is now exceeding that of US power. 

China’s rise has created the opportunity for other nations targeted by US domination to trade with and benefit from a growing center of global power on par with the US and its proxies - allowing nations like North Korea, Russia, and Iran to sustain viable economies despite being cut off from US-dominated “global” economic systems, institutions, and services. 

China, together with a growing number of partner nations, are creating alternatives to these economic systems, institutions, and services long-since monopolized and perpetually abused by the US. 

Despite this, the US remains a powerful and dangerous global power - but a global power whose limits are increasingly exposed by the equally powerful and growing multipolar world. 

What has resulted is no longer a contest between two global players - but a player who inevitably faces defeat seeking to topple the gameboard altogether before that defeat fully materializes.  

Toppling the Global Gameboard

The US finds itself an aggressive global hegemon with a system built upon the perpetual pursuit of power and profit in a finite world where its means to do so are in decline relative to China’s rise alone - saying nothing of the multipolar world China is helping take shape. 

This can be defined in real-world metrics.