Do you know that the CIA and even the Pentagon used Hollywood to propagate their line of thinking and influence public attitudes to various issues, domestic and international?
“The ultimate goal was control and dominance,” said Vikram Sood, former chief of R&AW, India’s external intelligence agency, who was a guest on The Gist speaking about his latest book Great Power Games: From Western Decline To Eastern Ascent.
Control and dominance was built through individuals, groups and cartels coming together to build a narrative and using their phenomenal money power to change the facts on the ground. It’s no secret, he notes, that the US Federal Reserve (counterpart to India’s government-owned Reserve Bank) is a private entity which manages the country’s monetary system.
Sood believes that US economic and military power has reached its zenith and decline has set in. While economic power enabled the US to exercise its hold over the world, the control exercised by private entities driven by profit, has seriously undercut the foundations of the economy.
“They’ve sold off everything. China was clever enough to take all the manufacturing from them. If you don’t have manufacturing, you are not strong and are dependent on others.”
The US military too, despite trillion dollar budgets and hi-tech equipment has singularly failed in the battlefield. He pointed to the Vietnam war, where after suffering 55,000 dead, the enduring image is of the last helicopter taking off from the US embassy in Saigon April 1975.
Cut to August 2021 when the US departed Afghanistan stealthily at night, handing over the country to the very people it had fought for 20 years: the Taliban.
Even their foreign policy was flawed. The US could have used the break-up of the Soviet Union to rebuild into a democratic pluralist Russia. Instead it sought to undermine it even further, supporting mafia groups that stole or destroyed key industries.
Tune in for more in this conversation with Vikram Sood, former chief of R&AW, on his book Great Power Games: From Western Decline To Eastern Ascent.
Thirty eight years in journalism, widely travelled, history buff with a preference for Old Monk Rum. Current interest/focus spans China, Technology and Trade. Recent reads: Steven Colls Directorate S and Alexander Frater's Chasing the Monsoon. Netflix/Prime video junkie. Loves animal videos on Facebook. Reluctant tweeter.
