Interview: U.S. military hegemony humanity's "biggest enemy," says expert

U.S. military hegemony and the actions resulting from it put humanity at risk by keeping the threat of a new war always latent.

People hold placards during a protest rally against the U.S.-Philippines Balikatan joint military exercises in front of the gate of the Armed Forces of the Philippines headquarters in Quezon City, the Philippines, April 11, 2023. (Xinhua/Rouelle Umali)

MEXICO CITY, Sept. 7 (Xinhua) -- U.S. military hegemony is humanity's "biggest enemy" and prevents countries from exercising their sovereignty, according to an expert.

Jaime Tamayo, a political scientist from the University of Guadalajara, told Xinhua in an interview that this hegemony and the actions resulting from it put humanity at risk by keeping the threat of a new war always latent.

"It is essential to be clear about who the enemy is," Tamayo stressed, considering that the United States "is a country that lies, deceives and uses supposed arguments of a false humanism to continue maintaining one of the cruelest empires."

He added, "If we look at the number of displaced people, deaths, crimes, exploitation, even modern slavery that it has caused with all this ... we can see that it is one of or perhaps the cruelest empires that has existed in the history of humanity."

The academic noted that the United States has been at war for about 230 of its almost 250 years as an independent nation.

This photo taken on July 14, 2023 shows cluster bomblets left by the U.S. military during the Vietnam war at a museum in Hanoi, Vietnam. (Photo by Pham Dinh Duc/Xinhua)

According to Tamayo, this belligerence is compounded by the fact that the United States has the largest military presence in the world, with about 750 military bases in at least 80 countries at present.

This reality fosters "a growing awareness" that a single power cannot dominate the world but that there must be a balance that allows countries to decide more freely on their sovereignty and form of government and their social, political and economic organization.

Tamayo said the United States knows that its dominance is in decline, adding that this is why it attacks any expression that it sees as affecting its hegemony.

Tamayo highlighted the report published Tuesday by Xinhua Institute, the think tank of Xinhua News Agency, on the "origins, facts and perils" of the U.S. military hegemony.

The report "highlights the great enemy of humanity at this time," said Tamayo, adding that it attempts to provide a basis, a historical explanation and an understanding of what is happening today in this regard.

The report also shows the usual justifications and tricks by which the United States has undertaken military and destabilization actions to interfere in the affairs of other countries and maintain its global hegemony.

This photo taken on March 29, 2023 shows the White House in Washington, D.C., the United States. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

The expert explained that one of the most frequent justifications or arguments used by the United States to intervene in the affairs of other countries is the so-called defense of human rights and democracy.

He stressed that "this is simply very dubious because there are different forms of democracy, which the United States does not recognize."

Tamayo explained that "U.S. rules serve precisely to justify its expansionism, its arms race that has never stopped ... while its eagerness to maintain hegemony has cost many lives, displacements and is one of the main causes of migration."

Tamayo said the United States is "an empire that to some extent is a decadent empire, but which, nevertheless, remains, is sometimes the one that takes even more violent actions."