global geopolitics

How the US Captures Nations Without Firing a Shot to Disrupt Multipolarism, Extend Russia, Contain Iran and China

The February 1992 draft of the Defense Planning Guidance, leaked to the New York Times and published on March 8, 1992, articulated a strategic vision that has shaped American foreign policy for three decades. The document, prepared by Paul D. Wolfowitz’s policy office and supervised by Under Secretary for Policy Paul Wolfowitz, with lead authorship by Zalmay Khalilzad and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, asserted that the United States’ political and military mission in the post-Cold War era would be to “prevent the re-emergence of a new rival” and to insure that no rival superpower was allowed to emerge in Western Europe, Asia, or the territory of the former Soviet Union (2-4). The classified document made the case for a world dominated by one superpower whose position could be perpetuated by “convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests”(2-4).

The 1992 Defence Planning Guidance explicitly identified four regions of strategic importance where the United States must prevent any hostile power from establishing regional hegemony: Western Europe, East Asia, the territory of the former Soviet Union, and Southwest Asia (4). The document further stated that the United States must “maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role”(4). In his cover memo to Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney on March 31, 1992, Libby acknowledged that the latest draft had softened language about acting “unilaterally” and “alone” to more defensible formulations such as “with only limited additional help,” while preserving the substantive strategic vision (1). Wolfowitz subsequently praised the work, writing, “Scooter and his folks have done a remarkable job. We have never had a Defense Guidance this ambitious before”(1).

The 1992 strategy, described by one senator as a prescription for “literally a ‘Pax Americana,’” called for permanent US military pre-eminence over virtually all of Eurasia, to be achieved by deterring potential competitors from “even aspiring to a larger regional or global role” and by pre-empting states believed to be developing weapons of mass destruction (3). The draft foretold a world in which US military intervention would come to be seen “as a constant fixture” of the geopolitical landscape, with Washington acting as the ultimate guarantor of international order (3). The document’s failure to even mention the United Nations reflected its rejection of collective internationalism in favour of unilateral American primacy (3). At the insistence of then-National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft and Secretary of State James Baker, the final Defence Planning Guidance was substantially toned down, but the strategic vision, ensuring no rivals develop, remained operational (3).

The 2019 Rand Corporation paper “Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground” represents the contemporary application of this strategic framework. The report, authored by James Dobbins, Raphael S. Cohen, Nathan Chandler, Bryan Frederick, Edward Geist, Paul DeLuca, Forrest E. Morgan, Howard J. Shatz, and Brent Williams, examines a range of possible means to “extend” Russia, defined as exploiting Russian vulnerabilities and anxieties to overextend and weaken the Russian state (5-6). The report’s table of contents reveals the comprehensive nature of the strategy: economic measures (hinder petroleum exports, reduce natural gas exports and hinder pipeline expansions, impose sanctions); geopolitical measures (provide lethal aid to Ukraine, increase support to the Syrian rebels, promote regime change in Belarus, exploit tensions in the South Caucasus, reduce Russian influence in Central Asia, challenge Russian presence in Moldova); ideological and informational measures; air and space measures; maritime measures; and land and multidomain measures (6-7-8).

The 2019 Rand report explicitly acknowledges that providing lethal aid to Ukraine would “provoke a war with Russia and Ukraine” and that such a war would be “a very long, costly war for Russia that Ukraine is almost certainly going to lose”(5-6). The report also identifies “exploit tensions in the South Caucasus” as a key geopolitical measure, specifically mentioning Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan (6-7). The report states that “the United States could push for a closer NATO relationship with Georgia and Azerbaijan” or “try to induce Armenia to break with Russia,” and unapologetically admits that the capture of Armenia as well as Georgia “would enhance the encirclement of not only Russia, but also neighboring Iran, as well as provide the U.S. access to energy resources in the Caspian Sea”(5-7). The Caspian Sea region, according to the US Department of Energy estimates cited in the report, contains approximately 48 billion barrels of oil and 292 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, with almost 75% of oil reserves and 67% of natural gas reserves located within 100 miles of the coast (7-8).

The implementation of the “Extending Russia” strategy is observable across multiple theatres. The United States has provided lethal aid to Ukraine, begun publicly arming the Ukrainian military during the first Trump administration, and continues to direct and support the proxy war against Russia. The physical destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines exemplifies the implementation of the measure to “reduce natural gas exports and hinder pipeline expansions”(5). The collapse of the Syrian government in late 2024 followed years of US support to Syrian rebels, as recommended in the 2019 paper, and paved the way for direct US military confrontation with Iran. The loss of Syria, which served as Iran’s key buffer against American military pressure, is attributable to both Russian and Iranian overextension, with Russia’s resources consumed by the war in Ukraine and Iran’s by the conflict in West Asia.

The 2018 Velvet Revolution in Armenia offers a paradigmatic case study of the US method of political capture through the National Endowment for Democracy and its associated networks. The NED, described by one analyst as “a wing of the CIA, basically,” was created by the US government, funded by the US government, and overseen by the US government, yet presents itself as an independent pro-democracy organisation (11-14). The NED’s 2018 annual report openly celebrates the Velvet Revolution, noting that “NED supported five exceptional Armenian independent online media outlets” that “were invaluable throughout the 2018 historic events”(11-14). These media outlets, while described as “independent,” were in fact funded and directed by the US government, which used them to take over Armenia’s information space through US-based social media platforms with algorithms coordinated with Washington and Wall Street interests.

The Union of Informed Citizens, a key civil society organisation involved in the Velvet Revolution, publicly admits extensive US government backing. The organisation’s 2021 annual report lists the National Endowment for Democracy, the Open Society Foundation, the International Republican Institute, Freedom House, and the US Embassy in Armenia as funders (15). The International Republican Institute and Freedom House are essentially subsidiaries of the NED, forming a coordinated network of US government-funded organisations working to capture Armenian political institutions(11-14). The NED’s 2019 annual report goes further, stating that “several NED grantees have entered government”, an explicit admission that the protests did not merely seek to overturn a targeted government but to replace it with US-prepared and selected client regimes (11-14). The NED’s 2018 report similarly notes that NED grantees had shifted their focus “from holding a corrupt regime accountable to supporting governance reform”, a transition from regime change to institutional capture and control (11-14).

The leadership pipeline extends beyond mere funding of protests. The NED and its subsidiaries operate leadership programmes in targeted countries, identifying young people, flying them to the United States, indoctrinating them through think tanks and meetings with senators, and creating what one analyst describes as “a psychological complex in their mind plugging them into a fake social and professional network” (11-14). These individuals are then returned to their home countries, provided with funding to establish NGOs, and assisted in working their way into the media, political system, legal system, and education system, where they remain loyal to US interests at the expense of their own nations. The process was explicitly described in the 2004 Guardian article “US campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev,” which noted that the opposition leader in Ukraine was “selected on pragmatic and objective grounds, even if he or she is anti-American” (11-14). In Serbia, US pollsters discovered that the pro-western opposition leader had “no chance of beating Milosevic fairly in an election” and persuaded him to “take a back seat to the anti-western” candidate who could win (11-14).

The Guardian’s 2004 article, which described the Ukraine protests as “an American creation, a sophisticated and brilliantly conceived exercise in western branding and mass marketing that in four countries in four years has been used to try to salvage rigged elections and topple unsavoury regimes,” provides contemporaneous evidence of the operational template (11-14). The article identified the Democratic Party’s National Democratic Institute, the Republican Party’s International Republican Institute, the US State Department, USAID, Freedom House, and billionaire George Soros’s Open Society Institute as the main agencies involved in these grassroots campaigns (11-14). The US government officially spent $41 million organising and funding the year-long operation to remove Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia from October 1999, with the comparable figure for Ukraine estimated at approximately $14 million (11-14). The article further noted that the campaign was first used in Europe in Belgrade in 2000, repeated in Georgia in 2003, attempted in Belarus (where it failed), and then applied in Ukraine in 2004 (11-14).

The Washington Post, in its November 30, 2004, editorial, acknowledged the Guardian’s account but dismissed its significance, arguing that it “dramatically overrates the influence that American money, or American ‘democracy-promoters,’ can have in a place such as Ukraine” (13). The editorial contended that “rather larger amounts of money were spent in Ukraine by Russia” and that “if the ideas that Americans and Europeans promoted had greater traction in Ukraine than those of President Putin, that says more about Ukraine than about the United States” (13). The editorial further argued that the “it’s-all-an-American-plot” argument demonstrated that “at least a part of the Western left, or rather the Western far left, is now so anti-American, or so anti-Bush, that it actually prefers authoritarian or totalitarian leaders to any government that would be friendly to the United States” (13). This counterargument, while acknowledging US involvement, dismisses the significance of US funding in favour of local agency and the comparative appeal of democratic ideas.

The pattern of US political capture operations can be traced across multiple countries over several decades. Ukraine (2014) represents the most complete implementation of the template, where a nation captured through NED infiltration of information space, political system, and education was redirected from serving its own interests to serving as “a battering ram against neighboring Russia at the expense of Ukraine, its very survival” (11–14). Georgia (2003) was captured through the same process, with the 2004 Guardian article noting that Richard Miles, the US ambassador in Belgrade, repeated the trick in Georgia, coaching Mikhail Saakashvili in how to bring down Eduard Shevardnadze (11-14). Serbia (2000) was the laboratory where the template was perfected, with Otpor, the student movement meaning “resistance,” providing the branding and organisational model subsequently replicated in Georgia (Khmara), Belarus (Zubr), and Ukraine (Pora, meaning “high time”(11-14).

The comparative success and failure rates of these operations are instructive. The US campaign in Serbia succeeded in removing Milosevic. The campaign in Georgia succeeded in removing Shevardnadze. The campaign in Ukraine succeeded in removing Kuchma and installing a client regime. The campaign in Belarus failed, with President Alexander Lukashenko declaring, “There will be no Kostunica in Belarus,” referring to the victory in Belgrade(11-14). The Armenian campaign succeeded in 2018, with the NED and its grantees playing a pivotal role in the Velvet Revolution and the installation of Nikol Pashinyan as Prime Minister. The 2018 UNICEF country office annual report, while non-political, notes that the “landmark change of 2018… culminating in arguably the nation’s most transparent and trusted elections ever” led to the UN Secretary-General lauding Armenia for “progress towards democratic transition and greater openness”(9). The report attributes the mass protests to “long-lasting dissatisfaction and low trust towards the authorities” and the President’s attempt to extend his rule through constitutional changes that allowed him to become Prime Minister (9).

Armenian Parliament member Arsen Kharatyan, in testimony before the US Congress, provided an insider perspective on the Velvet Revolution, acknowledging that he “joined the protesters on April 14 in Freedom Square” and that he “did not want to see Armenia become another post-Soviet country that is indefinitely ruled by a single person and a single party”(10). Kharatyan noted that President Sargsyan was nominated to continue as Prime Minister in 2018, triggering the protests, and that following his resignation, a commission of experts was created to recommend electoral reforms (10). Kharatyan’s testimony, however, does not acknowledge US funding of the civil society organisations that supported the revolution, nor does it mention the NED’s role in training activists and providing media support.

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs published a report in 2024 titled “The National Endowment for Democracy: What It Is and What It Does,” which explicitly identifies the NED as performing the functions previously conducted by the CIA, regime change, infiltration, and subversion (11-14). The Chinese government’s recognition of the threat posed by US political capture operations reflects a broader awareness among multipolar powers of the dangers of information space dominance. Russia and China have both created domestic social media platforms specifically because they understand that US-based social media platforms are instruments of US government and corporate control over information, promoting what they want promoted, burying what they want buried, and essentially controlling what people see and believe (11-14). However, neither nation has successfully exported either social media platforms or the capability of creating domestic alternatives to partner nations to secure their respective information spaces.

The comparative neglect of information space as a national security domain represents a critical vulnerability. Russia and China sell mountains of weapons to other nations to help them protect land borders, shores, waters, and airspace, traditional national security domains. However, they do not sell weapons, systems, or methods to protect information space, which in the twenty-first century constitutes a national security domain as important as, if not more so than, physical borders. The failure to recognise information space as a domain requiring defence explains why the United States, despite its geographical distance from the South Caucasus, has more influence in Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan than Russia, which shares borders with these countries and has decades of linguistic, cultural, political, and economic ties. The United States controls the information space of all of these countries along Russia’s periphery. They are all almost entirely dependent on US-based social media platforms, which essentially control what people in these targeted countries see and believe, shaping their reality and convincing them that fighting a proxy war with Russia at the expense of their own self-annihilation is good and that peaceful coexistence with Russia is bad.

The political capture of nations serves a dual strategic purpose. First, it weakens Russia and Iran by denying them allies and partners along their peripheries, reducing their influence and overextending their resources. Second, it provides the United States with proxies that can be transformed into self-destructive battering rams against both nations, as demonstrated by Ukraine’s deployment as a weapon against Russia. The captured nations serve US interests at the cost of their own survival, with their destruction serving as a warning to other nations contemplating resistance to US political infiltration. The glow of Ukraine burning to the ground serves as the final destination awaiting US politically captured nations.

The strategy of extending Russia through political capture and proxy warfare has achieved significant successes. Russia’s military commitment to the proxy war in Ukraine left insufficient resources to continue defending Syria from a similar US-backed proxy war, resulting in the collapse of the Syrian government in late 2024. Russia’s overextension, forced by the US proxy war in Ukraine, likewise prevented it from maintaining its influence in Armenia, contributing to the US capture of the country. The 2019 Rand Corporation paper anticipated this dynamic, noting that an overextended Russia may focus resources on one crisis at the expense of being able to prevent US-created crises from overwhelming its available resources elsewhere. The collapse of Syria and the political capture of Armenia both demonstrate the effectiveness of this strategy.

The Philippine military buildup represents the extension of the same strategy to the Asia-Pacific region, where the United States is transforming the Philippines into the Ukraine of Southeast Asia vis-à-vis China. The US military buildup in the Philippines, the deployment of US troops to Taiwan, the militarisation of Japan, and US operational control over South Korean armed forces all reflect the same encirclement strategy applied to China that was previously applied to Russia and Iran. The political capture of Philippines is underway, with NED-affiliated organisations building up opposition groups, capturing information space, and preparing to install a client regime that would serve US interests at the expense of Philippine national survival.

The documented pattern of US political capture operations, supported by declassified policy documents, government-funded organisation annual reports, and mainstream media accounts, demonstrates that the United States has developed and implemented a systematic strategy of infiltrating and capturing nations along the peripheries of its principal rivals. The strategy operates through the National Endowment for Democracy and its associated networks, which build administrative layers inside targeted countries, displace indigenous institutions, and install client regimes that serve US interests at the expense of their own nations. The control of information space through US-based social media platforms is the key enabling factor, allowing the United States to shape what people in targeted countries see and believe, and ultimately to convince them to support policies that serve US interests at the cost of their own survival.

The recognition of information space as a national security domain equivalent to physical borders remains incomplete. Until nations around the world see the danger to their political and information space as clearly as they see military threats to their physical borders, and take the steps required to secure them, the United States will continue to exploit this advantage, often toppling and capturing entire nations without deploying a single soldier or firing a single shot. The political and information administrative force the United States wields worldwide is much more powerful and dangerous than its military power. While the world is coming to grips with US military power, it remains blind and completely vulnerable to this lesser-seen, lesser-understood superweapon.

Authored By: Global GeoPolitics

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References

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