Humanitarian disasters the cost of US security: China Daily editorial

It is not a secret that Washington has been waging proxy wars around the world in order to consolidate its status as the world's sole hegemonic power. But a new document obtained through the Freedom of Information Act offers the first official confirmation of that.

The document reveals that between 2017 and 2020, the US military conducted at least 23 separate "127e" programs across the world.

Through the use of the "127 Echo" programs, as they are known, the US uses recondite funding authority to enable US forces to conduct operations "by, with and through" foreign and irregular partner forces around the world. Unlike traditional foreign military assistance programs, which are primarily intended to build local capacity, the 127 Echo operations provide the US with viable surrogate forces designed to achieve US' objectives at a relatively low cost in terms of resources and with a relatively low risk to US personnel.

In other words, as explained to the House Armed Services Committee in 2019, 127e partners are dispatched on US-directed missions, targeting US enemies to achieve US aims.

The US personnel aren't assisting or advising "partners", they are getting them to do their bidding.

It is obvious that the 127e programs are the long-arm means for the US to realize its political objectives through proxy wars or proxy military operations.

By instigating and providing financial and military support for proxies in this way, the US can hide its controlling hand behind the scenes.

This helps salvage its reputation and salve its national conscience, as otherwise it would be obvious to all that it is the source of almost all military conflicts all over the world since the end of World War II.

That includes the current hostilities between Russia and Ukraine, which is another of the US' proxy wars. The US is doing whatever it can to ensure that the conflict is protracted for as long as possible so that Russia will exhaust much of its overall strength, and thus no longer be a real rival any more.

That explains why the US has never made any effort to mediate between the two parties but only provides arms for Ukraine instead.

The US' proxy war has resulted in the deaths of countless civilians and brought suffering and misery to tens of millions of Ukrainian people who have been displaced by the fighting.

Over the years, the US' long-arm operations have brought turmoil and suffering to millions of people around the world.

It is not human rights and democracy, which the US constantly claims to uphold, that are the objectives of the 127 Echo actions. Instead, as the hegemonic power, the US is prosecuting its own geostrategic goals at the expense of other peoples, and pursuing material gains at the cost of the political stability and economic development of other countries.

The US' exceptionalism is its callousness.