TITLE: America’s Dim Mak Points: Unrestricted Warfare In The 21st Century
The chapters in Victor N. Corpus’s (in conjunction with V. Camilo T. Corpus) “America’s Dim Mak Points: Unrestricted Warfare In The 21st Century” are bound by the author’s testimony that the image of the United States being the world’s lone superpower is becoming more of an illusion than a reality and that the country is at a “critical crossroads.”
Corpus specifies that there are two paths from this crossroads that America can take. It can embark upon the continued path of “world domination” which, according to the author, would produce for itself “the enmity and hatred of people all over the world.” The other path, Corpus believes, will bring back America’s high stature in the eyes of the rest of the world. This path involves greater multilateralism in geopolitical relations, the utilization of “soft power” rather than “hard power” in dealing with other countries, and a reduction in America’s global military presence.
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The title of Corpus’s book, “Dim Mak Points,” comes from the Chinese martial arts. It is a technique that is used by a smaller or weaker party to incapacitate a larger and stronger opponent by hitting vulnerable points of the body. Corpus sees the United States as an opponent whose constitution as a superpower is in danger of being brought down by comparatively smaller rivals like China, Russia, and Iran. Here, Corpus evokes the Dim Mak technique in approaching the perceived decline of the United States: “within this gargantuan structure, there are soft spots that, when stricken, can cause the entire structure to collapse.”
Corpus’s book is occupied with the various threats, both internal and external, that the United States faces in the 21st Century. Corpus writes that the threats range from the growing strength of China, Russia, and Iran, to the decline of the US dollar, to America’s foreign oil addiction, and to its exposure to an “electro-information attack.”
What Corpus sees as the concomitant rise of China, Russia, and Iran and their ability to threaten America’s superpower status comes somewhat unhinged when we distinguish his insistence on the potential of a “Russia-China-Iran combine” from the actuality surrounding such an idea. Corpus believes that all three countries, despite their own internal weaknesses and the historic distrust that lies within Iranian-Russian and Chinese-Russian relations, would seamlessly coalesce into a solid coalition against the United States. Notwithstanding economic ties, it is unlikely that Russia, China, and Iran
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would ever combine their economic and military capabilities in unison in opposition to the US. What Corpus doesn’t realize is that the three have as many differences amongst themselves as common interests.
In “America’s Dim Mak Points,” Corpus downgrades America at just about every economic, military, and geopolitical turn he can think of. What were once the calm seas of American power are a thing of the past in his view as America experiences a stormy recession and watches its rivals acquire the capacity to present serious challenges to its dominance.
There will always be great trials and threats facing the United States. But Corpus’s arguments are formulaic in that they get drawn into the generic impulse towards presuming that the American century is finished. Corpus’s arguments about the future of America, and that of China as well, also inhibit him from making a credible claim of what he suggests is the looming end of American preeminence. While Corpus remarks on what the US can do to avoid his dire scenarios, his assertions are crowded with overreactions and are incompatible with those of more qualified experts than himself who are more affirmative about America’s future.