I think it’s the former because the vassals pouring money into American MIC isn’t going to magically lead to it becoming significantly more productive. We already saw how NATO couldn’t even ramp up production of basic things like artillery shells for Ukraine. And now there are structural problems like lack of ability to produce rare earths or magnets, without which you can’t even build advanced weapons. The lack of productive capacity in the west is the elephant in the room here.

Wonder if it’s to point the weapons at their own people, prevent rebellion.

To add to what the others said, I assume there are facets of the imperial leadership that try to have something of a plan, but it’s not like they can recreate the circumstances of post-WWII that put them in such an ideal position to push world capitalism/imperialism. They tried to break Iran this year and though they did do some damage in the short-term, they lost a lot of munitions in the process and lost some of their direct power in the region through the debasing process Iran has been doing. They’ve been trying to break Russia for years via Ukraine, but Russia has stayed strong and is managing the issue in a “slow and steady wins the race” manner. They tried to put pressure on/“contain” China and China has reversed uno’d them and is more so containing them, via restrictions to rare earth materials.

The most obvious plans have been getting rebuffed by the strongest anti-imperialist powers in the world and leaving the empire worse off than when it started.

The imperialists, in other words, don’t really have anywhere to go. They can’t break the strongest anti-imperialist powers (and keep hurting themselves when they try). They can try to exploit weaker countries more, but this will also intensify blowback / contradictions, during a time when the empire is increasingly weaker and harder to manage. Same with trying to exploit their own citizenry more, within the imperial core (imperialism will increasingly look like a bad deal to people in the imperial core if they keep seeing only worsening conditions from it). Some of them are still trying to play the game of talking like a reformist without being one (like Carney) but people won’t buy it if their material conditions keep getting worse.

I think the turn to (attempted) increased militarization is in some ways a reaction to the realization that daddy US is fading from the position of hegemon. But they are being sold a bill of goods if they think the very power that is fading, that has used its post-WWII influence to make them subservient to it for decades, can and wants to make them capable of being independent, sovereign military powers. If the US can’t even hang onto its own imperial hegemony, how is it going to arm other powers sufficiently to carry on its work? And why would it want them to instead of it?

There is no other imperial country positioned to be able to take on that work in the first place. And the more they openly warmonger, the more the world is going to turn against them, especially when China, Russia, Iran, and others allied with them, are there as a bulwark against it.

It’s the former. Without rare earths, the west is pretty much cooked. China may yet win without firing a shot.