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So I am trying to think of this from a material perspective. What value does Europe really provide to the US now? They've essentially ensured it will not reindustrialize, and it isn't exactly known for it's plentiful natural resources either. It seems to me there are very limited material advantages to long term control of europe for the US. Atleast under this model. They act as a bullet sponge in the event of WW3, and a bunch of cannon fodder to use against Russia. They could act as a tourist zone for the US to send their petite bourgoise to. Although i feel as though the US doesn't need that it has plenty of geographically closer options. It acts as a captive market for US goods, but the US barely makes goods, and Europe isn't going to be rolling in dough after the US guts their economy either. So how much buying power will they have in say 20 years?
The only thing that makes sense to me is they want to take a potential competitor off the board, and turn Europe into one giant Ukraine. Where they send their surplus weapons and let the Euros fight Russia for them while the US fights China. The timeline for doing that is pretty specific. It would take maybe 10ish years for the Europeans to be prepared enough to really stand a chance. They'll do massive austerity in the mean time to afford their militarization. So after say another 10 years they'll start to trend in the other direction. Their economy crumbling to such a degree they can't keep spending on the military they just rebuilt. So that gives the US a time window roughly from 2035-2045 to start their big war that they so clearly want.
It also gives the US time to onshore production of things like Chips, and stabilize their own economy for a big war. So the timeline should work out. They'll probably focus on securing their immediate surroundings in the mean time. Which matches what they've been doing. Agression in Latin America, and towards Canada, and Greenland to keep those nations in line. They'd want to destabilize the middle east to deny it's oil reserves to Russia, and China too, and transition US oil to the american sources. Texas, and Venezuela.
So if my hunch is right we should see the US invade venezuela within the next 2-3 years or so. We will see major moves in the EU towards austerity, and them militarizing by buying US weapons. A bigger push to decouple the US supply chain from Asia. More agression in the middle east especially towards Iran. Then by about 2035 if all that has already happened we should be on WW3 watch. It could be a bit sooner, or a bit later than 2035 too. Depends how things go for them.
That might be the statesian intention, but, last I checked, it exports to China raw material and imports technology, just as if it was China's periphery. It can't make its own chips, drones, or rare earths. Its offense (never was "defense") industry is corrupt and inefficient. It lost to Yemen, whose real (PPP) GDP is 436 times smaller than the US.
Can the US change that? Biden tried to revive the chip industry, but execs and shareholders simply pocketed the public funds. Now Trump tries to reindustrialize via chaotic tariffs, while cutting education, infrastructure and science, which were already bad. This should kill the remains of statesian industry.
The US is lead by a man who was already obscurantist and mentally incompetent before going senile. It runs a $ 2 trillion deficit, so the debt should grow quickly, while GDP grows by meager 1,9% (2025 forecast by IMF) and probably less in the future because of the suicidal cuts mentioned above. Debt to GDP ratio is already at 120%.
World opinion is rapidly turning against US and Israel and towards China and even Russia. The US is already below China and just slightly above Russia. With the US falling and Russia climbing, Russia could surpass the US in the near future.
China on the other hand already has 30% higher real GDP than the US, with 4,8% growth forecast (IMF) for 2025. Its infrastructure and technology are expanding at an incredible rate. China used 6.6 gigatons of concrete in 2011 to 2013 (3 years) while the US used 4.5 gigatons of concrete from 1901 to 2000 (100 years).
I fear the US would still wage a war on China out of desperation; after all, it is a country of bloodthirsty political extremists and religious fanatics. The secretary of "defense" is covered in tattoos glorifying the crusades and wrote a book titled "American Crusade" explaining the US is in a holy war against Islam and China.
But while the US might start such a war, I think it will be fairly short war.
What am I missing?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2014/12/05/china-used-more-concrete-in-3-years-than-the-u-s-used-in-the-entire-20th-century-infographic/
Oh i never claimed their plans would work. but the structure of the US economy does not allow for a peaceful decline of empire. It makea war inevitable. Without Imperialism, global financial control, and dollar dominance the entire house of cards comes falling down.
The singular area the US still has an ability to compete is the military. They do have domestic military production. Unlike nonmilitary goods. Although many of these rely upon raw material imports they are working to secure supply lines for these from areas within the American sphere.
They will inevitably choose to pull the only lever they have left. Their military. History has shown that a dysfunctional and ill planned war can still do massive damage. Look at Germany in WW2. They had no oil and yet went to war anyway. This was ultimately their downfall. The Soviets denied them access to the oil fields and their war machine ground to a halt. Not before doing much damage though.
Now we have a similarly illogical military power who happens to have nuclear weapons. It is a recipe for disaster.
My other post was already long. I agree the US is fiercely opposed to peaceful coexistence with the sovereign world, and its economy is unproductive. If the US loses its ability to pillage other countries, so it finally has to live on its own production, it will find that an ocean of bankers and crypto bros is no substitute for actual workers.
My hope relies on the rapid decline of the empire. We have some time, because the US lacks resources and supply chain to sustain a war on China, and also its population is (I think) too divided to embark in such a disastrous war.
The US easily throws foreign cannon fodder (for example, the South Vietnamese) against its adversaries, and it will certainly try to use millions lives from vassals like Japan and Philippines, but I think all these vassals put together have no chance against the Red Dragon, so the US would still need major direct involvement.
The US recognized its defeat to Vietnam after 50k statesian deaths, so I hope it will not dare attack China and lose hundreds of thousands or millions of statesian lives. Perhaps after 10 years of overt fascism the people will be even more bloodthirsty, but in 10 years I hope the disadvantage will be far greater. In fact, the US bubble might burst before that.
Besides, the Japanese did immense evil to Chinese and Koreans. Unit 731 was quite worse than Mengele. Also many women were enslaved for sex. In 2013 the mayor of Osaka said "comfort women" were necessary to boost the morale of the Imperial Army. Japan never compensated those women, even those who were alive just a few years ago. The corpses of these imperial demons are in Shinto temples for war heroes, still honored by Japanese politicians. My point is, the Chinese must be repressing an boiling ocean of hatred. If I was in China's place and Japan dared attack me again, my retribution would be harsh. Japan must know this. Attacking China would be lunacy.
Now, nuclear war. China already has incredible hypersonic missiles which the US can't stop. According to Wikipedia it already has 600 nuclear bombs, and some time ago I read it planned to massively increase its arsenal by 2030. A US nuclear attack on China would be catastrophic for the US. Besides, statesians may be bloodthirsty maniacs, but the Chinese are wise and rational. I hope they will defeat the US without threatening to occupy its territory.
Will the US still prefer its own death than allowing China to live, even without threat of occupation? I hope not. What do you think?
I think the US will be convinced it can win because it believes its own lies of American Exceptionalism. It will not realize it has gotten in over its head until its too late and my fear at that point is its leader may act emotionally rather than pragmatically.
this is my take on the whole thing https://dialecticaldispatches.substack.com/p/the-us-pivot-to-asia-and-europes
Always nice to re-read one of your pieces. By the way, i just caught this typo:
You probably meant to say Germany's?
Thanks, I was trying to say gas supply from Russia, but yeah saying Germany's would make more sense there :)
I can't help but think that the US is blinded by racism. They see Europe as the biggest game changer, but personally i think Africa is far more important. China seems to agree. Their focus on building a Bloc focuses on the global south not Europe. A major miscalculation by the US in my opinion.
I completely agree, racism is a huge aspect of the whole western project. People who run the empire see themselves as being superior, they see they see the global south purely in colonial terms.
Wonderful read, thank you for sharing.
thanks