US Grand Strategy - As per Kaplan

Jura said:

wow,

Galapagos

"US dismantlement" (LOL!)

ancient Rome

Boers here, have fun now, I failed Yesterday at 2:10 PM
LOL

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LOL. "Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong." (Murphy's law)

"US dismantlement" not starts yet, but will come eventually, as whatever had happened to the British Empire, to USSR, to Qing China Empire, to Ottoman Empire,... will happen to the America Empire. Every empire will be at least chopped away a big chunk of its territory, if not totally dissolved, when it is dead, why not the America Empire?

The "all-mighty" US is still at the stage of its Boer wars in the middle east. It apparently has a big problem to decide whether to fight or to flight in front a backward, weak, small Iran. But the process of empire disintegration can advance very fast if some one hits its acceleration key. Maybe Mr. Trump is America's Mr. Gorbachov who hit the acceleration key for empire dismantlement.

Never mind what it chooses to do with Iran, because either fight, or flight will be a historic failure for the America Empire.

Had the young Winston Churchill known that Ireland's withdrawal from the British Empire in 1948 was related to the Boer wars of the 1890s, he probably would not be so enthusiastic about the wars he was reporting from Southern Africa.

But, yes, not everyone knows history has the tendency to repeat itself. At least, Winston Churchill didn't know it.

Have some fun, some beer, and some sunshine while it is still there. LOL.

Such a rare articulate article for the National Interest but abandoning the Middle East is something I won't agree with as a US grand strategy due to the Middle East own dual importance of its hydrocarbons and it being the strategic connection between Europe and Asia.

AndrewS said:

The US disintegrating over the US Dollar losing its reserve status is not realistic.
Wales and London are not going to declare independence. Although Scotland may do so.

Plus you have to be distinguish between different places in the West.
The Scandinavian countries are almost as "collective" and "income equal" as Japan for example.

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AndrewS said:

The US disintegrating over the US Dollar losing its reserve status is not realistic.

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There is no need to argue if the US will go through a disintegration process after the death of the dollar. But people do need ask why Ireland quit the British union just after India Independence. Irish people will say because we are different. But this is a f**king bad pretext. You guys have been in the union for ages, how cloud you suddenly become different? The real reason is when a union couldn't provide a promising future, everyone in the union will try to find better alternatives.

Could the US without the dollar hegemony provide its member states with a promising future, or unlimited financial distresses? The answer is crystal clear.

AndrewS said:

Wales and London are not going to declare independence. Although Scotland may do so.

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The time course of empire disintegration could be very long, also could be very short. But direction of empire destination is always certain. It heads to smaller and smaller until there is no part of the empire that can be further disintegrated. Wales has showed its intention to quit the British union recently. And London city said it preferred independence if Brex was a reality.

AndrewS said:

Plus you have to be distinguish between different places in the West.
The Scandinavian countries are almost as "collective" and "income equal" as Japan for example.

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The current Scandinavian countries are the result of empire disintegration, and there is no guarantee that these countries will not be further disintegrated from historical prospective, although you obviously don't know there were some world powers called the Swedish Empire and the Dano–Norwegian Realm in that area just a couple hundred years ago.

@Just4Fun

Before you state any more assertions and make a fool of yourself, you need to look at the data.

1. The USA is a continental sized nation which is separated from most of the world by oceans, and is self sufficient in many ways.
It is a single market in terms of goods, transportation, language, people etc
Even if the Dollar loses its reserve status, it will still be in the interests of the individual states to use the Dollar.

2. In 2016, support for London Independence was only 11%. Welsh Independence is currently at 19%. So you're just making things up at this point.

3. When I mention Scandinavia, it is in the context of how their society is organised on a "conformist" model, with very high tax rates at the top, and lots of state redistribution to make everyone "equal". And that is why I say Scandinavia is more like Japan with the emphasis on the "collective" and "income equality".

That stands in stark contrast to the winner takes all culture in the USA. The other countries of Europe are somewhere in between.

And I'm very familiar with the Swedish Empire during the Thirty Years War, thank you very much

Tam said:

Such a rare articulate article for the National Interest but abandoning the Middle East is something I won't agree with as a US grand strategy due to the Middle East own dual importance of its hydrocarbons and it being the strategic connection between Europe and Asia.

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The Middle East is an endless problem that will never have a solution.
Plus oil is steadily losing its importance in the global economy.

And I would disagree that the Middle East is not a strategic connection between Europe and Asia.
Due to geography and costs, the land routes will never be used very much.
And the sea routes between Europe and Asia do not go through the Persian Gulf.
They go through the Suez Canal in Egypt, then the Red Sea and the Guld of Aden.

And you also have to consider the Israel and also Jerusalem.
This matters because the USA is a religious country and the Israel Lobby.

AndrewS said:

The USA is a continental sized nation which is separated from most of the world by oceans, and is self sufficient in many ways.
It is a single market in terms of goods, transportation, language, people etc

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I'm so glad you brought this up. It's precisely for this reason that it's much easier to wrench the US from the western Pacific (and dispossess it of its empire more generally) than most assume: it has a secure position to fall back to.

AndrewS said:

And I would disagree that the Middle East is not a strategic connection between Europe and Asia.

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Whether it is or isn't is, frankly, irrelevant. As Kaplan points out, China is the one doing the dredging and building and trading; America is just hanging out with its military like a common street thug. China needs to have a sufficient naval presence there to make sure the thug understands that he'll have some holes in his chest if he gets fresh.

AndrewS said:

@Just4Fun

Before you state any more assertions and make a fool of yourself, you need to look at the data.

1. The USA is a continental sized nation which is separated from most of the world by oceans, and is self sufficient in many ways.
It is a single market in terms of goods, transportation, language, people etc
Even if the Dollar loses its reserve status, it will still be in the interests of the individual states to use the Dollar.

2. In 2016, support for London Independence was only 11%. Welsh Independence is currently at 19%. So you're just making things up at this point.

3. When I mention Scandinavia, it is in the context of how their society is organised on a "conformist" model, with very high tax rates at the top, and lots of state redistribution to make everyone "equal". And that is why I say Scandinavia is more like Japan with the emphasis on the "collective" and "income equality".

That stands in stark contrast to the winner takes all culture in the USA. The other countries of Europe are somewhere in between.

And I'm very familiar with the Swedish Empire during the Thirty Years War, thank you very much

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AndrewS said:

1. The USA is a continental sized nation which is separated from most of the world by oceans, and is self sufficient in many ways.
It is a single market in terms of goods, transportation, language, people etc
Even if the Dollar loses its reserve status, it will still be in the interests of the individual states to use the Dollar.

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What the US has today, politically, economically, and geographically with the dollar hegemony in place will not be directly translated to what it could still hold politically, economically and geographically, without the dollar hegemony. What you see now will not mean what you can get later when the base of the union is gone.

If the US has a culture that encourages "everyone works for oneself and god take care of the rest", and if the US has a constitution that clearly states that each member state has the right to quit from the union, and if the US has the social environment that promotes individualism and self-determination, it is pretty certain that some rich states will exercise their constitutional right to walk away from the federation, when overseas greenbacks returned to the US like a wave and a wave of tsunami, depressing everything financially, thus making everyone poorer. At that time, every state would say "It's not our fault. Why should we be punished with the ridiculous war debts, falling real estate price, falling living standard and shrinking wealth?" And there is no way to solace their anger and pains except letting them quit from the union.

There will be no guarantee that every individual state will find it is in its own best interest to continue to use a currency that keeps depreciating. When the house is on fire, everyone will try to run away from it.

AndrewS said:

2. In 2016, support for London Independence was only 11%. Welsh Independence is currently at 19%. So you're just making things up at this point.

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And what are the numbers just a couple of years ago? Unnoticeable, right?

More importantly, with or without Wales and London, can anyone deny that British's territory is shrinking? Or should we wait to say so until Scotland is gone, or N. Ireland is gone? You can see that happen if you live long enough.

AndrewS said:

3. When I mention Scandinavia, it is in the context of how their society is organised on a "conformist" model, with very high tax rates at the top, and lots of state redistribution to make everyone "equal". And that is why I say Scandinavia is more like Japan with the emphasis on the "collective" and "income equality".

That stands in stark contrast to the winner takes all culture in the USA. The other countries of Europe are somewhere in between.

And I'm very familiar with the Swedish Empire during the Thirty Years War, thank you very much

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As I said earlier, the direction of empire disintegration is from small to smaller, until there is no part left in the empire that can be further disintegrated. Scandinavia countries can have relatively coherent social value chiefly because they have been disintegrating and they now probably have reached the place indivisible. They are homogeneous in race, ethnicity or / and religion. It is always easy to reach consensus and to hold coherent value firm if a society is homogeneous. This is also why the US disintegration is inevitable when dollar hegemony is gone because it is a big, and highly heterogeneous country without firm cultural banding.

Closing the thread due to political content.