Chaos in the world? Wonder why?

Apr 14, 2024, 10:31 AM

Long post warning: this is a long post with a lot o' words. Feel totally free to not read it...just as I totally feel free to write it.

As a nation, we Americans love to politicize sh!t, and for some reason, we seem to have this notion we can stop every bad thing that happens out in the world. We love to say: "This is all Trump's fault." Or: "This never would have happened if Trump was in office."

To which I say: bullsh!t. Sure, Trump's kowtowing to Russia encouraged their aggression, but Russia's a mean junkyard dog straining on its leash at the best of times. They rough up their neighbors because that's how Russia has always worked; they're an aggressor empire that surrounds their core with buffer-zone captive states. Joe's disasterous withdrawal from Afghanistan pantsed us and made us look even weaker on the world stage. But most of the bad things happening in the world have very little to do with us. Actually, for almost 80+ years now, a whole lot of bad stuff hasn't happened in the world because of us. We like to say in public: "We aren't the world's policemen"...and then we've always turned around and acted like the World Police every time some warlord in Somalia decides to commit genocide on his countrymen, or when Houthi pirates appear in the Red Sea to eff with global shipping, or when somebody like Iran invades Kuwait in a clear attempt to get a monopoly on oil. It's been on us. Every single time. And we've always stepped up and done the job.

Since WW2 - actually, since before WW2 ended, since the deal was made at the Bretton Woods conference in July of 1944 at the Mount Washington Hotel in New Hampshire, it's the single most significant event in modern history nobody seems to know anything about - there has been a specific order to the world, an order maintained by us.

That world order has a name: globalism, or the "Bretton Woods System". We set up the IMF, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization. And basically: anybody can trade with anybody else anywhere in the world, and on our own dime, the USA will use our navy to keep the sea lanes clear, and we'll use our army to ensure military adventurism that can effect that trade is suppressed. In exchange, everybody else can do their own thing.

There was only one thing you had to do in exchange: be on our side against the Soviet Union.

For two obvious reasons, that system is ending. Reason #1 - it's increasingly evident Russia is not the Soviet Union and is becoming far more of a regional than a global threat, what the military buffs like to refer to as a "Tier 2" threat. At one point the Soviets had 55,000 tanks in East Germany poised to overrun Western Europe and almost 400 submarines poised to flood the Atlantic, and all of NATO combined was outnumbered by their military more than three to one. Russia clearly ain't that anymore (though only an idiot would let that mean puppy dog get off the chain and start rebuilding that old empire.) The only thing, really, that keeps Russia at Tier 1 are their nukes. Reason #2 is also simple: China's trying to unseat us as the dominant power in this order...while somehow still counting on us to maintain that order for them. I mean, why the $^&$ would we do that? Why on Earth would we use our own Navy - at vast expense - to keep all the warlords and potential enemies who could disrupt the trade the Chinese so depend upon - you know, like India and those Houthis - from disrupting their shipping? Even, you know, as they seem intent on building a military designed specifically to attack the very same Navy that's been protecting their trade?

So be it Trump or Biden, one thing is becoming clear to everyone: America is increasingly losing interest in maintaining that global trade order, especially since China's cheating like he!! at it while working to unseat us as the Alpha Dog. Trump just said the quiet part out loud when he declared: "America needs to stop getting caught up in foreign (real) wars" and declared (trade) war on Chinese exports...and while Biden has been a lot more involved in world affairs, he's also shown zero interest in putting American boots down in foreign soil, and has doubled and tripled down on American hostility towards Chinese trade. As a nation, there's just no appetite for maintaining the old order. Yeah, we're annoyed at the Houthis. We're peeved with Iran. We'll still take potshots at them from a distance from time to time. But does anybody in the US - well, except for maybe John Bolton - want to wade in and start another war?

I mean: what's in it for us?

Nothin'. Nada. Zero. Zilch. We bled ourselves white in Iraq and Afghanistan, and got less than nothing back in return. As a nation, on both sides of the aisle, we're pretty much done with all that. We'll help where we can, sure, but the world can sort its own sh!t out. We're all pretty much there, I think.

And the world sees that, and bad actors are stepping into the void. And the "rules-based world order" we have maintained since the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944 is crumbling. An age of war and conflict is likely coming. I don't know if there's any way to stop it at this point. We don't want to enough...and I don't know if we could even if we wanted to.

It isn't that we're being weak. It's just that there's no pressing reason anymore for us to save people from themselves, especially when they're increasingly snapping at the hand that's been feeding them. And the world is duly going apesh!t now that the World Police are stepping back.

And yeah, it's unsettling. The world is indeed going crazy and it's scary to watch. But the only alternative is yet another big war, this one likely against Iran and possibly also against China over Taiwan.

Is anybody here up for that?

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In theory it should still work. You're not catching up with the missile

I genuinely don't know. I don't have much of a crystal ball. Peter Zeihan's been doing a really interesting web series on what the world looks like "Post-America" - which means what happens when America finally does take that last step back from the Bretton Woods system and just lets the pieces fall where they may, not the end of America itself - and it's really fascinating. And in many, many cases...very grim.

I keep saying this, but while the world may be tired of us and we did bring a certain amount of that on ourselves, the world is also very much going to miss us when we're gone. Up until Bretton Woods the world had always been about clashing empires, and it looks very much intent on returning to that...even as the US is sort of falling back to a pan-Anglo inner circle that also likely includes Japan, Mexico, and - shockingly - Vietnam, in addition to Canada, Australia, New Zealand...and whether they like it or not, England. The limies pretty much sealed that fate when they Brexited the EU - which isn't long for this world anyhow - and we're the last game left on Earth, and at some point the Brits are going to have to bow to the inevitable and come to us with hat in hand. They'll be grumpy about it.

The rest of the world...I don't think we'll much care, as long as it doesn't trouble us. What happens then is likely really bad, since so many of those nations have become extraordinarily dependent on the global order. What happens when Africa - which is on a razor's edge as far as food supply anyway -can't get farm equipment and fertilizer from the US or Europe? What happens when the Chinese can't get fuel out of the Middle East and Russia because India's blocking it or there's widespread war in that part of the world? What happens when Iran and Saudi Arabia finally go at it with serious intent? What happens when Russia collapses, and China? Because all that's coming, and a whole lot more.

I think as a nation we pretty much need to batten the hatches and ride it out, protect our little coalition, and acknowledge we really can't stop it. We did our part and then some for 80 years...but I don't see how we keep it going much longer.

An example from Zeihan:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8v8AT1Q9-iI