Use to discuss topics unrelated to recent posts.
I’m a trained historian. At least I consider myself one, with a Master’s in History and in International Relations, I think I qualify. But, today I must confess to a dilettantish interest in the history of mathematics. Now, please understand that I am no mathematician. I struggled through college algebra. I will, however, add that when I completed college algebra my analytical faculties grew so profoundly—at least to me in hindsight—that I made the Dean’s List every semester thereafter. So, I believe there is something quite important to be said about learning how to solve for ’n’ that we should impart to our children. In the beginning the abstract nature of algebra confounded me, but once I was able to conceptualize it, I began mastering the equations and, as aforementioned, my intellectually faculties grew rapidly and intensely. Soon, my intolerance for fucktose in an history text—or any text for that matter— become keen, acute and annoying as hell to many of my fellow junior and senior history seminar classmates. But I digress. This is about math. Let me add before the next paragraph begins that I also never took calculus. But we’ll get to calculus soon.
First, my fascination began with Euclid and how he systematized and synthesized Egyptian and Babylonian ideas into a coherent structure of elements that led to modern plane geometry. The dude took the wisdom of the pyramid builders and the ziggurat builders and discovered a way of looking at the world to build in new ways. That takes a hell of a mind, one I can appreciate, even at his far of a distance in time. As I studied Euclid I learned that Babylonia used a base-sixty numerical system. While the Egyptians used a base-ten system. The Egyptians were the first to utilize fractions around 1000 BC. Then, in the 5th century BC the Indians in an attempt to square the circle calculated the square root of two correctly to five decimal places. Then around 300 BC the Indians used Brahmi numerals to further refine the true ancestor to our base-ten system. At the same time the Babylonians invented the abacus.
The poor Romans didn’t do diddly for mathematics. Imagine complex calculations with Roman numerals? Screw that. But they sure used them to build roads and survey, among other things. So, kudos to them for applied mathematics. At lot of stuff happened between the Romans and the next development. Stuff which I am skipping because I’m trying to get to a simple point without using two thousand words to do so.
Something truly remarkable happened in India in 628 AD. Brahmagupta wrote a book that clearly explains and delineates the role of zero in a proton-hind Arabic script. This was positively revolutionary. He is the clear discoverer of the modern place value system of numbers, as well. Well, natural numbers, that is.
And now stuff really begins to accelerate.
In 810 the House of Wisdom is built in Baghdad for express purpose of translating Greek and Sanskrit mathematical and philosophical texts. Ten years later, in 820 a Persian from Khwarazm—the delta of the Oxus River into the former Aral Sea discovered a way to solve linear and quadratic equations. His name was al-Khwarizmi and his book was called Al Jabr—which was Europeanized into algebra. His book, once it reached Europe three and a half centuries later introduces the Hindu-Arabic numeral system that is adopted wholesale by the nascent scientific community emerging in the earliest European universities. Universities also have a Muslim Golden Age pedigree, coming from the great Persian vizier to the Seljuk Sultan of Central Asia Malik Shah, Nizam al-Mulk. His Nizamiyyas, now known as madrassas, were built all over the Seljuk realm and were the earliest versions of universities, where men came from all over to learn many different topics. Sadly, the madrassas fell into stagnation when al-Ghazali closed the gates of ijtihad (open questioning) in 1091 with his book The Incoherence of the Philosophers. The Muslim Golden Age ended that year.
Now, between the foundation of the earliest European universities and Isaac Newton, a lot of essential groundwork was laid for Ike’s work. I seek not to diminish any of that. But Newton begat not one, not two, not three but four revolutions in science: optics, mathematics, mechanics and gravity. His discovery of infinitesimal calculus is literally the base for modern rocket science as he used it to calculate and predict with stunning accuracy movements of heavenly bodies, hitherto impossible. Newton is simply the single greatest mind in the history of human science. He stands on the shoulders of some mighty men, but his accomplishments are of the ages.
Now, I come to the point. In this essay I have used a very specific word with each mathematical advance I have discussed. That word is “discovered.” I have purposefully eschewed the use of “invented.” And I have done so for a damn good reason. I am what you call a ‘mathematical Platonist.’ Said theory is defined by Wikipedia as “the form of realism that suggests mathematical entities are abstract, have no spatiotemporal or causal properties, and are eternal and unchanging.” Thus, as the Brits would say, ‘maths’ are discovered. However, the opposite of said theory is mathematical nominalism, which has its merits and is defined as, “the philosophical view that abstract mathematical objects like numbers, sets, and functions do not exist in reality, or at least do not exist as abstract entities independent of concrete things or the mind.” Thus as we Yanks say, they be invented.
So why did I write this essay? Because this discussion on the merits of the two theories is utterly fascinating to me. And if you have ten minutes and a solid high school foundation in mathematics you will most certainly understand and appreciate it. The interview engrossed me from the first question.
One final note: Ms. Jonas, the philosopher of math being interviewed says that she is 87% certain mathematical Platonism is correct, I’ll add my confidence level as about 59%. Why? Because there is some set theory ideas I simply cannot wrap my danged head around–I reckon my grey matter isn’t as big or maybe as sophisticated as Ian’s. I licked logic in college with an A+ but this set theory stuff. Good grief. The paradoxes drive me wonko! (If you get the reference add ten bonus points to your final grade.)
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“The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been.”
三国演义 ~by Luo Guangzhong
Earlier I promised to post my plan to prevent a war between the United States and China over Taiwan. I’ve traveled and met with Taiwanese diplomats. They are some of the most sophisticated operators I’ve ever encountered. Taiwan is a highly advanced technological country. Very wealthy, with a sophisticated full coverage heath care system and a vibrant democracy. Furthermore, based on the Shanghai Communique issued on February 27, 1972 by Nixon and Mao, both mainland China and the USA formally acknowledged that “all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China”.
The Communique goes on to state the US side does not accept a violent solution to the unification of the two parties and the Chinese side retains the option to violence if Taiwan ever declares independence, paraphrasing here, folks. It’s been a long time since reading my Kissinger.
Conversely, I have traveled seven times to China. Here is an idea most Americans will probably never understand. China’s potential to utilize enormous amounts of soft power is profound. This is based on China’s circular view of history and that China has been invaded and ruled by foreign powers many times in its history. In each and every case China has overcome said invaders very differently than the way the Russians have. Or anyone else for that matter. Where the Russians trade space for time to husband their resources for a great counter attack and push the invader out of the country, China seduces the invader, with its ancient, deep, amazing and incredibly seductive culture. I cannot emphasize enough the depth, breadth, and tantalizing sophistication of its culture, be it material, artistic, political or spiritual. I do, after all, practice Chinese Chan Buddhism in my own life. Every time China has been invaded and completely taken over by a foreign power this strategy works. Even today we’re watching Chinese movies on Netflix. That is the use and export of soft power. And unlike America, that has only 250 years of history to draw upon its soft power, China has almost 4000 years of history to draw upon. The efficacy of Chinese soft power is not to be underestimated. It is indeed seductive.
Now the question moves to goals and intentions. And here an understanding of Chinese history can aid us in a better understanding of the present Chinese leader, Xi Jing Ping.
What are Xi Jing Ping’s true goals? Simple, he seeks membership among the greatest of Chinese emperors. The greatest of Chinese emperors are judged by a single metric: did they unify all of China? As the opening sentence of the great Chinese novel, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, I quoted at the beginning of this essay, unification is the way the Chinese see themselves when in a golden age.
This compulsion to unify all of China is the defining source of Xi’s ambitions. And that means Taiwan. Taiwan is the last remaining province of a fully unified China. China equal to that ruled by the Qin Shih Huang Di, the very first emperor to unify all of China, or the great conqueror Han Wu Di, or Li Shimin of the mighty T’ang or Zhu Yuanzhang of the wall building Ming. It is to this rank of Chinese men that Xi aspires.
What should America do? I have spent a lot of time thinking about how to avoid a war with China that most people are certain is inevitable. They call it the “Thucydides Trap.” But, if the study of history has taught me anything it is that nothing is inevitable, contingencies matter, and human agency means the most. We may live in a complex adaptive system, but nothing, nothing is inevitable. Therefore, America must find a way tone down its arrogance and find a way to peacefully unite Taiwan with China.
Here is how I would do it if I were president.
First, I would engage in a series of CBM’s (Confidence Building Measures in diplospeak) with Xi Jing Ping regarding our naval stance in the Straits of Taiwan. I would make it policy that no American naval ships traverse the Straits of Taiwan any longer. Then I would halt the sale of advanced weapons to Taiwan.
Second, I would begin preparing the Taiwanese to consider peaceful unification with the mainland along the lines of the British handover of Hong Kong to China in the 90s. I would make it clear that we would not consider unification unless Taiwan was allowed to keep its democracy, and democratic traditions for a minimum of 80 years. I would do this to assuage the Taiwanese about a possible authoritarian takeover of the island in the case of unification. China did one nation, two systems successfully once before. They can do it again.
Third, I would secretly engage Xi Jing Ping with the following proposal: the United States of America would fully encourage and accept the unification of Taiwan with the mainland under the following conditions. Number one, Taiwan would have three representatives on the politburo, one of which would be a power ministry, either interior, defense, or foreign affairs. My fallback position, which is my true goal of course, would be the acceptance of two politburo members from Taiwan, but I would not relent on one serving as a power minister in one of the three ministries aforementioned.
I am relatively certain that Xi and the current politburo would agree to this proposal. It would serve to put Xi in the exhalted ranks of Chinese leaders in which he craves to be included. Mos timportantly, it would not harm a single vital national interest of the United States. The Chinese might have a salient in the first island chain, that being the island of Taiwan, but the United States would still have Korea, Japan, Okinawa, and the Philippines. Not to mention the defenses in depth that the second island chain provides us in the Pacific ocean. Much less the great fortress of the third island chain of Midway, Wake and Hawaii. Defenses in depth matter much more than a salient in the first island chain.
Now, I recognize this goes against every national security intellectuals thinking. It is completely contrarian. But the more I’ve thought about it over the last few years the more I believe that is the best way to avoid general warfare between two nuclear great powers from the Straits of Malacca to the South China Sea and into the deep blue waters of the Pacific.
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My favorite Charlie Kirk quote is:
I can’t stand the word empathy, actually, I think it’s a made up new age term, and it does a lot of damage.
But Charlie wasn’t just a one-note ideological thinker.
I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational.”
Kirk was, needless to say, all for the Gaza genocide, but he was for it by lying about it. Most famously, he denied starvation in Gaza.
Anyway, Kirk was an evil, pro-genocide douchebag, who was shot, which he said was an acceptable price to pay for the second amendment. I’m not going to waste crocodile tears on someone who actively worked for the mass murder of civilians and who died in a way he thought was an acceptable sacrifice.
But we need to unpack this properly. One thing commenters on the right have been saying is that Charlie may have died, in full of in part, because of neo-liberals and the left calling him and people like him Nazi or fascist.
Now I don’t know the motives of who killed him, but in our society many people do genuinely believe that killing Nazis was justified and the right way to deal with them. There’s a version that swings left, of course. “The only good Commie, is a dead Commie.” The Black Book of Communism and the constant reminders of deaths under Mao and Stalin are meant to justify this sort of hatred, as reminders of the Holocaust and German war crimes are to justify killing Nazis.
So the right isn’t wrong. If you call someone a Nazi there’s a certain subtext where “and killing him would be justified” is implied. Fascist is weaker, but same general idea.
But the reverse version is Communist/Marxist/Socialist. The right calls their enemies this all the time and it has the same implication. “Cultural Marxist” was the battle cry used by people like Kirk to justify purges of the university system of left wing professors.
I don’t want to imply these are mirror phenomena. The fact is that since the early 20th century being Communist, Marxist or Socialist has been much more likely get one fired, jailed, deported, beaten or killed than being a fascist. Indeed, there was a huge taboo against calling anyone a Nazi, so much so that doing so was considered “losing the argument.”
It took a lot of boundary pushing in the right for that taboo to be partially broken.
Back in 2016, during Trump’s first run for the Presidency, I wrote that constantly calling him a fascist or Nazi, and branding resistance ANTIFA would naturally lead to violence, because if someone is a Nazi, violence isn’t just justified to stop them, it’s a moral imperative to use any means necessary including violence to oppose them.
But in America, the same is true of stopping Communism or socialism or Marxism. And the same is true of calling Abortion a holocaust.
So what’s happened here is that the shoe is now on both feet. The right had their Commies and their abortion Holocaust to justify their actions. Now the center has Nazis and the left has Nazis and the Gaza genocide to justify their violence.
By their lights, all three sides are justified in violence. If Commies and Nazis and Genocide are true evil, and if all sides have committed genocides and are Nazis (right) and Commies (left/center) then, indeed, it is ethically required to use any means necessary to stop them.
What we’re seeing right now is a cry from all the “responsible people” of “don’t resort of political violence! It’s never justified!” (This in a country formed by violent revolution, who’s almost always mass murdering people for political reasons.)
But the issue is that the right and, actually, the center, are acting like fascists, at the least, and really like Nazis. (That whole inconvenient genocide thing.)
The right’s case is weaker, unless you do view abortion as a Holocaust, in which case, yes, you are hard pressed not to find yourself wondering why you aren’t murdering the abortionists. Neoliberals aren’t left wing, socialists or communist and there are no socialists or communists anywhere near power in the US. The right calls neoliberals the left and pretends “cultural Marxism” is Marxism, so they’re really Stalinists, which is ludicrous to anyone who knows the politically correct crew that the right calls “cultural Marxists.”
If you want avoid domestic political violence over these issues (though it’s all really a proxy for the impoverishment of the majority of the population) you either have to decide that being a Nazi (pro genocide, pro gestapo/ICE thugs) is OK, or stop being a Nazi. On the other side, you have to give up abortion or decide that it isn’t a Holocaust. And since “cultural Marxism” is really proxy for a series of policies meant to help women and various racial and sexual minorities, you have to decide whether prejudice, including legal prejudice against them is OK (Issue one) and whether or not they deserve any sort of helping hand (a separate issue. You could keep them legally equal and let them keep their rights like gay marriage and the female vote but get rid of affirmative action and so on.)
In other words, to avoid political violence over ideology, you need to have the vast majority of the population agree on what is acceptable. Is genocide is OK? Abortion? Affirmative Action. Women having the vote? (Peter Thiel, who bankrolled Vance, has suggested women shouldn’t have the right to vote.) Gays marrying. People being able to choose their own gender. Police raids by badgeless masked men without warrants from unmarked vans.
If people don’t agree on what is right and the red lines being crossed are of “this is a holocaust” or “this is completely destroying millions of people’s lives” then of course it’s going to break out into political violence. Expecting otherwise and hand waving that “we should kill over difference in opinion about whether it’s OK to commit genocide” are ludicrous and pathetic and foolish.
There’s political violence because Americans disagree over life and death issues as large as, but not limited to “should we commit genocides?” Well, again, that and general immiseration, which lowers the ignition point.
If you don’t want political violence, don’t wag your finger and say “political violence is bad, ‘kay”, either agree as a society to be a bunch of Nazis with an immiserated population, or decide not to be Nazis and make sure that almost everyone has a good life.
As for Kirk, I’m glad he got a death in line with his beliefs: making the ultimate sacrifice for the right of Americans to bear arms. It was “worth it” and I will assume he meant that, and if he still exists he’s at peace, having died for what he truly believed.
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I was discussing Indian corruption with Sean-Paul the other day, and we had to really break down what we meant by corruption. That lead to a simple classification system, so I’m sharing it with it.
Everyday vs. Elite Corruption
Do you bribe the policeman or the minor bureaucrat to get a permit. Do you grease everyone with even a tiny bit of to get what you want, and it is it expected? Is it essentially required, in the sense that if you don’t consequences are nasty: arrest or or dential, Or at best, whatever you needed done taking forever and being shoddily done.
This is everyday corruption. India is rife with it. America, mostly, doesn’t have it. Russia used to have it, but I’m told by Sean-Paul, that at least in Moscow, it’s now gone.
Elite corruption is when the elites are self-greasing. Whenever anything is done, it is done in a way where somebody rich can take a cut. Contracting to build new infrastructure is where the contracts are inflated is the standard, but there are tons of variations. Most Western nations have this. The US or the UK is probably the worst among major countries. But it exists in Russia and (though much less than before) in China.
Honest vs. Dishonest Corruption
In honest corruption you get what you pay for. In everyday corruption your visa gets stamped, your parking ticket disappears, you get the permit you needed, or city workers show up and connect your new place to power, water and sewage. At the elite level, if if a bridge, or hospital or park or space program was promised, it is delivered on time and on budget. It’s just that the budget includes 10% grease. Some other games may be played. If you know where new facilities will be built you could, say, buy up property that will soon increase in price, then sell once it does.
But bottom line, what is delivered at the end is delivered on time or with minor delays and it works. It’s not shoddy. China during most of the Deng period had a lot of honest elite corruption. Everyone was taking a cut. But they bloody well had to deliver and if they didn’t, they lost their place at the elite table and might even end up in prison or executed. American in the late 19th and early 290th century mostly had honest corruption. Tammany Hall was corrupt, but they also kept their promises. The great railroads and bridges and parks got built, and were generally built well and on time.
Dishonest Corruption Is when you whoever is corrupt doesn’t have to deliver. You pay off the cop and he throws you in jail anyway. You bribe the bureaucrat and he still drags his feet getting you approval, if you get it at all. The first payment is never the last payment, the idea is to drain you of as much as possible.
At the elite level dishonest corruption is that the street or building was promised and funded but somehow either never gets finished or takes twice as long and three times as much and then, once done, it usually turns out to be shoddily built. A new program for veterans/homeless/cancer/whatever is promised, but somehow it’s slow and ineffective and doesn’t do much, but a few people make a lot of money off of it. Promises mean nothing, nothing is delivered on time and what little is delivered is of crap quality. Meanwhile insider trading is everywhere, taxes always go down on the rich and up on the poor and middle class and programs which used to work are slowly degraded into uselessness so that someone can make more money.
This is the US or the UK and Canada and indeed all neoliberal countries. It’s actually more or less the definition of neoliberalism. Effectiveness is nothing and efficiency is really only about how efficient something is at funneling money to the rich. It is also India, which is why India is, despite some progress, still screwed. It’s run by criminals from top to bottom. Ironically, in my experience (which is out of date, I’m happy to be corrected) low level Indian corruption is “honest’ in that you get what you pay for. High level Indian corruption is dishonest as hell. No big project ever works properly, comes in on time and is effective. (This is why I’m still negative on India.)
There’s also a middle corruption, slice for everyone. This is where everyone involved in the project gets some. So the workers get some, the managers get some, and the contractors gets some. Everyone is being greased. This doesn’t mean just having a job, it means being paid better and treated better than at a non corrupt job.
The honest and dishonest versions are as normal. Honest “slice for everyone” corruption still delivers what was promised at reasonable quality. Dishonest “slice fore everyone” doesn’t deliver or delivers absolute crap.
Obviously no corruption is best, but equally obviously honest corruption is better. If you have to have any corruption, then honest elite corruption or honest slice for everyone corruption is best. Low level corruption is always bad, since it means “if you don’t have money, you’re never treated fairly and you can’t break out of the bottom” but if you must have it honest is better than dishonest.
Growing up a lot in what was then called the third world, then observing politics for years all of this has been well known by me, but I never really broke it down properly, it was pretty much “implicit knowledge” as much that we learn young is.
For your reading displeasure.
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First, I want to follow up on this: “I am due to have a conversation with a friend that lives in Denmark tomorrow and I’m going to ask him about energy prices.”
His reply, and I paraphrase as I did not record it or take notes: “if we still had to make our house payment, we would be totally screwed. The amount of money that we pay for energy now is about equal to what our house payment used to be. It’s about five times higher than it normally is, but what’s even worse is the high cost of energy filters out into everything in the Danish economy. A simple item like bread is three times higher than it used to be. Specialty items are three or four times higher than they used to be. Fish from fisherman that we go to the docks to buy from because we live on an island is four times more expensive because they’re paying four times more for the energy they’re using to go out and fish. It’s brutal and it’s all because the United States or somebody allied with it blew up the Nord stream pipeline. I try to keep my mouth shut about this because most people have drank the Kool-Aid, but I really hope Russia wins because I’m sick of all this global elite bullshit.”
These words were spoken by a well educated American married to a Dane with two teen-aged Danish children. If the Danish economy is suffering like this Germany must be fucked.
Where does Europe get its energy now? From the US, now exporting LNG (liquid natural gas) to Europe for 4x the price of Russian and Turkmen natural gas. Here is my question as a Texan: why haven’t natural gas prices risen in tandem with the export of the commodity? People I have asked who recieve natural gas royalties are pissed because there is no price increase pass through. So, owners of the wells are getting screwed and so are the buyers of the product. Welcome to Oligarchical America.
Next I want to address a handful of commenters in my post, best reprersented by Mark Level. He writes, in a very gracious and polite comment that he takes issue with my outline of American Grand Strategy. He notes, “This insane hobby-horse (or idee fixe, choose your metaphor) dates back far more than 120 years, probably 3x that long, and originates in British Colonial phobias about Russia and “the East” generally. Halford John Mackinder developed this lunacy & published it almost exactly 120 years ago, but it had a long pre-natal development among arrogant Imperial gits in Asia. (Gits and twits, upper-class British twits, like the Monty Python sketch.) See here, and the delightful childish fantasy of being Alexander Magnus from this Mackinder thought bubble . . . .”
Please note, first and foremost, I used the word hostile power or hostile coalition. Hostile being the primary variable.
I’ve read Mackinder’s works. Anyone who has traveled across the Silk Road pretty much has to read them. His idea is not necessarily original. It’s more a fusion of ideas that came out of the late 18th century and 19th century Western European dominance of the world that began, as I previously mentioned, with the defeat of Venice in 1509, Portugal’s conquest of a Spice Empire, and its desrtuction of the Ottoman Navy in the Indian Ocean, thus having no rivals, and of course Spain’s rapacious theft of New World gold and silver.
During the 17th and 18th century, a new idea developed with the growth of the British Navy, who outstripped the Dutch and pretty much took over their empire. New York City was, after all, New Amsterdam. What these developments presaged was an idea that centered around the ascendancy of the Littoral powers over the Continental Empires that had ruled Eurasia for millenia. Gunpowder, boats, better firearms, better steel and in the New World, devastating disease leading to genocide in many cases up and down North and South America. The Littoral is defined by strategists “as those land areas (and their adjacent areas and associated air space) that are susceptible to engagement and influence from the sea.” Thus the emphasis on a strong navy by Alfred Thayer Mahan who proved just how dominant Littoral Powers could be. For a time, that is, only for a time, as I see it.
Add to this ascendancy the wars of the Western European powers of the United Kingdom, Spain, France, and the Holy Roman Empire primarily fought during the 18th century for two strategic reasons, primarily by two very different nations with very different vital national interests at stake.
One, was the United Kingdom’s insistence that no power could dominate the Low Lands of the Netherlands and later Belgium because if they could, it would threaten an invasion of the British Isles, plus their massive exports of wool textiles, fueling the nascent industrial revolution. Smart, if ruthless policy.
Second, we must understand France‘s main goal during the wars of this time (and for several centruies prior) was to ensure a divided Germany. So long as the German states were littered into 100 different little principalities France had nothing to worry about. Thus France could go on dominating the continent. The first seismic change to this was the War of the Sixth Coalition which saw for the first time Russia flex its true potential when Russian troops occupied Paris. France’s cataclysm occured not in 1941 but in 1870 with her defeat in the Franco-Prussian war. The result of which was Prussia unifying all of Germany into one empire, adding insult to injury by having the Kaiser crowned in Versailles and taking Alsace Lorraine away as its prize.
Fuse those two strategies together and it is not too far an intellectual leap, considering the Great Game going on at the time between the UK and the Russian Empire, for Mackinder to conjure up his ideas. Were his ideas taken up by the United Kingdom? You bet, but by 1917 when it was clear that the United Kingdom could no longer maintain the balance of power in Europe and the United States had to intervene, (everyone should read AJP Taylor’s magnum opus, The Struggle For Mastery in Europe, to understand the balance of power and its collapse in 1917) US foreign policy intellectuals adopted it. And rightly so.
I think it’s the correct idea. But my reasons for thinking it’s the correct idea are not gonna make many of you happy. You might have to face some hard truths. Oh yeah, I did tell you I was a Realist in the old school manner of the word? In fact there have been a few times when Ian has chastened me pretty seriously for my realism. With that admisssion I will make another one: I don’t mind the criticism from Ian or from others. Ian is probably the smartest person I’ve ever met in my life and I listen to what he has to say. And when I say listen to him, I mean, I consider his words deeply. A man who cannot change his mind will never change anything. Nevertheless, I digress.
Here are my reasons for why I believe the prevention of a single hostile power or coalition of hostile powers from dominating the Eurasian landmass is smart policy. Please, if you take anything away from this sentence, take the meaning hostile.
Number one: the Monroe Doctrine. Oh, I hear you screaming already. But the fact is that if this were not “our” hemisphere, not a one of us would have the standard of living we do today. Our hegemony of the Western Hemisphere is the primary foundation of our wealth and our power. You might not like it. I grimace frequently at the crimes we comitt to protect it. But, the Westphalian System is not built on justice. It is built on the acceptance of international anarchy. Each nation to its own. There is no single sovereign power governing planet Earth. Thus, violence is the supreme authority from which all other authority is derived. Is this a grim Hobbesian outlook? Yes. I don’t like it and I’m pretty sure you don’t either. But as a realist, I take the world as it is, not as I desire it to be. A hostile power or coalition of hostile powers that dominate Eurasia can take that hegemony away. You might not like it but trust me when I say you don’t want that to happen.
Second, a hostile power or coalition of hostile powers that dominate Eurasia can take more than our hegemony away, it/they can invade us. We don’t want that either. Thus we have a powerful navy that projects power to keep Eurasia divided–for the time being, because I think if we get into a war with China, their indirect way of war–read your Sun Tzu–will probably outwit us on the high seas. I’ve spent a great deal of time in China and have a healthy fear of their capabilities. However, my greatest fear is that in our arrogance we will engender the very hostility we must prevent and by our own devices bring about the doom we should seek to avoid. We have lost our edge, our generosity of spirit and our understanding of power. We have become a mean spirited, two-bit, cheap and vulgar people. And sadly, because so many of us are beaten down economically by rich elites who are delusional, we’re going to lose a big war in a painful way. A war that could be avoided, but probably won’t be. I hope I’m wrong, but don’t think I am.
That said, these very wise words, written by Robert D. Kaplan recently, convey the gravity of our present predicament, “There is no prediction. It is only through coming to terms with the past and vividly, realizing the present that we can have premonitions about the future.” Moreover, as a wise woman wrote about history, “the more I study history, the more I learn the art of prophecy.” Deeply contradictory statements, yet both true in their essence.
Are we any more perceptive now about what awaits our planet than were the Russians of 1917, or all of Europe in 1914, and, for that matter, the Germans of the 1920s and the early 30s?
Do we honestly think we know better than they did? With all of our gadgets and our technological triumphalism I bet you there are a handful of you out there that think we do know better than they did. I hate to disappoint you, but we don’t. History is the story of contingency and human agency, not inevtiablity.
So, there it is. Rip me to shreds if you wish. I’ve suffered enough Shakespearean arrows of outrageous fortune in my 54 years to handle it. In fact, I welcome your ideas and if you got this far I’m grateful for your time.
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Chinese and American flags flying together
One of my long term predictions, coming true before our eyes, was that the world would fall into a new cold war, forming two trade blocs. I hoped it wouldn’t happen, I suggested ways to avoid it (including Europe forming the nucleus of a third bloc), but so far it appears correct.
Khrushchev famously said “we will bury you!” Looking back and knowing that the USSR and Warsaw Pact collapsed, we laugh.
But he had reason to believe it. Soviet style Communism had some issues, but in the 50s, it looked like the superior system. It had avoided the Great Depression, it had been the most powerful state in the coalition defeating the Nazis, it had by far and away a larger military than NATO and its economy was growing faster.
This last bit really worried the West. The miracle of compound growth, and all that. The Soviets weren’t just growing faster than the West, they had been doing so for a couple decades.
The West had strengths, including a larger population, a corner strategic position, a larger economy (even if growing slower) and the technological and scientific lead.
When the Soviets put a man into space first that scared the hell out of the West.
Now, of course, in the end they did “lose.”
Now take a look at the “Golden Billion”, NATO plus Japan and South Korea. Lower population. Weaker military (yes, it is.) Behind in 80% of techs. Slower economic growth. Smaller real economy (industrial/resources.) They still might be considered to have a corner position (though not once the Chinese unambiguously have the stronger navy, which they will), but it’s the only advantage they have.
The original Cold war started off with NATO leading in tech/population/economy/position, and behind it economic growth/military size.
This cold war starts with the “Golden Billion” ahead only in strategic position. (Continental US, Europe as a corner position.) Arguably even this isn’t true, given that South Korea and Japan are now key parts of the coalition and extremely vulnerable. As we speak, the US is slashing spending on research and tech, with only a few exceptions (like AI.)
No one, and I mean no one with least bit of historical understand or common sense would bet on the “Golden Billion”. If you are doing so you are stupid. Yes, there’s a small chance, but it is tiny.
The only sane and statesmanlike response from those in charge of American vassal states is to figure out how to switch sides, without the US wrecking them, and how to get a good deal. If you can’t, the question is how to avoid the US looting you during its decline. As Sean-Paul Kelley wrote on Sunday:
The chaos of rising energy prices is devastating European industry. In the last year alone Germany has lost 196,000 businesses. I repeat 196,000 businesses in Germany closed in one year. That’s devastating to any economy, but Germany long the economic engine of Europe and the EU is deindustrializing for one simple reason: the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline, which has been an absolute catastrophe for Europe. The United States is responsible for it.
Russia and China just signed a new pipeline deal. The energy that went to Europe (the cheap energy) is now going to go to China. Chances of Europe avoid de-industrialization have gone from slim to damn near none.
The Soviets pumped resources to their allies. The Americans are cannibalizing them. The Soviets made a mistake, but this strategy won’t work either, because a fundamentally financialized economy cannot produce the type of real growth which is required to win a great power competition.
The world is dividing into two great blocs. One of them is so much weaker than the other, with so much worse future technological and economic growth prospects that it is almost certain to lose.
Our side.
The best way to win a war is to ally with the stronger side. That isn’t America or NATO or the Golden Billion.
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In 1936 Dale Carnegie published his seminal self-help work, “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” As a book dedicated purely to interpersonal relations I read it in my late-teens early-twenties and took a few damn good lessons away from it. But, I’m not writing today to discuss Dale Carnegie. I’m here to write the first chapter of a book entitled, “How to Lose Allies and Create Enemies.”
The American way of war and diplomacy (the two are inseparable, remember your Clausewitz) has grown too open-ended. We excel at the operational art of war and tactics, more often than not winning battle after battle. Yet, like Hannibal at the gates of Rome in the aftermath of Cannae we have forgotten how to turn tactical and operational victory into strategic peace. Part of this is we have, either consciously or unconsciously, forgotten question five of the Powell Doctrine: is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless engagement. This question represents to me the supreme invocation and obligation of every great statesman: prudence. Or restraint, if you prefer.
We also have fetishized, military, and military technology. Our armed forces call it total spectrum dominance. (If the technological advances made in the Russo-Ukrainian War are not giving our generals and intellectual colonels indigestion we are well and truly fucked.) This reliance on Big Data during wartime has made American generals dangerously indecisive while the sip coffee and wait for the accrual of more and more data. But, as U.S. Grant said, “in war anything is better than indecision. We must decide.” It has also made us forget the absolute supreme importance of strategy. Now, in warfare there are tactics, operations and strategy. But my focus here is more on the outright diplomatic arrogant dismissal of grand strategy since 1992. I ask each and every one of you who cares about the subject: have you heard any discussion anywhere in the last 30 years about what kind of grand strategy we should have?
No, you have not, which is criminal because American grand strategy has been the same, and should have remained so during the so-called Uni-polar Moment, for more than a century.
Since the days of the Great White Fleet 120 years ago the United States has had a simple grand strategy, one easily understood by a high school educated American citizen: no one power or coalition of hostile powers can dominate the Eurasian landmass. If that were to occur they would have the resources to invade the Western Hemisphere with ease. Full Stop.
Today Americans are so globally and geographically ignorant, enamored with their gadgets and so overcome with financial difficulties–all features not bug bequeathed by our ruling class–that this simple idea is now difficult to understand by the average Josephine.
How did we get here?
Two easy answers: first, thirty years of post-cold war dominance of global decision making. Decision making that made no consideration for consequences became the norm. Ignorance of future potential peer competitors become the norm. By this time the Neo-con influence of total dominance became the norm. These three norms led to serious incuriosity in our diplomatic and security apparatus, creating only careerists rising up the ladder. A true danger to national well being.
Second, and most importantly, we forgot the most important Iron Law of Westphalian international relations: great powers have no permanent friends (or enemies) only interests. After thirty years of attempting dominance and willfully or otherwise ignoring the Iron Law our power diminished and is now in visible decline. The consequences of this wearing before our very eyes is like a massive pile up on the opposite lane of interstate, yet our policy makers drive by the looming catastrophe (not even rubber-necking) laboring under the delusion that all is well and our unipolar world is robust and healthy. It most certainly is not.
With Xi Jing Ping’s announcement that it was time to bury the global rules based order, multi-polarity was born. The siege has begun. NATO is dead. Although the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is not yet the organizational security block opposing NATO it soon will be. Not in two years, but maybe five, certainly ten.
Let’s explore the SCO a bit.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization was founded in June 2001 as a security organization to combat terrorism in Central and East Asia two full months before 9/11. Originally founded by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan it now includes as full members the following: India, Pakistan, Iran and Belarus are now full members as well. Official observers are too many to list. See this link for details.
This week, under the auspices of the SCO, China, Mongolia and Russia, finally clinched the Siberian gas field pipeline deal. This is now the largest energy project on the entire planet. We have driven our adversaries into the arms of each other by our stupidity. Let me repeat that: our blistering arrogance first drove Russia into the arms of China by uparming the Ukraine. Now Trumps idiocy in levying secondary sanctions on the purchase of Russian oil has driven India into the arms of China and Russia. Ukraine was and is a corrupt failing state that we engineered a coup against a democratically elected pro-Russian president to install a comedian. All Russia asked for was Ukrainian neutrality but with every hi-tech NATO weapon in existence at his disposal the little comedian began his drama, thus precipitating a war that ultimately drove Russia into the arms of China. Even worse it ratcheted up an ongoing demonization campaign against China as an enemy because we just don’t know how to live in peace with anyone.
For now the SCO is still a security organization but it is branching out. Its first step is to become the Chinese engine of Eurasian economic integration. So to was NATO the European engine of integration in the beginning under the Marshall Plan. But China’s ambitions outstrip those of Truman’s era. The true driving force behind Eurasian integration is China’s Belt and Road project. This project which seeks to reintegrate all of Eurasia into a single Chinese dominated ecumene, barring Western Europe, is the single greatest threat to American sovereignty that we have ever faced. I do not overstate my case here. This is an enormous long-term threat we have no answer to as yet. I doubt we ever will which is why I have developed a mid-term peace plan that would prevent war with China. I’ll post it in the near future.
Regardless, I’m a sucker for Silk Road romanticism. I have traveled the length, width and breadth of the entire Silk Road: from China to Iran to Istanbul and finally Venice. But if the lands from Istanbul to China are integrated economically by Chinese power and infrastructure America—so long as we carry on with our now customary arrogance is mortal danger. In a word: fucked.
An example of the kind of fuckery we can soon anticipate—a danger I saw coming in 2015 when I noticed the ATMs in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan no longer offered American Dollars but Chinese Renminbi—is the singular most important and major project discussed at the SCO Summit: creation of an alternative payment system to the Swift banking architecture of the west that emerged in the later years as an offshoot to the the Brenton Woods Agreement after World War II.
You know you want even more fuckery. So here it is: Xi has secured an agreement from all the members of the SCO to create an SCO Development Bank, which will rival the IMF and World Bank in the West. He’s been trying to secure this for a decade. Trump delivered it to him in a week of tomfoolery and double-speak on social media.
Need more? No problem. Another item up for discussion between several of the SCO countries was the Arctic: investments in the Arctic; how to exploit the Arctic; how to dominate the Arctic. Note: no Americans were at the SCO as observers, not even as a member of the Arctic Council. Think about that for just a moment. Our diplomats are completely ignorant of discussions that our allies, like the South Koreans are engaging in with the SCO. Is this diplomatic insanity, malfeasance, malpractice, or just outright stupidity? I report, you decide.
Another edifying aside of mass fuckery: at the beginning of Trump‘s second term Indian Prime Minister Modi visited Trump, and there was a palpable sense of excitement about Indian and American relations going forward. There is very real potential for joint naval and space operations between the two nations. Moreover, India could be the third pole we need to contain China. Thus, it was clear from Trump‘s first term that Modi and Trump had a good relationship. Of course, this says much, much more about Modi and Indian desires than it does Trump perspicacity (he probably doesn’t even know what that word means by the way). Nonetheless Trump outright betrayed Modi when he agreed to the EU and NATO levying secondary sanctions against China and India for importing Russian oil. This should come as no surprise. After all, Trump’s raison de vivre is winning the daily 24 hour news cycle first and foremost. Why not fuck Modi in the process of domestic glory? Thus he pushed a potential ally and leader of the largest population on earth into the arms of the SCO. And made him a star at the BRICS summit where he could ham it up with Putin and Xi.
Meanwhile, what about the Second Law of Westphalian politics? You know, the law of Unintended Consequences? Well here’s a whopper for you: the agreement of the Siberian 2 pipeline between Russia, China, and Mongolia will take all of the natural gas that has been sent to Europe for the last 50 years and will now send it to China and other places for the next 30. Europe is now paying four times what it used to for liquid natural gas that is being imported from the United States. It is looking at an extremely cold winter without enough energy and that is going to drive inflation. I am due to have a conversation with a friend that lives in Denmark tomorrow and I’m going to ask him about energy prices. The chaos of rising energy prices is devastating European industry. In the last year alone Germany has lost 196,000 businesses. I repeat 196,000 businesses in Germany closed in one year. That’s devastating to any economy, but Germany long the economic engine of Europe and the EU is deindustrializing for one simple reason: the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline, which has been an absolute catastrophe for Europe. The United States is responsible for it.
As Kissinger said about being America’s friend, “The word will go out to the nations of the world that it may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal.”
The reason we don’t know how to live in peace with anyone anymore is that after the end of the Cold War, we reigned triumphant for 35 years and could do damn well whatever we want it all over the world and nobody could oppose us. Well after 35 years it becomes a habit and habits are hard to break, especially mental ones and that’s why our ruling elites are so delusional in their thinking about international affairs. We are now creating the very monster that can actually threaten our hegemony of the Western Hemisphere. This is the most dangerous possible time in American history when it comes to international relations, and we are being ruled by fools. I fear for the future more than anyone can possibly imagine.
Meanwhile, Putin is probably incredibly surprised at how easy it now appears to fracture NATO and to gain new potential allies in Eastern and Central Europe. We are also looking at the proto-formation of a Chinese-Russian-Indian entente. Consider the immense rewards Putin will gain after starting a small war that threatened not a single American vital interest? One in which Russia simply demanded neutrality from its neighbor. The war’s consequences have propelled Russia into a potential global order shifting alliance. This was not Putin’s original intent nor goal. But because the US, under Biden and now Trump, have scored so many “own goals” this is where we are.
The US now behaves much like Venice before the 1508 when the first Holy Alliance, formed by Pope Julius II, also known as the League of Cambrai came together. It took everyone in the European inter state system to band together to defeat Venice. Of course, Venetian behavior prior to the war against it had been high handed. They raised prices on spices, silk and all the goods they imported from the East at will, bringing penury to the elites of Europe, who were the only ones who could afford such luxury. Europe had had enough. The League included France, the Hapsburg Monarchy, the Papal States and the Spanish Empire. Venice suffered a chastening defeat at the battle of Agnadello in 1509. Before this alliance, no one could defeat the Serene Republic. The League of Cambrai did collapse over personality disputes, but not before they took Venice down two pegs. And this is when Venice began its terminal decline that ended when Napoleon overthrew the republic. But after 1509 world change seriously accelerated: Spain pilfered the New World and Portugal built a spice empire in the East by rounding Africa, conquering parts of India, destroying the Ottoman navy in the Indian Ocean and upon entering the Golden Chersonese, conquered the greatest spice entrepôt in the world, the city of Malacca and its adjoining straits, thereby dominating the spice trade from Indonesia. The arrogant behavior of Venice incited all the developments leading to lost income, increasing debt and decline, just as the US is doing now. Unintended consequences have a way of creating fuckery.
The US, however, unlike Venice, is not just passively letting these nations find common interests, the US under Biden and Trump has actively pushed them together. Secondary sanctions on India were a slap in the face of a natural ally of the United States. We already know what happened: Modi went to Beijing and held hands with Putin and Xi.
Own goal!
But the biggest problem we have, as I see it, is that the US can no longer be considered a ‘rational actor’ in the anarchic Westphalian state system presently in existence. Why? One word: Trump. Trump has three huge crippling defects as a leader. Number one: his biggest donors are hard right conservative Jewish dual citizens (Yeah, I said it. You can only serve one master. Fuck off if you disagree). Donors like Mrs. Adelson and others own Trump’s Israel policy. They drive the policy supporting genocide which is not rational by any stretch of the imagination. Second, Trump is one of those pusillanimous leaders in history who acts on what he hears from the last person he talks to. This is truly, epically bad. Third: TACO. Trump always chickens out. At heart the man is a coward. But as my great-grandfather told me, there is nothing more dangerous than a coward in a corner. We must endure three more years of this.
As the Guatemalans used to say during the years of genocide: la puebla es jodida.