Use to discuss topics unrelated posts.
Author: Ian Welsh Page 20 of 417
This is the sort of thing the US used to be able to do, and Britain back in its day:
China has built over 30,000 basic-level smart factories as part of a nationwide push to accelerate industrial digitalization and intelligent upgrading, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).
The initiative, under the smart factory gradient cultivation action, has also seen the creation of 1,200 advanced-level and 230 excellence-level smart factories…
…The 230 excellence-level factories, distributed across all 31 provincial regions in China and covering over 80 percent of manufacturing sectors, have carried out nearly 2,000 advanced scenarios, including smart warehousing, AI-powered quality inspections, and digital research and development, said MIIT.
On average, these factories are 28.4 percent shorter in product development cycles, 22.3 percent higher in production efficiency, 50.2 percent lower in defect rates and 20.4 percent lower in carbon emissions, said the ministry.
Meanwhile, in South and Central America (a similar map could be done for Africa and chunks of Asia):
So, here’s the thing. Under the threat of Trump’s tariffs, Canada and the EU have been offering America to get tougher on China. “China’s the real enemy!” they scream.
Problem is, in the new Cold War, China’s going to be the stronger and more prosperous side. Russia, and most of Asia, Africa and South America are going to align with it. It will soon be in the “US after WWII” position of having more industry than everyone else combined, and it’s already leading in 80% of technological fields. It won’t be long before that’s 90% and I wouldn’t be surprised if in 15 years it’s damn near 100%.
Choosing to align with America is choosing to align with a declining Empire. It’s like laying your bet on Britain in 1918.
I don’t think this is a done deal for all of Europe. The old order is dying, new parties are challenging the old center-right and center-left parties and while the current leadership are lapdogs, the future leadership in many countries will not be. All China has to do is offer to not de-industrialize Europe, or all European countries have to do is cut a deal along those lines.
The sooner one makes the deal, the sooner one defects to the winning side, the better the deal will be.
It is my judgment that it won’t be long before the two best countries to live in are China and Russia. They are rising, and rising fast and the West is in decline. America’s strategy of cannibalizing its allies industries is stupid, because its allies industries are old legacy industries which are mostly already surpassed by China, and those that aren’t, like Pharma, soon will be.
There’s no reason to be loyal to America. Trump’s made it clear that the United States has no loyalty to anyone else, and it’s offering a really shitty deal. Russia doesn’t want to conquer Europe. They conquered half of it once before and it didn’t work out, they just want security.
This won’t happen this year, that’s clear, but smart nations will make the switch as soon as possible. I suspect the EU is likely to break up, so some European countries will change sides, and some won’t. But if it is done as a group of nations, even if not the whole bunch, the deal will be better.
The Cold War is already in its late early stages. I was writing about it as early as 2017, and it’s gathering steam. This is the new world. Choose your side, but for most countries, choose you must and wise statesmen choose the winning side.
And lo, there was much gnashing of teeth and rending of hair.
Trump’s human garbage, of course. A bully, probably a rapist, suffering from some sort of mental disability, incoherent and mean.
And those are his good points.
Trump’s destroying the remains of America’s empire. He’s probably accelerating America’s decline, though there’s a possibility he might slow certain aspects of it, if others (like the EU) let him.
But most of what Trump is doing is creating opportunity. Let’s take the cuts to science funding: they’re going to leave a lot of scientists out of work.
That means there are a lot of scientists that other countries could easily, trivially even, scoop up. If they have the sense of a gnat, which most of them don’t. University and research cuts have been the rage in many countries (UK, I’m looking at you) because of delusional austerity policies, but central banks like the ECB can print hundreds of billions, even trillions of dollars, it would be simple enough to print a few hundred million to set up a bunch of research positions.
Anyone who wants to can do this: Europe, Canada, Australia, various Asian countries. Scientists want to science, and if you offer them a credible opportunity to do so, they’ll emigrate to your country and work for you. Same thing with engineers, great philosophers, etc, etc…
So as Trump lays waste, glean the corn which lies in his wake.
Likewise Trump’s attack on his allies opens up possibilities which were not politically viable before. Leaving NATO, for example. Putting on your own tariffs, which is illegal, basically, but since Trump has just broken about every trade treaty the US is signatory to, why not? Give subsidies, also usually illegal, but who cares? Ignore trade rulings against you which favor the US, why not, they don’t obey those rulings. Run full fledged industrial policy, because while it’s still technically illegal, it’s now politically viable.
Stretch a little. Instead of, as some European symps are suggesting, offering Trump more anti-China policies, go to China and cut a deal with them instead: tariff America and cut a trade deal with China which allows you to build some industry, or gets your branch plants and so on.
Stretch a lot. Tell Russia you want the gas to FLOW and offer to help rebuild the pipelines. Send out your navy to patrol and make sure there are more accidents. This is your chance to save Europe’s remaining industry from being slurped down by America.
Trump has changed the world. He’s done, doing and will do things that were unthinkable to previous Presidents. But that frees you, he’s broken the Western consensus, and done so in a way which makes it clear he doesn’t care what harm he does to America’s allies/vassals/satraps.
So break free! The real chains are in your minds, politicians. You’ve spent generations doing thing one way, but now you don’t have to. Break the chains of your mind, and then break the chains of your nations.
Freedom awaits, along with the responsibility which comes from it. Fail to accept freedom and responsibility and America and Trump will decide what your country becomes.
If that’s what you want, if you want to avoid responsibility, be assured you’ll get what you deserve.
The response from Trump?
“If all (not only those agreed in the ceasefire deal to be released in multiple phases) prisoners are not freed by noon Saturday, the ceasefire will be revoked, and hell will be unleashed on Hamas.”
Trump has also made clear his plan to take over Gaza:
“I will owe Gaza and, as far as us rebuilding it, we may give it to other states in the Middle East to build parts of it. We are determined to own it, to take it. We’re going to make it a very good place for future development. The Palestinians will have no right of return to Gaza under my plan to take it over.”
And he has told both Jordan and Egypt that if they refuse to take the Palestinians, he will cut off all aid to their countries, crashing their economies.
Hamas has really only two choices: agree to ethnic cleansing in hopes of avoiding further genocide, or withhold the hostages to maintain some level of leverage, since the hostages are clearly important to Trump, if not Israel. Trump, of course, though cunning and a bully, is and always has been rather dull and undisciplined. As a bully, he can sometimes be backed down by those willing and able to stand up to him.
Israel hasn’t met its side of the deal. Until it does, Hamas can’t meet its side of the deal or it will, like Hezbollah has, lose all effective leverage.
I find it hard to predict Trump. I expect even Trump finds it hard to predict Trump. We’ll see what happens going forward, but a return to the genocide seems more than possible.
Trump proved that the President can control Israel if he wants to, and that he can end the genocide essentially at will, but all the people whispering in his year are Zionists, with no one to speak for Palestinians who is close to him.
That doesn’t bode well.
The Course of Empire by Thomas Cole
Commenting on all the stupid (like Musk’s antics) is tiring sometimes.
I was trying to figure out what to write today. There are about a dozen possible posts, all of which amount to “Trump or Musk are flinging poo at the wall.”
So let’s forget all the stupid little details no one will care about in even ten years and cut to the chase.
America is in irreversible decline. If you think otherwise, you are living in a fantasy world. China will even take the lead in Pharma away from the US, probably no later than 2030. The US military can’t even keep the shipping lanes open and Carrier groups no longer have a full support group.
Trump is not going to make America Great Again. Even when Trump and Musk do the right thing, they do it the wrong way. There’s a lot of administrative bloat at universities and hospitals, and reducing that is a priority. But simply cutting the administrative grants overnight leaves no time for adjustment and will smash institutions to flinders. This might not matter if it was 1995 or even 2005 and the uS was still in the lead, but right now the US can’t afford the time to do things the stupid way.
Trump is breaking the Constitution. He doesn’t have the right to decide not to distribute money entailed by Congress unless Congress gave him the right. He doesn’t have the right to ignore judges who tell him not to do illegal and unconstitutional things. If Trump’s changes go thru, there will only be one real branch of government, the Presidency.
During The Decline America is Dangerous. America’s era of preeminence is cooked, there’s no question, but decline takes some time. The US is still insanely powerful and that makes it dangerous to anyone weaker than it within reasonable reach. This means, of course, that there’s almost no one in the world who shouldn’t, for purely pragmatic reasons, want the US to go down faster. The sooner it falls, the safer everyone else will be. Well, unless you’re Taiwan, but that’s foreordained already, it’s just a question of when.
America is Canada’s Enemy. No other nation is threatening Canada’s very existence, after all. America has never, ever, protected Canada from anything but itself and the only real threat to Canada has always been America. Trudeau said Trump is serious about annexing Canada, and Trump has confirmed it.
America is Europe’s Enemy. It has been at least since Biden’s presidency, where the deliberate policy was to cut off cheap energy and encourage European (aka. German) industry to relocate to America.
America is all its “allies” Enemy. America wants to cannibalize its allies industry and bring it to America. It doesn’t care what happens to its friends, with the exception of Israel, because of Israel’s massive influence in America, much of it certainly based on blackmail. Every American ally now needs to cut ties and either make a group alliance without the US, or make its obeisance to Beijing and try and cut the most favorable deal it can. Early movers will get better deals.
Europe Needs To Grow Up and Kick Out America. Europe’s weaker than it’s been in generations, and far weaker than it was in 2005 when I first suggested this path, but it’s still got enough industry, science and engineers to reindustrialize and build its own army. Cut a deal with Russia and China, kick the Americans out and stop whining about how you can’t defend yourselves without America. That’s a choice: you still have the ability to create your own arms industry and you have plenty of unemployed youngsters you could put in said military.
China is the next leading Great Power and it could be the next superpower if it wants it. I’d argue it already is the leading great power much of the world. Certainly it’s more important in most of Asia and Africa than America is. It will take the lead in, essentially, every scientific area. It is already the most dominant manufacturing power and that will only decline when it realizes that it, like the US after WWII needs to send more of its industry overseas or there won’t be anyone worth selling to. or any allies worth having.
This is the Era Endgame. This is what I’ve been writing about and towards for over two decades. This is it, this is America in irreversible decline, losing its constitutional government and descending into a non-military from of Caesarism. Maybe Americans will avoid the fate of rule by Imperial Presidents, it’s at least theoretically possible. For everyone but Americans and maybe Mexico and Canada the best outcome would be America breaking up. But no one outside of America should be doing anything but preparing for America’s fall, protecting themselves from America, and positioning themselves for the new era where China is dominant.
For most of the Gaza “war” official civilian casualty numbers were in the mid tens of thousands. They rose quickly at first, then they rose slowly, which was odd, because as time went by there were fewer and fewer hospitals, less food, less clean water, less medicine and less of Gaza that wasn’t rubble. There was every reason to expect the death toll to accelerate.
It now seems like the death toll is around four hundred thousand, perhaps higher, out of an initial population of 2.2 to 2.3 million.
The official numbers were offered by Hamas and they were obviously wrong, on the face of it. I don’t entirely know why, but there are some likely possibilities:
- The longer the war went on the less capacity there was to count the dead;
- Lots of dead were buried under rubble or otherwise hard to count;
- The Ministry wanted to give the most conservative number, only what they could actually prove, rather than what they knew was actually the case. Similar to how most climate change forecasts are wrong to the downside. They figured this would protect them from charges over inflating the numbers or being alarmist.
- Hamas wanted lower numbers because, after all, it looks bad when they can’t protect Palestinians, essentially, at all.
- Israel went along with it because while they knew damn well that they were committing genocide, the lower the number the easier their propaganda job was, since for some odd reason a lot of non-Israelis think genocide is bad, even if you do it to “subhumans.”
It’s the last two which are most important. There’s a big difference between the official death toll of 46,600 and a death toll of between 300,000 and half a million. Tens of thousands could indicate depraved indifference to Palestinian civilian deaths rather than deliberate genocide, if you were inclined to believe that already. Hundreds of thousands makes it much, much harder to deny.
This is why I railed against those who uncritically repeated the official death number, even if they were anti-genocide. It’s why the Lancet publishing higher estimates mattered. It’s why I wrote that I figured the actual death toll was closer to half a million.
It’s also a good idea, generally, to not believe obvious bullshit.
Gaza was a genocide and the scale of the genocide matters. Trump now wants to ethnically cleanse those who remain, and who knows, he might let the Israelis restart the genocide if the ethnic cleansing plans fail.
Trump has repeatedly said that he wants to move Palestinians out of Gaza and that there are about 1.7 to 1.8 million people to move. The pre-war population of Gaza was 2.3 million. About 100,000 Gazans managed to flee to the Sinai in Egypt (presumably a combination of bribes and sympathetic border guards who disagree with Sisi’s “let them die” policy.
So we’re looking at 400,000 to 500,000 deaths if Trumps figures are accurate. Yes, I know, Trump: but he’s been briefed and why use those numbers?
That is to say that the indirect death multiplier is almost certainly higher than average in Gaza. So let’s assume just slightly higher than average: an eight times multiplier.
Now do the math 8*60,000=480,000.
A reasonable estimate of the death toll in Gaza is thus 480,000 people. Almost half a million and about seventeen percent of the pre-war population.
The idea that the death toll was around 50K was always ludicrous, given the constant bombing, lack of food, destruction of hospitals, deliberate murder of doctors and nurses, disease and lack of water.
I would assume the death rate was accelerating and if the genocide had gone on would have continued to accelerate: starvation, disease and lack of water tend to work that way.
Meanwhile, having stopped most of the bombing, Trump wants the US to take over Gaza and rebuild it as a resort, as best I can tell. His son in law, Jared Kushner, in February of 2024 said:
“Gaza’s waterfront property could be valuable… It’s a little bit of an unfortunate situation there, but I think from #Israel‘s perspective, I would do my best to move the people out and then clean it up.”
This requires either Jordan or Egypt to take the Palestinians, and neither of them want them, since they’re destabilizing and will also strain budgets. America can offer money, but America’s promises have become increasingly… erratic of late. Egypt, of course, already receives a ton of money from America in exchange for peace with Israel, but Palestinians being pushed into Egypt would violate the treaty which started those payments.
Bear in mind that Hamas is an offshoot of the Islamic Brotherhood, Sisi’s mortal enemies whom he couped in order to become “President.”
And the Palestinians may not all go voluntarily, so military force will be needed, presumably American boots on the ground.
This plan is very obviously ethnic cleansing, which is evil. It is, however, the lesser evil compared to Biden’s “keep them locked up and bomb and starve them all to death”, which would have presumably continued if Harris had one. Hard to say how this will play out, Trump might well let Israel go back to full on genocide, but so far it appears that Trump was the “lesser evil” at least as far as Gaza is concerned.
Egypt needs to be talking to the Chinese about aid, stat and figure out what they can offer the Chinese. Though a chance to poke a finger in Trump’s eye is likely appealing to Xi right about now. Trump has no respect for treaty obligations and will definitely threaten Egypt’s funding to force an acquiescence.
Meanwhile Turkey, Egypt and Iran all need to get off their asses and get nukes.
Commenter GrimJim makes the case, using my own writing:
I’m less sure, though parts of this are definitely true. Let’s deal with the quibbles: Trump isn’t doing tariff wars for the reason a left wing government under the WTO-Neoliberal-Sanctions regime would. They know that sanctions and trade can be used to destroy their economy. America isn’t in that position. Tariffs and tariff threats are about something else. In some cases, making countries bow, in other cases Trump appears to believe tariffs are free money, and there’s probably also an attempt to re-shore industry. Biden was already Cannibalizing European industry through high energy prices forcing energy sensitive industries to relocate to the US after the NordStream sabotage. Tariffs, for countries with trade surpluses with the US, are intended to have the same effect.
I think a lot of this comes down to something we’ve talked about before. “You go for the King, you’d better not miss.” I warned, repeatedly, that prosecution of Trump was an all-or-nothing matter. You either take him out, completely, or you’re fucked, because you’ve destroyed an elite norm against going after ex-Presidents seriously. (Note that Trump said he’d prosecute Hilary Clinton, but never did.)
Trump’s first actions have included a purge of law enforcement and prosecutors who went after him, the people who tried to help him steal the 2000 election, and his January 6th shock troopers.
What the hell did Democrats expect? That they could prosecute Trump and his people and that if he got back into power he’d shrug it off? How fucking stupid are these people?
If you prosecuted Trump, you had to make it stick and throw him in prison and take every red cent he had. You don’t go after an ex-President who still has a power base without making sure you finish him off.
The bloody fools.
In some respects Trump is just self-protecting. He has to take control of the Justice system so that when he leaves office he’s safe, at least, from any sort of Federal prosecution and with his loyalists in charge of the Justice system, attempts to end-run using the State system can be countered by simple threats. “If you do, we’ll go after your people, and we’re a lot more powerful.)
Trump is taking control of government: the treasury system and all expenditures, and the legal enforcement system. No one will be prosecuted who he doesn’t want prosecuted. No one will get money whom he doesn’t want to get money. Anyone he does want prosecuted will be and anyone who wants to have money, will have money.
Is it a coup? That depends on intention. Does he intend to step down in 2028 and allow free and fair elections? Or does he intend to make sure that elections are only a fig-leaf and he, or more likely given his age, his chosen successor is essentially appointed?
Trump could just intend to punish his immediate enemies and make sure the government does exactly what he wants, or he could intend to turn this into a permanent Republican state, with at least his successor chosen by him.
If he really wants to be safe, well, he needs to appoint his successor.
GrimJim is right about the court system. There are two plays: one is the Supremes wave thru his stuff, but the really dangerous moment would be if he was ruled against and he said “The Supreme Court has made their decision, now let them enforce it!”
Since he’s taking control of the federal enforcement arms, the idea is that no one will obey the courts if Trump disagrees. Their loyalty will be to him.
State governors may try to resist, but Trump can crush them if he so desires.
I admit I never saw Trump as this dangerous, mostly because he’s fundamentally incompetent. But he’s been mishandled by Democrats and the (not so) permanent state. Tulsi Gabbard looks likely to be confirmed, and her job is to do to the intelligence apparatus what is being done to the FBI and DOJ: make it Trump safe. If anyone takes out Trump, it will be the intelligence apparatus. He threatens them, just as JFK did, and they may act. That said, JFK threatened from the left, and intelligence services do love to serve a right wing tyrant. Trump may restrict their foreign games somewhat, but he will give them domestic power they have always wanted.
So, America gets out of this only if Trump either doesn’t really intend a coup and is just being a petty tyrant who wants to go back to the spoils system for government, or if his and Musk’s incompetence brings them down.
We’ll talk more about this as time goes by.
Ian, I am beginning to think that someone working for Trump and Musk must have read your works.
That, or they read the same books you have used as the groundworks for your own beliefs.
Particularly, on how to run a revolution:
https://www.ianwelsh.net/7-rules-for-running-a-real-left-wing-government/
and
https://www.ianwelsh.net/revolution-basics-1-who-cares-what-you-think/
And I am sure there are more. I know you’ve posted about how you have to run a purge first thing.
They are essentially following your playbook.
Media Law: They already own it and are locking it down harder. The Masters of Media are going to kneel to Trump or be punished.
Banking Sector: Already own it and are reformatting it further, and Musk has now gained access to everything that the Feds knew and manage, completely outside of legal channels.
Administrative Class: Purging the government and quickly gaining power over the industrial administration that was not already onboard.
Distribution and Utilities: Same, even showing off that he can screw with state-level works by pouring the water saved for California’s farm on fallow fields.
Reduce Your Vulnerability to the World Trade System: Again, making them kneel or alienating them so much that they will no longer be part of the system.
Be Satisfied with What You Can Grow and Make: That’s what the tariffs are all about. Stupid way to go about it, but that’s what they’ve got. Maybe they figure they will provide required subsidies to important (oligarch-owned) interests once everything is under their control, and masses of Poors have died off in the coming financial cataclysm.
Obey the Laws of Purges: In progress, the worst is yet to come.
“Why should I care what you think?” They don’t. They’re showing that in no uncertain terms and have even stated so in black and white to the courts. We will know that this process is complete if/when SCOTUS somehow decides against them, “The Supreme Court has made their decision; now let them enforce it!”
They are following the formula to a T.
The Republic is almost finished; I think we can stick a fork in it very soon.