The US Wars with China and the War with Itself

The US is currently at war with China over trade, economic policy, technology, capital and
geopolitics (Dalio, The Changing World Order, 2021, Chapter 13). While the US has no formal
treaty obligation with Taiwan and President Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger
recognized China’s claim five decades ago, President Biden repeatedly said the US would
intervene militarily to defend the island. Only a global hegemon could make such a threat.
China is destined to once again be a great dynasty, as it has been at least twenty times over the
last 22 centuries. The US was the sole global hegemon by 1945 as all the major empires of the
world were at this stage in decline, setting the stage for a century (the historical norm) of global
dominance. But within two decades, with the ascendance of FDR protégé Lyndon Johnson, a
War in Vietnam and a “Great Society” at home, the US was in decline.

In spite of the creation of OMB in 1970, the flight from the dollar that forced President Nixon to
default on gold convertibility in 1971 and the creation of the CBO in 1974 to stem the debt
crisis, starting in 1975 30 states petitioned for a federal balanced budget amendment. Since
then, US debt has grown 100-fold, current spending is twice revenue, the Federal Reserve is
financing half that deficit and the dollar has fallen 98% relative to gold. Such debt super-cycles
end in national bankruptcy-ending empire the way Hemmingway described: “slowly at first,
then all at once.”

National denial has global consequences. Britain entered into the Great War as a declining
power to thwart Germany, then a rising power. World War II was really an extension of the
Great War, when a German veteran, a lance corporal, came to power on the false narrative that
the Bolsheviks and Jews caused their loss. Britain lost the empire but remained in denial until a
speculator dethroned the pound Sterling in 1992. Similarly, the Soviet Union was in denial (as
was the US CIA) right up to the point of total collapse from within in 1989.

The US is now arguably in the position of Great Britain prior to the Great War as a military
power, but faces internal dissent that is arguably worse than that of the former Soviet Union. It
can follow the British path to weaken the rising power while restoring US hegemony, remain in
denial and continue on its current path toward civil war or revolution, or seek a softer landing
based on a restoration of US founding principles. Faced with these choices politicians generally
find war more politically palatable than the short-term pain of restructuring, even when that
results in complete destruction, asserting “nobody could have seen this coming.”

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Past Forgetting

So, Ed Driscoll at Instapundit is dedicated to posting Covid retrospectives along the nature of “On this Day Five Years Ago…” Some comments appended to his various posts over the last few weeks express exasperation with his apparent complete inability (or disinclination) when it comes to pithy summarization, and others express exasperation with remembering the Covidiocy day by day and blow by blow. For myself, I have a mouse with a scroll-wheel and can use it. As for the second category of comments – yes, we should not forget what Covid did to us.

Yes, we ought to remember every day, every jot and tittle of such state-sponsored torments piled upon us in the name of the Unparalleled Epidemic Danger From the Covid Plague (eleventy!!!), and the identities and employers of those individuals who either inflicted those torments on the public or cheered them on through media, both Established and Social. We ought to remember every detail of civic lockdowns demanded by governors and local officials getting in touch with their inner authoritarian or feeling obliged to respond to that manufactured panic – especially those who flouted the rules that they inflicted on everyone else. (Looking at you especially, Governor “Hair-gel” Newsome, frolicking with friends at the French Laundry.)

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Making Their Mark on the World

I’ve been mulling over the following question: how did each of the modern presidents from Nixon to present impact the world the most?

Richard Nixon: Opening relations with the People’s Republic of China.

Gerald Ford: The Helsinki Accords. The human rights plank encouraged the growing dissident movements in the Eastern Bloc. They took seriously what the Soviets were willing to put on paper in the albeit non-binding resolution.

Jimmy Carter: Enabling the Islamic totalitarian revolution in Iran.

Ronald Reagan: Fomenting the end of the Cold War. “Reagan bolstered the U.S. military might to ruin the Soviet economy, and he achieved his goal” – Gennady Gerasimov

George H. W. Bush: This may be a controversial choice, but I’m going with the “New World Order” speech, or rather what it represents – encouraging the United Nations to take a more active role in foreign relations. One of the legacies of the UN is the enshrinement of the ethic that wars must never be won, only fought to the point of ceasefire.

Bill Clinton: Granting the People’s Republic of China access to supercomputer technology vital to targeting manned, unmanned, and munitions-bearing rocketry. It’s the one great leap forward in China that actually worked.

George W. Bush: The Iraq War. Aside from altering the geopolitical landscape in the region, it convinced Muhammar Qaddafi to cooperate with the US to end Libya’s WMD program.

Barack Obama: Opening Iran to financial markets, thus magnifying its ability to conduct proxy wars.

Donald Trump (first term): It may be a bit early to gauge the legacy of the Abraham Accords, but opening the door to Israeli cooperation with some of its Arab neighbors is bound to have significant impact on Iran’s regional ascendency. It also breaks from the stupid tradition that any negotiations between Israel and any of its neighbors must include the Palestinians, as if Palestinian and non-Palestinian relations can’t be delt with separately.

Joe Biden: Opening Iran to financial markets, thus magnifying its ability to conduct proxy wars – assuming the Ukraine Missile Crisis does not top this. (Our own Trent Telenko is cited in the linked article.)

Quote of the Day

John Hinderaker:

We are not a serious country because, as a democracy, we do not have serious voters. Autocracies like China and Russia have many disadvantages compared to us, but in the present historical moment, they are nowhere near as stupid as we are. One trembles for the future.

See also.

“Body language”

We are in trouble.