Interesting results. As I read along I thought several times that you were being too generous by half in your assessment of the US. In the end it didn't matter: even with those generous assessments, it doesn't look good for America.
Sep 1, 2022·edited Sep 1, 2022Liked by Tree of Woe
I have nothing to add or take away here, only to provide some extra reading material (links) by others who are and have already looked at individual parts of this puzzle that is the 'West'.
- all of the American Affairs Journals apart for the archive are direct links to singular articles. (They publish large compelation pieces of everything writen every 3 months of the year).
If the war gets serious, then America's position is a lite version of Russia going into World War II. Stalin had gutted his officer corps and starved out the land we now call the Breadbasket of Europe. Soviet life sciences were as badly corrupted as social sciences are in the US today.
But when the fertilizer hit the fan, Stalin pulled a massive U-Turn. Power was returned to the government vs. the Party. Competence was again OK. Patriotism and even religion went back in style.
---
For all the nonsense of our current administration, our cult of mediocrity is much shallower than it was in the Soviet Union. There are still competent people in our universities who are currently keeping their heads down.
Likewise, we could become energy independent again in short order. When fuel for battleships is at issue, utopian dreams of an emissions free future can get put on hold. We have the resources and know where they are. And we have plenty of competent expertise when it comes to drilling for oil and gas.
Restoring our civilian manufacturing capabilities is more of a challenge. Some of our factories have been mothballed beyond the point of easy restoration. We might have to do without new televisions for a while. On the other hand, we have plenty of experts for building military hardware, including planes and warships. And we are a few environmental regulation exemptions away from manufacturing computer chips.
---
Note also that the US went into World War II with industry half mothballed due to bad economic policies, and a population which was not enthusiastic for war. We had a standby core military with many recruits who were given the choice of join the military or go to jail. See the movie "The Caine Mutiny."
We turned on a dime when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.
----
China and/or Russia can beat us on the morale front if we don't get directly attacked, but we do have to send troops abroad. Sending weapons abroad is a morale booster for Congressional districts with defense production industries. Where I see morale failing is if China captures Taiwan. I doubt we have the will to liberate Taiwan once taken.
The scarier scenario is China going all in before we turn ourselves around. What if they do have the ability to sink our navy? What if some of those Chinese immigrants in STEM are moles? What if they take away our some of our resource rich territory before we fully wake up.
We have the long and medium term ability to build chips, warships, missiles, guns, pharmaceuticals, etc. We can live without a great deal of the cheap Chinese merchandise we get at Walmart. We do have an unregulated militia of extraordinary magnitude.
But China has some serious numbers and a serious manufacturing base. The last time we fought the Chinese, they didn't have enough guns for their infantry. Soldiers were expected to pick up the guns of their fallen comrades.
Observing the Tree of Woe (aka Empire of Lies) from the other side of the planet (Australia), it seems that the US government has managed to alienate working class white males from the South - which also happens to be the demographic that historically makes up the bulk of the bullet-catchers in the military, and white working class males are especially heavily represented in the 'elite' trigger-pullers ("Special Forces" group photos look like Proud Boys group shots KEK).
The 'white bits' of "5-oh" are also heavily overweight ex-mil - and not just from doughnuts.
If German, French, and UK forward energy prices are remotely replicated in the US, there are going to be quite a few ex-mil LEOs who think "They're not paying me enough to stay on what is obviously the wrong side" - at which point shit starts to get real because THEY will be the 'roaming bands of marauders' that are the largely-mythical reason why we supposedly need State production of security.
PROTIP: if SHTF in the States, do not assume that a smiling white guy in BDUs is a potential ally. The dominant strategy is just to light him up - this is a situation where Type II error is better than Type I. Make sure you know where his mates are likely to be, because he won't be coming up all friendly-like without having someone on overwatch.
"Most importantly, I believe that virtually all of the ground fighting will take place outside of the homelands of the antagonists."
This might be true, but I'm not sure its as important as you think. The problem is that if 1 side starts to lose, and decides the issue is important enough, they'll attack the homeland with non-nuclear weapons.
I'd argue that nuclear weapons saved civilization, as they showed a bright line past which civilizations could be ended. At some point between 1945 and now, probably closer to 1945, technology became such that civilization could be ended without recourse to nukes. We creeped across that line without knowing it, because the bright line of nukes was already there.
Which means that if 1 side starts to lose a global proxy war, it might decide that an oil refinery blowing up will let the other side know they need to stop pushing so hard. Or perhaps covid-69 gets released, killing a mere 1% of the population then going dormant. Or the internet stops working for 24 hours.
Of course this requires that both sides be rational enough to step back from the brink rather than escalating, but if they were rational they wouldn't be in that fucking mess to begin with.
Civilization is remarkably fragile. The Mississippi river has about 200 bridges, which means a mere 200 cruise missiles launched from the Gulf could turn the eastern 1/2 of the country into cannibal mad max land. Or a handful of cruise missiles into Gulf refineries. Or shutting down pipelines with cyber attacks. I'm sure there are any number of horrors sitting in lab freezers, or on hard drives inside vaults, that could wreck things far worse than mere inflation and poor economic decisions have been doing.
Sep 1, 2022·edited Sep 1, 2022Liked by Tree of Woe
Very good points raised.
The German Philosopher Peter Sloterdijk once noted: "Nobody has anytime for an entire generation anymore". Whilst will is no doubt important thus, this notion is key here:
The point being made by Sloterdijk that "maturation" a la the nominal 20-30 years needed to truly polish a generation (i.e. will, values, etc) is no longer pursued in earnest, but rather leaders (and "elites") of most Western nations try and compress that down to a measly 2-5 years or mere months even in certain cases. And so this comes down to the following:
The Posthuman, Shiny, Sexy, "Sciency", Transhumanist pursuing Elite of Yankee-land may just decide to go full-Chimera mode. Why bother with "boosting morale", if one can just Drug, Genetically Engineer, Lobotomize, etc and "Cheat" in that manner to try and Pursue Victory?
During Ike's presidency and the twilight of the Korean War, Yankee-High Command proposed to said president a Full Scale invasion of the Chinese mainland.
The plan involved an invasion force of some 800k Yankees, who would land after several dozen Nukes vaporized some hundred million "Y*****s".
The idea being to use Taiwan (as the Japanese had for much of the Second Sino-Japanese War) as the launchpad and "unsinkable aircraft carrier" to ravage the Chinese people into surrender.
Why bring this up? Well, even though Ike ultimately shot down the proposal (Murican historians say it was because he wanted his progeny to pursue peaceful trade and commercial ties with the Chinese, this likely is a lie; but I will desist on going off on this tangent over here), this engagement plan is nevertheless on file if Yankee-land is in need of it in the near future.
As such, World War Next might very well involve said Barbarism by Yankee-land. Drugs, Lobotomies, etc therefore suddenly become not only essential but seemingly a necessity.
How else would one unleash millions of Savage Yankees onto the Chinese people to Rape, Pillage, Kill, Loot, etc ... in a hellscape that is already filled with tens of millions wailing due Nuclear Radiation Burns, Cannibalistic pursuits, etc?
This coming world war will likely be "BEYOND Human Will", a la one would need to go to those psychological states BEYOND "normal" pursuant modes of meaning/relevance vs irrelevance/vileness.
Those Great powers who can bridge said gap... the normal human modes noted earlier; will have the advantage it seems with regard the "winning" the overall conflict.
Namely, how does one get VILE ACTION whilst not tapping into the normal modes of Human Motivation? Drugs, Lobotomies, etc on the one end, and Revenge, Annihilation of one's Kin in their entirety, etc on the other end. This will be the calculus that needs examining.
America's national will is an interesting topic. I think much of it is gone. The Globalists who rule over us would engineer some false flag to 'rally the citizens' and it would probably fall flat. I'm trying to imagine Mitch McConnell, Linsey Graham, and Nancy Pelosi trying to whip up vigor among the populations who've classically gone to war for the good ole USA and I simply can't see it.
National will to fight is gone in America. The elites have alienated the population. And way to many have their eyes open to the lies and propaganda.
Even if another Pearl Harbor or 9/11 took place, most of those that would have enlisted would not do so today.
Interesting results. As I read along I thought several times that you were being too generous by half in your assessment of the US. In the end it didn't matter: even with those generous assessments, it doesn't look good for America.
I have nothing to add or take away here, only to provide some extra reading material (links) by others who are and have already looked at individual parts of this puzzle that is the 'West'.
- all of the American Affairs Journals apart for the archive are direct links to singular articles. (They publish large compelation pieces of everything writen every 3 months of the year).
https://americanaffairsjournal.org/archives/
https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2022/05/the-stock-market-model/
https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2018/05/the-american-way-of-innovation-and-its-deficiencies/
https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2022/08/the-retreat-of-dividends-and-the-changing-nature-of-the-stock-market/
https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2018/05/the-american-way-of-innovation-and-its-deficiencies/
- use this if you can not access any the pages in full (may be behind paywall)
https://www.printfriendly.com/
- this chap has anumber of posts (his own website) covering the Econ and political situation in the USA (hes a yankie)
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?blog=Market-Ticker
- this last link is about the difference between the financial system of USA Vs the manufacturimg system of the Chinese
https://www.unz.com/mhudson/the-consequences-of-moving-from-industrial-to-financial-capitalism/
If the war gets serious, then America's position is a lite version of Russia going into World War II. Stalin had gutted his officer corps and starved out the land we now call the Breadbasket of Europe. Soviet life sciences were as badly corrupted as social sciences are in the US today.
But when the fertilizer hit the fan, Stalin pulled a massive U-Turn. Power was returned to the government vs. the Party. Competence was again OK. Patriotism and even religion went back in style.
---
For all the nonsense of our current administration, our cult of mediocrity is much shallower than it was in the Soviet Union. There are still competent people in our universities who are currently keeping their heads down.
Likewise, we could become energy independent again in short order. When fuel for battleships is at issue, utopian dreams of an emissions free future can get put on hold. We have the resources and know where they are. And we have plenty of competent expertise when it comes to drilling for oil and gas.
Restoring our civilian manufacturing capabilities is more of a challenge. Some of our factories have been mothballed beyond the point of easy restoration. We might have to do without new televisions for a while. On the other hand, we have plenty of experts for building military hardware, including planes and warships. And we are a few environmental regulation exemptions away from manufacturing computer chips.
---
Note also that the US went into World War II with industry half mothballed due to bad economic policies, and a population which was not enthusiastic for war. We had a standby core military with many recruits who were given the choice of join the military or go to jail. See the movie "The Caine Mutiny."
We turned on a dime when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.
----
China and/or Russia can beat us on the morale front if we don't get directly attacked, but we do have to send troops abroad. Sending weapons abroad is a morale booster for Congressional districts with defense production industries. Where I see morale failing is if China captures Taiwan. I doubt we have the will to liberate Taiwan once taken.
The scarier scenario is China going all in before we turn ourselves around. What if they do have the ability to sink our navy? What if some of those Chinese immigrants in STEM are moles? What if they take away our some of our resource rich territory before we fully wake up.
We have the long and medium term ability to build chips, warships, missiles, guns, pharmaceuticals, etc. We can live without a great deal of the cheap Chinese merchandise we get at Walmart. We do have an unregulated militia of extraordinary magnitude.
But China has some serious numbers and a serious manufacturing base. The last time we fought the Chinese, they didn't have enough guns for their infantry. Soldiers were expected to pick up the guns of their fallen comrades.
Such is no longer the case.
Observing the Tree of Woe (aka Empire of Lies) from the other side of the planet (Australia), it seems that the US government has managed to alienate working class white males from the South - which also happens to be the demographic that historically makes up the bulk of the bullet-catchers in the military, and white working class males are especially heavily represented in the 'elite' trigger-pullers ("Special Forces" group photos look like Proud Boys group shots KEK).
The 'white bits' of "5-oh" are also heavily overweight ex-mil - and not just from doughnuts.
If German, French, and UK forward energy prices are remotely replicated in the US, there are going to be quite a few ex-mil LEOs who think "They're not paying me enough to stay on what is obviously the wrong side" - at which point shit starts to get real because THEY will be the 'roaming bands of marauders' that are the largely-mythical reason why we supposedly need State production of security.
PROTIP: if SHTF in the States, do not assume that a smiling white guy in BDUs is a potential ally. The dominant strategy is just to light him up - this is a situation where Type II error is better than Type I. Make sure you know where his mates are likely to be, because he won't be coming up all friendly-like without having someone on overwatch.
"Most importantly, I believe that virtually all of the ground fighting will take place outside of the homelands of the antagonists."
This might be true, but I'm not sure its as important as you think. The problem is that if 1 side starts to lose, and decides the issue is important enough, they'll attack the homeland with non-nuclear weapons.
I'd argue that nuclear weapons saved civilization, as they showed a bright line past which civilizations could be ended. At some point between 1945 and now, probably closer to 1945, technology became such that civilization could be ended without recourse to nukes. We creeped across that line without knowing it, because the bright line of nukes was already there.
Which means that if 1 side starts to lose a global proxy war, it might decide that an oil refinery blowing up will let the other side know they need to stop pushing so hard. Or perhaps covid-69 gets released, killing a mere 1% of the population then going dormant. Or the internet stops working for 24 hours.
Of course this requires that both sides be rational enough to step back from the brink rather than escalating, but if they were rational they wouldn't be in that fucking mess to begin with.
Civilization is remarkably fragile. The Mississippi river has about 200 bridges, which means a mere 200 cruise missiles launched from the Gulf could turn the eastern 1/2 of the country into cannibal mad max land. Or a handful of cruise missiles into Gulf refineries. Or shutting down pipelines with cyber attacks. I'm sure there are any number of horrors sitting in lab freezers, or on hard drives inside vaults, that could wreck things far worse than mere inflation and poor economic decisions have been doing.
Very good points raised.
The German Philosopher Peter Sloterdijk once noted: "Nobody has anytime for an entire generation anymore". Whilst will is no doubt important thus, this notion is key here:
The point being made by Sloterdijk that "maturation" a la the nominal 20-30 years needed to truly polish a generation (i.e. will, values, etc) is no longer pursued in earnest, but rather leaders (and "elites") of most Western nations try and compress that down to a measly 2-5 years or mere months even in certain cases. And so this comes down to the following:
The Posthuman, Shiny, Sexy, "Sciency", Transhumanist pursuing Elite of Yankee-land may just decide to go full-Chimera mode. Why bother with "boosting morale", if one can just Drug, Genetically Engineer, Lobotomize, etc and "Cheat" in that manner to try and Pursue Victory?
During Ike's presidency and the twilight of the Korean War, Yankee-High Command proposed to said president a Full Scale invasion of the Chinese mainland.
The plan involved an invasion force of some 800k Yankees, who would land after several dozen Nukes vaporized some hundred million "Y*****s".
The idea being to use Taiwan (as the Japanese had for much of the Second Sino-Japanese War) as the launchpad and "unsinkable aircraft carrier" to ravage the Chinese people into surrender.
Why bring this up? Well, even though Ike ultimately shot down the proposal (Murican historians say it was because he wanted his progeny to pursue peaceful trade and commercial ties with the Chinese, this likely is a lie; but I will desist on going off on this tangent over here), this engagement plan is nevertheless on file if Yankee-land is in need of it in the near future.
As such, World War Next might very well involve said Barbarism by Yankee-land. Drugs, Lobotomies, etc therefore suddenly become not only essential but seemingly a necessity.
How else would one unleash millions of Savage Yankees onto the Chinese people to Rape, Pillage, Kill, Loot, etc ... in a hellscape that is already filled with tens of millions wailing due Nuclear Radiation Burns, Cannibalistic pursuits, etc?
This coming world war will likely be "BEYOND Human Will", a la one would need to go to those psychological states BEYOND "normal" pursuant modes of meaning/relevance vs irrelevance/vileness.
Those Great powers who can bridge said gap... the normal human modes noted earlier; will have the advantage it seems with regard the "winning" the overall conflict.
Namely, how does one get VILE ACTION whilst not tapping into the normal modes of Human Motivation? Drugs, Lobotomies, etc on the one end, and Revenge, Annihilation of one's Kin in their entirety, etc on the other end. This will be the calculus that needs examining.
America's national will is an interesting topic. I think much of it is gone. The Globalists who rule over us would engineer some false flag to 'rally the citizens' and it would probably fall flat. I'm trying to imagine Mitch McConnell, Linsey Graham, and Nancy Pelosi trying to whip up vigor among the populations who've classically gone to war for the good ole USA and I simply can't see it.
As someone who fought in Iraq as a grunt, I can only say "Good".
For America to endure, it needs to content itself with being a regional power and good neighbor.
Sadly, we're in the twilight years of empire, so it's likely to happen at some point.
I hope it happens before my son is old enough to be drafted.