Will Oceania (Imperial USA) accept its assigned role in 'spheres of Influence?

The weekend was way too busy, in a dozen ways, to post a blog.  Finished the first draft of my own great big book on AI, for example. (Coming soon, I hope.) Still, let's try for a short, pungent one mid-week.

Nathan Gardels offers an interesting essay, in Noema Magazine, on a coming era of world  "spheres of influence."  Of course, that model of the world has long been desired by some as a replacement for the 80 year, generally benign American Pax, which has - despite its many mistakes and flaws - been inarguably the very best time for humanity in the history of our species. Compared to any other. Compared to all others. All others, combined.

 Note that, despite horrific exceptions:

Easily 90% of living humans have never witnessed war with their own eyes. Ponder that, in light of history.

I'd estimate 95% of world children have never starved and are in school. And immunized. Ponder that, too.

The percentage with drinkable water and sanitation keeps climbing.

... as did the fraction with general human rights. And so on... That was the trend, till recently.

Hence, what is the central goal of tyrants and those who desire a return to 6000 years of nescient feudalism? The American Pax is too strong to be attacked and too popular to be toppled by world rebellion. But as we've found, it can be suborned from within...

...not to be destroyed. America is far two strong for that. The professional classes are too mighty and the subornation - while spectacularly successful right now - won't last.  But if the bipolar ailment of one of our ruling parties**-- oscillating from imperialism to isolationism and back again - can be exploited, getting us to retract into a localized 'sphere of influence,' that could give the international arrays of hierarchs what they want.

What is the goal? Gardels edges up to it but never quite arrives. Elsewhere - just last month - I posted about “The Technate of North America,” illustrated in this dredged up map from a similarly fevered era, the 1920s and 30s. Part of a range of bizarre political ideas that have flourished in times of stress. 

A notion now pushed by the Yarvin-Thiel-Miller 'dark enlightenment" twits roaming the White House right now. (I've known Yarvin a long time.)

George Orwell portrayed where 'spheres of influence' go... a nightmare pattern of endless simmer-war among Eastasia, Eurasia and our own Oceania.  

In a stunningly creepy pareidolia, Oceania would look an awful lot like the “Technate” map. Though with Britain ("Airstrip One")  thrown in as plot setting for Nineteen-Eighty-Four. Which perhaps inspired Orwell in the first place! 

I riff further on this here.

 

      == Pause and reconsider the 'spheres.' ==

Before you give these dopes too much credence, please consider that Putin is not winning his 'sphere' in Ukraine. Europeans do not want any part of his influence sphere and - while they are rearming fast, in light of the USA's unreliability - they know that their only successful asymptote is Putin's end. Preferably at the hands of fed-up Russian troops and veterans. The 1917 Soldiers Revolt option that Putin himself mentions frequently, in frantically repeated denial.  Hence "Eurasia" doesn't look so good a bet, right now. 

Especially since China's top goal (shall we whisper it?) is Siberia.

As for 'Eastasia', well, China is ascendant, yes. But anyone who believes - after Ukraine - that they still think slow, noisy troop ships can cross the Taiwan Straits is a dummy. Can Beijing blockade or hurt Taiwan? Sure, they can do that. But never boots on the ground. Any boots that try will 'hit' sea bottom.

Sorry. 'Spheres of Influence' is their dream. And that of a complicit Republican Party whose core foreign policy syndrome has always been a BIPOLAR ailment that I first diagnosed back in the last century, but most-recently wrote about here, in 2017. 

        The way that GOP administrations - and indeed all of their political leaders - tend to gyrate between two states…

…either manic imperialism or depressive isolationism.

Bush era neocons manifested the former, openly raving “We are now an empire!”... a phrase that now blares from the Trump White House -- on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and alternate weekends.  After just weeks earlier proclaiming an isolationist “America First!” policy to end all wars of intervention or nation-building and even our world network of alliances that kept the peace (mostly) for the last 80 years.

These bipolar and extreme mood swings are predictable, hypocritical and dangerous!

**Are Democratic administrations guiltless, or more-sane? Well, yes, comparatively so. Certainly, less blatantly and compulsively cyclical between extremes. And in most cases – except Somalia – at least listening to professional advice.

A final note. 

Do not ignore the incredible contrast in COMPETENCE displayed between Russia's many years in Ukraine and and the US military's dazzling three hours in Caracas. A level of incredible competence going back to the initial and proper surgical actions in Iraq and Afghanistan (both of them ruined by insane Bushites plunging us into subsequent quagmires.. Western weapons and training and those using them are spectacularly effective and - in stark contrast - the entire network of those who bought Russian military hardware or doctrines now deeply regret it.  As I just said, the only battlefield where the U.S. military experiences competency regret is a quagmire. And hence, getting us stuck in one is a central enemy goal.

The contrast could not be more blatant, in comparison to "War Secretary" Pete Filthy Fingers *** Hegseth - just 6 weeks earlier - berating 500 Generals,Admirals and top Sergeants, calling them "too fat and woke to fight!" Oh, like a famous lush and walking petri dish should talk.

No wonder they fired or transferred most of the military JAGs who can advise officers when an order is illegal. And just weeks after taking charge they closed the FBI office charged with tracking 'foreign influence programs."

Above all, they must end the Marshallian ethos of the United States Military Officer Corps... as they are apparently succeeding doing with the FBI and intel agencies. 

That will be a tough nut. But if you fire enough of the good ones, you can work your way down to the General Jack T. Ripper types.  At which point we could be screwed., all the way down to purity of essence.

========

And the Boss tells it. 

========

*** Hegseth repeatedly told his Fox Weekend co-hosts that he doesn't believe in germs and "I haven't washed my hands in a decade." 

​