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And you certainly didn't disappoint me, GoreN4. Your reference to the role of hydrocarbons in all of this is the unifying factor.
One point on which I take a slight disagreement is that the US is unable to compete on the global labor market due to high labor costs. Labor costs are high in Japan and the Franco-German engine that drives the EU, but both are still highly competitive. What I see as the mitigating factor with the US is the manner in which the US essentially hogs the majority of the world's investment capital through international institutions such as the IMF, which it then uses to finance its rampant overconsumption -- the one thing that still holds its economy together. This phenomenon has dictated that the US economy moves toward becoming more and more of a "finance economy" driven by Wall St. than the old manufacturing economy that we were at the height of our power during the post-WWII boom, at which time we supplied over half of the world's manufacturing capacity.
Since our economy depends so much on rampant consumer spending, hydrocarbons are a prime factor in keeping our economy going. It's important not just for our domestic economy, but for the countries that supply our goods and services.
Chalmers Johnson has written extensively about our "empire of bases" around the world in his latest book, The Sorrows of Empire. And he is correct in asserting that the United States is an empire of bases, maintaining a military presence throughout the world. The 14 permanent bases being built in Iraq are a big part of that, because it allows us to replace our garrisons in an increasingly volatile Saudi Arabia while still maintaining a direct presence right smack dab in the middle of Middle Eastern oil. The main power of the United States military lies not in the number of forces or the territory controlled, but as the military itself states, its ability to project military force all over the globe.
One area that I think Johnson misses, however, and that French historian and demographer Emmanuel Todd hits in his book After the Empire (titled Apres l'Empire in its original French) is that this "empire" is an extremely weak one. Unlike the ancient Romans, who controlled the world as they knew it directly, the US empire has come to depend upon the cooperation of the other emerging power centers of the world -- Europe (led by the consolidating Franco-German alliance) and the Pacific Rim (led by Japan). The US "hegemony" remains only as long as Europe and Japan allow it to. They allow it to continue because it currently serves their immediate interest to do so. But if the time comes where it no longer serves their interest, then the US "empire" will almost immediately collapse under its own weight.
This is where we turn back to hydrocarbons. One of the reasons that Europe and Japan give their cooperation to US hegemony is that they are almost fully dependent upon imports from the Middle East to provide fuel for their industrial capacity. This is the reason that the US is so hell bent on maintaining a presence in Iraq -- so it can control the spigot to Europe and Japan, thus ensuring their cooperation.
The real wild card in this whole deal is Russia. It is estimated that, of the remaining oil and natural gas reserves on the planet, Russia is second only behind Saudi Arabia. In The Grand Chessboard, former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski advocated that the US take steps to force the dismantling of Russia following the end of the Cold War. The reason was that Russia still maintained the sole capacity on the earth to present a direct challenge to US hegemony. In some ways, his plan was carried out -- "shock therapy" to completely wreck the Russian economy, the separation of Ukraine and Belarus from the Russian Federation, the encroachement of NATO further and further eastward. But in the long view, American leaders were predictably lazy, and carried these efforts out in a half-assed kind of way, following the usual path of least resistance.
This has enabled Russia to finally start to turn itself around. It is now experiencing positive economic growth for the past few years after a decade of economic contraction. Perhaps most importantly, it has realized its self-sufficiency due to significant natural resources, enabling it to maintain a positive trade balance and essentially ignore the dictates of the IMF and World Bank. Of course, it isn't out of the woods yet, but there are promising signs of its recovery. Furthermore, Todd notes in his book that the former Soviet Republics still share a huge cultural affinity with Russia. He notes that the Ukraine is torn between wanting a certain degree of autonomy, and being historically dependent on Russia for technological advancement. There is also still an affinity with the former Central Republics as well, due to the more universalist spirit of Russia in bringing together different cultures (as opposed to the increasingly xenophobic and decidedly UN-universalist United States, with its ever-present fear of the undesirable "other").
This presents Europe and Japan with an interesting choice. The US continues to stir up trouble in the Middle East, making oil supplies there increasingly unreliable (and subject to US control). The US presents an increasingly xenophobic tendency, coupled with a classist and decidedly unegalitarian society. It also is acting increasingly irrationally and unpredictable, preferring to fall back on militarism than work through diplomatic channels and international institutions, out of hopes of preserving a quickly disappearing hegemony. Russia, OTOH, presents more of the cultural values in common with Europe -- universalism, a willingness to work through international bodies, a communitarian tradition (dating back well into the Tsarist age) that will eventually push things toward greater egalitarianism -- while at the same time presenting hydrocarbon supplies with little of the unrest that exists in the Middle East, since the US isn't constantly stirring up the hornets' nest there. Russia also presents many of these qualities to Japan, due to its physical proximity and many of the greater cultural affinities that they also share with Russia (especially the Asiatic peoples of Eastern Russia).
So, I guess what we're looking at is an approaching tipping point, a time at which the US will just become too irrational for Europe and Japan to deal with to be overshadowed by any short-term benefits, and Russia will emerge to the point that it will present another alternative to counter what remains of US hegemony, without any of the insanity or desires for world domination to go along with it. When that happens, there are two things that are relatively certain. First, US military power will decline rapidly, essentially imploding on itself. The US will be in no position to raise any kind of serious protest to Europe and/or Japan, due to their economic superiority. Second, the standard of living in the United States will drop as much as 25%, as investment capital that we have been hogging begins instead to flow to those who create it (Europe and Japan) and those who actually need it (the developing world).
Of course, all of this could be a GOOD thing, because the rest of the world seems to realize two important facts that the US does not -- that there never will again be a singular "world power", but rather several regional blocs; and that no nation can really extend their power through military means, as Todd points out has been proven by the failures to do so throughout the 20th century. The possibility remains that the collapse of the remaining skeleton of US hegemony could actually usher in an era of relative world peace among industrialized nations, and allowing modernizing nations (like much of the Middle East) to find their own path without constant US interference.
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