[rogerhb]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mekrob', 'I')f they drop the dollar, they drop their own economy. Who's gonna buy their crap if the US can't?

[gg3]

Allies and their Dependents

For a few years I've been concerned about a Russia/China alliance and its potential to do harm, beginning with an EMP attack and following up much as the Philippine general described. A few years ago this scenario was dismissable on the basis that China would not want to tie itself down with Russia's economic woes. However given the way Russia is positioning itself in terms of European energy supplies, Russia becomes that much stronger and thus a co-equal partner for China.

Realistically it's not in either of their interests to start a shooting war. Nor is it necessary. Nor is it even necessary to deal a crippling blow via, for example, dumping dollars.

Much easier and more productive to bleed the giant slowly, weaken it by degrees, each degree almost un-noticeable like the degrees of temperature added to a pot of water in which sits an unsuspecting frog. For example:

Russia can slowly hike natural gas prices to Europe. So long as the price increases are not so large as to cause Europe to start building nuclear reactors and seeking independence, Russia will accumulate foreign exchange in the form of Euros.

China can slowly diversify its currency mix. So long as its move away from the dollar is not so fast as to cause a herd reaction, China benefits from both sides of the transaction: gaining the value of the sold dollars, and the security of the bought Euros.

In this way, Europe becomes a dependent on Russian energy and Chinese financial support, much as the US has become a dependent on Middle Eastern energy and Chinese manufacturing and financial support. (Aside: was Karl Marx right about capitalism selling its adversaries the rope with which to hang it by the neck until dead...?)

Parasitic Brinksmanship: The Threshold of Pain and Action

In all of these cases: the Middle East/US (energy), China/US (finance); and now Russia/Europe (energy) and the potential of China/Europe (finance), there is a common denominator: parasitism rather than predation.

The predator kills and eats its victim. This is the scenario our Philippine general is concerned with.

The parasite has no desire or need to kill the victim; rather it benefits from keeping the victim alive but in a weakened state.

By this analogy I do not mean to imply denigration: the word "parasite" normally has a connotation of low moral standing, but that does not apply in the present case. In fact parasites are highly-evolved, tenacious, and notoriously hard to dislodge much less kill off.

The ideal strategy for a parasite is to take maximum benefit from its victim but remain just below the threshold at which the victim becomes irritated enough to strike back and kill the parasite. This is what I refer to as "the threshold of pain and action." A more compact phrase might be "parasitic brinksmanship."

For at least the past three decades, Middle Eastern oil producers have played this game with the US and won. There has been plenty of grumbling about oil prices, and occasional talk of "energy independence," but for the most part nothing has actually been done. We can't even get a wind farm built (much less a nuclear reactor!) without the spoiled owners of expensive properties whining that it will ruin the "views" that they believe themselves to have bought along with the houses for which they actually paid. We can't even raise automobile efficiency standards, but instead flounder behind the wheels of oxymoronically-named "sports" "utility" vehicles that grow more obnoxious by the year. In the end we have remained hooked, and been bled. No doubt that China and Russia, as well as Iran, have all learned from this example.

China can play an equivalent game with money and manufacturing. It has nothing to gain by starting a run on the dollar, and much to gain by taking slow steps to bleed the US economy one drop at a time. A slow shift toward the Euro, a slow decrease in the financing of debt or shift in the terms and conditions thereof, will do the trick nicely. If properly managed, there will be much grumbling on this side of the pond, but no real action. Washington will continue to borrow (perhaps less so now that we have a 2-party state where each side has the incentive to blow the whistle on the other side's pork), and WalMart will continue to sell.

Russia can do likewise with natural gas. Slow steady price increases, occasional retaliatory shortages, and similar measures, will keep Europe hooked and grumbling, without provoking moves toward independence.

So long as both Russia and China maintain steady and slowly-increasing pressure on the West, they will gain and the West will lose. There will be no need to fire a shot much less detonate an EMP weapon. Instead, we will die of our own amusements and consumer decadence and lack of will.

The new Russian hegemony

Putin is a Kruschev without the bluster or the burden of a purportedly humanitarian ideology.

Soviet communism claimed to compete with Western capitalism at the level of providing for the material wellbeing of nations that embraced it. To a certain extent this was true, as Soviet financial and material support helped the Warsaw pact countries industrialize after WW2 and helped Cuba establish its own infrastructure in the 1960s. These examples were seen as attractive by those who sought to foment communism elsewhere, and thus came much mischief between the then-superpowers and their proxies and their "target audiences" through the second half of the 20th century.

The flipside of course was the dreary oppressiveness of communism, and a standard of living that rapidly stagnated compared to the ongoing advances in the Western-allied nations. One hardly needs to catalogue the evils from the Gulags to the unrestrained pollution to the secret buildup of chem/bio weapons factories with production tanks the size of what you would find at a major beer producer's breweries. In the end those anthrax breweries and virus labs proved Reagan right: it was a truly evil empire.

But to the extent that Soviet communism claimed to be about improving the lot of humanity, it also incurred obligations that became a drain upon the empire.

Putinism, if we can call it that, has discarded any pretense of being humanitarian or at all concerned with the wellbeing of anyone except Russia itself. It is simple nationalism in its essence, with smart diplomacy on the world stage, and with its use of brutal methods more refined and precisely-targeted (e.g. the polonium poisoning of the Russian exile in the UK) than in the days when tanks rolled through Prague.

Putinism is an adversarial ideology without an ideology as-such. It may turn out to be the shape of things to come. And its greatest threat to us, is that we too may fall into a similar trap, abandoning our national ideals in favor of simple nationalism. To quote B.F. Skinner far out of context, we would find ourselves in a world "beyond freedom and dignity."

Childhood's End

There is a way out, and it's obvious: break the addictions to debt and cheap energy. Peak oil will force our hand in this whether we like it or not, and there is more to be gained by being proactive than by being dragged kicking and screaming.

In essence we must grow up. The era of amusement and entertainment is over, and the era of adult responsibility has begun. We can deny it all we like until the last minute, like an 18-year-old delinquint who gets drafted into the Army and finally meets his match in the form of a drill seargant who will take no bullshit.

There can be no more wall-sized televisions. No more gas guzzlers. No more McMansions heated to 75 in the winter and cooled to 65 in the summer. No more credit card binges. No more pork barrel projects. No more earmarks. No more tax cuts while at war. No more useless layers of bureaucracy and management.

The necessary near-term future, the transition to national adulthood for the US and its allies, looks more like the life of the delinquint draftee getting shaped-up at basic training. The word "spartan" will have to be paired with the word "virtue." The word "pampered" will have to become a term of contempt rather than a term used in the advertising of spas and cruises and motor vehicles. Words such as "strict" and "discpline" will have to become more common. A no-BS attitude will be needed to assure that the words translate to actions.

We could have made the transition immediately after 9/11. We could have toughened up, but instead we were told to "go shopping." We became at once more fearful and more decadent, leaving the heavy lifting to "someone else's kids" in uniform. We squandered the last opportunity we will have during times of cheap energy and easy money. One way or another we will pay back the squanderousness with interest due. The only question is whether the path will be freely chosen or not. Many a wayward draftee has turned out to become a fine soldier, but many have not. There is no foregone conclusion.

Woe be to the politicians who try to take this message to the public.

Greater woe be to the public that does not listen.