Peak Oil is You
Donate Bitcoins ;-) or Paypal :-)
Page added on August 23, 2018
Why American Collapse Is Coming To A Country Near You
A friend said on Twitter, last night, “I understand Umair’s points about America. But I don’t get why Europe isn’t being stricken by American collapse, too.”
You might think, reading recent essays, that I suppose Europe (Canada, Asia, whomever) is immune from what America’s going through. I’m sorry if I’ve given you that impression. No one is immune. Not at all. I’ve long said that fascism would be the defining event of our adult lifetimes — globally. And, of course, we already see it rising in Europe. So the grim reality is something more like this. American collapse might well be coming to a country near you — no matter how sophisticated, gentle, or wise it is.
But I want you to really understand why, I don’t want to mince words — so I’m going to start at the beginning.
Let’s think about America, and the lesson it teaches us, for a moment. America was, if we’re honest, an apartheid state until 1971. Now, that means, quite obviously, that while European countries were building great public goods — healthcare, education, pensions, safety nets, etcetera, which began in the 1920s in some places, in the 1950s, in others — America couldn’t. Because these goods are for all, or for none. Therefore, the price of being an apartheid state is also a failure to develop great systems of public goods, which are the key, really, to enduring prosperity — much more so than “innovation” and “growth” (can you eat an iPhone? Can Facebook treat your cancer?)
The gift of genuine equality, in other words, is that people can invest in one another — instead of exploit one another. That is the great lesson of the 20th century — and sadly, it is still unlearned. Only Europe really understands it — and even then, too little, too infrequently.
America is the first to fall to fascism because America only ever had a scant few decades to apply the 20th century’s great lesson — only true equality makes modernity possible. It had maybe just thirty short years of even trying to be something resembling a genuinely modern, civilized society. Which means, economically, people investing their surpluses in each other, by way of public goods, which they can only ever do if they are truly equal. Civilization was only even within the realm of possibility in America from 1980 or thereabouts to 2010 — unlike in Europe. This is America’s great curse, which Americans still don’t understand.
What happened around 2010? Austerity began. What few public goods America had began to be cut. And as they began to be cut, banks were bailed out en masse. The result is that a new kind of poverty exploded in America — precarity. People began to live right at the edge of survival, every day, until, today, nearly everyone — 80% of people — live hand to mouth. That’s how many did in Victorian England, too. America’s regressed centuries in just a decade, in other words.
Why was America so vulnerable to fascism? Because thirty years is not very long, is it? Americans grew poor, suddenly, because they had never really been rich. They had just thirty years to try to accumulate savings, incomes, assets — but that was not long enough, especially in a society without working public goods, where you’re paying through the nose for healthcare, to really build much at all. And so the middle class imploded easily, suddenly, catastrophically.
What do imploding middle classes do? They turn to fascists. Who blame their woes on scapegoats, turning grief into grievance. Fascists promise the downwardly mobile that they will be “great” again — that they’ll rise culturally, triumph socially, be symbolically reborn, and economically renewed. It’s a powerful appeal, to people who, suddenly, are shocked, that they are falling out of what appeared to be a clear blue sky. Who will save them? Who’ll rescue them? To understand fascism, Yyu have to understand that the minds of a large part of this stratum of society simply stop working. Those minds brim over with grievances, hated, imagined enemies, who are persecuting them, victimizing them, who are hunting them into nonexistence, who they need to destroy first, exterminate — not anything resembling coherent thoughts, logical reason, or moral sanity.
Let me connect all those dots, because they’re subtle ones. 1971 — the end of segregation. 2010 — the beginning of austerity. In between: just thirty years of being a modern, prosperous society. That didn’t give people enough time to save, invest, accumulate enough to protect themselves from sudden poverty. The middle class imploded, as the banks were bailed out, and the economy went into reverse. The downwardly mobile, shattered, turned to a fascist for salvation. Do you see how this all fits together?
Now let’s come to Europe. What has Europe had that America hasn’t? It’s had a much longer period of being a modern, civilized set of societies. There, great public goods — healthcare, education, retirement, and so forth — were built throughout the 20th century. So Europeans have had somewhere between 70–100 years of being modern, where Americans barely had thirty.
What’s more, Europe was successful at becoming modern. It really built great public goods — where America never did, partially because it never had enough time. Those public goods have made Europeans more secure. They have higher incomes, higher home ownership, more savings, and so on. The lesson again: true equality, real prosperity.
Now. All these things give Europe a safety net from fascism. But they don’t protect it absolutely, or protect it forever.
The problem is that incomes are stagnant worldwide now — even in Europe. That’s why even there, we see fascism rising, in, say Italy, Greece, even Sweden.
Americans had no safety net from fascism whatsoever. Thirty years of modernity, with barely any public goods built — and then a crash. Bang! The average person fell into 21st century poverty by 2010. The howl of fascism arose just five years or so later.
Europeans have a stronger safety net. Seventy years of modernity, robust public goods. Higher savings, incomes, more ownership. But the crash is hitting them, too. The average person there, too, will fall into 21st century poverty, if trends go on unaltered — because it’s becoming difficult, there, too, to make ends meet, thanks to austerity, neoliberalism, monopoly, and so on. Bang! They’re turning to fascism, too, in just the same ways as America. Depressed Easy Germany. Industrial Sweden. Depressed Greece. The broken American Rust Belt. Do you see the link?
Now. The question is this. How long will Europe’s safety net last? How much protection do Europeans really have? Think of fascism as something like a shark, or a dragon, eating away at that net. It won’t last forever.
My estimate has long been that Europeans have about five years of protection, compared to America. Now, that’s just an estimate — the same way a doctor might tell you how long you have to live if you have cancer. So it’s subjective — still, very few people predicted fascism in America, and I was one. So. Five years — but not from now, from the beginning of American fascism, which was two years ago.
That is why we’re already seeing European fascism rise so strongly and viciously. The safety net that Europe has from fascism is being chewed through. Stagnation is eating away even at European safety and security. Middle classes are, in places, becoming downwardly mobile — or are least aspirations are turning into dashed hopes.
The one great advantage that Europe has over America, though, is that — to be blunt — it doesn’t take pride in ignorance. So Europeans should understand all this, once it’s explained to them — unlike Americans, who, no matter how many times anyone tries, don’t listen, won’t listen, can’t hear it, can’t understand.
Europe isn’t as foolish as America because it’s been through this before. The question, therefore, is this. Can Europe raise its levels of investment in itself? Can it invest in the right and wise and decent things? Can it invest, just as it has for the last seventy years, but better, in even stronger, more robust, broader, deeper public goods? Which give people enough of a sense of true safety and security — economic, which becomes social, psychological, cultural — that they don’t have to turn to fascists, to assuage fears which have become paranoid, delusional, overblown grievances — so large and menacing, imagined to be so dangerous, they become great psychological persecution complexes, which leave people unable to think or reason at all, only able to hate and destroy, like they have in America, that land of folly, greed, and ignorance?
If it can’t, the future is very simple. American collapse is coming soon to a country near you.
Umair
August 2018
32 Comments on "Why American Collapse Is Coming To A Country Near You"
deadly on Thu, 23rd Aug 2018 6:02 am
Oh for Christ’s sake, somebody bitch slap this dumbass.
Hey Umair, go fuck yourself, ya stupid shithead.
Davy on Thu, 23rd Aug 2018 6:30 am
Can we honestly blame everything wrong in the world today on Trump and secondly the US? Come on, intelligent, objective, and balanced people should raise an eyebrow to this behavior. I will accept the US deserves a large amount of blame because of the failure of global leadership post USSR. Blame goes with the territory of leadership. Trump is an expression of US failures of the previous party and administration. He should never have become President. The democrats and the left deserve that blame and they are not owning it. To dismiss failures elsewhere in the world is not legitimate when looking at something as important as assigning blame for the failings of our global society. We appear to be systematically entering a state of being a late term civilization but that does not necessarily mean an immediate end.
The blame and complain for failures has to be proportioned if it is going to be dispensed. If it is not dispensed properly then there can never be accurate lessons learned that lead to healing. The story is never complete without objective blame. Partisan blame is rarely effective because it is clearly biased. Biased blame rarely has majority approval. This author is an example of the failed left. If the left ever wants my support again this type of behavior will have to be marginalized just like the radical right’s extremist. I am looking for an alternative but see nothing ahead. This black hole of leadership does point to the end of the US but I doubt an immediate end. This Umair chump is right about one thing if the US were to go down it will drag the rest of the world with it. This is true of other major powers too. We are all in this together now.
OGD on Thu, 23rd Aug 2018 6:33 am
What a bunch of Bullshit.
Antius on Thu, 23rd Aug 2018 7:38 am
“Can we honestly blame everything wrong in the world today on Trump and secondly the US?”
Yes and no. I continue to believe that there is a nation within a nation in the US; an entrenched, wealthy and heavily Jewish political class, with an imperialistic and globalist outlook. These people are not interested in the wellbeing of the American people or any other people for that matter; they see themselves as a class apart. Ironically, many Americans interpret them as being the champions of the little man. They couldn’t be more wrong. They are obsessed with power, and would rather be masters of a world crushed and impoverished, than equals in a more multipolar world. George Washington and Abraham Lincoln must be spinning in their graves.
Trump is doing exactly what he promised to do when elected. He is trying to rebuild America as the sort of place that he can remember growing up in in the 1950s. He does not have the education or general understanding of the cause of the problems he is facing to really be effectual at this. He does not understand that the natural resource base that supports American prosperity is no longer rich enough to support the type of country he is trying to build. But he is attempting to tackle imbalances in global trade and he has passed a bill designed to deal with the decline of US infrastructure. What America really needs is a cultural and technological revolution developing entirely new products, along with a sustained effort to replace fossil fuels with nuclear energy. But Trump just isn’t the man to deliver that.
Hearing people slag off Trump reminds me very much of people that hate Margaret Thatcher in the UK. She is held singularly to blame for the country’s industrial decline – in reality she merely dealt the killer blow by allowing globalists to asset strip the country. She was able to do this only after decades of subversive, mafia like labour movements had reduced those industries to a sham. In their power struggle for influence and a bigger piece of the pie, these firebrands ended up with nothing at all.
Jef on Thu, 23rd Aug 2018 9:13 am
Right! This guy needs to be tased then waterboarded, then striped naked and have his genitals made fun of and brutalized, then let him go and drone his ass as soon as he get home.
Duncan Idaho on Thu, 23rd Aug 2018 9:20 am
Interesting— someone is starting to get some insight.
JuanP on Thu, 23rd Aug 2018 9:20 am
Davy “Can we honestly blame everything wrong in the world today on Trump and secondly the US?”
The obvious answer is no. The problem is, and has always been, human nature. The USA and Trump don’t help, though.
Bob Jones on Thu, 23rd Aug 2018 12:50 pm
I’m learning about the typical American idiot (and its lackeys/flunkies) on PeakOil.
Place blame on black people, Africa, or poor people, and the idiots come from everywhere spewing their racial superiority/exceptionalist nonsense.
Blame the United States, with its Federal Reserve fiat, drone strikes, racial hatred, military invasions, conspicuous consumption, and entitlement, and the idiots go on attack (excuses, deflections, and rationalizations).
It is so predictable. Stupid people are very predictable.
mihilus on Thu, 23rd Aug 2018 3:36 pm
Wow this is truly a terrible article. People become more clannish when going gets tough. Multiculturalism is tolerable in times of prosperity. And now its starting to show its other face. Its as simple as that.
GetAVasectomyAndLetTheHumanSpecieVanish on Thu, 23rd Aug 2018 4:04 pm
Collapse is coming into all white western countries.
Some news from Canada:
Maxime Bernier an ex conservative member has quit the conservative party and he is forming his own political party based on a populism agenda.
Trudeau use service secret (RCMP) to protect his political agenda and reputation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3Qv8IOivNg
As the available net energy is going down because of depletion, Western countries are not able to take care of the news immigrants.
I think peak oil will actually cause social chaos that will then cause destruction of infrastructure like electricity and water distribution. Once Western countries go down into chaos so does the whole world and modernity like electricity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhxqiCglUdQ
The reason why every empire has collapse it is because it is the only way to bring real changes. We are now seeing the beginning of the collapse Western Countries. What will come after that is anyone quest.
duh on Thu, 23rd Aug 2018 4:14 pm
Global warming is good. Global cooling caused by less active sun is not good- you liberal nazi faggots.
GetAVasectomyAndLetTheHumanSpecieVanish on Thu, 23rd Aug 2018 4:32 pm
This is a better video of Maxime Bernier using the populism wave amount white people in Western countries to create a new political party in Canada. He will probably win the next election if he can put this up in time for the next election
Populism is coming into every white western countries.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MShdEN6JmUA
onlooker on Thu, 23rd Aug 2018 5:50 pm
The obvious answer is no. The problem is, and has always been, human nature. The USA and Trump don’t help, though.—
Bingo!
fmr-paultard on Thu, 23rd Aug 2018 6:51 pm
the nazi freaks want america collapsed so they can implement their 1000000 year reich
the muslim freaks for a differnet reason – sharia law. that’s why they sow as much death and carnage wherever they are.
https://wikiislam.net/wiki/Amputation_in_Islam
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOpHu5YTL4c&bpctr=1535068828
Cloggie on Fri, 24th Aug 2018 1:19 am
May’s fury as Chancellor warns no-deal Brexit could wipe TEN PER CENT off UK’s national income – just hours after Dominic Raab dismissed ‘wild’ scare stories and said it would not impact consumers
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6091805/Chancellor-warns-large-fiscal-consequences-UK.html
It’s coming folks, the breakup of the West, not a minute too early.
May’s government is now taking a no deal Brexit seriously and presented 25 out of 80 documents, dealing with that situation in order to prepare the British population of what might lay ahead (a full blockade). The fact that she does this will have a self-fulfilling prophecy character about it.
Britain tried for half a century to become European, but failed. Now Britain is thrown back into Anglosphere (Orwell’s “Oceania”), where she belongs. And since this is no longer the 19th century, Britain will become a US appendix, its 51st state so to speak.
https://documents1940.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/george_orwell_map.jpg
George Orwell will be proven right.
Let’s use the opportunity to create as much chaos as possible to ensure the liberation of continental Europe from globalist Anglo-Zionism and its destructive multicult.
Russia, here we come.
Cloggie on Fri, 24th Aug 2018 1:25 am
The imperial press is trying to torpedo president Trump, the nemesis of the empire. Time magazine has a cover showing the Oval Office under water:
http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/donald-trump-auf-cover-des-time-magazin-der-praesident-geht-unter-a-1224682.html
It is an oligarch declaration of war and preparation of the forceful removal of DJT from the WH. Statement: America belongs to the (kosher dominated) Big Club and you ain’t in it, European America.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKUaqFzZLxU
Cloggie on Fri, 24th Aug 2018 1:51 am
Paris-Berlin-Moscow coming.
The French president de Gaulle was right: the British do not belong in Europe, they will only try to sabotage it on behalf of US interests.
Officially de Gaulle was an ally of the, em, allies. In reality he was the enemy of both Churchill and Roosevelt, to the tune that at some point during the war both the latter contemplated to get de Gaulle killed. Because de Gaulle knew precisely what both these crooks were up to: the intentional colonization of Europe, together with their commie palls in Moscow. This is what de Gaulle said in 1949:
Moi je dis qu’il faut faire l’Europe avec pour base un accord entre Français et Allemands. (…) Une fois l’Europe faite sur ces bases (…), alors, on pourra se tourner vers la Russie. Alors, on pourra essayer, une bonne fois pour toutes, de faire l’Europe tout entière avec la Russie aussi, dut-elle changer son régime. Voilà le programme des vrais Européens. Voilà le mien”.
Translation: after communism, the program of the true Europeans must be an alliance between France, Germany and Russia.
Amen.
The victory of Russia over the intentions of the US in Syria can be booked as a first European victory over the US. Time for more victories.
Now we have a successor of de Gaulle in the Kremlin, who wants the same as de Gaulle:
https://documents1940.wordpress.com/2017/12/03/paris-berlin-moscow/
Let’s scrub Europe clean of all American and British military bases, recapture Gibraltar, set the Channel tunnel under water and team up with Russia and China and withdraw from all US dominated globalist institutions, including UN, IMF, WB, etc and create new institutions in Eurasia, tailor made for a truly multi-polar world, post Pax Americana and dismantle all US military bases in Eurasia.
And once we have a Greater European Confederation of 640 million in place, nuclear armed to the teeth, we can start to act as a magnet for European-America and help organize its liberation from the oligarchs.
Theedrich on Fri, 24th Aug 2018 2:23 am
Another non-White disparaging Whiteland. Another fellow traveler associated with the filth of the DeepState and anti-White media. What ThirdWorld snakepit did he slither out of? Saudi Arabia? Pakistan?
The festering trash dumps of the Left (e.g., in Congress, the State Department, CIA, the “Justice” Department, etc.) could not care less about true civilization. They are concerned only about how much money Sörös & Co. is going to give them to implement his insanity. Losing their jobs and their sinecures is too good for them. Their only concern is inventing infantile hysteria with which to excite the unthinking plebs so that Whitey will be persuaded to commit genosuicide.
The sooner the entire charade of American goody-goody-ness collapses, the better. What is important is not some ideological heaven for invasive darkskinned parasites, but White survival. By refusing to acknowledge that the world was built by Caucasians, our domestic enemies reveal themselves to be a global cancer. And it is clear what the result of untreated cancer is.
Cloggie on Fri, 24th Aug 2018 2:39 am
Pakistan.
makati1 on Fri, 24th Aug 2018 4:59 am
Finally! An article that is not afraid to point out the truth about America! Many points hit bullseye! Actually 100% of the points. But Americans are the ‘frog in the pot’ and the heat is getting to boiling point.
The author only talked about Western countries and specifically the obvious ones that are collapsing, the US and the EU.
He hedged his bet with the words “might well be” or not. I’m amazed that authors throw out ideas as if the whole 190+ countries in the world today are in the same boat when they are not even in the same ocean.
Many countries are growing. That the Western world is shrinking is obvious, but the rest of the world is ignored as it does not back up the author’s ideas/propaganda. After all, this is just an opinion piece, even if it is spot on about the Us and EU.
makati1 on Fri, 24th Aug 2018 5:36 am
“…what Americans have failed to comprehend, living as they do in a TV-induced, drug-like haze of fabricated realities, narcissistic denial, and partisan politics, is that we’ve not only brought the military equipment used in Iraq and Afghanistan home to be used against the American people.”
https://rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/battlefield_america_the_ongoing_war_on_the_american_people
“This is what a state of undeclared martial law looks like, when you can be arrested, tasered, shot, brutalized and in some cases killed merely for not complying with a government agent’s order or not complying fast enough.”
Slip slidin’…
armin on Fri, 24th Aug 2018 5:40 am
Its been years since i read such load of bullshit….. do you even read from multiple sources or is this just from your head.
YOU dont EVEN mention Brexit here…. the hell is wrong with you boy.
you cant analyse with half the data set.
makati1 on Fri, 24th Aug 2018 6:15 am
“If you have concluded that a small handful of crazed morons control the words we are permitted to use, you are correct. The LGBT (Lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender) community has decided that the word “vagina” is not gender-inclusive. The new unbiased designation of vagina is “front hole.”…
Men and women of my generation—fortunately we don’t have to endure this crazed epoch much longer—could generate endless mirth with the new politically correct term. I won’t do it here, but you men and women, assuming men and women still exist in the oxymoron called Western Civilization, use your imagination. You will enjoy the laughter.”
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2018/08/23/western-civilization-is-now-a-caricature-of-absurdity/#more-182039
“For the idiocies of our present existence, champagne and laughter are the only answers.”
Antius on Fri, 24th Aug 2018 6:24 am
It would appear that the US is already a police state; in the full, Orwellian, 1984 sense.
https://rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/battlefield_america_the_ongoing_war_on_the_american_people
I thought the situation in Britain was uniquely evil and oppressive. I was clearly wrong. I find it difficult to understand how the US can criticise human rights abuses in other parts of the world when it inflicts this sort of barbarism against it’s own people.
JuanP on Fri, 24th Aug 2018 6:36 am
Antius “It would appear that the US is already a police state; in the full, Orwellian, 1984 sense.”
I think that as life gets harder keeping control of the masses gets harder, too. This will manifest in two main ways. Increased violence and crime on one side and increased repression on the other. The USA is mostly on the repression side. Uruguay has gone the other way; the police are losing control and crime is rampant, worse than ever before and getting worse every single day. Criminals in Uruguay can do whatever they want with almost complete immunity and the streets are very dangerous. The Uruguay I grew up in was a very safe and peaceful place, but it is not anymore. I don’t know what is worse, police abuse and brutality or rampant violent crime. I can’t make up my mind. Almost the whole world is getting worse.
JuanP on Fri, 24th Aug 2018 6:38 am
That should have said impunity, not immunity.
Free Speech Forum on Fri, 24th Aug 2018 12:42 pm
Americans are submissive slaves that beg for their chains now.
Everyday the elites build their prisons, increase their arsenals, loot the country, chip away at freedom, expand their wars, increase the debt, and become stronger and wealthier.
Everyday the 99% becomes more weak, stupid, fat, divided, degraded, degenerate, dependent, enslaved, and immoral.
If you are not part of the solution then you are part of the problem.
If you are not part of the resistance then you are the enemy.
makati1 on Fri, 24th Aug 2018 7:13 pm
FSF, I totally agree. Every day it gets worse in the Us. My visits there will soon end as I do not want to be there when the gates close. It is getting more and more difficult to leave “the land of the free”.
Why does the US need a fort-like embassy when all other countries have ones like this, on the street in Manila?
http://www.kln.gov.my/image/image_gallery?uuid=bdc89158-cd62-47ac-a0b3-3df69b502120&groupId=34199&t=1347893990162
http://cnnphilippines.com/incoming/6ax8jq-U.S.-Embassy-Manila_CNNPH.png/ALTERNATES/LANDSCAPE_640/U.S.-Embassy-Manila_CNNPH.png
BTW: Picture is not current. You are not allowed to take a picture of the Us Embassy. When my WW2 vet father visited me, several years ago, I wanted a pic of him standing in front of the Embassy gate and sign. The armed guard said it is not allowed and chased us away. Yep, America, the land of the free. LMAO
Sissyfuss on Fri, 24th Aug 2018 7:26 pm
Mak, I’m not saying you looked suspicious but when you’ve had as many embassies bombed as we have you become more than a little cautious.
makati1 on Fri, 24th Aug 2018 7:36 pm
Sissy, and why do American Embassies get bombed so often? Maybe because we are constantly meddling in the country’s affairs that are not America’s business? Killing their people for no reason other than greed/lust for power?
When I moved here 10 years ago, the gate was simple. you could see the Embassy building clearly. There were no high walls. Then, about five years ago that all changed. Why? Fear of the people they were trying to subjugate once more? A multi-billion dollar fortress on the shores of Manila Bay. Use Google Earth and go up along the bay-front, past the marina, and drop the little man down on the street and see for yourself the current American fortress.
Makati1 on Fri, 24th Aug 2018 8:21 pm
Isolated America, coming soon: “It seems everyday I wake up and see another instance of defections coming from US allies over the behavior of some corner of the Trump Administration….
Duterte … rightly told Schriver publicly to get stuffed and make his case why the Philippines shouldn’t pursue its best interests…
The US is applying the same pressure to India over buying S-400 missile defense systems from Russia. …
Turkey’s working closely with Russia on important energy projects like the massive Turkish Stream pipeline, nuclear power plants as well as committing India’s sin of choosing the S-400 over the US Patriot system….
Iran unveiled its first homegrown fighter jet in a clear act of independence which will not be tolerated….
…everyday another round of sanctions makes the case against continuing to do business with the US stronger. Everyday another global player speaks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and makes contingency plans for a world without the dollar at the center of it all….
…the statement by Merkel’s Foreign Minister, Heiko Maas, about the need for a new financial payment system which bypasses the US-dominated SWIFT system was the big bombshell….
… it shouldn’t take the EU long to spin up a SWIFT-compliant internal alternative. …
… what used to be a node of political stability and investor comfort is now a tool of chaos and abuse. And abusing your customers is never a winning business model in the long run. Customers of the dollar will remind the US of that before this is over.”
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/08/24/defections-from-pax-americana-coming-louder-and-faster.html
Slip slidin’…
Makati1 on Fri, 24th Aug 2018 9:13 pm
Philippines moving West, towards China and Russia.
“In spite of American objections, The Philippines is continuing discussions with Russia regarding the purchase of submarines as part of President Rodrigo Duterte’s drive to modernise the Philippine navy….
Duterte also reiterated a previous criticism when he said that the US was selling The Philippines old, under-maintained and sub-par equipment….
“It’s hard for you to say we are friends. We are friends but remember we are friends because you made us a colony years ago. It was not a friendship agreed upon”….
… if The Philippines does purchase the submarines from Russia, the US could very easily sanction Manila….
While the US remains a major trading partner with The Philippines, for the United States, The Philippines has always been more about its strategic location than about its economic potential. This is indeed one of the reasons why recent decades have seen little US interest in developing the civilian economy of The Philippines. The fact of the matter is that the US is content with a poor but politically stable Philippines in order to suit its regional interests which are aimed squarely against China….
Should the US impose sanctions against The Philippines, Duterte is the kind of leader who might just tell the US that it can no longer exercise usage rights over strategic military facilities in The Philippines….
Because Duterte has positioned himself in a position to attach multiple strong economic and military powers to The Philippines, the US risks losing the former colony for generations to come if it overreacts to Duterte’s desire to pursue dialogue with Russia over the submarine deal. In this sense, Duterte has been able to do what few leaders of more powerful countries have been able to get the United States to do – sit up, take notice and act cautiously rather than on impulse.”
https://www.globalresearch.ca/america-needs-the-philippines-more-than-the-philippines-needs-america-duterte-has-made-it-so/5651716
The Philippines is a great place to be now. ^_^