[Oilguy]

Very interesting article, very much agreed with the following quote:

The West — including the US — is now in the hands of managers who know nothing of what it took to built Western values, institutions, methodologies, and wealth. They preside over populations increasingly ignorant of those values, and this suits the managers. The education systems created by the managers, displacing the pride and identity of the earlier warriors, reinforce ignorance of the real underpinnings of success, and, in fact, success itself is despised because there is no comprehension of what failure can bring. They cannot even observe the lessons which the Russians post-Cold War, or the Egyptians post the 1967 Six Day War, were forced to learn.


The United States of America, in global strategic terms, is tumbling down a series of misadventures, declining in a “step of sighs” through frustrating economic and military endeavours as it discovers that its superpower structures and massive capital wealth are insufficient to cope with a transformed world.

This transformed world was created by the very superpower capabilities and massive wealth of the West. Even the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is beginning to recognize that massive financial holdings are inadequate to address all challenges to national survival and wellbeing.

The question is whether this current process through which the US is going must inevitably be played to a conclusion which sees the US itself — as the Roman and Hellenic and Mongol and British and Netherlands and Soviet empires once were — broken apart or reduced to modesty among the ruins of grandeur? It is not. Nothing is written which cannot be re-written.

The Russian Federation’s grand strategic growth began only with its recognition that it was forced, with the death of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1990-91, to put aside the pretensions that it had been a superpower. The defeat of the USSR-led bloc by the US-led bloc which determined the end of the Cold War engendered in Moscow the deep reflections and reorganizations which only defeat can bring. Russia, with this realization, was able to revive the strategic momentum which had been thwarted by the 1917 Revolution.

The West, and particularly the United States after the end of the Cold War, wallowed in a condition even worse than defeat. It wallowed in victory.

With defeat comes the ability — indeed, the license, mandate, and demand — to sweep out failed or obsolete institutions; to scour out the sclerotic accumulation of laws and bureaucratic procedures; and to purge the perpetuation of the kind of strategic insensitivities which had led to defeat. With victory, no such license is granted, and the presumption of superiority reinforces and compounds ancient structures. It does, however, reinforce the thinking and architecture which had led to victory. Further, victory it leads to the excesses of those who ride to power on the exhausted backs of those who, in fact, had created the victory.

Those who conceive, manoeuvre, and shed blood or risk careers for success are never those best suited to the shallow machinery of managing success when it has reached a plateau of self-satisfaction. But success is never able to be sustained if it is only “managed”. This is one of the lessons of The Art of Victory. Thus, the desire by the US to see itself not merely as the “sole surviving superpower” in the post-Cold War period, but to also see itself as the superior of its one-time allies, merely compounded the widespread Western view after 1991 that effort, creativity, alliance teamwork, and the humility of the threatened were unnecessary. It led to the belief that “the peace dividend” of victory could be spent recklessly, and forever, without heed.

Thus, in relative terms, post-Cold War, Russia and — in a different fashion — the People’s Republic of China (PRC) learned, re-organized, and began the process of rebuilding their societies, less hampered by the earlier constraints of state structures. They prepared for a new world, and acted accordingly. They learned from history, ancient and recent. The West — but again, particularly the US — engaged in no such introspection; did not bow to the humbling workload of reconstruction; and was left hidebound by institutions which had acquired the towering and massive strength of fortifications built for a war long past.

The West — including the US — is now in the hands of managers who know nothing of what it took to built Western values, institutions, methodologies, and wealth. They preside over populations increasingly ignorant of those values, and this suits the managers. The education systems created by the managers, displacing the pride and identity of the earlier warriors, reinforce ignorance of the real underpinnings of success, and, in fact, success itself is despised because there is no comprehension of what failure can bring. They cannot even observe the lessons which the Russians post-Cold War, or the Egyptians post the 1967 Six Day War, were forced to learn.

Full article at: http://www.oilprice.com/article-the-us- ... world.html

[pup55]

Good work, Oilguy...

You are right of course, there is some merit in being forced to rethink things from time to time.

What's missing is an old-fashioned purge, a getting rid of and/or re-education of the idiots that got us into this situation in the first place.

What's also missing is something that approaches teamwork and the willingness to sacrifice a little bit by the individual for the benefit of the group. The pioneering spirit, as it were.

[TreeFarmer]

"What's missing is an old-fashioned purge"

That is precisely what the bailouts have prevented, the purging of bad debt and a lot of other failed ideas. Unfortunately, I think all the bailouts have done is postpone the purge and perhaps made it worse. The time the bailouts bought is not being used to soften the purge.

TF

[dsula]

the willingness to sacrifice a little bit by the individual for the benefit of the group.

You're funny. Taxes not enough sacrifice for you, for the common good?

[Oilguy]

Pup55 - sadly the purge is unlikely to happen - that's what keeps the system creaking along - the old rotten institutions. But i wouldn't write the United States off just yet - when they put their minds to something they are pretty damn resourceful - that is if the politicians step out of the way.

[evgeny]

NATO Expansion, Missile Deployments And Russia’s New Military Doctrine by Rick Rozoff:
NATO is not the international security provider it now attempts to pose as. It is not a partner to the United Nations, which it has overshadowed and rendered toothless and pathetic, or any other international or regional organization. It is not the foundation for a worldwide “alliance of democracies.”
NATO is a lethal, lawless warfighting axis which unilaterally reserves the right to repeat its armed aggression in the Balkans and South Asia on a global scale. It is an affront and a threat to humanity.

link

Recently came across a funny story (sorry, can not remember the link) for the purposes of tactical nuclear weapons. But really, the war did not untie the military, wars untie the greatest business leaders, such as the Morgan / Rockefeller. That they are the basic ideologies of violence and wars. So someone suggested to strike with cruise missiles with tactical nuclear warheads just after Morgan / Rockefeller. In my opinion, the idea is not bad ...

[WyoDutch]

I believe we have a situation developing where America believes it can survive/win a nuclear war and that the time to initiate the war is a narrow rindow that will close as Russia re-arms and red china comes of age.

[Bas]

I believe we have a situation developing where America believes it can survive/win a nuclear war and that the time to initiate the war is a narrow rindow that will close as Russia re-arms and red china comes of age.

A rindow, yes.

I happen to agree with this article and wish I'd written it myself, it's something I've been trying to get across through some American numbskulls for years. America has to change if it is to survive, and right now, even under Obama, it's people are too stiff and conservative to bend to new worldwide realities, as a consequence I don't see another option than that it will break.

the decline

[Keith_McClary]

Here's another take on this theme:
Empire of the Sunset By RANDALL AMSTER (CounterPunch)

Unfortunately, that America -- even in its illusory state -- has ceased to exist. We are no longer an abstract beacon of hope to the world, but rather a purveyor of concrete hellfire. We rain automated death from above and commit orchestrated theft from below. We export despair and import disdain. We’ve abandoned even keeping up the pretense of fair play and adherence to principle. We’ve become global pariahs and domestic piranhas. Awash in a sea of surfaces, distractions, and palliatives, we unsurprisingly have failed to notice that the sun has already started to set on our adolescent empire.

Indeed, by most measures, the U.S. is rapidly becoming a failed state. Educationally, economically, politically, culturally -- all of our national gauges are pointing in the wrong direction. We’re moving down the list on health care, democratic governance, productivity, environmental protection, academic achievement, official transparency, incarceration rates, transportation, and public services. We’re ruled by an increasingly emboldened elite class that rewrites the rules at will, increasingly represses dissent, and openly enriches itself at our expense. We hardly make anything on these shores, but still consume everything in sight. We have few public intellectuals of renown, yet are bombarded daily with the foibles of celebrities who are in many cases famous simply for being famous. Our food supply is tainted, our energy is unclean, and our water is drying up. And racism remains as deeply-rooted as ever.

[bshirt]

"What's missing is an old-fashioned purge"
That is precisely what the bailouts have prevented, the purging of bad debt and a lot of other failed ideas. Unfortunately, I think all the bailouts have done is postpone the purge and perhaps made it worse. The time the bailouts bought is not being used to soften the purge.

Oh boy, I'm sure somwhere truer words have been spoken. But I've never seen them.

The US is in a most desperate need of a full blown purge that words simply can't fully express them.

[evgeny]

China Has a Plan, America Doesn't
America has been squandering money it borrowed from the Chinese. Instead of criticizing China's monetary policy, US President Barack Obama should acknowledge the financial skill being displayed by the new world power and learn a few useful lessons.

Everyone knows that it is important to have friends. But in politics it is just as important to have enemies. Being united against a common foe can be more than helpful.

link