(This is Part 5 of a series. Go back to Part 4.)
The financial and geopolitical worlds are converging in part because they're both so overextended and in part because they're both heading into a crisis. Indeed, those are two ways of saying the same thing.
As discussed elsewhere (State of the world, Pts 18-20), the geopolitical situation reminds me of the period just before World War I. Countries were rearming themselves at a frantic rate, tensions were strongly rising behind the scenes, yet all countries professed a tremendous interest in diplomacy. It only took a spark to set off a conflagration.
China is heavily arming itself, and its actual military expenditures are estimated to be at least double the published figures. Russia is rapidly rearming and has just suspended its participation in the Conventional Arms Treaty in Europe. Of course the U.S. has repudiated a number of arms-control treaties in the last few years and has drastically increased its Defense Dept expenditures. Turkey has moved 140,000 troops to the border with Iraq. Japan is rearming for the first time since the Second World War. I could go on.
A second U.S. carrier battle group is now stationed in the waters near the Persian Gulf and a third is on its way. U.S. anti-missile batteries are being installed in the Sunni-dominated Arab states surrounding Iran. For its part, Iran has installed Russian-made Sunburn missiles all along the Persian Gulf and has also just tested a new and formidable missile which can hold a nuclear warhead.
It's quite possible that the Bush administration could bomb Iran at some point before the end of 2008, in spite of any "diplomatic" feints. The situation is eerily reminiscent of the runup to the U.S. invasion of Iraq. All the talk is about "diplomacy" while the combatants-to-be continue to move their military forces into place.
The U.S. bombing attack, if it comes, will almost certainly be massive and directed not just at Iran's nuclear installations but also at its entire military infrastructure, Such an attack could be ordered at any time.
The aftershocks of such an attack, were it to occur, would be absolutely enormous. The U.S. is in a far weaker position now than it was in 2003 —its military now overstretched, its debt-ridden economy dependent on foreign lenders, and its moral position in tatters from Guantanamo, Abu Graib and the willful negect of the environment. As well, the U.S. has seen its diplomatic standing sharply diminished from its misadventure in Iraq and its unilateralist international stance.
And that's not even to mention the profound energy dependence of the U.S. and the West in general. With the U.S. importing 2/3rds of its oil, that position is an extremely fragile one. Thus the blowback to U.S. interests from an attack on Iran would be much greater than the already catastrophic effects of the invasion of Iraq. Energy prices would rise exponentially, pressures on Western economies would rise dramatically and the U.S. would find itself even more isolated than it is already.
As a counterpoint to the unipolar power and recent pugnaciousness of the U.S., a bloc of other countries are gradually coalescing. This bloc is basically consolidating in the East, led by Russia and China, but also including India, Iran, and an increasing number of other allies in South America, Central Asia and elsewhere. This Eastern bloc is emerging as a response to a worldwide fear of U.S. unipolar power and truculence.
This deepening polarization is leading to a renewal of the Cold War—Cold War II—between an increasingly isolated U.S. bloc and a growing Russo-Chinese-Eastern bloc. This process is already occurring but will likely accelerate. The chance of this Cold War II eventually heating up into a regional or even global hot war is not insignificant, especially as the U.S., its power slipping away from mostly self-inflicted wounds, is not likely to enter the endgame without a fight.
This Cold War II is currently being fought, as the first Cold War was, via proxies—as is occuring now in Africa, the Middle East, the Caspian Basin and elsewhere. However, as the new Russo-Chinese-Eastern bloc of power coalesces—and the scramble for global energy and resources increases—tensions between the two blocs of power will also increase, leading potentially to a "perfect storm" of war at some point.
Additionally, al Qaida, Hezbollah and related terrorist organizations are increasingly acting as proxies for the Russo-Chinese bloc. They are not doing this deliberately, but as the analyst W. Joseph Stroupe points out, the harm inflicted on the West by terrorist acts will ultimately benefit Russia, China and their allies, since they will step more and more into the power vacuum created thereby. Indeed, they are already doing so as U.S. power declines.
On an external level, then, it seems that the world, and particularly the U.S., is standing on a financial and geopolitical precipice and not far from slipping off. Though this global picture is grave—and we haven't even talked yet about the unfolding ecological catastrophe—it seems necessary to portray it unflinchingly if we're to deal realistically, farther on in this series, with the general principles that might be involved in creating a sustainable world.
And, as discussed elsewhere (State of the world, Pt 21), this painful and cataclysmic process that the world appears poised to enter upon, and which in some ways is already happening, has the potential to result in something constructive too—in correcting the various excesses and imbalances that have arisen financially and militarily, in moving the human journey away from its current hubris towards the natural world, and eventually, in seeding the rise of a collective humility, awareness and compassion toward all of existence that is scarcely imaginable now.
(This is the end of Part 5. Go to Part 6.)
—jim sloman, 3.15.07
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