(This is Part 18 of a series. Go back to Part 17.)
4a. The coming geopolitical fire
At this point we ought to pause and take stock of the geopolitical situation in the world, as it will also have a profound effect on the human story in the coming years.
Let's start with the U.S. The United States is in decline. Its power is ebbing financially, diplomatically, militarily and, most crucially, in terms of energy security. Also, its moral legitimacy has been seriously damaged by the current administration's pugnacious foreign policies, abrogation of treaties, lawless treatment of "enemy combatants" and undermining of the Constitution.
The U.S. would be in decline anyway—it has simply over-extended its resources in too many areas—but that decline has been significantly speeded up by the fiscal and geopolitical policies of the last few years.
Perhaps the most significant development among many is that the U.S. is becoming a dependent nation. It is increasingly dependent on foreign sources of energy, resources and capital. This is occuring at a time of rising anti-Americanism almost everywhere in the world.
The U.S. is now importing two-thirds of its oii. It is borrowing two billion dollars a day from abroad to fund its budgetary excesses. It has become highly dependent on mineral, energy and monetary resources from abroad while simultaeously losing much of its moral standing.
Having squandered much of its moral and geopolitical "soft power" options since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the U.S. in foreign affairs is now increasingly relying on its military option. Which brings us to Iraq:
In Iraq, the United States is bogged down in a situation that perhaps is best called "bedlam." Whether we call it civil war, sectarian warfare, terrorist insurgency, anarchy or whatever, life for ordinary Iraqi citizens has become hell. And that's not a bad description of the situation for U.S. soldiers in Iraq either.
The constant drain of resources and attention into Iraq is weakening the U.S. at home through inattention to matters such as aging infrastructure, weakening financial and budgetary pictures, and inadequate funding for the future, including education, job training and R&D.
U.S. foreign policy is increasingly relying on the projection of actual or potential military force, but that military force is itself increasingly under stress. For one thing, the U.S. Army is straining to continue to supply enough soldiers to Iraq, leading to repeated tours of duty and lowered morale.
Another crucial factor is that military power ultimately depends on its financial power. If that power declines a country—even one as rich as the United States—cannot continue to sustain its extensive projection of military force in Iraq and around the world. And the U.S. is rapidly draining its financial power.
The gigantic twin federal budgetary and trade deficits, coupled with increasingly severe debt loads by consumers and businesses, coupled with housing, stock and derivative bubbles, coupled with increasing foreign ownership of U.S. financial assets, coupled with a declining energy base, portend great trouble ahead for the U.S.
To protect its increasingly vulnerable energy supplies, without which it cannot even exist as a superpower, and having squandered much of its moral and geopolitical "soft power," the U.S. is increasingly resorting to its military option.
The U.S. has recently drastically increased its naval forces in the Persian Gulf and around N. Korea. The U.S. administration gives no indication that it has learned anything from its previous over-reaching, and on the contrary gives every indication of "doubling down" on its military bets—increasing troop strength in Iraq, and preparing for military embargoes and possibly air strikes on Iran and N. Korea.
Such events, which could occur in 2007, would further destabilize and radicalize regions which are already highly destabilized and radicalized, possibly ignite a regional conflagration, and further decrease American financial and geopolitical solvency.
(This is the end of Part 18. Go to Part 19.)
—jim sloman, 12.28.06 for 1.26.07
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