5 ms·

Lose its competitive advantage, slowly consolidate remaining assets into private hands with borderless migration capacity, elect a government composed entirely

Lose its competitive advantage, slowly consolidate remaining assets into private hands with borderless migration capacity, elect a government composed entirely of conman, and five to ten years from now, begin losing every violent international confrontation that it tries to start?

craftinator 6y ago
When's the last time we didn't lose every violent international confrontation we were involved in? Also, yeah, the rest of that is both incredibly depressing, and of such a high plausibility that I can't see another way of it turning out. Pretty much like the US in Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash.
- sgillen 6y ago
  Idk the US “won” in Iraq very quickly (toppled the head of state, dissolved the official military). It was the occupation and rebuilding efforts afterwards that it failed at IMO.
  - raducu 6y ago
    The US victory was a textbook 19th century victory, but a 21th century catastrophic failure/pyrrhic victory -- in Irak and Afghanistan. You cannot win a war if you fail to reach your strategic objectives -- then it's not a war, but a bar brawl you "won".
    - sgillen 6y ago
      The Iraq/Afghan wars were a mess, but the strategic objectives aren't even entirely known and some of them were achieved. The Iraq war at least: 1. Secured strategic access to Iraq's oil resources. 2. Establish a permanent military presence in the region. 3. Removed the the de facto government.
      - rbanffy 6y ago
        True. I don't think establishing a functional government that would enable Iraq to become a regional power was in the cards. The US wanted oil.
        raducu 6y ago
        But the US could have just bought the oil on the open markets. In 2008, the US imported 600.000 barrels of oil per day from Irak -- that's when oil peaked at ~150 -- but if the whole year the oil stayed at 150$/barrel, and the US just stole it without paying Irak anything, that's just 32 billion USD. It would take the US 60 years to recuperate all the money it would have spent on Irak war if it was to steal all the oil from Irak at the levels of 2008, or 380 years at todays import levels and valuations (assuming the oil was war booty -- it is not). There is no way the war was started over oil, that would be beyond dumb. My personal theory is it was just the industrial-military oligarchs who started the war as to forever saddle the US taxpayer.
        rbanffy 6y ago
        > My personal theory is it was just the industrial-military oligarchs who started the war as to forever saddle the US taxpayer. That, and US construction and oil companies.
      - raducu 6y ago
        I was talking about the rational objectives of the US as a state, if we agree that the US is a captured state by criminals with unknown strategic objectives or contrary to the US as a country, then, all bets are off. 1. The US was in no danger of remaining without oil, the price of oil skyrocketed after the US invasion, and the "access" was certainly not worth trillions of dollars that the war cost, not to US as a whole. 2. The US already had a military presence in Saudi Arabia, and without the vicious circle of violence it itself caused, the US had no reason to maintain a permanent military presence in Irak. Just see the recent Soleimani debacle -- the US is one such debacle away from being kicked out of Irak after blowing those trillions, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians, helping spawn Daesh, causing economic devastation in Irak and the region.
CarbyAu 6y ago
I agree with everything but...the losing of every violent international confrontation. Maybe you'd lose against other modern, well integrated forces. But there is a lot of the world whereby forts, trenches, gun emplacements are still their best. And they are simply butter to the modern military knife. Barring major catastrophe,(ww3, another american civil war, a pandemic that kills large % of younger population etc) it will take far more than 10 years to decline past that point. The Iraq Military Exercise (I can't call that a war.) is a clear example of that.
- raducu 6y ago
  What war could the US start without the usual and immediate involvement of Russia, China or Iran -- I mean, except for a war with its own citizens that is. The US lost the Afghanistan war, is slowly losing Irak to Iran, lost all face and is getting humiliated in Syria, failed at preventing Russia impose its presidential candidate, is alienating its european allies (see the Iran sanctions debacle), is supporting the savage Saudi Arabia -- who is losing the war in Yemen.
  - bioipbiop 6y ago
    The US won Afghanistan handily, they just didn’t know what to do with it when they had it. I think America would have been better off placing Afghanistan under a military governor for a few years while they built up the country’s institutions.
    - raducu 6y ago
      Most powers make the same false assumptions that they "easily won" an insurgency/guerrilla war. No you didn't win anything, you temporarily held territory, you wasted enormous resources, and were in fact beaten by goat herders in the end. Without putting the whole country in a concentration camp and re-educating for 20 years and without providing an alternative economic model, a central administration in Afghanistan is irrelevant wether you do it for "a few year" or decades.
      - 6y ago

craftinator 6y ago

When's the last time we didn't lose every violent international confrontation we were involved in? Also, yeah, the rest of that is both incredibly depressing, and of such a high plausibility that I can't see another way of it turning out. Pretty much like the US in Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash.

sgillen 6y ago
Idk the US “won” in Iraq very quickly (toppled the head of state, dissolved the official military). It was the occupation and rebuilding efforts afterwards that it failed at IMO.
- raducu 6y ago
  The US victory was a textbook 19th century victory, but a 21th century catastrophic failure/pyrrhic victory -- in Irak and Afghanistan. You cannot win a war if you fail to reach your strategic objectives -- then it's not a war, but a bar brawl you "won".
  - sgillen 6y ago
    The Iraq/Afghan wars were a mess, but the strategic objectives aren't even entirely known and some of them were achieved. The Iraq war at least: 1. Secured strategic access to Iraq's oil resources. 2. Establish a permanent military presence in the region. 3. Removed the the de facto government.
    - rbanffy 6y ago
      True. I don't think establishing a functional government that would enable Iraq to become a regional power was in the cards. The US wanted oil.
      - raducu 6y ago
        But the US could have just bought the oil on the open markets. In 2008, the US imported 600.000 barrels of oil per day from Irak -- that's when oil peaked at ~150 -- but if the whole year the oil stayed at 150$/barrel, and the US just stole it without paying Irak anything, that's just 32 billion USD. It would take the US 60 years to recuperate all the money it would have spent on Irak war if it was to steal all the oil from Irak at the levels of 2008, or 380 years at todays import levels and valuations (assuming the oil was war booty -- it is not). There is no way the war was started over oil, that would be beyond dumb. My personal theory is it was just the industrial-military oligarchs who started the war as to forever saddle the US taxpayer.
        rbanffy 6y ago
        > My personal theory is it was just the industrial-military oligarchs who started the war as to forever saddle the US taxpayer. That, and US construction and oil companies.
    - raducu 6y ago
      I was talking about the rational objectives of the US as a state, if we agree that the US is a captured state by criminals with unknown strategic objectives or contrary to the US as a country, then, all bets are off. 1. The US was in no danger of remaining without oil, the price of oil skyrocketed after the US invasion, and the "access" was certainly not worth trillions of dollars that the war cost, not to US as a whole. 2. The US already had a military presence in Saudi Arabia, and without the vicious circle of violence it itself caused, the US had no reason to maintain a permanent military presence in Irak. Just see the recent Soleimani debacle -- the US is one such debacle away from being kicked out of Irak after blowing those trillions, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians, helping spawn Daesh, causing economic devastation in Irak and the region.

CarbyAu 6y ago

I agree with everything but...the losing of every violent international confrontation. Maybe you'd lose against other modern, well integrated forces. But there is a lot of the world whereby forts, trenches, gun emplacements are still their best. And they are simply butter to the modern military knife. Barring major catastrophe,(ww3, another american civil war, a pandemic that kills large % of younger population etc) it will take far more than 10 years to decline past that point. The Iraq Military Exercise (I can't call that a war.) is a clear example of that.

raducu 6y ago
What war could the US start without the usual and immediate involvement of Russia, China or Iran -- I mean, except for a war with its own citizens that is. The US lost the Afghanistan war, is slowly losing Irak to Iran, lost all face and is getting humiliated in Syria, failed at preventing Russia impose its presidential candidate, is alienating its european allies (see the Iran sanctions debacle), is supporting the savage Saudi Arabia -- who is losing the war in Yemen.
- bioipbiop 6y ago
  The US won Afghanistan handily, they just didn’t know what to do with it when they had it. I think America would have been better off placing Afghanistan under a military governor for a few years while they built up the country’s institutions.
  - raducu 6y ago
    Most powers make the same false assumptions that they "easily won" an insurgency/guerrilla war. No you didn't win anything, you temporarily held territory, you wasted enormous resources, and were in fact beaten by goat herders in the end. Without putting the whole country in a concentration camp and re-educating for 20 years and without providing an alternative economic model, a central administration in Afghanistan is irrelevant wether you do it for "a few year" or decades.
    - 6y ago