The Great Game is afoot and no matter how we may disapprove of the Global Empire, we would be wise not to discount the cards it alone holds.
Geopolitics is not called The Great Game without reason. The game of dominating the world's resources, nation-states and alliances is like a combination of Go and chess, with the threat of military conquest or defeat always hovering over the statecraft and financial game.
I am going to present a number of statements and speculations here, most of which are at odds with the status quo thinking. I present them not to be contrarian but because they seem self-evident.
As I have noted here before, the value of "hard power" (military dominance) and "soft power" (cultural, financial, diplomatic) cannot be assessed until you don't have any.
That establishes a conundrum: one must maintain these quite different forms of global power without knowing if the cost is justified, until the moment arrives when others would pay ten times over to hold what you have in hand.
If that moment never arrives, it may be because you maintained an overwhelming advantage. Wars are launched when one side perceives a rough balance has been achieved; no nation is so suicidal that it chooses to attack a far superior power.
While I don't approve of the American Global Empire, I respect the intelligence and drive of those tasked with maintaining and expanding it--and they number in the millions.
There is only one nation-state which can project hard power: the U.S. A missile is not power-projection, because it exerts control over nothing; it is deterrence or threat, but not power that can be projected. Only aircraft carrier groups and the ability to transport an army by sea and air to any locale in the world is power projection.
The U.S. has 11 carrier groups, China has zero. The U.S. has the ability to transport a small army by air, China does not. The U.S. has the sealift capability to transport a large army by sea. China does not, and neither does Russia or the E.U.
Power projection is far more costly than defensive Armed Forces, and the U.S. is the only great power with true power projection because it alone has hegemony over the world's reserve currency. The U.S. skims a stupendous arbitrage profit from creating dollars and exporting them in exchange for real goods.
China and other aspiring great powers must actually make real profits. Just to put costs in context: China's huge $1.8 trillion in foreign reserves would cover the costs of global power projection for about two years.
We should also stipulate that an aircraft carrier alone is simply a sitting duck; it projects nothing but vulnerability. It is a carrier group which projects power, and that requires an enormous infrastructure: a small fleet of other vessels, satellite communications, anti-submarine capabilities, global bases to refuel/ reprovision, and so on.
When two carrier groups steam offshore, they are the largest air force in the world save a very few. The U.S. could trim its 11 carrier groups to 8 or 9 and still have the only large-scale, globally decisive 8 or 9 carrier groups in existence.
The same infrastructure is required to airlift or sealift troops: you need AWACS aircraft, global communications, global bases, and so on.
Why is all this important? because when push comes to shove, there is only nation which can project hard power in a meaningful, decisive manner: the U.S. Bankrupt, wounded, in decline, however you wish to characterize the U.S., it holds decisive dominance in hard power. And as long as the world accepts dollar hegemony, then the U.S. can afford its Empire.
As noted above: the true value of hard power cannot assessed until you don't have any.
When Canada and Australia impose restrictions on the export of natural resources to nations such as China--a move I fully expect by 2015--then exactly what is China going to do in retaliation? Virtually all of China's exports can be duplicated elsewhere. There are only three essentials (four counting fertile soil), what I call the FEW essentials: food, energy and water.
China's ability to export any of these is limited. Indeed, it is importing vast quantities of oil and food right now, even before global weather turns truly nasty.
The only leverage China really has on the global stage is its stash of rare-earth metals. As for that leverage: you can rest assured that DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) has long been funding research efforts to replace the rare-earth metals with other materials. In the meantime, mines will be reopened or other potential sources explored.
China is busy buying up Africa, which carries a number of ironies that have yet to unfold. To buy up other nations' assets is the essence of Neoliberal Global Capitalism, and in playing within that system China is now vulnerable to the same nationalist and revolutionary forces as those opposing U.S. domination.
The other irony is the "revolutionary" forces which I fully expect to take power in many African nations by 2015 will expropriate Chinese properties just as they will expropriate any other colonial powers' "property." And the Chinese will be powerless to reverse those expropriations; they possess neither the hard power to conquer and re-install pliant kleptocracies nor the soft power to do so by other means.
I doubt that any nation has that power now.
The only resource of any import (pun intended) is oil. Water, you either have within your borders or you don't, and those sharing a river will find conflicts becoming more likely with each passing year. Ditto soil--if yours has blown away in duststorms, you can't import enough to make a difference. And unless you have the ability to enforce your will via power projection, then buying up other nations' farmland is only a "solution" until they need it themselves.
Those who believe nationalism is no longer a force will be surprised in the coming decade how scarcity can fuel a fiery, unquenchable nationalism.
The supremely nationalist Chinese will come to understand nationalism from the other end: from that point of view, they are just another colonial power jockeying for someone else's wealth.
There are ironies galore in China's pride in surpassing the U.S. in auto production-- China produced 17 million vehicles last year to America's 13 million. The irony of course is that China's dependence on oil only deepens with every additional car on its roadways.
Both China and the U.S. have plentiful coal, but gasifying coal or even scrubbing the sulfur from it is costly. Having plentiful costly energy is not the same as having plentiful cheap energy, and oil remains the ultimate transportable energy and chemical feedstock.
Geopolitics is not called The Great Game without reason. The game of dominating the world's resources, nation-states and alliances is like a combination of Go and chess, with the threat of military conquest or defeat always hovering over the statecraft and financial game.
I am going to present a number of statements and speculations here, most of which are at odds with the status quo thinking. I present them not to be contrarian but because they seem self-evident.
As I have noted here before, the value of "hard power" (military dominance) and "soft power" (cultural, financial, diplomatic) cannot be assessed until you don't have any.
That establishes a conundrum: one must maintain these quite different forms of global power without knowing if the cost is justified, until the moment arrives when others would pay ten times over to hold what you have in hand.
If that moment never arrives, it may be because you maintained an overwhelming advantage. Wars are launched when one side perceives a rough balance has been achieved; no nation is so suicidal that it chooses to attack a far superior power.
While I don't approve of the American Global Empire, I respect the intelligence and drive of those tasked with maintaining and expanding it--and they number in the millions.
There is only one nation-state which can project hard power: the U.S. A missile is not power-projection, because it exerts control over nothing; it is deterrence or threat, but not power that can be projected. Only aircraft carrier groups and the ability to transport an army by sea and air to any locale in the world is power projection.
The U.S. has 11 carrier groups, China has zero. The U.S. has the ability to transport a small army by air, China does not. The U.S. has the sealift capability to transport a large army by sea. China does not, and neither does Russia or the E.U.
Power projection is far more costly than defensive Armed Forces, and the U.S. is the only great power with true power projection because it alone has hegemony over the world's reserve currency. The U.S. skims a stupendous arbitrage profit from creating dollars and exporting them in exchange for real goods.
China and other aspiring great powers must actually make real profits. Just to put costs in context: China's huge $1.8 trillion in foreign reserves would cover the costs of global power projection for about two years.
We should also stipulate that an aircraft carrier alone is simply a sitting duck; it projects nothing but vulnerability. It is a carrier group which projects power, and that requires an enormous infrastructure: a small fleet of other vessels, satellite communications, anti-submarine capabilities, global bases to refuel/ reprovision, and so on.
When two carrier groups steam offshore, they are the largest air force in the world save a very few. The U.S. could trim its 11 carrier groups to 8 or 9 and still have the only large-scale, globally decisive 8 or 9 carrier groups in existence.
The same infrastructure is required to airlift or sealift troops: you need AWACS aircraft, global communications, global bases, and so on.
Why is all this important? because when push comes to shove, there is only nation which can project hard power in a meaningful, decisive manner: the U.S. Bankrupt, wounded, in decline, however you wish to characterize the U.S., it holds decisive dominance in hard power. And as long as the world accepts dollar hegemony, then the U.S. can afford its Empire.
As noted above: the true value of hard power cannot assessed until you don't have any.
When Canada and Australia impose restrictions on the export of natural resources to nations such as China--a move I fully expect by 2015--then exactly what is China going to do in retaliation? Virtually all of China's exports can be duplicated elsewhere. There are only three essentials (four counting fertile soil), what I call the FEW essentials: food, energy and water.
China's ability to export any of these is limited. Indeed, it is importing vast quantities of oil and food right now, even before global weather turns truly nasty.
The only leverage China really has on the global stage is its stash of rare-earth metals. As for that leverage: you can rest assured that DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) has long been funding research efforts to replace the rare-earth metals with other materials. In the meantime, mines will be reopened or other potential sources explored.
China is busy buying up Africa, which carries a number of ironies that have yet to unfold. To buy up other nations' assets is the essence of Neoliberal Global Capitalism, and in playing within that system China is now vulnerable to the same nationalist and revolutionary forces as those opposing U.S. domination.
The other irony is the "revolutionary" forces which I fully expect to take power in many African nations by 2015 will expropriate Chinese properties just as they will expropriate any other colonial powers' "property." And the Chinese will be powerless to reverse those expropriations; they possess neither the hard power to conquer and re-install pliant kleptocracies nor the soft power to do so by other means.
I doubt that any nation has that power now.
The only resource of any import (pun intended) is oil. Water, you either have within your borders or you don't, and those sharing a river will find conflicts becoming more likely with each passing year. Ditto soil--if yours has blown away in duststorms, you can't import enough to make a difference. And unless you have the ability to enforce your will via power projection, then buying up other nations' farmland is only a "solution" until they need it themselves.
Those who believe nationalism is no longer a force will be surprised in the coming decade how scarcity can fuel a fiery, unquenchable nationalism.
The supremely nationalist Chinese will come to understand nationalism from the other end: from that point of view, they are just another colonial power jockeying for someone else's wealth.
There are ironies galore in China's pride in surpassing the U.S. in auto production-- China produced 17 million vehicles last year to America's 13 million. The irony of course is that China's dependence on oil only deepens with every additional car on its roadways.
Both China and the U.S. have plentiful coal, but gasifying coal or even scrubbing the sulfur from it is costly. Having plentiful costly energy is not the same as having plentiful cheap energy, and oil remains the ultimate transportable energy and chemical feedstock.
