this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2024
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I agree that US remains a powerful country, but its global dominance is now over. Ukraine has fundamentally changed both geopolitical and economic situation. BRICS has become a viable alternative to the US economic system, and that undermines the very foundation of the US global dominance.
If you look at the history of US interventions, they always start by using the financial system to undermine the economy and create unrest that can be further exploited. Those days are now over because countries can trade entirely outside the US system. Not only that, but vast majority of resources, labor, and manufacturing capacity exists outside the west.
While the US is able to do its own manufacturing, it's far from being self sufficient in that regard. The difficulties the US had in re-shoring just one fab illustrate what a herculean task it would be to achieve self-sufficiency. Personally, I don't see how that's possible without massive state intervention which isn't politically palatable in US.
Contrast this with China, where state driven economy is accomplishing unbelievable feats each and every year. The progress China made with chip production eclipse what the US managed to achieve with re-shoring. China is now dominating across the whole science and technology spectrum. This gap will only continue to widen going forward.
Furthermore, the US finds itself in increasingly volatile situation in terms of internal politics. The country is deeply divided politically with two separate visions for what the US is. Each camp sees the other as a mortal enemy that's destroying the country. As material conditions continue to decline the animosity will only increase going forward, and it will eventually boil over into civil unrest.
I simply can't see how the US can hobble along for decades given the current economic reality of the country. The simple fact is that the cost of living continues to outpace salaries, and people are increasingly forced to use up their existing savings and go into debt just to make ends meet. We're already seeing people defaulting on their credit card debt, their car payments, and soon their mortgages. That will lead to another financial crisis which could easily turn into mass civil unrest and even a civil war.
My expectation is that the best case scenario for the US is that it manages to rally the G7 bloc around it, and rule over its diminished empire. However, even that is not a given with the developments we're already seeing happening in Europe. Both Germany and France are seeing huge rise in nationalism that's only going to keep growing. As US faces its own economic troubles, and the desire to contain China, it will be forced to cut support for Europe which will only feed into resentment that's brewing.
In my view, the biggest danger the US poses to the world is that it will start a nuclear holocaust when it becomes clear that its position as a hegemon is untenable.
With climate change being inevitable now and leading to more and more catastrophes, massive refugee streams and conflict and wars, the USA is in a unique position with only two borders to friendly countries and two oceans effectively protecting them. Especially after the oil that fuel big warships becomes too scarce.
Of course it's speculation how exactly this will play out, but I believe Europe, Africa, India, China, Russia will all be embroiled in the "climate wars" while the US can continue to snipe from their big continent.
The only thing they really have to do is weaken their opponents and then draw back and avoid being drawn into a nuclear war. Then they win by default.
PS: Of course having high tech chip manufacturing is essential to that.
I'm not sure that's actually going to help the US all that much. After decades of destabilizing Latin America, the US will likely be faced with a massive refugee crisis in the south. Meanwhile, Mexico is becoming a lot less friendly towards the US as any body who's been paying attention to the rhetoric from AMLO would know. It's even possible that Mexico may join BRICS in the near future which is an economic bloc in direct competition with the US.
Not only that, but it may face an internal refugee crises as parts of the country become unlivable. There are already major rivers and reservoirs drying up as we speak, and this will lead to millions of people being displaced. US could also face droughts that could easily lead to food shortages and even famines. The framing practices in US make this all the more likely given that they're stripping the soil.
Furthermore, the US being geographically cut off while not being self sufficient means that it's uniquely reliant on supply chains across the ocean. As these supply chains become disrupted, that will cause major economic problems.
Seem far more likely that Africa, India, China, and Russia will help and support stabilize each other because it's in their common interest to do so.
Yeah true, but producing enough basic calories to feed their own population will never be a problem for the US. And they are engaging in protectionism. As long as the US doesn't disintegrate into civil war, this advantage of their geographic location and size remains.
So yeah the best strategy for China is to remain friendly and non-aggressive and maintain minimal economic stability for their neighbors. And try to increase economic and social instability and dependence in the US. But you see how the US is poking the bear and now china, they want the instability. And Europe, Russia, China and India at each others throats.
So if / when there is a gradual collapse of our global civilization, the US could switch fully to that strategy and just continue to destabilize and start proxy wars all around the world rather cheaply.
I don't know about Mexico, but there are studies that large parts of India could become literally uninhabitable with too high wet bulb temperatures. After that you can image the talk about "Living space in the north" in Siberia. Plus many other places and large cities near the rising oceans. How can there not be endless conflict spilling out and through the many porous borders.
It's painful to consider, but I don't see the US "loosing" except for civil war or nuclear war. They will have massive problems but they just have to loose less quickly than the rest of the world.
Heatwaves have already resulted in massive crop loss in 2021. Over 21 billion in crop losses was recorded both in 2022 and in 2023. Meanwhile, soil erosion makes the problem even worse, and scientists are already warning that it is threatening food security. I encourage you to read up on the dust bowl to see where this is all going.
Incidentally, here's a good overview of where farming situation is headed https://lemmygrad.ml/post/5633916/5068182
The actual best strategy for China is to make friends with Russia who can guarantee supply of resources that China needs and to focus on developing Eurasia with projects like BRI which is precisely what China is doing. In parallel, China will continue to decouple from the US and western economies. This process is already well under way.
That may happen, however that's not going to lead to the climate wars you imagine. Once such an event happens, people will simply die out. They will have no time or the means to migrate anywhere. It's also worth noting that US is quite vulnerable to climate disasters as well. The problems of droughts, large scale natural disasters like megafires, hurricanes, and floodings, all apply to US.
Civil war is the most likely scenario for the US in the coming years. It will be fuelled by the collapsing standard of living, natural disasters, lack of social cohesion. This process has already started and it's very likely irreversible.
Yeah I know but thanks for the links. No question it will get bad, but it will be worse almost everywhere else in the world. The US has much more land compared to the population than it's rivals.
In the extreme you only need about 90000 km² arable land (~ size of Indiana) to grow enough potatoes to feed the entirety of the US (napkin math). The area of France could feed the entire world population. Today we have insane amount of "calorie waste" growing luxury foods like beef and almonds and chocolate and overfishing. So there is a lot of buffer for calories, even with soil degradation.
My point is this: Starvation won't be an existential threat to the US. Two oceans provide a lot of security, and options for geopolitical strategies. The only thing that can destroy the US is the US itself. Or nuclear war.
While conflicts and collapse of global trade could easily make starvation an existential threat or "threat multiplier" for Europe, India and China. And many other countries on their large and porous borders.
That's a bold statement, and not really sure what you base that on. For example, it's almost certain that things won't get as bad in Russia or Canada. The reality is that global climate is an incredibly complex system and nobody really knows how bad things will get, and where it will be the worst. For example, it's quite possible that it's actually cooler climates that will end up being more affected because that's where the most drastic temperature changes will happen as opposed to places that are already close to global maximum.
Actually turning all that land into farm land would be a monumental project. The US isn't even capable of maintaining its bridges right now that are at risk of imminent collapse, you really think that the US would be able to mobilize to turn a land area the size of France into effective farmland in time? https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a62073448/climate-change-bridges/
The problem here isn't purely technical, it's a question of policy and logistics. The US is a dysfunctional state that's not capable of marshalling large scale projects. Dealing with climate change is going to require a level of organization that's simply not present in the country.
That's one of the reasons both China and India keep Russia as a close partner. Europe is likely very much fucked however. Also worth noting that China is now leading the world in indoor farming, which is one of the best ways to mitigate unpredictable weather.