The American Empire’s ship might be sinking, but fortunately-or-unfortunately there is only enough sea to fill up the lower cabins; a demobilizing anchor is increasing in weight—a permanent drag that will keep the empire stuck close to home. In certain regions it used to serve as a stabalizing agent, but now the “sea tide” turning against its foreign legitimacy can be painted in three broad strokes: 1) the coming into question of its multi-decade trend to abuse the privilege of being a global “umpire” in matters of responsibly issuing the global reserve currency, the misuse of which is currently undergoing exponentiation (and diffusion to Japan and the Eurozone) 2) a lack of restraint and caution when using military force, that would be tolerable, if disagreeable, to the other powerful nations, but for the fact that the war policy decisions are actually not rational or predictable, bringing the potential for danger to new levels; 3) oil is running in quantities lower than the full American juggernaut was upgraded and designed to run smoothly on, so a series of downgrading obstacles that the wasteful empire has an inability to jump over are leaving it stuck behind in the race. The ship is going to putter out right as it hits shoal bottom. I intentionally don’t say shale because before the literal bottom of shale deposits could be reached, the operations will be foregone as too costly for the coming meager times.
Why else has the United States lost its global hegemon stature? It has become camera shy before the very global media apparatuses it paved the road for. It probably fears the dreaded global public opinion and so time and again it has been indecisive and reluctant. In particular is the indecisiveness in war decisions that if gone astray might put a blotch on its image (don’t worry USA, there are already huge blotches); it bullies everybody 3/4’s of the way, but hasn’t gone past that point, and all those different 3/4’s add up to a lot of common resentment, but unfortunately for the USA not a lot of fear. It is an antibiotic in many senses of the word, that stops itself short so that resistant bacteria can evolve and develop their own antibodies to help with future deterrence.
In this post, the United States has been regarded as a whole entity acting in unison, but of course this is never the case, and should be elaborated on… more later, but a bit now. Fractures are and will continue everywhere, but one fracture in particular may appear visible in the elite/oligarchic class that is so much to blame for the empire lost. Some of its members will flee the ship and test out their cosmopolitanism in other parts of the world they became familiar with during their profiteering and plundering. I fear the majority, however, will choose to stay local and make the best of the new game of recolonizing America and try to be kings of the smaller ponds available to them.
Subverses 