The U.S. is no longer the worlds economic center. China owns the U.S. debt, and no one buys anything made in the U.S anymore. Oil is money. For manufacturing, we look mostly to China, Japan, and Korea. For engineering and software inovation, we have India, Russia, and the Asias.
The U.S. has the strongest military, but it can’t even steal Afganistan in order to lay down oil pipelines. The USSR had as much might or more, and they also failed. Iraq is out of the question, and all sane people knew this from before there was a question. Army ants will kill a buffalo – the strongest and best armed buffalo will fall to masses of opposed ants. Before, now, future, still, always. Or kill all the ants in a country you want.
Military can’t control oil; Oil rich Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez is still in power, and the CIA is powerless about that.
China is winning, as they make economic, rather than millitary, inroads. They will control the oil. China, Russia, and the oil rich countries of the middle east are rising powers, and the U.S. can not maintain either its economy or even its useless military without oil.
Now that I understand this I understand Cheney and his folks. Invasion was a do or die effort for the U.S. He merely mis-understood the historic lessons of how to be a long term occupying force. He thought that the age of empire could extend to the worlds number one military power. He missed seeing the ample examples of limitations of military. Budget and trade deficits shrivel in importance against the need for oil. Unless solar becomes more cheap.
China’s investors and expats already control most of Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand. They own the U.S. debt and have a powerful financial footprint in Russia. Their eyes are now on Africa, and Africa they are taking. A bull military can not do what China is doing – China is the ant.
Update: the US goes through about 1/4 million bullets for each dead Iraqi “insurgent rebel”, or “patriot”, or whatever you want to label “them” as.
US forced to import bullets from Israel as troops use 250,000 for every rebel killed
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By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
Published: 25 September 2005
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US forces have fired so many bullets in Iraq and Afghanistan – an estimated 250,000 for every insurgent killed – that American ammunition-makers cannot keep up with demand. As a result the US is having to import supplies from Israel.
