Newfie wrote:Tanada,
I like your approach, but I'm confused. If the tipping point is around 520 and our current CO2e range is as high as 530 doesn't that make the shift possible shortly? On the outside of the range but still there?
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Newfie wrote:
So I think this time the cycle will be broken. There is no next empire. What there will be remains a question, whose answer climate change will influence deeply.
Tanada wrote: When the world is in a major glaciation like it was 25,000 ybp the temperature of the globe cycled up and down a bit and the glaciers advanced and retreated every few thousand years around the margins. Then about 20,000 ybp the change from major glaciation to the current interglacial took one step that was effectively overnight. The only delay was the fact that there was so much ice extending from the poles it took a long time to retreat. People look at this image and they see it took 6,000 years for the massive ice sheets to melt so they think that means the world temperature was slowly rising for that 6,000 years. That is deceptive and incorrect, in reality the world temperature jumped from around 10C to around 13C in a very short period of time but the ice was so massive it took a long time to all melt from that increase in temperature.
pstarr wrote:All animal populations go through periods of die off. We are no exceptional. The question is how far can we rebound? Do we end up like the remnant reindeer population on Isle Royale, or the pitiful 24 humans left on Easter Island?
Newfie wrote:Nice post Tanada, very clear thinking.
I don't want to confuse this concept of EMPIRE with EXTINCTION. I know it's tempting to draw back and look at the big picture, but there is also something to looking at individual components as well.
Shaved, I get that China would seem the natural next empire. And maybe it already is, we just don't recognize it. Debatable.
I'm thinking that either the US empire, already in decline, never fully transfers to China. Or that China never fully realizes empire in the context we understand now.
Thinking as I type here, Dutch to Britan was not hard, both European naval states. Britan to USA was not hard, the same Protestant work ethic in both places, circumstances forced the transfer. Brits had over extended and exhausted itself, America was remorse rich and relatively unscarred by the world wars.
But China? I'm not feeling it. I get that they are the great producers, they have energy. But they also have some BIG problems. They are a mature country, with limited per capita resources of food and water. They can build and sell, but they also need to buy heavily to feed their people. They sell items that are useful (and vast amounts of junk) but they buy calories and water. Their is no vacant undeveloped space (India or interior lands) to develop. They NEED existing healthy trade partners to survive.
Is China important? A giant? Absolutely! A global empire? Not so sure.
Ibon wrote:Didn't the Roman Empire drag on for a couple hundred years before the onset of the dark ages? Maybe our global civilization will drag on for a couple hundred years and the break up will be gradual as well. I kind of agree that there is no emerging empire on the short term horizon that will replace the US.
In recent testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, four former U.S. diplomats provided remarkably candid commentary on recent U.S. involvement in the Middle East, revealing a number of the most closely guarded secrets of U.S. diplomacy.
Some of the more astounding revelations concern the basic reason why U.S. officials remain so focused on the Middle East. Although U.S. officials typically emphasize the problems of terrorism and security, a number of the former diplomats indicated that the major concerns have always been the region’s oil, location, and function in the global economy.
Former diplomat Eric Edelman made the clearest statement on the matter, explaining in his prepared statement that geostrategic calculations have been central factors in U.S. policy since the end of World War II. “U.S. policymakers have considered access to the region’s energy resources vital for U.S. allies in Europe, and ultimately for the United States itself,” he wrote. “Moreover, the region’s strategic location—linking Europe and Asia—made it particularly important from a geopolitical point of view.”... “The geostrategic and economic factors that made the Middle East so important to our national security in the past are just as potent today,” ... Even with recent increases in U.S. energy production as a result of the fracking revolution, “real or even potential disruptions to the flow of oil anywhere would have serious negative effects on our economy.”
- Ambassador Eric S. Edelman
With his remarks, Edelman made it clear that U.S. officials continue to value the Middle East for its oil. The region “contains half of global proven oil reserves, accounts for one-third of oil production and exports, and is home to three of the world’s four biggest oil transit chokepoints,” he explained.
When Edelman raised these points during the hearing, nobody disagreed with him. Neither his colleagues nor the committee members challenged his observations about why the region was so important. His remarks were considered so uncontroversial that they never came up for debate.
... In these ways, the former diplomats provided some remarkable insights into the most basic reasons behind U.S. actions in the Middle East. They revealed that basic U.S. policy was to maintain a U.S.-led system of regional order so that the U.S. government could influence how all parts of the world gained access to the region’s oil.
Throughout the hearing, the four former diplomats also made a number of unusually blunt criticisms of U.S. strategy. They felt that their superiors in Washington and their many partners throughout the region kept taking steps that were creating more problems in the area.
Ambassador James F. Jeffrey was especially critical of the Obama administration, which he blamed for failures in the second Gulf War against Iraq. Jeffrey, who was the Obama administration’s ambassador to Iraq during the period when U.S. forces withdrew from the country in 2011, said that the administration should have accepted a secret plan to keep U.S. forces in the country.
Jeffrey explained that administration officials had arranged a secret plan with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki “to cheat, with Maliki’s acknowledgement,” on the final agreement to withdraw U.S. forces from the country.... “We had Black SOF, White SOF,” he said, referring to classified & decoy Special Operations Forces Operations. “We had drones, we had all kinds of things” ... “It was a very big package, including a $14 billion FMS program,” ... referring Foreign Military Sales program. “We had bases all over the country that were disguised bases that the U.S. military was running.”
- Ambassador James F. Jeffrey
Jeffrey was reluctant to provide more details, but he insisted that the secret plan could have worked if his superiors in the Obama administration had tried it. He did not express any concern about the fact that an estimated 100,000 people had already died in the war.
... Jeffrey was especially critical of Turkey, a NATO ally. He said that “the things they do are toxic.”
... Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker reminded the committee members that the United States still relied on Turkey to maintain access to the region. He said that it would be necessary to continue working with the country’s repressive leadership, despite its troubling behavior.“They are a NATO partner in a region where we don’t have a choice between democracy and autocracy,” ... “That’s not on the table.”
- Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker
The former diplomats signaled their support for the Iraqi government’s military operations against the Kurds, despite the fact that the Iraqi Kurds were playing a significant role in the war against IS.
Jeffrey argued that Iraq must hold together because of its potential to produce so much oil. He said that Iraq could eventually enter “into the Saudi Arabia category,” meaning that it could become a major player in the global oil market. “That’s a very important trump card, so to speak, in the Middle East, and we don’t want to just break it up,” he said.
Jeffrey was especially critical of the Iraqi Kurds for pursuing independence, saying that “they have gone in three months from one of the best good-news stories in the region to another basket case.”If the Kurds keep crossing “red lines,” ... “we’re probably not going to be around to back them up when the going gets rough.”
- Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker
“It’s the same as, sadly, with the Christian communities,” Crocker added, referring to Iraqi Christians who were facing their own challenges.
In these ways, the former diplomats made it clear that they were willing to ignore the plight of their partners and other marginalized groups if they could not find any strategic reasons to support them. The challenges facing the Kurds and Christians, they indicated, were minor factors compared to the strategic factors at play. They all believed that they had to accept these trade-offs if they were going to achieve their plans for the region.
... Although the U.S. has constructed a kind of informal American empire, they believe that U.S. actions and polices are creating blowback that is bringing more conflict and violence to the region.
“Anything we do to contain Iran, to push back, will bring with it great risks to us and to people in the region,” Jeffrey said. These were the lessons of history, he explained, citing “the chaos we deliberately created” to confront past challengers in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran.
“When Highly Committed Parties Believe Strongly [In] Things That They Cannot Achieve Democratically, They Don’t Give Up Their Beliefs — They Give Up On Democracy”
https://www.vox.com/2018/1/18/16880524/ ... rumpocracy
As a subject for the remarks of the evening, the perpetuation of our political institutions, is selected.
... All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.
I hope I am over wary; but if I am not, there is, even now, something of ill-omen, amongst us. I mean the increasing disregard for law which pervades the country; the growing disposition to substitute the wild and furious passions, in lieu of the sober judgment of Courts; and the worse than savage mobs, for the executive ministers of justice.
... It is to deny, what the history of the world tells us is true, to suppose that men of ambition and talents will not continue to spring up amongst us. And, when they do, they will as naturally seek the gratification of their ruling passion, as others have so done before them. ... [This gratification] scorns to tread in the footsteps of any predecessor, however illustrious. It thirsts and burns for distinction; and, if possible, it will have it, whether at the expense of emancipating slaves, or enslaving freemen.Passion has helped us; but can do so no more. It will in future be our enemy.
Distinction will be [such a persons] paramount object, and although he would as willingly, perhaps more so, acquire it by doing good as harm; yet, that opportunity being past, and nothing left to be done in the way of building up, he would set boldly to the task of pulling down.
... I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.
This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.
It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.
As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible, avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it, avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertion in time of peace to discharge the debts which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear. The execution of these maxims belongs to your representatives, but it is necessary that public opinion should co-operate. To facilitate to them the performance of their duty, it is essential that you should practically bear in mind that towards the payment of debts there must be revenue; that to have revenue there must be taxes; and that no taxes can be devised which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant.
... The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence, frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations, has been the victim.
... Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government. But that jealousy to be useful must be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests.
vox_mundi wrote:[A Rare Glimpse into the Inner Workings of the American Empire in the Middle East
...
With his remarks, Edelman made it clear that U.S. officials continue to value the Middle East for its oil. The region “contains half of global proven oil reserves, accounts for one-third of oil production and exports, and is home to three of the world’s four biggest oil transit chokepoints,” he explained.
When Edelman raised these points during the hearing, nobody disagreed with him. Neither his colleagues nor the committee members challenged his observations about why the region was so important. His remarks were considered so uncontroversial that they never came up for debate.
SeaGypsy wrote: Israel is certainly going to remain a key American protectorate.
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