American Power for Commodity Wars
Even a great and powerful empire has limits to its power and influence around the world. Sadly for America, it is finding that out with the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the unfortunately named never ending war on terror.
However, American is still by far the most powerful power in the world. While China, India, and an energy rich Russia may be expanding their influence around the world the United States is still far in the lead. It is highly unlikely that any nation can replace America as the world’s most powerful superpower any time soon.
That is unless US voters continue to elect incompetent men or decide to elect an incompetent woman as President (I’m not referring to Hillary Clinton ). Another several years of mismanagement as demonstrated by the Bush administration could allow China and Russia to close the power gap fast. Leadership does matter and it matters a great deal in managing the affairs of empire.
It is a fact that under the leadership of “the decider”, George W. Bush, America has declined significantly in its ability to effectively use soft power as a replacement for hard power. In addition, it is certain that under Bush America’s hard power assets have been stretched to the limit.
Yet, American remains a rich country and while already spending more on its military than nearly all of the rest of the world combined it could do more. It may soon have to.
In a world that is approaching peak oil and a shortage of basic industrial commodities America may have to enlarge its military resources to safeguard its national interests. While I am against Bush’s pre-emptive first strike policy as being too aggressive I do think that America needs a fierce, strong ,larger, military as never before.
While I am often critical of President Bush, as those of you who read my blog posts know, he may be right in his assertion that the long tail of history will view his actions in Iraq and elsewhere far more favorably than they are now viewed.
I still think that President Bush will go down in history as one of the worst presidents in American history. But it will be because his management has been so poor, not because of his vision of what is taking place in the world and the selfish actions on the part of America that will be required to safeguard the privileged American way of life.
Bush may in fact believe his own smokescreen. That is military action is justified in an effort to spread democracy and freedom around the world. By believing this nonsense Bush may be able to sleep better at night. However, the real reason for using military might as we have is not so noble.
This is the bottom line folks. As countries like China, India, Russia, and Brazil continue to grow at high rates and more and more of their citizens enter middle class and wealthy status the demand for all of the many things that denote a better lifestyle, new cars, new houses, new clothes, more food, more ENERGY, will place great pressure on the world’s finite supply of natural resources.
As never before it will pay to be the world’s greatest superpower. By fielding military forces that have overwhelming firepower and superiority the United States can continue to insure that it gets more than its fair share of world resources.
And that folks is what I believe that the war in Iraq, and Afghanistan, and the positioning of America forces in the Mid East, in former Soviet Union nations in Asia and Eastern Europe, and over 90 countries around the world is all about. American leaders have made the decision that American interests will come first. America will take what is necessary from the rest of the world so that we may have more and continue to enjoy our wasteful but enjoyable lifestyles.
We want to continue to have big houses, big SUV’s, huge box stores, outrageously large shopping malls, low food prices compared to the rest of the world, the same for low gas prices, and all of the rest that living well in America brings to self centered Americans.
I know that this won’t sound very pleasant to the do gooders of the world, hell, it doesn’t sound very nice to a practical realist like me. But in my opinion, this is why American will continue to build its military muscle. We must continue to have a military with an awesome superiority in all aspects of modern warfare capability to hold onto our unfair advantage in the consumption of the world’s resources.
Iraq and Afghanistan are probably the first in a long serious of wars in distance lands to keep our military hard and ready for what may come next. You can bet that military planners are hard at work to improve upon any shortcomings our military may have shown in these two war zones. There is nothing like actual combat to harden military forces.
Defending our right to consume as we please while others in the world go without even basic necessities may seen repugnant to some. While perhaps many would feel uneasy about such an American “me first” policy I venture to say that most Americans, if asked if they would be willing to reduce their living standard so that some poor people in Africa or Asia can have more, would opp to not under any circumstances reduce their own standard of living.
The prevailing attitude would be to let the poor people of the world remain poor as long as they are producing goods and services that help to support my lifestyle in America.
The age of commodity wars are upon us. We had better support our military. We will need them, and more of them as well.
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
