Thing is that you can’t run a country solely on the war industry, and as the standard of living continues to collapse there is going to be more and more civil unrest across the west. Neocons will undoubtedly keep control in the near future, but that’s just going to continue to sharpen the contradictions within western societies.
If the US goes through and destroys Europe’s economy by forcing them to decouple first as I mentioned they’ll have European exports and perhaps even cheap or at least reasonable imports as Europe will have no one else left to turn to after being barred from business with China. So they may be counting on doing something like that to ease things over and as they occupy Europe and control it through other means, dissent can be channeled into rightist nationalists already under their thumb who scape-goat and distract or simply violently quashed. It’s all time-buying stuff, the question is how much time and what can they accomplish in that because they do I assume have designs beyond buying time and hoping China cracks.
Admittedly China does have internal problems. Not to the level of the USSR but many people there are liberals or apolitical and potentially open to liberalism and counter-revolution should the economy tank and material conditions deteriorate.
USSR collapse and subsequent looting of the fledgling states bought USA thirty years of unchallenged hegemony. Now I don’t know too much about European industry and such, but looting Europe might buy them another decade or two. Time enough for the current crop of bourgeoisie to die peacefully and filthy rich, and that’s likely all they care about. Après nous le déluge and all that
Absolutely. And it prevents them from forming a powerhouse alliance with China or Russia so consolidates power back under their control and leaves them as vassals for military recruits, plundering intelligent people to lure back to the core with jobs to consolidate tech monopoly, etc. It also may force Europe in desperation to try increasing their plunder and destabilizing of Africa to try and stay afloat themselves which would be to the US benefit as China is trying to make in-roads there and if Europe launches an all out assault on Africa, installing puppets, destabilization, plunder of resources, simply encouraging terrorism and instability, that sabotages an important source of resources, market, etc for China which stifles their rise.
I admit I also wonder if some of these bourgeoisie haven’t struck a deal (likely in their minds only but perhaps with verbal understandings with Chinese government officials) with China. More wealth and earnings for them via investment and so on in exchange trying to sabotage any cold war efforts. Musk comes to mind as while he’s annoying he also upsets liberals and the current hegemony of the US by for example censoring and destroying Twitter which was a US influence and regime-change OP for middle eastern client states of the US that are seeking increasing distance from them and towards China. Maybe it’s just opportunistic angling as things shift but there look to be several members of the bourgeoisie who are not only benefiting from the status quo but willing to throw some chips in with China and multi-polarity. Maybe just as a way of hedging bets.
Thing is that you can’t run a country solely on the war industry, and as the standard of living continues to collapse there is going to be more and more civil unrest across the west. Neocons will undoubtedly keep control in the near future, but that’s just going to continue to sharpen the contradictions within western societies.
If the US goes through and destroys Europe’s economy by forcing them to decouple first as I mentioned they’ll have European exports and perhaps even cheap or at least reasonable imports as Europe will have no one else left to turn to after being barred from business with China. So they may be counting on doing something like that to ease things over and as they occupy Europe and control it through other means, dissent can be channeled into rightist nationalists already under their thumb who scape-goat and distract or simply violently quashed. It’s all time-buying stuff, the question is how much time and what can they accomplish in that because they do I assume have designs beyond buying time and hoping China cracks.
Admittedly China does have internal problems. Not to the level of the USSR but many people there are liberals or apolitical and potentially open to liberalism and counter-revolution should the economy tank and material conditions deteriorate.
USSR collapse and subsequent looting of the fledgling states bought USA thirty years of unchallenged hegemony. Now I don’t know too much about European industry and such, but looting Europe might buy them another decade or two. Time enough for the current crop of bourgeoisie to die peacefully and filthy rich, and that’s likely all they care about. Après nous le déluge and all that
Absolutely. And it prevents them from forming a powerhouse alliance with China or Russia so consolidates power back under their control and leaves them as vassals for military recruits, plundering intelligent people to lure back to the core with jobs to consolidate tech monopoly, etc. It also may force Europe in desperation to try increasing their plunder and destabilizing of Africa to try and stay afloat themselves which would be to the US benefit as China is trying to make in-roads there and if Europe launches an all out assault on Africa, installing puppets, destabilization, plunder of resources, simply encouraging terrorism and instability, that sabotages an important source of resources, market, etc for China which stifles their rise.
I admit I also wonder if some of these bourgeoisie haven’t struck a deal (likely in their minds only but perhaps with verbal understandings with Chinese government officials) with China. More wealth and earnings for them via investment and so on in exchange trying to sabotage any cold war efforts. Musk comes to mind as while he’s annoying he also upsets liberals and the current hegemony of the US by for example censoring and destroying Twitter which was a US influence and regime-change OP for middle eastern client states of the US that are seeking increasing distance from them and towards China. Maybe it’s just opportunistic angling as things shift but there look to be several members of the bourgeoisie who are not only benefiting from the status quo but willing to throw some chips in with China and multi-polarity. Maybe just as a way of hedging bets.