Guest Post by Jim Kunstler
Was it such a good thing in the post-cold-war decades that the US was regarded as the supreme sole super-power? Look what we did with that privilege: fumbled around like an overfed stumblebum, blundering from one foreign occupation to another, breaking a lot of things and killing a lot of people — under the clownishly-conceived rubric of a “war on terror.”
Why is it in our interest which way Ukraine tilts? It has been in the Russian orbit for hundreds of years under one administration or another. Are we disappointed now that Kiev won’t answer to the floundering Eurocrats of Brussels? Was that ever a realistic expectation? Really, the best outcome for western Europe would be a return to the prior condition of Ukraine as a mute bearskin rug with oil and gas pipelines running through it to the oil and gas starved West. The idea that the US could supply Europe with oil and gas instead of Russia is a preposterous fantasy. Anybody wondering whether Ukraine might turn its armed forces loose on Russian forces supposedly massing at its border should ask themselves how Ukrainian soldiers will get paid.
I’m sure Russia can’t afford to annex all of Ukraine. Russia can barely maintain its paved roads. But it obviously couldn’t afford to give up its rented warm water ports and naval bases in the Crimea, either, with the new Kiev government making so much anti-Russian noise since the “revolution.” The annexation of Crimea changes nothing materially about the disposition of Russian military force in the region. They were already there. Given the size of their navy compared to the other nations in the neighborhood, the Black Sea is Russia’s bathtub and has been as long as anyone can remember. Was the brass at the US State Department shocked to discover this two weeks ago?
The recognition that there are some places on the planet where the US can’t exert its influence has also come as a shock to the so-called American Deep State — that matrix of bureaucratic toxic sludge that labors to pretend to control everything and succeeds mainly in embarrassing itself in a world that is now deeply tending away from the centralized control of anything. Nations are breaking up everywhere and for the moment there is no coherent public discussion of the ramifications. Venice voted the other day to secede from Italy — that is, to not send anymore tax revenue to Rome. That should be interesting. How about Scotland’s independence vote scheduled for September? Judging by the British newspapers, there is next-to-zero concern about that. Then there is the list of failed states, Egypt, Syria, Yemen, and probably half the manufactured nations of sub-Saharan Africa, places with no viable economy or polity and too many clamoring poor people. These are parts of the world that will neither develop nor redevelop. In a hundred years they could be no-go zones or just return to howling wilderness.
The US would be better served these days to literally mind its own business. With Detroit in bankruptcy, why would we send Kiev billions of dollars? American urban infrastructures — water, sewer, gas, and electric lines — are falling apart. We have no idea how we’re going to manage most of the crucial economic activities of daily life in ten years, when the illusions of shale gas and shale evaporate in a dark cloud of disenchantment, when we no longer have an airline industry, and most Americans won’t have the means to own automobiles, and there’s not enough diesel fuel to plow Iowa mega-farms, or enough oil and gas based fertilizers or herbicides to pour into the eroding topsoil, and not enough fossil water left in the Oglala aquifer or enough electricity to run the center-pivot sprinklers where the prairie meets the desert? How are Americans going to live and eat and get from Point A to Point B and keep a roof over our heads in this beat-down land?
We’re having no conversation about these things and the political landscape in this country is a wasteland of mirages and dust devils. That is the true weakness of the USA now. We’re incapable of seeing the disorder in our own house. Why should we even glance overseas at others?
Isn’t Kunstler aware that the precious prestige of the US government is at stake in Ukraine? Who the fuck cares what happens inside America. Our wise leaders know it would be suicidal for the war machine the hegemonic boot it exerts over the neck of the rest of creation were even lifted a quarter of an inch.
Far from keeping us safe, the US military machine is the greatest threat to world peace and our security (economic and otherwise). If you have a big, erect dick, you just have to fuck something with it, one way or another, whether it is for our own generally nefarious purposes, or for those of another (Israel).
Ike tried to warn us…
PS, is there a single repukelican these days who recognizes this and seeks to dismantle the war machine? LOL!
“That is the true weakness of the USA now. We’re incapable of seeing the disorder in our own house.”
Hilarious, how is Ukraine going to pay it’s soldiers. How is the US going to pay it’s soldiers? And where are we going to get the oil to run our war machine, which is staring Russia, China (vis-a-vis Japan), and N. Korea in the face? We’re $17.5 trillion in debt, it’s $58 trillion if you take into account public/private debt. We’re giving 49% of the population cash payments every month. We have more people on welfare than the entire population of Germany.
We’re incapable of seeing the disorder in our own house because it is simply too horrible to contemplate. Forget infrastructure and oil, who is going to finance the ever growing FSA? They outnumber workers already in the most populous state in the union (New York, Illinois and California, to name a few). We’re on a collision course going 120 mph, and Obama keeps throwing more coal on the fire. The usual diversion, war, won’t even work anymore. We’re too broke, as are our allies, the welfare state EU. Going bankrupt is better than fighting a war, however, especially for the kids.
The end of the petrodollar is going to be very painful for Americans, as we’ve been getting a free ride from the rest of the world for decades. They bust their humps, make stuff, and ship it to us. We give them IOUs and those same poor bastards vendor finance the whole thing by buying our debt.
When they step out of the way and stop propping up the dollar, the gig is up. When that happens, our gigantic military empire is going to fold like a lawn chair.
It’s pretty hard to have hundreds of military bases overseas when you can’t pay for the soldiers. Needless to say, the correction that’s coming is going to be one for the ages. Combine that with SNAP cards that don’t buy anything, and you have all the ingredients necessary for a full-blown shit storm.
I could be mistaken but didn’t we already invest a few billion dollars backing fascist elements so that the new “improved” government would then buy loads of American arms to “make them safe”? I suppose the Deep State regards the recent events as nothing more than routine taxpayer financed pump priming on behalf of the all important weapons merchants as well as another small step toward world dominance.
Putin’s disgust with America’s relentless aggression disguised as exceptionalism and nation building is understandable. Can you just imagine how much saber rattling there would be in Washington if a foreign power instigated the same thing in Mexico or Canada?
“Obama keeps throwing more coal on the fire”.
Maybe because he heard America has 100 years of coal to burn!
This kunstler ,is the same one who voted for Obama twice.**I have but contempt for bastards like him