Hat tip Thinker
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The theory of 65-year cycles points to a critical moment in China’s evolution
Five Chinese navy ships are currently operating in the Bering Sea off the coast of Alaska, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday, marking the first time the U.S. military has seen them in the area. Why the sudden interest?
Because the Chinese have been studying the cycles. From generational theorists William Strauss and Neil Howe, they have learned that political/cultural cycles last only 65 years, and then they collapse, cycles first observed by Taoist monks and Roman philosophers. And China is exactly 66 years advanced since the Chinese Communist Revolution of 1949. In terms of generational cycles, China is on the eve of destruction. (In terms of the Strauss/Howe theory, so are we.)
The Chinese have been studying Western theories and economic cycles like the Elliott Wave, which suggests that the life cycle of a dominant currency has its limitations, and the American dollar cycle has ended. They have been studying economist Harry Dent, investment gurus Jim Rogers, Marc Faber and libertarian Ron Paul, seen often here only in the shadows, and understand that America is at a full economic transition, potentially a catastrophic cultural turning.
They have been reading Nicholson Baker’s day-by-day account, Human Smoke: The beginnings of WWII, the End of Civilization. They understand fully without Western sentimentality or illusion what comes next at the end of the economic cycle: Total war.
And they know that they have every advantage, for so many reasons. The first might reach back to 1913, when the 17th Amendment was approved in America. It focused power in New York and Washington and nullified the natural rise and development of states and regions into indigenous republics or “laboratories of democracy,” the phrase used by Justice Louis Brandeis. But created in time a vast meandering horde wandering without fences, formed by Hollywood light and sound, answering to no one, or anyone. It was one of the early Tea Party initiatives to put the fences back, but it is now too late and not enough.
They understand the “lessons of Vietnam”: Here in the age of the individualized common man where every woman or man can be emperor, it is not just the rich who will not fight, not just the connected who will avoid service (Dick Cheney had five military deferments in the Vietnam era). Almost no one will fight and those who do will be despised.
And although nostalgico generations celebrating Franklin D. Roosevelt (like Bernie Sanders) still romantically view us as unified (largely European) minions formed by great Hollywood figures; Frank Capra, Howard Hawks, Gary Cooper movies like Sergeant York, we no longer are. We view ourselves today as “totalitarian lite” benevolent world conquerors and everybody wants to be like us (except the Chinese and Russians). Senator from Arkansas Tom Cotton today calls for “global military dominance.” But we have no temperament for war. Scholarly studies report that, just one percent of current residents of New Jersey have served in military since Vietnam.
Secretary of State John Kerry’s appeasement of the Ayatollahs in the Iran deal comes as no surprise. Not to China, which carefully plans its next steps in the now permanent relationship with the war-weary and wary West.
Jim Webb, warrior/scholar and former Senator from Virginia, who is running for president has been watching this a long time.
“From this point forward,” he wrote in the Wall Street Journal back in 2001, “no one should doubt that our over investment in the economy of a nondemocratic and ever more aggressive nation has seriously compromised our ability to conduct foreign policy in the world’s most dynamic region. And the fact that we have become vulnerable to a Chinese military modernized through the benefits of our own technology should give all of us pause.”
Webb prefaced his article with a quote from Sun Tzu, in The Art of War: “Draw them in with the prospect of gain, take them by confusion. Use anger to throw them into disarray.”
It is safe to say today that we are now passed the “draw them in” phase and entering into the “take them by confusion” phase and that is what the Chinese ships are doing off the Alaskan coast. Soon ahead, the “use anger to throw them into disarray” phase.
Possibly we would come together in defense today if an outside invader approached the United States (Lower 48) either from China on one side, or Russia on the other. But would Americans in the Lower 48 defend Alaska? Canada? Or would we instead deal Canada away to avoid war below and “find peace”? As our long, intimate, historic relationship with Israel disintegrates almost overnight, General Secretary of the Communist Party Xi Jinping thinks he knows the answer.
Most Americans who have never seen Dougie Gilmour crawl off the ice with a broken leg in his last day on ice, have never been to Tim Hortons or canoed the mystic Canadian wilderness, think Canadians are silly, preoccupied only with hockey. Scott Walker, Governor of Wisconsin, who wants to be president, fully personifies this dangerous American narcissism: He wants to build a fence not only across the border with Mexico, but one across the border with Canada as well. But Canada, and Alaska, are absolutely vital to America’s defence, even to our very existence.
Time to read again, John McPhee’s Coming into the Country. Time to read again, Margaret Atwood’s Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature. Time to read again, Sun Tzu’s The Art of War.
That President Obama is the first American president to cross into the Arctic Circle is astonishing. That tells the Chinese, and the Russians who planted the flag at the North Pole and declared it to be their own well back in 2007, virtually everything they need to know about our relationship with the Great White North.
That is where they must start in the next phase of civilization between China, Russia and North America: Using “anger to throw them into disarray.”
I’ve been preaching to ever Canucklehead that will listen that Canada needs to become Swiss – not just in the sense of neutrality but in the self defence aspect as well. We are too small a country numerically speaking and to vast geographically speaking to defend ourselves with a small (but well trained) professional military. The job of the military here should be to train the general populace. The governments duty should be to secure our borders and to put a rifle and a rocket launcher in every house, an attack helicopter in every barn and surface to surface and surface to air missiles along each coast. The message should be sent to every nation on the planet that we are happy to trade and live in peace but if you come to our borders we will gut your soldiers like fish and send them home in pieces across the oceans.
Sadly – nobody listens because ‘it could NEVER happen here”.
Thanks to China’s “One Child Policy” since the 1960s, accompanied by the selective abortions of GIRL babies, China now has millions of excess males, with no marriage prospects and few job opportunities. There are tons of scholarly papers about this.
Rather than let these guys vent their frustrations on Chinese leadership, said leadership will direct their “energies” elsewhere.
Hence, the new islands they are building in the South China Sea, etc… China is poised to pounce, not only to solve their excess males problem but to divert their populations anger about the imploding Chinese economy.
They have likely noted that the prosperity and global dominance of the USA after WW2 was due in no large part to the complete destruction of the economies/infrastructure/manufacturing base of the rest of the developed world.
Since China already has 80% of the American manufacturing base, they have the necessary base ready to achieve their own time in the sun. China has watched with glee as America has become fat, stupid and lazy about defending their own country and culture. (Thank you liberal progressives.)
I predict a massive Chinese cyberattack to crash the US energy grid, wait 6 months until 90% of the US population dies off, and then just sweep in.
I mean, that’s what I would do, if I was an Evil Genius and came from a culture that values to loooonnng view of history and is sitting on a population time bomb.
No and No.
It is the war-mongering (militarily and financially) U.S. that has and is causing world disruption.
If China needs more women, why would they invade Alaska? I lived in Alaska for a while. Neither of the women were that attractive.
Doubt Russia. They are in a population decline and already have a ginormous land mass to control. They (and the Chinese) are already making claims for the resources of the Artic. Of course, these riches will not go to the people of China/Russia, but to the globalists/oligarchs that run these countries.
Obongo in the Artic was a publicity stunt, something to add to his “first president to….” list. Gotta put SOMETHING in the prezzie library.
Now, Canada, Canada is ripe for the picking. They have tremendous national resources, their population has been disarmed and they are only 20 million, of which 90% live within 200 miles of the US/Canada border. Their people have been thoroughly saturated in the cultural poison of liberal progressivism for decades, thus they despise themselves enough to just give up. Disable their energy grid in the winter and it’s bye bye Cannucks.
@kokoda: No, it is the absence of the US military that is causing a lot of the problems, sorry!
If any country attacked Canada the USA (the saviors of the world) would come to Canada’s defense.There is no fucking way the USA govt would allow an aggressive nation to be that close to it’s borders.
@ Hope
A few things:
There are 35 Million of us (I know – big deal… still small in terms of the size of the land mass)
Disarmed? No. Our guns laws are actually becoming more relaxed – not the other way around. We have pretty much all the same hardware you Americans do… seriously. On a per capita basis if you include the amount of people who have firearms that the government won’t admit to we would place in the top 10 for most heavily armed civilian populations in the world. To give you an idea – based on an impromptu survey of importers stretching back a few decades there are likely about half a million SKS rifles alone in the country. Never mind everything else.
Our tightest restrictions are on handguns but we still own a lot of them and that number is increasing annually. It doesn’t concern me a lot though – wars are not fought with pistols and revolvers.
But yo are correct – we are VERY ripe for the picking – lots and lots of natural resources and not enough military power to defend them. A citizen army is the only solution for us – I fear we are too liberal and brainwashed to accept it though….
@ Leobeer
Never say never. Politicians are cowards by nature for the most part. I would expect though that private citizens and weapons would flow freely through the border in support… at least they should if you value your own skin…
@ Hope
Don’t think “Russia can’t because of demographics” – think the easts answer to NATO
China
Russia
North Korea
Iran
and on….
Personally, I think China will play the “straight” guy in a US-Russia contest, which will set them up for as an economic victor shortly after things all play out.
I don’t really see them taking Canada, nor Alaska either, but Japan/Korea/S. Pacific better be on the lookout.
Admin…that pic of the Obama library is perfect – it is a Toilet Seat.
I think Hope’s comments are very insightful. I don’t agree 100% though. The China of martial legends is millennia ago. China today is not a unified nation, and their military bluster, while extreme, is all bluster. Oh they might field a handful of capable units, but in terms of large scale warfighting, no. Only four nations in the last century have any proven skill at large scale warfighting (US, UK, Germany, Russia) and of those four, two are now desperately weak, and the other two somewhat weaker than before.
Just putting bodies in the field doesn’t ensure victory. Look up the history of the USSR-Finland wars.
Hope in her evil-genius role makes a good point about the EMP-and-wait threat, but we can do the same to them. However, I think it far more likely that we would instead retaliate with a sizable fraction of our nuclear arsenal, which absolutely dwarfs theirs. If China were to attack us in that way, it would probably be the end of China for many centuries. That might leave India and Brazil to inherit the world – who knows – but definitely not China.
When we experience the climax of the fiat dollar economy and liberal brains imploding, the vacuum will effectively suck in Chinese, Russians, Latins etc for the farmland, spoils and women (not that our enemies won’t find ample justifications for vengeance). All three commenters above are so absolutely right. All the idle cargo containers and ships will become Army Transports to THEIR US Ports. We should become like the Swiss and provide weapons and fallout shelters to loyal rural citizen militias. Liberals aiding and abetting our own home grown incorrigibly ignorant Democratic Communist FSA urban jungle plundering barbarians with open borders and welfare is as stupid as Hussein arming and supporting ISIS. I’m just saying this for the sake of the future urban long-pork; Conservative rural folks already know what WDC has planned for them and are preparing.
@Francis Moron
One only needs to remember Cuba (1962) to see how the USA reacts to an enemy close to its borders.
Which country has been at war more than most over the past 65 years?
As a Canadian I would fear the Americans more than than the Russians or the Chinese.
The idea of China invading Alaska or Canada is ridiculous. They don’t have the naval capability to either launch a large scale amphibious operation, to defeat the US Navy (which is guaranteed to engage the Chinese if they decide to launch an attack in North America), or the logistical support to resupply their forces on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. It is unclear if the Chinese would even be able to consolidate their(?) territories in the South China Sea, and that is with massive air, submarine, and conventional ballistic missile support. They’re only just starting to commence long range ballistic missile submarine patrols. No way. Until Taiwan has fallen to the Chinese, this isn’t even a possibility to entertain.
And let’s not forget the Inuit prophecies that when the polar bear (the real one, not white folks) is seen to be losing weight, then the time is nigh when the Eskimo shall rise up as a proud people to drive from their homeland the round-eyes (this time it’s white folk) who have despoiled their lands and debauched their women! The Chinese leadership is closely studying the details of the prophesy, of that you can be sure, though I am not at liberty to reveal my sources. Watch the ice-floes; watch them closely!
I wonder if the coming tribulations could be avoided if we had sound money once again ?Sound money backed by Gold.
“However, I think it far more likely that we would instead retaliate with a sizable fraction of our nuclear arsenal, which absolutely dwarfs theirs. If China were to attack us in that way, it would probably be the end of China for many centuries.”
But what if the reason obama never released his birth certificate is because he was born in China and he is the main cog in a Chinese plot to take over the world?
Why would anyone go to the trouble of invading America, when they can buy as much of it as they want, including its politicians, with their surpluses of devaluing dollars?
What a silly article. China attack the US? We lobe missiles at each other?
There will be no more symmetric wars. Any wars will be proxy wars, or guerrilla wars, or financial wars.
China and Russia create a new money standard backed by Gold and the U.S. Crumbles from not being able to print money. Military wise we could hold off any invading force.
Maybe having a loose cannon like Trump at the helm would make people hesitate. Two nuclear subs can about destroy the planet.From the dock. One in Alaska and one in Maine.
@ Leobeer,
Yah – I’d be a liar if I said that thought hasn’t crossed my mind – mind you we are essentially Gaul to Rome in that sense already – what makes me think is what happens if the US implodes? We – by comparison are a sea of tranquility and political stability but there are over 1 million gang members in the US alone – the crips and the bloods number roughly what we have in terms of armed forces. This is not good.
I think my point is – from a Canadian stand point – we are too easy a target and too dependent on others – we suffer from a form of self defense welfare…. we need to be self sufficient and when you are small there is only one way to deal with this issue. It’s a strange world these days and without a crystal ball to see the future it is best to simply be nice but prepared.
China can’t invade anyone. They don’t want to provoke a retaliation from the West. The only way for China to prevail in a conflict is if it is over very fast, as in less than a month-TOPS. They are vulnerable to attack by sea, which is where they get most of their fuel and raw materials.
We tend to think of China as this continent sized nation criss-crossed with transportation hubs to Russia and elsewhere. In reality, China might as well be an island. The vast majority of everything it needs travels to Chinese ports, and that makes them an easy mark for what the West has in terms of Western firepower. Another problem they have is the fact that most of their critical industry and energy assets are concentrated in a few places. Remember, they are communist collectivists at heart.
If they don’t achieve their goals, whatever they may be, in a few weeks, then they will lose. Their ports will be destroyed by our missiles, their merchant fleet sunk, their industry crippled. But worst of all, they will run out of fuel when the West sinks the tankers and bomb the refineries.
China’s impressive army and it’s growing technological knowhow won’t mean shit in this conflict.
The way I see it, the only way they have of hurting us is financially. Drive the Western economy down, but they can’t do that alone. They would need help from Russia and many others.
Bottom line: As long as America has it’s military, China can’t invade anyone the West doesn’t want them to invade.. BTW, If China could take any country, it would take Taiwan, not Alaska or Canada, for Christ sakes. Nothing is going to happen.
Hmmm…maybe that technology China got from Loral via Clinton is actually full of viruses to disable the Chinese nukes…yah never know.
Just as Japan was scared to invade the USA because of an armed populace,the Chinese and the Rusians know the same fear. We have 500 millions guns in the hands of Americans….good hunting will be easy.
I often find that the most outrageous comments and theories, no matter their chances of occurring, receive the most attention, as long as the thoughts are intelligently written.
Navies are becoming obsolete in battle. Relatively inexpensive missiles are out there that are capable of sinking anything that floats. Including carriers.
I strongly recommend the new Clancy like novel about the Chinese started WW 3 called “Ghost Fleet”. It starts out with a Chines cyber attack on the U.S. but I will leave it to you to find out what happens.
while its logical we would have to fight for Canada, I wouldn’t want to, I hate those self righteous pacifists
To all those who posted comments suggesting that Canadians will cave in and not put up a fight, I say you are wrong. Within my circle of general acquaintances I know of half a dozen who are getting, or are in the process of getting their firearms certificates in order to purchase firearms. I also know several young people at work who have ‘woken up’ to the political issues and are acutely aware of the need to prepare themselves and their partners/families for what is coming. Just because we don’t shout it from the rooftop and brag about our preparations does not mean that we are asleep. Canadians have always acquitted themselves nobly and courageously in war and even though the next war might be fought with computers and HEMP bursts doesn’t mean that we cannot fight asymmetrically. There is more than one way to skin a cat……
Phil – a great number of Canadians have French background. The only fight Canadians will put up is to see who surrenders first. Hope all those Canadian firearms are able to withstand being dropped at time of surrender.
Llpoh, the only number of Canadians that have a French background are the diminishing few located in Quebec. They are quickly being outnumbered through immigration. Do not dismiss those of us whose families tamed the prairies and forests of the north whose ancestors were of hardy German, Dutch, British and Irish stock. We carved out of the wilderness a great country. There are still enough of us left to rally the new Canadians, those who are proud to have been accepted here and have carved out their own lives and futures for their families, too. You need to drop the cynicism and defeatist attitude. Those are the things that cause a person to lose the spirit to fight for anything.
@ Monger
I know how you feel – in spite of the fact that the nation to the south of us is loaded with fat, dumbed down ignorant shit heads like you we still seem to get along pretty well. Mind you its hard to be angry at a nation that by and large can’t get off the sofa to find the remote and has an average IQ lower than my kids hamster. Go Murica! (Apologies to the rest of the folks on the board who are not complete and utter ass fucks….) See how easy it is to draw generalizations? Have a nice evening.
@ Llpoh
Troll 🙂
Francis – who, moi? ?
I don’t think China will attack us. I think they will just wait for us to do ourselves in. It won’t take too much longer. Then they will simply buy all of the USA they want at big discounts with their very own fake fiat money.
The people in the USA may be fat, stupid and delusional but the factor few consider is that folks in the USA are fucking crazy, have lots of guns, are angry and getting more angry. Everyone is pissed about something or at somebody. They can deal with reduced pensions and American style poverty but when the big screens go down, there is no more live and in color Kardashian tits and ass shows, no boob job loans, no money for tattoos, the sodas run out and the fried chicken and cheese snacks are gone they will totally flip out and start shooting.
This nation is a time bomb. No…….a lot of time bombs and when one goes the rest will explode and we will not be “we” but various states, regional nations, subjugated territories and zones that have been racially cleansed.
Look at this Nation. 96% of all our people are fucked up. Most are either on meds, on some kind of welfare, are morons or criminal morons or psychopaths. The rest are nuts and lunatics. Even if one is not religious what we need are more Christians. But what we have are all kinds of Protestant heretic derivatives and a Catholic Church has been besieged by homo priests and candy ass clergy who try to cover up the whole mess with deceptions and demonic forgiveness. On top of that we have a bunch of Islams running around that somebody let in and all manner of other incompatibles loose on the streets with the Afromaniacs who are knocking people out, thieving, looting or burning down their neighborhoods. And the cops are the same dangerous group of thugs they always have been. Only more dangerous with military grade weapons and armored fighting vehicles. That’s like giving a sixth grade school crossing guard a machine gun and a license to kill.
Bankers are running amok fucking anyone and anything they can they can stick their dicks in. Our Federal, State and Local governments are broke, corrupt, dysfunctional and specialize in jacking off bankers and giving crony blow jobs while jamming sharp objects up the public’s ass.
All this while the country is being invaded by Mexican welfare and job Bandit’s who take the jobs low class locals should do or starve. Our system is not sustainable socially or financially. Everyone one hates each other. And they probably should. Our production of basic vital goods is vastly diminished. We can’t compete with some poor impoverished red commie bastard because we will feed poor people even if they don’t work or do something productive and regulate the life out of every business large and small. Then we tax the regulated bastards even more. Our infrastructure is in decay, and we are irreversibly infested with republicans and democrats. How the fuck is this going to prevail? ………………..It’s not.
The USA is a Zombie Nation. It’s been dead a long time. It died right after JFK did. And now It’s bitten most every other country in the world and they are all Zombies too. One day soon the heads of all these zombies will be smashed to mush and the USA along with many other nations will just fill chapters in world history books. Even in the future history books we will probably at best be second fiddle to the Glory of Rome. A shooting star. A flash in the pan.There is no solution to this mess. The whole thing is failure and it will crumble to dust and fade away.
We are doomed. Doomed really big. But that’s not a bad thing. That’s what is and always has been. In the big picture it’s no big deal. It’s the life of men, the life of nations and the life of civilizations. They all die and a new child is born. Lets hope its not retarded too.
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