Paralells

[pecunium]

Maia and were heading someplace and something on the radio was being said about the escalation being planned for Iraq. Which caused Maia to say she'd heard that the estimated cost was understated, because the extra troops weren't the only people who would have to be paid, since they will require more support personell.

Which led me to ponder things about money, which Cicero said was the sinew of war.

The US doesn't have the money it needs to finance the wars it is fighting, which means we are borrowing it. Under the best of circumstances, this is a less than brilliant tactic. Looking back, there is a recent example of how, even with the most friendly of allies it's a course which leaves grave vulnerabilties in the ability to execute operation.

Suez, 1956. Egypt nationalised the Suez Canal.

Sir Anthony Eden, Prime Minister of Her Majesties Gov't saw it as a threat to England's ability to do business, "No arrangements for the future of this great international waterway could be acceptable to Her Majesty’s Government which would leave it in the unfettered control of a single Power which could, as recent events have show, exploit it purely for purposes of national policy."

Quite apart from that, Eden had an antipathy to Egypt's President Nasser, saying, "What’s all this poppycock you’ve sent me? . . . what’s all this nonsense about isolating Nasser, or ‘neutralizing’ him, as you call it? I want him destroyed, can’t you understand? I want him removed. . . . And I don’t give a damn if there’s anarchy and chaos in Egypt," which may have colored his thinking.

Certainly it was part of his arranging with France, and Israel, to attack Egypt, to retake the Canal. Israel was also looking to change the balance of power in the Middle East. Israel's grievances included Egypt's declaration that, "Egypt has decided to dispatch her heroes, the disciples of Pharaoh and the sons of Islam and they will cleanse the land of Palestine....There will be no peace on Israel's border because we demand vengeance, and vengeance is Israel's death." Egypt had also signed a treaty which placed Nasser in charge of Syria and Jordan's armies.

So a pre-emptive strike, against the anticipated attack which was coming was, so they thought, in Israel's interest.

So this coalition invaded, and took the Canal.

Which wasn't receieved well, elsewhere in the world.

Egpt was feeling pressured (and abused) by the US, and the British, who were upset by Nasser's growing ties to the USSR. Because of this the promised aid, for building the Aswan Dam, had been rescinded. Nasser expected the tolls on the canal to cover the costs, in about five years, while England was afraid the canal might be closed to petroleum to the West.

So the lot of them decided diplomacy wasn't going to be good enough. Israel attacked, France and England waltzed in and "established a peace."

But England had a problem. The pound was under pressure (from speculation) and the Bank of England was selling off her dollar reserves to keep the pound propped up.

Come December there weren't enough reserves to meet England's various debts, and the US refused (by some gamesmanship of being "unavailable") to make a loan to cover payments, unless the Britain did what the US wanted in the Suez (i.e. actually fulfill the terms of the U.N. resolution, instead of "conforming" which had the British still holding onto the Canal, in fact, though it nominally was once again Egypt's).

How does this apply to the present?

We are spending more than we are taking in. The vast majority of that expense is being spent in Iraq. If the gov't had raised taxes (perhaps only to the levels in place when it came to power) we could be covering the war, as we go. But we didn't, and so we have needed to borrow money to pay the bills.

If England, for example, were who we were paying for our little adventure, we might not have a whole lot of worries, because (at the moment) the British Gov't is supportive of our, general, efforts.

But England isn't picking up our tab, China is, and China isn't likely to be all that happy about us spreading the fight to Iran.

So she might decide to stop buying our debt. That would put a huge crimp in the war. The argument against this is that the secondary effects of such an action are likely to be worldwide.

However, China has a growing need for oil. Right now she is importing a, non-trvial amount, of it from Iran. Prior to the war, China was focusing on getting sanctions on Iraq lifted, in Mar. 2003, that went by the boards. She's also working on developing some oil-fields in Iran, as well as some natural gas.

The effect on the Chinse economy of losing those, might be drastic enough to make it worth her while to accept the problems, which would come of forcing the issue, rather than wait to see what the longer term effects of letting us spread the conflict.

Which would be very embarrassing, as one of the soldier in the Suez said, "We were the laughing stock of the world, thanks to Eden, because that was really the moment at which England stopped being a super-power.

Comments

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

I would say that the UK stopped being a world power during or right after WW II. In the 1950s, it no longer had the comparative resources required.

And I suspect the US stopped being a superpower when the Soviet Union was dissolved. Because I think there has to be a superpower system; there can't be a lone superpower. Less powerful countries need a choice of (superpower) evils.

But I do agree that a US attack on Iraq would result in the US no longer being regarded as a superpower.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

The British Economy was exporting more after the war, than it was before.

This was masked, in no small part, by the need to cover the costs of the war.

But the role a nation plays is no small part image, and it was the ability of Britain to get her way, unfettered, which was lost at Suez, and that cost England the last vestiges of being a Great Power.

TK

We are TEH Superpower.

[qp4.livejournal.com]

I think that perhaps that after the fall of the Soviet Union it went from being a field of two Super Powers back to a field of Great Nations. France is pretty pissed because they're just outside the field and try to fuck us.

Of course, this all may be what the Russians want us to think.

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

Seems to me that if we attack Iran we'll certainly have no SuperPower Image-material left. Whether we can re-furbish what we have now seems ... questionable, at best. It'll surely be a decade or more before the rest of the world trusts us, in _anything_. The Iraq invasion was a farcical fiasco (as well as a tragedy) from its inception, and it's impossible to carry off a superpower Role when people are laughing at you.

Of course, there's the possibility that, rather than having failed utterly, the NeoCon Republicans have done precisely what they wanted -- created chaos in the Near East, or just made an enormous amount of money for themselves, or re-arranged the balance of power in our internal Governmental system. If that's the case, there's been so much bloodshed that the rest of the advanced world will view us with moral contempt. And rightly so, I think.

Meanwhile, we're borrowing an enormous amount of money, and will eventually have to pay it back, with a lot of interest. The USSR managed, briefly, to play the superpower role with an impoverished populace, but I rather doubt that the American People will put up with that.

[qp4.livejournal.com]

d it's impossible to carry off a superpower Role when people are laughing at you

Think on this for a moment. We can still level the world. Would you like me to post a picture of the largest non Soviet Russian aircraft carriers floating alongside ours? Perhaps the fighting in Iraq has made us look silly -- in an editorial and to the "informed" citizens of some nation. I seriously doubt that any world leader has forgot that if pressed we're the most industrialized nation in the world with a populace of over three hundred million people (that can read and write).

Iraq is a fiasco, I'll agree. I hope we can win. If we lose it does make us look like assholes. But to think that leaders of any nation think we're assholes AND chumps is just plain stupid. We can straight fuck up any country in the world any time we like, and they know it.

[antiquated-tory.livejournal.com]

True, I don't think anyone sensible is laughing at the US. Serious people around the world are holding their heads and moaning about us, though. Because the US was always supposed to be competent when it mattered, and also because a weakening of US leverage (not raw power but the ability to realize FP goals) is bad for everyone, even when you don't agree with US policies. It's damn difficult to get anything done internationally when the US is not effective.

[supermouse.livejournal.com]

I think the US, as a foreign power, is a chump. A paranoid bully and a chump that gets very, very threatened by anyone different to itself. (I don't think Britain is any better). The big bully is waving around a large lump of iron, but it's already got others holding the iron aloft for it, and soon it will get too tired and the others will let go. At which point, this bully will be face down in the mud. With no iron.

300 million people isn't really that many. There's lots of land, but the future for the US looks bleak. South America has lots of people too.

I just wish Britain would stop following the US along like a pet poodle. It's shameful.

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

"I hope we can win."

I wish I could hope that, but everything I see forces me to agree with the strategists & military people who say (or indicate as strongly as they can within the limits of public disagreement with their C-in-C) that we have, in fact, lost that war. I'm not sure just when we lost it -- maybe back in the previous century, when the people who orchestrated it decided that they wanted to establish U.S. military control over the Near-East oil fields and that conquering Iraq as soon as they could manufacture an excuse would be a good way to do this, or maybe the week or so after we took over, fired the Iraqi Army (but let them keep their weapons), failed to secure Saddam's arms depots, and simply didn't put a fraction of the troops on the ground that would be needed to maintain civil order. By then, certainly, the war was doomed to fail, and all the bravery, blood, and agony since then has been wasted unnecessarily. Now we're planning on continuing to do the same, only more, largely for political reasons.


"We can straight fuck up any country in the world any time we like, and they know it."

Sure. And then what? (Granted, the image of a pear-shaped 50-something slob dressed-up in a spandex Superman outfit becomes scary when he's carrying an automatic rifle with rounds in the magazine, but society usually manages to handle such things.) I don't think the majority of the American People will go along with this idea of the U.S. dominating the world by Military Force, following the (failed) pattern of (in the past century) Germany, Japan, and the USSR. That isn't where Power is centered, any more, and the people of the advanced nations understand that trade, equality, and co-operation are much more to their long-term advantage. So, I think, do most Americans, once they've worked their way through the propaganda of the authoritarians who want to return us to the 18th Century.. or the 19th, or even the early 20th. The world works rather differently today -- much more along the lines of what the founders of our country envisioned when they said that Government exists to advance the welfare of the People -- and it would be sadly ironic if we were to impede that development.

Thank you

[firepower.livejournal.com]

Historians have been making these comparisons for some time.

I don't know what else to say. Great empires live a three-century growth and decay pattern.

Or, perhaps I don't know what else to say besides that I don't really think we'll give empire up even with the meager level of grace the British had.

Re: Thank you

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's a time-line cycle (and Rome certainly falls outside the 300 years you give it, Byzantium as well, and cases can be made for China lasting longer than 300 years; as well as the interesting question of its serial/absorptive nature).

I forget what it was I was reading which was positing the real change-point for modern empires is power. Not military, but the means of control/production.

Holland was king of the hill when wind came to the fore (in mills and sail) but was supplanted by England when coal rose, and then the U.S. started to supplant England when oil became the preferred method for making things happen.

Part of this was sunk costs. When the means of productions means of work changes, the new kids are ready to go, while the older ones are invested in systems which are expensive to replace.

TK

Re: Thank you

[firepower.livejournal.com]

The "300 years" guideline, I find, is more of a tool for beginning to study these things than an absolute rule. To say there was would be ahistorical, i.e. what historical agents cross the (nonexistent) line that separates imperial actions from plain-old territorial ambition, in order to start the (nonexistent) 300-year clock ticking?

Anyways, yes, it's a rough guideline. And I agree with you about energy sources playing another huge part.

Another aspect of the growth-and-decay patterns of empires is military advantage. Military history is the history of an incremental technological breakthrough giving a decisive advantage to a particular political association. Wars of attrition aren't what build empires, but slaughters are. Because these breakthroughs are incremental, they're eventually outpaced by others who, as in your example about the means of production, did not invest so heavily in an obsolescent technology. Anyone who hedges by investing in all technologies has a disadvantage, etc. etc.

So I think you're right, there's plenty of factors that round out the theory. Exceptions prove the rule. Other factors influencing imperial ascents and declines include topsoil depletion/restoration rates, public health and hygiene, and the ever-dangerous interaction between the very poor and new religious movements.

But this is all academic. I think the real point is that we have all expended a political will as a imperial unit or quanta or whatever for as long as it can effectively be exerted. Our adventurous wars have little or no appreciable effect on our daily lives. We go on as if nothing is happening even though we are in the most expensive war in our history. It's totally shocking to me that we have been in Iraq longer now than we were fighting the Second World War. This country was transformed for war then - but has changed imperceptibly if at all for this one.

One of the "problems" posed to our empire, not that it is a problem with respect to the greater flow of history, is that Americans perceive the greater enemies to be internal, whether they are promilitary or antimilitary, right or left, Democatic or Republican.

Taking into account these and many other "problems," the question for our empire is not when or how soon it will end - although we do have some power over this, it's not worth it to spur the sick old horse. The question is instead how much misery, human and otherwise, comes from the end of this empire.

[qp4.livejournal.com]

The US has been operating at deficit spending for quite some time and the majority of it is not defense allocation although that is a major portion of the budget. The current Adminstration ahs operated largely on additional deficit expenditure (and I'd agree they may have bankrupted the Country) but not just for the fighting in Iraq. The biggest jumps in the deficit are from the tax cuts and the loss of revenue because of companies downsizing their American workforce and/or moving their headquarters to a place thay do not pay taxes, not additional expenditure.

That, btw, is why George Bush has screwed us. A few thousand of you and me gettin' smoked in Iraq is just the smokescreen while a way bigger fucking goes down.

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

"That, btw, is why George Bush has screwed us. A few thousand of you and me gettin' smoked in Iraq is just the smokescreen while a way bigger fucking goes down."

I wish people wouldn't say "Bush" in such contexts. He's just the front-man (& scapegoat) -- the real culprits are a whole bunch of radicals, (and hey, in general, I rather like radicals, even though I consider myself rather conservative (though definitely in the lower-case)), along with the entire Republican Party Machine, and more than a few Voters.

Other than that quibble... yeah, I can't disagree with you, and I'm afraid we won't get the sand out of our internal political gears before the works are damaged beyond functionality.

What frightens met -- and I don't frighten easily -- is the possibility that they guys who have done this Iraq job on us are not incompetent bunglers, and that the war they started was perfectly successful, according to their lights. They have successfully transferred billions of dollars from the U.S. Treasury into their pockets, or to the Corporations with which they're associated. They stand a good chance of continuing and increasing this by initiating a war with Iran. As I see it, the current Administration has be run by CEO types who have an almost-religious Belief in getting in control, getting rich, and getting out just before the company collapses (preferably taking most of the employees' pension fund with them).

But yeah, as you suggest, that only one item in their agenda, along with cutting taxes for the rich, and eliminating controls that protect the people from the excesses of Big Business.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

See control fraud.

TK

[qp4.livejournal.com]

is the possibility that they guys who have done this Iraq job on us are not incompetent bunglers, and that the war they started was perfectly successful, according to their lights. They have successfully transferred billions of dollars from the U.S. Treasury into their pockets, or to the Corporations with which they're associated.

It's nice to see I'm the only person that's come up with this particular line of thought.