The Mess

[Xenophon]

I saddly, biggly agree with you that stupidity has no limits, but let's hope for self business preservation.

I'm not saying doing business is not in effect, what I'm saying is that there is a reason for that, a facilitator if you will, and the reason is the hegemonic order and stability therein, the mistake would be to think that the business is making the hegemonic order rather than the hegemonic order is making the business. Thus, once the hegemonic order starts to break down, there is a window of succession as to what hegemonic order will fill the power vacuum to control the business, be it Spain to France, France to Britain, or Britain to America, in between these long periods of hegemonic stability, is where the windows open for a war of hegemonic succession, or indeed a series of them one right after the other, until a new hegemonic order can be established, by a victor, or coalition of victors.

It wasn't business what prevented a Third World War, any more than business prevented the First or Second, what prevented a Third World War was that the victor and associated coalition of the First/Second, has simply been too dominant militarily since 1945, to realistically be unseated by force of arms, American "globalized" hegenomy is the bulwark against hegemonic succession, but history shows, no hegemon rules forever, they all have an arc in the end.

Who steps up to the plate after the inevitable decline? Perhaps an ascendant Germany? They have the foreign influence, what with the EU and all. Although that organization seems close to going by the way side with the rise of conservatism in Europe, I figure Germany will still be a major player in Western European politics.

[Smitty-48]

Who steps up to the plate after the inevitable decline? Perhaps an ascendant Germany? They have the foreign influence, what with the EU and all. Although that organization seems close to going by the way side with the rise of conservatism in Europe, I figure Germany will still be a major player in Western European politics.

Well that's why the wars happen, because you can't really tell, if you could tell who was going to be the new hegemonic order, there wouldn't need to be a war to find out, it is in fact within the cauldron of the war itself, wherein the new hegemonic order is made, how the war plays out, determines the fate of all the hegemonic players.

Lets say America, China, and Russia counterforce nuke each other in a war of hegemonic succession, the new hegemons could end up being in South America, it doesn't even have to be the active participants in the war who become the victors, often the victors were standing in the wings and became the hegemons by default when the ruling order blew itself up.

If the northern hemisphere becomes embroiled in an unintended nuclear exchange, the new centers of world commerce would probably become places like Cuidad del Este Paraguay, and Johannesburg South Africa. I'd throw India in there, but methinks the Sub-Continent would become embroiled in the northern hemispheric nuclear exchange as well.

[Paulo]

Who steps up to the plate after the inevitable decline? Perhaps an ascendant Germany? They have the foreign influence, what with the EU and all. Although that organization seems close to going by the way side with the rise of conservatism in Europe, I figure Germany will still be a major player in Western European politics.

Well that's why the wars happen, because you can't really tell, if you could tell who was going to be the new hegemonic order, there wouldn't need to be a war to find out, it is in fact within the cauldron of the war itself, wherein the new hegemonic order is made, how the war plays out, determines the fate of all the hegemonic players.

Lets say America, China, and Russia counterforce nuke each other in a war of hegemonic succession, the new hegemons could end up being in South America, it doesn't even have to be the active participants in the war who become the victors, often the victors were standing in the wings and became the hegemons by default when the ruling order blew itself up.

If the northern hemisphere becomes embroiled in an unintended nuclear exchange, the new centers of world commerce would probably become places like Cuidad del Este Paraguay, and Johannesburg South Africa.

Exactly! The hegemonic power learned from the debacle in the WW II . They gained nothing! Only the outsider, the US took everything. What they have to gain now? what territory is so important, what resources they can't get buying it? You only fight such a war if you try to gain something. And in our days you can travel in hours to anywhere, or videoconferencing or whatever. The world got a lot more entangle and interdependent. Now they gain all they want by buying it or making laws, that TTPPF is a blatant example. There is no fracking in Brasil? Let's change the laws permitting it.
It is that simple. It will ruin the Guarani Aquifer? Fuck it. It will cause some small quakes that never happened before? Fuck it.
Is Petrobras a good and prosper company? Pre salt? Ok let's put some corrupt people to work and voilá!

Easier than destroying the shit out of it.

[Smitty-48]

Exactly! The hegemonic power learned from the debacle in the WW II . They gained nothing!

Indeed, but the hegemonic order never intends to blow itself up, to wit, hegemonic succession is never by design but rather entirely by default.

[Xenophon]

Well that's why the wars happen, because you can't really tell, if you could tell who was going to be the new hegemonic order, there wouldn't need to be a war to find out, it is in fact within the cauldron of the war itself, wherein the new hegemonic order is made, how the war plays out, determines the fate of all the hegemonic players.

Lets say America, China, and Russia counterforce nuke each other in a war of hegemonic succession, the new hegemons could end up being in South America, it doesn't even have to be the active participants in the war who become the victors, often the victors were standing in the wings and became the hegemons by default when the ruling order blew itself up.

If the northern hemisphere becomes embroiled in an unintended nuclear exchange, the new centers of world commerce would probably become places like Cuidad del Este Paraguay, and Johannesburg South Africa. I'd throw India in there, but methinks the Sub-Continent would become embroiled in the northern hemispheric nuclear exchange as well.

So a similar position that America was in after WWII.

You mentioning India got me to thinking about the current situation between India and Pakistan. Is the current skirmishing going on pretty normal? I vaguely recall them going at it a bit during the Bush administration, but I was a teenager so I can't really remember what happened.

EDIT: Paulo beat me to the America WWII comment.

[Smitty-48]

So a similar position that America was in after WWII.

A similar position that America was in after WWI, the transfer of power from London to New York is in the First World War, in the Second World War, America was simply coming in to protect its interests gained in the First war.

You mentioning India got me to thinking about the current situation between India and Pakistan. Is the current skirmishing going on pretty normal? I vaguely recall them going at it a bit during the Bush administration, but I was a teenager so I can't really remember what happened.

Well I don't think normalcy actually applies to a thermonuclear standoff, because we are only in the infancy of this paradigm, within one of the long interregnum periods of hegemonic order between total wars, we don't really know what normal is, when it comes to a balance of terror between nuclear adversaries, that is in the end, the matter at hand writ large.

[Smitty-48]

I mean, whoever thought that you were such a bunch of Neoconservatives asserting this Fukuyama-esque End of History balderdash, eh wot? I bet you don't think of yourselves as being NeoCons, no doubt, but based on what you are asserting, that is in fact what you would be.

To wit, End of History American Hegenomy Forever, is the seminal basis of all Neoconservative dogma.

Bear in mind, I am not asserting that I know what is going to happen, only that said End of History dogma is quite obviously utterly fallacious faith based magical thinking devoid of any logically induced reasoned underpinnings. And as such, I merely explore what might happen, what could happen, what based on the historical record does in fact happen, if/when all that nonsense comes a cropper.

Hegenomy's have been here before, said all of this before, this is nothing new, in fact it's par for the course with hegemonic delusion, it's what all hegemons comes to think, often in fact, right before the fall. This is the arc of hegenomy, and the End of History invariably comes around again and again, in the third act.

The End of History, is the very essence of Imperial hubris, the very stuff in fact, which brings hegenomy's down.

[Speaker to Animals]

American hegemony will likely end by our own hand. A significant number of Americans already want to break apart as it is. We may be externally powerful, but it's not working out for most of us internally. I think we'd be happier with a hegemony formed by a coalition of Anglo states, and perhaps Japan along with a few others.

Right now there is a not so insignificant movement in states like California to secede. They hate the values of most of America, and frankly, most of America hates them back. Putting all this back together seems pointless. The trajectory we currently occupy entails further stratification of the populace, weaker or less than relevant federal government, and more autonomy at regional levels. Eventually the legal ties that bind us all will break and we probably all will celebrate that day.

[Smitty-48]

Consequently, the American hegenomy was actually born in the Civil War, it was the internal cauldron of that war, which hyper industrialized America by force almost overnight, and to the shock of the British and French, made America a near peer adversary, in what was in historical terms, the blink of an eye. The Civil War, was an American war of hegemonic succession, wherein the hegenomy of the Founding Fathers was overthrown, at the foot of Cemetery Ridge, George Washington of course being, the Original Virginia Seceshe.

[Xenophon]

Consequently, the American hegenomy was actually born in the Civil War, it was the internal cauldron of that war, which hyper industrialized America by force almost overnight, and to the shock of the British and French, made America a near peer adversary, in what was in historical terms, the blink of an eye. The Civil War, was an American war of hegemonic succession, wherein the hegenomy of the Founding Fathers was overthrown, at the foot of Cemetery Ridge, George Washington of course being, the Original Virginia Seceshe.

Hence his image gracing the Confederate Great Seal.