Hey, even the New York Times is publishing a piece that says President-for-life Xi of China has missed the point. "Xi Jinping Wanted Global Dominance. He Overshot."
Back in the day, even under Mao, China wanted a good relationship with the US. But Xi thought he could play superpower.
And now it looks like China will have to agree to a trade pact with the US that represents a loss of face to President Xi.
Then there is the attempt by Russia, China and some bit players to keep President Maduro in power in Venezuela. And your point is? To show the US that you can play the game?
Look, I get it. All these second division players have watched the US global hegemony over the past century and dearly want to play that game too. They want a navy like ours. They want to tell tin-pot dictators whether to come or go. They want to sit by the energy spigot and make a mint out of energy production.
'Cos that's what great powers do! Yay!
One little thing, fellahs. The whole idea of the US imperium was to push back at totalitarian players like Hitler and Stalin, and the tin-pot versions like Castro and Chávez, who didn't believe in a world of commercial reciprocity, but in political and imperial dominance and hegemony. Because equality.
But that was the old world, and that is the world that the left has been trying to revive for the last century in its Great Reaction: socialism as neo-slavery, welfare state as neo-feudalism, and identity politics as neo-tribalism.
Thing is: the military domination of land doesn't matter any more, not much. What matters are the monster 200,000 ton container ships plying their trade across the oceans of the world. Great nations are no longer interested in conquering and plundering their neighbors for riches and for slaves. Why? Because there is no money in it!
What good did it do for the Stalinists to conquer eastern Europe? It just made the eastern Europeans as poor as the Russians. What is the point of China colonizing Third World countries with unpayable Belt and Road debt? Because the West did it 150 years ago? And Robert McNamara did it with the World Bank 50 years ago?
And what good will it do to keep Maduro in power in Venezuela so the Venezuelans can starve a little more.
What is needed is for the great nations of the world to do what the men of the West did in the 19th century: trade the warrior's sword for the sportsman's trophy.
That's the remarkable thing about our age. Just when men stopped being combination peasants/medieval soldiers along came football and tennis and cricket. And basketball and baseball. So now men could compete for the honor of the city, and teach the guys in that other city with the lousy team a lesson.
And very delightful and harmless it is. Same goes for careers. What better use is there for male aggressiveness than to challenge your fellow corporate road warriors into a fight to the death -- for market share?
What is needed is for the natural competition between nations to be channeled into equally harmless pursuits. But what?
Well I have an idea. Remember the race to the moon? Yeah. That was a harmless way of channeling the Cold War into harmless pursuits.
I propose a global competition, A Race to Mars.
Which nation will be first to put a man on Mars? It goes without saying that the first nation to put a man on Mars has hair on its chest. Its people are clearly the wave of the future.
And all the rest are cry-babies.
Back in the day, even under Mao, China wanted a good relationship with the US. But Xi thought he could play superpower.
Mr. Xi has been aggressively hard-line. Under him, anti-American rhetoric has spread in official media. The Chinese government has been explicit about wanting to challenge the United States’s military presence in Asia. It has made aggressive moves toward Taiwan and in the South China Sea.Then Xi has tried to "co-opt members of China’s vast diaspora, hoping to develop a network that will facilitate political infiltration into other countries and high-tech transfers out of them."
And now it looks like China will have to agree to a trade pact with the US that represents a loss of face to President Xi.
Then there is the attempt by Russia, China and some bit players to keep President Maduro in power in Venezuela. And your point is? To show the US that you can play the game?
Look, I get it. All these second division players have watched the US global hegemony over the past century and dearly want to play that game too. They want a navy like ours. They want to tell tin-pot dictators whether to come or go. They want to sit by the energy spigot and make a mint out of energy production.
'Cos that's what great powers do! Yay!
One little thing, fellahs. The whole idea of the US imperium was to push back at totalitarian players like Hitler and Stalin, and the tin-pot versions like Castro and Chávez, who didn't believe in a world of commercial reciprocity, but in political and imperial dominance and hegemony. Because equality.
But that was the old world, and that is the world that the left has been trying to revive for the last century in its Great Reaction: socialism as neo-slavery, welfare state as neo-feudalism, and identity politics as neo-tribalism.
Thing is: the military domination of land doesn't matter any more, not much. What matters are the monster 200,000 ton container ships plying their trade across the oceans of the world. Great nations are no longer interested in conquering and plundering their neighbors for riches and for slaves. Why? Because there is no money in it!
What good did it do for the Stalinists to conquer eastern Europe? It just made the eastern Europeans as poor as the Russians. What is the point of China colonizing Third World countries with unpayable Belt and Road debt? Because the West did it 150 years ago? And Robert McNamara did it with the World Bank 50 years ago?
And what good will it do to keep Maduro in power in Venezuela so the Venezuelans can starve a little more.
What is needed is for the great nations of the world to do what the men of the West did in the 19th century: trade the warrior's sword for the sportsman's trophy.
That's the remarkable thing about our age. Just when men stopped being combination peasants/medieval soldiers along came football and tennis and cricket. And basketball and baseball. So now men could compete for the honor of the city, and teach the guys in that other city with the lousy team a lesson.
And very delightful and harmless it is. Same goes for careers. What better use is there for male aggressiveness than to challenge your fellow corporate road warriors into a fight to the death -- for market share?
What is needed is for the natural competition between nations to be channeled into equally harmless pursuits. But what?
Well I have an idea. Remember the race to the moon? Yeah. That was a harmless way of channeling the Cold War into harmless pursuits.
I propose a global competition, A Race to Mars.
Which nation will be first to put a man on Mars? It goes without saying that the first nation to put a man on Mars has hair on its chest. Its people are clearly the wave of the future.
And all the rest are cry-babies.
No comments:
Post a Comment