A Helpful Article

The world is now changing in ways that are unhelpful and unuseful to Americans. Or at least they are unhelpful and unuseful to the ways that Americans have always liked to see themselves. Americans are at present having an unhappy moment in their history.

We like to see ourselves as the wealthiest nation on earth that always has money for the poor all over the world. We like to see ourselves and the world policemen and policewomen. We win all the wars. We are the best fighters and strategically at least no one can match us in formal battles. But like all big armies of the world that have ever existed, we are no match for guerrila warfare conducted by a population that will never support us as in Afghanistan.

There is a military truism. "You can never win a war without eventual popular support in that area." Since we have possibly permanently lost popular support in Afghanistan we may now be in a similar position to the Soviets for whom Afghanistan was their Waterloo. The reality of this should not be underestimated.

The loss of face in Afghanistan would be much worse than the loss of Viet Nam. It would be a world wide image changer. And at the very least we would no longer very useful at our perceived role as World policeman.

And if the United States isn't the world policeman who would be? I don't think any one nation would be egotistical enough or wealthy enough to take on that role again. China has too many home grown problems and only through being ultimately capitalistic and pragmatic will it survive intact this century by remaining one country.

India, I suppose could become the next world Policemen but this remains to be seen. The likely model will continue to be the United Nations and Nato and other localized alliances by region.

The problem the United States is facing is one of identity. It is like a very rich man having to enter his new middle class house because he can no longer afford his mansion. The man may or may not survive the economic shift. The same is true of the United States.

Will the man become rich again? Only if he can downsize into his middle class house for now!