The post-war global order enabled by American hegemony has gone, and will never return.

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Zero Gravitas
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The post-war global order enabled by American hegemony has gone, and will never return.

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"The post-war global order enabled by American hegemony has gone, and will never return."

"The dominant category of books on Gove’s shelves, the autobiographies of American centrist politicians, represent a world as lost and irretrievable as the biographies of Europe’s absolute monarchs would have seemed exactly one century ago."

"If we accept, as post-liberals as well as thinkers of far-left and far-right do, that the ideology of liberalism has exhausted itself, broken by its weak correspondence to reality, then we must accept that some successor ideology will eventually appear to replace it. Whatever that ideology will be, it most probably already exists, like Communism a century ago, as an obscure fringe belief waiting for a crisis in which to assert itself."

https://unherd.com/2020/05/the-man-who-predicted-2020/

I am largely pro american hegemony - for what that is worth. But the above is simply true isn't it?

If so, what does that mean for the UK?

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: The post-war global order enabled by American hegemony has gone, and will never return.

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

Interesting question :clap:
If one is a conservative (either a capital C, or not, both will do) one is likely to be "an economic liberal".
- but less likely to be a social liberal, though

Funnily enough about Boris both are, at times, asserted.

Without this British 'paradox' which we will still need to see to play out with outcomes, it is not that central to the period of American hegemony. Though that system was, while it was being built (decades), labelled to be predicated on democracy, in fact it was predicated on rules-based multilaterism (with the assumption that the biggest 'guy' would have the loudest say).
- a sound point of departure as when has there ever been a "democracy" ruling in the relationships between nations
- also, while efforts to prop up democracies were essential to keep up the numbers of willing members for multilaterism, the efforts of exporting the democratic model have been a more 'mixed bag'

So who then comes to the scene, dead-set to tear down what liberalism has achieved on the international scene. Well, no one else but the current POTUS himself.
- as for economic liberalism, one could equally argue that the initiatives are pointing towards a return to mercantilism (Indeed, China, which has little to do with liberalism of any definition has been paying attention and been busy building an autarky network of "client states"... seeing that the years during which it has been benefiting the most from the "open order" are coming to an end.)
- even Schumpeter's "Creative Destruction" falls within liberalism... and will get a real test run now, once the dust from the Covid storm starts to settle (could be months, could be years)
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: The post-war global order enabled by American hegemony has gone, and will never return.

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

Zero Gravitas wrote:an obscure fringe belief waiting for a crisis in which to assert itself."

https://unherd.com/2020/05/the-man-who-predicted-2020/
Having now read through the linked stuff, in the latter half they point to half a dozen gloomy (apocalyptic?) forecasts
... which in fact are just rewrites of what is described in the book 1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed,
- we now have ample evidence that drought, famine, earthquakes, migrations, and internal rebellions all contributed to the end of the Bronze Age.

We also know that fairly advanced civilizations like the Hittites, Egyptians, Mycenaeans, and Minoans collapsed as a result, in part because of the cutting of the international trade routes by shadowy migrating groups whom the Egyptians called the Sea Peoples.

It was, in fact, a perfect storm of calamities that brought down the kingdoms of the late Bronze Age just after 1200 BC; a perfect storm that created havoc with globalized civilizations that bear more than a passing resemblance to ours today."

And indeed, after many :shock: dark centuries, an obscure fringe belief was turned into practice: democracy, in the emerging Greek city states
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

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Zero Gravitas
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Re: The post-war global order enabled by American hegemony has gone, and will never return.

Post by Zero Gravitas »

ArmChairCivvy wrote:Interesting question :clap:
If one is a conservative (either a capital C, or not, both will do) one is likely to be "an economic liberal".
- but less likely to be a social liberal, though

Funnily enough about Boris both are, at times, asserted.

Without this British 'paradox' which we will still need to see to play out with outcomes, it is not that central to the period of American hegemony. Though that system was, while it was being built (decades), labelled to be predicated on democracy, in fact it was predicated on rules-based multilaterism (with the assumption that the biggest 'guy' would have the loudest say).
- a sound point of departure as when has there ever been a "democracy" ruling in the relationships between nations
- also, while efforts to prop up democracies were essential to keep up the numbers of willing members for multilaterism, the efforts of exporting the democratic model have been a more 'mixed bag'

So who then comes to the scene, dead-set to tear down what liberalism has achieved on the international scene. Well, no one else but the current POTUS himself.
- as for economic liberalism, one could equally argue that the initiatives are pointing towards a return to mercantilism (Indeed, China, which has little to do with liberalism of any definition has been paying attention and been busy building an autarky network of "client states"... seeing that the years during which it has been benefiting the most from the "open order" are coming to an end.)
- even Schumpeter's "Creative Destruction" falls within liberalism... and will get a real test run now, once the dust from the Covid storm starts to settle (could be months, could be years)
Yes, liberalism is a very broad church. Too broad to make generalisations about. If that is your point I largely agree.

This from 2017 expresses my views on the UK's post war 'role':
Zero Gravitas wrote: Whether by accident or design, the UK's (and US's) consistent aim since ww2 has been to enable and help shape a liberal, rules based international order. This has been very successful.

This aim is the point of the alphabet soup of international bodies. Eg: Dear communist China, you can have all this lovely trade, all you need to do is follow the rules of the WTO.

After some time it is suddenly in China's interest to support international law and free trade.

Track back the history of nearly all of that soup and you will find British lawyers and civil servants disproportionately drafting the initial Terms of Reference and setting it's direction etc

No shots fired. No wars required. Everyone's better off.

It is the support of an international rules based order that the military is there for. Yes the UKs contribution is not as significant as the USs, but we are already seeing with Trump the rise of US isolationism that is no surprise given that much of the US population intuits that they have been doing most of the fighting and dying in return for international hatred from those who hypocritically benefit from liberal free trade just as much as the US. Snooty Europeans keeping their hands clean and their judgements loud.
But, rightly or wrongly, I do think we can safely say that the peak of US hegemon is not only behind us, but that it is retreating even faster than perhaps I had imagined it would. As that article states, none of the Democrats are talking about even a (Bill) Clintonite level of intervention. Let along the George 'W' level. "Leading from behind" is the future it seems.

So the US is returning to something like isolationisim. They didn't intervene in Syria when red lines were crossed. Would they seriously defend Taiwan? Who can blame them if not?

Brexit is widely seen as the UK retreating from multilateralisim (I would quibble over this but will admit that whatever the realities, certainly it will seem to others internatioanlly that the rules based order has lost its two biggest supporters in short order).

Loads of puffed up little dictators (Orban, Maduro, Duterte, Bolsonaro etc etc...) are just waiting to cast all liberal propriety (rules based order) to the far winds as soon as Uncle Sam ain't watchin' no more.

Climate change will (likely, not necessarily) drive up basic costs which will either lower in absolute terms, or reduce the rate of growth in, living standards across the world - breaking the unwritten social contract in every Country that your kids will have a shot at more life chance than the parents did.

Society is being atomised by social media. Critical theory in the liberal arts is actively deconstructing the stories we tell ourselves. These are the same stories we need to tell to see a greater good and to make sacrifices for that.

Can a green religion (climate change) and super-nationalism (EU) replace Christianity and nationalism? Maybe. Given time, but its not looking great right now is it. Witness the recent elections in Australia and the UK

I dont think the risks from technology have been fully taken in to account yet. What does cheap gene editing via CRISPR and others mean in the hands of a basically proficcient terrorist or state actor with nothing to lose?

The global economy has not really recovered from the 2008 crash. Look at how much QE the EU has required to maintain a pretty sub-standard level of growth(!) Look at how much the US has had to borrow under Trump. These are examples of what I think of as 'artificial' economic growth. It is growth without a sustainable economic basis and therefore it will ultimately fail / unwind. That which is unsustainable will not be sustained. Sooner or later bubbles burst. The longer it takes the bigger the bang.

So:

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Zero Gravitas
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Re: The post-war global order enabled by American hegemony has gone, and will never return.

Post by Zero Gravitas »

....So...
ArmChairCivvy wrote:
Zero Gravitas wrote:an obscure fringe belief waiting for a crisis in which to assert itself."

https://unherd.com/2020/05/the-man-who-predicted-2020/
Having now read through the linked stuff, in the latter half they point to half a dozen gloomy (apocalyptic?) forecasts
... which in fact are just rewrites of what is described in the book 1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed,
- we now have ample evidence that drought, famine, earthquakes, migrations, and internal rebellions all contributed to the end of the Bronze Age.

We also know that fairly advanced civilizations like the Hittites, Egyptians, Mycenaeans, and Minoans collapsed as a result, in part because of the cutting of the international trade routes by shadowy migrating groups whom the Egyptians called the Sea Peoples.

It was, in fact, a perfect storm of calamities that brought down the kingdoms of the late Bronze Age just after 1200 BC; a perfect storm that created havoc with globalized civilizations that bear more than a passing resemblance to ours today."

And indeed, after many :shock: dark centuries, an obscure fringe belief was turned into practice: democracy, in the emerging Greek city states
So.. yes. The bronze age collapse. That's a pretty adroit analogy. A rolling series of disaters, any one of which the system could have coped with but collectively far, far too much. And before you know it the lights are starting to go out. And it will be many years before we see them again. :thumbdown: :wtf:

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: The post-war global order enabled by American hegemony has gone, and will never return.

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

Zero Gravitas wrote:certainly it will seem to others internatioanlly that the rules based order has lost its two biggest supporters in short order).

Loads of puffed up little dictators
Coincidentally, we have just reached the point when there are as many people living in autocratic countries as there are in even somewhat democratic ones; call it a tipping point, but which way will it tip?
That has something to do with the fact that world poverty rate that has been declining every year since 1991 has notched up and also sits (globally) at 50/50 (%).
Zero Gravitas wrote: a green religion (climate change)
Enter the elites and a fringe belief (let me qualify that I was Club of Rome already before the first oil crisis) as alluded to. The poor buggers have not read Kiel Institute concluding that the next Ice Age (50 000 years from now) has merely been cancelled... patience, patience :)

That Bronze Age end of civilisation did, though, have much to do with climate change: a dry period of 300 years in the eastern Med (elsewhere the duration is less well known). Coupled with a long period of seismic activity and plague (the Hittites took it home in captured Egyptian slaves, and the whole royal household among most of the people keeled over, so the way was paved for "wilder people" set in motion by the prolonged adverse conditions where they had been living).
... the next complex system failure was the fall of Rome, where climate change - augmented by a cooling volcanic cloud which around the Med lingered for 18 months - set the Germanic peoples on the road and the legions had been weakened by plague (and the rows filled with "anyone still standing will do)... the road to Rome was paved

The "futures" referenced through the link at the beginning of this thread, a whole half dozen of them, include the CIA and our own military amongst the authors. They just fail to use colourful enough language to make anyone read them
- this list presented was meant to bring us to the present: triggers that set large masses of people in movement and these then bringing such chaos that with a few other factors thrown in, coincidentally as that's what history is all about, a complex system will experience a domino effect... and fall! I hear there are nice end-of-world bunkers for sale in NZ though :D
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: The post-war global order enabled by American hegemony has gone, and will never return.

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

Will never return... if there's no other power helping to do the lifting (and America changing course, in the first place).
... nicely takes us to Europe; any votes for China/ Russia/ India being "the other"?

"money raised on the capital markets would be paid back over 30 years between 2028 and 2058, but not later" for the European self-help Marshall Plan, as just proposed
- whatever size it will end up to be, and
- whatever the mix of loans and grants from the total (now the grants are proposed to be 2/3s)
it is likely that anyone in their now thirties (in the EU; don't worry :!: ) will be paying into paying "this" back by collections through national taxation systems until their retirement. Once in a century event, yes (I certainly hope so... as the WWs were barely 20 yrs apart).

So it better be money well spent
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

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Re: The post-war global order enabled by American hegemony has gone, and will never return.

Post by Scimitar54 »

All to no avail if there is not the “will” or the hierarchy/authority to use IT. :mrgreen:

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