Monday, May 23, 2016

From Mike: Required reading for Threepers.

Ghost Fleet.

1 comment:

Chiu ChunLing said...

It's important to recognize that the war Ghost Fleet portrays is one that both the U.S. and China have long planned to avoid fighting, though the U.S. plan was mostly based on wishful thinking rather than the careful calculations of political motivation which underlie the CCP's planning.

Aside from contemplation of some possible methods of insurgency in the face of technologically advanced imposition of totalitarian controls on a population, I'd say the main value of this work is understanding that the "credibility gap" the U.S. faces as a guaranteer of the global security order is more than just Obama's spineless indecision and feckless love of tyranny. The growing perception that the U.S. cannot effectively respond to certain challenges to the geopolitical status quo invites dangerous instability...and the reality behind that perception ensures we won't be able to keep the global economy functioning to our convenience.

The real war with China has already ended...with the resounding defeat of the U.S.-led security order. We do still have the military capacity to turn it into a pyrrhic victory for them, but not in any way that will save our economy or avoid the loss of our global standing. While there are large swatches of America which are still fundamentally independent of the global or even national economy, the majority of Americans live in or near urban centers that will certainly demonstrate the hellish effects of socialist policy failure, just as we've seen all over the world, most recently in Venezuela.

The remaining forces the illegitimate national regime can field may still include technologically formidable elements, visions of insurgency against advanced Orwellian tyranny aren't mere fancy, though they won't be Chinese troops. But however little the Feds have seemed to fear losing their Constitutional mandate, they do fear the consequences of losing the status of "lone superpower" on which so much of the last couple of decades have been predicated. And rightly so, both because that title is no longer defensible and because failing to defend it will have incalculable consequences, few of them good for anyone.