cj> RE: "when does US military power *begin* to decline?"

1/16/2001, Boles (office) wrote to WSN:
    > In that case, when does US military power *begin* to
    decline?  Ten years from now?  Twenty?  What about what's
    going on now and in the foreseeable future?

Dear M. Boles,

I suggest that the scenarios which offer the greatest
insight are those involving the U.S. & China, and the 
U.S. & Germany.

There is little chance that U.S. hegemony will
decline prior to a military confrontation of China by the
U.S.  There is much empirical evidence of this, some of
which has been posted to this list previously.  For this
reason, any 'long range' modelling of geopolitical affairs
may need to be based on the assumption that the U.S. will
achieve a much _higher degree of total global domination
before longer-range forces begin to have their effect.

With Germany, we have a situation where the U.S. is tacitly
encouraging it to expand its military and territorial
domain.  Germany has more advanced combat technologies than
its European neighbors, and its intelligence agencies are on
more intimate terms with their American counterparts.  The
Yugoslavian destablization program has been in essence a
joint-venture between Germany and the U.S.  The U.S. gets
the Caspian oil, and Germany gets an expanded sphere of
influence, and the mines (or some similar arrangement).

In Huntingtonian terms, Germany is being groomed into its
role as 'Core Power' of the 'European Region'.  It is
being encouraged to build its muscles up to the job of
managing regional affairs, but it is not being encouraged to
develop a strategic force that could threaten U.S. hegemony.

In order to understand how the mid to long range might
develop, I suggest we need to examine Huntington's
architecture and make a judgement as to its stability over
time.  I don't think we can deny that the U.S. is using its
current hegemony to establish that very regime, nor can we
deny that implementation is proceeding by giant steps.

Unfortunately, I think the architecture has been worked out
rather well, and that it has been designed to last:

    "Ongoing ideological tension, kept under dynamic hierarchical
    control via regional core powers - all in the name of
    Western humanitarianism."
    
This scheme may be to _geopolitical control what
corporations have been to _economic control - the ultimate
highly-tuned machine.

rkm
http://cyberjournal.org