Tag Archives: Middle East

The Economics of the Indo-Pacific Pivot

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As I have said before, all war is about economic considerations and fought by people with few economic consideration.

Much has been said, in our pivot towards the Asian Pacific, about the people with few economic considerations.

We have heard about the saber-rattling of China in the disputed South China Sea and elsewhere.  This saber-rattling doesn’t really seem to be much about economics. Perhaps now is the time we need to talk about the economic considerations in the Pivot.

Basically, economically we are going to do for those nations under our Indo-Pacific pivot what we did for the Middle East. We are going to use our military to uphold the relevancy of the US dollar.

Perhaps the quip used by one of the characters in the movie “Tinker, Tailor,  Soldier,  Spy” can be used to clarify what I mean by “doing” to the Indo-Pacific what we did for the Middle East.

In the movie there was a change of leadership in the “Circus”. The Circus is where  the odd performers of the British secret service get together and put on a show for everyone else in the Service to see. The new Ringleader, to show his knowledge of how things are in the world made the statement that, “you can rent an Arab, but never buy one.”

I don’t know if that statement is true or not, but by literally throwing billions of dollars into the environment of Iraq, after our invasion,  we “rented” thousands of Arabs. (I know the dollars in my wallet are mainly there for me to rent. They never stay in my wallet long enough to actually own.)

In other words, economics is not just about interest (which collecting interest is not popular in most areas of the Middle East) but a strong economy also depends a great deal on whose hard currency runs the show.

While there were many reason made for going to war in Iraq, strategically it was in the US’s interest to make sure “petrol dollars” also meant the US dollar.

As many experts have said, the Iraq war wasn’t about the US grabbing Iraq’s oil. The US doesn’t get its oil from the Middle East. The oil coming out of the Middle East is mostly going to China and other developing nations.

But what is important,economically for the US is that whoever buys oil in the Middle East uses US dollars. The US economy depends on the fact that they do.

With Turkey threatening to join the EU, France heavily into buying oil from Saddam, and rumors of Russia and China making gold the currency for oil, the relevancy of the US dollar was disappearing. I suggest that is no longer true.

While all strategy is flawed, and there is an on-going civil war throughout the Middle East, in the most part the US currency is still “the” currency of the world.

My guess is that the US dollar is the most relevant it has ever been in the Middle East, but the same cannot be said in the Asian Pacific.

http://www.ibtimes.com/sorry-mates-strictly-business-australia-wants-cut-out-us-dollar-trade-china-1161287#

A 1.6 billion infusion of US dollars and an occupation of US Marines may counteract that train of thought.

Offline

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My online activity has been eating into my time, so I have deleted my Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts. I have found no willpower to resist engaging online, so I hope this drastic action will help focus my activity locally.

I am in the process of remodeling our home. I have made my wife live in this shack too long, and now that she is retiring, I hope to give her something more worthy for her to retire in.

But to accomplish this task we basically have to move out, and that is what I am up to. We not only have to pack and move our stuff (read here cherished belongings) and put them mostly in storage, but we also need to find temporary living accommodations. So far these temporary living accommodations have gone from building a home on our bare lot next door to erecting a yurt.

I also placed my web site into private, but have decided to open it again to the public for those of you who like to check in every so often.

Beauty sent my a message on LinkedIn, but because my account is closed I can’t reply.

So far everything is good. Will post changing conditions on this web page if I find the time.

The Strategic Advantage in Fighting on Only One Front

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“It is a concern to me, it’s a concern to any veteran, anybody in the military,” Hagel said during his first appearance on Capitol Hill since being confirmed as defense secretary.

I think it is significant that this is the only news I found coming out of Fox News, but maybe I just didn’t look hard enough. I guess Fox couldn’t find anything more important coming out of the House Armed Service’s committee than this one issue, who deserves a medal more, those with or without “skin” in battle.

Taking medals away from someone that actually might have earned them is not something I imagine Fox wants to be behind of. Fox better hope Hagel doesn’t come to the conclusion that someone fighting in a Nintendo environment needs to be reward with this medal, as someone in the Service that Hagel talks about in this quote did. If they do deserve it, then Fox should ask why.

As it is, anyone getting the “Nintendo Medal” with Hagel as the top administrator will deserve it. Fox should figure out why he/she would deserve such a medal, before they get on the wrong side of  the strategy behind the giving out of this medal.

But then Fox is owned by someone that wasn’t, if I understand correctly, born or raised  as a North America. Apparently their owner wants America to follow the Rightwing Conservative principles of another nation, in another hemisphere.

The nation he was or still is a citizen of has gone from calling China a totalitarian nation to aggressor nation, and now an assertive nation. It kinda makes me wonder what the Fox’s owner thinks of his own nation, as their Conservative principles change.

It doesn’t appear that China has changed all that much, at least in structure. The Right is a structure, not a culture, and China doesn’t appear to be changing its structure anytime soon.

It also appears that China’s culture is going to need more time for change. China is a very complex culture in which change doesn’t culturally seem to happen, unless there is a revolution. China’s structure is geared towards stopping revolutions.

But then, Fox’s owner is not a North American. He is Australia by culture, so what would he know about strategy anyway?

I think North American people’s advantage has always been that they think more strategic. After reading “Empire of the Summer Moon, I think strategy has always been the North’s advantage, as it presents itself to the world historically.

To that end, I never really understood the significance of Lincoln’s strategy, of using people from both sides of the aisle to fill some of the executive positions within his administration. That was until I watched this hearing on CSPAN yesterday.

The strategy that Lincoln used has the advantage of using an executive, such as Hagle, from the opposition  positioned as a handle to a lever that pushes against the force of the opposition and the POTUS forces as well. Kinda of a twofer.

In the House yesterday, Hagel not only tore into the Republican Chairman of the House Armed Service Committee, who wanted Hagle to take something like a 100 billion more dollars, but Hagle also tore into the smug Democrat who thought Hagel was a force pushing Democratic issues as well. The Republicans and Democrats both got their asses kicked.

In politics, the enemy isn’t in front of the POTUS, but positions themselves behind the leader. The people infront represent an image of change, as the image of Hagel in front of the POTUS.

Lincoln’s strategy handles those behind the POTUS (today they are called Democrats) as well as those in front of the POTUS (today they are called Republicans). Hagel with Dempsey at his side, tore up the House yesterday and made mincemeat out of all who were in front of him.

I would like to see him do the same in the Senate.

Really? The Republicans want to come out on the side of spending more money at the expense of our civilian society, while at the same time the Democrats want to come out on the side that says spending cut aren’t hurting our military, as our civil society takes a pass on having to make any sacrifices?

All Hagel and Dempsey are asking for is time to reposition our forces. I mean everyone realizes that Iran is in Asia, right?

When falling back to a defencive position, as our resources go bye-bye, there is some advantage to be had in having to defend only one front, and that front should be “pivoting” across the Pacific.

The Pacific is the position our debt is centered in. This center can be called a pivot point. While Boehner has come out in favor of paying our debt, I am not sure the Red States agree with him.

I mean, if they really want to secede from the US, aren’t they independent of the debt? If the Red States what to take advantage of our nukes and not pay back our debt, who’s to stop them, Obama?

Oh, right! If they did secede it wouldn’t be their decision, but that ain’t going to happen now, is it.

via Hagel Decision on ‘Nintendo Medal’ Expected Next Week – Fox News.

The U.S. is running out of fancy planes to send to Korea

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It would appear that if U.S. muscle-flexing is to continue, military planners will have to come up with something more creative than dusting off the latest hangar trophies.

If you’re like me, and has watched the Iraq and Afghanistan through the portal called the internet, then the advances in the military hasn’t been in its fancy technology, but by the leadership that is represented by the military.

The leadership represents a total top-down to bottom-up advancement in the mobilization of forces. To me it is highlighted in what took place in Benghazi on the anniversary of 9/11. If you want symbols to represent the future, then this is it. Benghazi represents the look in the future of the US military.

And the biggest news there was that the US Marines came under fire by Afghan forces, as there were some in the vicinity of the fight, and created another front in the WOT. No wait! that is exactly what didn’t happen.

I am sure any other administration would have quickly brought to bare a Marine expeditionary force on those who took part in the killings, or would have been crucified for not taking action against those people who killed Americans in Libya  not this administration.

As I have said before, Afghanistan represent the center of a religious movement, which is why it is a strategic position for our troops to be in. We have learned how to fight Afghans, and the best way to do that is to let them go back to their country, and bring the 15th century with them.

I mean it doesn’t look like, or the opposition party would have taken advantage of it, that any of the Americans who died could have been saved by an expeditionary force.

They all seemed to have ventured out of the network that was protecting them, and apparently the network really wanted these guys alive. In fact some of those in the networked died also, which is kind of a big deal.

So what has Benghazi to do with Korea, you may ask?  Well the world has now seen the military might that the US military is able to bring to a fight over the skies of Korea, so now where is the leadership?

Well maybe here:

via The U.S. is running out of fancy planes to send to Korea | FP Passport.

Boehner memo hails GOP ‘tactical plan’ against Obama as success

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He also complimented Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s (R-Va.) “make life work” initiative, which is meant to showcase GOP ideas that will help working families.

But tactics are only successful if there is some kind of strategy behind them.

Strategy bridges the past and future by having a clear picture at both ends. Tactics, for any movement like the Republican Party, only works if there is a clear picture of where it has been and where it is going. Strategy supplies that picture, which tactics can’t. Tactics are short-term, so it is almost all past and no future.

If there is strategy behind the tactics that Boehner calls a success, then success depends on whose strategy the tactics are following. Is it the Republican strategy or Obama’s?

I think Boehner would have said so, if he thought the Republicans were following some kind of a winning strategy.

While the tactics Boehner underlines are successful, they might represent a losing strategy for the party that has labeled itself the “values” party.

Is it really family “values” to have a bill named “make life work”, on the floor of Congress? The title, if not the bill, seems to give more to Caesar than called for in a party claiming “family values”.

I mean the bill could be about how individuals should stop whining and pull themselves up by their boot straps and go to work. You know, make life work idiot!

Which is what a father would tell the young in the family.

But as The Daily Show said last night, can they do that with a warm smile?

In other words, does the Republican message come across as the rich telling the poor to “suck it up” (if that is even what the bill is about, because I don’t know the bill), or do they give it a human-type emotion.

So if these are not successful tactics for the Republicans are they successful for Obama?

Is it possible that these successful tactics of Boehner’s could be a part of Obama’s strategy to have the Republican name itself as a party in which work is your life, instead of highlighting what comes after work the family.

If this is Obama’s strategy, for the Republicans to name themselves the party of work instead of family, then perhaps Boehner is correct, they are successful tactics.

If this is the case, and the Republican Party is following the strategy of Obama, then I am not sure that the tactics of the Republican Party will be successful, for the Republican Party.

On the other hand, when I was young I thought that I didn’t want work to define me, but now as I grow old I am less sure. To me success now depends on how the society is structured, and how the culture fits that structure.

It is more obvious than ever to me that the U.S.A. is structured as the Right.

If the structure of your country matches the culture holding it up, then to me that means you have a successful country, a country successful in its past and future.

The Right, as a structure has a large normalizing force that controls the friction inside a society, and that normalizing force in America is becoming more corporate each year. I am beginning to believe that the culture in the USA is also beginning to match its structure.

I think there is a large push-back, but each year it gets harder for those wanting the U.S.A. to have a winning structure, either more as the Left or for God to be that normalizing force instead of Caesar.

Those with the losing strategy seems to be those pushing push against corporations (replacing God as the normalizing force) and those of the Right (replacing those on the Left without a normalizing force).

But then the Republican Party doesn’t apologize for being the party of Caesar or on the Right.

And there is no reason they should apologize  given BushII’s failed Crusade into the Middle East and the win by Obama as the structural leader, ha!

I remember watching a video out of Iraq which showed a US military commander in charge on the ground in Iraq rallying his troops with the slogan, “We are doing God’s work”.

I am sure the Persians said the same thing to the Greeks, as the Persians removed the Jews from Israel. Oh wait! That is exactly what they didn’t say.

It is what we said to the Chinese as the corporate Right removed Saddam from Iraq, and the Islamic Left replaced him.

Thanks Bush :)

Some kinda strategy, huh????

via Boehner memo hails GOP ‘tactical plan’ against Obama as success – The Hill’s On The Money.

Thomas P.M. Barnetts Globlogization – Blog – Why the next pope should be a Latino

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My fear with Benedict is that he retires so he can – in his typical control-freak fashion – determine his successor.  Lets hope its something more than personal ego at work here.

Well he almost came down in history as the pope to lose a Christian command of the largest military in the world today. Close enough that the Catholic leadership must have thought they had lost it much of election night. I know the churches here in my area supposedly told their parturition to vote for Romney.

The thing is both Africa and Latin America are producing very Conservative priests, at least to know what a Mormon in command of the US military would look like.

via Thomas P.M. Barnetts Globlogization – Blog – Why the next pope should be a Latino.

While my theory of a Mormon take-over of the US military might be slightly off (Ha!),  this piece from FP sounds about right.

“This time is different, the crisis is much deeper and more difficult to solve than it appears,” an Italian bishop with long experience in the Curia laments. “Catholics are deeply divided between a group of conservatives, constantly looking toward the past that will never come back, and progressives, who pushed themselves too far from any possible compromise with the other group. I don’t envy the next pope.”

Unlike Barnett’s analysis, just look: if the next pope is from Latin America or Africa it may be an indication of which direction the church is moving Conservative/Liberal.

In a time of war it is always Conservative.

via Vatican Insider – By Paolo Mastrolilli | Foreign Policy.

Inauguration Day: Unclear strategy for an Obama legacy

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Persuading some centrist Republicans that their voters want them to be constructive. Their decision, after a retreat, to put off the clash over the debt ceiling could be a sign of this. But it is more likely simply so they can concentrate on a fight over spending.

Not “constructive”, destructive. Knowledge is destructive, and the voters want their Republicans to be knowledge based, which right now isn’t happening.

Republicans seem to think that the voters want their leaders to go against their word, and not pay for a debt we owe.

That is not a very good strategy. We basically went to war in the Middle East to keep the dollar relevant it today’s world.

If a relevant dollar was indeed, at least, one of the strategies for war, why would we want to counter that strategy with another? Especially when that “other” would mean going back on our word.

Wouldn’t going back on our word mean we have wasted that debt which was paid for by those wars?

While keeping those guys in the Middle East spending our money wasn’t the only reason we went to war, it must have been a sizable chunk of it.

We live in a consumer society. If we can’t consume anymore, because we don’t have the dollars, then we need someone to continue consuming, at least continue consuming our dollars.

The Native American were the first ones to learn that it’s never good to turn your back on  the world.

I mean, they seem to be back, but they went through some really destructive years.

So, yeah fellows, just keep playing around, we gotcha!

We will just pass on the free blankets, this time around.

via BBC News – Inauguration Day: Unclear strategy for an Obama legacy.

Congress: Wanna get away? – First Read

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Reid’s job is to help move President Obama’s agenda through the upper chamber, but he must also protect his five-seat Senate majority, and gun-rights groups are threatening to go after vulnerable Senate Democrats who back the president’s calls for a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines.”

So why call for a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines? Why not just give the assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines to the militias,  and let the militias worry about the collection of weapons? Wasn’t forming militias a big part of the 2nd Amendment to begin with? If the majority of the people think we need to arm ourselves with automatic weapons, then let’s arm ourselves with automatic weapons.

If not, then let us keep supporting our first responders. Not really sure there are the funds to do both.

via Congress: Wanna get away? – First Read.

Soft Power, A Strategic Theory Perspective

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If we label the ideal commercial person as a “business manager” and the ideal military person as a “soldier”, we would label the ideal soft power institution employee as a “hippie” without the negative stereotypical characteristics.

Right on!

But more importantly, I think he brings up the point that, in today’s world, both hard power and soft power are basically the same culturally, with the structure being different.

Hard power is structure more like a 2×4, while soft power is more like a feather pillow. Most countries would rather get hit with a pillow than a 2×4, but no mater how you look at it, you’re still getting hit.

Seyditz89 says we need to change the culture of soft power, and I would not argue against this. I especially like the part where seyditz89 turns it over to the hippies.

However, power is power and when you start messing with it between countries there is a price to be paid, and the outcome of both forms of power just depends on who has the most energy to pay with.

So perhaps we should develop a different form of power.

Network wise, soft power runs in phases much like 3-phase power running an industrial motor.

The flow of currant that runs the motor not only alternates in direction but is carried on different degrees in waves at the changing of direction.

These “waves” of soft power come into the target country in the form of resources, with the hope of changing the way the motor moves.

Culturally wise, the more powerful country doesn’t want the motor to stop turning, it just doesn’t want to give it any more power, and it wants the less powerful country to act more like the more powerful country.

Changing how another nation of power acts is a big problem, especially when the more powerful nation has less energy. That is basically where the U.S.A. is at. The U.S.A. is a nation of little energy, but is able to, because of its culture, express that energy very quickly.

So the third form of power, which I shall call here and now hippie power, would run parallel to the nation less powerful and only connect perpendicular to the less powerful nation, much like our connection with Yemen today.

I am not sure this less love and more sex approach would be hippie approved,  but yeah, sex, drugs and rock and roll.

1 out of 3 is probably better than what our soft power is doing today.

H/T Zenpundit

via MilPub: Soft Power, A Strategic Theory Perspective.

Obama, Senate Republicans reach agreement on ‘fiscal cliff’

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The agreement primarily targets taxpayers who earn more than $450,000 per year

The strategy of this is simple: either use it or lose it.  The top 1% in this country are not job creators, like some evil wordsmiths have tried to sell to the American public, but they are either going to become job creators or they are going to die trying. If they do die, it will be death by spending, because that is what this is all about. It is about increasing the want to spend in America.

Tools like Grover Norquist are useful in the process, but when strategy takes hold they are soon discarded, as they become irrelevant. Yanis Varoufaks, author of “The Global Minotaur”  and a professor of economics at the University of Athens, makes the case that the U.S. fiscal problem could just as well be called a “savings” problem as a debt problem.

He says that, with the help of Henry Kissinger and Paul Volcker in 1971 during the Nixon years, our economy was made to supplied the demand for what was coming–globalization. A plan like this is called Grand Strategy.

The Grand Strategy of the U.S.A. has been all along to create a deficit that would absorb the world’s surpluses in manufacturing, and give world power to the American consumer.

In other words, a debt based on the future (as all debt is) would fuel manufacturing in places who are now homes to cheap labor.

Manufacturing was supposed to follow these places of cheap labor around the world, as our debt became more and more powerful. But when the US became one of these places needing jobs, our wealthy stopped spending. The problem is, as Yanis says, America (at least wealthy individuals and corporations) has lost much of its power of consumerism, at least by 30%.

So now in today’s news, the enemy of the strategy that was hatched by Kissinger and Volcker are those who are saving, like big corporations and the top 1%, and the way to spur the economy is to force the corporations and the rich to spend, or be taxed.

Yanis says that the power of our demand (consumer) economy is down 30%, because America isn’t spending enough. To me, the fiscal cliff and the debt ceiling are not tools to bring a change to Washington, its the gun held to consumer’s heads and used to make the wealthy of this country spend, like you and me. A change in Washington would mean that our lawmakers would develop a different Grand Strategy, and none is being developed.

And while this effort at extortion may produce a bunch more Mitt Romneys, hiding their wealth from taxes and abandoning the U.S., the wealthy should understand that if they decide to move to a different country or hide their wealth off shore, they are hiding green-backs, which will not be worth anything if the power of our debt is gone. (On the other hand, it may not be too late to change them into Euros)

And the gun will be used again,  as we get to the real issue in a few months, defaulting on our debt. Once the power of the consumer is gone in the U.S., as we destroy the dollar through default, we will need the power of our military, either externally or internally, to maintain our economy, or become the new Russia.

While the wealthy will make out like bandits if the US becomes Russia, the pivot towards Asia should be closely looked at.  In other words, Russia was not pivoting in any direction when its economy dissolved, because the US was isolating it at the time in Cold War.

The US is not isolated. The US is on the move and getting ready to butt heads with two advisories that each represents half of the economy of the world. The same condition when the US and Russia were butting heads in the Cold War.

Good or bad, by defaulting on our debt we are destroying our National Grand Strategy, which has been in place since 1971, and it looks to me like war is the probably outcome, unless some other strategy replaces it, or the wealthy blink.

With our present Grand Strategy war is being used to keep the U.S. dollar relevant in the Middle East and the Pacific. The fiscal cliff and the debt ceiling are being used to make our Grand Strategy relevant, by promising to destroy the power of our Grand Strategy, i.e. debt.

In his campaign Romney wanted to declare war on China’s economy (which is actually declaring war on China). Perhaps just paying taxes is a good compromise, as the next generations develops their own Grand Strategy.

Of course there needs to be a “next generation” first.

via Obama, Senate Republicans reach agreement on ‘fiscal cliff’ – The Washington Post.