This is what people refuse to get: the West has already lost. It’s over. It’s done. There’ll be some shooting, but it doesn’t matter.
China has the world’s largest economy by all statistics that matter. It has by far and away the most manufacturing. It has way more shipbuilding capacity than the entire West.
China is the premier trade power. Most of the global “South” would rather trade with it: it gives better deals and it interferes less with internal politics. This will continue. Western analysts are already talking about the coming semiconductor flood, as China catches up there. In ten years or so they’ll have more reliable planes at better prices than Boeing. They lead in about two-thirds of all major tech areas and surging in the rest. They are crushing it in the auto-industry and soon will produce better cars for cheaper, if they don’t already.
They have a real economy: “China speed” is a phrase. They get things done, and fast.
Russia is now the world’s fifth largest economy and over-took Germany, which is crashing out due to high energy prices with the cut-off from Russia oil and gas. Europe barely registers on new patents. They have advanced weaponry, their economy is booming thanks to sanctions forcing them to invest in their own country, they have plenty of food, resources and water and they’re on of the few countries who will benefit for the early to mid parts of climate change and global warming.
Changes in weapon systems have made cheap weapons much more effective, especially drones and missiles. The tech has spread widely, to the point where a backwards country like Yemen has enough to shut down a key trade route. The US military can’t meet its enlistment goals, and US weapons are much more expensive and far slower to produce than their enemies. The West can’t even supply Ukraine with enough artillery shells, drones and ammunition: but China, North Korea, Iran and Russia together have been able to keep Russia armed to the teet.
The US navy still has the largest tonnage, but can’t fully man all its ships, and as noted early, China has far more shipbuilding capacity, and it now has as many ships as the US. They are pushing in on technology which will allow them to detect submarines at great distances.
The US no longer has bigfoot capacity: it can’t easily occupy foreign countries any more and it can’t hit them while not being hit in return, as the multiple strikes on US bases and the closing of the Red Sea show.
It’s over. The world economy is re-orienting to China. They will have first dibs on resources because they offer a better deal on almost everything. Soon there will be nothing important one can’t buy from China or Russia, and for less than the West can sell it for.
The US and Europe need the global south—they need those resources, but the South will have little reason to sell to us, and will prefer China and Russia and so on. (France is being kicked out Africa, right now, in exchange for Russia and China.)
Military might will continue to tend to China and Russia, it is a lagging indicator on industrial power and technological lead, and we have already lost both of those.
It’s over. We lost without most of us even realizing we’d lost. When we decided to send our industry to China in exchange for some of our elites getting richer faster for three decades, we decided to give up our centuries old hegemony.
This isn’t to say all is woe, or that Western countries who are smart can’t maintain good standards of living. But we can only do so if we stop pretending we’re #1, the hegemonic civilization and everyone else has to kiss our asses or else.
The Euro-American centuries are OVER. We had a good run, but all runs end. We could have eked it out for a few more generations, but decay always begins at home. We gave our lead away, deliberately and as policy.
And a lot of countries, with good reason, hate our guts. They will get their kicks in as we go down.
We’d better learn humbleness, contrition and cooperation, we’re going to need them. And our elites need to be defenestrated as a class if the rest of us are to have any chance at decent lives.
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