AMERICAS AFGHANISTAN
A lot of analysts at the
time began calling the Soviet war in Afghanistan “Russia’s Vietnam”, to compare
their endless quagmire to ours just completed.
There were similarities such as the financial drain, obviously guerrilla
war, but not others such as civilian discontent over the war ( the KGB wasn‘t
entirely keen on any such activity, just as today the PC Police constitute our
version of oppressing dissent ). But I’m
wondering how much of this was transference.
What was quickly pointed out about Russian was ignored about
ourselves. In hindsight it has been
suggested that the Soviet Empire crashed and burned due to Afghanistan coupled
with their Peak Oil. And that Reagan
encouraged the collapse through getting the Saudi’s to open the oil spigot to
squeeze the Soviet treasury. It has also
been suggested by certain Author Cottage Industries ( when an author attempts
to create his own niche publishing phenomenon such as the Bermuda Triangle guy,
or the 2012 Mayan Calendar guy, the Gods
Built The Pyramids guy, etc. ) that the Soviet elite hide underground, making
us believe the collapse, soon to surprise nuke us when our guard is down. I don’t buy either scenario, much.
*
Granted, Peak Oil has
already collapsed our empire, but we built our economy on cheap and affordable
oil and once the cheap bloom wore off the rose, our economy took a big squishy. Why would that apply to the Soviets? Their economy wasn’t oil consumption
based. It was Cold War based ( as was
ours, but long before Vietnam we were trying to fund both guns and butter, Cold
War and civilian luxury consumption. THAT
is what collapsed our economy, doing both.
The Soviets didn’t have that issue ).
So I think that clearly that explanation was both the inclination to
view the world through your own prism and also the usual build up of propaganda
making Presidents omniscient. There might
be a kernel of truth in it or it could just be outright BS. As far as the other explanation, the stealth
nuke attack, well, almost thirty years later we are still awaiting it. I’m sure the guy has long ago faded away to
author purgatory. Unless he hit upon
another brilliant conspiracy theory to peddle.
For the life of me I can’t remember his name or book title, only that he
lived up in northern California ( probably in a fallout free corridor, so I
have little doubts about his sincerity, just his choice of anxiety ).
*
As far as lack of oil
revenues collapsing the economy, we have a bit of a history of wishful thinking
when it comes to the Russians, always hinting that if it wasn’t for us they
would never have survived. Without our
Lend Lease program, it is inferred, the Nazi’s would have kicked their
ass. Without our allowing them to sell
their oil, they were doomed. Without our
wheat sales they would have starved.
Without our computer chips their economy was doomed. Without our unique American
Exceptionalism, their Vietnam spelled
their demise. Now, I for one am
certainly not claiming any special insight on my part. When the Soviets were around, I feared them
just like everyone else. When I was
reading about Peak Oil awhile ago, I believed the Reagan Plan Of Oil
Attack. But looking back at it now, with
a bit more information under my belt, I can’t claim I’m buying any of
that. Our Elite’s attack dogs have
always been bamboozled by the Russians.
We didn’t understand them, and always were half assed guessing and
pulling ponderings out of our ass. We
didn’t know them so we feared them and then when their empire collapsed we just
started throwing theories against the wall hoping something would stick, hoping
to substitute surprise with regal sounding explanations.
*
My own guess, which has as
much chance as the experts of being correct, is that Russia is just like all
the other empires of the last five centuries which did not follow the last
several millennia rule of collapse due to the colonization of the globe by the
western powers ( we could debate if Russia is Asia, Western, or a hybrid, but
for this we’ll just call them western-with Japan being the only real exception
). Before, you killed your soil and your
empire collapsed. This is still the
case, just with the caveat that for the last 500 years you could use colonial
resources to postpone that inevitability ( some did better than others, for
shorter or longer periods of time.
Portugal seemed to span the globe, as did the Netherlands, but their
choices of colonies didn’t seem rich enough to keep their empires from
crumbling quickly. Spain did pretty good
all things considered. Britain did very
well even without their American colony, while France was on again, off
again. Perhaps their fabled emotionalism
leading to inconsistencies over time ).
The last hundred years oil muddied those waters. Colonies used to be mostly about surplus
nitrates, but are now about oil.
*
Russia had Siberia and
other colonies. But like most other
empires, they could pick some really poor choices. Sometimes you thought you got a real gem and
ended up with an expensive turd. Or visa
versa. Russia thought Alaska was a waste
of money and got rid of it. Probably not
the worst choice, since even though it had oil, that has proven to be marginal
long term and would have been a bitch to transport, so hindsight hasn’t really
proven them wrong. But when you are
saddled with colonies that don’t produce enough resources that are needed
currently, and they become problematic to hold, you go from a resource source
to a resource drain and then it becomes advantageous to eliminate the
colony. France and Britain held on to
their colonies through the two world wars but afterwards no longer had the
finances to hold on to them when they once again rebelled. And some certainly were not worth
holding. Vietnam provided rubber, which
was in no way needed as compared to its Syrian or North African oil
producers. It foolishly kept spending
scarce resources in Vietnam AND closer to home, ensuring they could keep
neither the important one nor the far less important area. Russia had her share of under producing
colonies.
*
The Soviet Union might
have fallen, but the country of Russia didn’t collapse. Her political situation changed, such as ours
did or Germany’s did, but she didn’t collapse per se ( not to dismiss the real
suffering of the populace at the time ), but shed imperial possessions that
were uneconomic ( Kazakhstan or such might have butt tons of natural gas, but
so does Russia, and that was a lot of territory to garrison for a few fields of
production-and was Muslim. Not that all
Muslims are created equal, but I won’t digress here other than to speculate
that at the time perhaps the Stalin legacy hadn’t yet dissipated and the
divisions were worse than today ). It
was a political or colonial imperial collapse, not necessarily an economic or
ecologic collapse. Afghanistan was
fought no differently than The Great Patriotic War, leading one to question the
prevailing American theory of “colonial war collapses the economy”. Simply, how Americans do an economy and how
Soviets did were two different things.
Having said that, should we apply the American theory to ourselves?
*
Was Vietnam the end of the
American Empire? Was Vietnam America’s
Afghanistan ( yes, I’m aware of the reverse timeline in the question )? It must be remembered that even if severely
diminished, the United Kingdom is still viable economically. It’s economy might be on par with other
collapsed empires such as Spain or Portugal, but despite losing most colonies
and most petroleum sources, all its coal and factories, it is still a
functioning economy. It just hasn’t been
a true empire for a very long time.
Could the same be said of the United States? Did our empire fall with Saigon? Just because we still have garrisons in other
countries and fight wars doesn’t mean we are still an empire. It just means we haven’t finished stripping
all the copper from the walls. The house
is still a shelter, if a very poor one.
Britain still has garrisons in other nations such as Ireland and
Iraq. They just have lost most control
over most valuable resources. I would
argue that America is basically in the same situation, just to a lesser
degree. Let’s discuss resource control,
nation state warfare, technology and economics, domestic economy, irregular
warfare, and computer chips, basically applying all the Soviet arguments to the
US.
*
Oil production for the
lower 48, Alaska and the Gulf Of Mexico are all in the toilet for conventional
petroleum ( I’ll get to the unconventional shortly ). The Gulf spill was a highlight on how
uneconomic deep well production already was.
Alaska oil is down to a trickle, sometimes so low the oil is in danger
of sludging up from lack of friction, not to mention the thawing permafrost
issue ( in effect, the foundation for the pipeline is cracked ). The lower 48 was long ago tapped out ( again,
on a relative basis ). Fracking Oil,
more of a ten year production cycle than the conventional oil forty year, is
all that remains in our oil reserve. And
those ten years are about up. We lost
Venezuelan tar to China, after our Color Revolution there didn’t work out so
well. If it wasn’t for Canadian sludge (
showing signs of decreasing ), and an increasingly tapped out Saudi Arabia (
you think the war against Yemen and Qatar isn’t about replacing their
decreasing production? ), we wouldn’t have a whole lot of oil to play around
with. Of which our economy is already
collapsing with the amount we have ( volume staying the same, net energy
therein decreasing ).
*
On that basis alone,
energy availability, our economy is doomed.
We’ve had declining energy since 1971, just as Britain has with its coal
reserve and North Sea oil declines. Just
like Britain, you still have energy long after the empire crumbled. So the question becomes, does the start of
decline mean the end of the empire? It
wasn’t too long after the Soviet Oil Peak that their empire was shrunk. Their economy collapsed with the oil
supply. It wasn’t an imperial die-off,
just a shrinkage. The country had
continuity enough to orderly shrink it’s liabilities along with its
assets. Why wouldn’t this same criteria
apply to the US? We think we are still
an empire and that, perhaps, Iraq and Afghanistan mean the eventual end to our
empire, but my contention here is that we are just like all the other failed
empires that has shrunk in a more or less orderly fashion. If you look at our domestic situation rather
than our overseas possessions, you get a much clearer picture of this ( not
that our overseas colony losses aren’t also an indicator. Just because we manage to hold on to a
military base there doesn’t mean we own the country as a colonial prize ).
*
In the actual domestic
arena, you could argue that large areas of the country have completely
collapsed economically and are only marginally controlled. Detroit and New Orleans aside, think of the
large urban areas controlled not by force or occupation troops but by tribute
to the barbarian chiefs. Only money
keeps the ghettos in line ( the sporadic outbursts designed to remind DC who is
actually in charge there ). As oil
shrunk ( in energy delivery terms ) we first lost our capacity to meaningfully
project real military force ( Granada?
Really? ), then lost our economic mastery ( Japan, anyone? ), then
started losing our domestic colonies ( inside the lower 48. Hawaii never really stopped being an invaded
and occupied hostile territory and is only held for the Pacific naval
occupation ). Washington DC has
absolutely zero control over a lot of its territory. Even the Midwest, the grain belt, is barely
pacified. We ceded control, in large
amount, of the globe by diverting corn from export to domestic consumption as
ethanol. I submit to you that ethanol
was NOT about subsidizing SUV drivers but about a bribe to the farm belt. The area is economically devastated, and
ethanol was an economic stimulus to pacify the locals. Big Ag might control the food business but a
guerrilla force can halt production easily.
Big Ag is an absentee owner and an economic collapse there would see
insurrection ( there was a very good novel on just this subject-a warning shot
across the bow? ) that destroyed the means of production.
*
If my thesis is correct,
we’ve already ceded control of most of the globes oil producing regions by
withdrawing grain bribes so as to bribe the local food and fuel production
region. Does that sound like an Empire
in control, or in decline? Remember
where the focus on the white trash meth epidemic took place? And about when it ended? I’m telling you, you are a DC elite, and you
see the primary calorie source region start to look like the Appalachians, you
panic rightfully. For the last twenty
years things have unraveled exponentially.
If you dig deep enough you start to guess at how bad things really
are. I’m stopping here for today, and we’ll
continue tomorrow.
END
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