FM Tun Sir Gerald Templer was Chief of the General Staff at the time of Suez. In response to a question on strategy he replied "Sure, I can take Cairo. What do I do with it once I've got it?"
This is an excellent write-up. Darn good analysis, too. Thanks, Mr. Berthelsen.
Clearly, the US warships in and around the Red Sea is to protect the US economy from slinking into rounds of talk the hiking of the inflation rate and maybe a soft landing of the very buoyant US economy. The second of this is unlikely, I would argue, but the first is a real possibility if the Israel-Palestine -- no longer an Israel-Hamas war -- drags on. There is no doubt Israel's fascist prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, a hopeless desperado, wants the stretch the war out for a long as possible, to keep at bay his day in court over three corruption charges hanging over his head, and a popular liberal revolt against him and his ultra-rightwing regime of Zionists. Amongst whom are those who want to continue the regime's ethno-genocide of the Palestinian people, or to drive them out of their own lands for the benefit of Zionists. That said, another reason Netanyahu want to keep the war going is to ensure the US military remains engaged throughout the region. The fact that Joe Biden refuses to condemn the Netanyahu regime for its disproportionate barbarity isn't because of any specific US-Israeli alliance but (a) because of the pull and push of the all-powerful Jewish lobby in the US and (b) how this war and the stationing of US troops abroad, helps to keep the US's huge military-industrial complex in business, with boosts in US state spending on the MIC's "business" operations.
Given the spread of what is, and remains, the US war machine, to all corners of the world -- most critically the Middle East and the South China Sea, I am reminded of the term coined by Paul Kennedy and his excellent analyses in his book, The Rise and Fall of Great Powers. We know how The Soviet Union collapsed as a result of its own "imperial overstretch" but it wasn't really the pressure applied on the Soviets by the American superpower. Rather, the Soviet Union imploded under the weight of its own weighty imperial overreach that more or less killed the always-struggling, if not greatly weakened Soviet economy. Read Gorbachev's memoir. Forget Francis Fuluyama's thesis, The End of History; it turned out to be populist philosophical hogwash. But, as then, and so now, the Asians -- from Southeast to Northeast Asia -- were happy to see the American superpower "re-engaged" in their own neck of the woods. The idea that the US is "pivoting" towards East Asia is still to be seen. In my view it will but not on the scale that had happened during the Vietnam War. That war, lasting as long as it did, on the scale on which he was prosecuted, left a number of Asian economies grinning from ear-to-ear for the economic benefits it brought to their then sluggish or, in the words of Alexander Gerschenkron", "backward" economies. The rise and rise of the regional postwar order in Northeast Asia also provided countries from Thailand to Malaysia, Singapore to Indonesia and the Philippines, significant comfort for the protection accorded to their own security fears and apparatus.
This is not to suggest something similar is happening in the Middle East with those states aligned to the US security umbrella and those in the middle of "normalizing" diplomatic ties with Israel. But you can bet your bottom dollar the US is counting the pennies for the huge orders that will come from these countries for the US arsenal. And who will provide this? The US military-industrial complex, of course; although Britain will want a bit of the action too. After all, the British economy is in the dog-house, and is likely to remain there, despite Rishi Sunak's Goldman Sachs stint boasts (the poor fellow is out of his depth). But you can bet the US Treasury and Janet Yellen will be all too pleased when the weapons orders come sailing in.
FM Tun Sir Gerald Templer was Chief of the General Staff at the time of Suez. In response to a question on strategy he replied "Sure, I can take Cairo. What do I do with it once I've got it?"
This is an excellent write-up. Darn good analysis, too. Thanks, Mr. Berthelsen.
Clearly, the US warships in and around the Red Sea is to protect the US economy from slinking into rounds of talk the hiking of the inflation rate and maybe a soft landing of the very buoyant US economy. The second of this is unlikely, I would argue, but the first is a real possibility if the Israel-Palestine -- no longer an Israel-Hamas war -- drags on. There is no doubt Israel's fascist prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, a hopeless desperado, wants the stretch the war out for a long as possible, to keep at bay his day in court over three corruption charges hanging over his head, and a popular liberal revolt against him and his ultra-rightwing regime of Zionists. Amongst whom are those who want to continue the regime's ethno-genocide of the Palestinian people, or to drive them out of their own lands for the benefit of Zionists. That said, another reason Netanyahu want to keep the war going is to ensure the US military remains engaged throughout the region. The fact that Joe Biden refuses to condemn the Netanyahu regime for its disproportionate barbarity isn't because of any specific US-Israeli alliance but (a) because of the pull and push of the all-powerful Jewish lobby in the US and (b) how this war and the stationing of US troops abroad, helps to keep the US's huge military-industrial complex in business, with boosts in US state spending on the MIC's "business" operations.
Given the spread of what is, and remains, the US war machine, to all corners of the world -- most critically the Middle East and the South China Sea, I am reminded of the term coined by Paul Kennedy and his excellent analyses in his book, The Rise and Fall of Great Powers. We know how The Soviet Union collapsed as a result of its own "imperial overstretch" but it wasn't really the pressure applied on the Soviets by the American superpower. Rather, the Soviet Union imploded under the weight of its own weighty imperial overreach that more or less killed the always-struggling, if not greatly weakened Soviet economy. Read Gorbachev's memoir. Forget Francis Fuluyama's thesis, The End of History; it turned out to be populist philosophical hogwash. But, as then, and so now, the Asians -- from Southeast to Northeast Asia -- were happy to see the American superpower "re-engaged" in their own neck of the woods. The idea that the US is "pivoting" towards East Asia is still to be seen. In my view it will but not on the scale that had happened during the Vietnam War. That war, lasting as long as it did, on the scale on which he was prosecuted, left a number of Asian economies grinning from ear-to-ear for the economic benefits it brought to their then sluggish or, in the words of Alexander Gerschenkron", "backward" economies. The rise and rise of the regional postwar order in Northeast Asia also provided countries from Thailand to Malaysia, Singapore to Indonesia and the Philippines, significant comfort for the protection accorded to their own security fears and apparatus.
This is not to suggest something similar is happening in the Middle East with those states aligned to the US security umbrella and those in the middle of "normalizing" diplomatic ties with Israel. But you can bet your bottom dollar the US is counting the pennies for the huge orders that will come from these countries for the US arsenal. And who will provide this? The US military-industrial complex, of course; although Britain will want a bit of the action too. After all, the British economy is in the dog-house, and is likely to remain there, despite Rishi Sunak's Goldman Sachs stint boasts (the poor fellow is out of his depth). But you can bet the US Treasury and Janet Yellen will be all too pleased when the weapons orders come sailing in.