[conspire] (OT) geopolitics

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Steve Litt (slitt at troubleshooters.com):

[ https://ecumenico.org/the-myth-of-multipolarity-american-powers-staying-power-stephen-g-brooks-april-2023-foreign-affairs ]

> I don't know the history of Rick's and Ruben's debate, but the
> preceding link's article is 5000 words that parse down to nothing. The
> phony intellectual author passionately argues both sides of every point.

You will probably be unsurprised to hear that I don't concur.


I don't particularly care who qualifies as an "intellectual", but will
mention without further comment that Stephen G. Brooks is a very
resepected academic, currently Prof. of Government at Dartmouth, Ph.D. 
from Yale, expert in international relations, the global political
economy, and American strategy.  So, if he's a phony intellectual, I
sure hope some day to meet the towering polymath who, by you, _isn't_
one.


More to the direct point, I cannot see him having "argued both sides of
every point" (passionately or not).

Brooks's main point is the one he gets to directly, which is to debunk
the currently fashionable notion that we've entered an era of
"multipolar" geopolitics.  He points out that this is false by every
credible metric of either hard or soft power, but that the metric that
has mattered most post-Cold War is "resources, especially military might
and economic heft".  

This is not jingoism.  It's just observation.  I often _greatly dislike_
the USA's ongoing ability to largely dictate key parts of world affairs,
but cannot even remotely deny it exists.

Brooks contrasts both Cold War bipolarity and the _pre_-WWII world's
_true_ multipolarity with what we have now, which is one dominant power,
one junior aspiring power, and then a lot of others who're third-rank or
lower by any metric.

He acknowledges that China, the aspiring power, has had an impressive
rise in both economic and (to a degree) military terms, but is in no way
a peer, nor likely to be for the foreseeable future.  And then Brooks 
argues why the many claiming we're heading for a dual US/China hegemony 
by pointing just to GDP and military spending are wrong, because neither
is a decisive metric, _and_ because China's official econometric data
has long been known to be shamelessly, fraudulently cooked, to (greatly)
inflate it.

Moreover, just comparing X dollars of US military spending with Y Yuan
of China military spending utterly misses difference in _effect_ -- 
that the US applies force glabally, while China can do so only just
offshore (able to contest the "first island chain" of Taiwan, Japan, and
the Philippines) as a regional power.  Again, not comparable.

Brooks acknowledges that power relations shift, and are sure to keep
doing so, but the result is still at most unipolarity with an asterisk
or two.

Last, Brooks points out that China's means for gaining a winning
advantage by conquest (the Axis Powers WWII trick) aren't likely to be a
game-changer even if China were to try to emulate Imperial Japan, and
cites solid reasons -- and also that a China that tried that would able
to have its entire economy kneecapped by the US Navy from a distance,
with ease.

He closes with some sober advice to US policy-makers about how to not be
stupid through arrogance or otherwise.

So, you think he "passionately argues both sides of every point"?  I
just don't see it.

The reason I brought this essay to (specifically) Ruben's attention is
that he shares his far-right MAGA crowd's fixation with the alleged
imminent national threat of China, and I keep trying (and failing) to 
give him some broader and better-informed perspective from actual
experts who are not just spewing ideology.