Hmm, this is my first contemplation of the new year?!? No change of empires has ever transitioned peacefully. Those that have sold out America for personal gain will one day reap what they sow as the empire they thought protected their foreign assets no longer does. America’s foreign asset bubble, vastly larger than that destroyed in the 70s, will eventually pop. We found that factories placed in Mexico in the 70s could not be moved once borrowers reneged.
As power shifts and militaries continue to build, America’s forces will once again be called upon to help our nation’s captains of industry. Somehow, our financial interests will be entangled in age old military treaties threatened by China’s regional advances and the costs to our nation will be too great to not attempt to reverse the financial woes of those that bet too much of their immense fortunes on rise of China’s newest dynasty.
My hope is that America will be the first nation in history to take our lumps as an outgoing hegemony without going to war as a salve for our broken financial ego. My study of history suggests my hopes are futile. When that time eventually comes, how will military conscription of the last centuries confront the binary fission of information conflating all known ideas into perfecting knowledge of the 21st century?
Will our young people understand the combining dynamics of national security and corporate prosperity more than those that came before them? This will be the first time in history that a worldwide war propaganda campaign will wage war against a massive, globally available, network of information connecting the world’s young people through their Apple apps. Theirs will be a more perfected understanding of the true dynamics driving war. Theirs will be the first world war challenged by a collaborative information front.
Yet, even perfect information may not stop this century’s apocalypse. The masses did not have perfect information in Iran. Saddam seemed to be given the signal from America that it was ok to invade Kuwait. He seemed to be given the signal that he had done enough for us to not to later invade again on a weapons of mass destruction charge. Yet, before information could be assimilated worldwide, America’s regional alliances, fueled by a patriotic uneasiness of 9/11 recurrences, set in motion the destruction of a million souls. In the end, our young people fought with dignity because their nation called upon them to sacrifice.
Was Iraq about weapons of mass destruction or rather a military foothold against the imperialistic destiny of Iran? Was Afghanistan about Osama or rather reinforcement of bases in the countries surrounding it, countries essential in the transfer of oil and gas from Russia to the East? Are our military efforts more about securing immediate peace for Americans or rather securing economic security through this inevitable hegemonic transition?
We debate the treason of Wikileaks, yet it was merely the nose of the camel under the tent toward world transparency. Julian Assange is no friend of the United States yet he was only an opportunist riding the wave toward tomorrow’s perfecting information. The incredible rate of information exchange, collaboration, and assimilation occurring before us will clarify nation-state strategies open and raw. Whether they be internally generated inside national security organizations or externally driven by corporate interests, an understanding of their origin and motivations will some day, sooner than we expect, be apparent to the man on the street.
I do not worry about such things for I have no power to change them and my time stands still in the information crawling age. But information is growing at such a rapid pace that when the time comes for the next generation to take up arms for our nation, it may be the first time in history that all will understand not only the patriotic rationale but the underlying financial dynamics involved. Happy 2013.
Clif Carothers
Job Voucher Plan 