<http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1710062,00.html>
from which...
Briefing reporters in Washington, Ryan Henry, a Pentagon policy official, said:
<snip>
"We realise that almost in all circumstances others will be able to do the job less expensively than we can because we tend to have a very cost-intensive force. But many times they'll be able to do it more effectively too because they'll understand the local language, the local customs, they'll be culturally adept and be able to get things accomplished that we can't do. So building a partnership capability is a critical lesson learned."
[...]
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This is particularly fascinating to me and softly indicates the new situation American hegemonists find themselves facing.
On the one hand, they have a vast arsenal at their disposal, dominance of the global financial system and about 60 years of perceptual habit (the US as leader and future) to fuel their efforts.
But sadly for their death star reveries, there is the other hand; the disconcerting fact of all those shipping containers arriving from Asia full of goods and returning empty - the trade, manufacturing and competence deficits in 3-dimensions.
The proposed way to relieve the tension between diminishing real power and dreams of continuing (and indeed, strengthened) dominance is to create a distributed network of client states whose foreign policy objectives are merely extensions of Washington's geopolitical requirements. Not a new idea of course - the post WW2 world was in many ways just that but our starry eyed world shapers want more of the same - forever.
An empire of ether, sewn together by client states' belief in US superiority (underwritten, of course, by the spidery threads of wealth transfer that have kept the US' national credit card still in the active category).
Earlier in the article, this statement is quoted:
"It will attempt to dissuade any military competitor from developing disruptive capabilities that could enable regional hegemony or hostile action against the US and friendly countries."
[...]
And so the overall goal is to prevent, as they say, "competitors" from achieving parity with the United States.
The question is, can a debtor nation, whose actions irk and irritate people around the globe more and more with each passing day (yes, there are fans, from Belgrade to Mumbai but they're power dreamers too and useless to the future for that reason), managed by people who're long on theories and short on skill, create the long term system of solidified dominance these idiots fantasize about?
They want to freeze history. Unfortunately for their vainglorious plans, reality cannot be contained.
They will fail.
.d.
--------- Sì, il blog. È soltanto un giocattolo. Ma, è un giocattolo serio.