
The Geopolitics of the United States, Part 1: The Inevitable Empire (2011) - ern
https://www.stratfor.com/analysis/geopolitics-united-states-part-1-inevitable-empire
======
fitzwatermellow
Part Deux is here:

[https://www.stratfor.com/analysis/geopolitics-united-
states-...](https://www.stratfor.com/analysis/geopolitics-united-states-
part-2-american-identity-and-threats-tomorrow)

It occurs to me that what Strat4 is doing here is _forecasting_. Extrapolating
from historic bases of power to predict the emergence of future hegemons. But
wouldn't it be possible to achieve a more data-driven, empirical analysis?
Might make a sweet Kaggle crowd prediction problem ;)

~~~
wosos
Here if you're asked to register after reading part 1.

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:4rknDaG...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:4rknDaGw44kJ:https://www.stratfor.com/analysis/geopolitics-
united-states-part-2-american-identity-and-threats-
tomorrow+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk)

------
vonnik
These guys are jokers. A _security_ firm that gets pwned by Anonymous...

[http://venturebeat.com/2011/12/28/anonymous-stratfor-
hack-10...](http://venturebeat.com/2011/12/28/anonymous-stratfor-
hack-10-things-to-know/)

Stratfor is flattering the sensibilities of the military industrial complex
that pays its bills.

> The greatest threat to the United States is its own tendency to retreat from
> international events.

Stratfor would embroil the US in more foreign wars, because the best thing
that happened to US foreign policy in the last 15 years was Iraq...

These are the same people pushing for a Syrian intervention now. Peace time
doesn't make anyone money, doesn't get any one promoted...

Their reading of China is laughable. While has China has debt issues, it is
not analogous to Japan. With 1.3 billion people, it is more than an order of
magnitude larger, for one thing.

China is actively colonizing the waters off the coasts of Vietnam and the
Philippines, as well as expanding its space program. It is a rising, regional
power attempting to revise the international order, much like Germany in the
late 19th century. The US will need to strike a new balance of power with
them. That rarely happens without war, sadly.

The fetishism of Russia plays to the fears of the Kremlinologists in the old
guard. But Russia has a declining population, a declining GDP, and a second-
rate military. Hard to imagine them as a challenger on anything more than a
regional basis. This is not the Cold War anymore.

Did you notice there is not one mention of climate-driven migrations and
disasters, which will hit the US and others with increasing violence? The Arab
Spring and Syria were at least partially prompted by a drought-caused
disastrous wheat harvest. Stratfor's failure to make valuable predictions
about the future has a lot to do with its poor analysis of the present (even
in 2011 when this was written.)

Lastly, because this is HN, I'll just say that these arm-chair analyses do not
take into account the mutually reinforcing, exponential technological changes
that will remake the world as we know it. The costs of solar energy are
approaching zero; the capacities of narrow AI are increasingly superhuman; our
ability to edit new life forms in to being, old diseases out of it, and
generally augment ourselves, will make make these linear, ceteris paribus
forecasts seem quaint.

~~~
fsloth
I think at least this first part reads like an explanation of the events of
the last two centuries and based on my very light arm-chair historians
knowledge I failed to see any obvious lapses in their analysis.

Like any analysis, though, it should be read as interesting postulation based
on known facts, rather than a complete explanatory model in itself.

I fail to see how cheap solar or new life forms would provide more arable
land. Sure, we can invent - I don't know - an edible nutritious city kudzu
that grows everywhere and provides nutrition for everyone but until that
happens I think the american farmlands do provide a considerable asset like
the article stated.

I see no obvious reason why at least a partial singularity nirvana could not
come to being but until it does - no one really has a clue what it would look
like and analyses like these must stick to understood reality and politics.

~~~
vonnik
We can engineer yeast to produce almost any molecule. We can synthesize meat.
We can do that with nearly free electricity from solar, among other
ingredients. These things are happening now. Arable land is an archaic fetish,
like much of Stratfor's thinking.

Calling events inevitable in hindsight has zero value. Predicting the
inevitability of a future event, and then seeing that prediction confirmed,
has immense value. Stratfor's predictions, however, are much weaker than their
analysis of the past.

~~~
fsloth
What are the theoretical economics of yeast based or synthetic food based
nutrition on a global scale? The chemicals need to come from somewhere. The
synthesis equipment needs to come from somwhere. As I understand it growing
things in dirt is pretty efficient? Where is the cut-off point when test tube
grown food is economically more viable than dirt based alimenation?

I am not saying these things wont happen. But we are not there yet. How soon?
It took a few hundreds of years of tweaking for steam engines to actually make
an economic difference. It took a hundred years for the offspring of babbages
difference engine to become the instruments of the cultural and economic
transformation they are today.

Today, we are locked to dirt. In five years, most food is dirt based. Probably
still a decade or two from now.

Most analysts predicitions turn out to be pretty bad - but it's their
'editorial view' of current events that I find most educating if done well.

------
arethuza
According to Wikipedia the inland waterways of the US carry cargo worth $73
billion each year - which is about 4% of US GDP. In that context the
fascination with inland waterways seems a bit odd.

~~~
maxerickson
Given the context, you'd also want to look at the historical importance. The
rust belt wouldn't be where it is except for those inland waterways.

------
stephenwinter2
As always with Stratfor this analysis is not about security of North America
but about global dominance. My opinion on stratfor is not really profound. But
half a year ago I was so shocked about this video:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeLu_yyz3tc&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeLu_yyz3tc&feature=youtu.be&t=45m23s)
I had to write something then against this horrible propaganda:
[http://hashsign.co.uk/contemporary/by/thoughts/futurism-
and-...](http://hashsign.co.uk/contemporary/by/thoughts/futurism-and-world-
war-one.html#stratfor) My English is too poor to take part in further
discussions here. I'm sure most will not agree with my opinions. In a manner
my writing is propaganda too. But perhaps it's anyway interesting to read what
(some) Europeans think.

~~~
fsloth
Well, I don't think it takes an evil genious to divide europe. It already is
divided. There is no common will nor true common foreign policy of the
european states. USA simply takes the few simple actions at a time it wants to
enforce it's position while european statesmen do nothing.

As I see it, war in the Ukrane is mostly due to Kremlins need to destabilize
all slavic regions that are in danger of becoming well to do modern
democracies - they need a buffer zone of emergencies to maintain an internal
stability of their kleptocratic political system.

~~~
stephenwinter2
Inside Europe there was war at all time. But it was One economic and cultural
zone. Especially from 1100 to 1800. What happend after that time ("no common
will" etc.) is not a native European quality but the result of British and US
policy. Think of the UK efforts in the 19th century that almost ruined Britain
just to fight Napoleone Idea of a united Europe. - "No common will" -to repeat
this again and again is simply a wish (that unfortunately came true). -
Ukraine topic: watch how the borders shift over time. It tells enough about
intentions behind it.

~~~
fsloth
"Inside Europe there was war at all time. But it was One economic and cultural
zone. Especially from 1100 to 1800. "

This is a new notion for me. This would imply there was a single cultural
entity that would encompass all of europe and a single economic system that
encompasses the geographic area for this period. What would they be called?

I am sorry I brought current affairs to the discussion - it's a bit offtopic
for HN and I was about to delete my first response until I found replies and
felt it would be more rude at this point to remove it than not.

Discussing europe circa 19th century is ok I suppose.

~~~
chrismaeda
This is a lot more fun than debating which browser-based MVC framework is
better. ;-)

------
hitekker
Those who are secure but open minded in their political identity and their
political understanding, would greatly benefit from reading both this and its
Part 2.

Summarizing such a complex situation without sugarcoating or incoherency is no
small task, and this article does it exceedingly well.

Well done.

------
davidw
> coastal plain of the Pacific Northwest

Where's that?

~~~
a3n
[http://www.united-states-map.com/topo/northwest.htm](http://www.united-
states-map.com/topo/northwest.htm)

I don't read topos very well, but it looks like most of the coast on that map
is greenish and plainish.

~~~
username223
It's pretty striking. In northern Washington you mostly drive at least an hour
between ocean and mountains (e.g. Bellingham to the Cascades). In southern
coastal Canada the mountains rise straight from the ocean (e.g. driving
between Vancouver and Squamish).

------
danbruc
_And so the final imperative of the dominant power of North America is to
ensure that this never happens - to keep Eurasia divided among as many
different (preferably mutually hostile) powers as possible._

What a disturbing view of the world.

~~~
Armisael16
Surely this isn't the first time you've encountered this idea? Britain
explicitly held this policy for hundreds of years with regards to continental
Europe (make sure neither France nor Germany could take over the whole
continent).

~~~
danbruc
So we should go back to slavery because slavery was thought of as a good idea
for a couple thousand years?

~~~
SFLemonade
Woah! Massive logical jump there!

~~~
danbruc
Where is the jump? Something was done in the past, why shouldn't we continue
doing so? I of course assumed that the initial comment expressed some degree
of endorsement and did not just state facts.

~~~
Malician
I read no form of endorsement in the comment, but rather a sense that this is
a very common tactic in realpolitik throughout history and should not be
surprising.

~~~
danbruc
So because slavery was common in the past I should not be surprised if someone
thinks about slavery today? This makes absolutely no sense. My point doesn't
really depend on the endorsement.

------
hackuser
Many here seem to misunderstand the article as an expression of what is best,
of some normative preference. Stratfor is describing what they think is the
long-term (i.e., over generations) fate, in a way, of nations, based on a
framework they embrace, geopolitics. I'm no expert, but here is my amateur
understanding, undoubtedly flawed, from many years of reading this kind of
material:

Humans long have tried to develop theories that predict the behavior of
nations and its outcomes. It's perhaps the most important question to ask,
with the survival, prosperity, and freedom of billions at stake. But it's a
very difficult model to build, based on billions of human decisions and many
other factors, including geography.

One well-established theory (though I don't know how popular among experts
currently) is that geography, including climate, ultimately is a powerful
factor determining the fate of nations. For example, a nation without arable
land inevitably will have a small population and everything that follows from
that: A small economy, a weak military, etc. Some real-world examples:
Probably the biggest factor in Britain's survival in WWII was that they had a
body of water between them and the German army; if they had switched
geographies with the French, the results would have been much different. The
U.S.'s WWII success and eventual post-war primacy was mostly because oceans
separated the country from its enemies, providing an unmolested homeland,
economy and manufacturing of war goods. The geography of Ukraine is easily
traversed by large armies, leading to Russia being invaded through Ukraine
many times over history (Napoleon and the Nazis come to mind); that is a big
reason they want to control Ukraine. Russia's lack of access to the
Mediterranean and Atlantic has greatly limited their naval power and thus
their influence in Europe; that's why they care so much about Crimea and
Syria, where they have naval bases with access to the Mediterranean. China's
land borders are the Himalayas, other mountains and deserts, and poor areas
such as Central Asia and Siberia; thus their trade is highly dependent on sea
routes, resulting in their current actions to control the South China Sea.
Overall, the regions of influence China tries to claim now is the same as when
the Qing dynasty was ascendant in the 17th and 18th centuries - everything
else changes, but geography stays the same.

Wrote one historian: _If time is the locomotion of history, place could be the
gradient against which it is pitted. Dynamic, the one hurtles forward; inert,
the other holds it back._ [1]

How these issues play out is another matter. China could resolve it's South
China Sea concerns via multilateral agreements, or through military
aggression. Also, there are other theories, including realism and
constructivism.

\----

[1] John Keay, in India: A History. Keay is not a credentialed academic
historian but has written respected surveys of history; I don't know how well
his theory ultimately holds water, but it's the best expression of the issue
I've seen.

------
danbruc
Power is probably one of the worst things in human society. Power is the
ability to shift matters away from equality, from equilibriums, the ability to
fuck others over for ones selfish benefits. Power is worth nothing except you
use it in inherently unethical ways. It's the same everywhere,
internationally, nationally or within companies. No country should have more
power than the power to defend its borders. Everything else can be solved in a
better way without resorting to power.

------
smoyer
I'm not sure that we should feel the need for this kind of imperialism in the
21st century. We can certainly "defend our borders" militarily, but wouldn't
it be wise to make sure our economy can be sustained regardless of the actions
of other countries?

I think another take-away is that we should be transporting more goods by rail
and water. The decline of our railways has helped the oil companies but has
resulted in a huge number of truck-car deaths at the same time it's increased
transportation costs. We should move more towards using trucking only for
local deliveries.

