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jeudi, 21 février 2019

Gaston Compère et Charles le Hardi, dit le Téméraire, Grand-Duc d'Occident

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Gaston Compère et Charles le Hardi, dit le Téméraire, Grand-Duc d'Occident

par Ivan de Duve

Duc de Bourgogne après Philippe le Hardi, premier Valois de Bourgogne, Jean sans Peur, Philippe le Bon qui fonda l’ordre de la Toison d’Or et fut l’un des princes les plus puissants de son temps, Charles le Téméraire (1433-1477) ne laisse qu’une fille pour héritière, Marie de Bourgogne, qui épousa Maximilien d’Autriche et offrit au comte du Brabant la très jolie petite église de Haren.

gc-chT.jpgJ'avais en mémoire le Charles le Téméraire décrit par Marcel Brion en 1977. Gaston Compère me le décrit sous un autre angle. Un angle que je préfère. Écrit à la première personne du singulier, Je soussigné, Charles le Téméraire, duc de Bourgogne est un roman tout comme Moi, Antoine de Tounens, roi de Patagonie de Jean Raspail est un roman Celui de Gaston Compère est aussi différent de la biographie de Marcel Brion, parue sous le titre Charles le Téméraire, que celui de Jean Raspail l’est de celle de Saint-Loup Le roi blanc des Patagons.Avec Mémoires d’Hadrien, Marguerite Yourcenar avait porté le roman biographique à sa perfection ; avec Je soussigné, Charles le Téméraire, duc de Bourgogne, Gaston Compère fait voler en éclats la biographie romanesque. Né en Wallonie en 1929, cet écrivain s’avère visionnaire. Il investit l’âme du Téméraire, qui n’aimait pas son nom et qui eût préféré celui de Charles le Hardi.

Nous nous trouvons ici devant un petit bijou. Compère a trouvé le ton juste pour nous parler de ce destin vécu à la frontière du Moyen Âge et de la Renaissance. Dernier des quatre ducs qui se sont succédé à Dijon, notre héros avait le génie d’entreprendre mais n’a pas eu le talent de conserver. Au matin de la bataille de Nancy, le lion qui se détache de son cimier à la bataille de Nancy, et tombe dans la boue finit par rouler vers le néant.

Nous assistons à la mort de la Bourgogne , de cette Bourgogne occupée d’abord par les Éduens, ensuite par les Burgondes qui s’y établirent au milieu du Vième siècle, pour se trouver,  par le traité de Verdun en 843 lors du partage de l’empire de Charlemagne, dans la part de Charles le Chauve et non pas dans celle de Lothaire Ier ! Avant sa mort, Charles le Chauve crée un duché de Bourgogne géré par Philippe le Hardi, premier Valois de Bourgogne, par Jean sans Peur, par Philippe le Bon qui fonde l’ordre de la Toison d’Or et devint l’un des plus puissants princes de son temps pour se trouver enfin entre les mains de Charles le Téméraire (1433 – 1477).

Dans le roman de Gaston Compère, c’est Charles le Téméraire qui parle, qui pense, qui réagit, qui, comme l’écrit si joliment Benoît Ducarme, nous donne une épine dorsale. Et il pense juste. À lire Compère, l’on comprend mieux la rivalité qui oppose ce grand duc de Bourgogne à Louis XI, roi de France, surnommé l’universelle aragne, ancêtre des jacobins. Et l’on comprend mieux la naissance du mythe bourguignon.

Un autre livre, celui de Drion du Champois, l’ancêtre en géopolitique de notre Robert Steuckers, infatigable animateur des Synergies Européennes, appelle à restaurer l’ancienne Lotharingie en y incorporant non seulement les Bourguignons mais également les Suisses, les Lombards et les Autrichiens. Compère démontre que l’objectif du duc était de forger cette alliance continentale qui deviendra réalité avec Charles-Quint né vingt trois ans après le décès du Téméraire et qui fut empereur germanique de 1519 à 1558.

Il reste, nous dit Benoît Ducarme, il reste à méditer cette phrase prononcée par le personnage mort du Duc « L’histoire de ma vie ne fera vivre personne. Tout au plus ferai-je naître dans l’imagination de certains de grands et fertiles mouvements. Cela suffit ». 

gastoncompère.jpgCela suffit peut-être mais je ne peux m’empêcher de citer ici quelques perles qui font à la fois comprendre l’esprit qui anima Charles le Téméraire et l’immense talent de Gaston Compère.

« Les peuples ont une merveilleuse propension à confondre la casse et le séné. Et que dire des érudits qui se prennent pour des oracles ? Pour moi, j’aurai passé sur la Terre sans que nul ne sache qui j’ai été, sans que j’aie rien fait pour qu’on le sache ».

« Et ce désir de la croisade, je sais maintenant qu’il n’était qu’un signe, celui qu’il me fallait partir pour partir, à la recherche de je ne sais quoi et qui me dépassait ».

« L’impossible est de refuser notre destin ; l’abominable, de l’accepter. Je viens de dire un de mes secrets, et sans doute le plus ancré et le plus amer ».

«  La Chevalerie avait perdu cet idéal qui avait fait d’elle une institution incomparable dont mes rêves s’étaient nourris, cet idéal qui se nourrissait au plus vif de la foi, de l’espérance et de l’amour. Toute ma jeunesse s’est abreuvée aux romans de chevalerie. S’il vint un jour où je les abandonnai, c’est qu’ils m’avaient donné toute leur substance. J’y avais trouvé ceci à quoi je comptais consacrer mon règne : l’établissement de la justice, la défense des pauvres, la pratique de la loyauté, de la bravoure et de la courtoisie. Je rêvais, on devine que je rêvais ».

« Il me plairait de croire que je vivais dans un monde où les êtres échangeaient des signaux dont il n’était pas un qui ne fût éclairant ».

« J’écoutais, pour me parfaire, d’autres voix –de celles qui parlent d’ailleurs et de plus haut que moi. Notre vie est ailleurs, je le sais.les hommes s’en doutent obscurément, à leurs heures privilégiés ».

« À chacun son devoir, et que, dans sa pratique, rien ne soit laissé au hasard ».

« On reconnais l’homme que je suis. Cet homme à la hauteur des vignerons dijonnais et des marchands brugeois. Cet homme à la hauteur de l’homme ».

« Mon père se tenait pour plus que roi. Bon sang ne peut mentir. Qu’on me tienne pour plus qu’empereur. Et que l’empereur lui-même vienne mendier à ma porte. Ma faute crève les yeux : d’avoir tenu le rôle que j’aurais voulu voir jouer à l’empereur. Impatience. Sombre impatience ».

« Nous ne croyons pas avoir jamais rien fait qui ait pu nous mériter de perdre l’amour ou la fidélité de notre peuple ».

« Il n’est rien sous le soleil que l’homme n’ait profané ; mais le soleil reste de la plus éclatante pureté ».

« Je pensais sortir violemment de moi-même. Il n’en fut rien. Je ne pouvais m’empêcher de suivre un unique chemin, et je savais que, si j’étais parvenu à la quitter, il se serait, d’une façon inimaginable, détourné de son tracé pour se replacer sous mes pieds ».  

Ivan de Duve.

Gaston Compère, Je soussigné, Charles le Téméraire, duc de Bourgogne, Belfond 1985.

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The Republicans’ Millennial Problem

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The Republicans’ Millennial Problem

It's going to take more than policy gimmicks to compete with the growing allure of victimology

In a recent article at TAC, writer Alex Muresianu put into relief the difficulties that lie ahead for the GOP as it seeks to capture a larger chunk of the Millennial vote.

In the 2018 elections, voters between the ages of 18 and 29 voted for Democrats in House races by a margin of 35 points. Tellingly, Millennials who attended college were more likely to vote Democrat than those who didn’t. As a retired professor, I can attest to the immersion in leftist ideas that a college education, particularly in the humanities and social sciences, brings with it. But however we look at the demographic under consideration, the disparity in voting preferences cited by Muresianu remains quite noticeable.

Muresianu proposes that Republicans endeavor to reduce “income inequality” in part by making it easier to live in urban areas. Because of controls on who can build what in certain cities, which are invariably run by Democratic administrations, Millennials, who concentrate in those cities, are paying more for housing and rentals than they otherwise would. If more abundant and cheaper housing were available, those urban residents might reward the Republicans who helped bring this about by changing their party affiliations.

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Pardon my skepticism. For one, people tend to make their electoral choices for cultural and sociological—not just material—reasons. Further, it seems unlikely that policies, even ones as popular as affordable urban housing, can shake political loyalties that run so deep.

Let’s look at non-economic factors. Black voters are not rushing to embrace Donald Trump because he improved their employment prospects (unemployment is at its lowest rate since 2006). As a bloc, black voters loathe the president and prefer Democrats who—though they might not be much help financially—still appeal to their view of themselves as an oppressed minority.

Democrats play up race and gender because it works as an electoral magnet. Muresianu and I may not like this situation (personally I detest it). But it is nonetheless a winning strategy. Millennials vote for the Left because they have been conditioned to do so by social media, educational institutions, and their peers. They are not likely to be turned away by a policy gimmick—one that could only be implemented, by the way, if Republicans capture municipal governments, a prize that the GOP will not likely be winning in the near future. (The bane of the GOP, Bill de Blasio of New York City, won 65.3 percent of the votes cast in his last mayoral race.)  

This doesn’t necessarily hold in Europe, where some young people are more inclined to vote for the Right than they are here. In France, the Rassemblement National is building its base among Millennials; a similar trend can be seen at work among populist Right parties in Eastern Europe. In Hungary, the favorite political party among university students is the very far Right (I don’t use this term lightly) Jobbik Party. But there are also variables at work in Europe that have helped make the young more conservative: less urbanization in some countries than is the case here, a high degree of ethnic and racial homogeneity, and the persistence of traditional family and gender relations are all factors that counteract the cultural-political radicalization of young adults.

In the U.S., we may have reached a perfect storm for this radicalization, because very few of the countervailing forces that continue to operate in other societies are present here. This is not to even mention the giveaway programs (masquerading as “socialism”) that the Democrats have promised the young. How can Republicans match such largesse?

Moreover, a growing percentage of Millennial voters are multiracial and generally tend toward the Left. A study by the Brookings Institute in 2016 indicates that no more than 55 percent of those between 18 and 34 are white. It is hard to imagine that these non-white young voters, who are now solidly on the Left, will embrace Republican politicians because they promise to free up the urban rental and real estate markets.

Political and cultural loyalties may change among some Millennials but not because of the attraction of deregulation (except possibly for marijuana). These loyalties will change as certain groups within the leftist front start fighting each other. Why should straight white males continue to make common cause with black nationalists, feminists, and LGBT activists? Why should poor blacks go on supporting indefinitely the policy of rich leftist elites advocating virtually open borders? Being flooded with unskilled labor from other countries certainly doesn’t help the job situation in black communities.

The politics of victimology does have its limits and at some point may show wear. Hatred of white male Christian heterosexuals cannot keep a coalition going forever, particularly when this alliance of self-described victims reveals sharply competing interests and sensibilities. Of course, the Left’s coalition will not fall apart in the short run. But if some Millennials do eventually move towards the Right, what will draw them will not be the promise of cheaper lodgings. Something more dramatic will have to happen.

Paul Gottfried is Raffensperger Professor of Humanities Emeritus at Elizabethtown College, where he taught for 25 years. He is a Guggenheim recipient and a Yale Ph.D. He is the author of 13 books, most recently Fascism: Career of a Concept and Revisions and Dissents.

The Man Who Warned of America Against the World

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The Man Who Warned of America Against the World

What if the U.S. and UK were opposed by much of Eurasia?

Halford MacKinder foresaw it and we may be heading toward it

 

Here’s a headline that deserves some attention: “Russia to China: Together we can rule the world.” It appeared at Politico EU on February 17, and the author was Bruno Maçães, a former Europe minister for Portugal. Maçães wrote, “In the halls of the Kremlin these days, it’s all about China—and whether or not Moscow can convince Beijing to form an alliance against the West.” (Maçães also wrote a book called The Dawn of Eurasia: On the Trail of the New World Order.)

If Maçães is correct in his reporting, then we’re back to the gloomy world of geopolitician Halford MacKinder—although some would say that we never left it.

Back in 1904, Mackinder, a reader in geography at Oxford, published a paper, “The Geographical Pivot of History.” In it, he warned Britain that the strategic value of its key military asset was waning.

mackinderbook1.jpgThat key asset was the British Navy. For centuries, Britain had mostly relied on naval strength to win wars and maintain the balance of power in continental Europe. During the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763), for instance, the British were undistinguished in ground combat, and yet they won big at sea, using their ships to snap up valuable French possessions in North America, Africa, and India.

Yet in the 20th century, MacKinder argued, new trends were diminishing the power of fleets. As he wrote, “Trans-continental railways are now transmuting the conditions of land power, and now they can have such an effect on the closed heart-land of Euro-Asia.” Mackinder’s point was that the railroad enabled land powers to send armies quickly to far frontiers:

The Russian railways have a clear run of 6,000 miles from Wirballen [Virbalis in present-day Lithuania] in the west to Vladivostok in the east. The Russian army in Manchuria is as significant evidence of mobile land-power as the British army in South Africa was of sea-power.

This recent extension of armies on land was ushering in the possibility of an all-powerful “pivot state,” which, according to Mackinder, could lead to “the oversetting of the balance of power in favour of the pivot state, resulting in its expansion over the marginal lands of Euro-Asia.”

This new kind of geopolitical muscle on the Eurasian landmass, he continued, “would permit the use of vast continental resources for fleet-building, and the empire of the world would be in sight” (emphasis added). In other words, a powerful pivot state in Eurasia would threaten Britain’s navy, and thus Britain itself.

Specifically, Mackinder suggested that Germany and Russia might unite—most likely by conquest—at least part of the Eurasian “world-island.” Or perhaps Japan and China might similarly be joined. Either scenario, Mackinder warned, would be a “peril to the world’s freedom.”

We might add that so far as Mackinder was concerned, a peril to Britain was also a peril to the United States. In Mackinder’s geopolitical reckoning, the two nations were part of the planet’s “outer crescent,” and as such were both less powerful than a united Eurasia—were that ever to happen.

Interestingly enough, at about the same time as Mackinder’s bleak assessment, Sergei Witte, a top minister to Russia’s Czar Nicholas II, was trying to make exactly that scenario come true.

As Witte recorded in his 1915 memoir, he proposed a Eurasian alliance to Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm II. As he said to the Kaiser, “Your majesty, picture a Europe that does not waste most of its blood and treasure on competition between individual countries.” That is, the Kaiser might envision a land mass “which is…one body politic, one large empire.” He added:

To achieve this ideal we must seek to create a solid union of Russia, Germany, and France. Once these countries are firmly united, all the States of the European continent will, no doubt, join the central alliance and thus form an all-embracing continental confederation.

Witte records that the Kaiser liked the idea, especially since it specifically excluded Britain. Of course, nothing ever came of the suggestion, and in fact, just a decade later, Germany was at war with Russia, France, and Britain.

Yet the dream of a large alliance endured. In the 1920s, an Austrian, Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi, published a book entitled Pan-Europa, which snowballed into a social movement aimed at uniting the continent. Obviously this effort didn’t get very far, although in subsequent decades, others, too, sought to unify Europe, by means of both war and peace.

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So what are we to make of Mackinder’s vision today? In the century since his paper, many power variables have changed. For instance, railroads are not as critically important as they once were.

To Mackinder in 1904, a Eurasian land power would have had the advantage of being able to move its forces around by rail, benefiting from interior lines of communication. By contrast, a sea power would need to transport its forces offshore, along the coast of the world-island, a far slower process. That was a good argument at the time, yet post-Mackinder innovations such as the airplane have changed the nature of both combat and transport. And long-range missiles moot distance altogether.

However, there’s still the basic reality that Russia is a great power. And nowadays, of course, China is a far greater power. So if those two countries were ever to form an alliance, they would pose a huge threat to the West—which is exactly the point that Maçães is making.

Of course, it’s far from obvious that Russia and China are destined to be allies. After all, the normal pattern of geopolitics is that adjacent countries are foes, not friends, and Russia and China have been feuding over Siberia, Mongolia, and Central Asia, on and off, for centuries. Yes, it’s true that during Mao’s early years in power, China and Russia were seemingly joined together, but that red fraternalism didn’t last long. The two states fought a series of border skirmishes for six months in 1969.

That’s why Richard Nixon’s opening to China in 1972 was so important: it turned the Sino-Soviet split into a tacit Sino-American alliance. Indeed, it’s easy to argue that Nixon’s diplomacy was the turning point in the Cold War, dooming the Russians to defeat.

So we can see, the U.S., being what Mackinder would call an outer-crescent state, benefits when Eurasia is divided.

Unfortunately, subsequent American presidents have not been so wise about keeping the Eurasians at odds with each other. In the ’90s, after the Soviet Union collapsed, Bill Clinton, proto-neocon that he was, chose to expand the NATO alliance so it reached all the way to the Russian border. In so doing, the U.S. won the affection of Estonia—and the enmity of Russia. In Mackinderian terms, that wasn’t such a smart swap.

Then, over the next decade, George W. Bush went full neocon. He turned a justifiable invasion of Afghanistan—what should have been a quick punitive mission and nothing more—into a long-term commitment to “nation-building.” And then came the invasion of Iraq, which was neither just nor smart.

As we know, our gains among Afghans and Arabs have been evanescent, if not negative. Yet in the meantime, both Russia and China had been given good reason to believe that Uncle Sam had long-term designs in Asia—Afghanistan borders both China and the former USSR—and that such designs threatened them both.

As a result, a once-modest Chinese initiative, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), gained both members and real momentum, as Beijing and Moscow worked jointly together to counter American power in their backyard. The SCO is exactly the sort of Eurasian alliance of Mackinder’s nightmare.

As for the European part of Eurasia, the news from the just-ended Munich Security Conference is a bit ominous. The headline from Bloomberg News reads: “China, Russia Join for Push to Split U.S. From Allies.” Of course, the split may already have occurred: The New York Times quotes one “senior German official” saying, “No one any longer believes that Trump cares about the views or interests of the allies. It’s broken.”

Underscoring that anonymous official’s point, Johann-Dietrich Worner, head of the European Space Agency, went on the record to say that his agency ought to be cooperating more with China.

To be sure, it’s hard to believe that the European Union, Russia, and China could all end up on the same side—and so maybe we should choose to believe that it’s simply not possible. Moreover, another important Eurasian country, India, has yet to make plain its strategic choices. And let’s not forget one of those outer-crescent countries, Japan.

Yet one can’t look at a globe—a globe reminding us of the size of Eurasia, home to two thirds of the world’s population—and not think of Mackinder’s grim geopolitical prognosis.

Nobody ever said that Mackinder was an optimist. And come to think of it, in our time, Maçães doesn’t seem to be one either.

James P. Pinkerton is an author and contributing editor at The American Conservative.  He served as a White House policy aide to both Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

The Empire: Now or Never

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The Empire: Now or Never
 
by  

Many people I talk to seem to think American foreign policy has something to do with democracy, human rights, national security, or maybe terrorism or freedom, or niceness, or something. It is a curious belief, Washington being interested in all of them. Other people are simply puzzled, seeing no pattern in America’s international behavior. Really, the explanation is simple.

The reason of course is empire, the desire for which is an ancient and innate part of mankind’s cerebral package. Parthian, Roman, Aztec, Hapsburg, British. It never stops.

When the Soviet Empire collapsed, America appeared poised to establish the first truly world empire. The developed countries were American vassals in effect if not in name, many of them occupied by American troops: Among others, Europe, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Latin America, Saudi Arabia, and Australia. The US had by far the dominant economy and the biggest military, controlled the IMF, NATO, the dollar, SWIFT, and enjoyed technological superiority.. Russia was in chaos, China a distant smudge on the horizon.

Powerful groups in Washington, such as PNAC, began angling towed aggrandizement, but the real lunge came with the attack on Iraq. Current foreign policy openly focuses on dominating the planet. The astonishing thing is that some people don’t notice.

The world runs on oil. Controlling the supply conveys almost absolute power over those countries that do not have their own. (For example, the Japanese would soon be eating each other if their oil were cut off.) Saudi Arabia is an American protectorate,and, having seen what happened to Iraq, knows that it can be conquered in short order if it gets out of line. The U. S. Navy could easily block tanker traffic from Hormuz to any or all countries.

A major purpose of the destruction of Iraq was to get control of its oil and put American forces on the border of Iran, another oil power. The current attempt to starve the Iranians aims at installing a American puppet government. The ongoing coup in Venezuela seeks control of another vast oil reserve. It will also serve to intimidate the rest of Latin America by showing what can happen to any country that defies Washington. Why are American troops in Nigeria? Guess what Nigeria has.

Note that Iraq and Iran, in addition to their oil, are geostrategically vital to a world empire. Further, the immensely powerful Jewish presence in the US supports the Mid-East wars for its own purposes. So, of course, does the arms industry. All God’s chillun love the Empire.

For the Greater Empire to prevail, Russia and China, the latter a surprise contender, must be neutralized. Thus the campaign to crush Russia by economic sanctions. At the same time Washington pushes NATO, its sepoy militia, ever eastward, wants to station US forces in Poland, plans a Space Command whose only purpose is to intimidate or bankrupt Russia, drops out of the INF Treaty for the same reasons, and seeks to prevent commercial relations between Russia and the European vassals (e.g., Nordstream II).

China of course is the key obstacle to expanding the Empire. Ergo the trade war. America has to stop China’s economic and technological progress, and stop it now, as it will not get another chance.

The present moment is an Imperial crunch point. America cannot compete with China commercially or, increasingly, in technology. Washington knows it. Beijing’s advantages are too great: A huge and growing domestic market, a far larger population of very bright people, a for-profit economy that allows heavy investment both internally and abroad, a stable government that can plan well into the future.

America? It’s power is more fragile than it may seem. The United States once dominated economically by making better products at better prices, ran a large trade surplus, and barely had competitors. Today it has deindustrialized, runs a trade deficit with almost everybody, carries an astronomical and uncontrolled national debt, and makes few things that the world can’t get elsewhere, often at lower cost.

Increasingly America’s commercial power is as a consumer, not a producer. Washington tells other countries, “If you don’t do as we say, we won’t buy your stuff.” The indispensable country is an indispensable market. With few and diminishing (though important) exceptions, if it stopped selling things to China, China would barely notice, but if it stopped buying, the Chinese economy would wither. Tariffs, note, are just a way of not buying China’s stuff.

Since the profligate American market is vital to other countries, they often do as ordered. But Asian markets grow. So do Asian industries.

As America’s competitiveness declines, Washington resorts to strong-arm tactics. It has no choice. A prime example is the 5G internet, a Very Big Deal, in which Huawei holds the lead. Unable to provide a better product at a better price, Washington forbids the vassals to deal with Huawei–on pain of not buying their stuff. In what appears to be desperation, the Exceptional Nation has actually made a servile Canada arrest the daughter of Huawei’s founder.

The tide runs against the Empire. A couple of decades ago, the idea that China could compete technologically with America would have seemed preposterous. Today China advances at startling speed. It is neck and neck with the US in supercomputers, launches moonlanders, leads in 5G internet, does leading work in genetics, designs world-class chipsets (e.g., the Kirin 980 and 920) and smartphones. Another decade or two of this and America will be at the trailing edge.

The American decline is largely self-inflicted. The US chooses its government by popularity contests among provincial lawyers rather than by competence. American education deteriorates under assault by social-justice faddists. Washington spends on the military instead of infrastructure and the economy. It is politically chaotic, its policies changing with every new administration.

The first rule of empire is, “Don’t let your enemies unite.” Instead, Washington has pushed Russia, China, and Iran into a coalition against the Empire. It might have been brighter to have integrated Iran tightly into the Euro-American econosphere, but Israel would not have let America do this. The same approach would have worked with Russia, racially closer to Europe than China and acutely aware of having vast empty Siberia bordering an overpopulated China. By imposing sanctions of adversaries and allies alike, Washington promotes dedollarization and recognition that America is not an ally but a master.

It is now or never. If America’s great but declining power does not subjugate the rest of the world quickly, the rising powers of Asia will swamp it. Even India grows. Either sanctions subdue the world, or Washington starts a world war. Or America becomes just another country.

To paraphrase a great political thinker, “It’s the Empire, Stupid.”

(Republished from Fred on Everything by permission of author or representative)