Generational Theory Forum: The Fourth Turning Forum: A message board discussing generations and the Strauss Howe generational theory
Generational Dynamics World View - Printable Version

+- Generational Theory Forum: The Fourth Turning Forum: A message board discussing generations and the Strauss Howe generational theory (http://generational-theory.com/forum)
+-- Forum: Fourth Turning Forums (http://generational-theory.com/forum/forum-1.html)
+--- Forum: Theories Of History (http://generational-theory.com/forum/forum-7.html)
+--- Thread: Generational Dynamics World View (/thread-51.html)



RE: Generational Dynamics World View - Bob Butler 54 - 05-12-2020

Do you have a list of recent crisis wars, say in the post World War II time frame?  What, exactly, defines a crisis war?  

Say, for example, was Bush 43’s Iraq conflict an existential war for Iraq but not for the United States?  As it turned out the Baath party’s control ceased to exist, but the United States didn’t, was not really in play.  Still, the alliance of the Republican Party, big oil and the aggressive believers in US military dominance took a big hit.  Can changes in perception or influence of the dominant party count as existential?  Can you count what happened to the Baath and Republican parties as different?

Even World War II did not end the existence of Germany, Italy and Japan.  They are all three still on the map.  However, their cultures endured a significant forced change.  They had to accept the Enlightenment virtues as expanded.  (Human rights, equality, democracy.)  So did the slaveowners after the US Civil War.  All the formerly Confederate states still exist.  I have a feeling that the possibility of rebooting a culture and then letting the resulting state go does not effect World War II's and the US Civil War status as crisis wars.

Just looking at Wiki’s list of recent wars and seeing how many would count as crisis wars.  How do you define a crisis war?

Anyone else have an opinion?


RE: Generational Dynamics World View - John J. Xenakis - 05-12-2020

** 12-May-2020 World View: List of crisis wars

(05-12-2020, 07:34 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: > Do you have a list of recent crisis wars, say in the post World
> War II time frame? What, exactly, defines a crisis war?

> Say, for example, was Bush 43’s Iraq conflict an existential war
> for Iraq but not for the United States? As it turned out the
> Baath party’s control ceased to exist, but the United States
> didn’t, was not really in play. Still, the alliance of the
> Republican Party, big oil and the aggressive believers in US
> military dominance took a big hit. Can changes in perception or
> influence of the dominant party count as existential? Can you
> count what happened to the Baath and Republican parties as
> different?

> Even World War II did not end the existence of Germany, Italy and
> Japan. They are all three still on the map. However, their
> cultures endured a significant forced change. They had to accept
> the Enlightenment virtues as expanded. (Human rights, equality,
> democracy.) So did the slaveowners after the US Civil War. All
> the formerly Confederate states still exist. I have a feeling
> that the possibility of rebooting a culture and then letting the
> resulting state go does not effect World War II's and the US Civil
> War status as crisis wars.

> Just looking at Wiki’s list of recent wars and seeing how many
> would count as crisis wars. How do you define a crisis war?

> Anyone else have an opinion?

I've probably written several million words on the differences between
crisis and non-crisis wars, and I won't attempt to repeat that here.
However, "rebooting the culture" would not be uncommon during the
Recovery Era following a crisis war, particular within the nation or
society that lost the war. A generational crisis war is extremely
horrific and traumatizing to all sides, and typically the population
becomes anxious and desperate to make sure that it never happens
again, and some sort of "rebooting" would not be unusual.

I get asked a lot of questions, and I try to answer all of them, based
on three conditions: I have to have the time, it has to be an
interesting subject, and I have to be in the mood. If those conditions
aren't met, then I usually ask the questioner to do his own research.
This has actually worked out very well, as a number of people have
done their own research, and contributed to the development of
Generational Dynamics.

In a previous message, you said you would like to compare generational
patterns in the industrial age vs the information age vs other ages.
This is a huge project that would take 3-6 months to do properly,
which is not time that I have. If you're really interested in
this subject, I would encourage you to do your own research.
I would caution you that you would probably have to access 50-100
sources, and it would take you a couple of months just to collect
those sources and begin writing narratives.

With regard to the Iraq war, this was discussed for years in the
old Fourth Turning forum. The summary is that the Iran/Iraq war
was a generational crisis war for both Iran and Iraq. America's
Gulf War was a Recovery Era war for Iraq, and the Iraq war was
an Awakening era war for Iraq.

The following article from April 2007 was the best article:

** Iraqi Sunnis are turning against al-Qaeda in Iraq
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ww2010.i.iraq070401.htm



As for a list of crisis wars since WW II, I probably should try to
work up the energy to provide a comprehensive list, and who knows
maybe I will. In the meantime, I went through my files and prepared a
list of countries where I've written about their last generational
crisis war. Keep in mind that there are almost 200 countries, so this
would be a huge project. The following is the quick list that I came
up with, and I provided a link to an article where I discussed the
war, sometimes only briefly:

Kenya -- Mau-Mau rebellion - 1956
** 4-Feb-18 World View -- Kenya cracks down on political opposition after mock inauguration
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/xct.gd.e180204.htm#e180204



Bolivia - civil war ends in 1967
** 15-Nov-19 World View -- Ouster of Bolivia's president Evo Morales evokes memories of Ché Guevara
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/xct.gd.e191115.htm#e191115



Iran/Iraq war - Great Islamic Revolution -- 1979-88
** 3-Nov-19 World View -- Anti-Iran, anti-government protests spread across Iraq
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/xct.gd.e191103.htm#e191103



Cambodian "Killing Fields" genocide, 1975-79 - Cambodia and Thailand
** 17-Jan-19 World View -- Cambodia's Hun Sen threatens to kill opposition politicians if EU ends preferences
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/xct.gd.e190117.htm#e190117


** 30-Oct-18 World View -- Thailand and Thaksin Shinawatra prepare for new national elections
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/xct.gd.e181030.htm#e181030



South Sudan war of independence - climaxed in 1991
** 9-Dec-18 World View -- Latest South Sudan peace agreement appears close to collapse
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/xct.gd.e181209.htm#e181209



Colombia and Venezuela - "La Violencia," or the Colombian Revolt, 1948-1959.
** 12-Aug-18 World View -- Colombia's president Ivan Duque takes office amidst accusations from Venezuela
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/xct.gd.e180812.htm#e180812



Armenian Azerbaijan 1989-94
** 18-Apr-18 World View -- Leader of Armenia's 'non-violent velvet revolution' threatens to paralyze the country
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/xct.gd.e180418.htm#e180418



Yemen civil war 1962-68
** 29-Jan-18 World View -- Clashes erupt between Saudi and UAE backed forces in South Yemen's port of Aden
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/xct.gd.e180129.htm#e180129



Rhodesia civil war - Zimbabwe - 1979
** 30-Jul-18 World View -- Operation Gukurahundi genocide becomes major Zimbabwe election issue
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/xct.gd.e180730.htm#e180730



Afghanistan civil war -- 1991-96
** 25-Jul-17 World View -- Massive Kabul bombing on Monday leaves US Afghan policy in tatters
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/xct.gd.e170725.htm#e170725



Democratic Republic of Congo - Kasai region - 1960
** 21-Jun-17 World View -- Massive government atrocities in DR Congo's Kasai threaten regional stability
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/xct.gd.e170621.htm#e170621



Algeria's war of independence from France (1954-62)
** 30-May-17 World View -- Arrest of Berber activist in Morocco raises Berber-Arab tensions
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/xct.gd.e170530.htm#e170530



Cameroon - UPC Revolt - 1956-1960
** 15-Feb-17 World View -- Cameroon shuts down internet for English-speakers protesting French-speakers
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/xct.gd.e170215.htm#e170215



Ethiopia - Eritria - 1991
** 14-Jun-16 World View -- Heavy fighting along Eritrea-Ethiopia border raises fears of war
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/xct.gd.e160614.htm#e160614



Pakistan - india - Partition war - 1947
** 15-Aug-17 World View -- Pakistan celebrates its 70th birthday, wondering what Pakistan is
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/xct.gd.e170815.htm#e170815



Bangladesh - East Pakistan - East India - 1971
** 12-Jun-16 World View -- Bangladesh government arrests 3,192 people to stop terrorist killings
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/xct.gd.e160612.htm#e160612



Rwanda - Burundi - 1994
** 30-Apr-15 World View -- 20,000 refugees flee violence in Burundi, fearing Hutu-Tutsi war
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/xct.gd.e150430.htm#e150430



Sri Lanka civil war - 2009
** Tamil Tigers surrender, ending the Sri Lanka crisis civil war
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/xct.gd.e090517.htm#e090517



Cuba - 1960
** 14-Dec-18 World View -- Cuba eases economic restrictions, continuing on path from Socialism to free markets
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/xct.gd.e181214.htm#e181214



RE: Generational Dynamics World View - Warren Dew - 05-12-2020

(05-11-2020, 09:27 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote:
(05-10-2020, 02:34 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: >   Exactly.

>   I actually made a living for three years making true predictions.
>   They weren't generational predictions, but they were system
>   dynamics predictions about the behavior of large groups of people.

>   It was really tough.  What I learned was that people are far more
>   willing to pay for predictions that what they want to happen will
>   happen, than for predictions that are true.

>   I think this is just how the oracle business works, going back at
>   least to Cassandra.

I've never heard anyone say that they've been making predictions based
on system dynamics, besides myself.  What kinds of predictions were
they?

And you're right about people hating predictions that are true, rather
than what they want to hear.  It freaks people out, and turns some of
them into loudmouth assholes, because of cognitive dissonance.  The
ancient Greeks were brilliant in coming up with the Cassandra myth as
something that describes humanity.

I did the work in 1992-1995.  It was work predicting the future of the telecom industry.  We would put together system dynamics computer models, and sell them to various players in the telecom industry, mostly to the baby bells.

The first such model was a bit primitive, but we eventually developed a pretty sophisticated model which we sold to a couple of companies.  Our most sophisticated model handled the interplay between consumer preferences, infrastructure deployment, and technological improvement, and predicted uptake of wireless services - at the time, remember, few people had wireless phones - along with associated financials.

Customers put in their own assumptions, but we also kept an in house scenario that had my own best guess assumptions in it.  Those guesses were pretty good, because some of our customers shared a lot of data while we were developing the model.  We had lots of data from which we could back out a demand curve for communications services, and lots of data on how long it would take to deploy infrastructure capacity and how much it then currently cost.  Technological improvement was handled by a module that had been proved out in an earlier model in the petrochemical industry.

That model correctly predicted the now historical gradual uptake of wireless phones as a supplement to wireline phones until about 2003, at which point it correctly predicted that a noticeable number of customers would start dropping wireline services in favor of a wireless phone only.  It basically made an accurate year by year prediction for 10-15 years into the future.

By that time, of course, I was long out of the business.  Nobody wanted a true prediction that their favorite project would lose money or barely make money when there were plenty of consultants that would happily predict the project would make unrealistic scads of money, thus justifying their getting corporate headquarters to waste tons of funding on it.


RE: Generational Dynamics World View - Bob Butler 54 - 05-12-2020

A good enough list of crisis wars.  A good enough definition of what a crisis war is.  I will read at least some of the articles referenced as well as checking them against other sources, but the list seems acceptable to start working with.

But the list does not seem to include major powers by the understanding of North America, Europe and Asia.  It does not include nuclear powers.

I am tempted to say that Generational Dynamics could very well be accurate among the minor powers of Africa, South America and Asia.

The basic proposal is that cultures who have lived under threat of instant nuclear destruction are traumatized, more rationally committed to not support leaders likely to commit to a crisis war, or both.  Thus, the Generational Dynamics generation line is moved for those cultures.  It is unlikely that people who live in a threatened environment will decide to support a war which could conceivably escalate into a nuclear exchange.  This would include the leaders.

As a thought experiment, would the 1930s need for living space or a resource rich Greater East Asia Co-Prospeity Sphere have been so attractive if some of the Allied states confronted in World War II had nukes and a reasonable way of delivering them?  Would the war have taken place?

So the list could well be used to cover many cultures and parts of the world.  Generational Dynamics could very well be accurate there.  But Generational Dynamics as currently thought through would not yield an accurate set of predictions among major powers or against nuclear powers.

So, the question becomes if any major powers or nuclear powers fought crisis wars since World War II.  Off the top of your head?

As a tangent, the fictional Star Trek universe might well be thought to contain a crisis war which echos turning theory.  The Vulcans were said to have fought a very destructive war, and as a result underwent a cultural reboot after the war to make logic very dominant in the culture.  They were determined to never repeat the intense emotions that led to crisis war again.  This may seem excessive to humans, but when you consider that the Romulans have the same gene pool and are usually portrayed as warlike, perhaps that would be what it took.

Of course, you would have to move the Vulcan generation line after they rebooted their culture.  The reboot worked, at least in fiction.


RE: Generational Dynamics World View - Bob Butler 54 - 05-13-2020

(05-12-2020, 06:35 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: The basic proposal is that cultures who have lived under threat of instant nuclear destruction are traumatized, more rationally committed to not support leaders likely to commit to a crisis war, or both.

You may have noted the difference between above making a decision emotionally, or rationally. Some people make decisions more emotionally. These are called Feelers in the Myers Briggs system. Others are more rational. These would be the Thinkers. I’m just leaving room for both to make the decision to avoid nuclear war. Both might make the decision to embrace a crisis war, assuming they haven’t lived through one, as the reasons for such a conflict may seem important if you had not lived through a previous such war.

Making a decision to risk a nuclear exchange would be unlikely. I don’t care if one is emotional or rational at core. It is just a bad decision.

And if a guy comes along that insists that you have not made that decision, that you would support such a war, well, it is not surprising that you cut him out of your social circle. The fault would belong to the prophet, not to the man being irrationally preached to. It would be the prophet who had made the mistake.


RE: Generational Dynamics World View - pbrower2a - 05-13-2020

(05-12-2020, 12:09 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: ** 12-May-2020 World View: List of crisis wars

(05-12-2020, 07:34 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: >   Do you have a list of recent crisis wars, say in the post World
>   War II time frame? What, exactly, defines a crisis war?

>   Say, for example, was Bush 43’s Iraq conflict an existential war
>   for Iraq but not for the United States?  As it turned out the
>   Baath party’s control ceased to exist, but the United States
>   didn’t, was not really in play.  Still, the alliance of the
>   Republican Party, big oil and the aggressive believers in US
>   military dominance took a big hit.  Can changes in perception or
>   influence of the dominant party count as existential?  Can you
>   count what happened to the Baath and Republican parties as
>   different?

>   Even World War II did not end the existence of Germany, Italy and
>   Japan.  They are all three still on the map. However, their
>   cultures endured a significant forced change.  They had to accept
>   the Enlightenment virtues as expanded.  (Human rights, equality,
>   democracy.)  So did the slaveowners after the US Civil War.  All
>   the formerly Confederate states still exist.  I have a feeling
>   that the possibility of rebooting a culture and then letting the
>   resulting state go does not effect World War II's and the US Civil
>   War status as crisis wars.

>   Just looking at Wiki’s list of recent wars and seeing how many
>   would count as crisis wars. How do you define a crisis war?

>   Anyone else have an opinion?

I've probably written several million words on the differences between
crisis and non-crisis wars, and I won't attempt to repeat that here.
However, "rebooting the culture" would not be uncommon during the
Recovery Era following a crisis war, particular within the nation or
society that lost the war.  A generational crisis war is extremely
horrific and traumatizing to all sides, and typically the population
becomes anxious and desperate to make sure that it never happens
again, and some sort of "rebooting" would not be unusual.

I get asked a lot of questions, and I try to answer all of them, based
on three conditions: I have to have the time, it has to be an
interesting subject, and I have to be in the mood.  If those conditions
aren't met, then I usually ask the questioner to do his own research.
This has actually worked out very well, as a number of people have
done their own research, and contributed to the development of
Generational Dynamics.

In a previous message, you said you would like to compare generational
patterns in the industrial age vs the information age vs other ages.
This is a huge project that would take 3-6 months to do properly,
which is not time that I have.  If you're really interested in
this subject, I would encourage you to do your own research.
I would caution you that you would probably have to access 50-100
sources, and it would take you a couple of months just to collect
those sources and begin writing narratives.

With regard to the Iraq war, this was discussed for years in the
old Fourth Turning forum.  The summary is that the Iran/Iraq war
was a generational crisis war for both Iran and Iraq.  America's
Gulf War was a Recovery Era war for Iraq, and the Iraq war was
an Awakening era war for Iraq.

The following article from April 2007 was the best article:

** Iraqi Sunnis are turning against al-Qaeda in Iraq
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ww2010.i.iraq070401.htm



As for a list of crisis wars since WW II, I probably should try to
work up the energy to provide a comprehensive list, and who knows
maybe I will.  In the meantime, I went through my files and prepared a
list of countries where I've written about their last generational
crisis war.  Keep in mind that there are almost 200 countries, so this
would be a huge project.  The following is the quick list that I came
up with, and I provided a link to an article where I discussed the
war, sometimes only briefly:

Kenya -- Mau-Mau rebellion - 1956
** 4-Feb-18 World View -- Kenya cracks down on political opposition after mock inauguration
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/xct.gd.e180204.htm#e180204



Bolivia - civil war ends in 1967
** 15-Nov-19 World View -- Ouster of Bolivia's president Evo Morales evokes memories of Ché Guevara
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/xct.gd.e191115.htm#e191115



Iran/Iraq war - Great Islamic Revolution -- 1979-88
** 3-Nov-19 World View -- Anti-Iran, anti-government protests spread across Iraq
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/xct.gd.e191103.htm#e191103



Cambodian "Killing Fields" genocide, 1975-79 - Cambodia and Thailand
** 17-Jan-19 World View -- Cambodia's Hun Sen threatens to kill opposition politicians if EU ends preferences
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/xct.gd.e190117.htm#e190117


** 30-Oct-18 World View -- Thailand and Thaksin Shinawatra prepare for new national elections
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/xct.gd.e181030.htm#e181030



South Sudan war of independence - climaxed in 1991
** 9-Dec-18 World View -- Latest South Sudan peace agreement appears close to collapse
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/xct.gd.e181209.htm#e181209



Colombia and Venezuela - "La Violencia," or the Colombian Revolt, 1948-1959.
** 12-Aug-18 World View -- Colombia's president Ivan Duque takes office amidst accusations from Venezuela
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/xct.gd.e180812.htm#e180812



Armenian Azerbaijan 1989-94
** 18-Apr-18 World View -- Leader of Armenia's 'non-violent velvet revolution' threatens to paralyze the country
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/xct.gd.e180418.htm#e180418



Yemen civil war 1962-68
** 29-Jan-18 World View -- Clashes erupt between Saudi and UAE backed forces in South Yemen's port of Aden
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/xct.gd.e180129.htm#e180129



Rhodesia civil war - Zimbabwe - 1979
** 30-Jul-18 World View -- Operation Gukurahundi genocide becomes major Zimbabwe election issue
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/xct.gd.e180730.htm#e180730



Afghanistan civil war -- 1991-96
** 25-Jul-17 World View -- Massive Kabul bombing on Monday leaves US Afghan policy in tatters
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/xct.gd.e170725.htm#e170725



Democratic Republic of Congo - Kasai region - 1960
** 21-Jun-17 World View -- Massive government atrocities in DR Congo's Kasai threaten regional stability
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/xct.gd.e170621.htm#e170621



Algeria's war of independence from France (1954-62)
** 30-May-17 World View -- Arrest of Berber activist in Morocco raises Berber-Arab tensions
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/xct.gd.e170530.htm#e170530



Cameroon - UPC Revolt - 1956-1960
** 15-Feb-17 World View -- Cameroon shuts down internet for English-speakers protesting French-speakers
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/xct.gd.e170215.htm#e170215



Ethiopia - Eritria - 1991
** 14-Jun-16 World View -- Heavy fighting along Eritrea-Ethiopia border raises fears of war
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/xct.gd.e160614.htm#e160614



Pakistan - india  - Partition war - 1947
** 15-Aug-17 World View -- Pakistan celebrates its 70th birthday, wondering what Pakistan is
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/xct.gd.e170815.htm#e170815



Bangladesh - East Pakistan - East India - 1971
** 12-Jun-16 World View -- Bangladesh government arrests 3,192 people to stop terrorist killings
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/xct.gd.e160612.htm#e160612



Rwanda - Burundi - 1994
** 30-Apr-15 World View -- 20,000 refugees flee violence in Burundi, fearing Hutu-Tutsi war
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/xct.gd.e150430.htm#e150430



Sri Lanka civil war - 2009
** Tamil Tigers surrender, ending the Sri Lanka crisis civil war
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/xct.gd.e090517.htm#e090517



Cuba - 1960
** 14-Dec-18 World View -- Cuba eases economic restrictions, continuing on path from Socialism to free markets
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/xct.gd.e181214.htm#e181214

The Greek Civil War, the partition of India, the struggle for Israeli independence,  and the Maoist takeover of China were effectively continuations of the Second World War in cause and timing. The Korean War looks like a Crisis War looks like a Crisis War for the Korean peninsula, but not the rest of the world.


RE: Generational Dynamics World View - pbrower2a - 05-13-2020

(05-13-2020, 12:33 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:
(05-12-2020, 06:35 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: The basic proposal is that cultures who have lived under threat of instant nuclear destruction are traumatized, more rationally committed to not support leaders likely to commit to a crisis war, or both.

You may have noted the difference between above making a decision emotionally, or rationally.  Some people make decisions more emotionally.  These are called Feelers in the Myers Briggs system.  Others are more rational.  These would be the Thinkers.  I’m just leaving room for both to make the decision to avoid nuclear war.  Both might make the decision to embrace a crisis war, assuming they haven’t lived through one, as the reasons for such a conflict may seem important if you had not lived through a previous such war.

Making a decision to risk a nuclear exchange would be unlikely.  I don’t care if one is emotional or rational at core.  It is just a bad decision.

And if a guy comes along that insists that you have not made that decision, that you would support such a war, well, it is not surprising that you cut him out of your social circle.  The fault would belong to the prophet, not to the man being irrationally preached to.  It would be the prophet who had made the mistake.

As Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek (or one of his writers) put into the mouth of a Klingon:

Only fools fight in a burning building. 

COVID-19 is a burning building, and if plagues can happen with wars or be consequences of wars, they seem to make the waging of war, especially Crisis war, difficult. So if we Americans end up with a leader (Trump) who could never wage an effective war -- Obama was in contrast the mailed-fist-in-a-velvet-glove sort of leader who could be the worst sort of leader that any foreign leader could provoke. 

Beginning about 1985, when Gorbachev charmed such staunch right-wingers as Reagan and Thatcher into accepting that the Soviet Union wasn't going to use its nuclear weapons unless someone did something incredibly stupid, and indeed too stupid for a conservative who wants his economic system to remain intact so that it could reward that leader's constituents, nuclear war has become less scary. Add to this, too many Americans have commercial ties to China to risk those. An executive of GM doesn't want a GM plant in Shanghai nuked any more than he wants a GM plant in Detroit nuked. 

At one point there was talk of the neutron bomb, an atomic bomb that gives off huge amounts of radiation but little blast or heat by contrast. Such a bomb would kill humans, wildlife, and livestock but leave infrastructure intact for those who would occupy and resettle it. So if the Soviet Union placed a few neutron-bomb explosions in the Ruhr Valley and the Netherlands, then what was Germany would still remain -- except that the people living in  Амстерда́м and До́ртмунд a few years after the war would be using the Cyrillic alphabet that the Russians use. They would largely be Russians settling in depopulated, but not especially ruined places. 

COVID-19 has something of the effect of a neutron bomb on a personal level. Assets remain intact for inheritance or creditors' confiscation, but those who die of COVID-19 are of course dead. . 


RE: Generational Dynamics World View - Bob Butler 54 - 05-13-2020

(05-13-2020, 02:21 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: The Greek Civil War, the partition of India, the struggle for Israeli independence,  and the Maoist takeover of China were effectively continuations of the Second World War in cause and timing. The Korean War looks like a Crisis War looks like a Crisis War for the Korean peninsula, but not the rest of the world.

World War II was about Germany seeking living space and Japan seeking to create their co prosperity sphere.  In other words, land greed.  It is hard to say the other conflicts with other causes are continuations of that.

Israel’s independence was definitely a reaction to World War II.  The Jews were a victim, and in a never again mood.  In taking from those who already lived there, it was a repeat of what had been done many times before.  It was brute force might makes right theft, though the locals didn’t leave them much choice.  Israel’s aims resembled the Axis aims more than the Allies.

The war in China had been going on before World War II and continued after.  World War II was just a way to gather munitions from the Americans for many locals.  I think the struggles in China are more about China than about Axis greed.

I tend to agree about Korea.  Not very familiar with the others.


RE: Generational Dynamics World View - Bob Butler 54 - 05-13-2020

(05-13-2020, 02:50 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: As Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek (or one of his writers) put into the mouth of a Klingon:

Only fools fight in a burning building. 

COVID-19 is a burning building, and if plagues can happen with wars or be consequences of wars, they seem to make the waging of war, especially Crisis war, difficult. So if we Americans end up with a leader (Trump) who could never wage an effective war -- Obama was in contrast the mailed-fist-in-a-velvet-glove sort of leader who could be the worst sort of leader that any foreign leader could provoke.  

Yep.  Part of why I don't expect a crisis war among nuclear powers in the remaining prophet-nomad-hero configuration among the nations brought into sync by World War II.


RE: Generational Dynamics World View - Bob Butler 54 - 05-13-2020

In the modern era, looking at the success of Taiwan, the genocidal mistakes of Mao, the anti communist feeling of the Cold War, McCarthy’s time, it is really hard to look at Mao and Communism as being the good guys.  The Chinese Revolution, however, was the robber barons vs the people.  China was in a mess.  The foreigners and the robber barons were in it together with the objective of exploiting the people.  It was almost like Marx had a real solution, not just identifying the problem.  There is a reason why Mao won.

I just have a problem, that from a Chinese perspective, China was still the center of the world.  World War II just a land skirmish.  It turned into an opportunity to collect munitions from the Americans for the real war.  The issues that were being fought over were quite different.


RE: Generational Dynamics World View - John J. Xenakis - 05-14-2020

** 14-May-2020 World View: War between China and Japan

When you're talking about almost 200 countries, you can expect crisis
wars to be occurring somewhere at any point in time. There are
typically 15-20 wars going on in the world at any given time (not all
crisis wars, of course). However, I recall that in 2004, there was a
study by some Swedish academy that the number of wars at that time was
the lowest on record. That would be the end of the Unraveling era,
when wars were suppressed.

Over the centuries, as transportation, communication and weaponry
improve, nations, societies, and identity groups tend to grow, with
the result that crisis wars tend to merge into clusters. For
convenience, I've referred to two different clusters that I call the
WW I timeline and WW II timeline. Most of the nuclear powers (US,
Britain, France, India, Pakistan, China) were on the WW II timeline.
Russia was on the WW I timeline, with the Bolshevik revolution.

A lot of other countries were on the WW II timeline. Just to pick
some at random, you have South Africa, Egypt, Korea, and Australia.

A lot of countries were on the WW I timeline, particularly in the
Mideast with the collapse of the Ottoman empire. WW I was early
enough in the century that some countries have had two crisis wars in
the last century. Iran, Syria are examples. Others have been delayed
into a Fifth Turning, such as Mexico, Tunisia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia,
and Russia. These Fifth Turning countries are all very interesting
examples to study.

As I said, crisis war clusters tend to merge over the centuries, and
what we're looking at today with WW III is a final merging of the WW I
and WW II timelines.

We can look at the big picture without referring to generational
theory, as I've said before. There were two world wars in the last
century, plus massive additional wars in Asia, the Mideast, Africa,
and pretty much in every region of the world. Furthermore, there have
been massive wars in every continent, in every nation, in every region
of the world in every century for millennia. There is absolutely no
reason why this century should be any different, and several reasons
why this century should be worse.

This leads to the question of how crisis wars start and, in
particular, if the existence of nuclear weapons makes crisis wars less
likely. I've thought a lot about these questions and looked at many
examples, and I haven't been able to find any evidence that nuclear
weapons will make any difference at all.

Let's start with examples of some American non-crisis wars. The
Vietnam war evolved slowly from advisors to heavier involvement after
the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. The Gulf war occurred after months of
debate following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. The Iraq war began
after years of political haranguing over Iraq's WMDs. The point is
that none of these were rash decisions. These occurred only after
lengthy debate and consideration.

A recent example that I've pointed to often because it's so incredibly
fascinating and almost unbelievable is the 2006 war between Israel and
Hezbollah in Lebanon. On July 12, 2006, some members of the Hezbollah
militia in Lebanon crossed the border and abducted two Israeli
soldiers.

Israel's government went into a state of total panic. Israel's Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert called this "an act of war," and within a few
hours, Israel was mobilized for war. Israel launched the war with no
plan and no objective. Each day, Israel lurched from one plan and
objective to the next, as the previous one failed. In the end, the
war was a disaster for both Israel and Lebanon, and accomplished
nothing except the destruction of a lot of Lebanon's infrastructure.
The war fizzled quickly because Lebanon and Hezbollah were in a
generational Awakening era.

It's really a remarkable example. On July 11, 2006, there was no
thought of war. On July 13, 2006, they were at war. The abduction of
Israeli soldiers was apparently a random act by some Hezbollah
fighters, but that random act on July 12, 2006, was all it took to
trigger a war that might have spiraled into much bigger war, if
Lebanon had been in a highly xenophobic and nationalistic Crisis era.

So my view is that crisis wars start from exactly this kind of random
act. If the participants are in a crisis era, with populations in
highly xenophobic and nationalistic moods, then a random act can
quickly spiral into a larger and larger war, with no planning. World
War I began when a high school student decided to assassinate an
Archduke, and it led to the collapse of the Russian and Ottoman
empires.

World War II did not begin with the bombing of Pearl Harbor. It didn't
even begin with the Nazi invasion of Poland.

World War II began in 1937 with the Marco Polo Bridge incident.
I've written about this a number of times, but here's a summary.

The Marco Polo Bridge is about 15 km south of Beijing in China, and
was so named because Marco Polo praised the bridge in the 13th
century. In 1937, both Japan and China were deep into generational
Crisis eras, and the Japanese and Chinese people really hated each
other. On July 7, A small group of Japanese soldiers, stationed near
the bridge, took a roll call and found one soldier missing. The
Japanese accused Chinese soldiers, also stationed near the bridge in
the city of Wanping, of abducting the Japanese soldier. A brief clash
was won by the Japanese. The two sides negotiated a settlement, but
both sides brought in reinforcements. Within a month there was
full-scale war, leading to the Japanese "Rape of Nanking" shortly
thereafter.

And, of course, we always have to mention that the Japanese soldier
missed roll call because he went into the woods to pee, and lost his
way back. So it's not so wrong to say that World War II was triggered
because someone unexpectedly had to pee.

One of the major motivations that Japan had in bombing Pearl Harbor
was that the US, while officially neutral, was clearly supporting
China in the Japan-China war, and the purpose of bombing Pearl
Harbor was not to make the US a Japanese colony, but rather
to prevent the US from supporting China.

Today the situation is similar to WW II, with the roles of China and
Japan reversed. I didn't call my book "War between China and the US,"
since that's not the major objective of China. I called it "War
between China and Japan." Once again, the Chinese and Japanese people
are highly xenophobic and nationalistic. Once again, the Chinese and
Japanese people really hate each other. The Chinese want revenge for
WW II -- for Japan's invasion of China, for the comfort women, for the
Rape of Nanking, and for the horrific chemical and biological warfare
atrocities committed on Chinese people by Japan's Unit 731. But this
time, the US will be supporting Japan against China, even though the
US may be officially neutral at first.

There are extremely powerful emotions involved here. Most of these
emotions are exhibited by young people who are indifferent to the
catastrophic consequences of a war, in the same way that young people
in the US support Sanders and are completely indifferent to the
catastrophic consequences of his policies.

So, would these extremely powerful emotions between Chinese and
Japanese people be affected by the fact that China and the US are
nuclear powers? I just don't see how. There could be a trivial
incident today, tomorrow or the next day, with a small clash between
China and Japan that spirals into a war because of the massive
nationalism and xenophobia on both sides. Nuclear weapons would have
nothing to do with it.


RE: Generational Dynamics World View - Bob Butler 54 - 05-14-2020

[understatement] Since World War II, Japan did a cultural reboot.  [/understatement] Japan is not what it once was.  Back in the 1930s, I would go along with xenophobic and aggressive evaluation and in no way nominate them as exemplars of the Enlightenment virtues.  Today?  After being nuked?  After an occupation by America?  In observing their behavior since?  If you didn’t notice the change, it is time to abandon your predictor license.

China is harder to read.  Still, when Mao first took over, and there was a conflict between the revolutionaries and the servants of the Robber Barons, between the Reds and the Experts, you know who Mao would firmly side with.  With an ideological mind set and too many people telling him what he wanted to hear, he botched it.  He wound up selling food during a famine and killing a good number of his people.  He wound up killing a lot of birds that kept the farm ecology in balance, exasperating things.

These days, the oligarchs are the experts while the Reds in the government keep their hands off if the oligarchs keep it vaguely reasonable.  They learned.  They changed.

Today (or until recently) China was expanding financially, notably in the Middle East and Africa.  They were using their large and robust economy to sink their influence into distant parts of the world.  They did what they could, but the coronavirus gave rise to the old xenophobic response.  They took a few steps back, nothing that couldn’t be overcome.  I wager they will, and the xenophobia would further fade, attacked by both the Reds and the Experts.

I would put their interest in invading Japan as Nil.  The Japanese were just one of the many foreign powers exploiting the country through their robber baron puppets.  More real is their old enemy in Taiwan, if they want to start a sea war with the United States.  As the have recently canceled their 5th and 6th carriers for want of an aircraft that could launch at sea with a full fuel load and payload, it is back to the drawing board.  As an old Cold War treaty just expired, their advantage in missile ranges is going away.  As an autocratic power it is not surprising that they want to expand in the East China Sea, but this would not be a crisis war.  It would be a land grab which would again involve a sea war with the United States.  This is about as likely as the US starting a land war in Asia.

Yes, the old mentality was one of aggression.  The low level officers were looking for any excuse for an incident.  The men used this as a license to be aggressive.  Not clear that this mentality is as pervasive today as it once was.

I am tempted to say a Vulcan would raise an eyebrow at your analyses.  “Interesting.”  A Romulan might leap forward, grab you by the throat, say something like “You called me what?” and drop you from his social calendar.  Well.  Maybe he would plot something more drastic.

In short, you are minimizing the fact that there has been a change of ages.  You are assuming Industrial Age cultures will continue unchanged, that cultures will not shift to an Information Age pattern.  You are going with a vision in S&H that exists outside academia, and ignoring one that is more accepted by main line historians.

We will just have to see how many crisis wars occur among nuclear powers in the World War II crisis window during this line up of the prophet-nomad-hero generations.  I suspect you will come up with nothing.  This will not lessen the accuracy of Generational Dynamics among cultures who have not advanced as far.

***

I thought the assassination of Arch Duke Ferdinand was a rational act by Serbia?  The way I heard it, there had been a decision made that the motorcade would avoid the Serbian part of town, but they forgot to tell the driver.  That would put it on the accident side.


RE: Generational Dynamics World View - Bob Butler 54 - 05-14-2020

Hmm…. I’d add the USA.  We too were xenophobic in the 1930s, or racists to put it bluntly.  Blacks could not eat or stay at certain places.  Chinese were virtually excluded.  Native Americans were refused the ability to learn their own language.  The latest European group to immigrate was shunned.

Then they had something called the civil rights movement.  We changed.

Granted, some conservatives are still xenophobic.  They project their xenophobia on others, on how they see the world.  They do not see the progress or want to see the progress.  

The culture does not change totally or uniformly.  Things shift slowly.

Still, if you are not rabidly conservative, you notice the change.


RE: Generational Dynamics World View - pbrower2a - 05-15-2020

(05-13-2020, 06:25 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:
(05-13-2020, 02:50 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: As Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek (or one of his writers) put into the mouth of a Klingon:

Only fools fight in a burning building. 

COVID-19 is a burning building, and if plagues can happen with wars or be consequences of wars, they seem to make the waging of war, especially Crisis war, difficult. So if we Americans end up with a leader (Trump) who could never wage an effective war -- Obama was in contrast the mailed-fist-in-a-velvet-glove sort of leader who could be the worst sort of leader that any foreign leader could provoke.  

Yep.  Part of why I don't expect a crisis war among nuclear powers in the remaining prophet-nomad-hero configuration among the nations brought into sync by World War II.

There have been plenty of wars, but mostly proxy wars (Vietnam, Afghanistan) or conflicts between old-fashioned despots (Iran-Iraq war). A Crisis War this time would be a proxy war going out of control. Such seems not to have happened this time. The war that I most expected to break out is a restarting of the Korean War -- and if that were to happen the DPRK would find itself without allies. 

Nukes themselves seem to ensure that if one wins one wins nothing. The industrial plants will be gone. The victor will have no conquered people to press-gang. Even agriculture will be unreliable (it recovered quickly after World War II) because crops will be tainted with radioactivity and elements toxic even if not radioactive. .

 I always thought that a nuclear war would begin as a conventional war with the nuclear exchange beginning when one side sees itself losing with its leaders having nothing to lose because they would be tried and convicted (fairly or otherwise) for war crimes or crimes against humanity.


RE: Generational Dynamics World View - John J. Xenakis - 05-16-2020

*** 17-May-20 World View -- Trump administration will block chip shipments to China's Huawei

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
  • Trump administration will block chip shipments to China's Huawei
  • The Huawei threat to national security
  • The world is waking up to the character of the Chinese Communist Party
  • Faustian bargains with China
  • Generational Theory: Is nuclear war with China inevitable?

****
**** Trump administration will block chip shipments to China's Huawei
****


[Image: g200516b.jpg]
China is growing more nationalistic and militaristic every day. Is a US-China war even possible in the age of nuclear weapons? (Reuters)

The US Department of Commerce announced on Friday that it would block
sales of US semiconductor technology to China's Huawei Technologies or
its HiSilicon affiliate. The order would block sales of chips and
chipsets, as well as related software and technology.

This is actually an extension of an order that was put into effect
last year, that I described in detail in an article in August. ( "16-Aug-19 World View -- Results of sanctions on Huawei Electronics"
)

The order was put into effect because Huawei devices, including
mobile phones and routers, present a threat to national
security in the United States and in any other country where these
devices are used and installed. It's now generally accepted that
Huawei devices contain undetectable "backdoors" that allow China's
military to control them remotely for the purposes of spying and
data collection, and could even shut them down completely on
command from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

However, Huawei has found ways to bypass the previous order, and so
the extended order will restrict many more companies, including
foreign companies, from selling products to Huawei. The US is able to
restrict even foreign companies from selling products to Huawei if the
products contain 25% or more of U.S.-originated technologies or
materials.

Possibly the most significant target of the extended order is Taiwan’s
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) Ltd, a major producer of
chips for Huawei’s HiSilicon unit as well as mobile phone rivals Apple
and Qualcomm.

The extended order will only go into effect after 120 days. In the
meantime, TSMC has announced that it will conduct a thorough legal
analysis, and Huawei announced that the Chinese Communist Party will
retaliate.

According to reports in the CCP propaganda publication Global Times,
the CCP is planning retaliation on US companies such as Apple, and
halting purchase of Boeing airplanes:

<QUOTE>"The potential move, the second time within two days
that China has released message of hitting back against the US,
also the very first time government source noted to target
specific US companies, is a result of Washington's recent
malicious attacks on China, which ignited a tsunami of anger among
Chinese officials and in the business circle. China is mulling
punitive countermeasures against US individuals and entities over
COVID-19 lawsuits due to the abuse of litigation by the US side,
sources close to the matter told the Global Times previously.

China's latest moves indicate a toe-to-toe strategy between the
world's two largest economies, from political to economic ends,
being in full play, experts said."<END QUOTE>


At the very least, this makes it likely that the US-China trade
war is back in full force.

****
**** The Huawei threat to national security
****


I've been writing about this issue since 2012, when Secretary of
Defense Leon Panetta warned of a Cyberwar Pearl Harbor
from China.

First off, I'm the expert on this subject, not some reporter or politician
who majored in sociology or women's studies in college. I spent five
years of my career developing board-level operating systems for embedded
systems, so I know how easy it would be to install a "backdoor" into
a device that would allow the device to be controlled remotely by
China's military. Furthermore, an implementation that uses public/private
key encryption technology could be designed in such a way that the
backdoor could not be detected, even by someone who suspects that
the backdoor is there.

I have the skills to do this fairly easily, and there are undoubtedly
many Chinese engineers with the same skills. So it would be very easy
for Huawei to install undetectable backdoors into all its devices,
allowing the devices to be controlled by China's military.
Furthermore, in 2017, the CCP passed the National Intelligence Law,
which demands that all organizations, including Huawei, "support,
cooperate with, and collaborate with" China's military in collecting
intelligence, even when doing so is illegal.

So any country or company that has installed Huawei networks and
devices can be easily spied on by China's military, and the network
can be controlled or shut down by China's military, for example
at time of war.

The CCP has heavily subsidized Huawei so that Huawei's products
are much cheaper than those of competitors. This has allowed Huawei
to install networks in many countries, and is being particularly
aggressive in installing 5G networks. China's military already
has the ability to track political, media and military figures
in many countries, and to steal any kind of economic or military
information.

****
**** The world is waking up to the character of the Chinese Communist Party
****


The above is the title of a recent article in the Washington Post,
highlighting the fact that the CCP's handling of the Wuhan Coronavirus
crisis has been nothing short of criminal. What's different now is
that it isn't just the United States being the lone critic of the CCP
in areas such as trade and Huawei 5G, but after the CCP seeded the
virus in over 180 countries, people in many countries see the CCP as a
criminal organization.

There's a debate going on as to whether the virus occurred naturally
in a Chinese "wet market," or whether it originated in the Wuhan
Institute Of Virology. The debate is hightened by the fact that
today, many months later, the CCP still is blocking the CDC, the WHO,
and other international organizations from going to Wuhan to conduct
an independent investigation. The CCP's actions lead to the
conclusion that the "worst" must be true, whatever the "worst" is.

But most people no longer even care about that. Who cares how the
virus was created? What's being viewed internationally as criminal
behavior is what the CCP did once the virus started spreading:
  • Jailed and tortured doctors who tried to report it on social
    media.

  • Censored news reports that it was spreading in communal fashion.

  • Specifically denied communal transmission, even when the CCP knew
    for a fact that communal transmission was occurring.

  • Ordered the World Health Organization (WHO) to deny claims of
    communal transmission.

  • Ordered the WHO to delay declaring the crisis to be a
    "pandemic."

  • Ordered the WHO to reject Taiwan's reports of communal
    transmission.

  • Blocked airline service between Wuhan and other provinces of
    China.

  • But permitted airline service between Wuhan and other countries,
    in order to seed the virus in those countries.

  • Continues to block visits by the CDC, WHO and other
    international to Wuhan for investigations.

  • Continues refusal to share critical scientific information and
    honest data.

  • Used economic or military threats against any country wanting to
    block airline travel from Wuhan. This was particularly disastrous for
    Iran, which permitted airline traffic to and from Wuhan even after
    government officials and clerics started dying.

  • Directed agents in countries around the world to buy up
    all face masks, gowns, goggles, and other "personal protective
    equipment (PPE)" and ship it back to China, so that it would be
    unavailable in the countries that China was seeding.

  • Launched a worldwide disinformation and fake news campaign to
    blame the United States for the pandemic.

By seeding the world, by using their WHO puppets to lie to the world,
and by buying up all available PPE in the world, the CCP gave
themselves a three-month headstart on controlling the virus. The CCP
seems to have succeeded in this extremely malicious and evil strategy,
as they're far ahead of other countries in "opening up" their economy.
The only downside for the CCP is that China is an export economy, and
they've destroyed the economies of their own customers.

Chinese Communist supporters and CCP trolls claim that items in the
above list are exaggerated, but there is no longer any doubt of
overwhelming evidence of malicious actions and malicious intent by the
Chinese Communist Party.

That's why, as the Washington Post article claims, "the world is
waking up to the character of the Chinese Communist Party," which is
increasingly seen as a criminal organization which has maliciously
caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, increasing into the millions,
in hundreds of countries. Not only has the CCP expressed no remorse,
but they continue to blame others, continue to censor news reports
from their own media, continue to deport reporters from foreign news
organizations, and continue to block international investigations in
Wuhan.

As an aside, I've noticed a significant change in Donald Trump's
demeanor. In January, he was still referring to Xi Jinping as a
friend, and saying that China was doing a good job. The turning point
occurred in February, as I recall, when the CCP disinformation
campaign began claiming that the virus was planted in Wuhan by
American soldiers. This clearly infuriated Trump. Today, Trump
specifically blames Xi Jinping for hundreds of thousands of deaths in
over 180 countries.

Trump's change in attitude is emblematic of a change in attitude that
has occurred in many populations in many countries around the world.
This will not end well.

The CCP thugs may believe that now would be a good time to attack
America, believing that the American armed forces are weakened by
Covid-19. That's why Trump is pushing hard to open businesses again,
and that's why he said on Friday, "I just want to make something
clear, it's very important. Vaccine or no vaccine, we're back."

****
**** Faustian bargains with China
****


Faust is the title character in a ninetenth century play by Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe in which Faust sells his soul to the devil in
return for money and sex. The devil helps Faust seduce Gretchen. The
play ends tragically as every person in Gretchen's family dies, and
Gretchen is imprisoned, as Faust goes to hell to pay the price.

As I've said in the past, the Chinese are unique in a highly racist
way, as I described in my book, "War Between China and Japan." While
people in America consider themselves to be ordinary people who were
lucky enough to be born in the greatest nation in history, the Chinese
Communists view themselves as the Master Race -- yellow race, black
hair, brown eyes, yellow skin -- and the rest of us as barbarians. To
the CCP, other people produce products and services for the benefit of
the Chinese Communists, just as mules plough the fields for the
benefit of their farms. Stealing intellectual property or PPE is
perfectly OK because we barbarians are the mules from which anything
can be taken. On the other hand, the CCP regime will collapse if the
population believes that Xi Jinping has lost the "Mandate from
Heaven."

Thus, we're more and more hearing the term "Faustian bargain"
in conjunction with any agreement made with the Chinese Communists.

This is clear from the CCP's subsidizing of Huawei devices. Huawei
sells these devices at extremely low prices, thanks to the CCP
subsidies. But that's the Faustian bargain. As we've described, the
devices contain "backdoors" that allow China's military to spy on the
data and control the devices remotely.

Then there are the "debt trap diplomacy" agreements in China's Belt
and Road Initiative (BRI). China has been extremely secretive about
the details of these agreements, but in the past, details have leaked
out in several countries, and I wrote several articles when the leaks
occurred. China has used these agreements to acquire and control
ports and other strategic assets in Sri Lanka, Democratic Republic of
Congo (DRC), Ghana, Zambia, Kenya -- through its "debt trap
diplomacy." Several other countries, including Pakistan and the
Maldives, are at risk.

Based on leaks in various countries, the details of these BRI
agreements are absolutely incredible. Here's the pattern:
  • The CCP bribes local officials to get the BRI agreement
    signed.

  • The CCP loans billions of dollars at high interest rates to a
    country, far more than the country can ever repay, to build a port or
    a highway or bridge - a project that will strategically benefit
    China.

  • The CCP sends in thousands of Chinese workers to do the actual
    work. Thus, the local population does not benefit at all, and is
    treated harshly by their Chinese masters.

  • This is really incredible: The Chinese workers purchase all the
    parts and services from Chinese firms, and all the workers are
    Chinese. So all the billions of dollars in the loan go right back to
    China, to benefit factories and service providers in China, rather
    than in the country where the work is being done.

  • So the loaned money goes right back to China, but the country
    still has to repay the loan, which means that they're repaying
    the loan twice. Amazing.

  • In case of a payment default, China takes full control of the
    port or other assets. In the case of Kenya, the agreement was
    so horrific that China can take control of any Kenyan asset, even
    foreign embassies.

  • In case of any contract dispute, the matter will be decided by
    a Chinese court.

  • In the meantime, the CCP can use the agreement to force compliance
    with any Chinese demand, such as rejection of Taiwan, or such as
    refusing to block airline flights from Wuhan.

These terms are so horrific that it's almost impossible to believe
them, but that's what leaked documents have shown. ( "15-Jan-19 World View -- Kenya's leaked BRI contract reveals shocking China debt trap details"
)

So we're seeing this time after time in every CCP transaction. When
the CCP joins an international organization like the United Nations or
World Trade Organization (WTO) or World Health Organization (WHO),
they feel no obligation to meet their commitments, although they
demand that everyone else do so. They view these organizations as a
means to control the barbarians, as a farmer might use electrified
fences to control his pack of mules.

In every CCP transaction, it's always the same. The subsidized Huawei
devices will control networks in any country that uses them. Joining
the WHO let China use them to spread the virus worldwide. The Belt
and Road Initiative (BRI) gives the CCP control of many governments
and infrastructure in Asia and Africa.

Doing business with the CCP means selling your soul to the devil. The
CCP never apologizes for errors. Never concedes that they made a
mistake. Never agrees to reparations for any damage they do. The CCP
is a criminal organization which, if it were an individual acting the
same way, would be called psychopathic. This is not going to end
well.

Let's not forget to mention that the CCP has arrested, imprisoned and
enslaved millions of Muslim Uighurs and Kazakhs, something that was
supposed to be "Never again!!" after Hitler did it. And the CCP has
also illegal annexed the South China Sea, similar to something that
Hitler also did. These are the kinds of people that we're dealing
with in Xi Jinping and the CCP thugs.

And it's always important to make it clear that we're distinguishing
between the CCP thugs and the ordinary Chinese people. The ordinary
Chinese people are wonderful, whether they're in China, in Hong Kong
or in Taiwan. In fact, the Chinese people in Taiwan have a standard
of living several times better than the Chinese people in China,
because Taiwan is a free market democracy, and China is a Fascist
thugocracy.

****
**** Generational Theory: Is nuclear war with China inevitable?
****


The following discussion goes beyond news reporting to Generational
Dynamics theory on the question of whether we're headed to nuclear war
with China. It's intended to be read by those interested in better
understanding of generational theory.

We can look at the big picture without referring to generational
theory. There were two world wars in the last century, plus massive
additional wars in Asia, the Mideast, Africa, and pretty much in every
region of the world. Furthermore, there have been massive wars in
every continent, in every nation, in every region of the world in
every century for millennia. There is absolutely no reason why this
century should be any different, and several reasons why this century
should be worse. So from that point of view, it's 100% certain that
there will be one or two world wars in this century, plus additional
massive wars in every region of the world, and so a war between the
US and China is inevitable. Only the timing is in question.

I've probably written several million words on the differences between
crisis and non-crisis wars, and I won't attempt to repeat that here.
But it's important to understand that crisis wars are the worst wars,
and, in the words of one person, it would be necessary to "reboot the
culture" during the Recovery Era following a crisis war, particular
within the nation or society that lost the war. A generational crisis
war is extremely horrific and traumatizing to all sides, and typically
the population becomes anxious and desperate to make sure that it
never happens again, and some sort of "rebooting" would not be
unusual.

I get asked a lot of questions, and I try to answer all of them, based
on three conditions: I have to have the time, it has to be an
interesting subject, and I have to be in the mood. If those conditions
aren't met, then I usually ask the questioner to do his own research.
This has actually worked out very well, as a number of people have
done their own research, and contributed to the development of
Generational Dynamics.

So I was asked several questions about whether a crisis war is even
possible between nuclear powers in the 21st century, or whether it's
even possible to win a nuclear war.

Of course a nuclear war is winnable -- in the sense that one side or
the other will surrender, even if both sides have huge refugee
problems and multiple cities destroyed by nuclear weapons. And you
can be very certain the US military -- and the military in many other
countries -- are fully prepared to fight a nuclear war, with the
intention of winning it.

With about 200 countries in the world, you can expect crisis wars to
be occurring somewhere at any point in time. There are typically
15-20 wars going on in the world at any given time (not all crisis
wars, of course). However, I recall that in 2004, there was a study
by some Swedish academy that the number of wars at that time was the
lowest on record.

Since the end of World War II, there have been a number of regional
generational crisis wars. For reference, the following is a quick
summary list of some examples that I've written about in the past:

Kenya's Mau-Mau rebellion (1967), Bolivia civil war (1967), Iran/Iraq
war - Great Islamic Revolution (1979-88), Cambodian "Killing Fields"
genocide (Cambodia and Thailand - 1975-79), Sudan war of independence
(1991), Colombia and Venezuela - "La Violencia" or the Colombian
Revolt (1948-1959), Armenian vs Azerbaijan (1989-94), Yemen civil war
(1962-68), Rhodesia civil war - Zimbabwe (1979), Afghanistan civil war
(1991-96), Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) - Kasai region (1960),
Algeria's war of independence from France (1954-62), Cameroon - UPC
Revolt (1956-1960), Ethiopia - Eritrea(1991), Pakistan - India -
Partition war (1947), Bangladesh - East Pakistan - East India (1971),
Rwanda - Burundi - Hutu-Tutsi (1994), Sri Lanka civil war -
Tamil-Sinhalese (2009), Cuba (1960), Vietnam reunification civil war
(1975).

Over the centuries, as transportation, communication and weaponry
technologies improve, nations, societies, and identity groups tend to
grow, with the result that crisis wars tend to merge into clusters.
For convenience, I've referred to two different clusters that I call
the WW I timeline and WW II timeline. Most of the nuclear powers (US,
Britain, France, India, Pakistan, China) were on the WW II timeline.
Russia was on the WW I timeline, with the Bolshevik revolution.

A lot of other countries were on the WW II timeline. Just to pick
some at random, you have South Africa, Egypt, Korea, and Australia.

A lot of countries were on the WW I timeline, particularly in the
Mideast with the collapse of the Russian and Ottoman empires. WW I
was early enough in the century that some countries have had two
crisis wars in the last century. Iran, Syria and Iraq are examples.
Others have been delayed into a Fifth Turning, such as Mexico,
Tunisia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Russia. These Fifth Turning
countries are all very interesting examples to study.

As I said, crisis war clusters tend to merge over the centuries, and
what we're looking at today with WW III is a final merging of the WW I
and WW II timelines.

This leads to the question of how crisis wars start and, in
particular, if the existence of nuclear weapons makes crisis wars less
likely. I've thought a lot about these questions and looked at many
examples, and I haven't been able to find any evidence that nuclear
weapons will make any difference at all.

Let's start with examples of some American non-crisis wars. The
Vietnam war (Vietnam's reunification war) evolved slowly from advisors
to heavier involvement after the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. The Gulf
war occurred after months of debate following Iraq's invasion of
Kuwait. The Iraq war began after years of political haranguing over
Iraq's WMDs. The point is that none of these were rash decisions.
These occurred only after lengthy debate and consideration.

A recent example that I've pointed to often because it's so incredibly
fascinating and almost unbelievable is the 2006 war between Israel and
Hezbollah in Lebanon. On July 12, 2006, some members of the Hezbollah
militia in Lebanon crossed the border and abducted two Israeli
soldiers.

Israel's government went into a state of total panic. Israel's Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert called this "an act of war," and within a few
hours, Israel was mobilized for war. Israel launched the war with no
plan and no objective. Each day, Israel lurched from one plan and
objective to the next, as the previous one failed. In the end, the
war was a disaster for both Israel and Lebanon, and accomplished
nothing except the destruction of a lot of Lebanon's infrastructure.
The war fizzled quickly because Lebanon and Hezbollah were in a
generational Awakening era.

It's really a remarkable example. On July 11, 2006, there was no
thought of war. On July 13, 2006, they were at war. The abduction of
Israeli soldiers was apparently a random act by some Hezbollah
fighters, but that random act on July 12, 2006, was all it took to
trigger a war that might have spiraled into much bigger war, if
Lebanon had been in a highly xenophobic and nationalistic Crisis era.

So my view is that crisis wars start from a panicked reaction to
exactly this kind of random or minor act. If the participants are in
a crisis era, with populations in highly xenophobic and nationalistic
moods, then a random act can quickly spiral into a larger and larger
war, with no planning. World War I began when a high school student
assassinated an Archduke, and it led to the collapse of the Russian
and Ottoman empires.

World War II did not begin with the bombing of Pearl Harbor. It didn't
even begin with the Nazi invasion of Poland.

World War II began in 1937 with the Marco Polo Bridge incident.
I've written about this a number of times, but here's a summary.

The Marco Polo Bridge is about 15 km south of Beijing in China, and
was so named because Marco Polo praised the bridge in the 13th
century. In 1937, both Japan and China were deep into generational
Crisis eras, and the Japanese and Chinese people really hated each
other. On July 7, A small group of Japanese soldiers, stationed near
the bridge, took a roll call and found one soldier missing. The
Japanese accused Chinese soldiers, also stationed near the bridge in
the city of Wanping, of abducting the Japanese soldier. A brief clash
was won by the Japanese. The two sides negotiated a settlement, but
both sides brought in reinforcements. Within a month there was
full-scale war, leading to the Japanese "Rape of Nanking" shortly
thereafter.

And, of course, we always have to mention that the Japanese soldier
missed roll call because he went into the woods to pee, and lost his
way back. So it's not so wrong to say that World War II was triggered
because someone unexpectedly had to pee.

One of the major motivations that Japan had in bombing Pearl Harbor in
1941 was that the US, while officially neutral, was clearly supporting
China in the Japan-China war, and the purpose of bombing Pearl Harbor
was not to make the US a Japanese colony, but rather to prevent the US
from supporting China.

Today the situation is similar to WW II, with the roles of China and
Japan reversed. I didn't call my book "War between China and the US,"
since that's not the major objective of China. I called it "War
between China and Japan." Once again, the Chinese and Japanese people
are highly xenophobic and nationalistic. Once again, the Chinese and
Japanese people really hate each other. The Chinese want revenge for
WW II -- for Japan's invasion of China, for the comfort women, for the
Rape of Nanking, and for the horrific chemical and biological warfare
atrocities committed on Chinese people by Japan's Unit 731. But this
time, the US will be supporting Japan against China, even though the
US may be officially neutral at first.

There are extremely powerful emotions involved here. Most of these
emotions are exhibited by young people who are indifferent to the
catastrophic consequences of a war, in the same way that young people
in the US support Sanders and are completely indifferent to the
catastrophic consequences of his policies.

So, would these extremely powerful emotions between Chinese and
Japanese people be affected by the fact that China and the US are
nuclear powers? I just don't see how. There could be a trivial
incident today, tomorrow or the next day, with a small clash between
China and Japan that spirals into a war because of the massive
nationalism and xenophobia on both sides. Nuclear weapons would have
nothing to do with it, although nuclear weapons would be used as the
war spiraled and progressed.

John Xenakis is author of: "World View: War Between China and Japan:
Why America Must Be Prepared" (Generational Theory Book Series, Book
2), June 2019, Paperback: 331 pages, with over 200 source references,
$13.99 https://www.amazon.com/World-View-Between-Prepared-Generational/dp/1732738637/

Sources:

Related Articles:



KEYS: Generational Dynamics, China, Huawei Technologies,
Chinese Communist Party, CCP,
Taiwan, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd, TSMC,
Wuhan Institute Of Virology, World Health Organization, WHO,
Faust, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Mandate from Heaven,
Belt and Road Initiative, BRI, debt trap diplomacy,
Sri Lanka, Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, Ghana, Zambia, Kenya,
Uighurs, Kazakhs, South China Sea,
Israel, Lebanon, Hezbollah, Ehud Olmert,
Japan, Marco Polo Bridge Incident, Rape of Nanking, Unit 731

Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal

John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe


RE: Generational Dynamics World View - Bob Butler 54 - 05-17-2020

I see both China and the US has made big mistakes in handling COVID 19, so I anticipate a lot of PR noise as each tries to blame the other to distract attention away from their own failings.

Actually starting a conflict is another question. I don’t see the advantage in the US starting a land war in Asia, or China starting a sea war with the US. Neither is really motivated to go against their obvious interest.

From my days writing software for the three letter US government agencies, I wouldn’t be surprised by both countries playing intelligence gathering games like crazy. The accusations against China are likely true enough, but they would be copying tricks used by the US that date to the success at Bentley Park during World War II. Gentlemen do read each other’s mail.


RE: Generational Dynamics World View - John J. Xenakis - 05-17-2020

"There could be a trivial
incident today, tomorrow or the next day, with a small clash between
China and Japan that spirals into a war because of the massive
nationalism and xenophobia on both sides."


RE: Generational Dynamics World View - Bob Butler 54 - 05-17-2020

Clearly you are living in the past, refusing to acknowledge the age boundary. We'll see whose predictions come true as the turning boundary is reached. Even then I suspect that you will not admit being wrong. It typically takes a Civil War Atlanta or World War II Hiroshima for a conservative to admit a mistake in public. Meanwhile, I'll just correct your more obvious mistakes as you make them.


RE: Generational Dynamics World View - John J. Xenakis - 05-17-2020

(05-17-2020, 08:13 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Clearly you are living in the past, refusing to acknowledge the age boundary. We'll see whose predictions come true as the turning boundary is reached. Even then I suspect that you will not admit being wrong. It typically takes a Civil War Atlanta or World War II Hiroshima for a conservative to admit a mistake in public. Meanwhile, I'll just correct your more obvious mistakes as you make them.

Hahahahahaha. You certainly have a sense of humor. Lol!


RE: Generational Dynamics World View - Bob Butler 54 - 05-17-2020

Not much of a defense.  When valid criticisms are raise, the answer is to type lol or idiot?  I presume you are giving no logical answer as you can't.