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The geographic advantage of the United States - sbarrera - 04-17-2020
This is a great historical analysis of how favorable geography made the rise of the United States as a superpower inevitable.
https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/geopolitics-united-states-part-1-inevitable-empire
Excerpt:
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Like nearly all of the peoples of North and South America, most Americans are not originally from the territory that became the United States. They are a diverse collection of peoples primarily from a dozen different Western European states, mixed in with smaller groups from a hundred more. All of the New World entities struggled to carve a modern nation and state out of the American continents. Brazil is an excellent case of how that struggle can be a difficult one. The United States falls on the opposite end of the spectrum.
The American geography is an impressive one. The Greater Mississippi Basin together with the Intracoastal Waterway has more kilometers of navigable internal waterways than the rest of the world combined. The American Midwest is both overlaid by this waterway and is the world's largest contiguous piece of farmland. The U.S. Atlantic Coast possesses more major ports than the rest of the Western Hemisphere combined. Two vast oceans insulated the United States from Asian and European powers, deserts separate the United States from Mexico to the south, while lakes and forests separate the population centers in Canada from those in the United States. The United States has capital, food surpluses and physical insulation in excess of every other country in the world by an exceedingly large margin. So like the Turks, the Americans are not important because of who they are, but because of where they live.
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RE: The geographic advantage of the United States - sbarrera - 04-18-2020
This quote from the article summarizes the U.S. grand strategy of the Millennial saeculum (1945-now). This strategy is being underminded by the current administration. The administration is doing this, I believe, as a 4T response to the perception that grew over the 3T that this arrangement is no longer serving the American interest. The economic arrangement of Bretton Woods has caused too much painful disruption (job loss, depressed wages), and the security arrangement is seens as needlessly costly since there is no longer the threat of the Soviet Union.
Quote:But Bretton Woods was about more than currency regimes and international institutions; its deeper purpose lay in two other features that are often overlooked. The United States would open its markets to participating states' exports while not requiring reciprocal access for its own. In exchange, participating states would grant the United States deference in the crafting of security policy. NATO quickly emerged as the organization through which this policy was pursued.
RE: The geographic advantage of the United States - David Horn - 04-19-2020
(04-18-2020, 10:33 AM)sbarrera Wrote: This quote from the article summarizes the U.S. grand strategy of the Millennial saeculum (1945-now). This strategy is being underminded by the current administration. The administration is doing this, I believe, as a 4T response to the perception that grew over the 3T that this arrangement is no longer serving the American interest. The economic arrangement of Bretton Woods has caused too much painful disruption (job loss, depressed wages), and the security arrangement is seens as needlessly costly since there is no longer the threat of the Soviet Union.
Quote:But Bretton Woods was about more than currency regimes and international institutions; its deeper purpose lay in two other features that are often overlooked. The United States would open its markets to participating states' exports while not requiring reciprocal access for its own. In exchange, participating states would grant the United States deference in the crafting of security policy. NATO quickly emerged as the organization through which this policy was pursued.
I think Millennials will craft a new relationship with the world, where the US is no longer guarantor of everything. What that will look like is hard to know, and probably impossible to reverse if it goes bad.