More on What Comes Next

I have written before about the possibility of a future world with alliances that look far different than those we are familiar with today.  Today, global power is centered on an Anglo-American pole, with institutions built primarily after the Second World War and driven by the victorious US government.  As an aside, a war culminating a fifty-year effort to transition the central tool of elite control from Great Britain to the United States.

In the intervening years, various actions have taken place with the intent of bringing further regions under this control.  Wars in Southeast Asia, central Asia, and the Middle East; moves to expand the EU and NATO into Eastern Europe; a formal US military presence in Africa.

However, Russia and China do not seem to be playing along.  It has long struck me that political and elite leaders in these countries would much prefer plucking their own sheep as opposed to sharing that pleasure with the west.  Most recently, Russia seems to have pulled one over on the west regarding Ukraine.  Further, Putin seems like a voice of reason on issues such as Syria and government spying (Snowden).

For various reasons, it seems to me a shift is quite possible – and in the not-too-distant future, “a new alliance – one that includes Russia, China, Germany, Japan, and possibly Australia.”

To prevent this shift, many see war as possible – although most commentaries are presented in terms of war as a distraction from the financial-calamity-that-cannot-be-solved-and-will-only-worsen.  Ultimately, this means a war between the United States and China (as any lessor war will not prove to be a distraction from the financial calamity, nor will a lessor war make possible the integration of China under western control).

Paul Craig Roberts recently wrote one such piece (h/t Ed Steer):

The fatal war for humanity is the war with Russia and China toward which Washington is driving the US and Washington’s NATO and Asian puppet states.

This would certainly be a fatal war for humanity, as it runs the risk of becoming a nuclear war – and any one of the three major players has an arsenal powerful enough to turn the earth’s surface into an uninhabitable moonscape for countless centuries.

And it is precisely for this reason that I do not envision such a possibility – an overt war between and among such nuclear super-powers – except by accident.  The elite of the west gain nothing by this and stand to lose everything.  Of what good is it to the elite to either a) be dead, and their bloodline with them, or b) live in a fallout-proof bunker for the next few centuries?

The elite will take a step back from their grand schemes before they make this choice of overt war amongst nuclear armed super-powers.

But this is secondary to my main point; in the very last paragraph of the aforementioned Paul Craig Roberts piece is found the following gem:

Germany alone could save the world from war while simultaneously serving its own interests. All Germany has to do is to exit the EU and NATO. The alliance would collapse, and its fall would terminate Washington’s hegemonic ambition.

This will eventually happen, along with Germany turning to the east for alliance; there are too many reasons for this to happen, and not enough reasons for it not to happen.  In the meantime, German politicians don’t want to take the brunt of the blame for the occurrence of one of the first necessary steps – the breakdown of the EU and the Euro.  They know that time is on their side; this will break down from its own weight soon enough.

After this?