Keep Our Service Free-Donate

Tuesday, August 8, 2017

The Thucydides Trap: Does it Render the US Powerless?


 

Poor Man Survival

Self Reliance tools for independent minded people…


ISSN 2161-5543

A Digest of Urban Survival Resources

 


The Thucydides Trap: Does it Render the US Powerless?

 

   Under former President Obama’s lack of leadership our military strength sank to Reagan-era levels while Russian and Chinese levels rose beyond our capabilities.  This is especially true of our navy.  As I wrote at the beginning of the year, China has been building artificial islands in the North China sea, posing a threat to Japan and other nations in the area and the US, despite promises, is no longer in a position to defend its allies.

 

Many consider the East China Sea as the most dangerous place on the entire planet according to a report posted on NationalInterest.org.  The Chinese wants control of the entire area and there have been numerous instances of military posturing and bluffing which could easily tip into war with Japan and even Viet Nam, Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei.

 

Although the US doesn’t have an official position in these conflicts, it would likely support Japan or the Philippines if drawn into a conflict – it is a very touchy situation that is little reported in the American press.

 

   The Chinese, going back to former President Clinton, stole or were given military technology at record levels which began a race to put it on a par with US military at every level including naval, missile, cyber and space technology.

 

 
 
Both the Chinese and the Russians are better prepared for massive cyberattacks than the US

 

   Tech website Gizmodo reports that the US is playing catch-up, and spending billions to “develop capabilities matching those of China and Russia, establishing military commands for attacking, defending and exploiting the vulnerabilities of electronic communications networks.”

 

“Information warfare combines electronic warfare, cyber-warfare and psy-ops into a single fighting organization, and this will be central to all warfare in the future.”

 

Reports of massive cyber attacks on government agencies and large banks and retailers have become commonplace.  Russia and China are two sources, but there’s no shortage of private hackers from Eastern Europe as well.

 

Chinese forces are very modern and they own large nuclear forces and have far more local assets to repel our navy from the South China Sea than ever before.  Russia’s nuclear arsenal is greater than ours – by one.

 

Russia is also factory testing a tactical electromagnetic combat system that would neutralize America’s electronic warfare capability.  It is claimed the system will protect troops, equipment and factories from air and space attacks by suppressing the guidance systems in US bombs and satellites which would render our so-called smart bombs and drones useless.

 

Both Russia and China are set to deploy a new superweapon, according to the Mitchell Institute.  They hare missiles that strike their targets at many times the speed of sound.  No known US defense can stop them.  They can be seen from a carrier deck as a speck in the distance by the naked eye for an instant before they hit you.

 

The Russian and Chinese military tech has grown in sophistication.  The Russian “Zircon” strike system, for example.  It’s projected to be deployed within six months and is estimated that its warheads go 4,600 MPH and there is no known way to stop them.

 

These hypersonic weapons are being tested by the Chinese as well and we’re playing catch-up says the National Academy of Sciences.  Popular Mechanics says hypersonic missiles are capable of flying five to six times the speed of sound, the missiles will be carried by both aging battlecruisers and new submarines, giving each the ability to quickly kill enemy ships.”

 

US warships can now be shredded like confetti!

 

The Daily Mail quoted the Russian newspaper Pravda as saying the “new Zircon missile would be able to annihilate the new British HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales aircraft carriers [due to launch in 2020] in one fell swoop.

 

The father of Putin’s hypersonic push is Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin who heads the Russian Foundation for Advanced Research Projects and is an ultra-nationalist who also wants the US to return the state of Alaska to Russia!

 

Rogozin says harnessing kinetic power undoes America’s military edge over Russia one and for all.  Imagine a fleet of hypersonic weapons in Chinese and Russian hands?  They could sink our carriers no matter its location or remove US airplanes from the sky in minutes and overwhelm our missile defense systems.  It could even deliver grid-destroying electromagnetic pulse weapons to all major US power generation systems in minutes [rumor has it they have provided this technology to North Korea].

 


This theory of war between China and America is called the Thucydides Trap -


 

Throughout the history of civilization, empires rise and then fall…

Although the final stages of collapse can be rapid and violent, the actual collapse is gradual and occurs over years and decades. Because of gradualism, the collapse is usually imperceptible to the people. It seems only a handful observe the increasing slide of a nation and recognize it for what it is. And no one, it seems, learns from history.

There are several schools of thought as to what precipitates the end of empires. Two years ago Stratfor, the globalist think tank for multinational corporations, posited two of them. Citing the 1987 The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, it pointed out that western powers since 1500 AD all fell after they were drawn into foreign entanglements that forced them to spend more of their wealth for wars. This created underinvestment in domestic needs, sending the country into an economic and social decline that emboldened more enemies. This created a cycle of more war and oppression.

In The Collapse of Complex Societies, author Joseph Tainter suggested that empires collapse following a loss of confidence in the ruling elite and traditional institutions. This idea was echoed in the book, Empire and Civilization by Niall Ferguson.

Do you see this in America today?

I believe both of these are true and would add another. There is a direct connection between debauching of the currency and the moral and social breakdown of society. That has happening in our country as well.  I believe all of this makes our ultimate shakedown a matter of time.

SIDEBAR: What the Sanctions Really Mean for Russia 

Russia and the United States are now in a situation where confrontation can twist in ways that are difficult—and possibly impossible—to forecast
Read it here.

The Globalist Agenda Is Being Met: “To Collapse The United States Internally And Attack It Externally”



Yours for taking back your liberty,

Bruce, the Poor Man

 

A Final Note…

Contributors and subscribers enable the Poor Man Survivor to post 150+ free essays annually. It is for this reason they are Heroes and Heroines of New Media. Without your financial support, the free content would disappear for the simple reason that I cannot keep body and soul together on my meager book sales & ecommerce alone.

Additional Resources

Get the 2017 Consumer Action Handbook


The 2017 edition of the Consumer Action Handbook is finally available. This is the bible of every consumer agency office because it lists most major consumer help agencies and resources, corporate consumer affairs departments, and offers tips on solving your own consumer complaints. Get your free copy today. (You can download a copy or get a hard copy in the mail.)

How much emergency food do you need? »
The amount of food we need changes based on what our goals are. In modern prepping the line between what we need and what we store is blurry. Just because a can of dried fruit has the words, "Emergency Food" on the label does not mean it is the type of food you need in an emergency.  
More »





ULTIMATE TOP 10 SHTF CURRENCY IDEAS! PREPPING FOR ECONOMIC COLLAPSE!


 

 

 

Support our efforts by shopping my storefront…


 

 
A Smoking Frog Feature, Shallow Planet Production

 

2 comments:

Larry said...

VERY scary stuff and it makes so angry that Obama let our military preparedness slide and no one in DC seemed to care-that man is an ass and now he is strutting around with his new-found wealth grinning like a ghetto drug dealer.

Frank said...

Why don't we ever hear about this on the nightly snooze? The Clinton News network doesn't share this. No wonder Americans are in the dark about so much. they do however, share glowing stories about that Clinton wanna-be, Obama, basking in riches after he lined his pockets in DC.