Originally Posted by
MaxQ
In "Wired" Garrett M. Graff has an essay titled "We are Witnessing the Self-Immolation of a Superpower". Unfortunately, it is behind a paywall.
He lists "6 Pillars "as sources of strength for the USA. As with everything in the real world, to some degree they are all connected.
They are all in various stages of being deliberately destroyed.
He succinctly lays out how unprecedented it is for a nation to consciously dismantle its core sources of strength, power, and influence. All being done simultaneously.
So, agreed. There is not some sort of master-class strategy at work. It is an infantile rage based on flaws and failings in a complex system, developed over 80 plus years, that has provided the USA and much of the world security, wealth, and innovation. Due to it being self-inflicted, it is probably the most astonishingly stupid geopolitical development in modern history.
It reminds me of Mao's Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution all wrapped together, but with even less thought and reflection. A self-inflicted national suicide attempt.
The main difference between Mao's China and todays USA is that the catastrophe that befell China was localized.
What is currently underway will manifest itself as a worldwide contagion, which will greatly magnify the degree of the catastrophe and associated suffering.
Considering Russia's expanded 2022 invasion of Ukraine, I now look upon the hopes at that time of saving the international rules-based order as a lost cause. Russia's defeat in Ukraine will not save what we had, because they are no longer the principal attacker of "The World that Was".
For the sake of Ukraine, Poland and the rest of world, Russian defeat will still be a positive. But it is past the point where other such chaos can be avoided.
Methinks you reverse cause and effect. Example:
https://www.thepharmacist.co.uk/comm...rin-last-week/
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So what does the UK running out of aspirin have to do with anything you ask? It’s a direct refutation of your quote:
He succinctly lays out how unprecedented it is for a nation to consciously dismantle its core sources of strength, power, and influence. All being done simultaneously.
The UK once ruled the waves. The sun never set on the British Empire. They were an industrial giant. They PRODUCED THINGS.
Aspirin isn’t protected by patent. It’s been around since 1899. It’s easy to make. It’s cheap to make. But it is marginally cheaper to make in other countries and ship to England. That was the idea of globalization. It was supposed to increase efficiency by producing things where they could most cheaply be produced. And when it works, it does that. When it works.
But it also creates very involved supply chains and every link in that chain - all those ‘just in time’ supplies and supply chains - become new single point failure modes. Speaking of pharmaceuticals,
in 2019 the US imported 72% of its prescription pharmaceuticals from overseas - mostly from China and India:
https://www.fda.gov/news-events/cong...onomy-10302019
Today it’s upwards of 80 to 90%.
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cha...ts-from-china/
So what happens when a war breaks out between India and China? Hardly unlikely. They’ve fought often before. Or between Pakistan and India only this time it goes nuclear? Because we aren’t just importing cheap drugs, we are exporting the job skills and closing the factories it takes to produce these things. And while both can be resurrected, that is a long lead time process, building both the factory and the job skills to do it.
Eight years ago the US had one plant close and got into a serious shortage of normal saline, used in large quantities in all sorts of surgeries and medications.
https://www.ons.org/11-2017/yes-ther...an-do-about-it
It only really got resolved about 7 months ago.
https://www.aabb.org/news-resources/...aline-shortage
Normal saline ain’t patented. Raw ingredients are water and table salt.the formula is nine grams of salt to a liter of water. Not rocket science certainly, but the sterilization and purification take specialized equipment and a workforce that is PROFICIENT and we had to build both - pretty much from scratch. Piecemeal. During an epidemic.
Redundancy is sometimes necessary. Being internally self sufficient or at least having a backup is sometimes more important than peak efficiency. And you aren’t as tempted to play world’s policeman.