Trump and the US(S) Titanic
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Since the mid-20th century observers have been debating the rise, peak and decline of the United States as the world's leading superpower. In this session, we will go beyond Trumpism to look at the deeper underlying economic, political and social factors that have led up to the current era of US leadership (or lack of), and ask what might be the impact of these changes on the rest of the world, especially Canada. Is the US in decline? What might that ‘look like’ in the years to come? How bad (or good) can it get?
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Trump and the US(S) Titanic
- 1. Trump and the US(S) Titanic
- 2. Who am I? Rosalind Warner, PhD • College Professor of Political Science • Okanagan College • Email: rowarner@okanagan.bc.ca • Twitter: @rwarner23 • Blog: http://rozwarner.com/
- 3. Trump and the US(S) Titanic • Overview • Top Heavy Systems • How Decline Happens • Evidence for Decline • Future Scenarios
- 4. Trump and the US(S) Titanic Disaster strikes…
- 5. Trump and the US(S) Titanic •The Date? June 17th 2017, 1:30am •The Location? South China Sea •The Ship? $1.8billion destroyer USS Fitzgerald…
- 6. Trump and the US(S) Titanic SS Titanic USS Fitzgerald
- 7. Trump and the US(S) Titanic “Projecting American power and values across the globe required gray hulls on the horizon.” ~Navy Secretary Ray Mabus
- 9. How Decline Happens in Top-Heavy Systems
- 10. It starts with hegemony
- 11. US would gain… • Top currency status • Set the rules for the other players • No challenges from allies …in return, US would provide: • Security guarantees • Support for UN system & EU • Permission for some markets to remain out of its reach The art of the deal….A simple ‘deal’ was struck in 1945
- 12. How Decline Happens in Top-Heavy Systems Hegemony maintains itself through consensus and legitimacy (deal- making) …hegemonic breakdown happens when there is a decline of consensus and an increase in the use of force to maintain the system
- 13. What Does this Decline of Consensus Look Like? …hegemonic breakdown happens when there is a decline of consensus and dominance of use of force to maintain the system At the Centre
- 14. …hegemonic breakdown happens when there is a decline of consensus and dominance of use of force to maintain the system At the Centre
- 15. …hegemonic breakdown happens when there is a decline of consensus and dominance of use of force to maintain the system At the Margins
- 16. At the Margins
- 17. What Does this Decline of Consensus Look Like? Hegemony maintains itself through consensus and legitimacy
- 19. Where is the Evidence of Decline?
- 20. Where is the Evidence of Decline?
- 21. Where is the Evidence of Decline? Michael Beckley
- 22. Where is the Evidence of Decline? The 5% proposition “an insurance conglomerate protected by a large, standing army” ~Ezra Klein
- 23. Where is the Evidence of Decline?Where is the Evidence of Decline?
- 29. Spheres of Influence (gratuitous kittens)
- 31. Cascading Collapse (of Top-Heavy Systems)
- 32. Thank You for Listening!
Editor's Notes
- Alexander Vaughan tumbled from his bunk onto the floor of his sleeping quarters, the shock of cold, salty water snapped him awake. He struggled to his feet and felt a torrent rushing past his thighs. Around him, people were screaming. “Water on deck. Water on deck!” Vaughan fumbled for his black plastic glasses and strained to see through the darkness of the windowless compartment. Underneath the surface of the tidy world had come undone. Cramped bunk beds called coffin racks tilted at crazy angles. Beige metal footlockers bobbed through the water. Shoes, clothes, mattresses, blocked the narrow passageways of the sleeping compartment. In the dim light of emergency lanterns, Vaughan glimpsed people leaping from their beds. Others fought through the flotsam to reach the exit ladder next to Vaughan’s bunk on the port side of the ship. Tens of thousands of gallons of seawater were flooding into the compartment from a gash that had ripped through the steel hull like it was wrapping paper. As the water rose past their ankles, their waists, their chests, the people fought their way to the port side ladder and waited, shivering in the swirling debris, for their chance to escape. Suddenly, the ship lurched to the right, knocking people from their feet. Some slipped beneath the surface. Others disappeared into the darkness of a common bathroom, carried by the force of water rushing to fill every available space. Vaughan waited until he was alone at the bottom of the ladder. When the water reached his neck, he climbed out the 29-inch-wide escape hatch. Safe, they peered back down the hole. In the 90 seconds since the crash, the water had almost reached the top of the compartment. Now they faced a choice. Training demanded that they seal the escape hatch to prevent water from flooding the rest of the ship. But they knew that bolting it down would consign any people still alive to death. As hundreds of tons of water flowed into the ship, it began to list, and they had a choice to make.
- Lots of parallels between the Fitzgerald and the Titanic… Both resulted from a collision at sea in the dark – for the Fitzgerald, it was not an iceburg but the ACX Crystal, a massive freighter much larger than the destroyer, but one which was easily detectable as it was broadcasting its location to a worldwide navigation network In both cases, both captains had made crucial errors, including high speed in the dark, with insufficient watches on the lookout for hazards, and in the case of the Fitzgerald, a radar system that was faulty and for which the crew was untrained. To keep the screen updated, a sailor had to punch a button a thousand times an hour. The ship’s primary navigation system was run by 17-year-old software. In both cases, early reports blamed the captain and crew for missing the danger In both cases, later reports, including this piece of writing by ProPublica, revealed much more serous problems that went well beyond leadership to conclude that there were fundamental systems flaws---in the case of the Titanic, we know that the design of the hull had been compromised by crucial assumptions based on perceptions of size, unsinkability, and hull structure, as well as cost of construction We also know that other factors – including the arrogance and hubris of the leadership of the white Start Line and its owner J Pierpont Morgan, also made disaster inevitable for the Titanic, and for the Fitzgerald
- https://features.propublica.org/navy-accidents/uss-fitzgerald-mccain-crash-victims-japan/#157750 What does the USS Fitzgerald tell us about the US part? At the system level – most far-flung sphere of influence in history, US ships cruise the world’s waterways, enforcing the peace where necessary, utilizing the strategic advantage of their reach to remind enemies and friends alike of their unsurpassed power 800 military bases in 70 countries MacArthur’s Navy – 7th Fleet – over the last few years the focus of the Fleet was shipbuilding and fleet expansion---to project American power Increasing demands and requests on the Navy— Second World War “MacArthur’s Navy,” battled across the Pacific under the direction of the American general to retake the Philippines. Its modern incarnation is based in Yokosuka — the Navy’s largest overseas installation. The historic base lies at the mouth of Tokyo Bay, near where Commodore Matthew C. Perry arrived with gunboats in 1853 to force the isolated island nation to trade with the U.S. The 7th Fleet encompasses about 20,000 sailors and some 70 ships and submarines. Its commander is responsible for an area with 36 countries and half the world’s population. At the Pentagon, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, had taken on a personal mission to plow money into buying new ships while its current fleet was falling dangerously into disrepair. Mabus, appointed in 2009, served the entire two terms of the Obama administration, leaving just months before the crashes. The new purchases would be financed by efficiency cuts, using smaller crews, and relying on new technologies to do the work sailors once did. One of the ‘efficiencies’ demanded of Navy crews was to eliminate a requirement for ship captains to post lookouts on both sides of ships, a cut that would later prove crucial when the Fitzgerald’s crew failed to see a fast-closing cargo ship until it was too late. “Only a nitwit of the highest order would continue down this path without seeing if it’s working,” he said.
- First slowly, then unimaginably fast…Ernest Hemingway, how did you go bankrupt? Two ways: gradually and then suddenly.
- The biggest thing about hegemony is that it is based on deal-making…
- At the centre----It looks like serious problems between the hegemon and its erstwhile allies – and between alliances Latest split is over the Iran nuclear deal – Germans refusing to cooperate on economic sanctions against Iran after the US pulled out, affecting the EU and Brexit – german parts used in the manufacture of british fighter jets sold to Saudi as part of multibillion dollar arms deals—British looking at finding new parts sourcing to fulfill their Saudi contracts “Two years of Mr. Trump, and a majority of French and Germans now trust Russia and China more than the United States.”
- Trump’s latest call to have US allies ‘pick up the bill’ for hosting US troops- as if they haven’t been doing that already for years---is adding fuel to the fire and creating opportunities for the Russians and Chines to exploit
- What does this look like at the margins? – simmering disputes among countries at the margins are emboldened to attack their longtime enemies On February 14th More than 30 Indian paramilitary soldiers have been killed in a bomb attack by militants on their convoy - the deadliest attack on Indian forces in disputed Kashmir for years. Pakistan-based Islamist group Jaish-e Mohammad said it carried out a suicide bombing.
- It also looks like strange bedfellows and new alliances – India is pivotal to the region, as is Saudi Arabia. Since the killing of Khassoggi, Saudi arabia has been on a charm offensive in the region – cozying up to both Pakistan and India. Perhaps a longer game involving resistance to Chinese and Russian regional domination through Syria and the Belt and Road Initiative, which seeks to bring India and Pakistan into the Chinese fold
- http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/12/17/international-relations-experts-and-u-s-public-agree-america-is-less-respected-globally/?amp=1&__twitter_impression=true Most IR experts and American public think the US is less respected today than in the past, and agree that the decline in status is a major problem
- http://time.com/5515195/united-states-slips-corruption-index/
- most Americans believe China is already the world’s dominant economic power.
- With 5 percent of the world’s population, the U.S. commands 25 percent of the world economy, 35 percent of global innovation and 35 percent of world military spending. It has more than 60 allies, and has leading positions in key international institutions. No great power in history has ever enjoyed this large of a power gap over its rivals. U.S. stocks have outperformed the rest of the world this decade, and that sort of trend rarely lasts. The current recovery is now the second-longest in history, at 3% annual growth as a result of recent stimulus, the economy seems robust, and employment is near full capacity --- so what’s the problem?
- The 5% proposition says that any great power has around a 5% margin (GDP) which can mean the difference between maintenance and collapse - 5% is a key number in a variety of ways During the 1950s, Britain liquidated its vast empire by diverting that imperial 5 percent to domestic social programs, and found its last imperial adventure at Suez brought its currency to the brink of collapse. The US spends about 5% spent on military – it spend 5% of GDP on its deficit spending -Medicare and Medicaid spending is currently around 5% of GDP, that is expected to jump to 12% in the next 20-30 years -Trump is currently asking in his budget proposal, for a 5% spending cut across all non-military departments to, among other things, help fund his border wall –$1.4b/day spent on debt service, 10 times more than the next major industrialized country does. As interest rates rise and more Americans reach the age of collecting Social Security and Medicare, the federal government will be unable to fund much else. Ezra Klein has quipped that the American government is “an insurance conglomerate protected by a large, standing army,” and that is becoming truer every day. While the United States continues to outperform other advanced economies, the “rise of the rest” also continues, with China, the world’s second-largest economy, growing at three times the pace of the United States. A quarter-century ago, China accounted for less than 2 percent of the global economy. Today, it is 15 percent and rising. China boasts nine of the world’s 20 most valuable tech companies.
- The ballooning federal debt is mirrored in the rapid expansion of consumer debt -
- the CenterPoint Intermodal freight terminal opened in 2002, people in Elwood, Illinois, were excited. The plan was simple: shipping containers, arriving by train from the country’s major ports, were offloaded onto trucks at the facility, then driven to warehouses scattered about the area, where they were emptied, their contents stored. From there, those products—merchandise for Wal-Mart, Target, and Home Depot—were loaded into semis, and trucked to stores all over the country. Goods in, goods out. First, to help seal the deal, the town had to offer the developer, CenterPoint, a sweetener: total tax abatement for two decades, until 2022. Second, the town would have to put up with an influx of truck traffic. In a few short years after the Intermodal opened, Elwood became the largest inland port in North America. Billions of dollars in goods flowed through the area annually. Just four years ago Amazon didn’t even have one facility in the region; now, with five fulfillment centers, it’s the county’s largest employer. Growth, once arithmetic, became exponential. Plans were made to build a new facility, this one bigger than the original Intermodal, with room for some 35 million additional square feet of industrial space. The world’s most profitable retailers flocked to this stretch of barren country, while the headline unemployment rate plunged. A staggering $623 billion worth of freight traversed Will County infrastructure in 2015 alone, roughly equivalent to 3.5 percent of the U.S.’s total GDP. Wal-Mart set up three warehouses in Will County alone, including its two largest national facilities, both located in Elwood. Samsung, Target, Home Depot, IKEA, and others all moved in. Will County is now home to some 300 warehouses. Instead of abundant full-time work, a regime of partial, precarious employment set in. Temp agencies flourished, but no restaurants, hotels, or grocery stores ever came, save for the recent addition of a dollar store. The county is home to 99 temp agencies in all—one of the highest concentrations of staffing agencies in the country. Tens of thousands of semis rumbled through Will County every day, wreaking havoc on the infrastructure. And as the town of Elwood scrambled to pave its potholes, its inability to collect taxes from the facilities plunged it into more than $30 million in debt. According to the Will County Center for Economic Development, at least 25,000 tractor trailers a day come through the Intermodals. That amounts to three million containers annually, carrying $65 billion worth of goods. “94 percent of the net employment growth in the U.S. economy from 2005 to 2015 appears to have occurred in alternative work arrangements,” which include temp workers, on-call workers, independent contractors, and freelancers. Between 2010 and 2014, Mcdonald, he worked at the Wal-Mart facility in Elwood. There, he unloaded trucks and pallets, everything from light inventory, like artificial Christmas trees, to the unwieldy, like trampolines. That distinction was important, because McDonald, like many others, was paid not by the hour, but by the truckload. For 999 pieces unloaded, “you’d get $45, split between two people,” he told me. Small objects could be unloaded in an hour or two, but bulkier items could take three to five hours. Despite research indicating that tax incentives rarely motivate corporate relocation, such deals are being doled out at record rates, tripling since 1990. This year, the town of Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin (population 26,000), famously borrowed hundreds of millions of dollars to help bankroll a $760 million incentive package to Foxconn, from which they wouldn’t break even for some 30 years. Smaller, but no less ridiculous, deals pervade—in 2016, a town in Maryland offered Marriott $62 million to move its headquarters just five miles down the road.
- Not only is China’s economy likely to surpass America’s in 2030, but it already has nearly half the world’s new patents, the most formidable array of supercomputers on the planet, and the best educated younger generation who will propel its military, industry, and technology to world leadership by 2030. While the U.S. possesses a conventional military advantage over China that is not likely to evaporate overnight, China has begun taking steps to challenge American preeminence in new realms of warfare. And the Chinese advances are directed at areas likely to be most important in the 21st century: cyberspace and outer-space. A growing educational gap between Chinese and American students in key STEM research fields means that a divergence in talent may place the U.S. at a disadvantage. China has been moving ahead with plans to connect the Eurasian continent through Chinese infrastructure and transit links, an ambitious endeavor named “One Belt, One Road” (also known as the Silk Road Initiative), an economic and political strategy that would reorient large swaths of the developing world around a Chinese metropole. Partly as a consequence of so many self-inflicted losses, China, Russia, and Iran have all mounted growing challenges to American hegemony in recent years, contesting the tenets of the U.S.-enforced order in the South China Sea, eastern Europe and the Middle East, respectively. Russia has successfully annexed territory and asserted its influence along its periphery, in places like Ukraine, while China has moved ahead with plans to put the economically-vital South China Sea region under its control.
- Because of feedback effects, a large structure may collapse when just one of the elements that compose them fails. That may lead to the failure of the elements that surround it. These, in turn, cause the failure of other elements of the system, and so it goes. The result is what we call an “avalanche” and, as Seneca said, “ruin is rapid”. Seneca himself would probably have agreed with this concept: he was deeply involved in the Stoic philosophy. As a good Stoic, he knew that we must always be prepared for the future, knowing full well that ruin can come upon us at any moment. This is true for individuals as well as for an entire society. He himself experienced a “rapid ruin” when his former pupil, Emperor Nero, accused him of treason and ordered him to commit suicide. Seneca had no other choice but to comply. All the harbingers of collapse are visible: crumbling infrastructure; chronic underemployment and unemployment; the indiscriminate use of lethal force by police; political paralysis and stagnation; an economy built on the scaffolding of debt; nihilistic mass shootings in schools, universities, workplaces, malls, concert venues and movie theaters; opioid overdoses that kill some 64,000 people a year; an epidemic of suicides; unsustainable military expansion; gambling as a desperate tool of economic development and government revenue; the capture of power by a tiny, corrupt clique; censorship; the physical diminishing of public institutions ranging from schools and libraries to courts and medical facilities; The rise of fake news….