The Coming Competency Crisis, How to Decolonize Britain, Europe's Political Stupor, Who is Siding With Israel at The Hague?, All the James Bond Movies Ranked
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No way Britain will be "decolonized". Too much cultural and historical links with the US for that to ever happen. Same with the rest of the Anglosphere. As long as early 20th century levels of communication and transportation technology exist, these regions will remain American vassals.
The rest of Europe on the other hand is more likely to chart its own path. If a US President ever has the courage to withdraw troops from Germany, blow up all 10 aircraft carriers, and salvage all the F-22s for scrap metal, European countries will actually function like sovereign states again. The above example is dramatic, but the US government's own budgetary issues might force it to reduce its military strength and the competency crisis could mean the remaining military is not all that effective. This could also have the effect of continental Europe acting more independent.
It's so easy to directly link DEI to Jewish quotas from the interwar period. In Hungary, we learn about ours in school, as the starting point to the Holocaust:
"The Numerus Clausus Act was introduced in 1920, under the government of Pál Teleki. It was said that the ethnic makeup of student bodies must meet the ethnic rate of population."
I believe DEI is one good example where arguments are completely useless against zealotry. For a believer, letting a plane crash from time to time is a small price for adhering to dogma.
"No country has shown more deference to American foreign policy objectives than the Brits (see: Iraq wars, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, and now Israel vs. Hamas), and no country tries to portray itself punching well above its weight as they constantly try to do"
I like to remind Brits that for their continued loyalty, the US recognizes Israel as their greatest ally.
The German industrial elite continues to pursue a parallel foreign policy to their state/media. If you only focus on that layer of international relations, Germany and Hungary is a love story.
This elite managed to dodge the consequences of Germany's servitude to the American empire, managed to gently push back at every opportunity and exploit every crack. Since NS2 it finds itself, for the first time, suffocating.
This elite is a powerful entity both at home and abroad, and very quiet, or has been, so far.
An American parallel would be Blinken vs Tim Apple, when it comes to Beijing.
The author and commentator (cut and paster) ignore the fact that American is born from British principles of Locke, Smith, etc. It is no surprise that their world visions and methods of power projection are very similar.
The author also neglects the cultural and familiar ties that bind across multi-generations. The US makes Winston Churchill a national hero. JFK and Clinton were educated in Britain. Cary Grant, Charlie Chaplin, the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Harry Potter, etc form a transatlantic cultural fabric.
The author also misunderstands Russia in the context of Anglo-American relations. No country has done more to appease Russian elites before the Ukraine invasion than the UK. A walk through Mayfair or a look at elite boarding schools show London’s roll in recruiting and laundering the capital and reputation of Russian oligarchs. The volte face on this laundering was from public opinion in the face of Ukraine, not US dictat (e.g. Chelsea supporters).
Next, when strategic objectives vary, the countries have different military objectives. Syria and the Falklands are a notable example.
The author also fails to understand the basic history for the decline of British military power. The USA set out to break and inherit relevant parts of the British empire. For example, territory in Diego Garcia, Jamaica, Newfoundland, Bahamas was given to the US in the “Destroyers for Bases” deal. This was specifically engineered by the US to screw Britain in the long run.
It’s manifestly true the US is top dog and all nations are subservient to it. Indeed, China can’t even unify its own nation / invade China without the US’s approval. I’m not sure how unique the UK is in this context.
I don’t understand his points on “British yapping”. If he’s referring to the Red Sea, the author would do well to remember the UK has been the guarantor of Red Sea maritime traffic for 300 years and has had continuous presence in the region since. Would the world be better or worse off if Europe had no short maritime access to Asia?
Finally, where is this lingering hatred of the British? You are using their language, using their philosophy, and using their technology? Why do West Indians, Pakistanis, Indians, Malayas, Nigerians, Ghanaians, etc, continue to export their children to the UK and become British in increasingly record numbers? Indeed, the British government is one of the most diverse in the world.
Does America have a huge influence in the world? Yes. Do open and progressive forward facing countries like the UK, Denmark, Netherlands, Norway see this most? Yes. Does the US have an outsized impact on the UK given we were all once part of the same country and share a common history? Yes.
You mean to tell me that natural disasters and systems collapses are going to be reduced to dating profile axioms? Why did this happen? It's complicated. ;)
Most European states have never been truly sovereign.
First, with the exception of the UK, Spain, Russia, France...most current national states are only 200 years old and an artificial construct to resist French or British hegemony. From the Seven Years war onwards, Prussia, Austria, Illyrians, most of Germany and Italian kingdoms/duchies have not been able to exercise any sovereign strategic power without the consent of Britain, France or Russia. Indeed, when modern nation states attempted to exert sovereign power without hegemony, the result was self interested anarchy (WWI) or subjugation (WWII).
So there is no linear or clear history of sovereign European states, with Spain, Russia, Britain and France as notable exceptions.
I only have one serious note - Lepold should be Leopold. See below.
By the 1960s, the systematic selection for competence came into direct conflict with the political imperatives of the civil rights movement
[Comment: I wonder whether this was partly due to new imperatives of a generation selected and successful due to meritocracy now facing the prospect of that success not being able to be transmitted to their progeny exactly due to meritocracy, so they were creating loopholes, and redefinitions...I wonder if the more intense the meritocracy the more short lived it must be as the winners have a new problem of handing on their privilege to more average regress-to-mean children]
No country has shown more deference to American foreign policy objectives than the Brits (see: Iraq wars, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, and now Israel vs. Hamas),
[Comment: given the UK didnt go to Vietnam, and Australia has fought in every war the US requested since WWII, I think AU at least gets an honorable mention in the USA deference olympics...Australia also LOVES to play the punching above weight line as well, in exactly those terms. But this game of being deputy regional sherriff can actually be quite a rational one - one gets all the benefits of the big power, while getting enough regional autonomy to enjoy some freedom. And in the absence of any other spectacular vision of how to live or structure one's society - the big questions of liberalism, religion, tech, hedonism, passage of regimes have been settled, why not? Why reject shopping malls as the end of history if all you are going to do is have high streets, malls, covered-mall arcades, and eventually functional equivalents of shopping malls?]
Everything Aris Roussinos says in his witheringly contemptuous assessment of 'The Special Relationship' is true. But it makes me (a Brit) want to just flag up the one good thing that has happened in the UK political landscape since WW2....Margaret Thatcher. Yes 'The Special Relationship' was already delusional in her time but her extraordinary charisma did - at least for a time - make it mean something and be not entirely an embarrassing joke. "Margaret Thatcher inspired the admiration of tens of millions around the world. By bizarre contrast she remains - for large numbers of the progressive-minded among her own countrymen and women - a hate figure." Which says it all about the collapse of the British metaphorical backbone. https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/mrs-thatcher-and-the-good-life
If Turbo America makes a meritocratic turn, would this necessarily benefit anyone within the US?
The US might choose to simply recruit the best from the global pool, leaving the US with a wholly foreign professional and managerial class. Turbo America would end up like Egypt under the Mamelukes which had a governmental and military elite of Turkish, Balkans and Caucasian origin and a mostly Levantine commercial elite.
"So the “debate” that the author wants to see is really just him wanting Classical Liberalism to return to the fore and not actual diversity of thought and opinion?
Shit essay, I apologize for sharing it."
You take what you get nowadays, it's a step in the right direction. I keep track of "Classical Liberals" in Hungary who are critical of Hegemonic Liberalism. I need one hand.
They are, of course, labelled as traitors and proto-fascist collaborators by the colonial comprador bourgeoisie.
Meritocracy of any kind is only established when elites face either the threat of revolution from below or invasion from without. The soporific social peace established by consumer capitalism and the relative calm of post-Cold War hegemony removed any urgency from the equation, enabling the excesses of DEI to mount. Now that social peace is breaking down at home and inter-state competition heating up America needs to reset the system.
Niccolo is dead right about the time frame. America has a little bit of time left to adjust though I am not sure that it has a full twenty years.
The weakness of a lot of thinking about the competency crisis is the assumption that the regime is even aiming for optimal results. It isn't. The regime is aiming for internal stability. Meritocracy is potentially very disruptive indeed.
The Bond listicle: I find the otherwise cheery author's constant tiptoeing around ideological landmines and the guideline-abiding excuses that must be stated up front for the crime of being such a fan girl to potentially "controversial" content sadly oppressive.
Save Olivia Rutigliano from the Bond villain who put an explosive collar on her!
British decolonization will be vigorously resisted by the UK elite because such a thing would risk cutting them off from access to the sinecures and opportunities (both corporate and NGO) currently available to loyal US clients. Neither Russia nor China can hope to compete with the US in this regard.
I was going to ask American commenters about the reasons for the decline in American infrastructure, but then I found this in Wikipedia(*) :
"some motorists thought that bridge tolls could more than double (to $12-$15 for automobiles, eastbound only), rising to those of New York City's Hudson River crossings. However, the state passed legislation freezing the toll on the bridge at $5 through 2020 in its 2016 legislative session."
Click the like button at the top or the bottom of the page to like this entry. Use the share and/or re-stack buttons to share this across social media. Leave a comment if the mood strikes you to do so...and don't forget to subscribe if you haven't done so already.
No way Britain will be "decolonized". Too much cultural and historical links with the US for that to ever happen. Same with the rest of the Anglosphere. As long as early 20th century levels of communication and transportation technology exist, these regions will remain American vassals.
The rest of Europe on the other hand is more likely to chart its own path. If a US President ever has the courage to withdraw troops from Germany, blow up all 10 aircraft carriers, and salvage all the F-22s for scrap metal, European countries will actually function like sovereign states again. The above example is dramatic, but the US government's own budgetary issues might force it to reduce its military strength and the competency crisis could mean the remaining military is not all that effective. This could also have the effect of continental Europe acting more independent.
It's so easy to directly link DEI to Jewish quotas from the interwar period. In Hungary, we learn about ours in school, as the starting point to the Holocaust:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_quota
"The Numerus Clausus Act was introduced in 1920, under the government of Pál Teleki. It was said that the ethnic makeup of student bodies must meet the ethnic rate of population."
I believe DEI is one good example where arguments are completely useless against zealotry. For a believer, letting a plane crash from time to time is a small price for adhering to dogma.
"No country has shown more deference to American foreign policy objectives than the Brits (see: Iraq wars, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, and now Israel vs. Hamas), and no country tries to portray itself punching well above its weight as they constantly try to do"
I like to remind Brits that for their continued loyalty, the US recognizes Israel as their greatest ally.
The German industrial elite continues to pursue a parallel foreign policy to their state/media. If you only focus on that layer of international relations, Germany and Hungary is a love story.
This elite managed to dodge the consequences of Germany's servitude to the American empire, managed to gently push back at every opportunity and exploit every crack. Since NS2 it finds itself, for the first time, suffocating.
This elite is a powerful entity both at home and abroad, and very quiet, or has been, so far.
An American parallel would be Blinken vs Tim Apple, when it comes to Beijing.
Re: Britain
The author and commentator (cut and paster) ignore the fact that American is born from British principles of Locke, Smith, etc. It is no surprise that their world visions and methods of power projection are very similar.
The author also neglects the cultural and familiar ties that bind across multi-generations. The US makes Winston Churchill a national hero. JFK and Clinton were educated in Britain. Cary Grant, Charlie Chaplin, the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Harry Potter, etc form a transatlantic cultural fabric.
The author also misunderstands Russia in the context of Anglo-American relations. No country has done more to appease Russian elites before the Ukraine invasion than the UK. A walk through Mayfair or a look at elite boarding schools show London’s roll in recruiting and laundering the capital and reputation of Russian oligarchs. The volte face on this laundering was from public opinion in the face of Ukraine, not US dictat (e.g. Chelsea supporters).
Next, when strategic objectives vary, the countries have different military objectives. Syria and the Falklands are a notable example.
The author also fails to understand the basic history for the decline of British military power. The USA set out to break and inherit relevant parts of the British empire. For example, territory in Diego Garcia, Jamaica, Newfoundland, Bahamas was given to the US in the “Destroyers for Bases” deal. This was specifically engineered by the US to screw Britain in the long run.
It’s manifestly true the US is top dog and all nations are subservient to it. Indeed, China can’t even unify its own nation / invade China without the US’s approval. I’m not sure how unique the UK is in this context.
I don’t understand his points on “British yapping”. If he’s referring to the Red Sea, the author would do well to remember the UK has been the guarantor of Red Sea maritime traffic for 300 years and has had continuous presence in the region since. Would the world be better or worse off if Europe had no short maritime access to Asia?
Finally, where is this lingering hatred of the British? You are using their language, using their philosophy, and using their technology? Why do West Indians, Pakistanis, Indians, Malayas, Nigerians, Ghanaians, etc, continue to export their children to the UK and become British in increasingly record numbers? Indeed, the British government is one of the most diverse in the world.
Does America have a huge influence in the world? Yes. Do open and progressive forward facing countries like the UK, Denmark, Netherlands, Norway see this most? Yes. Does the US have an outsized impact on the UK given we were all once part of the same country and share a common history? Yes.
You mean to tell me that natural disasters and systems collapses are going to be reduced to dating profile axioms? Why did this happen? It's complicated. ;)
Most European states have never been truly sovereign.
First, with the exception of the UK, Spain, Russia, France...most current national states are only 200 years old and an artificial construct to resist French or British hegemony. From the Seven Years war onwards, Prussia, Austria, Illyrians, most of Germany and Italian kingdoms/duchies have not been able to exercise any sovereign strategic power without the consent of Britain, France or Russia. Indeed, when modern nation states attempted to exert sovereign power without hegemony, the result was self interested anarchy (WWI) or subjugation (WWII).
So there is no linear or clear history of sovereign European states, with Spain, Russia, Britain and France as notable exceptions.
Thanks Niccolo!
I only have one serious note - Lepold should be Leopold. See below.
By the 1960s, the systematic selection for competence came into direct conflict with the political imperatives of the civil rights movement
[Comment: I wonder whether this was partly due to new imperatives of a generation selected and successful due to meritocracy now facing the prospect of that success not being able to be transmitted to their progeny exactly due to meritocracy, so they were creating loopholes, and redefinitions...I wonder if the more intense the meritocracy the more short lived it must be as the winners have a new problem of handing on their privilege to more average regress-to-mean children]
No country has shown more deference to American foreign policy objectives than the Brits (see: Iraq wars, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, and now Israel vs. Hamas),
[Comment: given the UK didnt go to Vietnam, and Australia has fought in every war the US requested since WWII, I think AU at least gets an honorable mention in the USA deference olympics...Australia also LOVES to play the punching above weight line as well, in exactly those terms. But this game of being deputy regional sherriff can actually be quite a rational one - one gets all the benefits of the big power, while getting enough regional autonomy to enjoy some freedom. And in the absence of any other spectacular vision of how to live or structure one's society - the big questions of liberalism, religion, tech, hedonism, passage of regimes have been settled, why not? Why reject shopping malls as the end of history if all you are going to do is have high streets, malls, covered-mall arcades, and eventually functional equivalents of shopping malls?]
Lepold Aschenbrenner -->
Leopold Aschenbrenner
Everything Aris Roussinos says in his witheringly contemptuous assessment of 'The Special Relationship' is true. But it makes me (a Brit) want to just flag up the one good thing that has happened in the UK political landscape since WW2....Margaret Thatcher. Yes 'The Special Relationship' was already delusional in her time but her extraordinary charisma did - at least for a time - make it mean something and be not entirely an embarrassing joke. "Margaret Thatcher inspired the admiration of tens of millions around the world. By bizarre contrast she remains - for large numbers of the progressive-minded among her own countrymen and women - a hate figure." Which says it all about the collapse of the British metaphorical backbone. https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/mrs-thatcher-and-the-good-life
If Turbo America makes a meritocratic turn, would this necessarily benefit anyone within the US?
The US might choose to simply recruit the best from the global pool, leaving the US with a wholly foreign professional and managerial class. Turbo America would end up like Egypt under the Mamelukes which had a governmental and military elite of Turkish, Balkans and Caucasian origin and a mostly Levantine commercial elite.
"So the “debate” that the author wants to see is really just him wanting Classical Liberalism to return to the fore and not actual diversity of thought and opinion?
Shit essay, I apologize for sharing it."
You take what you get nowadays, it's a step in the right direction. I keep track of "Classical Liberals" in Hungary who are critical of Hegemonic Liberalism. I need one hand.
They are, of course, labelled as traitors and proto-fascist collaborators by the colonial comprador bourgeoisie.
Meritocracy of any kind is only established when elites face either the threat of revolution from below or invasion from without. The soporific social peace established by consumer capitalism and the relative calm of post-Cold War hegemony removed any urgency from the equation, enabling the excesses of DEI to mount. Now that social peace is breaking down at home and inter-state competition heating up America needs to reset the system.
Niccolo is dead right about the time frame. America has a little bit of time left to adjust though I am not sure that it has a full twenty years.
The weakness of a lot of thinking about the competency crisis is the assumption that the regime is even aiming for optimal results. It isn't. The regime is aiming for internal stability. Meritocracy is potentially very disruptive indeed.
The Bond listicle: I find the otherwise cheery author's constant tiptoeing around ideological landmines and the guideline-abiding excuses that must be stated up front for the crime of being such a fan girl to potentially "controversial" content sadly oppressive.
Save Olivia Rutigliano from the Bond villain who put an explosive collar on her!
British decolonization will be vigorously resisted by the UK elite because such a thing would risk cutting them off from access to the sinecures and opportunities (both corporate and NGO) currently available to loyal US clients. Neither Russia nor China can hope to compete with the US in this regard.
I was going to ask American commenters about the reasons for the decline in American infrastructure, but then I found this in Wikipedia(*) :
"some motorists thought that bridge tolls could more than double (to $12-$15 for automobiles, eastbound only), rising to those of New York City's Hudson River crossings. However, the state passed legislation freezing the toll on the bridge at $5 through 2020 in its 2016 legislative session."
That probably explains it...
(*) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tappan_Zee_Bridge_(2017%E2%80%93present)