[quote=Allan from Fallbrook]Partypup: Well, not to sound like a complete saber rattling nationalist, but if this scenario looks likely to come to fruition, I say we fall back on the one area of uncontested American supremacy: Our military.
How, exactly, is China planning on getting their 60% of imported oil back home from the Mideast? They have no “blue water” navy to speak of and I can just imagine how thrilled US Navy sub commanders would be lighting up China’s merchant fleet.
Don’t think it will come to that? I think the TPTB have already game planned this scenario out and wouldn’t hesitate for a second. You push the US far enough, we’ll do anything. Think Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
We could literally choke the world in terms of closing off all avenues of transport, whether sea lanes, air corridors, or roads.[/quote]
Allan, I don’t doubt that military invention will be used as a distraction. After all, our elected leaders won’t let this house collapse until they have identified and set up a scapegoat, and that goat is most likely Iran.
Will Americans but the story one last time? I kind of doubt it. Trust and confidence in government has never been lower.
But here is the one flaw I that I see with your scenario: there are simply too many enemies to battle now. Iran is one thing, but China, Russia, Japan and Brazil – if these countries are all determined to dump the dollar, then we are monumentally screwed. We can’t invade them — 1/2 of the coalition are our biggest creditors. How would we realistically hold the world’s largest and most powerful countries hostage by choking off lanes of oil traffic? Don’t forget that a functioning military requires the one thing we have now run out of: money. We could, as Scaredy says, make one last play to make the rest of the world use our money, but at what cost? We would quickly become pariahs, as the rest of the world would be repulsed by our violent desperation.
And while China doesn’t have much of a navy, don’t forget that Russia most certainly does. Really, we are outnumbered now. The skinny kids on the block have waited many years for their opportunity, and it has finally arrived.
