The Next 12 Months Part IV: World At War

The only safe prediction I can make is that the superpower will remain intact for most of the year, though my confidence can easily be shaken depending on any unforeseen events.

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There’s no shortage of headlines to kick off 2024 and I’m beginning to lose track of what I need to talk about. I often need to remind myself that I don’t need to speak on everything, but when I don’t, I feel like I’m missing out on important discussions or failing to get something off my chest.

There’s nothing more frustrating for a writer than to be unable to transfer thoughts into words, but it does come with the benefit of helping me focus on things that are easier translate into writing. With time, I’ll hopefully get over the fact that I didn’t talk about something even when it might’ve been a more relevant topic.

What’s relevant today? War. I spend a lot of time talking about the intensifying internal conflict in the United States, but the country still has a major role to play on the global stage. Though I believe it won’t be for much longer, as long as the U.S. remains a superpower, involvement in an overseas conflict is still a possibility. As America fades from the world stage, at least in terms of a leadership role, it’ll likely become embroiled in one final foreign policy crisis before it all comes crashing down.

But first…

Who’s In Charge?

Have you been following the ongoing saga of Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin going missing in action? If you’re a sucker for the bizarre, it’s the gift that keeps on giving.

Here’s a run-down from CNN:

When the deputy secretary of defense began assuming some of Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s responsibilities on January 2, not even she knew that it was because Austin was hospitalized, two defense officials told CNN.

Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks, the Pentagon’s No. 2 leader, was among the senior leaders kept in the dark about Austin’s true whereabouts until Thursday, three days after the secretary checked into Walter Reed National Military Medical Center following complications from an elective surgery. Not even the president was aware of Austin’s hospitalization until three days into his stay there, CNN previously reported.

The revelation that not even Hicks knew that Austin was hospitalized is sure to add to questions swirling within the administration about why his status was kept secret, not only from the public but from senior national security officials and the White House.

Austin was hospitalized following an elective medical procedure he had on December 22, while he was on leave, Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, said. He returned home the following day, but on the evening of January 1 he “began experiencing severe pain” and was transported to Walter Reed via ambulance.

Here’s some more information underscoring the gravity of the situation:

The Pentagon did not tell President Joe Biden and other top officials about Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s hospitalization for three days, three U.S. officials said.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan and other senior White House aides didn’t know of Austin’s Jan. 1 hospitalization until the Defense Department sent over word Jan. 4, two other U.S. officials said. Sullivan informed Biden shortly after DOD’s Thursday notification.

The officials said it was highly unlikely that Austin conveyed word to Biden privately before Sullivan’s briefing. “If Jake didn’t know, no way the president knew,” one of them said. “Who would have told him of Austin’s condition if not Jake? And if someone did tell the president, Jake would’ve been his first call.”

And:

But the news of Austin’s situation came as a shock to all White House staff as they were unaware the Pentagon boss was dealing with complications following an elective medical procedure, the officials said. National Security Council staffers were surprised it took the Pentagon so long to let them know of Austin’s status. The Pentagon didn’t make the information public until Friday evening, notifying Congress about 15 minutes before releasing a public statement.

“This should not have happened this way,” said one of the U.S. officials. The NSC and Pentagon declined comment.

Still think it’s all something about nothing? Perhaps that speaks volumes about how expectations of our leadership have completely cratered, which is strange given the daily panic that took place during the four years of Donald Trump as president. Now, with the so-called “grown-ups” in charge, even something like this seems to not be worthy of our attention.

And maybe it isn’t. As I explained back in 2022, the managerial state really does run itself. The fact the military still managed to carry out retaliatory strikes against Iran-backed militias in Iraq in the midst of Austin’s hospitalization shows everyone knows what to do, whether their boss is running the show or not. The managerial state exists precisely because it functions as an autonomous entity. In many ways, this is a good thing - I don’t know how else you’d run a country - but the managerial state has also become a de facto authoritarian regime, completely unanswerable to the public and, increasingly, even elected officials.

In this instance, the managerial state… managed. Left unsaid is what would’ve happened if a more serious crisis had occurred. For example, the Red Sea has turned into a shooting gallery recently, forcing commercial shipping traffic to take the long way around the Cape of Good Hope, south of Africa. With U.S. warships constantly fending off attacks against shipping by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, what happens if one were to get caught in the cross-fire, which is what happened in 1987 amid the Iran-Iraq War in the Persian Gulf?

Fred Kaplan, writing for Slate, a Biden administration-friendly outlet, explains why this isn’t a petty matter [bold mine]:

This is no minor lapse. U.S. military forces are on high alert in the Middle East; two aircraft carriers were moved into the Mediterranean, as a deterrent to Iranian intervention in the Israel-Hamas war, and those carriers and other vessels have come under fire. If Biden wanted any of those forces to take offensive action, his orders to the regional combatant commander would go through the secretary of defense. If Biden or his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, called a “Principals Meeting,” Austin would represent the Defense Department.

Certainly Austin, like any other Cabinet secretary, even like the president himself, is entitled to take time off for a medical emergency, but he needs to tell the commander in chief, as well as his stand-ins and everyone else around him, what’s going on.

If Austin were a vital member of Biden’s national-security team, if he were deeply enmeshed in decision-making on the wars in Ukraine or the Middle East, excuses might be made and tolerated. But the fact that Biden learned of Austin’s absence only after four days—i.e., the fact that Biden hadn’t been in touch with his secretary of defense for four days during a period of round-the-clock military operations and crisis—suggests that Austin is far from essential.

Every now and then, the Regime gives the game away. In a sense, the Secretary of Defense is far from essential, since the managerial state runs itself, one of the few things in this world which can be accurately characterized in this manner. However, not all managers, bureaucrats, which ever term one wants to use, are equal. Some have greater authority than others and not all decisions can be left to faceless bureaucrats (like during a major military crisis). Without going as far as to say the position of Defense Secretary is an easy job, being available to make critical, potentially history-making decisions is the job.

Is anyone really in charge? I think I’ve already answered that. But there’s also a difference between running things and being accountable for them. There are people in charge, yes, but nobody’s on the hook, either. This is the great crisis of governance today - nobody pays the price for failure. Except the citizens.

Americans have always been more cynical than not about our political leadership. The only difference is nowadays we have every reason to be. Be it cause or symptom, things like the Austin affair are the sort of thing you see when a state can no longer manage affairs and is headed for an existential crisis.

A Road To War

The Austin saga is coming at a time when the U.S. is facing the prospect of once more being drawn into an overseas conflict, and American troops are already in the line of fire.

From Politico:

The military is drafting plans to hit back at Iran-backed Houthi militants who have been attacking commercial shipping in the Red Sea, according to three U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the discussions. That includes striking Houthi targets in Yemen, according to one of the officials, an option the military has previously presented.

Intelligence officials, meanwhile, are coming up with ways to anticipate and fend off possible attacks on the U.S. by Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria, according to one of the officials. They are also working to determine where the Houthi militants may strike next.

The U.S. has for months behind the scenes urged Tehran to persuade the proxies to scale back their attacks. But officials say they have not seen any sign that the groups have begun to decrease their targeting and worry the violence will only surge in the coming days.

It’s an escalation that could result in President Joe Biden becoming more deeply embroiled in the Middle East just as the 2024 campaign season heats up and his campaign pushes to focus on domestic issues.

The potential for wider conflict is growing, officials said, following a series of confrontations in Iraq, Lebanon and Iran over the past several days. Those have convinced some in the administration that the war in Gaza has officially escalated far beyond the strip’s borders — a scenario the U.S. has tried to avoid for months.

If the last few years have proven anything, it’s that the situation is stable until it isn’t. It seemed like Russia would never invade Ukraine until it did. All was quiet in the Middle East until Hamas raided Israel, killed thousands, and took hostages. The lesson? Don’t take quiet for calm. The world may be as peaceful as it’s ever been throughout history, but in some places, that peace never showed up. The internal discord in many a previously-tranquil country will contribute to an increasingly chaotic world order and we’re likely to see more wars going forward.

These wars don’t need to involve the United States - many of them already don’t - but the country is finding it tough to stay out of them completely, either. The reason is because America’s superpower status is wedded to our willingness to be actively involved in conflicts throughout the world, especially in key strategic locations like Europe and the Middle East. You can only be “indispensable” if you make yourself available in any and all situations at all times.

This runs up against domestic political realities, obviously. Americans eventually tire of being outraged over world events and almost never do they support direct intervention into a foreign conflict. For all the moral support given to Ukraine, nobody demanded the entry of U.S. troops into the war, for obvious reasons, even though direct intervention was likely the only chance Ukraine had to win the war. Foreign support is certainly the only reason Ukraine has lasted as long as it has. Now, defeat is a very real possibility, and, from the Biden administration’s perspective, it’s a blessing defeat has become more likely at a time when most Americans have lost interest in the conflict.

Or is it? There’s a life lesson I’m considering turning into a personal maxim: people don’t care, but they do notice. President Biden’s approval ratings never recovered following the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, proving that failures do count against you. If we consider Afghanistan a veritable strike one, then Ukraine losing to Russia would undoubtedly be a strike two. Personally, I think the fact Russia even invaded Ukraine at all was a strike two, since the whole point of NATO and America’s presence in Europe was to prevent such a thing from occurring in the first place. Either way, whether the public cares at that point or not, Ukraine losing to Russia would be a huge blow to both America and NATO’s credibility. There’s just no way to spin that into something positive.

What’s strike three going to be? It’s coming, whether anyone likes it or not.

What To Expect In 2024

Foreign policy used to be something of great interest to me. However, since 2020, my interest has all but evaporated, owing to my own country’s increasing internal conflict. It strikes me as a form of “privilege” (much as I hate that term) to be so preoccupied with events overseas - it’s easy to think about what’s going on in someone else’s home when there’s little to worry about what going on inside one’s own four walls. We’ve got a plenty to concern ourselves with here and in our own hemisphere. If what’s going on in Europe, the Middle East, or Asia seems important today, very few of us will see it that way by the 2030s.

For now, it pays to keep an eye on events overseas, because how the U.S. responds will say a lot about the state of the union. Longtime readers know one of my major predictions is the collapse of the American superpower the end of the 2020s. Granted, it’s not really my prediction - credit goes to University of Wisconsin Professor Alfred W. McCoy, whose essay in 2010 forecast the end coming as early as 2025. It’s something McCoy still doesn’t receive enough recognition for - predicting collapse at a time when it wasn’t fashionable to do so (though free inquiry was more of a thing back in 2010).

It’s an essay I keep going back to and here I do so again:

A soft landing for America 40 years from now? Don't bet on it. The demise of the United States as the global superpower could come far more quickly than anyone imagines. If Washington is dreaming of 2040 or 2050 as the end of the American Century, a more realistic assessment of domestic and global trends suggests that in 2025, just 15 years from now, it could all be over except for the shouting.

And:

Available economic, educational, and military data indicate that, when it comes to U.S. global power, negative trends will aggregate rapidly by 2020 and are likely to reach a critical mass no later than 2030. The American Century, proclaimed so triumphantly at the start of World War II, will be tattered and fading by 2025, its eighth decade, and could be history by 2030.

I think recent events have us right on track. By the way, it’s 2024. 2025 is next year. But one year at a time.

The only safe prediction I can make is that the superpower will remain intact for most of the year, though my confidence can easily be shaken depending on any unforeseen events. Beyond that, I defer to people like retired U.S. Army Col. Douglas Macgregor, a military and foreign affairs analyst who recently shared his predictions for 2024 in the The Dallas Express.

It’s only four paragraphs long, so I’ll share it all here:

Retired U.S. Army Col. Douglas Abbott Macgregor: “The war in Ukraine will end on terms Moscow demands. A comprehensive peace will be agreed upon when the current globalist elites are thrown out of power over the next 12-18 months in Berlin, Paris, and most of Western Europe’s capitals. A rump Ukrainian State will exist largely West of the Dnieper, but areas historically controlled by Poland, Hungary, and Romania will return to their former owners.”

So Ukraine isn’t headed for total, unconditional defeat, per se. However, Ukraine as it’s existed since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 will effectively cease to be. I think this to be true even as the more extravagant prediction of areas returning to Hungarian, Polish, and Romanian control doesn’t come to pass. Combined with demographic and economic ruin resulting from the war, Ukraine’s long-term viability as an independent state is at tremendous risk.

Ukraine’s loss is, of course, an American loss as well. The U.S. did everything just short of direct intervention. None of it could save Ukraine from the inevitable end. The idea the world and and its own people will look at America the same as it did pre-invasion defies the imagination. Washington hyped up Russia as a threat, playing up our country as the bulwark against it, and we failed to stop them. If that’s what success looks like, I wonder what failure looks like.

This connects with the next point:

Macgregor also said he foresees that in 2024, “Germany will break with NATO and cultivate a new relationship with Eastern Europe, especially Russia. This will happen gradually, but the tectonic shift will begin in 2024 with a fundamental change to the center-right in Berlin. Like most sacred cows, NATO will not be slain; it will diminish until it is formally replaced by new European security zones based on European economic, military, and political interests, not hostility to Russia.”

Germany, like most European countries, is under demographic and economic strain. The popularity of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party proves a plurality of Germans are dissatisfied with the prevailing order and are looking for leadership that prioritizes Germany and breaks away from the globalism that’s defined their leadership for much of their post-World War II existence.

This isn’t a foreign policy blog, so it suffices to say, for our purposes, that Germany breaking with NATO will expose the alliance for what it is: an Anglo-American vanity project. It really is nothing without the U.S. and UK underwriting it, but the departure of a country like Germany from the alliance will prove this was never a truly collective entity to begin with. As Macgregor says, NATO won’t die overnight, but just as the superpower, in our lifetimes, will be no more, neither will the post-World War II order which we’ve come to accept as the norm.

About the Middle East:

“Israel will be unable to consolidate its control over Gaza and suspend its campaign of expulsion and destruction. This will occur as the hostility to Israel metastasizes, resulting in a regional coalition determined to end Sykes-Picot forever. It will be backed by Russia and China,” predicted Macgregor.

“Egypt will experience severe internal unrest as the army and people of Egypt demand action against Israel. Sisi will fall despite considerable support from the U.S. and Israel. This will be the first of many changes in leadership across the Middle East as the region slides toward war with Israel and the U.S. The U.S. will fall into a deep recession bordering on economic depression. Biden will be driven from office, and his administration will try to postpone the election in November 2024,” Macgregor projected. (DX contributor: Andrew Afifian, national correspondent)

There’s a lot in those last two paragraphs, some of which I won’t get into right now. The key takeaway is that Israel definitely finds itself in an untenable position, surrounded by unfriendly faces. It’s fully committed to its assault on Gaza and it’s objective of eliminating Hamas as a security threat. At the moment, the war remains largely confined to a single front. But there’s a risk of a northern front opening with the involvement of Hezbollah from Lebanon. Hezbollah is more formidable adversary than Hamas and it isn’t clear how Israel would manage a two-front war. At the very least, it’ll rely extensively on foreign, namely American, aid.

If the war expands, the possibility of direct American intervention will increase. U.S. forces never really left places like Iraq and Syria; there are special operations forces on the ground carrying out covert actions and warplanes patrolling the skies, occasionally striking targets, more often these days. I still believe the U.S. will manage to avoid a large-scale intervention, however. 2024 being an election year, the last thing the Biden administration would want to do is send large numbers of Americans off to war. Back in more patriotic times, the “rally-around-the-flag” effect was more pronounced, but I doubt anyone’s in the mood in 2024. We’ve become too demoralized a country and who knows if the military is even in fighting trim. Either way, using a war to shore up your political prospects is a high-risk move, one certain to backfire in 2024.

Near term, I see the situation in the Red Sea as the greatest concern for Americans. Why? It has the greatest direct impact on the economy. Approximately 10% of global shipping is routed through the Red Sea; going around the southern end of Africa results in greater fuel expenditures, costs that could conceivably be passed onto consumers. Just last night, there was another attack carried out by the Houthis in Yemen, the twenty-sixth within the last one-and-a-half months. Though no damage was reported, thanks undoubtedly to the swift response by U.S. naval forces, I don’t know how long this can go on before actions needs to be taken against the Houthis. No matter how good the U.S. Navy is at defending against these attacks, nobody’s going to use the Red Sea as long as there exists a high risk of getting shot at.

Is another spike in inflation on the way in 2024? Perhaps. How bad could it get? Something else the last few years have taught me is that worst-case predictions rarely come to pass. The war in Ukraine was supposed to result in global energy and food shortages. Europe was supposed to freeze over the 2022-’23 winter. Neither happened to a considerable degree. Maybe the situation is more stable than we imagine and maybe our contemptuous, indifferent leadership does have a handle on things.

At the same time, the greatest damage is always long-term. Many of us saw inflation becoming a serious problem in 2021, but it wasn’t until 2022 it’s full impact was felt. Inflation has since eased and we’ve managed to avoid a recession; it’ll be a long time before anyone figures out how the economy keeps weathering the storm like this.

Until something drastically changes, I wouldn’t expect the impact of the situation in the Red Sea to manifest in any noticeable way, not at least for the next few months. According to one expert:

If the problem persists, the impact on the global economy will be measurable and could trickle down to the average consumer, said Alan Deardorff, a professor emeritus of public policy and economics at the University of Michigan.  

Still, Deardorff added the greater cost will be on shipping companies and their suppliers. 

“They’re going to be hurt by it, absolutely,” he said, but noted there would be a limit in how much that could trickle down. “The effect on average price and the effect on inflation might be measurable, but I don’t think it’s going to be something people will correctly notice.”

I think what Professor Deardorff is saying is this: as long as the wheels of the global economy keep turning, hardship can be mitigated and offset, if not avoided. It’s going to take something like the COVID pandemic to really shake things up. This doesn’t rule out the prospect of inflation entirely; I’d say we’re going to see it tick back up in 2025. It’s just that any predictions of economic calamity are still premature. If it happens, we’ll all know it. Things like that aren’t a matter of debate.

One thing is for certain - if the Red Sea situation does have a noticeably detrimental effect on the economy, the U.S. may have no choice but to go on the offensive. The situation will become less controlled at that point we may indeed see the U.S. fighting a new war sometime this year.

We’re Terminal Now

One last prediction I feel confident in making is that the 2024 election won’t be decided by foreign policy. At the moment, I don’t see it being decided by any one specific issue. I think the election will come down to a matter of one’s general feeling about the direction of the country, to say nothing of political partisanship.

I also believe 2024 will be the last full year the U.S. exists in superpower form. There’s definitely one more crisis coming and I think this will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. In that sense, it almost doesn’t matter who wins the election. Whomever does will ultimately preside over the collapse of the U.S. as we’ve known it since World War II. I’m not sure that’s a position any president wants to be in, regardless of intentions.

What do you think? Is this the end of the road for the American superpower? Or does it have some mileage left in it? Do you see the U.S. becoming embroiled in a new war? Will the situation in the Red Sea have a tangible impact on the economy? What does it all say about who’s going to win in November?

UPDATE: Reader “LtNojoy” says:

I’ll make a prediction, that anyone who says Biden (or his managers) will try to postpone the election is wrong. If they do, there is your end of the USA and I will not have bought enough ammo.

I suppose anything can happen, but I, too, am skeptical anyone can suspend the election. This was a major talking point in 2020, when both the pandemic and remarks from President Trump led some to fear the election could be impacted.

The Regime is powerful, but everything they do possesses a veneer of legitimacy. Suspending elections is possible in theory, but they can only be suspended for so long. Eventually, a president will have to be chosen, one way or another.

Here’s a good explainer:

In general, a combination of state or congressional actions could delay elections but not postpone the selection of a president and vice president. The only hard deadline spelled out in the Constitution is the end of a president’s term and a vice president’s term on January 20 of the year following a general election. (That same deadline applies regardless of term limits imposed on the president under the 22nd Amendment.)

The Constitution’s text requires that a group of electors, commonly called the Electoral College, chooses the next president. If a majority of electors fails to agree on a winner, Congress picks the winner in continent elections held within Congress under the terms of the 12th Amendment.

And:

Absent a clear winner of the presidential election on January 20, the Speaker of the House would serve as Acting President under the current succession law. The 20th Amendment requires that the duly elected president and vice president assume their positions at some point. “Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President elect nor a Vice President shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified.”

I suggest reading the whole thing, but the bottom line is this: by January 20, the incumbent must vacate office (unless re-elected). If a president isn’t selected by then, an acting president will assume the role of chief executive. Either way, suspending elections really serves no purpose, since, by law, the incumbents must leave office by January 20. Any attempt to stay in power past that date wouldn’t only trigger a constitutional crisis, but it’s unlikely the president would possess any legitimacy, absent a coup d’etat.

LtNojoy again:

I agree with you that America's days as a superpower are diminishing, I’ll stick with a 2030ish timeline.

If it doesn’t become apparent in 2025, it will be 2030.

Finally:

Keep at it Max, I wish more people read your work both here and on X.

Thank you. If you wish to increase my readership, share. Share my posts, my blog, my X (formerly Twitter) account. Tell your loved ones about me.

Max Remington writes about armed conflict and prepping. Follow him on Twitter at @AgentMax90.

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