The american war is lost

After years of fight and a death toll that we cannot even try to estimate, it is time to make a few realistic considerations. When the USA started to spread democracy along the planet many simply took sides. Some love the US, others hate them, so it was simple for these people to state their positions. Other less ideologized observers, basically it was people dealing with economics and energy, noticed that this spread of democracy seemed to be more or less directly connected with any announcement that an energy exporter was going to move away from the US$, in order to adopt a now pricer Euro for their transactions. They more or less directly suggested that the US were fighting to save their own economy, rather than caring for big words.

Others also noticed that the USA seemed to have fallen into a soviet syndrome. Their military kombinat had taken an absolutely dominant role in economy, it was concentrating on itself most of the economical power, and it was the only political factor capable to discuss on a peer-to-peer level with the energy majors. Those two entities spend the money it takes for anyone to become a president, so it was obvious that their interests would be over-represented in the US policies. Now if you are to sell guns and bullets you DO need a target on which to use them. This led to the idea of an american permanent need for war.

It's obviously impossible to say whether they are right or wrong, as none of us is present at the meetings that determine the US foreign and military policy. Yet, if we accept this formulation, the result is self-evident. The dollar is constantly falling, and a landslide of massive US$ dismissions is just starting. The american government has no control whatsoever on most of its cash, since it is used abroad, and the lower the dollar gets, the more massive injections of cash are thrown on the market by people who do not rate it a sound currency anymore. This spyral can soon turn into a tsunami, a tsunami no missile can stop.

In the end, while the energy price keeps rising almost daily, it doesn't rise at all if you avoid using the US$ to state prices. This means that the energy price HAS shifted to euro, after all. The war is lost, and there is no secret Death Ray Projector who can turn the wave back. Bush has got stuck in a monetary Stalingrad, from here on it's only retreating, and it will get a more chaotic and desperate retreat as time goes by. Even just making bullets will become increasingly difficult, as there must be imported stuff in them, and the dollar is not a good currency for importers any more.

Before all american haters start to open their champagne bottles, though, it would help to keep one's feet well on the earth. They'll better ask themselves whether there is any reason to rejoice at all. When the Soviet Union vanished from our map everyone was expecting peace. We got tons of rockets and bullets in instead. Now it is quite evident that the US are going to be forced by history to forget about their once unlimited might. But that doesn't really mean that nobody is going to bomb your bank account, or your house. It's simply another chapter in history and there is no warranty that you won't eventually miss Desert Storm, just like many ended up in missing the Berlin Wall.

As Europeans, we are now surely left with a great question mark: once the US empire falls, NATO will become impossible to maintain. It's not structured to be a democratic entity, as it's always been just a chain of transmission of the american will. Empires work only as long as the Emperor's got the muscle to shut up everybody else's mouths, and our current emperor has clearly no such force any more. It can still command because people are used to listen to him, but the King will be naked as soon as the first soldier will just say NO. Yet that day will be a tragedy for Europe, rather than some sort of Independence Day. It will be a tragedy  because we are still VERY far from building a common european policy, and the lack of democracy in the european structure makes it quite scary to think that we can delegate the right to push a nuclear button to people like
those who are currently ruling us.

So no time for champagne or tears (depending on whether you loved or hated the US). We'll better all start to think that we are not political teenagers any more, but have rather turned into political orphans. Soon it will be us europeans making our own military moves and we have no clue at how to make them. Many have been lamenting our lack of Independence from the US, in the last 50 years or so. Now we shall finally see whether we can do something better than just lamenting an unfair destiny or not. To be honest, I'm far from being an optimist about it.Time will tell.