The Changing Role of the Nation-State
Looking at the bigger picture, the U.S. has its troubles. But the U.S. also has many unique economic, cultural and historical strengths — if the national leadership can keep its eye on the ball. Thing is, we’re in for some tough innings.
The world is experiencing what some commentators call “the rise of the rest.” Growth in China, India, Brazil and smaller actors is creating a world where many other countries are moving up to America’s level of economic clout and self-assertion. No other one nation can challenge the U.S. at every level. But many nations can, and do, challenge the U.S. at one level or another.
A key development is that the very role of nation-states is becoming less defined. Non-state actors are wielding more and more clout. Examples include Al Qaeda in terms of a military and terrorist challenge, displaying the sharp edge of militant Islam. Or there are the Mexican narco-gangs that are engaged in a quiet civil war within Mexico.
On the more benign side, there are non-government organizations (NGOs) such as those that are driving much of the world environmental movement. Indeed, near 25,000 NGO representatives were registered at the recent Copenhagen climate summit talks.
In a recent book entitled Superclass, author David Rothkopf argues that the influence of nation-states is waning on many of the most critical issues of our time. Rothkopf argues that the traditional systems for addressing global issues among nation-states are more ineffective than ever. Thus there’s an emerging power void.
This power void is being filled by a small group of players, which Rothkopf refers to as “the superclass” — a new global elite who are much better suited to operating on the global stage and influencing global outcomes than the vast majority of national political leaders.
It makes for a two edged sword. Some of these new elite are from business and finance, and are subject to traditional forms of influence and suasion, not to mention the rule of law. “Some,” writes Rothkopf, “are masters of new or traditional media, some are religious leaders, and a few are top officials of those governments that do have the ability to project their influence globally.”
Others of the superclass, according to Rothkopf, are members of “a kind of shadow elite — criminals and terrorists.”
In both leadership and accountability, there’s quite a difference between what we’re dealing with in the developed world versus the developing world.
Nation-states in the developing world are having an increasingly hard time fulfilling the expectations of their citizens. Thus more and more, and the international system is undergoing an almost lawless evolution.
We see examples in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where small fiefdoms and powerful warlords rule much of the day. Or we see it in the broken system of governance in Nigeria, where armed rebels are wreaking havoc on oil production. Or close to home, we have to wonder how things will play out down in Mexico.
This crisis of instability and lack of control is compounded by the absence of a global strategy to combat the asymmetric threats that the U.S. and other major players face. It’s going to make for many more interesting developments — and investment opportunities — as we turn the page on the calendar and enter the new year.
Until we meet again,
Byron W. King
January 8, 2010
Byron King
Prior to joining Penny Sleuth, Byron received his Juris Doctor from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, was a cum laude graduate of Harvard University, served on the staff of the Chief of Naval Operations and as a field historian with the Navy. Our resident energy and oil expert, Byron is the editor of Outstanding Investments and Energy and Scarcity Investor. Byron has made frequent appearances in mainstream media such as The Washington Post, MSN Money, Marketwatch.com, Fox Business News, CNBC's Squawk Box, Larry Kudlow, Glenn Beck and PBS Newshour. He also had a feature article written in the Financial Times, and has appeared on both CNN and Marketplace radio broadcasts. Byron has also been quoted in various international publications such as The Guardian and De Volkskrant, and has been a guest on Canada's CBC television broadcast.
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Byron, you are always a source of inspiration. Rueful chuckle…you and Gary’s Parting Shot made me realize that what I expected and wanted was to grow up to be a competent adult in nation of competent adults content to live and let live, but that I will probably end up as a benign war lord or holding the fort bravely because most of the populace is irrationaly, conducting wars of conquest, or otherwise attempting to make my life miserable for no good reason.
I won’t take a very important saying literally unless given no other choice, but if those of us who know better ways don’t continue to talk about them, who will? “The Old Guard dies, but it does not surrender.” I don’t mind teaching children to tie their shoes, but how did we end up with so many “rulers” who don’t know how?
Hi Linda… Just a few more random thoughts….
I think there’s a national tendency to get blinded by success. The US had a great century… from the Great White Fleet through “winning” the Cold War. (Don’t get me started on that.) There were ups and downs, but the overall national story we tell ourselves focuses on the successes. That’s also the great wekness of our world-view. We don’t accept and focus on what went wrong.
It’s like so many people think that FDR “solved” the Great Depression, with his New Deal. No, FDR prolonged the GD with the ND. And it’s not like, as some say, “World War II ended the Depression.” Not at all. WWII ended the New Deal. THAT ended the Depression. Gotta get your facts right. But our culture tends not to do that.
It’s the logic of “post hoc ergo propter hoc.” The USA came out on top of the world food chain, so — to quote Gauleiter Napolitano –there’s a strong tendency to thing that “the system worked.” As with Delta Flight 253, so with much of the rest of history. “The system worked” (ahem) because we were collectively lucky and the other side had too many screwups.
The national US story is a close shave. Never forget it. So the country needs leaders at every level, from cub scouts to the corporate suites to academe to media to the churches to the Oval Office, who can take risks and do that close shave-thing.
Example… Had not a few bold Army soldiers made a mad dash to a hell-hole called Mittelwerk, in the Soviet zone of immediate post-war Germany, the US would never have seized the bulk of Germany’s V-2 rocket assets and equipment, as well as many hundreds of German scientists & technicians. The day that a young US soldier followed the stench of death down some railway tracks was the key to the US becoming a post-war superpower. Lucky. Truly a chance event. Did NOT have to work out that way at all.
Instead of acknowledging this feature of our past — and future — when most Americans look back, the US “story” is that our great nation developed great rockets that went to the moon. Great, huh? Yeah, right. Developed by German scientists, tweaking German technology, applying German equipment, and competing against old German colleagues working in the Soviet Union in a similar gilded cage.
Fast forward to the present time… The US let its self-image as the “world’s superpower” allow the military to get bogged down in the Middle East. Even the generals thought that the Middle East would be a fast war. Whoops.
Worse than the lengthy period of fighting — which has depleted the US combat resiliency — the US has lost its aura of power and competency. People all over the rest of the world have figured out that they CAN take a chance to hit us… whether to rip off a US company in a business deal; or hijack a ship off Somalia; or try and blow up an airliner over Detroit. (Worst that happens if you fail is they arrest you and give you a public defender who pleads you “Not Guilty.” Huh?)
It’s funny to me that I’d cite Al Qaeda for authority, but their post-Detroit announcement was along the lines that US security has been shown to be a seive. All those billions of dollars. All those millions of shoes sniffed and toothpaste tubes seized… and Joe Underpants can still get onboard a scheduled airliner, and reach the target (while failing only through his own fault, and the fault oft the bomb-builder).
It’s the same as if a US stealth bomber flew over an Iranian nuclear site, and dropped a bunker-buster bomb that turns out to be a dud. Whoops.
It’s not that the US cannot recover. It’s just that it’llbe a huge political and cultural fight to get better leaders into position. Maybe the cub scouts are OK. but we need a better class of leaders in corporate suites, in academia, in media, in churches (don’t light that fuse with me, either), and in politics.
It won’t be pretty.
In China they have a saying ” May you live in intresting times”. That was not said to mean a good thing. With a decade of bad leadership from both Dems and Rep.it will truly be “intresting times” here in the ole U S of A. Hang on ladies and gents,life can be stranger than fiction.As they say,keep your powder dry.
Now where’s Galts Gulch…..
Dear Byron:
I am not at all an easy lady to fluster, but when BYRON KING writes me my very own article, that does it. Thank you. I enjoyed it, and it was a compliment and kindness I never expected.
Smugness, letting the statists march relentlessly towards control one small step at a time all but unopposed, and realizing suddenly that the last two generations have been brainwashed so thoroughly that few of us remember what made America and individuals successful, and we’re supposed to be surprised that Dubya and Obama didn’t know not to start land wars in Asia?! Anything that ends in -stan is close enough.
SOMEBODY is going to kick over the milk bucket and spill the last that is left, at which time I think BRIC, OPEC, the EU, et al. will discover that they need us a great deal more than they think, even if the US government is a bunch of counterfeiters, which we could always give up being. What fun, all those Chinese factories trying to retool…to sell what, to whom? Ditto unnecessary seamstresses and “tech support” in India. There are already fleets of tankers and cargo ships basically in mothballs. If world trade stops tomorrow…who has the most toys? Smile. WE do. The aftermath will be bloody–literally–but I’m wagering that what is left of America will emerge with at least an 1810 lifestyle while the rest sink back into the dark ages. I suggest we leave them there and go back to basics. No, of course I do not think there is anything ennobling about manual labor but there is in self-sufficiency and doing what is right BECAUSE it is right. Low Tech Linda and her advisors will figure out how to coax at least a trickle of fine, light sweet crude and gas from beneath our soil without a Christmas tree. I have three petroleum engineers among my friends and I wouldn’t be the least surprised if they don’t know how to do something useful with a pair of capped wells. What wasn’t profitable twenty years ago could have great meaning in a world where the 18-wheelers don’t run…and that thought may be something you want to run with! There are a lot of those things dotted around Texas. The holes are in the ground, the pipe is still there…how expensive would it be to put a donkey engine on them and see what the flow was? Who knows how the oil has repooled since they were capped? Our land is under lease again and they’re still pumping and drilling in central Texas…
Signature chuckle! It’s a dog eat dog world, friends, and Rand, Epictetus, Jose Ortega y Gasset, Patton, and my other heroes are still right. I said 20 years ago that the USSR would be back in two weeks when the “right” strong man came along, and never changed my mind. This time I say that Rand and the founding fathers were right. When the vicious children have destroyed the vile world they have brought into being a few of us will survive and build a new one where NO man/taxing authority has a right to the fruits of our labors, my land is MINE, without any claim by anyone, and if you don’t work, you don’t eat. The true moral of the Good Samaritan is “Do the easy, obvious kindness, and go on with your life. Don’t take the man on to raise or send his children to college. Steady his burden for just a moment–but no more.” Other than writing for W&G, what could be more fun than being the local Countess with several Barons? I was amused by James Howard Kunstler’s “World Made By Hand.” The townsmen who do nothing but wail their losses view the local cattle baron–who produces his own electricity from his own efforts and can cast concrete pipe (which he donates) to repair their crumbling water system–as Dracula. A well-run feudal system takes care of everyone, and anyone who starts now should be able to attain at least the dignity of a Yeoman Farmer, self-supporting and beholden to no one. Perhaps that is only a fairy tale I tell myself, but it is the best solution a cracking’ good analytical project report writer can come up with. Spurt of laughter, want to come be the Baron in charge of oil production?! Thanks again, Linda
With reference to Linda Brady’s article. As an Englishman born in 1942, I have a great admiration and appreciation for the USA not least for saving us from the NAZI’s, even before Pearl Harbor, ( my Father-In Law was crew on HMS Warspite which was be refitted in Seattle on the day the Japanese attacked, i.e., the US was helping us long before that day. What Linda says is totally true, the basic American ‘Can Do’ attitude is the core of the nation and what has screwed the country up is successive governments in their incredible greed for money and power. There is too much government, read Thomas Jefferson on the subject and his views on a uncontrolled national bank (The Fed). You need no nonsense leaders of the quality of Theodore Roosevelt and Harry Trueman (buck stops here). America like here in Britain have governments which punish the achievers to pay off the losers, to keep themselves in power, there is always going to be less achiever than the ‘state owes me a living’ people. Start voting in the right people, or vote in nobody and get back to a locally run, locally financed system, i.e., A well-run feudal system, as Linda proposes, if tongue in cheek, and the losers will soon be brought under control and the natural producers will dominate again. It’s in our hands.
Dave, Darlin’…
What made you think I was tongue-in-cheek?!
There is much to be said for a well-run feudal system where those sheltered by it are free to rise within their castes and and those who do as little as they can get away with end up at the bottom of the heap. There are a great many who have no desire to achieve and none to earn their own way; they have had a hundred- year break thanks to the very atypical century of cheap, plentiful oil–as James Howard Kunstler states tirelessly–and the kind hearts of many and the political aspirations of more. We have probably reached peak oil, which does not mean that there is no more oil, only that in the future oil will be much more expensive. Most of the nations in the world–including the G-20 and emerging nations–are close to learning that none of us can afford bread and circuses forever. I am an analyst and a Philosopher, and a great believer in two questions: “What is the worst that could happen?” and “What is the best that could happen?” The second is easier for bridge players to understand because we say, “Play for the best result.” If the cards MUST be distributed a certain way for us to win, by all means let us proceed as though that is where they are. (Chuckle..we also hold that if you don’t fail to make your contract occasionally you aren’t bidding enough.) Quite frequently they are. Sometimes, they aren’t–but in any event we have done our best to succeed. Yes, I have my playful moments, but my best analysis is that we are headed for a very long, very deep depression as the BEST possible case. I can do nothing about the worst I can envision, which is invasion or dictatorship, so I do not worry about those. The worst result otherwise is going to be a socioeconomic breakdown followed by a period of upheaval which will subside in time. The goal is to position ourselves to benefit from both the best and the worst. I will never have a following to rival James Howard Kunstler’s, but I know good advice when I hear it: at the very least prepare yourself for a future, perhaps 15 years hence, when those who live in the country and small towns are significantly better off than those caught in the cities. That is very difficult–unless we see it as not just running away from what frightens us. If we do that AND play for the best result we can position ourselves to be at least safe and possibly very successful, indeed. I keep meaning to write a better explanation of how a feudal system will play out as a series of local fiefdoms and nation-states. It is too late for most of us to become great landowners with sections (a square mile) of arable land, herds of cattle, and the men and machinery it takes to run such an operation. It is NOT too late to stake out a position on the lowest rung of self-sufficiency and dignity, being a Yeoman Farmer. That can be done for about $5,000 in livestock and a motor home to live in, as few as ten or twenty acres (depending upon rainfall), a private supply of water, and basic farming equipment. The more excess you can provide, obviously, the more you will have to barter with–and turn into land. Another choice is a second profession which will be needed in a primarily agrarian society: cobblers, farriers, brewers, blacksmiths, cheesemakers, and handymen. The adventurous can mine the dead cities. A very few will be able to function as storekeepers and innkeepers. Pretty much, though, unless you are in a small group of artisan and tradesmen, if you aren’t part of the “landed gentry,” or a tenant farmer (which is not nearly as dreadful thing as most suppose), you are going to have three choices: to live on far less charity–because the so-called “safety net” will disappear–mooching off family and churches, to become bandits, a “profession” that will not be very safe particularly in the Western half of this country, or to become a servant, working for wages which prevailed before the Industrial revolution: room, board (food), two uniforms and a set of Sunday clothing a year, alternate Sunday afternoons off, and perhaps as much as half an ounce of silver a month for upper servants. This was the NORM throughout most of history–in the better places to live! If the current system collapses, a great many people will be all but unemployable. There won’t be many jobs for lawyers, personal trainers, real estate agents, cashiers, waiters, politicians, bureaucrats, or MBAs. You have British forebears and it won’t be hard to establishh the truth of my words. We may not get to actual “patents of nobility,” but I expect the equivalents of Barons, Earls, Squires, and those who know if they lose their position “without a character” (references) they will find it very difficult, indeed, to gain another job. If there is anything we have too much of, it is people. A “middle class” which had many of the comforts of the aristocracy (in our times, machinery instead of servants), without the true leisure, has been quite rare throughout history. Thanks for a great response, and I’d love to hear that you have purchased your own “small holding,” preferably that you can aspire to the dignity of at least “Squire Morris.” Ladylike equivalent of guffaw; wouldn’t that annoy your Labour MPs? The Whigs have destroyed the monarchy, the nobility, your economy, and any reasonable chance of leaving your family what you earned, in addition to turning Great Britain over to the EU against the wishes of over 90% of your population. Soft laugh…I’m the first of my family to be only half Irish, but all we ever wanted was independence, not the destruction of all that made England great. God save the Queen. Linda