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Thucydides Trap & War Between China & USA
Thucydides Trap & War Between China & USA
QUESTION: What do you make of Trump’s proposal to restrict US investment in China? Will this send the US economy into recession as everyone is saying?
DH
ANSWER: I have never seen the press so anti-president in the history of this nation. Every possible thing they claim will destroy the US economy. The US trade with China will by no means send the US economy into a deep recession. However, blocking US investment into China would send the Chinese economy down even harder.
This style of analysis always reduces the future trend to one simple event. The markets and the world economy are far more complex than a single event. This is the entire problem with Western Analysis – it is always linear and never cyclical. This is the same problem as Global Warming. They see a 1-degree rise, project that out for 50 years, and then assume the trend will remain the same – linear analysis. They always project the future in this manner and NEVER look at the trends in history to learn what are the “real” possibilities from similar events.
What you must understand is they often call this type of struggle between the current superpower (Financial Capital of the World) and the rising power to take that title, the Thucydides Trap. This is named after the ancient Greek historian Thucydides who wrote about a war that devastated the two leading city-states of classical Greece – Sparta & Athens.
Thucydides explained: “It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable.”
While Thucydides provided his opinion, there was another backdrop to this war which he did not cover. Looking at this from an economic issue, it was the ancient clash between Capitalism and Communism. Sparta never issued coins whereas the Athenian Owl coins became the international currency recognized even in barbarian regions.
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The Thucydides Trap or the Coming War with China
The Thucydides Trap or the Coming War with China
Editor’s Note: Bill is still up on the family ranch in northern Argentina. And his satellite Internet link is down. So there is no new update from him today. Instead, we republish a classic piece from Bill on the potential for a war between the US and China.
Athenian historian, political philosopher and general Thucydides (c. 460 – 395 BC). He authored The History of the Peloponnesian War, which recounts the war in the 5th century BC between Sparta and Athens. Today Thucydides is considered the father of scientific history (he was the first historian to focus on meticulously gathering evidence and leaving intervention by the gods out of historical accounts) as well as the father of the school of political realism, who was the first to study relations between nations on the basis of their relative economic and military power.
From Hegemon to Also-Ran
Somehow, like it or not, the world turns. Today’s hegemon becomes tomorrow’s also-ran. Today’s reserve currency becomes tomorrow’s toilet paper. Today’s cock o’ the walk becomes tomorrow’s dinner.
Hey, we didn’t create this system. We don’t even especially like it. But that’s just the way it is.
Whether you already have made a fortune, or are trying to build one, you need to be very careful about what currency … or currencies … your wealth is denominated in.
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