Military US Military Is Scared Americans Won't Fight For Globalism

Bacle

When the effort is no longer profitable...
Founder
Just reading the abstract I can get a feel that this paper, or at least it's author, kinda realized that the US working class populace does not trust many of the institutions of gov, including the military.

It also obliquely admits military leaders need to take the civie public mood and situation into account in their military decisions, if they want to rebuilt support for the US military among the working class.

I doubt the paper will have any impact though. Admitting it has good points would force the US military to admit it has blown a lot of public goodwill on DCs forever war mania, and that the working class has shrunk partly because of the forever wars they sent the US military to fight.
 

Marduk

Well-known member
Moderator
Staff Member
A Crisis of Low Morale: Support for the Military in America’s Working Class A Monograph by COL Zachary D. Kerns

U.S Military research center publication about declining support for endless wars to prop up globalism among the working class due to the effects globalism has had upon them.
It does point of a greater issue - ideological schizophrenia of the current western establishment and its non-aggression pact with the revolutionary left.
On one side they want to "change the world" in a million ways generally suggested to benefit the people criticizing them and supposedly victimized by them, at the cost of knocking those commonly accused by the left of being main culprits in maintaining the current order (especially white males and US military) down a peg or ten.
On the other hand they need people to defend the neoliberal status quo, a lot of them the unfortunate above mentioned scapegoats.
Which way?
Change the world in a million ways ASAP and ruin the current order, or fight to keep global stability and current order? Tell people both and they may have questions.
I doubt the paper will have any impact though. Admitting it has good points would force the US military to admit it has blown a lot of public goodwill on DCs forever war mania, and that the working class has shrunk partly because of the forever wars they sent the US military to fight.
Its way worse than that. A lot of people, especially the demographic willing to join and actually useful to the military, would be fine with meme wars for oil and shit, if they actually were exactly that. Hey, cheap oil is good to have, for you and the country as a whole.
What they aren't fine with is wars for human rights in Libya or Afghanistan and being called racist islamophobic imperialists as the only reward. And then having their taxes spent on aid so that said country can have feminism. By common sense that's a whole another layer of bad compared to the meme muh war for oil, which is questionable to absolutely based depending on where you stand politically.
 

Bacle

When the effort is no longer profitable...
Founder
Its way worse than that. A lot of people, especially the demographic willing to join and actually useful to the military, would be fine with meme wars for oil and shit, if they actually were exactly that. Hey, cheap oil is good to have, for you and the country as a whole.
What they aren't fine with is wars for human rights in Libya or Afghanistan and being called racist islamophobic imperialists as the only reward. And then having their taxes spent on aid so that said country can have feminism. By common sense that's a whole another layer of bad compared to the meme muh war for oil, which is questionable to absolutely based depending on where you stand politically.
War's for oil are pointless for the US, when we have enough domestic supply to be completely energy and petro-chem independent, and were for a time under Trump.

Also, the demographic you think are the ideal group for the US military to try to recruit happens to a be a rather shrinking demo, and the youth are not as ignorant about the realities of military service that recruiters have tried to hide for decades. It's partly why there is more and more emphasis on drones and AI; those allow one person to wield a lot of firepower, without the need for as many grunts on the ground.
 

Marduk

Well-known member
Moderator
Staff Member
War's for oil are pointless for the US, when we have enough domestic supply to be completely energy and petro-chem independent, and were for a time under Trump.
Barely. For some time. If you can eat popcorn watching the world have grand oil wars and get the rest of your country to do the same, collapse of most of global trade including the parts your country is tied into included, you could try that.
But you do realize that this isn't how this would go, right?
In reality, that's a choice between putting out small fires regularly or putting out a wildfire later. Because its hard for me to imagine American establishment and media led public opinion alike wanting to completely sit this one out, or one managing to overpower the other in doing so. Its hard to think of major powers who wouldn't struggle to do so.
Also, the demographic you think are the ideal group for the US military to try to recruit happens to a be a rather shrinking demo, and the youth are not as ignorant about the realities of military service that recruiters have tried to hide for decades. It's partly why there is more and more emphasis on drones and AI; those allow one person to wield a lot of firepower, without the need for as many grunts on the ground.
Current drones aren't replacing grunts, that's sci-fi so far, the thing they replace most effectively are light aircraft and helicopters, especially recon ones. They are a great force multiplier for the grunts on the ground, but the same can be said of crewed air support.
 

WolfBear

Well-known member
A Crisis of Low Morale: Support for the Military in America’s Working Class A Monograph by COL Zachary D. Kerns

U.S Military research center publication about declining support for endless wars to prop up globalism among the working class due to the effects globalism has had upon them.

Don't worry; what the US working-class won't fight for, the US's super-Woke rainbow brigade will! ;)

large.jpg


But Yes, it does feel like the US working-class think that the US elites are more concerned about maintaining the US's empire abroad than about protecting the US working-class at home. Similar to how the Soviet working-class presumably felt about their own elites back in the 1980s.
 

bintananth

behind a desk
But Yes, it does feel like the US working-class think that the US elites are more concerned about maintaining the US's empire abroad than about protecting the US working-class at home. Similar to how the Soviet working-class presumably felt about their own elites back in the 1980s.
If you look at all the wars the US was involved in between Treaty of Paris and the end of WWII chances are the following was part of the casus belli: "Someone fucked with our shit and we're, shall we say, 'just a wee bit displeased' with that."

That's not really true post-WWII.
 

WolfBear

Well-known member
If you look at all the wars the US was involved in between Treaty of Paris and the end of WWII chances are the following was part of the casus belli: "Someone fucked with our shit and we're, shall we say, 'just a wee bit displeased' with that."

That's not really true post-WWII.

Post-WWII, our casus belli were essentially these:

Korea: Commies wanna take over South Korea
Vietnam: Commies wanna take over South Vietnam
Gulf War: Saddam Hussein wants to take over our oil in Kuwait
Afghanistan: Osama bin Laden killed 3,000 Americans and the Taliban gave him and al-Qaeda safe haven
Iraq: We have unfinished business from the Gulf War that we now need to finish
Libya: Democracy! Human rights!
 

bintananth

behind a desk
Post-WWII, our casus belli were essentially these:

Korea: Commies wanna take over South Korea
Vietnam: Commies wanna take over South Vietnam
Gulf War: Saddam Hussein wants to take over our oil in Kuwait
Afghanistan: Osama bin Laden killed 3,000 Americans and the Taliban gave him and al-Qaeda safe haven
Iraq: We have unfinished business from the Gulf War that we now need to finish
Libya: Democracy! Human rights!
Pre-WWII there was the Mexican-American War. The US had annexed the Republic of Texas - which Mexico didn't recognize - and granted Texas statehood. The fighting was mostly to settle which federal government is the rightful one.
 

sillygoose

Well-known member
War's for oil are pointless for the US, when we have enough domestic supply to be completely energy and petro-chem independent, and were for a time under Trump.
Respectfully disagree; the only tool the US has left to maintain its broken global economic system is the petro-dollar. The Bush invasions were about trying to control the global oil supply so the US could dictate to China, which needs massive amounts of oil to function, what the global rules are going to be. You're viewing America as simply a country that could cut loose from the world supply system and be fine, when in reality the US system is only functional because it rules the world through access to finance and oil...a control that is slipping away.

That has basically been the US policy need since the 1930s when the Depression revealed that the US system could not survive without major redistribution of wealth and power unless it turned the entire world into an economic colony. In the run up to the war, during it, and after WW2 the entire point of US foreign policy was maintaining economic domination over the globe and prevent rivals from operating outside the US run system.

Hence the Bretton Woods system (abandoned in the 1970s due to the limitations of the gold standard and US finance issues during Vietnam) and the Petro-dollar effectively replace that and the gold standard:


Effectively the value of the dollar is pegged to the value of global oil. All the more important due to Peak Oil being reached in the US in the 1970s:

Things have improved since of course due to new technologies and prices making more marginal sources economically viable, but that contributed to the huge problems of oil shortages in the 1970s; OPEC made its move strategically.
 
Last edited:

Captain X

Well-known member
Osaul
The thing about fracking is that it seems to be causing earthquakes and causing some problems with water tables and such.
 

Simonbob

Well-known member
The thing about fracking is that it seems to be causing earthquakes and causing some problems with water tables and such.

There's some issues with water tables, mostly leakage into them, although that's mostly fixed. The last time I've heard of it happening is something like 10 years ago? I looked into it about 5 years ago, and it seems they fixed that.

I've never heard of earthquakes being connected. It's possible, at least in theory, but the scale of forces needed for earthquakes and the locations needed..... I wouldn't have thought it was likely.
 

Captain X

Well-known member
Osaul
There's some issues with water tables, mostly leakage into them, although that's mostly fixed. The last time I've heard of it happening is something like 10 years ago? I looked into it about 5 years ago, and it seems they fixed that.
Considering the cover-ups of pipeline leaks and the like in my own state, I am disinclined to just take anyone's word for it that this is no longer a problem.

I've never heard of earthquakes being connected. It's possible, at least in theory, but the scale of forces needed for earthquakes and the locations needed..... I wouldn't have thought it was likely.
Oklahoma has been having trouble with this for about a decade now.

 

Bacle

When the effort is no longer profitable...
Founder
The thing about fracking is that it seems to be causing earthquakes and causing some problems with water tables and such.
There's some issues with water tables, mostly leakage into them, although that's mostly fixed. The last time I've heard of it happening is something like 10 years ago? I looked into it about 5 years ago, and it seems they fixed that.

I've never heard of earthquakes being connected. It's possible, at least in theory, but the scale of forces needed for earthquakes and the locations needed..... I wouldn't have thought it was likely.
Seismic imagining sometimes misses small, old faults that then get lubed by the fracking, and lead to leakage into places it wasn't meant to connect with or slippage of what was thought to be faultless strata. Denver actually had issues with those sorts of earthquakes when they were pumping hazmat/toxic/old biowar crap into deep wells to dispose of it, and reactivated a bunch of faults under the town.

Also, sometimes the companies which concrete the wells are...subpar, and you end up with weaker concrete than expected, which leads to leaks.

And kinda related to the thread topic, part of the reason fewer people are signing up to be the enforcers of DC's vision of a global order revolving around it, is because of how often the powers in DC are shown to be incompetent, corruption, or malicious towards the people they are sworn to serve.
 

sillygoose

Well-known member
One flaw.

With fracking? We still haven't reached Peak Oil. It was bullshit, like Global Cooling, Global Warming, and Climate Change.
I did mention it, just not by name. There was a pretty big drop off in production in the 1970s-90s before fracking tech caught up and oil prices reached the necessary level.
 

bintananth

behind a desk
I did mention it, just not by name. There was a pretty big drop off in production in the 1970s-90s before fracking tech caught up and oil prices reached the necessary level.
The US has almost always been an oil exporter. When oil prices spike it's not because the US doesn't have enough with some to spare. It's because OPEC got greedy and decided to play "dirty pool" so to speak.

Heck, in '98 (I think that's when it happened) I remember seeing $0.639/gal for regular unleaded (87 octane). A bit of digging led me to conclude that Saudia Arabia was irritated with the rest of OPEC not playing by the rules. They basically opened their wells to teach every other OPEC member a lesson: "we can afford to do this, you can not".
 

Agent23

Ни шагу назад!
The US has almost always been an oil exporter. When oil prices spike it's not because the US doesn't have enough with some to spare. It's because OPEC got greedy and decided to play "dirty pool" so to speak.

Heck, in '98 (I think that's when it happened) I remember seeing $0.639/gal for regular unleaded (87 octane). A bit of digging led me to conclude that Saudia Arabia was irritated with the rest of OPEC not playing by the rules. They basically opened their wells to teach every other OPEC member a lesson: "we can afford to do this, you can not".
Oil prices are also linked to inflation, it takes manpower and hardware to get the stuff out of the ground, and even more money to keep the spoiled, economically unproductive populations in the Oil rich gulf countries happy.

TBH the Arab Oil embargo and OPEC have had less of a part in the overall increases in oil prices than inflation spikes.
Whenever money printer go brrr oil well go insert more money.
 

bintananth

behind a desk
Oil prices are also linked to inflation, it takes manpower and hardware to get the stuff out of the ground, and even more money to keep the spoiled, economically unproductive populations in the Oil rich gulf countries happy.

TBH the Arab Oil embargo and OPEC have had less of a part in the overall increases in oil prices than inflation spikes.
Whenever money printer go brrr oil well go insert more money.
The Federal Reserve controls the US money printer and "stable prices" is part of what they're required to do. They don't have any control over oil prices but they do have a great deal of influence on the interest rate you'll pay when you need to borrow money to buy something like a car or a house.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Top