A while ago I asked the question whether war in Ukraine was even worthwhile for the US and the answer was no. They may be upset that their position as the world’s Big Brother is being increasingly undermined, but gunplay doesn’t help at all. That position is always achieved, I said, referring to a book by George Modelski and William Thompson, by leading technological development and also having something to offer others.
However, Mr Thompson later completed the picture, together with Leila Zakhirova. The pretender to become the world’s Big Brother must also have access to a new, more efficient energy source in order to afford to do what it wants, plus use it in conjunction with technological innovations that make the pretender more efficient. Holland developed windmills and torrefaction and used this to mechanise shipyards, among other things. England developed coal in conjunction with steam engines. The USA developed oil in conjunction with internal combustion engines and assembly lines. Perhaps because of the failure to find such an energy-technology symbiosis, the brilliant developments in Song-era China eventually dried up.
So what will happen in the future?
It is quite clear that a new energy source is needed after fossil fuels. New fossil fuel sources will be increasingly expensive both to find and to use, in terms of global warming and the destruction of the resource base.
When the book was written in the late 10s, China was leading the way in wind and solar energy – but not in a decisive way. It had about twice as much installed as number two, and was growing at a modest 20 per cent a year – but on the other hand, it relied on coal more than any other country. Thompson and Zakhirova, supported by most forecasters, assumed that the transition was simply too slow for any hegemonic shift to take place. So, according to them, the US would have to keep on trying to lead the world, with decreasing capacity and, consequently, increasing global chaos.
However, something seems to have happened in recent years. According to Photovoltaic Magazine, the rate of solar panel installation in China suddenly quintupled in 2022, and that increase looks set to continue. The reason is not a global conscience but simply that coal is hurting the Chinese themselves. They may also realise that solar and wind energy have economies of scale while coal and oil suffer from diminishing returns, i.e. solar and wind just get cheaper the more you do it, i.e. it’s good business.
If the forecasts hold, it is dangerous to extrapolate.
Meanwhile, the US and Europe are becoming increasingly sclerotic, or in the words of Charles Kindleberger, in terms of economic decline:
Merchants and industrialists graduate from risk-takers to rentier status, and conserve flagging energy. Consumption out of given incomes rise, savings decline. Various interests push their concerns at the political level, and if enough do, they block effective government action. Income distribution tends to become more skewed, the rich richer, the poor poorer. With greater access to the reins of political power, the wealthy are likely to resist some ethically appropriate sharing of national burdens, such as the costs of defense, reparation, infrastructure, and other public goods.
In the case of the United States, it should also be a matter of political conservatism; oil was doing so well in the 20th century that the easiest thing to do is to squeeze out the last drops by means of fracking. And in the case of Europe, it’s about the Maastricht Agreement, which prohibits one EU member from promoting any particular production at the expense of another; that’s for the “market” to decide.
Even in terms of technological development, China appears to outperform the rest – 1.6 million new patents in 2021 compared to 0.6 million in the US and 1.2 million in all others combined. Of course, this does not necessarily mean that development is taking place in the ‘right’ places, i.e. those that favour further development in the future.
Perhaps the result of this is that China has a slightly better chance of becoming the world’s big brother than Thompson and Zakhirova suspect. But what is certain is that the US has nothing whatsoever to gain by using force. It only increases global chaos. With consequences for themselves as well.
Activists for Peace 