A Time for War?
Or a time for peace?
“There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens.”
~ Ecclesiastes 3:1
Joel Bowman with today’s Note From the End of the World: Buenos Aires, Argentina...
Uh, oh... is the world on the road to all out war, again? Here’s the latest...
From The Economic Times...
Poland is at its closest to open conflict since World War Two, PM Donald Tusk says
From DW...
Reports: China is quietly fueling Russia's Ukraine war
From the BBC...
Qatar hosts Arab-Islamic emergency summit over Israeli strike on Doha
And now this, still developing, from The New York Times...
Israel launches ground offensive in Gaza City...
Continued the Old Gray Lady, amidst its “live updates”...
Fleeing Palestinians clogged the roads south from Gaza City on Tuesday, while many others remained in the ruined city, as the Israeli military said it had launched a much-anticipated ground offensive to take control of an urban center it calls a Hamas stronghold.
Meanwhile, Belarus and Russia are conducting “simulated nuclear strike” exercises during their joint Zapad-2025 military exercises, currently underway.
This, after the United States vowed Friday to defend “every inch of NATO territory” following a number of suspected Russian drones entering Polish airspace during an attack on Ukraine.
According to the BBC, Romania has since become the second NATO country to report Russian drones entering its airspace.
Naturally, Russia denies the incursions... just as the Ukraine denies supplying drones to Malian rebels... the UK denies Boris Johnson scuppered an early Russo-Ukrainian peace deal... China denies funding Russia’s war effort... the US denies taking out Nordstream (right after promising to “put an end to it”)...
... and on, and on, ad nauseam...
Truth, as the old saying goes, is often the first casualty of war.
Thou Shalt Not…
Of course, war itself is an old business, waged by power-mad elites and comfortable congressmen... and born on the shoulders of “expendable” soldiers, goaded into mortal conflict by that age-old lie: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. (It is sweet and honorable to die for one’s country, from Horace’s Odes.)
But wait! Isn’t murder immoral, not to mention illegal... at least in the eyes of earthly law and divine sanction?
“It is forbidden to kill,” observed Voltaire in his Dictonnaire philosophique (1764), “therefore all murderers are punished... unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.”
The question, it seems, is not whether wars of aggression are ever just... but why it is that men are so easily swayed by the quest for glory and the sound of the brass. Voltaire, again...
“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”
Since the beginning of the 3rd millennium, the axis of global power has shifted, not only in terms of the flow of tradable goods... and the fiat dollars used to purchase them... but in the marching orders of its soldiers and the trajectory of its missiles.
On the one hand, for almost a quarter of a century, the single largest military power on earth – perhaps the greatest the world has ever seen, at least in terms of firepower – has been in a constant state of war, often fought on more than one front at a time.
There was the War in Afghanistan (2001–2021), the Iraq War (2003–2011), the campaigns against ISIS (multiple countries, 2014–present), and the conflict in Yemen (2015–present), plus bombings, airstrikes and drone strikes in Pakistan (2001-present), Syria (2014–present), Libya (2011), Somalia (2001–present) and across the Sahel region (Mali, Niger, etc., 2010s–present)...
... to say nothing of the hundreds of billions of dollars worth of US-made rockets, missiles and weaponry currently darkening the skies over Eastern Europe and the Levant.
The Barbarians Within
What threat, existential or otherwise, these far flung locales and tribal backwaters pose to “The Homeland” is anyone’s guess. Needless to say, when one’s livelihood depends on finding and fighting (and even, if it comes to it, funding) enemies, as is the case for those enmeshed in America’s vast and lethal Military Industrial Complex, every wispy specter begins to morph into a dollar sign.
Alas (in the eyes of the empire), warfare has hardly proven a lucrative pastime. The United States national debt has surged by an uncontrollable $31 trillion since 2000, from $5.7 trillion to $37.5 trillion today... a non-trivial 560% increase.
Measured against the real economy (at least as far as Gross Domestic Product is a serviceable proxy for such a thing... which it isn’t), the debt has more than doubled as a percentage of GDP, from 55.5% in 2000... to over 123% today. (At the peak of WWII, in 1945, it reached a record 119%.)
Meanwhile, as the sole remaining superpower of the 20th Century appears determined to bankrupt itself – at a current rate of $2 trillion per year, give or take – foreign powers, including sworn enemies and former allies, are beginning to look around the dance floor... and even form new alliances.
Two weeks ago, at a meeting in the northern Chinese port city of Tianjin, leaders of countries representing 40% of the world’s population – including India, China, Russia and two dozen other nations – committed to stronger trade ties amidst a world roiled by tariffs and trade wars.
Evidently miffed that Trump would impose a blanket 50% tariff on goods from his country (as punishment for buying Russian oil), Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, shared a backseat ride in Putin’s private limousine on the way to meet Xi and the rest of the gang.
The three leaders, representing ~3 billion people between them – every one of them eager for a taste of that sweet, sweet American standard of living – posed for the cameras, hands in hand, on the red carpet afterwards, showing once again that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
Naturally, President Trump responded in a measured and statesmanlike manner... by lobbying members of the G7 and the EU to levy 100% tariffs on China and India... and promising to “mirror” any such tariffs as these partners were willing to impose.
An old saying (often misattributed to another Frenchman, Frédéric Bastiat), warns:
“When goods do not cross borders, soldiers will.”
Whether this is a time for peace... or a season for war... the world may find out soon enough.
Stay tuned for more Notes From the End of the World...
Cheers,
Joel Bowman
P.S. Given the choice between a time to tear down, and a time to build… Notes members have kindly voted for the latter, helping us spread the message of Free Markets, Free Minds and Free People to readers across all 50 US states and in 140 countries around the world.
Here’s what a few of them had to say about their Notes membership…
Thank YOU, dear readers… and thanks to the modern world, for being so ridiculous and providing ample fodder for these Notes.
If you’re enjoying our work and would like to support us, please do! You can become a Notes member today for about what it costs to buy one sugary Starbucks “coffee” drink per month.
Join our growing community of free thinkers, independent minds and cheerful skeptics here…
Yes Joel it is quite the clown show isn't it, well, the scary kind. I'm hoping that with the Chinese control of rare earth metals and the US's bankrupt status there will be more peace than war. It is also helpful that the average US citizen, particularly in the younger demographics, have had enough of the warmongering. We'll see... excellent overview though of the way it was.
Per war, follow the money ( and national debt). And ALWAYS question authority.