Murrinations

Reviewing America's progress in containing the momentum of the Chinese challenge we must conclude that so far it is “too little too late”.  Trump’s America needs to find another gear level to be successful

We have long argued that competition for resources regulates the rate of a strategic challenge, and ultimately wars. A prime example is the ‘cold war’ which can be modelled as below:

We can use the nine containment points America needed to act upon to assess Chinese progress with its' strategy:

1. Learn to respect and understand Chinese history and culture - the Americans continue to have a very poor understanding of their strategic competitor’s history, culture, and mindset, whilst the Chinese understand the American culture very well from a massive long cultural exposure. This is a profound weakness in not understanding one's enemy.

During the 17 years since the genesis of BTCH, the prediction of China’s rise and the stages that it would go through to achieve its goal of becoming the next global superpower have been accurate in every way. These are based on both the qualities of late regionalization and early ascension to empire expounded by China. The rise of President Xi to absolute power is also very much part of the cycle at this stage.

China Ascends to Empire

Trump is no doubt a strong leader and the majority of his policies are the right ones to reassert American influence. However domestically Trump, and thus America, are in a precarious position. Trump faces dissension at all levels, and perhaps even more seriously, the on-going potential of impeachment. This domestic resistance has impeded some of his chosen policies, foremost of which is his Russian policy. This was designed to pull Putin back into the western fold and thereby surround China as was once the USSR in the cold war.

Since 2001 and 9/11, America’s three presidents have all contributed to America's decline in their own inimitable ways. In this America has conformed to the characteristics of this phase of decline outlined in the five stages of Empire. Each of the last three Presidents lost a specific element vital to the composite of American power in what we will call the three false dawns.   

The First False dawn: The loss of the Eagles moral imperative to rule

It has been some 17 years since the genesis of Breaking The Code of History (BTCH) which followed the 9/11 attacks, and 8 years since its publication in 2010.

If we compare today's Brexit with our two past examples of the English civil war and Henry VIIIs reformation we find an anomaly in the new British cycle. At the bottom of the British national cycle post-1970 there was a continuity of governance unseen in past cycles due to the framework of the super western Christian empire. Whilst continuity accelerated Britain's recovery time considerably, its' downside was that the legacy leadership structures of the nation remained in place, rather than evolving through a period of chaos which would have allowed new leadership to rise to the fore.

The British parliament is now approaching a historic moment. It is about to vote on May’s Chequers plan for Brexit.

It therefore seems an appropriate time to review the ‘Five Stages of Empire Principals’ to better understand the social forces at work in British society and the likely outcomes ahead.