R: gzg-d Digest V2012 #10

Hi Beth!!

how are you? appreciated your latest story and will write privately 
(as I should have done way before) about family and all (hope 
everything is fine).

Thanks for the heads up about this book, will look for it.

Plausible? The Mexican Standoff (pun intended) is definitely highly 
plausible... can't say if a president, in the 2040's would have the 
support to try and remove immigrants, though.

The rest? if one accept the starting points (no Western Europe, no 
Russia, no China, no US economic collapse) and the obvious cavalry 
arrival for the US in the war part, then, why not?

Altaic population and Japanese are definitely blocks to reckon, have 
a role presently and are either on the rise or have such wealth that 
will not disappear in 30 more years... limited war, a definite military 
tech advantage for the US (I think one cannot easily translate general 
tech - Japan has enough of that - to military in a few years... must 
build up a mind, an infrastructure, to think about successful military 
innovations AND to have again a "military solution" among one's 
strategic choices), a definite tech advantage as the edge in 
conventional military confrontations but no solution to really control 
diffused, low level (armed) opposition, so one can defeat a foreign 
army (disable its capacity to wage organized war), but somebody will 
still have to "occupy that ridge" (either on European front, in the 
story, or in Southern U.S.)

So, in a few words, I can go with it :)

Best

Enzo

----Messaggio originale----
Da: gzg-d-request@firedrake.org
Data: 15/01/2012 7.00
A: <gzg-d@firedrake.org>
Ogg: gzg-d Digest V2012 #10

 G'day,

For work I recently read the book "The Next 100 Years" by George 
Friedman. I'm not sure I really agree with some of his logic, but the 
last few chapters made for an interesting sci-fi short story read.

So I'll do a quick summary here (sorry if this counts as spoilers) 
and I wouldn't mind getting your opinion on how feasible it all seems.

I won't bother going through all the economic ups and downs he 
predicts, suffice it to say that by 2035-2040 US is still the worlds 
major superpower, its paying migrants to come to the country to pad out 
a contracting workforce that even robotics can't compensate for and the 
jihadist movements are basically old history. oh and an attempt by 
Russia to regain past glory failed and they're a worse basket case than 
ever.

So Russia's collapse leaves some wiggle room on its borders. He 
writes off China as not having enough cohesion and India as hemmed in 
by geography and instead proposes

1) Japan gets power by first economically allying with productive 
coastal regions of China and them militarily going after the Pacific 
rim areas of Russia. He goes through how they build up their military 
etc to prepare, but basically the crux is 500 mile radius from Japan 
gets you from Shanghai to Vladivostok so they don't need a super huge 
military to pull it off.

2) Turkey as a regional economic power pushes up into the Caucasus as 
Russia collapse and acts as the peaceful hand in the fragmenting Arab 
nations/Muslim world and even moves into the Muslim areas of the 
Balkans (US and Arab world initially supports them as less 
objectionable, for different reasons, than Iran or Israel and Pakistan 
isn't healthy enough to step up)

3) NATO falls apart but Poland heads up a coalition of dynamic 
Slavic/eastern European and Baltic states that soak up ex-Russia's 
eastern boundary (i.e. Ukraine, Belarus etc), again with US support 
(western Europe is in financial decline due to aging populations so 
don't play a big part apparently)

4) 2030s-2040s Japan and Turkey's space presence buidls up, though is 
never as large as the US's (many nations also have commercial space 
traffic at this point)

5) Polish Bloc and Turkey will end up at loggerheads (US ends up more 
behind the Poles)

6) US puts many of its military eggs in space based command and 
control centres which coordinate the strike capabilities of hypersonic 
aircraft that can reach most of the world's surface (form US bases) in 
less than an hour or so

7) Americans assume no one is as good as them at tech, thinking 
sneaky etc and also that all threats will come from Earth (i.e. 
missiles fired at satellites or satellites vs satellites using the 
kinetics that was spoken of on the sf-consim list the other day)

8) US doesn't like growing military (especially naval) power of 
Turkey and Japan, who in turn feel that US is trying to crush them so 
everyone gets "tense"

9) No one takes nukes seriously as an option (except as a last 
resort) as they don't want the PR disaster of civilian casualties

10) Many nations build industrial/research colonies on the moon by 
2040s

11) In 2050 Turkey has a "crisis" with Poland over troops in the 
Balkans, a ruse to keep the US attention there (President gets the PMs 
together etc, seems to talk them down, great kudos etc everyone goes 
home for the holidays happy). Japan does its bulk standard quarterly 
military drills so no one really pays attention. The Japanese then make 
a "secret" first strike by launching rocks (with rocket motors 
attached) from secret part of their moon base, initially on "random" 
orbits so just look like steroids so automated systems of US 
"Battlestars" ignore them and even Space tech Joe Bloggs goes "Hmmm 
meteors are a bit higher than normal but none headed for us so ok". On 
3rd day from moon launch of these rocks they go into terminal missile 
burn that redirects them at the 3 US Battlestars. This is timed for 
late in the afternoon of Thanksgiving so its hard to get the Joint 
Chiefs/important people together. Battelstars put up valiant self 
defensive effort but overwhelmed by more rocks. U
S is blind. Japanese have also got their hypersonics airborne and hit 
US airfields/land command and control. In the final hour Japan finally 
tells Turkey the plan... who activate pre-made battle plans and smash 
Polish facilities.

12) US did get some of their own forces airborne, and do some damage 
to Japan, but not sheet loads.

13) The Japanese-Turkish coalition isn't after capitulation just 
breathing space so now push for political settlement - an agreement to 
all stay out of each other's way/areas of influence.

14) US actually freaked out by the attacks and begins ratcheting its 
responses - first gets US geekforce to upload new control programs for 
remaining "old" satellites which go and kill Japanese/Turkish 
satellites; mutual raiding and destruction of moon base capabiilities 
by the secrte military guys inserted in each research team; the US 
industrial complex rolls into action and turns out new gen aircraft (in 
about 2 years) and uses mothballed secret bases to house them (they had 
purposefully built these and kept the secret since 2030s or so just in 
case)

15) Meanwhile Turkey kicks Polish butt, using hypersonic aircraft as 
artillery and old fashioned land based invasion. US uses its remaining 
airforce to help the Poles out and push the Turks back (buying time for 
a US rebuild) - Turks also don't want to be too stretched as have to 
keep Egypt etc under control.

16) 2051-2052 Germans agree to coalition with Turkey to defeat the 
Poles (they get northeast europe in return if successful) and drag in 
the French too. Britain is appalled and secretly hands its intel, 
airforce resources and airbases to the US. Turks and Germans pusg 
througheastern Europe again using power armoured troops (with robot 
minions so don't need huge numbers of human bodies). Initially the 
electrical grid is defended as both sides want ti to feed their PA. The 
US then reveals its last trick, which is space based solar power beamed 
down to troops via microwave (i.e. to on ground recievers) and so the 
Polish scorch earth the electrical grid and Turkish advance grinds to a 
halt. On top of which Congressional budget blocks will mean that a 4th 
battlestar was built way back when but never launched and now it is... 
Japan and Turkish advances reversed (again no requirement for 
unconditional surrender, though US gets space to itself).

17) Poland will prosper, eventually reforming something vaguely like 
NATO and economically sucking up beleaguered western Europe. US feels 
threatened and now stats to back Turkey - Poles feel betrayed.

18) Military funded space based electrical power will see that form 
of energy take off as most economic as commercial industry doesn't have 
to pay for the infrastructure (as was the case for the interstate and 
early internet/www) and you get another US boom

19) Meanwhile by 2060s-2080s Mexico has pulled itself together and is 
now the Latin economy of note, moreover through now legal migration the 
Mexican cession areas of the US are largely Latino populated (they are 
almost a majority there now in 2000 so this isn't too far fetched)

20) Robotics and cheap energy means the labour force is finally not 
needed for real and skill displacement can't soak them all up 
(population problems compounded by genetic advances in health care 
areas). End result US decides to go back to limiting migration and 
sending home anyone on a temporary visa regardless of residence time. 
Latinos (some of whom have now been in the US for decades) and Mexico 
(who doesn't want waves of unemployed) get upset. Political tensions in 
Mexico City and amongst Latino representatives in Washington, small 
scale radicalisation in the "borderlands" sees some strikes on federal 
facilities. President tries to federalise the national guard along the 
Mexican border to protect federal installations. The Latino governors 
tell him to go jump (and largely Latino national guard in those areas 
support the governors). Radical strikes continue so Congress agrees to 
allow US army in down there, Mexican army is moved to the border in 
response. Mexican and US Presiden
ts meet to parly with the Mexican President effectively speaking for 
the Latinos in the Mexican cession areas as well as Mexico itself. 

21) Change to Mexican constitution allows for diaspora to vote.

22) Mexico ramps up military forces

23) US army could probably take out the Mexican army (ok likely for 
sure could) but it couldn't pacify the borderlands... the world holds 
its breath to see whether the borders are formally redrawn.

Like I said interesting, but how plausible is it?

Beth

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