Sphere-of-interest politics & global superpowers

Abstract: Classic American foreign policy doctrines such as the Monroe, Truman and Carter doctrines assert that Latin America, Europe and the Middle East, respectively, are of vital interest to the USA and are therefore in the American sphere of influence. The USA thereby maintains the right to intervene militarily in those regions. In these regions, this is often perceived as American imperialism. From an American viewpoint, the purpose of these doctrines is anti-imperialist in that the primary purpose is to warn away other global superpowers. In the event of Soviet involvement in Latin America, Europe or the Middle East, for example, there existed the very real danger of rapid escalation to global nuclear war. In contrast, when global superpowers are absent from regional conflict, as with the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1991, the American reaction can be expected to be less draconian and more uncertain. The USA might go to war to protect a ally (Saudi Arabia) from a regional threat (Iran); but then again, maybe not.

The Carter Doctrine, articulated in 1980, states that the Middle East is an area of vital interest to the USA and that the USA reserves the right to intervene with military force if those American interests (oil) are threatened.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carter_Doctrine

The Carter Doctrine was a policy proclaimed by President of the United States Jimmy Carter in his State of the Union Address on January 23, 1980, which stated that the United States would use military force, if necessary, to defend its national interests in the Persian Gulf. It was a response to the Soviet Union's intervention in Afghanistan in 1979, and it was intended to deter the Soviet Union, the United States' Cold War adversary, from seeking hegemony in the Persian Gulf region. 

The wording of the document stresses that it would be against forces from outside the region that the USA would retaliate against.

Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force. 

The Carter Doctrine was modeled on the Truman Doctrine of 1947, which asserted that the USA will globally counter the spread of communism, and which signified the beginning of the Cold War. Notably, it was not so much communism itself which was perceived as a threat, but Soviet Communism, and the real area of concern was Europe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truman_Doctrine

The Truman Doctrine was an American foreign policy whose stated purpose was to counter Soviet geopolitical expansion during the Cold War. It was announced to Congress by President Harry S. Truman on March 29, 1947,[1] and further developed on July 4, 1948, when he pledged to contain threats in Greece and Turkey. Direct American military force was usually not involved, but Congress appropriated financial aid to support the economies and militaries of Greece and Turkey. More generally, the Truman Doctrine implied American support for other nations allegedly threatened by Soviet communism. The Truman Doctrine became the foundation of American foreign policy, and led, in 1949, to the formation of NATO, a military alliance that is still in effect. Historians often use Truman's speech to date the start of the Cold War. 

The Truman Doctrine was informally extended to become the basis of American Cold War policy throughout Europe and around the world.[5] It shifted American foreign policy toward the Soviet Union from anti-fascism ally to a policy of containment of Soviet expansion as advocated by diplomat George Kennan. It was distinguished from rollback by implicitly tolerating the previous Soviet takeovers in Eastern Europe. 

The Truman Doctrine pragmatically tolerated the preexisting conquest of Eastern Europe by the Soviets, rather than calling for regime change and revolution ("rollback"). The Truman Doctrine's (conservative) realism was quite different from the later Reagan Doctrine, which called for the USA to support the global overthrow of communism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reagan_Doctrine

In its pragmatism, the Truman Doctrine resembled the earlier Monroe Doctrine, which declared that further European attempts to colonize the western hemisphere would be regarded by the USA as an act of war -- but nevertheless recognized current European colonies in the New World as legitimate.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_Doctrine

The Monroe Doctrine was a United States policy of opposing European colonialism in the Americas beginning in 1823. It stated that further efforts by European nations to take control of any independent state in North or South America would be viewed as "the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States."[1] At the same time, the doctrine noted that the U.S. would recognize and not interfere with existing European colonies nor meddle in the internal concerns of European countries. The Doctrine was issued on December 2, 1823 at a time when nearly all Latin American colonies of Spain and Portugal had achieved, or were at the point of gaining, independence from the Portuguese and Spanish Empires. 

In the USA, the Monroe, Truman and Carter Doctrines are understood as anti-imperialist policies warning away other great powers; for the people in these regions, these doctrines are often seen as the imposition of American imperialism. This is classic "sphere of influence" politics. A superpower will inevitably dominate its neighbors. Moreover, that superpower will also recognize the right of other superpowers to likewise dominate their own neighbors (e.g., Soviet domination of eastern Europe) -- even if those other superpowers are arch-enemies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphere_of_influence

In the field of international relations, a sphere of influence (SOI) is a spatial region or concept division over which a state or organization has a level of cultural, economic, military, or political exclusivity, accommodating to the interests of powers outside the borders of the state that controls it. 

In more extreme cases, a country within the "sphere of influence" of another may become a subsidiary of that state and serve in effect as a satellite state or de facto colony. The system of spheres of influence by which powerful nations intervene in the affairs of others continues to the present. It is often analyzed in terms of superpowers, great powers, and/or middle powers. 

A sphere of influence is sometimes referred to as a "sphere of interest".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_interest

The national interest, often referred to by the French expression raison d'État (English: "reason of State"), is a country's goals and ambitions, whether economic, military, cultural or otherwise. The concept is an important one in international relations, where pursuit of the national interest is the foundation of the realist school. 

The USA has at least three major spheres of interest: Latin America, Europe and the Middle East. Any intervention by an outside power in these regions would endanger the USA according to established American foreign policy doctrine. That's a lot of real estate to police.

This background might help to explain why the USA is not rushing off to war despite Iran's attacks on oil production in Saudi Arabia. Iran is a regional power, not a global superpower posing an existential risk to the USA the way the USSR did. If the Soviet Union still existed and was allied with Iran and these strikes against Saudi Arabia were carried out, the world might well have very rapidly found itself veering toward nuclear war. Without the USSR, the "Big One" happened in the Middle East, yet to no consequence (yet).

From a realist perspective, the problem in the Cold War was not primarily ideology or communism, but great power conflict between the USA and the USSR. (Hence Nixon and Kissinger's recognition of communist China in order to counter the power of the USSR.) Communism has disappeared, but with the revival of the Russian economy, Russia has emerged as an adversary to the USA. Idealists in the USA are flummoxed by this, but to a realist, it is all very predictable.

This tells us something about the ascent of Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump to the presidency in the USA. When there is a life-or-death crisis, people tend to become pragmatic and realistic. When Reagan was elected, the Cold War was heating up with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. But that invasion was itself a sign of the steep decline in all areas in the USSR (the Soviet leadership was literally senile). The political sphere in the USA seems to have become incorporated into the entertainment industry precisely because there are so few obvious existential threats.

Ironically, things have never been better. More ironically, the cocky sense of overconfidence that the absence of real crisis inspires among the masses is itself a source of instability and grievous concern.
Robert Reich asserts that President Trump is dangerously unstable and needs to be forced from office. What the good professor fails to realize is that thanks to democracy, someone far worse than Trump -- and far more fun! -- would be elected in Trump's place.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/sep/15/donald-trump-nuts-impeachment-25th-amendment-2020-election

"White swan" threats (Japan's collapse in 2020?)

Japan's economic vulnerabilities

The American financier Jim Rogers asserts that the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression will happen in 2020. Japan in particular will be hit hard because of its high national debt, low birth rates and virtual ban on immigration.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/02/20/business/american-investor-jim-rogers-warns-severe-economic-downturn-forecasts-grim-future-japan/

In particular, the world has loaded up on debt, and debt is a time bomb.

In the book, he foresees a catastrophic economic downturn within a year or two due to the “unprecedented” level of debt worldwide. The Institute of International Finance reported that global debt soared to $247 trillion in the first quarter of 2018, and Rogers said debt has increased by $75 trillion, or 43 percent, since 2008.

Debt to GDP of the most populous nations in the world:

https://www.mercatus.org/sites/default/files/CHART-large.jpg

It is as though the Japanese government imagines that borrowed money can be a substitute for a lack of people.

The "replacement rate" for fertility -- at which a population exactly replaces itself from one generation to the next -- is 2.1 children per family. The fertility rate in Japan is almost half of that.

https://apjjf.org/data/fig2.jpg

The immigration rate in the USA is 14%. That is, 14% of Americans are foreign born. That is one of the highest rates of immigration in American history.

The immigration rate in Australia is an astonishing 28 percent. Australia has not had a recession in 27 years because immigrants provide both a workforce and demand for goods and services. (The sore point of high immigration rates is higher housing prices and a fear of immigrants, especially Muslims.)

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/22/world/australia/immigration.html

By contrast, the immigration rate in Japan is a paltry 1.7 percent.

https://images.theconversation.com/files/264378/original/file-20190318-28468-em1hkc.jpg

"White swan" threats and collective amnesia

A black swan event is a catastrophe that nobody foresaw -- although after the event all sorts of "experts" chime on how it was obviously going to happen for whatever reasons.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory

The black swan theory or theory of black swan events is a metaphor that describes an event that comes as a surprise, has a major effect, and is often inappropriately rationalized after the fact with the benefit of hindsight. The term is based on an ancient saying that presumed black swans did not exist – a saying that became reinterpreted to teach a different lesson after black swans were discovered in the wild.

A classic black swan event might be the bubonic plague that afflicted Europe in the mid-14th century. No one expected it then, although in retrospect, classic conditions existed for the Black Death to sweep through Europe:

• globalization (the plague originated in Mongolia and spread with the Mongol conquest);
• overpopulation in Europe (especially with dense cities and with people living near animals, either on farms or next to the wilderness); and
• economic crisis caused by climate change.

Because the Black Death did happen and the conditions for it have been identified, another plague devastating humanity would not be a classic black swan event. Rather, a potential for a subsequent plague would be better described as a "white swan" threat in that it would be predictable because the conditions for a plague are now better known.

A white swan threat might remind us of the saying "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me." Something unexpected and totally unpredictable once happened, and now we should know better. But people forget.

Interestingly, the conditions for the transmission of the plague that existed in the 14th century are widely expected to exist throughout the 21st century. Yet there is little discussion about or preparation for the possibility of a pandemic that might kill half the world's population within our lifetime. It would appear that white swan threats can induce collective amnesia.

Is the potential for Japan's collapse in 2020 also a white swan threat that is being overlooked? After all, Jim Rogers is not a fringe conspiracy theorist or a perpetually gloomy economist with a weird foreign name (Nouriel Roubini). Jim Rogers seems to be a totally positive and friendly American guy doing conventional, plain vanilla economic forecasting.

Jim Rogers' advice to Japan to allow more immigration does not seem to be gaining traction. Jim Rogers does give some advice to young Japanese to deal with their reduced prospects.

In 2017, he said on a financial podcast that “if I were a 10-year-old Japanese, I’d get myself an AK-47 or I’d leave” because of the country’s harrowing economic prospects.

What is Jim Rogers' advice for the rest of the world in terms of dealing with the impending economic and political collapse of Japan? Should we also buy AK-47s? How would a long economic depression change politics in Japan? The world has been afflicted by a wave of populism, nationalism and authoritarianism, yet after 30 years of stagnation, Japan has not succumbed to even a trace of anything like that. The reason for that might be that for almost 75 years in Japan, the conservative Liberal Democratic Party has had a monopoly on power and has institutionalized an elitist form of nationalism and authoritarianism. In the face of economic collapse, that ingrained ultra-conservatism might either prevent or promote the rise of fascism in Japan.

Nassim Taleb might offer some useful advice. Because we cannot predict a black swan event, Taleb argues that the best policy is to reduce vulnerability in general to prepare for potential unexpected catastrophes. For example, a low debt level is advisable because debt blows up in a crisis.
To prepare for a white swan event like the collapse of Japan, it might be imperative to reduce dependency on Japan. South Korea might have an inadvertent head start limiting its dependency on Japan. Because the two countries are now in a trade dispute, South Korea has been forced to consider alternative suppliers for its tech industry.

Two practical questions are suggested by the case of Japan's economic vulnerability:
In particular, How to reduce dependence on Japan?

More generally, as individuals and as a society, How can we reduce vulnerability?

Perhaps one of the greatest white swan threat today is the possibility of a oil price spike that could disrupt the world economy. The rise of oil prices to $147 per barrel in 2008 was a classic black swan event.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000s_energy_crisis

Amnesia seems to have set in since 2008. The initiatives to shift to renewable energy that were launched in 2008 were aimed at achieving greater energy security. Since then, the campaign to shift to renewable energy has been appropriated by the discourse of "global warming". Moreover, the so-called "fracking revolution" in the US oil and natural gas industry has also fostered the collective forgetting of the imperative to adopt local, distributed generation in order to promote energy security. In sum, liberal rhetoric and American ingenuity have together diminished the sense of urgency that existed in 2008 across the political spectrum that an energy transition was necessary for state security. However, periodic crises can trigger a collective remembering of white swan threats. In the face of a threat to the oil supply, people will -- temporarily -- remember that local generation is more safe and reliable than imported energy in any form.


https://www.wsj.com/articles/saudi-oil-attack-this-is-the-big-one-11568480576?mod=rsswn