Wake Up
We are roughly 8 weeks into quarantine and I hear the same statement being uttered in Zoom calls and muffled through masks on sidewalks, “This all feels like a dream, I’m just waiting to wake up”. What if I were to tell you that you are now finally awake or at least struggling to wake up. What if the world has spent the last several decades taking what Eric Weinstein has called the “Big Nap”, and this global pandemic has woken us up and not in a gentle way. In the paragraphs that follow, I will try to explain what was just a dream, what reality we have awoken into and why it is absolutely imperative that you don’t fall back asleep because if you do…you may never wake up.
Of course, you must be wondering when we fell asleep and I (and many far brighter minds) would suggest 75 years ago, August 15th, 1945. The day WW2 ended. You see, at the end of WW2, the world had been utterly destroyed, but the United States was completely intact and had a monopoly on nuclear weapons. This allowed it to create an artificial world order, which we have all lived under. With Marshall Plans, military occupation, and a conference in New Hampshire, the United States concocted the most powerful sleep potion in the history of the world.
This potion was so powerful, we actually forgot who we once were, but all potions wear off and we were bound to wake up. The ingredients, put very simply (and largely paraphrased from Peter Zeihan), were the creation of a foundational system that had three distinct features:
1. The US would invest massive sums of money into not only its WW2 allies, but its now decimated enemies, so as to not repeat the mistakes of WW1 reparations.
2. It would open up its economy, which was the only one to not be destroyed in the war, so that these new global partners could export (in US dollars, making it the world’s reserve currency) themselves back to modernity.
3. This entire system would enable the first global free trading system, subsidized and protected by the US taxpayer and the Navy, respectively.
These three features make up the entire foundation of our modern world. It has survived the Cold War, massive economic disruptions and the digital revolution. It will not survive this pandemic.
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Why? It isn’t the nature of the pandemic itself, but a confluence of events that have been building up to this eventuality. It was going to happen anyway, but I must admit I thought it would take at least a decade, and thus be slightly less traumatic. Unfortunately, as Lenin wrote, “There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen.” The fundamental reason for the ending of our big nap is that the pandemic has conclusively shown that America is no longer interested or able to subsidize it, which means our steady drip of soma has finally stopped.
If one looks honestly at the state of foreign affairs, the writing has been on the wall at least since the invasion of Iraq, which laid the justification for the allies discontent and the corresponding resentment of their hegemonic protector. It was further proven with President Obama’s meaningless red line, which showed the United State’s unwillingness to intervene in international affairs. This has most recently been embodied by President Trump’s “America First” policies. However, this is not just a story of upset and tired American voters, but also of European amnesia and Chinese provocation.
Let’s start with Europe. The most telling example of European amnesia can be seen in Germany. In a 2019 YouGov poll, a majority of Germans said they would not support their government’s decisions to defend the United States if it were attacked, though this is mandated by Article 5 of the NATO charter. Let’s think about that. A country that America spent blood and treasure to rebuild and reunify, (most European countries did not support German unification) would not come to its aid in a time of need. Add to that the inability for most NATO countries to meet their 2% defense funding obligations and you start to understand why the American taxpayer, who has sacrificed fiscal stability for years, is starting to grow impatient.
Additionally, Europeans seemed to forget how they once treated each other, historically with lead bullets and cavalry charges. This has come full circle, with the illusion of a European identity being destroyed when Italy and Spain cried out for help as they triaged their dying, which fell on the deaf ears of their European counterparts. Even as the crisis abates, the German courts seem intent on blocking the spending necessary to help their fellow members (and customers), which is what the good old US of A did after WW2.
Then there is the Chinese. Where does one even begin? After being given access to the collective West’s markets and receiving massive capital inflows, China didn’t bat an eyelash, as it gamed the system and stole upward of $500 billion a year from the US alone. A combination of forced technology transfer, corporate/state espionage and massive debt spending with a closed current account allowed them to become the world’s second largest economy. Additionally, predatory lending practices to developing countries and exportation of surveillance technology have ended (one hopes just pushed off) the proverbial “end of history”, which is the now defunct idea that after the Berlin wall fell, the world would continue its upward trajectory towards capitalism and democracy.
Finally, the undeniable cover up of the initial COVID 19 break out, regardless of its origins, is where one should focus our attention. Add to that the calculated decision of the CCP to allow international flights out of Wuhan, while banning domestic flights leads one to draw a singular conclusion, this was an act of war. I know, I shudder writing this, but if one is honest and more importantly brave, you will accept this.
So, that feeling you keep talking about with your friends and family, it’s not that you are in a dream, it’s that you are now finally awake and let’s be honest…you want to go back to bed. But this is where I must implore you, indeed why I am writing this at all, you must stay awake. You must stay awake, for if you fall back asleep, there is a chance that you (and we) won’t wake up. We now live in and walk with history. It is not a pleasant stroll, but if we wish to move forward as free and open societies then we must accept where we are.
When Winston Churchill addressed British parliament to explain his administration’s agenda, as the country stood on the precipice of war, he did not try to soothe his fearful citizens. To do that, would have been to commit a historical deception, which would have left them unprepared for the future that awaited them. Instead, he spoke with a harsh honesty that jolted his citizens into a sober assessment of the task that laid before them. He had nothing to offer them, “but blood, toil, tears and sweat.”
I do not claim to know what lies ahead of us, but I hope to leave you with that same unvarnished sentiment, for the time we find ourselves in is yet another great moment in history. It will be filled (indeed already has been) with horror, tragedy and at times it will seem hopeless. But if we wake up to what is really happening and prepare ourselves to sacrifice, as our Greatest Generation once did for us, then it will also be a moment of strength, unity and extraordinary stories. Stories, that one day, years from now, our children and grandchildren will beg us to tell them, as they drift off back to sleep.
