The Coming Trade War with China, Part deux: Future History with Niall Ferguson

updated 1/18 1:00pm

I was going to include this as an afterthought to my yet-unpublished response to MBMc and Curious Dave, but it seems to deserve its own thread.

Niall Ferguson, Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University and author of Empire: The Rise and Fall of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power (New York: Basic Books, 2003) and Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire (London / New York : Penguin Press, 2004) among others, postulates at the Telegraph on January 15th a future history of the beginning of the Great Gulf War of 2007-2011,

Yet the historian is bound to ask whether or not the true significance of the 2007-2011 war was to vindicate the Bush administration's original principle of pre-emption. For, if that principle had been adhered to in 2006, Iran's nuclear bid might have been thwarted at minimal cost. And the Great Gulf War might never have happened.

Of course, this from discarded lies may negate the precept for that bleak future history,

To recap a previous post, there have been more and more interesting deployments by the USAF to the Middle East, both in number (a wing has 72 planes; we just sent 5½ × 72 over there) and in kind (F-117a, F-16C/D, F-15E, A/OA 10). Five entire fighter wings: the 388th, the 49th, the 122nd, the 4th and the 18th. On top of that, two fighter squadrons (four=a wing, I think, so this is another half-wing) have deployed for four month rotations in recent days: the 336th and the 355th. And now, Israel is making far more belligerent noises than we've been accustomed to hearing with regard to Iran. We've gone from Israel saying "this is the whole world's problem" to this: Israel prepares to launch attack on Iran nuclear sites. Things are heating up fast.

Interesting times, as the Chinese are wont to say.

update

MBMc, on his own Port McClellan, had offered a contemporary version of Ferguson's future history from John Keegan a few days before, and from the same paper, the Daily Telegraph. I had missed it as I have been ping-ponging these past few days from one holiday event to another.

Living in a first-generation multi-ethnic family is not easy!

btw, January 29th starts the two week festivities for the Year of the Dog...

(I need more vacation time!)