George Rebane

Under that title STRATFOR has published a comprehensive two-part essay on how the country got here, and what portents it now faces.  For readers who frequent these pages, this essay is a must read.  It is tightly written, comprehensive, and sports the STRATFOR hallmark for clarity.

An important takeaway from its reading is that countries are destined to do what they do according to the geo-strategic hand that they have been dealt.  In the case of America, we have become what we are through a confluence of specific factors that are led geography and only seconded by social policy.  The overarching conclusion is that, in the large, our domestic development and foreign ‘interactions’ are a product of much greater forces than just which political party has controlled what branches of government during which years – at least until recently.

My only nit with the work was a little historical blip in which it claimed that Teddy Roosevelt’s Great White Fleet circumnavigating the globe (1907-09) led to the ‘opening up of Japan’.  It was actually Commodore Perry’s squadron of Black Ships pulling into what is today Tokyo harbor in 1854 that ended the 250-year isolationist reign of the shogunate and restored the Meiji emperor.  Japan thereafter went through a period of modernization on steroids that, in a scant 50 years, yanked it from its sclerotic middle ages into the 20th century as a modern country.  Its prowess was demonstrated in the Russo-Japanese War which Japan won when its fleet defeated the Russian navy in an epic sea battle fought in 1905.  (BTW, my grandfather fought in that war as conscript from czarist Estonia who was transported to Vladivostok on the trans-Siberian railroad – but I digress.)

So I urge you to take the time and read this important offering from STRATFOR.  Its understanding should inform and liven – as if that were necessary – the discussions in these comment streams.  Enjoy.