How long? Why indefinitely of course. The Ag requirements of the US are a small part of domestic production. It's the long distance suburban commuters that will bear the brunt. Many will have to move or move their work to them. And the soccer moms will have to stop ferrying the brood all over town for Karate and dance lessons and let them stay at home and mow the lawn with a push mower. We have not yet begun to conserve or reduce use.
I like the USA's future prospects on the energy and food front a lot better then the UK's. You have lived with $7.00 gas for decades, What more can you do?
Use push mowers, have 1 car not 3, walk to the shops on pavements provided by the council already, walk the kids to school, grow food, reform communities.
VT, petrol/gasoline is about $8.60 per (US) gallon here!
I haven't been to the US yet, though I've been invited over by an old friend, so may go sometime. I think parts of the US may be better than the UK as a sort of self-sufficiency/ doom-steading/ survival prospect. The space, climate, etc. seem more conducive to it, though I'm aware of the high gun ownership, etc. so there are many factors in the equation.
ujoni08 wrote:VT, petrol/gasoline is about $8.60 per (US) gallon here!
I haven't been to the US yet, though I've been invited over by an old friend, so may go sometime. I think parts of the US may be better than the UK as a sort of self-sufficiency/ doom-steading/ survival prospect. The space, climate, etc. seem more conducive to it, though I'm aware of the high gun ownership, etc. so there are many factors in the equation.
Oh do come visit!! A drive across Ohio to Iowa when the corn is ripening is eye opening. Don't worry about the guns. The vast majority are in the hands of law abiding citizens that would rather die then be someone that committed a crime with or without a gun. (poaching a deer if the family's freezer was empty excepted).
To sum up in advance the points I hope to make in the next few weeks, the US military faces at least three existential threats in the decades immediately ahead. The first is that rising powers will devise ways to monkeywrench the baroque complexity of the US military machine, leaving that machine as crippled and vulnerable as Hittite chariots were before the javelins of the Sea Peoples. The second is that an ongoing revolution in military affairs will leave the entire massive arsenal of the US military as beside the point as all those British battleships were once the Second World War rolled around. The third is that the decline in fossil fuel supplies will make it impossible for the United States to maintain a way of war that, reduced to its simplest terms, consists of burning more petroleum than the other guy. We’ll talk about the first of these possibilities next week.
Superb article from Greer.
I thought that the readers comments were very interesting as well.
Wlell done essay JMG on a subject long dear to my heart. I speak BTW as a former military officer. When I was a plebe at West Point in 1964, I recall heated discussions in our military tactics classes arguing the pros and cons of that new conflict in SE Asia. Some of my classmates argued that guerilla tactics then being employed could in time defeat the US Military. "No Way!" shouted the other cadets. I recall a certain instructor named Major Kristoferson allowing the discussion to proceed. In the end we lost the war as the then cadet minority feared. It should also be noted that we have either had stale mate or have lost and are losing every"war" we have started since WW2. Your comment about carriers is especially poignant because of the sheer cost of the new carriers(on the order of $10 billion not including the squadrons of expensive aircraft housed within their shells. The latest Russian developed and Chinese built successors to the Exocet anti ship missiles(the supersonic Sunburn, the Sizzler etc) almost certainly could severely damage or destroy our carriers and the other thin skinned vessels in the Persian Gulf especially in the choke point of Hormuz and most especially if deployed in swarms and launched from multiple platforms. Military people fear these weapons but you see little to no coverage in the popular media. I would contend that our carriers are modern day chariot equivalents. One other point is that our modern standing armies are primarily mercenary(aka "volunteer") forces who are well equipped and technologically superior to most other insurgent armies but no insurgent commander would throw his forces against ours in an open field. Hence the use of non conventional tactics like IED's detonated by cell phones and other guerrilla and quasi- guerrilla tactics. Also never underestimate the courage and ruthlessness of a soldier defending his homeland against foreign invaders. In the end I think the sheer unaffordable cost of the military budget is what will defeat us first. That is unless the Israeli military launches a preemptive strike against Iran in which case all bets are off. We live in dangerous times.
Peace always has been and always will be an intermittent flash of light in a dark history of warfare, violence, and destruction
UndercoverElephant wrote:Looks to me like this is going to boil down to an equation involving the US dollar, gold and crude oil. TPTB will attempt to keep the whole fraudulent system going, but they will eventually reach the point where the oil exporters are no longer willing to sell the US oil for fiat dollars. At that point the US will have to decide whether it is willing to go to war in order to attempt to take the oil by force, or start ponying up gold for oil.
Let's hope that if this sort of situation ever materialises, the right decision is made.
Persistence of habitat, is the fundamental basis of persistence of a species.
UndercoverElephant wrote:Looks to me like this is going to boil down to an equation involving the US dollar, gold and crude oil. TPTB will attempt to keep the whole fraudulent system going, but they will eventually reach the point where the oil exporters are no longer willing to sell the US oil for fiat dollars. At that point the US will have to decide whether it is willing to go to war in order to attempt to take the oil by force, or start ponying up gold for oil.
Let's hope that if this sort of situation ever materialises, the right decision is made.
Let's hope then that there is not a Republican/Mormon making the decision.
We must deal with reality or it will deal with us.
UndercoverElephant wrote:Looks to me like this is going to boil down to an equation involving the US dollar, gold and crude oil. TPTB will attempt to keep the whole fraudulent system going, but they will eventually reach the point where the oil exporters are no longer willing to sell the US oil for fiat dollars. At that point the US will have to decide whether it is willing to go to war in order to attempt to take the oil by force, or start ponying up gold for oil.
Let's hope that if this sort of situation ever materialises, the right decision is made.
Let's hope then that there is not a Republican/Mormon making the decision.
Politics aside, (neither party has a clue,) it won't come down to either of those choices. There isn't enough gold in existence to buy the US's oil import needs and modern warfare is too expensive to conduct it for oil at a profit. You will have to defend your oil supply from those who would try to seize it but you will still have to pay for that oil at the world price. No after a financial collapse of the US dollar it will come down to a case of COD" corn on delivery". grain and other food commodities plus finished durable goods such as commercial aircraft will get swapped for oil. Perhaps the price of oil will get set in units of a million calories of food or it's equivalent.
How long? Why indefinitely of course. The Ag requirements of the US are a small part of domestic production. It's the long distance suburban commuters that will bear the brunt. Many will have to move or move their work to them. And the soccer moms will have to stop ferrying the brood all over town for Karate and dance lessons and let them stay at home and mow the lawn with a push mower. We have not yet begun to conserve or reduce use. 
