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Thought of the month ...

December 2010: Checkmate for the Turkey. In my October 2010 Thought of the Month, I asked whether the U.S. is the turkey that is being fed by China until China decides that it is time for Thanksgiving. Since then, I have been thinking about what this Thanksgiving could look like.

Yesterday, a possible scenario came to my mind, which would lead to checkmate for the turkey. Imaging North Korea further provokes South Korea. Today we can read that President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea vowed to conduct a quick counterattack if its territory was attacked again (see NYT). Thus, the next provocation likely will lead to a significant military response, which North Korea can claim to be an attach on the country. In the same article, we read that North Korea was prepared to use its nuclear weapons if it was attacked. The U.S. government previously has confirmed its support to South Korea, and it is likely that the U.S. might be drawn in another, potentially nuclear war.

And there is China: having the power to basically destroy the economic value of the dollar, another demanding war for the U.S. would give China the lever to "peacefully' eliminate the U.S. as an economic competitor. with a totally devalued dollar, unable to maintain the huge surplus in products imported to the U.S., would the U.S. population be able to reorganize the American way of life to exist without being fed by China and other economies in the world? In a demanding war situation with three major frontiers and a currency with value only inside the U.S. (which would be comparable to Germany in the late 1930-ties), would the U.S. be able to make the transition to a basically self-sustained society? Or would China just be celebration Thanksgiving with the big U.S. turkey?

In the above mentioned article, Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico called the current situation "the worst I have ever seen on the peninsula" and states that "diplomacy is what is needed to get us out of this tinderbox." I doubt that he does make the connection to the economic threats for the U.S. and understand that there is a turkey in the tinderbox.


If you have a story, thought, or picture worth to be considered as story, thought or picture of the month, please feel free to inform me about it by sending an e-mail to hpplag@unr.edu.