Quote: Wrote:(Center for Strategic International Studies) CSIS’s Risk and Foresight Group created four plausible, differentiated scenarios to explore the changing geopolitical landscape of 2025-2030, including the potential lasting first- and second-order effects of Covid-19. The scenarios center on the relative power and influence of the United States and China and the interaction between them, along with detailed consideration of other major U.S. allies and adversaries within each of four worlds.

Each scenario narrative was informed by deep trends analysis and subject-matter-expert interviews. CSIS’s Dracopoulos iDeas Lab brought to life the scenarios in four engaging videos designed to test policymakers’ preconceived notions about the defense and security challenges facing the United States and its allies in the second half of this decade. This research was sponsored by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s Strategic Trends Division.
Center for Strategic International Studies

Quote: Wrote:This scenario analysis found that the highest likelihood outcome for world order in the decade ahead would not be a unipolar order or a bipolar Cold War-style competition, but a loose multipolarity. Under any outcome, the relative strength of both the United States and China would be diluted or balanced by the influence and independent foreign and security policies of India, Japan, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and others. There also emerged in the scenarios a growing number of contestations of U.S. power and influence—in particular due to the “spoiler” or other nefarious behavior of Russia, Iran, and North Korea. Despite its relative loss of economic power during this timeframe, Russia remained the most problematic global actor for the United States and its allies, with only limited room for cooperation on issues of strategic stability. Iran was most aggressive across scenarios in which it sensed weakened U.S. commitment to the Middle East. North Korea remained a consistent challenge in the expansion of its weapons programs, though it was more open to negotiation when the United States was stronger and China was weaker. Violent extremist organizations were active across scenarios but more localized and less transnational. They preyed on relative U.S. weakness or its seeming retreat from key regions where they sought to consolidate gains and when they sensed diminished U.S. cooperation with regional partners.

Quote:Mackinder's heartland theory

This theory was proposed by Sir Halford Mackinder in his 1904 essay, “The Geographical Pivot of History.” There is a lot to this theory and its importance, so let’s outline some key terms:

1. Heartland=Eastern Europe
2. Pivot Area=Heartland
3. World Island=Europe, Asia and Africa
4. Periphery=Rest of the world (including the Americas)

Keep in mind that big historical figures, like Hitler, believed in the Heartland Theory, and this theory was at the heart –no pun intended—of the politics in both World Wars, the Vietnam War and the Cold War. Plus, it discusses a little something called world domination. Are you starting to see why this is a BIG deal?

(10-01-2024, 04:39 AM)EndtheMadnessNow Wrote: My thinking the past few years is more less been set on a fashion or fraction of multipolarity world order. Neither side (alliances) is going to get what they ultimately want so some sort of compromise will eventually be agreed upon and life will move on till the next conflict tug-of-war. This will probably happen some time after Israel is done clearing out the trouble-makers in the Middle East. Israel has big, big economic plans for the Eurasian zone which will include both Russia & China at least in the technology sector.

Russia is, of course, a potential candidate for great-power status based on its massive land area, massive natural resources, and huge stockpile of nuclear weapons. The country certainly has an impact beyond its borders. However, it has a small economy smaller than Commiefornia and a military budget equaling only one-quarter of China's at most. At most, Russia can play a supporting role for China.

A widespread argument among those who believe in full-on multi-polarity is the rise of the global south and the shrinking position of the West. However, the presence of old and new middle powers such as India, Brazil, Turkey, South Africa, and Saudi Arabia are often named as additions to the BRICS roster does not make the system multi-polar, since none of these countries has the economic power, military might, and other forms of influence to be a pole of its own. In other words, these countries lack ability to vie with the United States and China.

Everything on the Geopolitics chessboard is changing so fast nobody can keep up, so very difficult to predict even for the near future.

Quote:Mackinder's heartland theory

This theory was proposed by Sir Halford Mackinder in his 1904 essay, “The Geographical Pivot of History.” There is a lot to this theory and its importance, so let’s outline some key terms:

1. Heartland=Eastern Europe
2. Pivot Area=Heartland
3. World Island=Europe, Asia and Africa
4. Periphery=Rest of the world (including the Americas)

Keep in mind that big historical figures, like Hitler, believed in the Heartland Theory, and this theory was at the heart –no pun intended—of the politics in both World Wars, the Vietnam War and the Cold War. Plus, it discusses a little something called world domination. Are you starting to see why this is a BIG deal?

Do you know who else spoke of & quoted this theory?

The Grand Chessboard - American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives (1997) [PDF] by ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI.






The Arctic may become the next new hot zone. The first Arctic transit of a large container ship just made history. The 294-meter Flying Fish 1 traveled from St. Petersburg, Russia to Shanghai in just over three weeks, cutting two weeks off the traditional route via the Suez Canal.

This marks a major milestone for Arctic shipping, with nearly 20 transits expected this year, connecting Russian and Chinese ports through the Northern Sea Route.

The ship, operated by EZ Safetrans Logistics, maintained a steady speed without icebreaker assistance, highlighting how much Arctic conditions have changed.

First Panamax Containership Sprints Across Arctic Reaching China In Just Three Weeks

Russia has over 40 ice breakers. At least one is nuclear powered.

The USA has one.



Both the Russian (big scary one in top photo) & Canadian icebreakers are currently in active service. Meanwhile, the US Coast Guard Polar Sea has been out of service since 2010 due to failure of five of her six Alco main diesel engines. Seven years later it was decided it would be cannibalized for parts to support her sister Polar Star.

We better hurry up...

Trump memo demands new fleet of Arctic icebreakers be ready by 2029 (June 9, 2020)


"The country that controls the Arctic controls the world." - CSIS expert Heather Conley

THE ICE CURTAIN: RUSSIA’S ARCTIC MILITARY PRESENCE

Quote:Report to Congress on Coast Guard Polar Security Cutter (Oct 2, 2024)

Required number of polar icebreakers. A 2023 Coast Guard fleet mix analysis concluded that the service will require a total of eight to nine polar icebreakers, including four to five heavy polar icebreakers and four to five medium polar icebreakers, to perform its polar (i.e., Arctic and Antarctic) missions in coming years.

Current operational polar icebreaker fleet. The operational U.S. polar icebreaking fleet currently consists of one heavy polar icebreaker, Polar Star, and one medium polar icebreaker, Healy. Polar Sea, suffered an engine casualty in June 2010 and has been nonoperational since then. Polar Star and Polar Sea entered service in 1976 and 1977, respectively, and are now well beyond their originally intended 30-year service lives. The Coast Guard plans to extend Polar Star’s service life until the delivery of at least the second Polar Security Cutter (PSC; see next paragraph).

[Polar Sea has for years been cannibalized to keep Polar Star afloat]

Polar Security Cutter (PSC). The Coast Guard Polar Security Cutter (PSC) program aims to acquire four or five new PSCs (i.e., heavy polar icebreakers), to be followed at some later point by the acquisition of new Arctic Security Cutters (ASCs) (i.e., medium polar icebreakers). The Coast Guard in 2021 estimated PSC procurement costs in then-year dollars as $1,297 million (i.e., about $1.3 billion) for the first ship, $921 million for the second ship, and $1,017 million (i.e., about $1.0 billion) for the third ship, for a combined estimated cost of $3,235 million (i.e., about $3.2 billion). The PSC program has received a total of about $1,731.8 million in procurement funding through FY2024. The Coast Guard’s proposed FY2025 budget requests no procurement funding for the PSC program. One oversight issue concerns the accuracy of the PSC’s estimated procurement cost, given the PSC’s size and internal complexity as well as cost growth in other Navy and Coast Guard shipbuilding programs. If substantial cost growth occurs in the PSC program, it could raise a question regarding whether to grant some form of contract relief to the PSC shipbuilder. Another oversight issue concerns the delivery date for the first PSC: the Coast Guard originally aimed to have the first PSC delivered in 2024, but the ship’s estimated delivery date has been delayed repeatedly and may now occur no earlier than 2029.