V.D. Hanson, eschewing the fustian that sometimes envelops his interesting ideas, here suggests that the collapse of the American financial system could presage some genuinely terrible events on the world stage. You’ll recognize his concern about America’s emboldened enemies from the Volgi’s various rants on the topic, but Hanson ties it to previous financial crises in a way that hadn’t occurred to your ŒV, who’d mostly been thinking of the crash in terms of a distraction.

We’ve seen the connection between American economic crisis and world upheaval before. In the 1930s, the United States and its democratic allies — in the midst of financial collapse — disarmed and largely withdrew from foreign affairs. That isolation allowed totalitarian regimes in Germany, Italy, Japan, and Russia to swallow their smaller neighbors and replace the rule of law with that of the jungle. World War II followed.

[…]

The natural order of the world is chaos, not calm. Like it or not, for over a half-century the United States alone restrained nuclear bullies, kept the sea lanes free from outlaws, and corralled rogue nations. America alone could provide that deterrence because we produced a fourth of the world’s goods and services, and became the richest country in the history of civilization.

But the bill for years of massive borrowing for oil, for imported consumer goods, and for speculation has now has finally come due on Wall Street — and for the rest of us as well.

Should that heart of American financial power in New York falter — or even appear to falter — then eventually the sinews of the American military will likewise slacken. And then things could get ugly — real fast.

Sweet dreams.

Confucius, Œc. Vol.

Don’t ask impertinent questions like that jackass Adept Lu.