America as the Blessed Nation

choi

Liam Denning, Things Fall Apart; The North American shale energy boom raises the question of whether it is worthwhile for the US to continue to protect everyone's trade. Wall Streeet Journal, Dec 4, 2014.
www.wsj.com/articles/book-review ... r-zeihan-1417653112
(book review on Peter Zeihan, The Accidental Superpower; The next generation of American preeminence and the coming global disorder. Twelve (an imprint ultimately belonging to Hachette), 2014)

Quote:

"Rather than focusing on charismatic leaders or lofty ideals, Mr Zeihan [a former analyst at Stratfor] stresses the more prosaic forces that shape world events: topography, soil quality, access to water. Water especially, he says, sorts winners from the rest. It can be a highway, a barrier, a larder and a battery. Rivers make it cheap to transport goods and people, enabling the efficient mixing of ideas and markets [what about China's current binge on highways and high-speed trains?].

"It happens that the United States—the 'superpower' of Mr Zeihan’s title—is blessed with 12 major navigable rivers, including the Mississippi. Much else flows from this happy accident. A less pressing need for grand, land-based infrastructure projects, for example, may lessen the need for centralized coordination, encouraging small government.

"Other great powers, or former ones, have enjoyed one or two geographical advantages—think of Egypt’s mighty Nile or Britain’s status as an island nation, from which its great naval tradition comes. But no nation combines America’s easy navigability, abundant cropland and a moat the size of two oceans.

My comment:
(a) "'The Accidental Superpower' does its fair share of futurology. There is * * * even a secession crisis—in Canada, of all places, where the residents of Alberta (not Quebec) are restless."

Alberta separatism
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberta_separatism
(arises from the belief held by some that Alberta is culturally distinct from the rest of Canada)
(b) Samuel P Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations?  Foreign Affairs, summer 1994.

Huntington (1927 – 2008) was a Harvard professor of political science.
(c) larder (n): "a place where food is stored : PANTRY"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/larder
(d) There is no need to read the rest of the review. The mid-section of the review--and the subtitle (which describes Zeihan's proposition, not Denning's)--discussed "the 1944 Bretton Woods settlement. * * * Mr Zeihan says that the Bretton Woods settlement is now unraveling—largely because it is no longer essential to the country that underwrote it."

Mr Zeihan asserts US has made tremendous sacrifices in the system, for the benefits of allies.

However, maybe because I am ignorant, my impression is the system ended in 1971, which was mostly about gold standard (not US protection). See Bretton Woods system
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_system