Why our civilization is fragile, Part 6

This post won’t follow the format of preceding posts on our civilization’s fragility in that it doesn’t present an academic work related to collapse. Instead it looks at how world events can begin overlap and affect multiple systems. Some events we’re all aware of:

• The overthrow of Egyptian dictator – and U.S. ally – Mubarak and the new government that will eventually take power calls into question the last few decades of peace between Arab nations and Israel. Any large-scale war in the Middle East is a very bad thing for the rest of the (oil consuming) world.
• The related Libyan uprising against the rule of Muammar Gaddafi has caused fuel prices in the U.S. and elsewhere to skyrocket, threatening the already fragile financial recovery. What’s surprising about this is the relatively small amount of oil Libya supplied (about 2%), especially for the U.S. market:
  

  [Libya] normally pumps around 1.6 million bpd, 85 percent of which is exported to Europe. Output is normally equivalent to about 2 percent of global consumption, and unrest has cut output to about 500,000 million bpd…

• The earthquake and tsunami in Japan have caused a generations crisis there that has endangered the financial solvency of Japan and sent shock waves into the global financial market:
  

  The global financial turmoil sparked by Japan’s earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis — which has wiped out about $300 billion in U.S. stock values alone this week — is particularly troubling for the United States and several other countries, where an economic recovery has been showing signs of derailing because political unrest in Libya and the Middle East has led to a sharp run-up in crude oil prices.

• Though not in the news lately, the European debt crisis is still there looming around the corner, waiting to come back.

As political upheaval and natural disasters disrupt energy and other supply lines, the effects are felt throughout other systems and across the world. The nuclear plants probably melting down in Japan may slow plans for new nuclear power plants in the U.S. As nuclear power is the only energy source that has any realistic potential for replacing fossil fuels in the long-run, this only makes an American collapse more likely.

The world is getting closer to the edge. Additional natural disasters, political upheaval, or conflicts in critical locations could be enough to push civilization as we know it over the edge. I won’t say “the end is near” because the end is always near. Times like these we can get a glimpse of how close it is.

Time to Up-armor… The Gas Tank

With the price of oil again pushing prices at the pump close to $4 a gallon, I’m thinking of the last time gas prices were this high in 2008 and gas theft was way up.

Some thieves didn’t bother cars with locking gas caps, while others didn’t even look at the caps and just put a hole in the bottom of the tank to drain it.

Gas prices will fluctuate but over the long-term they can only go higher, meaning such thefts are almost guaranteed to continue and increase. We drive 4WD vehicles that sit high off the ground, relatively easier to access the gas tank when compared to the average car. My insurance deductible is $500 and I’m not sure I’d want my rates to go up by making a claim, so my plan is target hardening; locking gas cap and some sort of protection or the tank. Parking in a secure garage or with the gas tank side up against a wall are not options right now.

Standard skid plates are available for some trucks but probably not for many cars. Also, many skid plates are made for protecting the tank from damage from rough terrain rather than preventing someone with a screwdriver or icepick from making a small hole. Sensors to detect gas tank molestation are also being marketed, but they are expensive and unproven.

I’m no veteran metal worker but have jerry-rigged a few minor projects, mostly with success. My plan is to fashion some sort of sheet metal, maybe diamond plate, to protect the tanks. This won’t stop a determined gas thief, but will deter the lazy ones or those with less time. Hopefully.

Why go to all the trouble? My guess is that in a situation where we need to bug out, fuel will be extremely tight and theft will be rampant. Ensuring we keep the fuel and prevent damage that could ground us is vital. So I think these precautions will be called for. I’ve only been thinking about this for a couple days and need to take a few photos before I decide what to do. Related ideas and suggestions would be appreciated.

Who Will Rescue America After Collapse?

Survival fiction often depicts other countries either coming to the aid of the U.S. after a collapse of some type, or coming to loot. Examples:

• One Second After (EMP scenario) – U.S. forces stationed abroad when the EMP occurred, with the help of European allies, begin helping U.S. east coast areas about a year after the event. Chinese forces take part of the U.S. west coast, Mexico takes some of the Southwest.
• Patriots (financial collapse) – The several European countries under UN auspices move in to pacify and take over America within a few years of collapse.

I’m not sure those scenarios are realistic but it’s extremely difficult to determine what would happen to the rest of world in the event of a complete U.S. collapse. There are both financial and security issues that make predictions fairly useless, in my opinion.

Financially, most of the world is tied to the U.S. through trade, aid, reserves, or all of the above. The image below is focused on U.S.-China trade but also depicts some of the global trade ties that would be disrupted should America collapse (click on image for full-size):

The breakdown of foreign trade is thought to have been a factor in the 1930s:

Many economists have argued that the sharp decline in international trade after 1930 helped to worsen the depression, especially for countries significantly dependent on foreign trade. Most historians and economists partly blame the American Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (enacted June 17, 1930) for worsening the depression by seriously reducing international trade and causing retaliatory tariffs in other countries. While foreign trade was a small part of overall economic activity in the U.S. and was concentrated in a few businesses like farming, it was a much larger factor in many other countries.

China would take a huge hit in trade and their foreign reserves, mostly U.S. dollars, would become worthless. They would still have the bulk of their trade with other Asian countries and Europe, but the biggest players in both Asia and Europe would all take huge hits when their trade surpluses from the U.S. evaporate.

It’s possible those markets would find workarounds and normalize minus America; or, with many EU nations already teetering on the edge of insolvency, they could go over the tipping point and collapse as well, ushering in a second, hopefully much shorter, dark age.

I’m not trying to overinflate the importance of America in international trade and finance, but if the rest of the world can’t adjust quickly, they could have the same fate.

Another factor to consider is oil – the U.S. is the largest per capita consumer of oil and our de facto exit from the market would, at first, wreak havoc on the many oil producers (almost none of whom have refineries), but then would mean less competition for that resource on the world market. If Europe and Asia make it past our collapse, they may find they will have relatively cheap oil for a couple more decades.

Russia falls between Asia and Europe and has vast supplies of fossil fuels so does not need to worry about that. Disruptions in world markets following the American collapse will affect Russia, but that country may retain some of the existential but built-in resilience from it’s communist days.

Canada and Mexico, both intimately tied tot he U.S. economy, likely would face the same fate. Neither help nor conquest would come from them.

U.S. international aid, while a relatively small part of the budget, is a lifeline for many third-world countries around the world – they likely will face at least a depression.

On the security front, the absence of the self-appointed world policeman leaves open the possibility for a lot of military action. In the Mideast, Iran, Egypt, and others may not feel constrained against Israel. Likewise, Israel will have no brakes on it’s ability to retaliate. For both Israel and Iran this could include nuclear weapons.

In Asia, China may feel it’s time to take Taiwan without the threat of the American 7th Fleet interfering, while North Korea could move to take South Korea (though the South would have a much better chance of taking the North). India and Pakistan may decide to settle old scores.

With so many financial and security issues at play, it is very difficult to predict what might actually happen. Would China invade the U.S. west coast? On one hand, they may have their hands full in Asia, assuming their economy survives. They may also face, initially, problems obtaining enough oil. China also lacks the ability to project power militarily, though they could press the then largely unused pacific merchant fleet into service for an invasion.

Europe could descent into chaos and anarchy, or they may pull through if lucky. Despite the depiction in Patriots, I don’t see a UN invasion in our future.

Worldwide chaos would also make regional and potentially world-wide nuclear war more possible and likely than ever before.

This has probably only muddied the waters – or maybe just cast the light on what’s already there. All we can do is prepare.