Rope-A-Doped?

Don't be a dope.

The Disclaimer

I argue that we are, in fact, in World War III. Because, like the two previous “world wars,” they were not declared as such contemporaneously; only years later did pundits, educators and politicians call them such. There are wars in: Sudan, Mali, Burkina Faso, Ukraine, Russia, Palestine, Syria, Israel, Lebanon, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the ever present tension with China particularly with respect to Taiwan. Further, there are countless other small scale kinetic conflicts. around the globe that will, ultimately, interconnect..

These conflicts are exponentially different than the “World Wars” of yore. When World War II was waged, most rural Amerikans had neither indoor plumbing nor telephones. Think of Gilligan’s Island.

There will be no tanks rolling across Europe, China or North Amerika; there will be drones flying through your window. Adversaries need not a nuclear weapon; they can shut down power grids and water treatment plants with a laptop from half a world away. They can weaponize geography and disrupt global trade thereby indirectly killing millions. The compute power of the cell phone in the pocket of a significant portion of the world’s population has compute power that required multiple mainframes using liquid coolant in a 2000 square foot climate-controlled room a mere three decades ago.

“US” is fighting a new kind of war with exponentially more dangerous tools available to its victims. Enemies. Opponents (of which there are many).Modern global war is defined by drones, distributed computing, and cyber capabilities, not marching armies or nuclear deterrence alone.

The world is at war.

Disclaimer duly filed, issued and noted.

About The Bout

The United States (what I refer to as “The US”) has almost 800 military bases around the globe. The so-called “west” (code for Europeans/white people) is at the root of virtually each and every global conflict on the planet whether it admits it or not; and it won’t. With almost 800 bases worldwide, commitments in Eastern Europe, military presence in the Middle East, maritime defense in the Red Sea, and deterrence in the Indo-Pacific, the U.S. is punching from almost every vector. Let alone the uneasy situation with Russia and a virtually certain conflict with Cuba.

LookingNWords: The Rope-A-Dope

In the early 70’s, when I was a lad, one of my idols was Muhammad Ali. My father was a former prize fighter and took me to see all big fights (he and his buddy “Birt”). We would go to places like “The Wiltern” on Wilshire and Western and view what was known as “closed circuit television” (CCTV). The images were normally Black and White projected on a huge movie screen.

The "Rumble in the Jungle" was a legendary heavyweight boxing match on October 30, 1974, in Kinshasa, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali. During that time Ali came up with something called the “Rope-A-Dope” as his iconic strategy It was boxing innovation and its tactic was to lean on the ropes, cover up and let the opponent keep punching away. The strategy was to exhaust the opponent.

Foreman was the undisputed, terrifying heavyweight throwing massive power punches that, from a pugilistic standpoint, may have just as well been nuclear bombs. Ali knew he couldn’t win a direct, symmetric slugfest, so he leaned on the ropes, absorbed the impact on his arms and gloves, and let Foreman exhaust his cardio and arms. In the “deep water” (later rounds) Foreman had nothing left...and then came the unleashing of hell.

I am purposefully telegraphing a left hook and I know you see it coming.

The Rumble In The Jungle

Josep Borrell, the former High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security described Europe and the West as a well-functioning “garden” representing political freedom and prosperity, while calling the rest of the world a “jungle” that could invade the garden. He made the proclamation
during an October 2022 speech at the European Diplomatic Academy in Bruges, Belgium. I suspect that us jungle bunnies might take a bit of umbrage to the remark considering we are the majority of the world.

The asymmetry of cost and munitions is causing “US” to punch itself out. Low cost actions by adversaries force high-cost responses from the “US” and its Western allies. Relatively cheap drones can ground an entire air force, so don’t look for any dogfights in this world war. Drone economics notwithstanding, there is also industrial exhaustion to accompany it. Middle Eastern flare-ups and European land war draw critical naval, air, and financial assets away from the Pacific theater, leaving “US” dangerously stretched if a crisis erupts over Taiwan. And, lest I be indicted for intellectual malpractice, this exhaustion will be exacerbated by looming civil unrest.

The world is allowing the United States, in its militaristic hegemony, to punch itself out. For instance munitions, equipment and personnel are already stretched to the breaking point.; the “US” cannot respond to another major conflict. The bombs, the missiles, the bullets, the sanctions, the resource exploitation, the killing of children, are being absorbed by the world; the jungle is on the ropes and the garden is just flailing away.

By treating every regional flare-up as an existential crisis requiring Western military backing, the U.S. has allowed a loosely aligned bloc of global rivals to play the strategic role of Muhammad Ali. Through asymmetric warfare, supply-chain attrition, and multi-front distractions, the global hegemon is being exhausted. Expending its finite munitions, capital, and political will before the championship rounds have even begun.

Is The “US” Being Rope-A-Doped?

Ding!