Thread by @GoyaGokou

Conception of state theory.

All state formation are that hodge podge of elite necessity and randomness of events. The Germany of post 1870 sought equilibrium regionally, integration internally, and markets externally. Yet by the 1870's Germany was full of continental awareness. To get to Asia Germans...

Had to travel first through the US by way of the Trans Pacific railroad this gave German theorists a number of ideas such as how connecting infrastructure connects sovereignty, and encloses distance to a living frame and thus national identity. So this continental model was...

In mind as they traveled to Asia particularly to China and Russia saw a more dilapidated moebius. Yet they also saw the numerous 'other continents' of Europe's colonial empires sprawling throughout and became convinced that any successful futurism would need to be vast in scale.

This was married to the idea of biological space as German fertility seem to be in excess of viable environs yet colonial relocation was a hard failure since none of Germany's colonies had wealth or livability to offer. This together with the overall geopolitical environment...

Of permanent French fear/angst a continent seeming to about to fall on top of Europe (Russia) yet with a Europe divided in too numerous powers to create an effective bloc (only 1945 would deliver that) Germany sought growth, a growth at the mercy of the Royal British navy...

This fear of Germany's superior internal success in terms of governmental/industrial/scientific/economic efficiencies still mark how the UK, France, Russia still view Germany even today.

Germany feeling unable to safely grow itself by way of international trade- colonies set out a naval build up that lead to a British counter reaction and eventual war in 1914. Wiemar Germany was floating between a European solution to it's woes or a national explosion to over...

whelm it's woes rather then negotiate with them. This later mode gave a sense of control and sovereignty and thus face and credibility. Germany would have to do more, sacrifice more, go faster, go harder to reclaim 1913 and put a calm to the future. Extreme politics result.

Land powers produced a certain type of polity as sea powers also produce a unique polity. All international laws are based on attempts at spatial normalization/legitimacy, the powers of the great spaces produce today's world order moving from the European continent towards...

The great spaces of the Soviet Union and the United States as they struggle to produce a new international law and thus a new Nomos of the Earth.

Early Meiji Japan attempting to bring into being a modern state into being conceptualized this by the 1880's as one based in empire as this was the case with all of Europe's major powers. The Japanese army modeled itself on Prussia and the Japanese navy on the UK.

Japan based it's constitution on the Prussian constitution and thus instituted Oligarchic/bureaucratic/military rule under the figurehead of the Emperor rather then parliament being sovereign. By the 1920's most of the oligarchics (Genro) were dead leaving bureaucracy/military

as the de-facto rulers, this however came to ahead in the 1920's when political parties were able to gain enough popular support to briefly usher in Democracy, til the military and the new emperor Showa watered down parliament in favor of the military/emperor system. It would

be this system that would lead to the militarization of the 1930's and Japan's multiple wars eventually leading to war with the US in 1941.

Post 1945 Japan was geoeconomics a seeming turn towards geopolitics that never was in the 1980's, the vague internationalism of the 1990's (largely the product of domestic instability), 2000's-2010 attempt at revitalizing, 2010-2020 move towards geopolitics.

State Theory II:

Land and sea states produces their own particular politics with land (particularly land-lock) countries tending towards isolation and xenophobia and autocratic politics whilst sea states (at least in their ports) tend to be more liberal, cosmopolitan, global trade oriented.

For while continental powers may differ in their politics (Russia's seas are largely frozen year round, China has sea access only to it's East, whilst the US obstinately has "two liberal coasts") all have the same issue of core vs periphery or over which region actual rules.

Whilst China and Russia have attempted to solve this question by centralization power and having a hierarchy top down autocratic system the US has attempted to use it's scale to diffuse possible faction (Federalist No. 10), yet the US may be entering a problem experienced by

Charles V vast holding's that it may not be so much space that is hard to govern but the dissimilar yet contemporaneous forms and folds of politics/time occurring in those spaces. Charles V attempted to solve this problem by territorial amputation and a quasi two emperor system.

Whilst US changes instead of actual replacing past forms/folds are being forced together where there is seemingly no give to take. This differs the US greatly from Europe who largely and collectively abandoned and replaced certain forms (Christianity being largely replaced with

secular humanism, social conservatism being replaced with social liberalism save for immigration, social democratic economy being the norm) whilst in the US these forms did not disappear or were simply replaced but still live on simultaneously yet are now cloister away.

It is the Blue states that act as de-facto buffer to interior Red America the former being the internationalist vs ladder's nativism. The blue is where the tech is and the red is where the fertility is, the first satisfy a certain present-ism the 2nd the long term viability

of the nation itself. Cantor shows that even the dead Middle Ages can once again be given life if given in the form of present-ism by it's authors. Thus 1920's-1930's German work on the period takes on a nationalist hue despite no Germany actually existing during the period.

The Middle Ages thus moves from a severe religious, royal, proto-state pool into the first mimicry of the nation.

John Hays a statesmen without being a politician, academic, bureaucrat wielded the US through to Panama Canal and the Alaska-Canadian boundary by WASP certainty and literary timing while the US may not still had Great power politics it now had a great power yardstick of a man.

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State Theory III: A tale of 2 books. "The Third Century: America's Resurgence in the Asian Era" By Joel Kotkin & Yoriko Kishimoto, 1988. "Dominion from Sea to Sea: Pacific Ascendancy and American Power" By Bruce Cumings, 2009.

Joel Kotkin (1952-) American professor of Urban studies, Geographer, demographer. Bruce Cumings (1943-) American Historian of East Asia.

Both men have spent decades writing on America's relationship with Asia in their respective fields which when read together gives a fuller tilt towards conception of the US having reserve, Rejuvenating, & resilient powers or as Kotkin puts it, It's "sokojikara".

According to Cumings California only become economically self sufficient after WW2 when the government pushed through a mass industrialization that continued well into the Cold War. Similarly WW2 is when Seattle becomes the US's air-hub continuing well into the Vietnam War...

Post-Vietnam Seattle shifted to a more civilian air hub for Boeing. By the 1970's the US relationship with Asia more broadly changes from a high security focus to a more economic orientation. Yet American investment into Asia according to Kotkin remained backwards due to the..

US businesses community's Eurocentirsm, racial biases despite the fact that by the 1980's Asia held immense market potential in comparison to Western Europe's shrinking bust. Plenty of businesses leaders & government officials in Asia selfsame saw vast potential in the US...

Market compared to Western Europe's. The Japanese businessmen themselves thought that their own domestic market was already tapped out due to Japan's limited space & few resources & thus they looked for continental scale or Tairku in the US since China was still backwards and...

Western Europe's stagnant market & protectionism meant any potential there was quite limited. Numerous businessmen & government officials from Asia also noted the youth, diversity & size of the US left it as Nathan Glazer Harvard sociologist put it an "Unfinished Country". Ripe..

With opportunities, which in an older & more established state would actual flip these same stimulus's to chaos, instability, & the breakdown of the state. By the 1980's the push & pull of Asia between cooperation & competition could be seen throughout both Asia & the US...

Japanese manufacturing was seemingly destroying much of the US's auto industries & also competing heavily with Silicon Valley in the realm of electronics. Simultaneously however Japanese investment in the US was growing rapidly, US trade & investment in South Korea was also both

board & deep with the US in the mid 80's being the source for 40% of South Korean exports & 50% of FDI. Taiwan as well was enjoying deepening economic/tech interlinking with the US economy/tech sector in terms of increasing electronic manufacturing for US companies. It may well

be that by the 1980's the US had already produced it's future orientation. It was here particularly in East Asia where the future of the US economy would be chiefly intertwined (Tech/Electronic manufacturing) not Europe. It was Asia after all where the future markets would be...

On the one hand Japan was quite submissive to the US (on security matters) yet on the other it was totally ruthless (in economic competition with the US), this push/pull would only stabilize by the 1990's with Japan's economy slowing down & the US's booming. Broadly speaking...

By the 1980's-2000's Taiwan, Japan had essentially economically integrated itself with the US (with mutual dependencies) while South Korea & China largely competed with this nexus as for instance South Korea saw Japan as it's main competitor & both the US & China as potential...

Blocs to sell too & thus was keen not to integrate too closely with the US. By the 2010's however this began to shift somewhat As South Korea wished to diffuse some of it's reliance on an unpredictable China by moving some of it's production to the US & keep the US steadfast on

Security matters on the Peninsula with an increasingly antagonistic North Korea & China. By 2016-2020 the US has attempted to nudge Japan, Taiwan, & the US into a more formal & solid security/tech nexus in response to China's rise. South Korea has so far been hesitate to join up

Due to it's strong economic need for China & wish to utilize better relations with China who could then use it's influence to help pacify North Korean aggression. Ultimately I doubt South Korea will align with Beijing since as long as it supports the North Korean regime it...

will not feel safe, particularly it's leadership. If the US were to leave it is quite likely that the North would attack since lacking economic, cultural, & now nationalist heft would only have a military card to play. It is highly doubtful China would go to war with the North

to stop it, or have the level of influence to stop a North Korean invasion from happening since to the North such an invasion is itself an act of regime survival. In such a scenario the South Korean elite can expect a Katyn on the Han river. The National would be the personal in

South Korea. In sum if the main economic umbilical cord of the US is shifting from the Atlantic to the Pacific it is still an ongoing processes with competing nexuses of China's still developing cord & of the older push/pull dynamic of a now global ordering.

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State Theory IV: America 1988-1992 The Sense Of An Ending: Paul Kennedy, Edward Luttwark, Vernon Walters. The Reagan-Bush transition.

In 1988 Kennedy & Luttwark appear before a hearing of congress US defense spending & it's possible futurism. Kennedy hot on the release of his book "The Rise & Fall of Great Powers" & Luttwark a doyen of the Pentagon debate the realism of arms & budgets & if America's has peaked.

c-span.org/video/?3078-1/… The rise of Japan & massive US deficits had by 1988 largely outpaced any Cold War talk to one of if the US could maintain primacy outside of the Cold War paradigm or had the new techno-state shifted to Japan, & the European Community (EC)?

Vernon Walter (1917-2002) The middle man of the Cold War serving in the capacity of the Pentagon/CIA/diplomat/ UN/State Department gives his debrief of the last 47 years (1945-1992) of American Cold War politics.

Under a portrait of Ike the president of the idyll land of quiet diffusion of the 50's we see the transition of America into the late 80's & early 90's from an era of loose vision to one of concrete management. Of an old America saved so that the new one need not be born.

State Theory V Japan: East Asia, & the US: Friend, Foe, or Medium?

What was the Japan of the 1980's? At once a disarmed state at once lacking distance from the US on foreign policy yet also ruthlessly competitive against US businesses, nearly taking down both Detroit & Silicon Valley by the late 80's & seemingly ushering in the new cold & cool

Techno-state where the state bureaucracy-banks-corporations operated in both a public/secret fashion of supranational command & correspondence. Yet during this same period it was Japan according to Taggart that brought US debt coming in at $1 trillion dollars & Japan as the

fastest provider of FDI into the US by the late 1980's. This was also the same Japan that signed the Plaza Accords (1985) with the US forcing appreciation of the Yen. Japan's push & pull relations with the US operated as long as Japan wished to surpass the US economically...

As the WW2 generation of Japan wished to do to remove the stain of 1945 & give itself an independence of mind. Yet the popping of the balloon in the 1990's marked a change in Japanese mindsets, as they saw both a booming US & a much bigger boom closer to home in East Asia.

By the 90's Japan & the US relations had largely settled down as the US was no longer keen on blocking Japanese business in the US, & Japan realizing it's own domestic troubles & the fact that they would not surpass the US economy also made them want-full to come to a settlement.

The added dimension here for Japan was it's growing awareness that South Korea, Taiwan, & even China was rapidly gaining on it's key exports/technologies. Indeed for Pyle Japan had set the template of abandoning it's traditional identity in order to become...

a "Rich Country, Strong Army" a model Korea, Taiwan, even China would follow throughout the 20th & 21st century. Indeed Japan has been the economic missing link for much of Korea's, Taiwan's, China's modern industrialization/export oriented & state guided economy. Yet Japan's...

relations with these 3 states would diverge widely. Hamilton & Kao for instance show Japan's crucial financial & technical assistance to Taiwan's economy in the 1970's as it shifted from basic to more advance manufacturing. It would be this relationship with it's former colony..

that Japan would enjoy close intimacy As Taiwan by the 70's-80's would come to serve as an offshore manufacturer of an ever increasingly amount of Japanese electronic goods. Taiwan soon shifted it's economic model to become the world producer of semiconductors & computer parts...

For Taiwan every country became a customer rather then a competitor. With South Korea this was quite different despite Japanese aid to South Korea in the mid 1960's South Korea continued to loathe the Japanese, while Japan remained complacent when it came to South Korea's...

economic prospects. Yet as shown by Chang Samsung had by 2005 already matched Japan's marquee company Sony in worth & general technology. Since then South Korea has largely moved ahead of Japan Inc, in tech/electronic companies Samsung & LG outrank any Japanese equivalent by far.

Today Japan largely see South Korea as it's main competitor in high end manufacturing & technology for the export markets. China-Japanese relations have mimicked the push-pull relations Japan had with the US, the difference being that China is not an ally & is largely...

antagonistic to it. Japan desirous of China's large market has attempted to tightrope this hate/lust relationship by moving closer to both the US & Taiwan to give it more power in the region. The US similarly with bad relations with China have also doubled down on Taiwan & Japan.

Today Japan & Taiwan are ever dependent on the US for security as the US is on it for global tech security alliance in East Asia, China continues to rise & South Korea wishing to sit out this competition for as long as possible wait's for the inevitable.

Conception of state theory VI: Neo-Medievalism, Sovereignty overlapping & yet incomplete.

Hedley Bull (1932-1985) an Australian/British IR professor in 1977 published the book "The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics". In this work he theorizes that with the coming of multi-poles of powers the world may be reverting back not to the sovereignty of...

the nation state but back to the Middle Ages where multiple forms of sovereignty existed & overlapped but lacked a central authority. Today this realm can be seen in such things as the power of high capitalism which although lacking official authority enjoys wide sovereignty...

In things not just economically but also social & even in foreign relations (Tech is loafed to get in a trade spat with China, as oil companies are to sanction oil rich Mid East regimes). The Separation Of Powers in the US between the Legislature, Executive, Judiciary have in...

defacto reality in recent decades broken down the delineation of where sovereignty & authority begins or ends. The Courts defacto write social policy not congress, the President can go to war even without a congressional vote, states such as California can deny the authority...

of Federal law over immigration during the Trump Admin, despite admitting that federal law supersedes state law when it comes to abortion, gay marriage. Both the GOP & Dems in recognition of this Gordian knot of authority & sovereignty have moved towards majoritarian politics

of different ilks. Both the GOP & Dems in recent years have attempted/or passed large pieces of legislation on a party line vote accepting the common good is by now a dead letter. In Kotkin's Neo-Feudalism we see a geographical & class bifurcation that is sundering the country...

For Kotkin the Clerisy (the Expert/professional class) of today live in oasis's of wealth & knowledge in today's inner urban enclaves such as San Fransisco, NYC, Chicago, as the rest of the city is reduced to industrial decay/pricing out the unwashed from housing. This is not..

unlike the elect in the Middle Ages where wealth & knowledge was concentrated in a small enclosed elite that was largely disinterested in the fate of the common folks. Kotkin calls for a renewal in class consciousness to push back on both the Clerisy that could let this happen..

As well as on the Woke Left whose made a religion out of race as well as for a more democratic urbanization going forward. Khanna on the other hand see that climate as well as tech & wealth is leading to a global Hanseatic League at the expense of the Global South. Northern...

Consumption has already done massive damage to the environment & just as the Global South is on the cusp of economic transformation they find their way blocked by increasing Climate Change, lack of equitable FDI, & anti migrant sentiments. This all comes in spite of the...

Global North's need of foreign markets & need of immigration to prevent a collapse in the population/workforce. Khanna claims that the movement of people, climate, trade will globalize the world whatever isolationist wish it or not.

That the planet was moving into a world of Sovereignty's which none could Master was already in Post Cold War thought, take this rather interesting BBC documentary from 1994 that attempts to fuse Neo-Medieval-ism with the Post Cold War Imaginary.

Concept of State Theory VII: Anatomy of a State: Which Region rules America?

From 1789-1825 All US presidents save for 1 (John Adams) were from the South & Virginia in particular. Indeed from 1789-1860 9 out of the 15 US Presidents were Southerns. Yet a change was already occurring by the 1810's, The Northeast rebelling from fighting The War of 1812...

The Federalist who would later become identified with the WASP elite in the Northeast quickly lost political power but not demographic/economic power. It was in 1820 after-all that New York State surpassed Virginia in population a rank it would maintain until 1962 over 140 years

later. It was in this 40 year period 1820-1860 that the demographic & economic shift to the North would tell by the time of the Civil War. The Union Population was at 18.5 million while the Confederates was 9.1 million. After the Civil War was over there wouldn't be a Southern

Candidate representing a Southern state as US President until LBJ in 1964 nearly 100 years later. Post 1865 it was the Midwest & Northeast & not the South that would politically run the US. (The War of both 1812 & the Mexican American war were push largely by The South not NE).

One can see this deep influence of the South in US foreign policy In the interests Southerns had in expanding westwards in the 1800's (Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase, Madison approving of the War of 1812, Polk-Jackson's desire to move West against Mexico in th1 1840's).

It was in the post 1865 scene however that the WASP elite of popular imaginings would appear, the Boston Brahmans NY Scions of Adams's & James's, Rockefeller's, JP Morgans. Later Wilson a Southern himself went to Princeton & would adopted this moniker of being Puritan In Chief.

It was in the late 19th century to early 20th century when America's NE WASP elite would be firmly in control of America's moneyed interests, Academia, & governmental posts. They would prove crucial in pushing for US involvement in WW1 on the UK's side.

WW1 however would begin to undermine the hold of the NorthEast-DC enclave in determining national policy with much of the Midwest & Parts of the Northeast resisting the US siding with the UK due to their large Irish & German communities present there.

Yet it would be the arrival of FDR that the WASP mathematics began to be seriously scrambled as he flipped the Democrats from being a primary Southern to a Northern one & pursued economic policies more in favor of the working class then the WASP elite in the Northeast desired.

FDR's massive national majorities throughout the country meant that he could ignore the WASP elite in political matters as they largely raged against the New Deal & made common cause with the Midwest's isolationists. c-span.org/video/?444643-…

Yet it would be WW2 & the early on set of the Cold War that would dislodge the Northeast as America's Primus inter pares region. This was largely due to the massive jump in industrialization that the South & West would experience to met defense spending needs for the US military.

A second major factor was that this massive industrialization created huge labor demands creating a massive wave of migration. California for example after WW2 was essentially now economically self-sufficient. vimeo.com/73867113

One can see this major demographic shift here. By 1953 Nixon would become Vice President of the United States; a Californian & hater of the Northeast establishment the 50's would usher in another region to the national forefront The Sunbelt.

From 1960-2008 all but 1 elected US president would come from The Sunbelt (JFK from Mass being the sole exception, LBJ-TX, Nixon-Cali, Carter-GE, Reagan-Cali, Bush SR.-TX, Clinton-ARK, W. Bush-TX). By 1962 California would surpass NY as the most populous state in the union.

New York State still remained sensitive of it's gradual decline in political & demographic relevancy. One needs only to check these NYT articles from 1994 & 2014 about New York state falling behind Texas & Florida in population. nytimes.com/1994/05/19/nyr… nytimes.com/2014/12/24/nyr…

Starting in the 1950's America would undergo a Southernization of it's politics as racial & religious issues became nationalized. The mix of heighten religiosity, anti-communist fervor, white flight, & large reliance on defense spending for the Sunbelt economies had the effect of

creating in the Sunbelt an odd admixture of WW2/Cold War conservatism. In other words if the Post-War/Cold War put the Sunbelt on the map, the Sunbelt cemented those politics into modern conservatism.

You can see the big changes here the entire West has seen well over 50% growth with an avg of over 200%. In the South only MS, WV saw growth below 50%. In the Northeast only 4 out 9 saw 50%+ growth, in the Midwest it is 6 out of 12 states that saw 50%+ growth.

The reasons for the big gains here have to do predominately with shifts in immigration (with the lion share of it recently going To the South & The West) as well as higher birthrates from the religiosity of these two regions (Evangelicals, Catholics, Mormons).

You can see here that of the 20 states with a TFR of 1.8 or above 19 out of them are Red States (Hawaii being the sole Blue State) & being highly concentrated within the interior of the country.

In short from 1789-1837 the South dominants. However by 1820 the South's dominance begins receding in favor of the Northeast & Midwest. Post 1865 heralds the dominance of the WASP elite in the Northeast+Ohio. The Sunbelt begins dominating national politics in the 1960's.

The South now has almost the same amount of electoral votes 196 (+3 DC) as the Midwest & Northeast combined 206. The South's population is also about the same size as the Northeast & Midwest combined. The West & South now constitute 61.8% of the total US population &

economically constitute 59% of total US GDP in 2020 (12.731/21.561). The South & West combine carry 336 electoral votes vs 206 electoral votes of the Midwest & Northeast.

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