A World of Entropy

Thinking about the body politic sometimes is business-useful if for no other reason but to take a step back and reassess economic viewpoints. The other day, taking a break from the FTs, BBCs, MSNBC, FOXs, Economist, RT, and WSJ I chanced on a new study released by the US Defense Department, "At Our Own Peril: DoD Risk Assessment in a Post-Primacy World".

The conclusion was essentially a predictable call to increase the defense budget, and further increase spending in a broad array of areas, from conventional, and nuclear through to drones and cyber-warfare. The reasoning caught my attention when it stated that the U.S. framework of the international order established post World War II is both "fraying" and “collapsing". That sounded like a real double whammy. This study was published by the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute to evaluate the DOD’s approach to assessing risk and policy - in effect our budget.

The study finds that the nation's power is in decline because the world has entered a new phase of transformation, where the US-led international order is unraveling, and the authority of traditional governments everywhere is increasingly unstable.

The report further finds “global events will happen faster than the Defense Department is currently equipped to handle,” and that the U.S. “can no longer count on the unassailable position of dominance, supremacy, or pre-eminence it enjoyed for the 20-plus years after the fall of the Soviet Union.”

In conclusion, the study states that it is not only the U.S. that is seeing a decline, “All states and traditional political authority structures are under increasing pressure from endogenous and exogenous forces. The fracturing of the post-Cold War global system is accompanied by the internal fraying in the political, social, and economic fabric of practically all states.”

Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, all manner of pundits, “experts” and even extreme "preppers" have been predicting that the hegemonic glory days of the US are ending. It looks like this world is no longer seeking that single superpower with an oversized wallet, or a tight group of allied powers to bring some globalized order to international affairs. This void will be filled by various powers. Hopefully among which will be independent multilateral sovereign nations, as certainly multinationals, ideological movements of variously tinted extremes, and a rainbow of rights organizations to suit myriad tastes will make their cases noisily and in some cases violently apparent.

International politics is changing before our eyes from a system that was anchored in reasonably predictable, UN charter-based, relatively constant positions to a system that is erratic, unsettled, and mostly devoid of behavioral norms, trust, and pragmatism. Diplomacy is quickly losing the Dignitas and trust once ascribed to affairs of state. In terms of international relations, we have moved from an age of order to an age of Geopolitical Entropy. In looking around the world I do not see immediate existential threats coming from some self-immolating global Armageddon, rather I see increasingly strident disagreements and localized proxy conflicts over secure geopolitical sovereignty, monetary, trade, societal, and perhaps even environmental issues. The majority of these conflicts are not found along the borders of the US, rather they are kept comfortably distant at multiple points throughout our world, yet lately have independently started to emerge within the US itself. It is an expensively difficult act, to keep juggling dozens of eggs worldwide through roughly 750 offshore US bases in over 80 countries all at once. All the while repeatedly trying to convince oneself that none will break and spoil the anticipated recipe when they all too often do just that.

Rudyard Kipling perhaps best summed up the old political order, when he coined a brilliant term for it, which caught at once the athletic, masculine, goal-oriented, and sentimental components that he called the “Great Game”. It is now a quaint memory of a distant time. Compared with today’s complexities it is akin to a classic game of chess, contrasting with what today is a three-dimensional game of chess played in the digital realm assisted by AI.

The second law of thermodynamics, the entropy law, states that in closed systems, randomness, disorder, and chaos tend to prevail over the long term. Centers do not hold; all systems disintegrate. A nation is a system; disintegration is its fate. As Clausius demonstrated in 1865, entropy grows out of all proportion to the energy expended in producing it. His famous example is the cue ball: shot into a racked set of billiards, it transfers the energy of the cue into the formation of the balls; and while the energy of the system is in this way transformed and briefly increased, the entropy is amplified far more, as demonstrated by the balls careening madly across the surface of the table. This example takes place in two dimensions. Imagine this concept as applied in three dimensions: the complications are immeasurable. Like juggling several dozen eggs at once with two hands.

The other aspect of entropy is the tendency within chaos to gravitate towards homogeneity. Keeping heterogeneous things that are in contact from becoming homogenous takes a lot of effort. We see global systems become more alike as they come into contact, with a loss of biodiversity, loss of cultural diversity, loss of political diversity, loss of economic diversity, and loss of the protective balances that come with diversity. There is not much to be done about it either - as we accept homogenous globalization, as our culture becomes a single closed system, rising entropy is inevitable. We saw this at work in the last century with the British Empire, the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, the Soviet Union, and the Warsaw pact, to name just a few. We are seeing political entropy ongoing today within the gaggle of dissonant nations comprising the countries of NATO and the EU. We see the stresses worldwide economically and politically under the umbrella of deep political and financial alliances within the US Dollar sphere of influence. This has been sharpened by sanctions, trade tariffs, and restrictive access to financial flows all of which tend to gather momentum, not subside or ease. The fallout from entropy has only recently played out its hand with Russia in 1989 and China in 1949 with enormous internal changes, perhaps they are less exposed in the short term than other sovereign nations, yet certainly are not immune.

There is a wildcard in this and that is the human spirit (yes, a bit of the metaphysical) and the ability to make choices. We apparently have the potential to choose between homogeneity and heterogeneity. The problem, as always, is that whenever our attention wavers and we go with the flow, the tide sweeps us a little further toward homogeneity, and the way back may never appear in similar ways again. We must fight perpetually for heterogeneity if we want it, as it is at permanent risk of fading away if we do not.

The political clashes of the 20th century were largely focused on the perceived battle, simply stated between individualism vs; collectivism, the haves vs; the have-nots, and the informed vs; the oblivious. This has a 21st-century sequel today as heterogeneity vs homogeneity within a historically unique globally accessible and increasingly responsive interactive digital information field.

All this conceptualizing can bring on an epic headache, choices everywhere, and which one to choose? Some will find their own water, others will expect to be led to a stream. Over the years, I have noticed a constant in this world, and that is “size matters” at least in the Affairs of State. A nation can grow massive muscles, get pumped up to huge proportions, become solidly in thrall to financial debt steroids, and become a global champion world eater, yet at the end of the day should the massive infusions slow down, or heaven forbid stop, the ripped body will most probably deflate and flop around with not much to show anymore. There is also the possibility that it may choose to “go down fighting” perhaps taking perceived competitors or 'enemies' down with it, not fair, but such is life.

What is the optimal “size that matters”? I believe it to be an independent sovereign state without the trappings and costs of projecting its influence globally. There certainly is room for good neighborly relations between sovereign nations which share common borders or regions. That is not isolationism. It is common sense. The emergent social power of the internet would seem to provide for all the globalization that could be desired, hopefully remaining at a “virtual” level, a simple guidepost or weathervane. The rest is up to sovereign nations to agree, one on one, between themselves and in the interests of their citizens living and voting within their borders. That, after all, is what the United Nations was created to independently assure if permitted. Largely due to this digital age, it is likely that citizen involvement will increase and, barring monumental upheaval, can not stop or be reversed. What may be the key is the sample size of the citizenry in any given sovereign nation, which will enable the distinct historic and cultural drivers to serve the distinguishing interests and resources of each country without being homogenized into hegemonic mediocrity.