Summary: What will America look like in in 2025, after another decade of our long war? In the second of this series William Lind describes two scenarios, failed and successful responses to risks regarded as likely among paleoconservatives. Seeing visions of the future like this can help you decide how to vote in November 2016. Perhaps the fears of each group are what most clearly distinguishes Left and Right in America.
Our future as two sides of the coin
By William S. Lind
The first toss of the coin: a dark vision
America’s “long war” continues to prove Sun Tzu correct: no nation ever benefits from a long war. From Afghanistan through Iraq to war with Iran (following Congress’s rejection of President Obama’s deal with Iran, which led to Iran building an atomic bomb, which led to an American attack), in Syria, and now in Saudi Arabia, America has failed to attain closure while spending itself into ruin. As I write in this year of 2025, the Federal debt is six times the GNP, revenues cover only 23% of federal expenditures, and it takes 25,000 dollars to buy one yuan {currency of China, now worth $0.16}. Almost half of the federal budget goes to paying interest on the debt. It is rumored the Estates General will soon be called, in the form of a Constitutional Convention.
In Washington, since the explosion of a suitcase nuke in Seattle on 25 December 2024, both political parties agree we must continue to fight. Although al Qaeda claimed credit for the Seattle bombing, American intelligence traced the origin of the plot to Saudi Arabia. This was no surprise; everyone had known for decades that most Sunni extremism had its roots in Saudi money. Previously, the United States had to pretend otherwise because of its dependence on Saudi oil. Now, with imported oil unaffordable, that was irrelevant.
The Saudi war is following the usual course. The initial American invasion, with three divisions, quickly captured Riyadh and destroyed the Saudi state. Fourth Generation war goes on in all the populated parts of Saudi Arabia — even the Shiites are fighting us, at the same time they fight the Sunnis — and jihadi volunteers pour in to defend Mecca and Medina, both of which U.S. troops occupied at the demand of our military commanders, who said they were being used as safe havens.
American air, drone and missile strikes hit daily throughout the Islamic Middle East and Southwest Asia. None of what we do appears to make any difference. Washington’s policy remains one of serial failure: when what we do fails in one venue, we go on to do the same thing somewhere else. Only complete financial ruin, which is rapidly approaching, appears likely to change anything.
The second toss of the coin: a successful America
America’s “long war” proved Sun Tzu correct; no nation ever benefits from a long war. Fortunately, in this year of 2025, America’s long war is a memory. President Obama’s deal with Iran proved a turning point. It brought neither peace nor stability to the region; nothing could do that. What it successfully did was allow a re-invigorated Iran to focus its efforts on the Shiite-Sunni civil war, which now engulfs the Middle East and results in the deaths of millions of Islamics annually, most of them young men. Peace be upon them.
To America and Europe, that war and the region it envelops are someone else’s problem. In Europe, the exploding refugee crisis brought genuinely conservative governments to power: the National Front in France, UK Independence Party in Great Britain, and the Neues Kaiserreich Partei in Germany {a fictional “New Empire Party”}. Those parties in turn quickly solved the refugee problem. Asylum was no longer offered to non-Europeans, and all refugees were immediately sent home. It was easy enough to put them on ships, have European Marines make amphibious landings on African shores, and deposit the refugees. The flow to Europe quickly diminished to nothing, since no one had any chance of staying.
In America, the election in 2016 of President Rand Paul and the emergence in Congress of a left-right anti-war coalition led to a gradual American withdrawal from other people’s quarrels around the globe. With the President’s father, Ron Paul, serving as Secretary of the Treasury, Congress and the nation turned to confront its true national security threats: a looming debt crisis and the emergence of a “National Security State” where the federal government controlled more and more of everyone’s life. Thankfully, the federal budget is now in surplus, the national debt is being paid down, and the Department of Homeland Security has been replaced by a Department of Homeland Satiation, whose main activity is holding pie-eating contests around the country.
In Washington, where Congress is now controlled by the new America First Party, the response to the suitcase nuke that went off in Seattle on 25 December 2024 was the “Hama Model”. As soon as Saudi Arabia was identified as the source of the attack, the country was vaporized by an American nuclear response. Mecca was spared, with the President making it clear it would not be spared if there was a next time. That city is now back under its legitimate protector, the Hashemite king of Jordan.
America’s nuclear response demonstrated its new policy of replying to attacks — now wholly gratuitous since America is no longer meddling in other parts of the world — not with invasions to bring “democracy” and “human rights” to flea-bag, fly-blown hellholes but with punitive raids.
Our response did not end there. We finally resolved the immigration issue correctly: all immigration was forbidden unless someone came with at least ten million dollars (sound dollars, now). A replica of the old East-West German border was built between the U.S. and Mexico. Anyone attempting to cross a border illegally – here and in Europe — gets shot. That’s what a border means.
And early this summer, before Congress took its usual recess, it passed in both Houses and sent to the states a Constitutional Amendment. The new Amendment forbids the profession, practice or preaching of the Islamic religion on American soil, on pain of exile. Its prospects for rapid ratification by the states appear excellent.
The Saudis would of course object. But there aren’t any. And Americans are happy to travel, far more comfortably, by train.
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Other posts in this series
- “How much longer for the long war? Who will win?” by Chet Richards.
- “Our future as two sides of the coin” by William Lind.
- Coming: “We don’t need a New Army to in 4GWs. We need a smart Army” by Gary Anderson.
Update: another conservative’s vision of the future
“Operation Iranian Freedom. It is 2026 & the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran has failed.” by Phil Water at Medium. Do their visions as always ending in war?
This describes the US replacing much of Russia’s exports to Europe (unlikley: the US is a net importer of natural gas; transport of natural gas by ship is much more expensive than by pipeline). Predicts that Iran will tries to build nukes, despite the Right’s many false predictions of this since 1984.
About the author
William S. Lind s director of the American Conservative Center for Public Transportation. He has a Master’s Degree in History from Princeton University in 1971. He worked as a legislative aide for armed services for Senator Robert Taft, Jr., of Ohio from 1973 through 1976 and held a similar position with Senator Gary Hart of Colorado from 1977 through 1986. See his bio at Wikipedia
Mr. Lind is author of the Maneuver Warfare Handbook
In April 1995 Lind published “Militant musings: From nightmare 1995 to my utopian 2050” in The Washington Post. He speculated about a future in which multiculturalism had broken apart the USA: a second civil war, followed by a recovery of our traditional Christian culture led by a new country: Victoria (i.e., it adopted Victorian values). He’s expanded this into a book: Victoria: A Novel of 4th Generation War
He’s perhaps best known for his articles about the long war, now published as On War: The Collected Columns of William S. Lind 2003-2009
- Posts at TraditionalRight.
- His articles about geopolitics at The American Conservative.
- His articles about transportation at The American Conservative.
For More Information
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all posts about predictions of our future. To make better use of forecasts see Requiem for fear. Let’s learn from failed predictions to have confidence in ourselves & our future and Tips to find the experts that help you see the world more clearly. Also see these forecasts…
- We are the attackers in the Clash of Civilizations. We’re winning.
- Handicapping the clash of civilizations: bet on the West to win big.
- Visions of the future: Adam Posen asks what the world might look like if the 1% wins.
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Reblogged this on Silk Roads and Siamese Smiles and commented:
From Fabius Maximus
William Lind takes good ideas to absurd and hateful extremes. As a result he undermines his credibility… cutting to the chase he is a malevolent crank.
The fantastic Fabius Maximus website deserves much better than Lind.
Eliot,
It is a vision of the world shared by millions of Americans, and by several of the Republican candidates for President. It gives an essential rebuttal to those who say there is no difference between the two major parties, justifying their refusal get to off their butts and work the political machinery given us by the Founders, now rusting from disuse.
So I believe it is very much worth posting, for that reason alone.
That was a fun read.
On the serious side, it does serve as a warning. Be careful what you wish for.
Unexpected consequences are there no matter which path you choose.
Did anyone notice that in Scenario #2 Ron Paul is President and his father Ron Paul is Secretary of Treasury. What happened to Rand Paul? Was he crushed in a cage fight with Donald Trump?
dprof,
Fixed! If William Lind used computers and read the internet, he’d thank you for catching that. Since he doesn’t, I will.
Fabius Maximus,
Mr. Lind’s ideas and ideological and racial group has been steadily and regularly becoming weaker and weaker politically, economically, and socially. There has never been a time in American history where southern white men have been less powerful than they are now (barring maybe reconstruction). On what basis is he assuming that there could be anything other than a continuation of that trend?
Southern whites clung to big business and the security services to save them from African-American “communists” and now they’re finding themselves as dispensable as any other group is to the needs of the modern American corporation and state.
I think these thoughts are interesting in their intent, conviction, and hopes/nightmare, but I do not think that either scenario seems particularly likely to occur.
PF Khans
PFK,
Dreams of the far Right and Left share many features, most notably their apocalyptic nature: disaster brings forth the new order in which the righteous rule.
Lind gives a relatively mild example of this genre, since only millions die in the process.
Fabius Maximus,
“Lind gives a relatively mild example of this genre, since only millions die in the process. ”
Strictly speaking his view is not mild. I understand that you are comparing it to the apocalyptic visions of some global warming hypists and others who are expecting hundreds of millions of deaths. But no one thinks that the apocalyptic visions that espoused by some Iranian leaders about the death of several million Jews in Israel is not mild.
Targeted death (Muslims/minorities) is not mild.
PF Khans
PFK,
“Strictly speaking his view is not mild”
I hoped that saying “since only millions die” would signal that my comment was ironic. Here are other posts on the subject.
For another example of apocalyptic thinking on the Right see Larry Burkett‘s 1997 Christian science fiction novel Solar Flare
. Billions die, leaving the remnant to build a pure New World.
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Available at Amazon
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Since no one has commented on the illustration of the border fence, let me share my observation. It is meant to keep people in as well as to keep people out.
That in effect turns the USA into a prison, much as east Germany was during the Cold War.
dprof,
“meant to keep people in”
I’d like to see some evidence of that. Conservatives clearly stated intent is to keep people out by building fences, both physical (along the southern border) and virtual (the no-fly list keeping “people” from returning to America).
Keep people in? Hardly. To leave the country, all I’d have to do in this scenario is find a copy of the Koran and read it aloud in public, and I’d have a free one-way ticket out of here (who needs that silly old First Amendment anyway?)
Tice with a J,
Brutal clarity. Got to be Best of Thread. But still brutal.
Fabius,
I find that brutal clarity is best when dealing with declared attacks on freedom, such as Mr. Lind’s proposed outlawing of Islam.
I must admit that I’m worried about the prospects for the First Amendment these days. Both Left and Right are finding new reasons to hate it. What happens if they arrive at a compromise? What will be left of our liberties?
The coin toss in Lind’s article looks like a hustle, if you ask me.
I agree with Lind as far as he seems to be saying that the ME will not get “fixed” solved in 10 years. I disagree that it will be possible to make it “somebody else’s problem”.
First of all, The US’s involvement is too recent and too deep. Whatever happens, there will need to be some recognition of this. I think we could ask some of our Neocon thought leaders to take one for the team here, and maybe have some kind of Seppuku ritual.
Second problem is the vision that the animosities in the ME can be redirected neatly into a balance contained to the region. Our technique for achieving this balance is selective aid to belligerents. Even in the best case, with no screw-ups, this amounts to a targeted destabilization. That is a huge contradiction, in that whatever balance you get is unstable and you will need to provide continued support to the #2 player in the region — i.e., continued US involvement — to maintain the balance and keep it contained.
I’ll leave the rest of his coin toss vision alone, but there’s plenty to talk about.
Pete,
I am astonished that nobody has mentioned the likely consequence of destroying Saudi Arabia. Our mild invasions and occupations have aroused many in the world’s Islamic communities. What blowback might we get from nuking Saudi Arabia? It would give a push to the development of amateur WMDs, tested on American cities.
Editor/FM,
Oh wow, yes. I think as soon as there was talk about nuking this and that, I “tuned it out” without even realizing it.
Obviously if some Saudis are setting off a suitcase bomb in Seattle, the middle east isn’t really someone else’s problem.
Pete,
The ME won’t be someone else’s problem after we nuke Saudi Arabia (pop 31 million now). I suspect the blowback would be epoch.
I agree, I wasn’t saying it was a good idea.
Pete,
Understood. I find it almost beyond belief that people think nukes are like a magic wand, we drop them and problem solved.
Lind’s extreme scenarios certainly provide amusement value, but it seems more likely that America will dither along with the Long War, gradually losing steam, gradually decaying. America will not get suitcase-nuked and will not go bankrupt. Instead, we’ll just slowly decay into East Germany with missiles and much better consumer goods.
Alas, the security apparatus in place in Surveillance America seems impossible to dismantle. Like all cancers, it will simply continue to grow. The DHS headquarters is bigger than the Pentagon, and its budget keeps soaring by leaps and bounds.
Thomas,
“Lind’s extreme scenarios certainly provide amusement value”
He describes America nuking Saudi Arabia. Megadeaths (its population today is 31 million). Tens of millions of Americans agree with this thinking and values. You have a very odd sense of humor.
Pingback: The ugliness of the Xenophobia of William Lind | Blog, Jvstin Style
FM remarks: “You have a very odd sense of humor.” No odder than Fox News’ Rapture Index or the Doomsday Clock maintained by atomic scientists at the University of Chicago.
“Amusement” of course means diversion from the tedious banalities of hard work and the tough slog of participating in the governance of the United States of Amnesia. Much easier to sit back and watch apocalyptic scenarios unfold in our imagination, thus justifying our lack of citizen participation in our own government.
dprof: “meant to keep people in”
FM: “I’d like to see some evidence of that.”
The evidence is the illustration itself. Take a look at it. Which side is in and which is out.
I submit that it looks the same from both sides.
How it is operated is subject to change. Also Mr Lind’s narrative did say “. A replica of the old East-West German border was built between the U.S. and Mexico. Anyone attempting to cross a border illegally – here and in Europe — gets shot. That’s what a border means.”
That border did prohibit travel in either direction.
dprof,
Good catch about the image. I didn’t notice that. However, it’s only an artists’ drawing. I was unable to find its origin, or purpose.