A Rather Indicative Trend.

 Statista compiled a report on Trump's reindustrialization efforts: 

While most Americans agree that having more manufacturing in the United States would be better for the country, much fewer U.S. residents could see themselves working in the sector. In a survey by Cato Institute and YouGov, only 20 percent of Americans said that they'd rather work in manufacturing, while 80 percent said that more manufacturing would be good for the country. Only 2 percent of survey respondents said that they were currently working in manufacturing. The discrepancy in replies might stem from the fact that fewer Americans today work in blue color occupations and that a well-paying job in manufacturing would only be an upgrade for this subset of the population as well as potentially some workers in lower paid service jobs. However, even if this is the case, it shows that the majority of the workforce in the U.S. has either moved past manufacturing as a lucrative job option or is otherwise not interested in employment in the sector. Manufacturing plants in the U.S. have in fact reported issues in finding enough suitable workers for some years and say that the problem is getting worse.

It is startling statistics. 

Especially when it comes to cadres who ARE suited for manufacturing jobs. We discussed this problem here (this blog) on a number of occasions, especially as this huge problem is compounded by a new generation's view of such employment as anathema both for the reasons of all kinds of drugs use (smoking pot has become a cultural norm) and modern media culture where this: 

Has been substituted with this. 

The former Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star feels empowered running her own empire at OnlyFans. It’s why she decided to join her 18-year-old daughter Sami Sheen after she joined the platform first. Being a woman in this business, who has also done sexy roles, I thought, ‘I am going to do it too. I don’t care,’” she told SheKnows in December. “I think it’s important as a woman to do what we want to do and not make decisions on being judged on what other people may think or say.”

Yes, enslutization of American young woman is almost complete, while saturating the culture with military porn, actually, achieves the opposite result in the culture which hasn't been conditioned by the continental warfare. This is not the pool of people capable of going out on the manufacturing floor and learning skills which require a serious intellectual effort, apart from a physical one. Boy, try to explain to a kid who dreams of becoming a "blogger" and "influencer" that "monetization" dynamics even in on-line live porn is radically negative and that understanding the G-Code programming for CNC requires math and concentration. Forget about ethical issue here, which is a whole other thing. 

Meanwhile, a famous Russian retail company Wildberries started to hire ... North Korean women. There is a video now of the first 100 North Korean girls being led to the Wildberries storage. 

Russians like this very much, because North Koreans are disciplined, law-abiding and hard-working people, while for many of them this employment will pay them well-enough to have some much-needed money to send home, even considering the fact that the state will still profit from them. Surely better than "importing", now being severely constricted by the Russian state, many laborers from Middle Asia "stans". This is why Kim was smiling after signing with Vladimir Putin a strategic partnership with Russia. 

Convesations With Dr. Lama-II

Dr. Lama delves into the connection between energy and real economy. And fake GDP numbers by the West. 

 

Why Russia Is Not Running Out Of Ammo.

The hint is in the latest statements by Vladimir Putin, Sergei Lavrov, Ushakov and many others. To put it in simple terms: Russia is NOT running out of ammo, high precision stand off weapons, tanks and aircraft because Russia was getting ready for the war with NATO (euphemism for combined West) in which even SMO is but one of many fronts and operations. Surely, RUSI's report on the "return" (I never heard of it ever going away) of "industrial warfare" may have come as a surprise to West's "elites", but the truth is--human civilization and its, sadly, major product--the warfare--always ran, runs and will continue to run on such things as steel, aluminum, oil, other sources of energy, other materials which are crucial in production of anything war related starting from fuel and artillery shells to finished and highly complex things such as satellites, submarines and combat aircraft. No steel, aluminum, composite materials or oil--no civilization and no modern warfare. 

So, the latest data on steel, which comes into... everything in human civilization, and especially into war effort, for 2021 looked like this:

As you can see yourself, Russia, who is now fighting a whole of combined West is doing fairly well in terms of production of the key war material, and even with the estimate (e) qualifier in a front of its data, which means no accurate data, often by design of western sources, is roughly at 90% of steel production by the United States. Not too shabby, once one considers the fact of Russian population being more than twice smaller. And as I said, steel translated into shells, tanks, submarines and other things of this nature. OK!

What's the deal with other crucial material from which most of combat aviation derives--aluminum.  

Oh boy, the only hope for the US in this crucial material is its northerly neighbor of Canada. Without Canada's aluminum the United States is not even a player at aluminum market against Russia and India. Forget about China. And if one subtracts a magnificent American infrastructure she inherited from Asministrations of FDR or Eisenhower, among a very few others, overall state of modern American infrastructure is not that great. And once one begins to view the energy production, look at the latest for 2021:

Think about it. Russia, being twice smaller in population than the United States, produces 69% of American production of energy and more than half that of China. To produce a variety of both civilian and military products you need energy, a lot of it. And this is precisely the reason Russia is not running out of ammo and high precision stand off weapons, because Russia IS prepared to take war to where combined West realistically cannot, without obliterating human civilization. 

And even in this horrifying, unthinkable, business there are many indicators that Russia may survive in one form or another, while combined West will cease to exist physically. It is a horrifying scenario to even contemplate, but it is clear that Russia already has in place a serious ABM program, which will only expand and may, in the future, mitigate US nuclear deterrent. In fact, all indicators of that are in place. But then again, I warned about it for years when was calling on the US (Europe is not a factor here) to engage Russia on a whole host of issues of mutual relations in order to find modus vivendi. It is late now, especially against the background of an economic catastrophe unfolding for the combined West and the issue is now existential and metaphysical, not just geopolitical one. And Russia is not running out of ammo.

Moscow's (Pseudo)Intellectual Parnassus Gets A Clue.

I am on record, I do not hold much of the Moscow's "think-tankdom" in high regard, because as any "geopolitical" think-tanks anywhere they are staffed (and stuffed) with good ol' boys and girls whose only claim to any expertise is that of being from the "right" Moscow families and social circle, and their social agility when swimming in the murky waters of Moscow's "intellectual" Parnassus. Fyodor Lukyanov is one of them and he is a darling, together with a number of clueless humanities educated "experts", of RT. You can take a look at Lukyanov's bio and "credentials" here. Yes, yet another Kreakl who still didn't recognize that political science is not a science and that any discussion on contemporary geopolitics without a firm grasp of real economy and military power--two fields which require way more than a degree in philology--is nothing more than a demagoguery using big words. And here is the issue. 

Mr. Lukyanov, narrating beaten to death headlines, concludes:

Fyodor Lukyanov: Russia’s role in the global economic order has turned out to be more significant than the West believed 

It is one of those "Duh" or "No Shit" moments but I want to send you back a few years ago, namely 6 years ago, and remind you that I wrote and warned on the danger of Western, and Moscow's Parnassus, delusions about real economy for more than a decade. 

I write constantly about the parallel universe in which US main-stream media live when dealing with, well, just about anything and, especially so, Russia, but some of the brain farts produced by a bunch of hacks working for US media machine do deserve to be singled out. Here is a today's pearl from Boston Globe.  

The reason I warned and countered this delusion was and remains very pragmatic--US bullying's fundamental principle is "never get to fight a serious enemy". For decades pseudo-economic Voodoo about US (and West's) actual economy, the same as about that of Russia has created a false sense of both security and entitlement on the American part. The reality that US economy and its capability are vastly smaller than was declared, while Russia' economy and its capability are vastly larger than was declared by geopolitical "experts", never occurred to primarily humanities educated "masters of discourse" on the both sides of the Atlantic and that played a crucial role in the military-economic suicide of the United States which we observe right now. Recall, 8 years ago, and I will continue to repeat that ad nauseam:

I observed for decades now a consistent pattern of the wrong assessments, loony strategies and deliberate misrepresentation (lies?) of facts coming from the top of US establishment, which since 1991 lives in the make-believe world built by the triumphalists. It is difficult to explain to the average Joe that Baseball World Series, or Superbowl "World Champions" have no relation to the World and are purely internal American affairs. That there is a huge wide world outside  and that it lives and moves not in accordance to the American narrative. Explaining to American "elite" the fact that US didn't "win" the WW II, that "winning" the Cold War came about because Soviet people simply decided to end it, that Wall Street "economy" has no relation to real economy and that real wars produce misery and destruction on a scale which is incomprehensible for the "populace" of the Washington D.C. "strategists", it is not just difficult--it is next to impossible. So, the events must run the course. But it is already clear that by failing to achieve any sensible political objectives in Ukraine and in Russia, and, by this, starting a massive global re-alignment, the United States sustained a defeat. What will be the consequences of this defeat? I hate to speculate, I just know that they are already big and that the moment of facing the reality is coming.    

I didn't write it because I wanted to exercise my abilities or, rather, lack there of, in global "forecasting" but because I simply know about real economy and technological realities of the modern world just a teeny-weeny more than all those "experts" in Russia who continue to abuse their "intellectual" sinecures and wouldn't know the difference between sine and cosine, let alone between the icebreaker and the ice maker. Today, when some of them begin to wake up to the reality that Russia's economy is not just larger, but much larger than same of Germany--I warned about this fact for years--and that, for example, the United States cannot even develop, let alone produce a completely new Main Battle Tank (MBT) and they recognize that Russia commands an immense share of critical strategic resources, people like Lukyanov begin to write trivial pieces, when the main position and task of all this Moscow "expert community" for the last 10 years should have been a firm delivery to the combined West the facts about the true state and correlations of Russia and the US CINCs (Combined Index of National Capability) and the insistence on framing the academic discussion within those proverbial Barnett's 14 points. They failed miserably, being led on the primrose path by the Wall Street virtual economy and technological "expertise" limited by the knowledge of the brands of luxury cars and iPhones. Well, I am being unjust here: they, probably, have a good expertise in good booze too. 

But then again, can you imagine explaining to those people from Moscow's "geopolitical" Parnassus that the guidance and targeting systems of cruise missiles such as 3M14 or X-101, or satellite constellations of GLONASS and Liana, among many other things, the same as economy which creates them, are the main drivers of modern geopolitics and it is them on which the whole of modern Russian diplomacy and foreign relations are based upon, not some BS pseudo-intellectual constructs about geopolitics whose discussion without real solid expertise in manufacturing, including extraction, technology and weapons is the exercise in futility and demagoguery. And here we are today, the Captain Obvious discovered for himself that Russia's "economic role" in the "global" economy is more significant. I, of course, omit here the issue of military power of Russia which rests on a massive manufacturing, including dual purpose technologies. Enough to take a look at Russia's commercial aviation and the development of even SSJ-100 New. 

But, of course, these are new iPhones which really matter, right? I am sure UK citizens will have no issues with food and heat since they will have new iPhones, assembled in Asia. It is sarcasm, of course, but when I see such "experts" as Lukyanov making discoveries of what is obvious to anyone with a good mind and serious life and industry experiences, I have nothing but contempt and sadness that those "experts" never got their academic priorities straight. But then again, I wrote three books on this issue. Recall the title of the last one.

Basic Economics.

As in REAL economy, not this Wall Street financial BS. I already had a short exchange with Dillon yesterday on this matter, but before we get to particulars, let's recall, if one can, 1998 and default in Russia. One of the effects of major inflation which was unleashed by this default was devaluation of Ruble to US Dollar. While I omit here all this bankster mambo-jumbo, one of the effects of the weakened Ruble was the fact which at that time Judy Woodruff of CNN, being Moscow correspondent (remember when CNN was an actual news corporation?) reported with amusement: the fact that while Russian financial "markets" (financial "market" is akin to hairy baldness) were being slaughtered, Russia's industry, especially food processing, became very competitive with the flow of Western products young "Russian" so called "reformers", in reality robber barons and criminals, directed towards Russian market thus making Russian producers fight for own survival. Default corrected that and since then Russian producers never looked back. Even when hard times of 2008 or massive sanctions of 2014 happened. 

It is an economic truism that in the international economic relations a weaker domestic currency makes goods produced domestically more competitive on the international arena. That is, THAT IS, if you have the ability to produce those goods. Jamaica may weaken its Dollar whatever it wants, it changes absolutely nothing for its goods because Jamaica basically produces nothing, well, not exactly nothing (wink, wink) and weakening of its currency, in fact, makes life harder because Jamaica would have to buy more hard currency to buy goods which it really needs. It is simple as that--let's say Jamaica (or any other minor player) wants to buy a regional commercial aircraft (something like Embraer or Bombardier) for 20 million USD. For the sake of discussion let's assume Jamaican Dollar being 5 to 1 USD. In this case, for Jamaica, to buy such a plane it must have 20 million x 5 = 100 million Jamaican Dollars. But what if Jamaican Dollar weakens two fold, now it is 10 to 1 USD (exchange rate), and that means that for the same plane Jamaica will have to have 20 million x 10= 200 million Jamaican Dollars. You see how it works? Of course, Jamaica may go and mortgage a shitload of its assets for this tremendously disadvantageous rate, but no matter what Jamaica does, it needs 200 million Jamaican Dollars. 

Now comes this teeny-weeny country of Russia, which produces pretty much everything on its own, ranging from shoes and toilet paper to space ships, commercial aircraft, cars, what have you. So, say I want to buy in Russia Lada X-Ray Cross in January of 2019 for (let's round) 660, 000 ₽--I go to dealership and pay 660,000 OR $10,000 per existing exchange rate between Ruble and US Dollar then. Now, let's fast forward to March 2020. Say, I decide to buy this model now. Today exchange rate between Ruble and USD is 81 to 1. So, what would I pay for Lada today? Well, same 660,000 ₽, or....drum roll... 660,000/81= $8,148. Compare: $10,000 in December of 2019 to $8,148 in March 2020. So, Lada X-ray (and other Ladas) which, actually do sell quite well in Europe and elsewhere may drop their price in USD thus making these well-made cars even more competitive. What is going on, one may ask. Very simple explanation--unless you buy something abroad for hard currency, such as Russia buying some pharmaceutical products and pays higher price in USD (or EURO) for them due to weakening Ruble and the prices on those grow in Rubles too for domestic market, everything else what is produced home pretty much remains more-or-less unchanged. 

So, yesterday some "brainiaks" from Oilprice.com discover basic math and economic for themselves:

While the ruble is now at its lowest level against the dollar in four years, the cheaper ruble has a silver lining for Russia’s oil producers in the oil price war for market share with Saudi Arabia. The collapse of the OPEC+ deal and oil prices has hit Russia’s financial markets and currency, leading to a sharp drop in the ruble versus the U.S. dollar. The lower the ruble slides against the U.S. dollar, the lower the production costs of Russian oil companies in U.S. dollars are. To be sure, a crumbling ruble is not the preferred outcome of the oil price collapse for Russia’s monetary system and foreign currency reserves. Still, it could help Russian oil firms to have lower costs in U.S. dollars for their operations. According to calculations by Reuters, the lifting cost per barrel of oil equivalent of Russia’s largest oil producer, state-controlled Rosneft, is now lower than the costs of Saudi Arabia’s oil giant Aramco. And this is due to the falling ruble against the dollar. On the other hand, Saudi Arabia’s currency, the riyal, is pegged to the dollar at a fixed exchange rate, so the dollar costs for Saudi Aramco are the same before and after the oil price collapse and the collapse of the OPEC+ coalition. Last year, the average lifting cost in dollars per barrel of oil equivalent of Rosneft was $3.10. This compared to a $2.80 cost per barrel for Saudi Aramco, as per company financials cited by Reuters. The crumbling ruble has now cut Rosneft’s cost to $2.50 per barrel, while Aramco’s cost is the same because of the fixed exchange rate with the riyal peg to the dollar, Reuters calculations show.

Okey-dokey, boys and girls from Oilprice--back to school to study basic facts and please change the stupidest title of the article: Russia’s Unexpected Advantage In The Oil Price War. There is nothing, zilch, nada "unexpected" in this "advantage". It was planned all along and that is why "crumbling Ruble" didn't create any panic in Russia. Yes, overall global situation and the most acute crisis of liberalism will, of course, impact Russia--I already presented one example with medical supplies--but for the country which was re-industrializing like there is no tomorrow since 2007-08, this impact will be limited because not only Russia doesn't have to spent huge volumes of Rubles to buy hard currency but it makes Russia's exports extremely competitive be that selling S-400, SU-35C, Ladas or food, or, of course, hydrocarbons, especially oil. Anyone wants to fight Russia's oil? Good luck with that--costs do matter. So, they begin to suspect something in D.C.

(Bloomberg) -- The Trump administration is pressing Saudi Arabia to dial back its plan to flood the oil market after a price war with Russia sent crude prices crashing to their lowest levels in almost two decades. The U.S. wants Saudi Arabia to hold back on a plan to supply a record 12.3 million barrels a day next month, people familiar with the situation said. It’s asking for the Saudis’ help in bringing oil prices back to where they were before the market cratered in early March, one of the people said. Oil prices have plummeted since Russia and Saudi Arabia failed to reach a deal to cut back production in response to an unprecedented decline in crude demand brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. The market collapse has imperiled hundreds of thousands of jobs, wiped out tens of billions of dollars in capital spending and is threatening to force as many as 70% of U.S. shale drillers into bankruptcy.

My question in this case is this: didn't you, guys, see that coming? Have anyone in D.C. tried to mitigate the problem by engaging Russia, not Saudis, who is in real control of situation? Any diplomacy, any quid-pro-quo? No? Well, then I guess you have only yourself to blame for not having a faintest clue about Russia. Continue chest beating, while Russia will put Saudis on their knees and then will give the United States, yet another, chance to save face and come to the negotiating table. Mnuchin, as we all know, already got the message. But this activity could have been enough 4-5 years ago. Now, it doesn't go too far. Russians do not care about this Saudi shithole, but the United States for Russia are different--Russians know that for the American elites Russia is the most important and deadliest enemy which must be annihilated. So, the framework for any negotiations, thus, changes dramatically. As this Covid-19 spectacle demonstrated so well--only economically self-sufficient countries, with massive REAL sector--yes, manufacturing nearly everything they need for own existence--are the real players on the global arena who have options of escalation, both economically and militarily. Simple as that, because it is basic economics (however grossly simplified here for the sake of example). In related news:

The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits skyrocketed to a record-breaking 3.283 million for the week ended March 21. Consensus expectations were for 1.64 million claims. The previous record was 695,000 claims filed the week ended October 2, 1982. Initial jobless claims for the week ended March 14 was revised higher to 282,000 from 281,000 and was the largest single-week increase since the Great Recession.

This is just the beginning. It is also yet another demonstration of utter incompetence and ignorance of US "elites" who long ago lost any touch with geopolitical, economic, military and any other realities. But I warned about that for years, yet, this is not the occasion on which I would have satisfaction of being right, because it is not easy to see the old world departing, knowing that for me, and others, there still were some joys and dreams. 

Military Power (Cont'd 5)

So, here we are, with economics or, rather, economy which is the foundation of it all. I, however, want to warn  those who still believe that Wall Street  or Goldman Sachs is real economy--you may really not like what you will be reading here. So, for those of you who believe in all this FIRE (Finances, Insurance, Real Estate) "economy", before reading this, you may want to conduct a mental forensic experiment. Imagine what will happen if money would disappear. Of course, there will be chaos, but here is the thing, of which Russians, and I mean modern day Russians, who lived through 1990s, like me, know well--eventually people will barter. As long as any manufacturing still exists, people, under the most difficult conditions, will barter. They will find the market place and they will go with their burlap sacks of potatoes or carrots and will barter them for tires, cigarettes or diesel generators. Eventually the chains of distributors will develop and money will re-appear. The cycle will re-start. 

Now, imagine what happens if the manufacturing is gone. Well, finances as we know them, will not exist, period. So, the issue of chicken and egg, that is what is a primer, is solved. After all, most economic schools agree on this fact--no production, no money. If Boeing goes down, the real impact of that is difficult to comprehend, but if tomorrow some shitty brokerage firm goes down, well..it may hurt a bit but life will go on. And it will also recover even if Wall Street goes down. In fact, the damage this condemned place, where crooks and the so called "economists" congregate, dealt and continues to deal to the world is so huge, that it is, in fact, desirable that this bastion of the corruption and selling of the air and phantoms, goes down at some point of time. Commodities exchanges can stay, though, and even then under some serious regulations.

So, now we can briefly, yet again, return to the expenditure. Let's draw a simple analogy: if I lived in the neighborhood where I had my house broken in constantly, including by armed robbers, under the condition that I cannot move away from this hood, guess, what I would do? Right, I would invest in weapons. I would buy several firearms, ranging from 9mm  hand guns to 12-gauge Mossberg, I would place them strategically (or, rather, tactically) inside my house and will hope that I will meet any son of a bitch trying to get into my house and harm my family with the barrel of my gun to his forehead, not the other way around. Here, I just described my personal military doctrine. Will this expenditure hurt finances of my household? Somewhat, but those expenses are all worth it, since they keep all kinds of scoundrels away from my home. What is most important here, with my very moderate income, just because I understand the value of a good round penetrating the knees or, in the worst case scenario, the forehead of some creep, my existence will be fairly safe, as opposed to some metro-sexual, and way more richer than me patsy, who can not stand small firearms or NRA. Will his money help him when he has armed robbers breaking into his house? Well, you all know the answer. All this analogies' drawing is very relevant to a discussion on the economic aspect of the war and military power. 

It matters most what nation produces, period. Sure, Steel/Iron Production and Energy Consumption are the backbone of it all, but so much more goes into that. Energy Consumption is a key in understanding how economy works. No doubt,  MBAs working in Goldman Sachs do consume a lot of energy: from using their computers and lights in the office to charging their Teslas overnight, plus a lot of energy is spent hauling those important asses all over the world in the private jets, mostly for golf courses and their wives (lov...I mean sluts) cosmopolitan shopping. But this consumption of energy by those, mostly self-centered, a-holes pales in comparison to what a single middle sized manufacturing company consumes. In fact, to maintain a steady stream of useless iPhones and other, superficially "needed", consumer goods, enormous number of British Thermal Units (Btus) (or Joules) is consumed. It is difficult to explain to some "programmer" (and I know way too many of those) that iPhones do not grow on the trees and that even this (as any other smart(dumb)-phone) requires metals, plastics, silicon and other huge nomenclature of elements to be produced. This is a colossal consumption of energy. But don't rush to the conclusion that the more the energy, the more is production. It doesn't work quite like that. Consider this, consumption is not enough to "measure" energy, it is production of energy which gives a better perspective. Here is some info on actual production of energy:

Top 3 producing countries by resource worldwide 

Why it is so important to emphasize production as opposed to mere consumption? Well, this is military-political blog and we are talking here about military power. Let us recall what father, or, rather, one of, of economic liberalism Herbert Spencer had to say about economy. In his The Military And The Industrial Society in 1896 he states: "Whence it follows that the desire "not to be dependent on foreigners" is one appropriate to the militant type of society. So long as there is constant danger that the supplies of needful things derived from other countries will be cut off by the breaking out of hostilities, it is imperative that there shall be maintained a power of producing these supplies at home and that to this end the required structure shall be maintained. Hence there is a manifest direct relation between militant activities and a protectionist policy..." Surely, Spenser, should he live today, would be eating his words in regards to "militant activities" and a "protectionist policy", but, in general, he correctly identified the approach. In modern history NO real military power emerged without a first most important condition--an industrial capacity. Energy Production, in this case, is a crucial parameter, especially when one considers that weapons' production consumes an enormous amount of energy. Electricity is a key. Here is the wiki's list of electricity generation by countries.

Here is per capita generation by the country. 

 

The first thing which jumps out immediately is the fact (remember, this is military blog?) of Russia generating net and per capita electricity which are the levels of a very developed industrial nations. Let's not stop here, let's review actually a Consumption as CINC model emphasizes. Yet again, Russia is in the top cluster of highly industrially developed nations.

List of countries by electricity consumption 

One may say that Qatar and Saudi Arabia consume per capita more than Russia, in fact they consume more than EU and even US. But the trick here is in the fact that their consumption is driven by....well, nothing but oil extraction and air conditioning of their malls and houses. Truth is, they produce nothing other than oil. Electricity generation/consumption, when considered together with other resources, gives us a good insight into the path to being a real military power. 

Steel/Iron Production? Absolutely, there are no weapons without it. Guns are made of it, tanks, ships and submarines. Shells and bullets, armor and...you name it--all this is steel and iron. But is it enough again? No. Same as electricity, iron and steel are produced, that is extracted, processed and produced, by many nations but even that is not enough to become a military power. Here is the list of steel production by nation in 2015.

List of countries by steel production

But here is the trick again. China produces almost 10 times the amount of steel USA produces, and almost 12 times the amount Russia produces. Yet, while being a world's largest economy, China, while, certainly emerging, is not yet a global military power. Will just steel/iron production metric define China's emergence as military superpower? No. Neither will the full list of CINC. CINC fails us completely here, since Brazil, which produces a respectable 40% of Russia's steel output is hardly a military power, let alone a global one. Not even close. As we can see, while CINC model gives us SOME important metrics which cannot be disregarded, it fails to answer to the question of what really constitutes a military power. But we already are creeping closer and closer to the answer. So, let's not procrastinate. CINC criteria are just a small part of the answer which is, following Herbert Spenser's logic, in the number of the enclosed technological (industrial) cycles nation possesses. It is quite obvious for any common sense and mildly educated person, with the exception of course of "liberal" so called economists and all other "expert" types who propagate their rubbish constantly in MSM. Yet, none other than late Samuel Huntington mentions what it takes. Remember?

Can US Still Save Itself? 

What defined "West's" domination was reduced to 14 points. West's domination (expiring as I am typing this) was achieved largely through military force. That's how it looks like.

1. Owns and operates the international banking system;

2. Controls all hard currencies;

3. Is the world's principal customer;

4. Provides the majority of the worlds finished goods;

5. Dominates international capital markets;

6. Exerts considerable moral leadership within many societies;

7. Is capable of massive military intervention;

8. Controls the sea lanes;

9. Conducts most advanced technical research and development;

10. Controls leading edge technical education;

11. Dominates access to space;

12. Dominates aerospace industry;

13. Dominates international communications;

14. Dominates the high-tech weapons industry. 

Out of those 14 points, highlighted 11, that is 78.6%, are directly connected to a very serious manufacturing or, in modern lingo, "real economy". If one throws away BS about "considerable moral leadership" (a delusion still propagated by Huntington's founded Foreign Policy magazine) and the point about control of all hard currencies, this share increases to 11 out of 12, that is roughly 92%.  It is also what makes one a military power. And even this list is still incomplete....

To Be Continued.....