Breivik Plans Crusade Involving Nuclear Terrorism, Demands Compulsory Conversion of Muslims

Anders Breivik, the Norwegian man arrested for the 22-7 terrorist attack on Oslo and the small island of Otoya, planned a terrorist attack and lays out details for it on the Internet, in a manifesto described by Richard Silverstein as "a latter day Mein Kamf".

The manifesto, titled "2038: A Declaration of European Independence", contains a conservative analysis of Western society as a Marxist construct, decries the destruction of the European culture due to Islamic immigration and outlines a strategy to defend the continent from what is perceived as an invasive force.

The manifesto is, in part, designed as a manual for setting up small, independent terrorist cells. Breivik's trial is meant to serve as a vehicle for distributing the alarmism, a phase he calls the "propaganda phase."

Photo provided by Breivik himself in the manifesto, which is designed as a manual for copycats, instructing them for instance to perceive their arrest as an opportunity for propaganda and make sure their own photos look professional and present them in the best possible light.

The Ripple Effect Has Already Begun

Breivik's goal is to recruit an army of copycats, and posts around the web indicates that there is a belief 100 highly violent soldiers is enough to overthrow a regime, an observation seemingly based on the violence employed by Nazis in the Weimar Republic and Communists in the Russian Revolution.

Neo-nazis are publicly lauding Breivik for his heinous deed. A Facebook page to commemorate the more than 90 dead was hacked and its title changed from 'A minute of silence for the victims of Oslo and Utøya' to 'Honor Anders Brehling Breivik, a true hero and role model'.

The Norwegian police seeks to have a closed trial, while Breivik has asked for open doors. It is apparent from Breivik's manifesto that he perceives his massacre as a vehicle for communication, naming the stage immediately after arrest "the propaganda phase" in which he aims to explain himself and his ideological purposes.

A campaign has started on Facebook to prevent the mass murderer from using the court room as a platform for his propaganda, but the rat is out of the bag. "A Declaration of European Independence" is already distributed across the Internet with so far more than 600 Google matches for a targeted search on the title.

The question remains how many sympathizers Breivik has in the European New Right and extreme right environment, how far they are willing to go, and to what level they will be succesful in using "preemptive attacks" to foster a sense of doom and inevitable "cultural clash".

A Script for Nuclear Terrorism

Parts of the manifesto is dedicated to deconstruction of multiculturalism, and other parts explain personal details from Breivik's life and the planning of the terror attack. There are sections encouraging medium level violence against Muslims and "traitors".

But the enormous scope of Breivik's masterplan for "liberation of Europe" is apparent from a chapter 3.58 of his manifesto, titled "Nuclear power plant assault strategy: “Operation Regime Ender”.

Estimated casualty report for “Operation Regime Ender”
• Less than 50 direct deaths
• Less than 1000 future deaths cause by cancer
• Less than 10 000 exposed people.

Breivik recommends a team of three, lead by a so-called "Justitiar Knight" and "1-2 JK operatives". Applying military jargon, likely also influenced by his involvement in online gaming, Breivik explans that this is a suicide mission with no hope of survival for those involved:

Extraction/exit strategy: martyrdom operation, no chance of survival due to massive radiation

The script for a tactical strike on an active nuclear reactor is outlined in extraordinary detail. The effect of such a strike using a "1 x 2-7 ton “barrack buster” WMD" is also calculated:

Financial losses for the multiculturalist regime:
• Resettlement of everyone within the exclusion zone: 30-50 (100) km radius (300K - 2
million people)
• Causing all infrastructure within the exclusion zone: 30-50 (100) km radius to be
abandoned for the next 200 years due to the release of highly radioactive fallout.
• All businesses within the exclusion zone (thousands of small to medium businesses) will be
paralyzed resulting in a massive loss of taxes for the regime
• A large proportion of the 300k – 2 million “internally displaced individuals” (refugees) will
be pacified for a long period resulting in a massive loss of taxes for the regime.
• Continuing and substantial decontamination and health care costs
• National stock market will collapse as everyone will panic sell and attempt to salvage their
funds
• Pan-European stock markets will take a severe blow and are likely to crack as the panic
spreads
• International stock markets will take a severe blow and are likely to crack as the panic
spreads
• The national currency (or Euro) will be significantly weakened as currency investors will sell
their positions and stay out
• Such a blow is likely to cause a chain reaction causing foreign governments to dump
government issued bonds which will further weaken the currency
The costs will be astronomic and in today’s currency amount to as much as 1000-5000
billion Euro which is enough to bankrupt any regime.

Breivik encourages medium level terrorist attacks and targeted assassinations and sensational violent assaults to "destroy the cultural Marxist hegemony in Europe":

There have already been thousands of preemptive strikes from brave Europeans all over Europe. However, the majority of attacks have been impotent “poop in mailbox” operations with zero to little ideological effect. In order to successfully penetrate the cultural Marxist/multiculturalist media censorship we are forced to employ significantly more brutal and breath taking operations which will result in casualties. In order for the attack to gain an influential effect, assassinations and the use of weapons of mass destruction must be embraced. When employing such methods the Justiciar Knight becomes a force multiplier, he becomes a one-man army. The continuation of these “humiliating strikes” on the Multiculturalist system will contribute to destroy the cultural Marxist hegemony in Europe.

It is critically important to understand that as insane as these plans may sound, the general public is not the "you" Breivik uses in special passages of the manifesto. The average citizen is not the audience, and this is not common propaganda. This is a coded message to existing or potential followers, encouraging and instructing them to conduct copycat missions or invent their own tactics. It's a battle speech to "soldiers".

James Joyce famously said that in order to gain everlasting fame an author had to make his work so complicated it would occupy critics for ages. Breivik's manifesto is a viral study object, a Pandora's box full of clues and memes that launch the entire archive of neoconservative and ultra right wing speculations on the Internet, including a list of archaic war heroes to emulate.

Muslims Must be Expelled or Forcefully Converted

Word cloud generated from the 1,516 page manifesto, stressing what words Breivik has used the most.

The Breivik Manifesto, titled "A Declaration of European Independence", also presents an ultimatum to forcefully convert or repatriate Muslims residing in Europe before 2020. Failure to comply will result in the terrorist crusade that culminates with strikes against nuclear power plants.

3.10 Assimilation policy/demands/offer for Muslim individuals living in Europe (this offer will expire on Jan 1st, 2020)
The following assimilation policy is to be accepted by all Muslims who currently live on European soil and want to continue to live in Europe. The deadline is Jan. 1 st, 2020.

Failure to accept and comply with given policies will result in immediate deportation for you and your closest family (individual evaluation is required). The deportations will be effectuated as soon as the current regime(s) have been neutralised and once a cultural conservative government has been formed. Failure to comply within the deadline (2020)
will result in losing the possibility of future re-evaluation.

1. Convert to Christianity (Orthodox, Catholic or Protestant). 
Every individual is to accept baptism, the ritual act by which one is admitted to membership of the Christian Church, as a member of the particular Church in which the baptism is administered.

Attempt of al-taqiyya (Islamic deceit) for shorter or longer periods in order to try to wait for a regime change will not be tolerated. The convert will celebrate Christian holidays and adopt mainstream Christian customs and has to attend Church at least once a year during the full duration of the assimilation period (50) before he or any member of his family is allowed to follow a purely secular lifestyle. Secular Muslims are considered fully Muslim as long as they have not converted. The reason is because even secular Muslims celebrate Islamic holidays and perform certain Islamic religious or political rituals.

2. Name change
During the required baptism the individual is to be given a Christian/European traditional name (first, middle and last name). No Arab/Asian/Islamic name is allowed (including The 99 Names of Allah).

3. Not allowed to practice your ”mother tongue” or Arabic
It is strictly prohibited to practice the individuals ”mother tongue” - Farsi, Urdu, Arabic, Somali etc. in any way – both in writing or vocally (this applies in all areas of society - home and elsewhere). Obviously this does not apply to Muslims living in Europe who are practising a European language (Bosniaks etc.).

4. All mosques and Islamic centers will be demolished or converted
All mosques which were built for the purpose of being a mosque will be demolished. All other buildings which were previously converted will be re-converted to their former use.

5. All Islamic and/or Arab-style or equivalent buildings/artwork will be demolished or modified
All traces of Islamic culture in Europe will be eradicated, even locations considered historical.

6. Attempts to celebrate Islamic holidays, exercise or portray Sharia/Islamic codes/markers is strictly prohibited
An attempt of celebrating Ramadan, Eid or any Islamic holiday is strictly prohibited. This includes all cultural related rituals, dress codes, Islamic religious or cultural circumcisions, Islamic preparation of food, the use of any Muslim flag or identification (crescent moon), religious or cultural markings.

7. Measures taken against attempts of demographic warfare
All “ex-Muslim couples” (where both parents were/are Muslims) will not be allowed to exceed a birth rate of 2. Any breach of this policy will be considered a breach of the assimilation policies.

8. Correspondence with other Muslims abroad is strictly prohibited
All forms of correspondence (electronically, telephonic etc.) with Muslims living abroad is strictly forbidden. This includes contact with Muslim family in the country you originated from.

9. All travel to Muslim countries/territories or to any country where Muslims make out more than 20% of the population is strictly prohibited Length of assimilation period
The assimilation period, with monitoring procedures, will last for a minimum of 2 generations (no shorter than 50 years) before the individual is considered to be successfully assimilated.

Various measures will be used for monitoring individuals who has accepted the assimilation policies to ensure that they are not trying to perform al-taqiyya.

Purpose of assimilation policies
Implementation of the assimilation policies will allow all ex-Muslims to be fully assimilated. This will also allow you to show and prove your allegiance and loyalty to “your new kinsmen”, to Europe and to Christianity. In return, you will be accepted as a European.

Failure to comply with the assimilation policies (offer expires Jan 1st, 2020)
Failure to accept and comply with given policies will result in immediate deportation for you and your closest family (individual evaluation is required). The deportations will be effectuated as soon as the current regime (s) has been neutralised. Failure to comply within the deadline (2020) will result in losing the possibility of future re-evaluation.  Why will individuals lose the possibility of being re-evaluated after the deadline.

Any individual in question must be a credible candidate. Obviously, he won’t be considered as a credible candidate if he or she is under duress (which will be the case in phase 2 and 3, 2030-2090). This is the reason why the offer expires in 2020. A Muslim who accepts the following assimilation policy under duress will most likely perform altaqiyya (religious deceit allowed by the Quran and Hadith) for as long as he has to. As such, any convertion performed after the deadline will be considered al-taqiyya.

Conclusion:

Not two months after the declaration of the death of Osama bin Laden, the strength of Europe and America's liberal democracy is about to be put to the test, this time from a terrorist kingpin from within.

Europol has announced a task force to investigate threats from "non-Islamic terror", and no doubt this will take up a significant part of the agenda of intelligence agencies in the years to come.

They are going to find a vast and obscure international network of New Right politicians, American neo-cons, Tea Partiers, Euro-cons, Jewish/Israeli Zionists and Christian Zionists, all loosely associated with a variety of factions of Aryans, Neo-Nazis and Norse paganists.

The structure can best described as "overlapping representations", since being a member of an organization advocating or using violence is anathema to New Right politicians and parliamentarian populists. It is very difficult to discern which Islam critic is legitimately parliamentarian, and who secretly operate with some level of use of more radicalized elements, at least as a future option.

Usually, there is at least one layer between parliamentarians and extremists - a variety of rather secretive "neo-liberal" or "conservative nationalist" or otherwise "Islam critical" organizations.

It is from these ranks Breivik hopes to recruit his army of crusaders to expel Muslims from Europe and end the dream of liberal democracy with enough strength to encourage multiculturalism.

Normally, I would not dream of posting about an isolated shooting or terrorist incident, but the scope of this event is far ranging, considering the sizable animosity on "both sides" and the prevalence of anti-Islamic attitudes in the West.

The ripple effects from the Oslo/Otoya massacre will affect virtually every institution in the world on some level. An immediate effect is a reaffirmation of democratic virtues and, likely, a few voter gains for the political left and more moderate statements from far right politicians and pundits. Over time the problem is that there are enough people who share Breivik's views in a culture increasingly desensitized to violence.

Breivik's massacre and call for a terror campaign against the "soft" and "leftist" West is going to be an issue for at least the next five years, possible the entire decade, depending on how the Western intellectual, journalistic and political establishment responds to the challenge.

Chances of copycat operations are high, even if their scope may be smaller, and the effect they seek more of a long-standing, slow-burning aggregate fear.

Chances of early detection and arrest are poor. Racial profiling is useless, since the group of potential suspects includes the majority of the populations in the affected Western countries and copycats would make sure to make only moderate statements for a long period of time up to their attack. Infiltration is somewhat easier.

A major weakness is that reporters and pundits have already begun talking about Breivik in past tense, when they refer to his agenda. Very few seemed to have grasped the scope of his plan, which is running in accordance with tested principles of communication in the Information Age.

When you take into account he has methodically slaughtered 93, of which many were young people or even children, such a carefully thought out scheme with as significant scope as it displays should give journalists, analysts, police investigators and intelligence workers pause.

Considering his objective is distribution of his plan and recruitment of sympathizers, his arrest does not make much of a difference. Breivik already gives all the signs of a man who is ready to die. My assessment is that his megalomania will compel him to somehow exceed himself, pulling strings from the prison, or even stage a sensational death in order to further distribute his strategies and tactics.

Breivik's blueprint for a vast and dramatic change of the political landscape displays cunning and an eerie understanding of the ideological currents and conflicts of our age. In spite of the apparent mysticism and the rambling, the methods and anticipated effects are reality-adequate enough, and so far everybody's playing along with the piper.

There can be little doubt Breivik is lucid enough to understand the ideological backlash, but also the partisan bickering and the blame-game that serves to further polarize society. Experts warn the press against distributing Breivik's ideology, but fail to understand that his ideology and paranoid views are already distributed by thousands of others. Islamophobia is the norm, not the exception.

The gasoline has been spilling for 20 years, since the first cases of extreme violence against immigrants in the 1990s and the rise of New Right parties in Europe. The current spectacle is Breivik's trigger. He is counting on enough radicalized psychopaths in circulation who shares his ideas - they are his army of the dead (Vlad Dracul seems to be one of the historical characters he emulates).

If it made any difference, I would also comment on how insane he is, and how parts of his manuscript is plagiarized from the UNA-bomber. The point here is to make sure those who are supposed to act against this Aryan menace understand what we are dealing with and take the appropriate steps.

This is not over yet.

The "Lukewarm War" and Libya as Prototype

As I've written in several earlier posts, USA is increasingly tying itself to a slow-burning socio-economic cultural-political conflict with China, reacting predictably to the forecast that China with its current growth rate will outshine USA on economic performance by 2016.

From this follows logically that USA will, for the first time in history, conduct warfare according to the military principles of Sun Tzu, which means in a combination of direct and indirect maneuvres, and with a holistic view of the concept of victory.

All this is a forced position, so to speak, and much less subject to the whims of presidents of shifting balances of power within Congress. It is bipartisan by nature, since preservation of USA as an empire and the sole dominating force on Earth is the unifying goal behind both parties, Democrats and Republicans.

Emerging as a key flashpoint already during the election was the conflict between China and five Asian countries about the rights to oil reserves in the South China Sea, an exploitable conflict McCain responded to by proposing an "alliance of democratic nations", which is code for a unified force against China in East Asia.

The South China Sea Conflict is now flaring up with the aid of US military, US media and most likely US dollar, causing critics of the American involvement to urge caution and smart diplomacy.

The crux of the matter is that USA is forced to adopt a new doctrine of the use of its vast military superiority, accounting for almost half of the world's military budget, and that is equivalent to playing a different game than she has for the past 200 years.

Roughly speaking, it is the difference between the military doctrine of Clauswitz, which is considered the foundation of modern military strategy, and that of Sun Tzu which is sometimes chided as ridiculously arcane.

The Art of War, however, is a part of the curriculum at West Point, and military experts state that 21st century warfare has much more in common with Sun Tzu's school than the principles of Clausewitz, which emphasizes firepower and mobility, and the ability to meet enemy forces with 3 times more soldiers.

Sun Tzu's style of warfare is more "bureaucratic", emphasizing reliable intelligence, caution and calculus, focusing on anticipating the enemy's strategy and destroying the enemy's stratagems. The Vietnam War is seen as the pinnacle of realization of these ancient principles in modern time.

The new globalized state of the world effectively produces a condition, where nothing can be gained through the military philosophy of the past, based on capacity for destruction. In order to take advantage of the enemy's losses, military victory have to leave countries and infrastructure intact. Otherwise, we end in an endless stream of situations like Iraq and Afghanistan.

This effectively means USA and China are involved in a game, where China not only knows all the rules, but invented them. USA is playing on a foreign field, unaccustomed to the rules, which are more similar to those of go than chess.

In many cases USA will deny or disregard fundamental principles of this game, trying to play it as a war of attrition. Depending on the American intelligentsia, USA will slowly or quickly adjust to the new principles, and attempt to beat China at her own game, much like Scipio Africanus did by studying Hannibal.

That is what took place under Bush, as investments in Africa became a main priority, partly because China did it, and partly because of the general race for oil. USA discovered the value of having development countries in the bag.

Latin America with its multiple pink revolutions, and the MENA region, both areas with considerable negative experiences with USA, remain problematic for Washington, democratic or not. China's declared focus for the next many decades is development, and OECD estimates that 16 million are helped out of poverty for every percentage point of Chinese GDP growth.

As I have also mentioned on numerous occasions, USA needs to maintain its iron grip on the major oil producing countries, namely by keeping countries like Saudia Arabia, Bahrain and Yemen strictly loyal through dictatorship.

The US involvement in NATO, directly and indirectly through CIA liaisons with the at least partly Al Qaeda led rebel army, and through its proxy, NATO, is a part of a grand area strategy for Africa that also involves war-torn Somalia.

Libya is, at the same time, a significant testing ground for a new type of warfare. I have written too significant posts about Predator warfare and how it diminishes the psychological war fatigue at home, as it ideally produces no American casualties, and how it produces more terrorism, because it makes the enemy to the targeted countries invisible, thereby forcing insurgents to include civilians as Ghaddafi recently did.

He started out threatening Europe with giving oil concessions to China, and as NATO reaffirmed its dedication through new statements and new bombings, saying that he was willing to take the war to European ground. Many may think this is unlikely, rather bark than bite, but it is not an entirely impossible outcome.

The way the US deployment of Predator drones and the NATO bombing of Libya is a new type of war, or a testing ground for it, is because it challenges the consistent paradigm of modern warfare saying that air superiority is crucial, while the war can only be won with boots on the ground.

However, should USA and NATO succeed in toppling Ghadaffi and installing the rebel forces, they would have won a war solely from the air with virtually no cost to the Western forces. USA and NATO are piggy-backing on the Arab Spring here, testing the limits and consequences of a new, potentially cost-efficient way of micro-managing the world through conflict.

If effective, the Predator-proxy model is the ideal situation for USA in the 21st century, because it gives American forces free hands from politics, shifting moods and annoying peace rallies, which are largely motivated by soldiers returning dead, maimed or traumatized from war zones.

Fighting through local armies, stocking up one side against the other, is an art form which has been secretly executed and perfected in Africa and Latin America for decades, most often with disastrous results and rarely to the advantage of the financier, Washington.

Paradoxically, one can at the same time hope for the ouster of Ghaddafi and for the failure of USA and NATO, for the simple reason that Libya sets a terrible precedent for US foreign politics, if it would turn out a success.

This would encourage USA to revitalize her dwindling influence by using the same model around the world, creating cheap new war theatres on the go, and cutting all ties to the disasters that it leaves behind - much different to the disasters of Iraq and Afghanistan where, at least, the massive media coverage and the Western casualties called for some level of responsibility and concern for the political outcome of the projects.

As it is, USA along with the allies, are losing morale, and negotiating with Taliban, the declared enemy, the terms of the much sought for withdrawal. All this is taking place in a situation where both the American and the European economies are stressed to the edge and, perhaps, beyond.

The prospect of being able to exercise global dominance through the Predator-proxy is a great temptation, because it holds the promise of enduring power, while at the same time being cost-efficient.

In the long run the most likely outcome of the "lukewarm war" between Washington and Beijing is that USA will falter. One reason is the Western infamiliarity with the Oriental martial doctrine followed by Beijing.

C.G. Jung once compared the way the Westerner acquires the Chinese instrument of meditation to begging - an easily achieved advantage that does not leave lasting benefits with the ones who receives the alms.

Similarly, the West will likely have difficulties grasping the mindset behind the relatively simple principles put forth by Sun Tzu and be driven by its own nature, and its own philosophical tradition, to deviate more frequently than Beijing.

Another weakness, which is inherent in democracy, is the partisan politics. USA has focused tremendously on placing restrictions on civil liberties and freedom of press, using embedded journalism and banning pictures of dead American soldiers returned to their homeland.

This strategy of public diplomacy not only failed, but exploded in their hands, with grizzly stories or abuse, torture, sexual depravity, massacres and routine killing of civilians emerging from Guantanamo Bay, Iraq and Afghanistan, most notably Abu Ghraib, which is not likely to be forgotten any time soon by any Muslim.

Containment was not possible, and as such support for the wars failed. This is an aspect of warfare touched on, to some extent, by Sun Tzu. Even if he was not familiar with the concept of democracy, when he wrote his famous treatise, he does point out that the general must have absolutely free hands to dispose of troops and not be hindered by the ruler.

This, in essence, constitutes the dilemma of the West today: In USA the warlord, the chief of the army, is also the president, and the president is more than anything else a politician, the CEO of a nation with a multitude of other interests than actually winning the wars previous presidents have engaged in.

The democratic system, in itself, not only affords the population a voice and a vote in matters concerning warfare, but also divides the governing chamber into two opposite, often deeply polarized parties.

China, on her side, does not have this disadvantage. Foreign investments and trade agreements, for instance, are directly encouraged or discouraged by the sole governing party, which means there is - theoretically - accord between all of the country's major dispositions.

The technical advantage of democracy, aside from the conveniences it affords its populace, is simply heuristic superiority. In theory decisions go through many more thought processes in a parliamentary system and are, as such, benefiting from criticisms and meta-criticism, a rapidly evolving dialectical heuristic system, a compressed version of European philosophical development through centuries.

That is, in theory. China can reduce the deficit of internal self-criticism from dissent by involving as many capable decision makers in the one party system as possible, running a strict elitist governance as she also currently does. China can also piggy-bag on the West, not only through espionage on which Beijing is the world's leading force already, but through papers and by buying Western intelligence, using consultants in a way similar to intelligence agents.

The famous "bamboo ceiling" and notorious Western racism makes it reluctant to rely on Eastern intelligence sources, accept the holistic Oriental analysis of matters and, in a total perspective, incapable of drawing similar advantages the other way around. Eastern dissidents who escape to the West are treated crudely, with a form of racism that would, in many cases, have made their life easier and more satisfactory, had they not been driven by idealism.

The Western arrogance works to its disadvantage, and on top of it the ability to utilize dissent within is threatened by two factors: One is that the West is increasingly seeking to emulate oppressive regimes to free itself from the entanglement of political dissent, considering the limitation of civil liberties crucial to political unity. This is very apparent with the Patriot Acts, and the number of draconian measures imposed under the guise of protecting against terrorists.

The second factor is a complete breakdown of the public discourse, which became apparent with the vicious campaigns against Barack Obama, when he ran for presidency. Obama was a masterpiece of public diplomacy, but the racial and religious polarization highlighted all the fracture lines in the American society, a set of subcultural conflicts so pronounced and so obvious that they provide a veritable arsenal of weapons for someone with an interest in destabilizing USA like USA has destabilized so many countries around the world.

This is the key motivation for the kill switch, which is being handed to the US president, an option to shut down the main Internet providers in case of a "911 style internet scenario." That is how dangerous free speech is to people in power: We have recently witnessed Egypt and Morocco transformed, and 20 countries in the Middle East and North Africa significantly affected.

The breakdown of the parliamentaric system, a byproduct of cultural decadence and the corruption of the state, is nowhere more apparent than in the inability of Congress to reach a consensus about the debt ceiling, having passed now three deadlines, dipped into the pension funds and still not finding common grown between the duelling parties in spite of many warnings from within and without, and the prospect of a default that would be devastating to the world economy - more so than even the 2008 financial crisis.

Libya can never become a true victory for the US. If succesful, sure, it will reinvigorate America briefly, like the election of Barack Obama, and the assassination of Osama bin Laden did. Americans will regain some of the confidence lost over the past decade.

However, if succesful, Libya poses an overwhelming temptation to engage in more violent conflicts, which will most likely not turn out to America's advantage. And with the involvement in so many wars, which constantly threatens to turn into wars of attration, counterproductive to America's ultimate goal, Washington - and Pentagon - will increasingly tend to forget the core doctrines of Sun Tzu, to conquer with ease, and with the least amount of fighting, and with careful forethought for acquisition of financial advantage from regions, which have not had their infrastructure thoroughly damaged by invasion or civil war.

That is the crux of the matter: Because in the 21st century trade is a more efficient way to achieve the ultimate goal of Sun Tzu's bureaucratic style of warfare. If the goal is to gain advantage, and not just to simply win a war, then China is already outperforming every other force, including USA, establishing trade relations to all four corners of the world.

USA is not only stuck in an obsolete doctrine - for all her military superiority, she is also stuck with an archaic instrument, the military superiority. Only if she can persuade the world population, and her own population, to repeatedly and continously accept a strategy aimed at destroying the advantages of another force, and in doing so violently oppressing nations, where China has vested interests, can she hope to come out the winner by military means.

USA still has an option to win, but that would entail developing mental faculties far beyond the grasp of the West today. For Washington to turn around on its previous methods and beliefs, and completely immerse itself in the meditative state of mind and rigorous calculus necessary to counter China, the politians would have to turn into thinkers. The equivalent is to take a used car salesman who has depended on aggressiveness and deceptive charm all his life, and try to turn him into a Zen master.

It's not that it cannot be done, but it is doubtful if he would even see the benefit of it. If he did, there would still be great obstacles for him to pass.

USA has beaten game before. USA has displayed marvellous ability to renew herself, to adapt and overcome. The next challenge is, however, greater than any of the challenges that have gone before, and even though USA did defeat Japan, an Asian power, and even if USA did prevail, while USSR collapsed and turned into greater Russia.

But this time USA can neither rely on nuclear arms, nor hope to benefit from the errors the opponent makes. It is not like assassinating Attilah the Hun outside the gates of Rome, but rather like stopping Hannibal at Zama.

For China the challenge is simply to remain humble, and thus cautious, and to remain focused and intact. If she can do so, immunizing herself against efforts to destabilize her or throw her off balance with a serious of agonizing conflicts around her, time works in her favor. There is, however, another weakness to China, again related to the absence of democracy, and that is the relatively weak voice when comes to public diplomacy and cultural imperialism in the West. Jackie Chan and Xinhua News won't quite do it.

So far RT, the Russian network which is aligned with the interest of the Sino-American alliance, does a formidable job at exercising assymetric information war, displaying an eminent understanding of the interests of non-militant Western news consumers. But in the field of culture war, cultural export is the equivalent to air superiority, and so far Hollywood securely rules the waves.