SWJ Small Wars Survey 2012

[Dayuhan]

That's why it's called predictive analysis...

Another word for speculation.

That's part of it, but that's mostly driven by Brazil, China, India, etc. But none of them are no more committed to maintaining the Western capitalist system any more than the US was committed to maintaining the European colonial system. How that transfer of power will proceed remains to be seen, if it ever comes to pass.

They're committed to joining and profiting from the global economy. Many others in the developing world are doing the same with equal or greater success, though being smaller they get less attention. I see nothing revolutionary about that... evolution perhaps, but not revolution.

The revolutions are attributable to exposed elites vulnerable to the political, economic, and cultural forces of globalism. This does not imply that some magical hand is flying around the world tipping over tin-pot dictatorships -- the people are harnessing the ideas, technologies, and material powers to enact revolution. This is a direct consequence of the global regime in place.

The revolutions are attributable to to exposed elites hung on their own corruption, ineptness, and ossified social structures, and to increasingly frustrated populaces who want more. The Tunisian, Egyptian, and Libyan elites didn't inspire revolt because they were exposed to the forces of "global capitalism", they inspired revolt because they sucked at governing. That's nothing unusual: dictatorships tend to lose their mojo over time, and eventually the rot goes terminal and the people take to the streets. Not all that different from Paris in 1789 when you get right down to it. The hypothetical connection to "global capitalism" seems strained well beyond the breaking point.