To say the US “endured” the 1970s oil crisis is kinda burying the lede, no? The neoliberal deregulation movement began in that moment, with Carter exempting all oil producers from environmental regulation. The news spun stagflation as caused by unions making wages too high. A massive crisis of profit was formed by that oil blockade, one that pushed the capitalist world economy to the ropes before they came up with neoliberalism. Western offshoring, the US and UK busting the air traffic controller and coal miner’s unions, Reagan scrapping New Deal banking laws, the Plaza Accords, and so much more would be unimaginable if the ‘stagflation’ crisis had not occurred. There is a Western ‘narrative’ split between our brave treatlerites rationing gas (you could only go every other day) and the economic crisis caused by too many unions.
In the 70s, Nixon had just dropped the gold standard and the whole world of fiat currency fuckery was before American finance. Meanwhile in the 20s, we haven’t stopped quantitative easing since 2008. The fact that the USA hollowed out its industry means that it cannot do so again. Meaningfully, imperialism has run out of frontiers. Even though there’s a degree to which China and Russia are geopolitically opposed to the West, they are not economically separate. Fifty years ago, there was a socialist world market. The West spent the 90s sucking blood from its neck, and now they can’t do it again. There is no pile of world class Soviet technology to be bought for pennies, and China already went through reform and opening up. The physical and financial solutions that allowed stability and success the last time we ran this crisis no longer exist, cause they got used up for that stability.
i agree with your interpretations of the motives and psychology of the bourgeois and their agents, but i don’t think those motives are rooted in reality. An American official just told India that the USA would make sure not to give them the technology to do what China did, while 50 years ago Kissinger was working China like the world depended on it. i do agree that global economic collapse is at least seen as a good thing by capitalists. That said, instead of hoarding a reserve to sell later at eye-watering prices or actually using any of those demand destruction measures you described, our brightest economic minds are crippling the strategic reserve so that a handful of people can benefit from insider trading. The actual industrial crisis baked into the weaponization of the Strait of Hormuz always had a lead time, we were talking about a July or August cliff point even in February. It’s darkly fitting that the people who rose to power by being the best at making a quarterly profit and suing people are being undone by a problem that takes six months to hit and can’t be sued. It’s simultaneously a basic exercise in statecraft and an outside context problem for the biggest, wettest boy.
“Ships currently have no defense against a ballistic missile attack.” The article is from 2009, but truly not much has changed. Imperial naval modernization has been focused on radars and cruiser models that never get produced. China, and before them the Soviets, have had anti-ship ballistic missiles since the 1970s. Carriers being made obsolete wasn’t seen as a problem since a hot war between anyone with a big navy means nuclear apocalypse. Missiles from 20 years ago had 2000 km (~1250 mile) ranges and the ability to travel that distance in 12 minutes. Today, you can buy satellite navigation chips for cellphones for a few hundred dollars for the same effective quality as Cold War-era million dollar sensors. As the article says, every single advance in technology in the last fifty years has made the carrier more obsolete.
When the US sends boats to intercept missiles you have to remember that they are usually getting them at the top of the parabola. There were ships sitting by Cyprus shooting at targets over Iraq and Syria on trajectories toward occupied Palestine during the 10 Day War. Missiles coming at you are a different story, chiefly because none of the Phalanx missile defense systems are aimed straight up. Carriers have a two SAM launchers with a few dozen missiles (on the sides of the boat), and Arleigh Burkes have about 90 VLS cells. These can launch SM interceptor missiles. Sounds like a lot of air defense, but it’s actually the same tubes used to launch Tomahawks. If the US wants to strike Iran, they can’t bring 200 air defense missiles with their carriers. i agree that it would be lucky for Iran to create the Great Carrier Reef, but it’s definitely technically feasible.