Updating Pournelle's CoDominium: SinoIndian CoDo Ascendent Scenario

My post 4000 was a reimagining of Pournelle's classic scenario of the CoDominium.  The original scenario was the United States and Soviet Union would unite to control the world to deal with the problem with convergence.  There is no Soviet Union anymore.  We don't have the Alderson Drive, we don't have fusion and we have not developed space nearly as much as the authors originally thought we would by now.  Economic convergence has more than happened.  Things are rather different than the original scenario.

That opened things up for a different scenario altogether.  I outlined my conjectural scenario in the post.  China and Indian come together to produce an alternate CoDominium.  The proximate cause being the Republic of India and People's Republic of China had greatly outdistanced the rest of the world economically and with the technological revolution that was getting underway their great advantage, population, was going to be made less relevant.  To suppress these breakthroughs, China and India came together to suppress the resurgence of the United States, Europe, Japan and possibly others.

However, Noel challenged me on this scenario: how, he asked, would the US fall from grace as the world's hyperpower to the distance second class power, albeit one undergoing a resurgence that forces the top two powers into CoDominium.  Let's explain that, shall we?  What are the causes for the relatively rapid American decline?

Political Sclerosis:  

In this scenario the US undergoes another three more presidential cycles of political deadlock. This is mixed with the continued issues with the US being unable to undertake large projects without massive delays, cost overruns and ineptitude.  This won't last forever.  However it will be enough to stunt growth with the decaying infrastructure and lack of general progress.  There are areas of glory and aptitude, but they are the few shining stars in the sea of bleakness.  Let's dice roll it and state we are at a reduced GDP growth by a half percent per year by itself.  The lack of infrastructure improvement or even replacement reduces the growth by a half percent.  Already, we're a 'mature economy' and have taken it in the shorts by being reduced to a range of between 0 and 2.

The World Changed

I don't mean the human world, sociological or economic or political.  I mean the physical world.  Global Warming is set to whack us but good.  The whole world, really, but it hurt the US more because of our political ossification.  We're assuming the Neo Oligocene here: warmer and drier and the midwest's productivity nosedives and the California central valley is toast.  LA became Detroit on a broad canvas (no water).  Eastern Texas, inland, the Great Lakes States regained population.  The population of the mid Atlantic and north states increased, but often inland. 

India Ignites

I'm positing India's economy starts growing double digits at the start of the 2020s like China has.  India surpasses the US around 2030 to 2035.

China Recovers and Continues

China's economy grows gangbusters in the double digit range again around the same time frame. 

Economics Continue to Favour Large Populations...through the 2040s.

The robopocalypse doesn't happen at least until the 2040s.  The more workers, in manufacturing and innovation, etc. you have the better so long as they are educated.  Double check for India and China.  Both will have populations far larger than the US.

Sum:

The economies of China and India grow gangbusters and get ahead through the 2040s.  Between them, they have economies 5x to 6x the American one.  They are the power houses.  We are not.  We're Britain at best, or Russia.  Sorta.

So Why Form the CoDominium?

You just can't keep a good Yanqi down. 

The economics shift out of favour for India and China.  Three major events.  An American led, but Japanese and European supported Robopocalypse.  The US develops a real fusion drive and then the Alderson Drive.  When the US started to get out of the funk in the late 2030s, after decades of decay, besides seeking ways to improve its economy, it trotted out some of its past glories to reprise and surpass.  Space was one.  

The Chinese and Indians were ahead, to be sure, and that's one reason the Americans were humored at first and even congratulated.  There was a Chinese Moon base.  Ditto for the Indians.  At different edges of the Shackleton Crater.  The Indians and Chinese even captured asteroids, though not for economic reasons: it didn't pay.  The Americans pushed on.  the watershed moment being when the US landed on Mars...in 2047.  Using a fusion drive to get there.  It was pathetic compared to the original CoDo scenario drives (topped out at .1 g and "only" had enough fuel for 25 hours of thrusting), but it got people to Mars in a couple weeks.  And back when the planets aligned right.   China and India caught up and landed in 2048 and 2049 respectively.  Even so, this was...very troubling.

When the US economy growth jumped from the anemic 1 or 2 percent to 3 or 4 percent in from 3032 to 3040 and then really jumped to 5 to 6 percent in 3040 to 3048 with it seemingly going to jump again in the coming years, this brought together India and China.  The world was far from being US dominated, but the structural reform needed to adopt the American, European and Japanese technologies was going to be problematic.  At this point, there was talk of the Americans returning to an ascendant position.  Population size?  Piffle.  Dynamism matters!  The Indian and Chinese politicians knew something had to be done and they began to meet.

It was a theoretical paper published by Caltech in which tipped the balance.  Esp when the US president impulsively and promptly built a probe and dispatched it on a 2nd generation fusion rocket to the potential jump point, it accelerated away at 1/4 g and reached the jump point in about six months.  The countdown took place and...poof.  The probe disappeared.  It didn't come back, but vanishing in a flash of light ...

Add in the Americans prepping another expedition.  Their radically growing economy.  The Japanese building their own moon base (national pride!) and the Europeans deciding they made a bad Holy Roman Empire, but a better Federal Union...The Chinese and Indians pulled together to say ixnay on anymore.

The Chinese and Indians declared CoDominium.  No more!  The Indonesians, Russians and the Nigerians joined as junior partners.  The Americans scrambled.  They spit out a dozen ships and away they went to the Alderson Point: manned and large and ...armed  After all, only the Americans could build something that fast, in a year!  (name the dumb movie)

It was WWIII.  No nukes flew.  The attempt to shoot down the ships failed, but few missiles or bombs were used on earth: they were mostly EM weapons, but the deathtoll was still horrific.  Cyberweaponry wrecked havoc.  In the end, China and India prevailed.  And suppressed. No AIs.  No enhancements. No change.  Or minimal possible.  The status quo was not to be disturbed.

They built the Fleet.  And the CoDo Marines.  Conjured from the one military still in excellent shape, with good ties to India and China: Israel.

In time, they would compromise.  There would be Americans in interstellar space.  Even those which didn't travel with the never caught Fugitive Fleet.  They would rule the world for over a century.  It would end in old fashion nuclear fire.  Aluf Lomann's efforts, the feats of Alam Cyrus Zagrosi and Zagrosi's Immortals, and the world of Dual Monarchy of Shiva and its Crown Prince Rama...from them and those would come the Empire of Man.

As for the Fugitive Fleet on Yudkowsky.  They would be discovered by the Empire and peacefully absorbed.  They would even contribute to the Empire.  For a time.  Through accurate knowledge comes power, so the natives of Yudkowsky would say: other wise # in # out.  And the members of the Empire would say no problem could ever survive contact with a Yudkowskian.


Reimagineer's notes:  I don't really buy it.  I guess I am too much of a nationalist at heart.  Its fun to play here, but don't make the mistake of thinking I swallow this whatsoever.  I actually think the US has been through the squeeze and we're about to come out the other side...with a whole of new techniques, tech, and ideas which will revolutionize the world.  In our favour.  You see, its the dynamism that matters in the end and there's none like us.