US Leadership Vacuum

Long War: A few days ago I said the Libyan Rage Rebels (LRR) must be filled with jihadist fighters simply because, over the years, eastern Libya sent a higher percentage of fighters to help Al-Qaeda in Iraq than any other region. The LRR are now calling themselves mujaheddin, Islamic holy warriors, and Al Qaeda says it is supporting the LRR. Gaddafi is beating the LRR, driving them back into built up urban areas in the east. Gaddafi's rapid advance will slow and even halt once the LRR digs into these urban environments and begins waging guerrilla war. The US has turned both sides into enemies.
This is part of a larger theme where the US has no control over events in the Mideast. The Egyptian Army has moved national elections from Sept. to June. The US has certainly been telling Egypt not to do this because it essentially hands the elections over to the Muslim Brotherhood. But the Egyptian Army could now care less what the US says. Also in Egypt we see a huge spike in terrorists killing Coptic Christians.
In the rest of the region, US authority is rapidly decaying. The US has been telling Bahrain not to fire on Rage Rebels. The Saudi Army is now sending troops into Bahrain and of course the troops will fire on the rebels there. So the possibility exists that there will be another protracted guerrilla war in this part of the Gulf while the US does nothing.
The US has been telling its erstwhile ally, Pres. Saleh of Yemen, not to fire on Rage Rebels. This advice is being ignored and Yemen is on the verge of a Libyan style civil war. Yemen is today home to more Al Qaeda operatives than even tribal Pakistan.
The Rage Revolution is spreading outside of the Mideast. Azerbaijan is seeing the first signs of a Rage Revolution. Democracy is slowing breaking down in Turkey as the government arrests journalists espousing anti-government views.

We have been told by intellectuals for years that the world is no longer monopolar, where the US essentially ran the planet as a quasi-global government or world police force. Rather, the pinheads explain, the world is now a multi-polar affair with nobody in charge. The pinheads have been wrong until very recently, in fact the US has been running the global show since 1948. The pinheads are fundamentally wrong about something else, namely that a multi-polar world is good thing.

Since this blog is only concerned about global stock markets, I give you this historical tidbit: The first ever publicly traded company was the British East India Company. All equity financial structures such as derivatives and options evolved from this company. It was a pure expression of the British Empire. It raised armies, conquered countries and developed capitalism in the name of the British Crown. From the beginning, the very fabric of the stock market has been woven into the idea that an Anglo-Saxon Superpower (ASS) is running the world.

Of course the current ASS will reassert itself in time. Just as in the Cold War, any Long War setback will be temporary. The Bay of Pigs disaster was a Cold War setback. It was quickly followed by a big Cold War victory only a few months later with the Cuban Missile Crisis. Maybe the current setback will be nice and short like that. The Vietnam War was also a temporary Cold War setback, but in that case temporary meant 14 years of bear market.