COVID-19, 5G Conspiracy Theories, & Empire Wars

(By Obinna Aligwekwe) - In all the midst of conflicting theories, conspiracy and otherwise, here are a few things I have been able to gather. 

These facts are verifiable:

1. America won the 4G war, and generated over $100 billion in GDP.

2. There was an intense race for 5G, a race which China has all but emerged victorious.

3. 5G is 20 times more powerful than 4G.

4. 5G has the capacity to generate 3 million jobs, and add $500 billion to GDP.

5. Most importantly, the nation that controls 5G, will control the world via information. Basically, 5G is the new nuclear button.

6. Donald Trump, on realising the US had lost, cancelled a contract with HUAWEI, Chinese tech giant, thereby stunting the progress of the technology in the West.
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Something makes me feel the disinformation regarding 5G is about GLOBAL POWER.

I may be wrong.
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My theory is:

The US may be buying time with which to develop their 5G and keep it at par with the Chinese.

The sad thing for them is... China is already working on 6G!!

And with the limitless access to funds, totalitarian nature of the Chinese state, and absence of political bickering, chances are the Chinese may attain 6G while the Americans are still at 4G.

Just like the way the USSR could simply no longer keep up the Super Power race in the late 80s when the gap became obvious, America may just face a technological reality where it is far behind, and the rest of the world cannot but queue up behind a new giant to progress.

What many do not know is America will not reign forever.

All through man's history, Empire dominance has been a story of "turn by turn", a story of "boom and burst".

Out of relative obscurity, an Empire, starting off on the right foot, and doing all the right things rises to contention, fights off adversaries and takes top spot, for a few decades, maybe even centuries, until the entropy of our existence causes disruptions they cannot catch up with, leaving other contenders to displace them.
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The Egyptians started it. Then they fell into disrepair.

Then the Persians. Until Alexander the Great took it for the Greeks.

Then the Greeks became philosophers, losing their military prowess.

Then the interregnum.
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Then the Romans emerged from the ashes after shutting out its most potent contender, Carthage. Rome was to lead the longest stint in world dominance lasting centuries. 

Like all stories in dominance, even Rome fell, but it took centuries. In fact some nations have not lasted as long as Rome fell.

Rome fell into disrepair over centuries, and had to be broken into two for efficient management, the West quartered in Rome, and the more influential East quartered in Constantinople.
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The Western half of the empire fell into natural disrepair, the ashes of which several small empires would rise.

The more prosperous East would stay several more centuries before being destroyed by the Ottomans during the reign of Mehmet the conqueror.
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The Ottomans would dominate undisputed for about three centuries.

By this time, the British, Portuguese and Spanish who did very well to avoid the Ottomans, had started sailing the world, with a mindset that would eventually spark off the industrial revolution, and furnish the British the weapon with which they would destroy the Ottomans a few decades later.

In any case, by the turn of the 1900s, the Ottoman Empire was already decaying.

They (the Ottomans) sided the wrong participants in World War 1, and their subsequent defeat led the British and French to dissolve the empire for good.

Britain was now undisputed world power, but what many did not know, was that the events that would displace her from dominance, and place America as super power, were already underway.

America's large economy was one.

The second world war was another, and perhaps even shortened the process of transition of global dominance.
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With Europe in shambles after World War 2, it was only natural someone would take her place.

The Americans and Soviets fought for four decades for that spot.

You all know the rest of the story.
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The point of all this history?

1. Empires will come and go. Our existence as humans is infinitesimal compared to the total knowledge of our universe, so infinitesimal that no empire has all the knowledge required to stay on top forever.

Somewhere, there is some society that sees operations from an angle not seen by many, and that very vision will propel it to the top.

2. While one super power reigns, the very factors which brought it to success, will fail under internal contradictions.

3. While one super power reigns, the factors that will bring about the rise of another, are already underway.

If China does become super power tomorrow, it will not be because of only 5G.

So many factors at play, were probably already underway even before pundits started predicting China’s rise.
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What we see today, regarding the USA, may be the last kicks of a dying horse.

When that horse will eventually give in, we don’t know.

They may yet tarry another decade, or buckle under next year, but even without China’s rise in the picture, the US has lost its leadership in many spheres of nationhood.

The only arsenal it has, its military, may be redundant in the next global fight for dominance, as the future wars may not have battlefields, and bullets may not be the ammunition.