This is somewhat overblown, there was a lot of talk about this as it became clear Trump was about to be elected.
Yes Trump is stirring the pot a bit maybe to play Russia against China. Maybe it's to get Europe to spend a little more on NATO so the US doesn't fund the vast majority of that alliance and he can cut some spending there. Whatever the mind set is, not much has changed.
The US and all of its allies are still allies.
Does anyone really think that if some "real" US interests are messed with that the United States won't fuck somebody up? I mean it's just a few years ago we went to war, why all of a sudden are we weak?
Edit: just to clarify "real" interests e.g. a NATO ally is hit, Israel is hit, Japan is hit, South Korea is hit... any US base or military vehicles, etc...
This may be true but the actions of the Trump administration have many allies questioning how reliable the US is. That's not "stirring the pot" - it's potentially a significant shift in the world order and a decrease in how effective our foreign relations are.
The public allegations and concern expressed by our allies and own intelligence agencies should give everyone some concern regardless of one's political leanings.
>This may be true but the actions of the Trump administration have many allies questioning how reliable the US is.
As compared to the actions of the previous administrations, like bombing in eastern Europe, invading several countries, and royally fucking up Middle East etc, while constantly pushing Russia in the corner in cold war like rhetoric (for doing 1/10 of what they did, and in its actual bordering countries after) all in the span of 20 years?
I'm not sure how this relates to US allies questioning the reliability of the US? Our allies (as a country not necessarily it's population) are usually involved in the same conflict and support the same worldview towards Russia.
It's been widely reported that allies are increasingly military spending and reassessing defense strategies after comments/actions by Trump.
Excluding the Russian state media outlet RT from the "enemies of the United States" group, while including local media outlets you presumably disagree with, seems pretty fallacious. To put it mildly.
Not sure why you are grayed out. From what i can tell you are absolutely right. Before that america was usually discussed as some "crazy big brother" kind of position, especially since they started bombing and droning civils it went more to "evil big brother" but still a big brother. From what i can tell the public view changed since the election and the U.S. is seen as some kind of possible threat for our society and economy.
>the actions of the Trump administration have many allies questioning how reliable the US is.
Thankfully the real decision makers aren't going to toss away decades of political good-will and foreign relations because of 3 weeks of blowhard political posturing.
Trump has been making it clear for a long time that he doesn't care about following the rules. He may not have a firm grip on reality, but he's consistently prioritized short-term interests of his view of America over long-term global stability.
If things go wrong, I think the establishment would reassert itself. But there would be a few weeks of chaos. That interval represents a new strategic opening.
It's not enough for a land war in Europe. But a lighting grab for territory? Like Mongolia? Or Taiwan? Or the Baltics or Balkans or a contiguous stretch of the Middle East? If you can secure enough resources to hold strong against non-military retaliations, e.g. sanctions, it might--for the first time in decades--be worth it.
You really think a NATO ally can be hit? With a land war?
You think the Republican Party would need to reassert, the same party that dragged us into two wars in the last 12 years? I have to respectfully disagree.
A "traditional" war? No. A destabilisation? Absolutely. Why bother to send in your own forces when you can get people to fight their neighbours? To be effective, it must be deniable, like the MH17 shootdown.
This is more or less what's happened in eastern Ukraine (not part of NATO, but supposedly recieving some safety guarantees when it gave up its nuclear weapons).
> This is more or less what's happened in eastern Ukraine
Here's what objectively happened:
"Encircling Russia has never been just a neocon thing. The policy has bi-partisan and trans-Atlantic support, including the backing of America’s old-school nationalists, Cold War liberals, Hillary hawks, and much of Obama’s national security team."
"ZAKARIA: First on Ukraine, one of the things that many people recognized about you was that you during the revolutions of 1989 funded a lot of dissident activities, civil society groups in eastern Europe and Poland, the Czech Republic. Are you doing similar things in Ukraine?
SOROS: Well, I set up a foundation in Ukraine before Ukraine became independent of Russia. And the foundation has been functioning ever since and played an important part in events now."
It's already past, but at some moment the foreign organizers of the "colored" revolutions gladly took credit for their activity.
No, but the odds don't look as daunting as they used to. It's certainly more bargainable than it ever was. In any case, only the Baltics in my last comment are NATO allies. Lots of American interests aren't covered by Article 5.
> I have to respectfully disagree
My point isn't that confrontation is likely. It's that disrespectful disagreement of the status quo is more likely today than before, in part because of what happened in Crimea and Syria, and in part because we have such an unstable domestic situation with clearly-signaled foreign indeterminism.
Your worst-case for an overreaching autocrat today looks less like Saddam Hussein and more like Assad. That encourages dice rolling.
What happened in Crimea? What about a referendum? How is it worse than US annexation of Hawai? As a matter of fact, Crimea was part of Russia since it was taken from Crimean Khanate in the 18th century.
I also don't have any emphaty for the treatment of Tatar Culture because it was a culture of pillaging their neigbours and economy based on slaves.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_Tatarshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean%E2%80%93Nogai_raids_in...
I also think that the sanctions also brought Russia some good in the long run: instead of buying stuff in europe they now have to make it themselves. The one who really lost were european countries:
I also think even if Putin may be not ideal leader, he handled the situation in the best interests of his country. I also think the fact, that he is an autocratic leader should not be discriminated against. I think Democracy is not for everybody (as US found out in Iraq and Afganistan) and people in Russia still support him, allthough I think Alexei Navalny would a better Candidate.
I wish more people saw it this way. Many seem to equate the actions of Trump with "shaking things up" and don't realize the potential implications or increased likelihood of conflict due to the ambiguity of the Trump foreign policy.
It's unlikely to impact most Americans or Europeans that are not in the military but good luck if you live in a potential flashpoint.
A political party that dragged the US into two wars with minor countries with insignificant military resources, both of which could be totally dominated with an air war. And the US still had terrible trouble trying to keeping those wars "won".
Not exactly the same sort of conflicts and anyone who thinks they are comparable is a menace.
The US had problems "keeping those wars 'won'" because the US had to attempt to minimize civilian deaths. If there ever is an event where this isnt the case, you can bet it would be wrapped up in a few weeks.
"The Iraq Body Count project (IBC) figure of Documented civilian deaths from violence is 155,923 – 174,355 as of March 2016. This includes reported civilian deaths due to Coalition and insurgent military action, sectarian violence and increased criminal violence.[19] The IBC site states: "it should be noted that many deaths will probably go unreported or unrecorded by officials and media."[20] The IBC website currently states that, "Further analysis of the WikiLeaks' Iraq War Logs may add 12,000 civilian deaths.""
I think it's a safe bet that if the strategy in Iraq had been 'Use airborne ordinance to turn the country in to glass' the war would have been 'won' much sooner with far higher civilian casualties.
I largely agree with what you've said. Statements from the article such as "U.S. ineffectiveness as a pillar of security" causes me to question the author's understanding of modern American foreign policy. It does not seek to make the entire world stable (See Africa), it simply seeks to make resources of American interest stable.
To your point regarding Russian and Chinese relations, I don't see how in the current frame this is possible. Russia will become more heavily reliant to China in the future, as western Europe modernizes its energy sources. Energy is a major driver in the Russian economy [1].
To your last paragraph, the same logic could have been used after the Russian excursions into Afghanistan, which I believe indicates it is a historically weak argument by itself.
Is there a clear sharp line where e.g. Estonia is a "real" US interest and Crimea isn't? I mean NATO membership is a line, but it's not feeling as solid as it used to.
A next field of conflict is Belarus, which tries to distance itself from Russia. It's not NATO, it's not a country with a security guarantee like the Ukraine ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...) , it's not trying to connect itself to the EU (like the Ukraine), but still it could be a next conflict.
Then there are European countries not in NATO, but cooperating with NATO, like Sweden and Finland. Both have a border with Russia.
Sweden doesn't have a border with Russia. Also, as a Finn, I highly doubt Russia would attack Finland. We have a relatively good relationship with them, and such a war would be very costly with nothing to be gained. If there was a larger conflict in Europe, Russia might try to invade Åland or Gotland, but that also sounds unlikely to happen.
Belarus, really!?! They look like a fragment of the USSR that simply hasn't gotten the message yet. Where's the burgeoning democratic movement, where's the economic modernization?
NATO is held together with the unquestioning belief that all countries will strike together if one of them is hit. If there is some reasonable doubt as to whether it will happen or not, will the US really go to war with Russia over Latvia, which I doubt most of Trumps voters can find on a map?
Well what if Putin thinks no, goes in and Trump then says yes?
Judging by how Trump is behaving, there are two more possibilities:
(1) no strategy is involved at all, populists being known to do that, either because of incompetence or because stirring the pot gives the illusion of progress (it's after all why he was voted), or
(2) his strategy is aligned with his businesses, which is not that far fetched, given how he hasn't banned immigrants from Muslim countries in which he has business interests.
The countries he banned also all happen to have had historically antipathetic relations with the US. It's hard to tease out one thing from the other; it would have been illegal for Trump to pursue business in Iran.
I think ultimately Trump's foreign policy is going to end up extremely military-directed and won't be that much of a radical departure from what we've seen recently (not that that is necessarily good).
A large part of the established world order, for better or worse, is based on the predictability of US foreign policy.
Until it's clear that Trump is going to honor our existing agreements, continue to push for freedom of the seas, etc, that world order is going to start evolving into something different.
I constantly hear this argument in favor of the US intervening this or that place and I remain a bit skeptical. I don't think anyone really believes the US is going to neglect its obligations to countries it has actual defense agreements with, no matter what foolish thing Donald Trump is saying this week.
This is precisely why the US stations so many troops in Eastern Europe, South Korea, Japan etc. It's to act as a multiplier on the deterrence value of US alliance with said country. If Russia were to invade just Estonia, with only Estonians killed, it's harder for the US internally to justify military aid, as opposed to if hundreds of US troops are killed.
That seems a bit harsh. One could just as easily claim that Trump's opponents can't fathom him doing anything well and give him even less credibility than he deserves. While both assertions give that nice truthiness rush, neither is mature or productive.
Like any other human being, Trump is allowed to be right about some things, wrong about some things, and somewhere in the middle on the rest. People can support specific actions or areas of action without implicitly supporting all actions. The GP didn't even come across as all that Trump-apologist or even -supportive to me, just stating that the status quo has not crumbled despite the doomsayers claiming otherwise.
Let's all try and dial back on the polarization, please?
After the round of elections in France and Netherlands this spring, and Germany this summer, Europe may or may not start disintegrating, depending on the outcome.
Ms. le Pen may not win this time, but she will one day. A correctly timed scandal or major terrorist attack in the second round may sink her opponent. Moscow, London and Washington are hard at work with her, to make this happen. When she, or someone like her, wins in either France or Germany, the EU comes to an end.
It is very difficult for me to understand what strategic goal the new White House administration intends to achieve by disintegrating the EU and thereby pushing parts of it from the American to the Russian sphere of influence, but I'm sure they have thought this through very carefully.
You seem to be operating under the belief that the disintegration of the EU started three weeks ago or something? It's been an ongoing saga for years. I mean, Brexit predates Trump, and Brexit itself is the result of years of pressures.
I can see why you'd be so confused by the "strategy" if you think Trump is causing it, but he's reacting to it. And my assessment of the situation is the other way around; there's nothing Trump could do to stop it even if he wanted to. The explosion is in progress, the very latest I could put the date for that is the Brexit vote (which, again, is itself a result, not a cause), and the only question is who can best surf the aftermath.
The EU is falling apart because of issues within the EU, not because somewhere in the early 2010s the penumbric emanations of the future Trump presidency reached back in time and started whispering in politician's ears.
I doubt that the EU is falling apart, but if it ever does, then certainly more because of perceived issues rather than real ones. Although it was created democratically and by countless unanimous votes of its member states, the EU has always been an easy scapegoat for national politicians who did not do their own job right. In the UK, they quite obviously got the revenge for this behavior. (Remember, most MPs were and probably still are against the Brexit, and for good reasons, of course.)
The good news is that the vast majority of national politicians know fairly well how they abused the EU rhetorically and that their own countries would be crushed by global economic pressures if they left the EU. The UK and Germany are quite possibly the only countries who may be able to afford to leave the EU without major harm, and most smaller countries are aware of that.
But I agree that the perils of cheap populism and nationalism ought not be underestimated, and let's not forget that weakening Europe is in the current interest of Russia, the US in the eyes of the current Trump administration, and maybe even China. Anti-EU forces are strong, no doubt about that.
In the end, the current state of discussion is rather saddening anyway. The EU was primarily funded as a way to prevent Europe from being destroyed by inner conflicts again, which makes some sense after two devastating world wars that left Europe in ruins and killed millions of citizens. It's sad that this is sometimes forgotten and only emphasized by older politicians.
"The EU was primarily funded as a way to prevent Europe from being destroyed by inner conflicts again, which makes some sense after two devastating world wars that left Europe in ruins and killed millions of citizens. It's sad that this is sometimes forgotten and only emphasized by older politicians."
This is such an important point.
Whatever problems the EU indeed might have, its role in keeping the peace in a continent that has seen war almost uninterruptedly over the course of its history cannot be emphasized enough.
It is human nature blaming others for our own problems: as soon you cannot blame the EU anymore, you will start blaming your neighbors...
>>Whatever problems the EU indeed might have, its role in keeping the peace in a continent that has seen war almost uninterruptedly over the course of its history cannot be emphasized enough.
No, he's right. The freedom of movement is instrumental in educating people about the other countries, and realizing that they are also normal people, not some evil zombies.
Of course it can only help with preventing incidents between member states and other cooperating actors.
I don't want to start some longish economic argument here, but given that the EU is primarily a trade union and only around 1% of the total GDP of all member states is spent on the EU by its members, or, in other words, spending to the EU budget by member states is ridiculously small in comparison to national spendings by the respective national governments, it's hard to find an argument that could somehow contribute this development to the EU. How would more trade barriers improve the economy of individual member states? (Note that I do not deny that Germany and the UK might be able to exploit their strong economic forces in bilateral treaties to gain advantages over smaller countries within the EU in some trade wars, but I'm talking about the prosperity of the 28 EU countries as a whole.)
Moreover, if you honestly compare EU GDP development to the rest of the world, you will also find out that the EU has done fairly well despite the financial crisis that hit it harder than the US.[1]
The Euro has been a gold standard hung around the necks of the poorer Eurozone countries. They haven't been able to devalue, engage in Keynesian stimulus, or do anything else a country normally ought to do when confronted with a demand-driven depression, let alone a financial crisis.
> Ms. le Pen may not win this time, but she will one day
There is very little to support this. FN has been around 20% for decades, racking in about the same 5-6M voters at most elections. Structurally, far right in France (as in other countries) splits up as soon as it starts compromising to reach a wider audience. Also structurally, contrary to UK/US, all elections in France have 2 rounds - and Le Pen will never get to win the 2nd one.
Yes, she and Mélenchon are symptoms of anger/apathy. Netherlands and Germany have similar issues. It doesn't mean the extremes are nowhere near winning.
> The EU is falling apart because of issues within the EU
Predictions on how the EU will die started in 1957. The last 10 years have put an impossible amount of stress on it - and here it is, alive, and with increasing voter support.
If gp thinks a win by Le Pen or her counterpart in Germany is a given, he does not understand the election system in each respective country.
Living in the EU, I actually experience quite the opposite to what jerf is predicting: a reemergence of the EU as a passionate project after Brexit. People have taken the EU for granted for way too long, now it starts to emerge as an issue that is worth fighting for (check e.g., pulseforeurope.eu). Granted, there's also a nationalistic reemergence acting against the EU, but at least it's proponents are starting to fight back.
I don't necessarily predict the disintegration. I'm pointing out that the idea of blaming Trump for it is temporally silly. It's an ongoing process that didn't start three weeks ago, and even trying to backdate it to Trump's candidacy would A: be insufficient to explain anything anyhow and B: have to explain how Trump somehow knocked over the EU despite hardly saying a word about it during his campaign.
But as for everything being fine and dandy, when you get to the point that you've got sub-polities not only seriously talking about secession, but actually doing it, no, that polity is not in good health.
If you look again, I didn't mention that name at all. The only relation is that, after the changes in London and Washington, outside interference will now not only be coming from Moscow, and they are capable of exerting far more refined influence than Moscow's online troll army and funding of anti EU activists.
The Brexit campaign was fueled by lies. The real issue is a trend of anti-intellectualism and xenophobia, which I fear we've seen before, triggered by the great depression and a precursor to WWII.
It's as if, whenever a financial crisis happens, people go dumb.
That's moving the goalposts. Nothing about what you said makes it the result of Trump's administration.
Also, might I just point out the irony of accusing people of being "anti-intellectual" in reaction to the financial crisis that is precisely the one the intellectuals promised us could never possibly happen under their guidance, and were mocking people for even considering it possible right up to the day it happened. How rational is it to belief false things simply because they carry the label "intellectual"?
It's not moving the goalposts, I was just noticing the global trend that links Brexit, Trump and possibly other upcoming events like Le Pen.
> the intellectuals promised us could never possibly happen under their guidance, and were mocking people for even considering it possible right up to the day it happened
Well, source please. Not that I don't believe you, but don't remember the deriding or the predictions you're mentioning and it's actually really hard to predict a financial crisis, being dangerous to put a break on the economy based on speculations.
I'm a fairly intellectual guy and I'd say that it's fairly disingenuous to point at "anti-intellectualism" and ignore massive inequality and corruption as party in these latest events.
There's plenty of economists running around assuring everyone that Piketty is wrong, inequality doesn't matter, someone being a billionaire doesn't affect someone on welfare who has cheap iPhones, etc. However, I think these defenders of the status quo will be proven wrong. It all rings very hollow.
Anti-intellectualism, xenophobia, inequality. Don't forget that last one. It's the one that puts us liberal techies on the hook too.
Xenophobia, or rational self-interest? How is the common worker better-off by allowing immigration? The only advantage I can think of is having the option of abandoning their country to seek better fortunes elsewhere (assuming immigration is a two-way street). What about the great majority who wish to stay in their own countries?
Immigration is more-or-less irrelevant to the common worker either way. Macroeconomic labor conditions affect the common worker more: if labor's share of income is large but immigration is high, people are fine, but if labor's share of income is low with zero immigration, people are still miserable.
How much immigration is there into, say, Belarus? Practically none. How well-off is the common worker in Belarus? Miserable.
I would call it stupidity, because the biggest threat to jobs is provably automation and not immigrants.
Immigrants are occupying either the low end jobs that nobody wants, like what you get in agriculture (e.g. strawberry pickers - if you don't know how that's like, try it out ;-)), cleaning services, etc, or they are occupying the high end jobs, like what you get in Silicon Valley, an industry that creates jobs, or say medical doctors, which are hired because of their expertise or to lower the prices, which in the end translates to lower healthcare bills, etc.
Either way, if you ban immigration, you'll get automation, or a crashing economy due to other countries being more competitive. And if you get automation, it's worse than immigrants, because those immigrants are spending their salaries locally, whereas robots don't get salaries.
You know, it's funny you should say that. I'm from an ex-communist country from Eastern Europe and let me tell you, the problem with communism was the extreme inefficiency due to the state's incentive of keeping people hired which ultimately led to hunger and the fall of the USSR.
You get automation either way - immigration only buys you ten or so years before the costs fall below even immigrant wages, after which you're left with unemployed immigrants.
And lets not pretend the availability of cheap labour has nothing to do with jobs being low-end.
Medical doctors sure is a funny example to give however - the USA has a lot of immigrants - how well has that worked in keeping healthcare affordable?
Immigration is keeping health care affordable in Germany and probably a bunch of other European countries. Until the Brexit, cheap foreign labor helped keep prices low in the UK.
The USA don't have a problem with immigrants - they have a problem with the runaway corruption of their political leaders. Corporate lobbyists get to write laws for representatives to rubber stamp. The reason the same drugs cost 5x more in the US than in Canada has nothing to do with immigrants.
I'd love some statistics on this - what is the proportion of immigrants who are doctors, and how does that compare to the native population (for Germany, the U.K., etc..)? How does it depend on the immigrant's country of origin? And, if the goal is to reduce medical costs - why not accept only doctors?
I'm sorry, but I'm too lazy to dig up those statistics for you. Part of the reason is that I consider your question to be fundamentally misdirected.
First, I'd like to point out that medical staff form just the tip of the iceberg in terms of wage-reduction by immigrants. For example, my father in law lives in an old age home staffed almost entirely with low-wage foreigners - a mix of immigrants, migrants, what-have you. There are job markets in health and old age care, cleaning, agriculture and construction that completely dwarf just that for doctors.
Secondly, because much of the current discussion of immigrants relates specifically to refugees: to selectively accept desirable highly-qualified refugees from countries people are fleeing for their lives would be deplorably, cynically selfish and inhumane.
Third, if I remember correctly, "nationals-only" reproduction in Germany and some other European countries, but also e.g. Japan is below the level required to sustain a population (there's a technical term for that, but I've forgotten it), so many modern countries actually _need_ immigrants to fill job vacancies in countries with industries that insist on continuing to grow regardless of populations.
The Japanese are (at the moment) resolved to let their country dwindle out before diluting their treasured racial stock. That's their decision, and they can go that way if they want to. Other countries, meanwhile, don't base their immigration policies on -let's be honest- racism, or less so.
Fleeing from countries such as Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, and Slovenia? And pretending there are only two options - let them stay forever, or gun them down at the border, is dishonest at best. We ship food half way around the world, there's no reason wealthy countries can't fund refugee camps and in general help and give aid to countries that accept refugees. This would also reduce the number of tragic drownings in the Mediterranean. But I don't see it suggested much as an option in the media...
And, are you saying the stance of governments to their people is "We need more workers - breed faster, or we'll import someone who will"? Britons are now an ethnic minority in London, but only racists would be bothered by the same taking place in their countries, I guess.
>We ship food half way around the world, there's no reason wealthy countries can't fund refugee camps and in general help and give aid to countries that accept refugees.
Except that those countries are, frankly, undemocratic, corrupt, and devoted to suppressing working conditions.
>And, are you saying the stance of governments to their people is "We need more workers - breed faster, or we'll import someone who will"?
Except of course that these same governments don't want their local capitalists to have to pay family-founding wages.
>Britons are now an ethnic minority in London, but only racists would be bothered by the same taking place in their countries, I guess.
I'm an ethnic minority everywhere except a tiny, embattled corner of the planet, about the size of New Jersey. What sympathy ought I have for inheritors of the British Empire being concerned about foreigners?
First of all, governments are for the most part able to differentiate between refugees and economically driven immigrants - the main influx of refugees in Germany and other European countries these days is from Syria, and it's not easy for Croats, say, or Slovenes to pass themselves off as Syrians. So unsurprisingly enough, we're not seeing a huge influx of Eastern Europeans - partly thanks to sensible limits on immigration.
Turks, Greeks and (though you didn't mention them) Italians are another matter: The industries of Germany (and other countries) practically begged people from these countries to come to Western Europe and augment labor pools here. The first deals were for short-term working arragements; later it was decided that there were good humanitarian and societal reasons to let these people emigrate and stay. The city I live in has a complement of about 10% (ethnic) Turks plus a colorful mixture of other origins. My dentist is a Turk!
Your idea of shipping aid to where it's needed is poorly considered, as another commenter has explained nearby. Syria, for example, continues to be a slaughterhouse, and its broken infrastructure can't feed and house people in bales of money.
No, it's not governments blackmailing their public to breed faster - the compulsion to maintain population figures is a purely social thing, no coercion needed. Former immigrants from Turkey and elsewhere will be working to pay part of my pension. You, meanwhile, are considering immigration as a threat. I have to tell you, your concern about "ethnic minorities" in London really is troubling. When people from other countries emigrate to England, they become British, and then only racists are concerned that those British people or their parents were formerly residents of a different country. Do I need to remind you that the USA is populated almost exclusively by emigrants from other countries? Oh wait, most of those were white, so that makes it... different? Conclude what you will.
There are no limits on immigration for people from Croatia or Slovenia in the EU. They could move over here to Germany tomorrow and immediately start working. They can't immediately apply for welfare though.
Syrians are not the only significant refugee group, there is also Afghanistan and Iran in the top 3. Together they currently make up about a third of all applications for asylum in Germany according to BAMF.
Threats of job security might not be the only threat they see. In a society with a lot of automation where you need a high level of education just to get a job, taking in a lot of unskilled immigrants means very few of them will be able to land a job, and overall poverty will rise.
your being dismissive. they have legitimate complaints that have been ignored for more than a decade. their situation (and really most people) continued to get worse as pro misses of prosperity from globalization landed on a few.
maybe they are wrong, but basically they are being called dumb for being pushed into minimum wage jobs and told 'dont worry, we'll raise minimum wage to 15 an hour and give you free community college' and rejecting that offer.
The UK was never a very convinced member of the EU, so Brexit is not a good example. But more importantly, the EU is not falling apart, it is merely facing a crisis. A pro-EU US administration could help to save it while Trump will likely accelerate it's decline.
On the contrary, a Trump presidency and the Brexit actually creates the external counterparts that is needed for people to gather around. Adding to that, the US feels like a very alien culture nowadays, reenforcing the feeling of being somewhat more similar to each other in the EU.
If the EU, designed to be the counterbalance to the United States, is so delicate that it lives or dies based on the decisions of one man that doesn't even live there, it is falling apart.
There's no way around this; if it's gotten to that point of illness it has already proved itself extraordinarily weak. Blaming Trump for pushing it over the edge is just a politically-convenient privileging of the numerous other forces that must be pushing it over, and it's hard for me to believe that Trump is even in the top 10 reasons, especially given the lateness of his entry on the scene. Do we seriously believe that things would be so much better if Trump had not won? It's not like Obama particularly managed to hold it together or anything.
> If the EU, designed to be the counterbalance to the United States
That was never the reason for the foundation of the EU. If that's the level of your understanding of European politics, I can't take you seriously anymore.
If the EU fails, which I doubt, Trump would have played a minuscule role, exacerbating existing tensions. I actually expect quite the opposite from a Trump presidency, though unintended by him.
The EU is designed entirely for internal reasons: to end the cycle of great wars between France, Germany, Russia and Britain over resources and arable land. The basic idea is that you don't need to fight over coal and steel, if you can just buy it. Protectionism, by design, leads to conflict. This could be intentional, expecting to win that conflict, but for Europe, with several adjacent powers of similar strength and modern weaponry, it was obviously not working out well.
American influence has actually been instrumental in getting the project started[1]. 'Europe' doesn't have any geopolitical or military ambitions, and as so many member states are NATO members, it tends to follow American interests in these matters.
> designed to be the counterbalance to the United States
That would be news to me. The EU has never claimed it is a counter-balance to the United States. Some people argue for a stronger, independent EU, but this is surely not the primary purpose of it.
The EU will fall apart, it's only a matter of time. The Euro as a currency is not sustainable and the moment a net paying country moves out of the Euro, the EU will disintegrate for sure.
At the moment the Euro is just a mechanism to transfer wealth from the northern countries to the southern countries and to make exports easier for Germany. Greece and Italy would be able to import much less goods from Germany if they had their own weak currencies, so would be bad for German exports, but would allow Greece and Italy to recover their economies by devaluing their currencies which would result in decreasing imports, increasing exports.
In the current situation a country like Greece will never recover and Northern European countries will pay perpetually. The same stuff could happen with Italy, Spain, etc...
> mechanism to transfer wealth from the northern countries to the southern countries and to make exports easier for Germany
I agree that it works very well for Germany. This, by the way, also implies that the transfer of wealth is not a problem. It is economically reasonable for Germany to pay and the Greek people, for instance, have clearly stated that they want to stay in the Eurozone. Additionally, the Euro can be fixed, it is just currently not politically possible to take the required actions, because the current state of affairs is "good enough". This will change if the Euro is seriously threatened.
People have been saying the Euro will collapse "any day now" since about 2008. Things don't just happen by themselves, and trends do not continue forever. It does seem like Trump and Putin are playing a divide-and-conquer strategy with Europe, but not necessarily coordinated.
Europe is not disintegrating. Europe is just geography.
The European Union might be disintegrating. Why it might be disintegrating is then a more complex thing.
But mostly it's not because of Trump or because of populists or because of Russian influence. It's because those who are building a federal state, United States of Europe, are far too impatient and try to rush it. We are witnessing a backlash. I am myself contributing to a backlash, because EU is doing things it shouldn't.
Yes, I definitely don't want to be in a Russian sphere of influence, but EU isn't acting credibly here. And the White House has little to contribute to current development. It's done by the EU itself by trying to legislate member countries over things I and many others don't want to be legislated at.
Starting from things like whether we are allowed to control who comes to our country and lives here. Or to prepare for and resist to Russian attempts to take over.
EU leaders (Juncker, Schulz and many others) act as if they had an empire, before they actually built it.
France, Netherlands, Germany, and the U.K. are all countries with large and growing immigrant populations. Seeing their countries 'taken over' by foreigners, people vote for parties promising to put a stop to it. Unfortunately, there are no pro-EU parties making those promises. Quite the opposite - they prefer to chastise their people for not wanting their countries to irreversibly change. So that's how you end up with this mess - I don't think prodding by the Americans had much to do with it.
It's literally this simple. Integration has been a disaster to the extent that soldiers now patrol within the borders of France and Belgium.
The great opportunity-cost of integrating populations and monitoring them when it fails has clearly become too expensive and people are saying "enough".
Oddly, the EU doesn't seem to acknowledge the sentiment of the public and just keep hammering on about 'ever closer union'. Clarity from mainstream Parties on this issue alone would shrink the poll numbers of the Far-Right.
Fillon stance against migrants is very harsh and even harsher than the far-right on some aspects, apparently, having a hard stance on immigrants is not enough to prevent people to vote for the far-right.
It's actually not the spending of money I have issue with, though admittedly I don't know how big a part of the budget foreign humanitarian aid represents. It's the underhanded way in which immigration is being accomplished - Germany had "guest workers", which the government promised would return to their home countries. The U.S. had the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which was promised wouldn't change the ethnic make-up of the U.S. Both promises were broken. I don't think anyone believes the current wave of refugees will ever leave - who would be willing to deport them, after they spend 10+ years in Europe, and raise children here who've never seen their 'home' country?
Consider this - despite graphic photos of drowned children, the funding of refugee camps on the other side of the Mediterranean was not exactly loudly promoted.
There is not doubt that in Germany the moderate parties will win again (SPD, CDU/CSU, Green Party, Liberals currently get 75% of the votes; The parties that constitute the current government would get 60%; The party that is currently openly opposed to the EU is at 11%.) [0]. Fortunately, I don't see this changing, even in the far future. The far left and far right can perhaps get up to 20-40% in total in the long run, but they are opposed to each other.
On the contrary. People outside of France get to see her through the mainstream media, which makes it look like only xenophobes could be voting for her. From Francophone friends I hear she's actually smart, witty, an excellent debater, and if she weren't held back by her name and the reputation of her father, she could have more mainstream appeal.
> what strategic goal the new White House administration intends to achieve by disintegrating the EU
Together the EU is a formidable negotiation partner (GDP equal to the US), while alone each EU state is in a much weaker position, thus giving the US an advantage.
Also Trump has said that he sees the EU and the Euro as a tool created by Germany to give them a competitive advantage. And Trump seems to see Germany is one of the main competitors of the US (and has a massive trade surplus with the US).
The EU coming to an end is not the disintegration of Europe. Personally, I would feel no less united with my fellow Europeans if we were to lose a common regulatory body looking over us.
I would dislike having to get visas to visit other parts of Europe. And inevitably, if the EU falls apart, at least some parts will get very nasty towards others.
While the article is probably correct about a partial withdrawal of the US from the world stage, it is leaving something out: in the USA, the military industrial complex is the largest 'special interest' lobbying the government. We spend almost as much on military as the rest of the world combined.
As a US citizen and taxpayer, I am reluctantly for a multi-polar world. The reluctance comes from what I expect to be some chaos as the world shifts to a multi-polar world.
>The reluctance comes from what I expect to be some chaos as the world shifts to a multi-polar world.
As a fellow taxpayer, I just want to point out that another way to look at ROI on our military industrial complex is global stability safe for commerce which leads to things like being the world's reserve currency, having our debt viewed as the safest global asset class, etc. It strikes me as foolhardy to want to give this up, even if nothing lasts forever.
Edit/addition/afterthought: There are other ways to pare back military (and all special interest) spending and influence- which is a worthy effort- without abdicating a global leadership role.
I almost fell off my chair. First of all, every operation the US army did so far was the cause of destabilisation. While the military industry is a huge business alone, it's causing harm everywhere else. The US traded stabile far east for oil (Afghanistan), now they are creating conflict to find a cause to grow the military economy.
>every operation the US army did so far was the cause of destabilisation.
The 20th & 21st centuries have seen thier share of blunders but our NATO partners and allies in Asia seem to still want an active United States presence. The post WWII liberal order hasn't been perfect but many would argue it was headed in the right direction, generally.
If the U.S. military reach and capability were 1/10 of what it is, I think we should expect destabilization to have come from other actors in the last 65 years.
> ROI on our military industrial complex is global stability safe for commerce
I am not sure if this is the case in the long run. However , I have never seen ROI calculations when it comes to something like the use of military apparatus. IMHO, the amount of collective hurt that has been generated by military interventions might backfire in numerous, unpredictable ways. At the end, a small number of people profit (e.g. those who finance successful military operations), while soldiers, victims of war pay the price for hegemony status.
I agree that in the past, we did receive a reasonable ROI for military expenditures. However, I don't think we can hang on to that, given the wider use now of other currencies for international trade. One solution for preserving influence and saving money would be an accurate accounting of where our tax dollars go: there is a lot of money that 'goes missing', some on legitimate black projects, but likely most is simply stolen or otherwise misappropriated.
I think a little chaos from the transition won't be nearly as bad as the bizarre paternalistic "we know best" puppet master horseshit that the USA is known for. Not to mention the mountains of bodies created in the process.
I just hope people start questioning whatever institutions they are part of more and more, government, private or other. Trump is not on your team, neither is Facebook, neither is your employer, neither is your school. Stop looking for meaning there.
You may understand why you are wrong if you do a quick inventory of countries that are independent, and politically and economically stable, because of United States. For example, ask yourself what distinguishes Venezuela from Columbia; North Korea from South Korea; Syria from Jordan; Somalia from Kenya. Intervention doesn't work all the time, it sometimes go spectacularly badly. Sometimes just the possibility/threat of intervention is enough to stabilize a fragile nation.
I agree with questioning everything, I disagree with the second part of you last statement. We cannot go at it completely alone, we need institutions to fight for things as blocks. I think it be better to get more engaged.
Lets not reverse thousands of years of Civilization.
How does the "military industrial complex being the largest 'special interest' lobbying..." change this? Do you mean that because the complex is always pushing for more military spending that the US will not have a chance to back down on the world stage?
The article did compare the spending of the US military to the spending of the UE so that comparison was drawn at least on a smaller scale.
We need adults in the room, being thoughtful, pointing out, for instance, that withdrawing is not a form of strength, and only permits other countries (China) to fill the vacuum. The vote for DT was a nihilistic, anti-establishment moment from a demo that wants change but isn't willing to think about what kind of change.
Umm.... wasn't that almost literally Obama's position? Haven't other countries been filling the vacuum in? Doesn't it make a lot more sense to look at Trump's election precisely as a rejection of eight years of that idea? Aren't we supposed to be very afraid of Trump being a maniac with the nuclear button and using the US military to do crazy things?
Obama wasn't that long ago. I'm astonished at how quickly his policies and platforms have been memory-holed in the service of the need for today's claims.
Obama always had a muscular foreign policy based on the ability of the United States to bring its unique moral rightness and light into the world. We have always been at war with Eurasia.
Obama campaigned specifically on getting out of Iraq & Afghanistan. IIRC he was gung-ho on getting more involved in Pakistan. He authorized military operations in dozens of countries and didn't question the bipartisan consensus on foreign policy in any significant way
No, Obama simply wanted to shift from invasion to engagement.
Trump is purely an anti-establishment impulse (lubricated by racism, sexism, etc). To claim it's a reaction against Obama is to claim (ludicrously) that Obama == establishment.
Nothing has substantively changed yet. The United States has reaffirmed its support for NATO, for its Asian alliances, and it has rhetorically asserted itself with Iran and North Korea. Rumors of grand changes to US foreign policy may be greatly exaggerated. Don't confuse quips and press coverage for action.
So Trump spends a year giving Putin all the reason in the world to believe that he can destabilize the Baltics without worrying about war with the US, and we're supposed to trust that Russia will believe our current posturing instead?
Trump is pushing NATO countries to increase their spending so the US can decrease its expenditure. Full stop. He's left in-place thousands of forward deployed troops in Baltic states as a deterrent and confidence builder. This is a non-issue.
I keep thinking China could take the opportunity here to open up its own political system and really start competing against the US as a desired landing spot for US/EU tech/science grads, and other capable/interested young talent. In a play for "world dominance", this could be a prudent non-military move. It would force The West to reconsider the direction it's heading too.
Highly doubtful on both points. As for open up political system
- Xi Jinping is consolidating his power to be the dictator of China. He is removing rivals using routing out corruption as excuse (and not targeting his own supporters)
- China's economy is crashing. It's approaching 300% debt ratio in combined corporate + government + individual. Its gross reserve is down to less than 3T (IMF believes China needs at least 2.7T to operate). Its net reserve (gross - debt) is down to 1.7T. It had a capital outflow of 700B in 2016. Yuan fell the most in 2016, since 1994. It is now trying to close up the internal system via capital control, rights restrictions, censorship, etc
- censorship, bad access to world internet, corruption, zenophobia/racism, bad manners/behaviors from locals, no weed
- China only has 600,000 foreigners registered living in there in 2016. Half of those are from Taiwan/Hong Kong. Super small number for a country of 1.3B.
I agree, but it would take more than political reform to make China an attractive landing spot. Pollution and food safety are also big problems, for example, to the extent that my spouse (who is Chinese) and I have discussed and rejected the idea of raising our children in China, independent of qualms about the political system.
Yeah, mine is Malaysian Chinese and we've discussed the same things WRT going there (Singapore notwithstanding).
However China has to start somewhere. If they go all in on renewable energy along with their political changes, then that has the potential to make it an even more attractive landing spot, due both to increased quality of life and to interesting new job opportunities in that field.
(This is actually the outcome I'm hoping for, as I'm seeing global warming as the largest threat to humanity right now, and a large-scale challenge to big oil from China is the only thing that'd work before it's too late. The only politically viable way that's going to happen is if it helps win some other zero-sum game such as the competition for worldwide talent. If it works out that way, then it would eventually force the US to reconsider its oil alliances too and maybe we'd all be okay. This is all just somewhat stream-of-consciousness though.)
Food issues is the very reason for me to raise my kids in China. They learn to use chopsticks before forks and knives. They eat rice daily and have no desert. I sometime had to literally tell my daughter: "if you do not eat this chocolate cake, I'll not give you more bone soup".
There is a very big food problem... in the US.
Also, there is a very annoying problem with people of other colors in the West. I do not want to have to tell my kids to be afraid of "some people" when I take the subway, but I also do not want them to be unsafe. This is another reason to avoid the West for raising kids. (Just one last: in Japan, parents are NOT allowed to take their kids to school, kids have to go by themselves. In the West this would be considered irresponsible. I want my kids to be happy, free and safe.)
You're absolutely right that from a dietary perspective, and painting with a very broad brush, Chinese people in general eat healthier than Americans. My spouse certainly eats healthier than I do, though I've been a bit of a bad influence.
My point was about food safety, not nutrition. To some extent I can control how healthily my children eat by choosing what to feed them. But while in the US we can be fairly confident that the food and drugs they get are safe, that is less true in China, due in part to some recent food safety scandals like [0]. When we travel to China, there are certain things (like infant formula) that we bring with us rather than buy there. We also bring things like vitamins to my in-laws because they ask us to.
One scandal doesn't make a general rule. Also as your wife is Chinese you certainly noticed that Chinese people are obsessed with food. In some place like Sichuan it is the only conversation topic that's ever talked about. With such an obsession, a restaurant won't last a week if it's serving bad food. I have seen it with my colleagues, one had a "laduzi" and told others, the next the restaurant had no more patrons from our company, it's a kind of blacklist.
That's interesting. Would you mind going into specifics? Are you American? How long have you been there, and what are the main challenges? I see you're in Beijing. I lived in Kunming, and it did seem like a pretty appropriate place for having a family. Are you concerned about the pollution levels? What kind of school do you send your kids to, if any?
I'm French, have been in China for more than 10 years, my wife is Chinese, kids go to French school. People over-react to pollution in Beijing: it is only 2/3 days a month and still way below levels of most other capitals in SE Asia. And as the air is very dry, the impact on the lungs is not what it would be in a more humid place, dixit two physicians.
There are downsides obviously, but food, safety, and housekeeping help are on the upside, especially with kids.
Note that China's attitude towards foreigners is currently in a state where even opening up the job market to recent graduates without work experience (if they have good grades) is big news: http://www.ecns.cn/2017/01-15/241676.shtml
AFAIK, previously only "specialists" were granted an employment license.
Yeah, I was thinking about that. Given overpopulation is still a problem there, and given their surfeit of home-grown tech grads, recruiting young talent may not be much of a priority. Still, I think it has to be eventually if they want to be considered world leaders.
I think You have it the wrong way around - CHina will tell the west how to organize itself, and many people are going to find it hard to argue, especially when the crop of leaders in the west become more unpredictable, less inclined to follow science or systems.
the political and citizen class are currently sufficiently satisfied with their arrangement, that they will do what they can to maintain the system.
I don't think they'd want to make significant changes to their political system. The Chinese middle class is already larger than the US middle class (and growing), so they're already going to be the culturally dominant force over the next century.
Edit: "they" above being those in power. Obvs there are people in China who want reform.
> The same mechanism - if real - should apply in China as well.
Yeah, I think it's realistic to expect growing wealth to affect the political landscape.
I guess my point is that self-imposed political reform is a choice few governments make willingly. OP was suggesting that the soon-to-be dominant world power would choose self-imposed political reform with the specific objective of attracting more overseas students.
To me that seems like choosing to cut off your arm rather than trim your fingernails.
Depends on what you mean by democratization. If you mean the main part of the country's citizen have the most leverage on country's general guidance by simple weight effect, then yes, and it is probably already the case for China. If you mean "representative political system with elections as done in some Western countries" then maybe this political system should be fixed before asking other people to try it.
Am I alone in feeling that the present drama with Trump is doing wonders at educating people broadly about geo-politics, the inter-dependence of global powers and national agendas? I feel it's been an education.
For those already keen on understanding these kinds of relationships, sure. I spend more time concerned with the large swathes of people who think that the machinations of a trans-national fascist alliance are a return to "populism" and "individual sovereignty."
Alternative hypothesis: political populism is rising to popularity levels which endanger the plutocratic and military rulers. Don't think they won't set the stage for future wars just so they can stay in power.
Because now that he is President the Constitution and Congress are his source of power. There's nothing his money can buy him right now that trumps the power of the office and the Congress.
You are arguing that Trump is a kleptocrat, not a plutocrat. A plutocrat derives power from wealth. A kleptocrat uses power to create or enrich her wealth. So, for example, HRC used her power as Secretary of State to enrich her wealth. She is Kleptocrat. WJC used wealth to wield power in Haiti and elsewhere. He is a plutocrat. We don't yet know what Trump is because he hasn't actually done anything and its seriously questionable if he ever will. On the other hand, he prevented a Kleptocratic/Plutocratic duo from running America, so he could retire on top today and it would be for the best.
/* “It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see..."
"You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?"
"No," said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."
"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."
"I did," said Ford. "It is."
"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't people get rid of the lizards?"
"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."
"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"
"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."
"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"
"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?" /
Trump is the wrong lizard.*
95% of the media you see and hear (more if you just read the paper and watch cable news, which I gather is the vast majority of the US population) is owned by one of five corporations. CNN is telling us, verbatim, that "it's illegal to read Wikileaks," while civil and human rights abuses go on every day in America while the media remains silent on many of them.
Look, HRC and DT are both evil, awful people. Let's stop fighting about which lizard gets in--after all, that's what they want--and start thinking about how we can make it so you don't have to be a lizard to get in. The real people that hold power are the ones that win after every election. One example: https://theintercept.com/2016/12/09/trump-makes-america-gold...
I find it highly unlikely that Putin would want to invade Europe (this is what you seem to suggest). I do understand the importance of the Krim for Russia, as it has their only southern military harbour. It's not something Russia can afford to lose.
In the interview Maracz explains that the heartland of Eurasia will be very important in future trade. A very good infrastructure is being setup by China and Russia to support this trading network. China and Russia have grown tighter and China in particular won't allow the USA to try the same as it did with Ukraine (i.e.: trying to limit the influence sphere of Russia). I think it's unlikely the USA will want to confront both Russia and China. I think Trump will be wiser in this regard compared to Clinton, who seemed out on a confrontation with Russia (by trying to implement a no-fly zone over Syria).
Regardless of all being said the USA might be fine for the nearby future. Like Laszlo, I don't see a bright future for Europe. I do think Asia will become much more economically prosperous as a result of the trading network that is being setup by Russia and China. As such, I will be emigrating from Europe to Asia in the nearby future (either this year or the next).
Yep. And also, about Krimea, there is this game of musical chairs: once the music stop everyone gets its chair but one. Some seem to consider that after WWII and Yalta, no border should ever change anymore. That's not fair, not natural, and too rigid. If no borders are ever modifed, will the Kurds never have their own country as maybe they ought to?
To me border moves are always painful, dangerous, need to be done carefully, etc. but not allowing them at all is worse: the pain and danger accumulates and after a while, we get earthquakes sized changes.
Good, we don't need a "Pax Americana". The US has been trying to dominate the entire world (or at least large chunks of it) for far too long. At least since Harry Truman decided he wanted to get into a pissing contest with the Russians at the end of WWII. It's time to move past this whole thing and focus on trade and cooperation, not conflict.
War will never be "over", but it can be minimized. One good way to do that is through (real) free trade. Countries that depend on each other economically are generally less likely to go to war with each other. Wasn't it Jack Ma who said "when trade stops, war starts"?
> War will never be "over", but it can be minimized.
You are right. In the past 60 years, since NATO/UN/Pax Americana there has been less war than any other time in recorded history.
And you, as well as countless others in MAGA hats are celebrating it's downfall. Unless you are Putin himself, or an sadist, I don't understand your position.
since NATO/UN/Pax Americana there has been less war than any other time in recorded history.
So is that the benchmark then? Just "lowest in history"? How much lower can we get in absolute terms? I think we can do much better.
And you, as well as countless others in MAGA hats are celebrating it's downfall.
Not sure if you're somehow thinking that I'm one of those MAGA people or not, but if so, believe me, nothing could be further from the truth. I'm more of a MEGA (Make Earth Great Again) person. My position, vis-a-vis the US specifically, is that we need to quit with the empire building and radical interventionism all over the world. More broadly, I posit that encouraging free trade among all nations of the world is one of the best routes to minimizing war.
I also think that a lot of terrorism is rooted in blowback as a result of our (USA) activities in the rest of the world. Maybe, for example, we could have a lot less tension with, say, Iran, if we hadn't meddled in their affairs so much in the past. That is, of course, just one example.
I don't understand what point you're trying to make. Saying "things could be worse" is just trivially true.
As for where my position comes from: mostly logic / inference / reasoning, however you want to describe it. And a bit of history and data. See, for example:
Unfortunately, with all of the major problems in the world today, the US is too much to blame to be able to solve them. We were seen as a neutral force around much of the world in the post-colonial era (we were a colony who threw off our empire, as much of the world was doing in the 1950s through 1970s -- not coincidentally the apex of American power). But as we've operated the world, we made mistakes, and we're having to deal with those now.
Look at all the big problems: global warming (we're the major cause and we're so addicted to oil that it ain't gonna change), Islamist terror (so we inherited the modern conflict through Sykes-Picot, but we escalated it enough that it's our problem now), North Korea (we caused it but China has to live with it), and so on.
China is in a MUCH better position to address all of these. Their economy is just now industrializing heavily, and they're doing it with the focus of leading a new global clean energy revolution because they have determined that it is the only way China can obtain widespread prosperity. Sea level rise will hurt China as much as anyone, and their pollution levels are unacceptably high. Their peak industrial scale is 3-5x that of the United States, and their manufacturing capacity will never be challenged given the population difference.
They also don't have the baggage that we do in the middle east -- America and the Christian west are collectively referred to as "Crusaders", even by liberal Jews in Israel. In many minds, we're just the latest in an ugly, 1200 year long procession of white people who come in and wage wars of conquest to distract from the problems at home (the early crusades were a way for the European nobility to keep their 3rd and 4th sons occupied / killed lest they cause a succession crisis). Sure, they're mixed up with the Uighirs, but honestly they don't oppress the Uighirs any more than they oppress similar opposition groups. And the key here is that China only does it within their borders.
And Korea... yeah, China really doesn't want a small-scale nuclear war happening on its border. Any radioactive fallout would likely destroy China's economy for a decade or more -- considering the engines of China's economic might are mostly on the eastern coast of the country. So China is willing to tolerate almost any level of bad behavior by the Kim family. Best case scenario for North Korea is a power vacuum caused by the death of a Kim where the Chinese military comes in and runs peacekeeping and propaganda with an iron fist. Very few countries know how to urbanize farmland filled with illiterate farmers. China is one of them.
From the article: "It needs to move toward more military integration, which means streamlining procurement. European armies use too many different weapons systems: seventeen main battle tank families compared with just one for the U.S.; 20 types of fighter planes compared with just six; and 13 kinds of air-to-air missiles compared with three."
While I dont doubt there are efficiencies to be had, I feel they fail to recognise diversity . Any of these weapon systems will have pros/cons. The diversity can be a strength.
And the article talks about european NATO spending doesn't cut it... well go look at the stats. UK/France/Italy etc vs Russia spending. Russia is vastly outspent by the NATO forces, almost the same spend via UK and France individually. Who else is this European threat coming from? It hogwash Europe is not militarily self sufficient. Maybe not US style dominant but hardly weak.
It feels to me there is so much 'fear the bear' information being coming out it feels like soft propaganda on the other side building to something. Sure Russia is behaving badly with Ukraine and Georgia. And they deserve international punishment for this, and hopefully pushback at some point. Syria I'm not so convinced Russia are the bad guys. They are supporting a long time ally and stable government while the west is the the one pushing regime change. Do you really think Assads replacement will be an improvements? This is geo-politics, nothing about improving the nation.
Russia has good reason to be worried about their defense. The western powers have been doing most of the invading lately.
End of the day its a shame the people in power create all this. Most of us want to enjoy life and live in our bubble. Don't let the governments let you believe any nation is bad. And take these articles with a pinch of salt. Some extreme minority nationalists/religious nuts aside, people want to get along.
Back in the 1990s, NATO reconnaissance aircraft didn't stop flying over Russia, although Gorbachev and Yeltsin were quite friendly to the US. Post-2000 Putin's Russia is a result of the West's decline to treat it with respect. The arms race was started again and additionally fueled by the expansion of NATO in Eastern Europe.
Signed in 1992. C'mon now, Russia is even complaining about NATO members refusing flights under it as recently as 2016. The USSR agreed to it before its dissolution and Russia re-signed in 2002.
> The Open Skies regime covers the territory over which the State Party exercises sovereignty, including land, islands, and internal and territorial waters. The treaty specifies that the entire territory of a State Party is open to observation. Observation flights may only be restricted for reasons of flight safety; not for reasons of national security.
> The 34 State Parties to the Open Skies Treaty are: Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, and United States.
Hell Russia is complaining about Turkey not following it as recently as last year:
> Russian Defence Ministry spokesman stated on 4 February 2016 that Turkey had refused a Russian Open Skies mission, planned to take place in 1–5 February 2016, to fly over areas adjacent to Syria, as well as over NATO airbases. According to Russia, Turkey gave no explanation regarding the limitations, and claimed them to indicate illegal military activity in Syrian territory.[8] The OSCC haven't commented on the alleged violation of the Treaty by Turkey.[9]
Do you know about Open Skies treaty? Russia actually wanted surveillance flights as they are the best way of assuring people "yes, my troops are not massing on the frontier"
Well, "treating Russia with respect" to Russia means "let us do with our neighbouring countries as we please regardless of their wishes". So of course _that_ had to be declined.
And how is that different from the US intervening in "non-neighbouring" countries like Iraq or Afghanistan, or the UK going to war with the "neighbouring" Falkland Islands?
> And how is that different from the US intervening in "non-neighbouring" countries like Iraq or Afghanistan, or the UK going to war with the "neighbouring" Falkland Islands?
They've also repeatedly voted to remain within the UK by an overwhelming margin. One has to wonder what your agenda is that you'd claim the Falklands is in the same category as Iraq or Afghanistan.
1. The Falkland Islands are British territories. They are British because the population are British citizens and have repeatedly made it clear they wish to remain so.
2. The UK has never gone to war with the Falkland Islands. Argentina invaded the Falkands in 1982.
Are you suggesting that "Krym is Russian teritory" in a same way "Falklands are a British territory" ?
Are you suggesting that Ukraine invaded Krym and Russia had to respond?
I think that is flat out wrong.
I am not saying that you can't be of an opinion that invasion of Falklands was not justified and annexation of Krym was. I am just saying that these two incidents are not comparable.
A) Most Crimeans are ethnically Russians, B) The vote was ~94% to join Russia and was done in the presence of international observers (Ukraine didn't challenge the results of the election they challenged it on the basis that it was unconstitutional) and C) the invasion was a reaction to an elected president who represented their interests being deposed.
Regardless of whom you believe is correct, the Russians kinda demonstrated more respect for Democracy with respect to Crimea than the West did.
> Regardless of whom you believe is correct, the Russians kinda demonstrated more respect for Democracy with respect to Crimea than the West did.
You mean the referendum, not election? Yeah, "kinda", just enough for some people to be able to say something like this (and even that not with a straight face).
To say there was any "respect for democracy" is a joke. Girkin (leader of the Russian military squad that seized the Crimean Parliament building) later went on record saying that his soldiers basically had to force the parliament members into the building in the middle of the night and make them "vote" for the referendum (you can imagine what would've happened to those who'd refused)[1]
The referendum date itself had been changed several times (if I remember correctly, from 2 months to 1 month to 2 weeks). You can't force an issue like that in 2 weeks and claim "respect for democracy". In fact, both of the questions asked at the referendum meant secession from Ukraine; i.e. it wasn't a simple "yes" or "no", it was essentially "secede immediately" or "do it a bit later". And, even if that hadn't been the case, for anybody to vote against it, they'd have to risk being abducted and killed by the pro-Russian militia[2][3][4]
I'm suggesting that the Ilhas Malvinas (not Falkland Island) is an argentinian territory occupied by force. Put a lot of british people there is not difficult, neither ask the argentinians there to pretend they are europeans.
Whilst a hypothetical (and impossible in practise) fair referendum in Crimea prior to the Russian takeover might have shown some support, I doubt it would have been a landslide if it was even a victory. The Falklands however - would have voted 100% to remain part of Britain. It's a silly comparison in many ways but you can't get away with the statement you just made.
If you ask to a lot of cities, states and islands at the times if they wanted to be part of Bitrain, most would. This is not how sovereign limits should be deal.
B) Russia President’s Human Rights Council mid-point estimate: 55 percent of polled voters for annexation, turnout 40 percent, 22.5 percent of total Crimean population voting in favor.
C) Falklands was a UK territory, not invaded, and had free & fair elections with 90% in favor because they were scared of Argentina trying to annex them. Pretty much the opposite situation on all points. But please, go ahead and show evidence I am wrong ;)
Look, I don't mind agreeing with you that Russia invaded and annexed a part of Ukraine. But what in this situation makes it inherently different from the malvine islands war and annexation? Just the links? Someone could think that your reasoning is unrealiably biased, and get back to the question of Ukraine and Russia and get some doubts if it is really a good reasoning (Russia annexed a past part of itself) or just common sense prejudice against some causes. I could almost say beforehand what is your opinion about Israel and the Palestina state.
The Falkland Islands were British territories in 1982 when Argentina invaded. The Crimea was Ukrainian territory in 2014 when it was Annexed by Russia.
That can be more complicated, based on what I heard about i.e. Guantanamo Bay, where technically the Cuban goverment would really like the USA army to leave, and USA pretends they have a lease and that everything is fine.
I am not sure if there are other examples, though.
Well, the previous Cuban government gave the US permission for the base at Guantanamo Bay. Then the Cuban Revolution happened. The US does not have permission from the current Cuban government, but is holding it to the agreements made by its predecessor.
With all due respect you're confusing diplomacy with morality. The question isn't if Socrates would find the behavior pleasingly moral, but if pragmatically at least one country has been invading random 3rd world countries on the other side of the planet for decades without the world collapsing into WW3 then what is the likely outcome of a much more minor ... international misbehavior. Therefore a country "invading" direct neighbors who historically have always been part of the empire is extremely unlikely in a pragmatic analysis to cause geopolitical instability or WW3 or whatever warhark ridiculousness.
Don't get me wrong, it can still be morally and ethically "wrong" in an abstract sense. But most people are concerned with the fearmongering "Oh no, Russian tanks will be rolling down the boulevard in Paris next year unless we ..." is all completely ridiculous. Russia already fought and lost a COIN "Vietnam" against a majority Islamic nation of Afghanistan, once demographic replacement takes hold Russia isn't going to want a piece of France or Germany even if handed to them on a plate, oh no last thing they want is the suburbs of Paris in revolt as usual.
The Russian Bear has been content to be contained in its den, as long as its not poked, for centuries. The odds of the Russians regime changing Mexico and fighting a failing counter insurgency in Mexico on our border for decades is approximately zero, like space aliens landing on the white house lawn is a more realistic concern. There are world wide geopolitical problems, none of which involve the Russians.
As a land empire on the other side of the planet, with people more or less like us, following a religion more or less like ours, and a economic system vaguely similar enough, a space alien would assume the Russians should be our closest ally... and if it were not for unfortunate temporary historical anomalies they almost certainly would be. In an unperturbed system (LOL as if international diplomacy has ever been that) they would be great allies.
Good for you. However some of us live in the countries that are quite close to it, and it hasn't been that long when we had Russian soldiers stationed here.
So either "contained in its den" means eating up half of Europe (which just isn't good enough) or there's plenty to be wary about.
The only recent proxy invasion that I know about was Russia's invasion of eastern Ukraine where the invasion was Russian but none of the combatants bore Russian insignia. What are you referring to when you say US proxy invasions? Iraq and Afghanistan were direct invasions.
First off, I think Russia is a corrupt kleptocracy.
But think about it for just one second. Crimea contains Russia's _only_ warm water port. For the whole country. A country that spans two continents.
Look back on how America treated 'Panama'. America has dozens of warm water ports on both oceans, and it overthrew countries a thousand miles away to secure shipping convenience.
It's inconceivable how long Russia has allowed itself to go without a warm water port. And in the scale of international lawlessness, the Russian invasion of Crimea is totally justifiable 'bad behavior'.
Bad, but not relevant. Our misdeeds do not make Russia's misdeeds any better.
> It's inconceivable how long Russia has allowed itself to go without a warm water port
Allowed? You sound like countries have a divine right to warm-water ports, which Russia graciously waived for an extended period.
And what did Russia get? A warm-water port to which they do not have land access. Well, you know what's next. They're going to decide they have a divine right to land access to that port.
> And in the scale of international lawlessness, the Russian invasion of Crimea is totally justifiable 'bad behavior'.
It's bad (immoral/illegal) behavior. It's also behavior that, yes, large nations (including our own) have "justified" in the past. That doesn't make it right; it only makes it somewhat unsurprising.
Also you have to remember Ukraine only became a country in 1991. Before that is was USSR. For someone like Putin, Ukraine is still a rouge state to be brought back in the fold. Like Taiwan/China. I feel the world has moved on from USSR boarders but I also understand how someone who lived longer may see things differently. Its not that long ago.
Actually, we should try our hardest to bring Russia into NATO. Won't happen anytime soon for many reasons, but that would be the most rational way forward, I think.
I'm Australian. We tend to understate things as our way of expression. If you nit pick on words, you miss the theme. I find this is a good chuck of the internets problem in exploring a high emotion topic. The old cant see the forest for the trees.
First of all, if anything the conflict was primarily between Geogria and South Ossetia, Russia only intervened on behalf of South Ossetia. And before the war started, both South Ossetian seperatists and Geogian backed militiamen were accused of ethnic clensing. Georgian villages in South Ossetia were shelled by artillery, while in the northern central parts of Geogria, South Ossetian families were eveicted from their homes and driven out of the country.
It is notable that both war crimes were not comitted by regular forces but by militiamen, where it is not always clear under wich control they stood, or if the state/army has actually given orders.
Yes, but it's not ethnically Georgian, which was sort of the problem. That wikipedia article toes the Georgian line, which is sort of disappointing, but they do cite the EU report (via the 'world socialist news', which I don't really want to cite) that the pretext was manufactured.
The Russian point of view is that they were stopping an ethnic cleansing right on their border, before it could get too far. It's not a crazy point of view, the Georgians were shelling a mostly non-Georgian city. The US is also not a super neutral observer, we were selling them tons of weapons, and the Georgians were pandering pretty hard to us.
> The Russian point of view is that they were stopping an ethnic cleansing right on their border, before it could get too far. It's not a crazy point of view
No, it's not crazy, it's just pure propaganda. 25% of Georgian Ossetians lived (and continue to live) outside of South Ossetia[1]. Not to mention that the Russians were happy to allow the _real_ ethnic cleansing of Georgians to happen after their invasion[2]. And the Ossetian militia had been shelling Georgian villages before it all happened[3] (most probably, with weapons provided by Russia).
I think you're misinterpreting me- it was a problem for the Georgians, not the Russians. Saakashvili thought he could get away with a short, victorious war. A bunch of people died, and then a bunch more because Russia is big on punctuation.
It's also worth noting that Russia has been playing the long game here- the South Ossetians and Abkhazians aren't ethnically Russian, and no one is claiming they are- but Russia has issued more than 90% of them passports.
I sort of think people are mostly too eager for good guys and bad guys. I really don't think that what happened in Georgia is a straight line towards Russian World Domination.
There isn't a good solution to this problem. And it's a problem Americans often have a very hard time understanding due to cultural differences.[1] But the world does step in occasionally to stop one ethnicity from beating up another even within the same country. NATO did so in Yugoslavia.
But it's also used as an excuse for expansionism. The build up to WW2 was Germany doing this exact thing.
But post WWII European history also has a lot of ethnic regrouping. All Germans were put back inside Germany. Borders are drawn to group people. Mixed ethnic nations broke apart into single ethnic countries.
This question is at the heart of the blood bath in twenty century Europe.
[1]- Americans treat ethnicity very differently than most cultures since we have such diverse ethnicities with no little to no cultural heritage leftover. America entirely decouples ethnicity and nationality. So it seems strange that it's such an important force in other countries.
My argument is that South Ossetian leaders did do "whatever they wanted" there, and the Russians condoned and helped them, contrary to what you're alluding to above.
Georgia has not had control over South Ossetia since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. While it's still part of Georgia under international law it's never been under the control of the modern Georgian state. Said state invaded South Ossetia because they thought NATO (the USA) would back them up and the Russians crushed them.
> Russia has good reason to be worried about their defense. The western powers have been doing most of the invading lately.
Show me a recent Western intervention that threatens Russia's legitimate security interests. Syria? Perhaps. Aside from that your assertion is unsupported.
Disclaimer: Russia is an authoritarian country and not a shining example of freedom.
That being said....
If you were Russian and you'd spent the last century watching the West undercut you and try and control you at every step (for valid reasons in a lot of cases), you'd be threatened, too.
They went from being a superpower to having 100 million more people than California with the same GDP, while watching their own neighboring states get courted by the West.
Russia isn't justified in what they've done, but put yourself in their shoes. Of course it doesn't help that history has been exceedingly cruel to the Russian people, but it's given them a lot of pride and being dictated to by the US has upset that pride.
If the Russians believed that he US genuinely had their best interests in mind, things might be different.
>Russia isn't justified in what they've done, but put yourself in their shoes. Of course it doesn't help that history has been exceedingly cruel to the Russian people, but it's given them a lot of pride and being dictated to by the US has upset that pride.
This sounds a lot like apologizing for Germany's feelings in 1930. Except, of course, the Russians had their 1933 in 2010 or so.
They did get shafted! They've also responded to that shafting by becoming a heavily authoritarian military aggressor.
I'm not apologizing for them, just saying there are centuries of history wrapped up into this.
Russia has done some evil things to others and its own people (understatement), but it's not US (good) vs Russia (evil). It's a little here and a little there and if we ever want to reach across the table and have real peace it's by treating them and every other country with respect instead of as a doormat.
Do American policy makers care if the average Russian has a hard life? Not really. But Russians certainly do and they are doing what they perceive to be protecting their own interests, for right and wrong.
Cornered animals fight. We've backed a starving bear into a corner and are surprised when it lashes out.
Countries either stand for something or they don't. The countries who give enough lip service, money and legislative attention to egalitarian principles always outperform countries who do not. What does Russia stand for and how has it made the world a better place?
If Canada were to allow China to start building military bases and anti-ICBM defense sites on the Canada/US border, there'd be regime change on Parliament Hill within the week.
Every empire needs aligned, friendly, or at least, neutral buffer states on their borders - and will violently defend incursions into their buffer zones. Observe the shitshow over Cuba - sixty years of sanctions, terrorism, assassination attempts, an invasion, and a nuclear crisis later, the United States still hasn't forgiven it.
The United States was ready to bathe the entire world in nuclear fire - because a neighbouring country entered into a military alliance with the USSR. Let that sink in... And then consider what expanding NATO into Eastern Europe, US support of Georgia, regime change in Syria looks like from the Russian point of view.
At the time, Turkey (Which shared a border with the USSR) had US missile bases, full of nuclear missiles pointed at Moscow. [0] When the situation was equalized, the US lost its mind.
Meanwhile, in the present, 21st century, the US is busy building a missile defense shield in Poland. [1] (While claiming that it is built to defend against, of all places, Iran. [2] Seriously?) It is intended to neuter Russian nuclear capability... Meanwhile, Minutemen ICBMs continue to be able to strike Russia.
I ask again - how would the US react if China, or Russia started building army bases, and anti-ICBM installations in Canada, Mexico, and Cuba? How would the American empire respond to a political incursion into its buffer states?
When discussing EU military capabilities one must go beyond dollar amount spent. The huge inefficiencies in the collective national militaries in terms of having an integrated force should not be discounted. Diversity of equipment at the level mentioned in the article is not a collective strength. It is a weakness.
The real weakness however is the inability for the EU to collectively act militarily. Recall Kosovo and Europe's inability to deal with it without the U.S. And that was when Russia was very weak. The EU in political terms is a military lightweight. It lacks the political will and the military capability to act on it's own.
Specifically, diversity makes for a terrible battlefield logistics problem. It doesn't matter how many rounds of 5.56mm you have if your rifle fires 7.62mm.
Further, has the EU ever projected it'd forces outside of Europe without US backing? Can the EU put troops in the middle east or Africa collectively? (Yes, I know the individual countries can.)
The rifle calibre issue is an interesting example of inefficiency since both were foisted on NATO by the USA.
Post-war, Western Europe was tending towards an intermediate-power 7mm round. The UK even issued it. But the US Army wouldn't accept a lower-power round so NATO soldiets suffered 7.62 Shoulder as a result. Until Vietnam, when the USA hastily adopted a fast but low-power varmint round.
After 50 years we're still carrying both calibres and no-one is happy, but NATO can't change unless the USA does.
> While I dont doubt there are efficiencies to be had, I feel they fail to recognise diversity . Any of these weapon systems will have pros/cons. The diversity can be a strength.
You're right! And military planners are keenly aware that a diversity of capabilities is a significant strength and asset.
That said, there is a point beyond which military diversity is a handicap to ongoing operations. 20 types of fighters means maintenance is very complex and requires a lot of specialized crews. 13 types of air-to-air missiles that can't be used by all 20 types of fighters is a significant complication to battlefield logistics. Both mean manufacturing costs are higher than they need to be.
Redundancy in military equipment is perhaps not an ideal situation.
The disadvantage of having several different MBTs is that you need parts for all the different models. Logistics is a serious issue for any military operations, often just as important as any tactical advantage.
I think that is a report that is sponsored by Thyssen Krupp or by Kraus Maffei (or by both of them) - they want to push their products because the largest arms shop will dominate an integrated commands procurement process.
Why is this report bullshit? Because Europe and Russia are interdependent: Europe stops buying Russian gas - Gazprom and the Russian state by extension are toast; Europe stops buying - everything that is made in Europe will be much more expensive.
With this information everything else is trivial.
Now a non related question: is the no politics period for HN now officially over?
To your OT question: that was stopped shortly after it begun, mostly because it's quite difficult to actually classify what's 'politics' and what's not.
before WWII the powers had conflicting colonial ambitions, now its a post colonial world, so what matters is access to resources (these you can again buy with money, but the fight is over conditions and price).
I think there were several transitions that made the world a more civil place: one was the realization that free labor is better than forced /slave labor, the other one that you can do without colonies. (There was also the axial age, but that was along time ago)
The pros and cons of each system? You think the US would only use 3 types if there was any strategic value to more? We have lobbyists and congressmen salivating at the whisper of evidence that more war machines need to be built.
They exist because they are old outdated technology that the host countries feel no pressure to replace since they have to buy their replacements not build them and thr expectation of war has been marginal for a long time.
Even if they were each best at something, diversity comes at a very high cost. Every additional design of MBT means an additional supply chain for parts and ammunition. Additional personnel are needed for every line of MBT.
Since you have a different logistics line for each tank, they can't support each other on the battlefield without bringing their whole logistics with them.
I find it curious that it's only Europeans who are worried about Russia and their expansion threat, and the most loud about it are those who don't even have a common border with Russia. On the other hand, countries with a common border -- China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, etc., are kind ho hum about the whole thing.
I also feel compelled to partially quote Gore Vidal's old article on this:
"When Japan surrendered, the US was faced with a choice: Either disarm, as we had done in the past, and enjoy the prosperity that comes from releasing so much wealth and energy to the private sector, or maintain ourselves on a full military basis, which would mean tight control not only of our allies and such conquered provinces such as West Germany, Italy, and Japan but over economic–which is to say political–lives of American people. As Charles E. Wilson, a businessman and politician of the day, said as early as 1944, “Instead of looking to disarmament and unpreparedness as a safeguard against a war, a thoroughly discredited doctrine, let us try the opposite: full preparedness according to a continuing plan.”
The accidental president, Harry Truman, bought this notion. Although Truman campaigned in 1948 as an heir to Roosevelt’s New Deal, he had a “continuing plan”. Henry Wallace was onto it, as early as: “Yesterday, March 12, 1947, marked a turning point in American history … Yesterday, President Truman proposed, in effect, America police Russia’s every border. There is no regime too reactionary for us provided it stands in Russia’s expansionist path. There is no country too remote to serve as the scene of contest which may widen until it become a world war.” But how to impose this? The Republican leadership did not like the state to be the master of the country’s economic life while, of the Democrats, only a few geopoliticians, like Dean Acheson, found thrilling the prospect of a military state, to be justified in the name of a holy war against something called communism in general and Russia in particular. The fact that the Soviet Union was no military or economic threat to us was immaterial. It must be made to appear threatening so the continuing plan could be set in motion in order to create the National Security State in which we have been living for the last forty years.
What is the National Security State? Well, it began, officially, with the National Security Act of 1947; it was implemented in January 1950 when the National Security Council produced a blueprint for a new kind of country, unlike anything the United States had ever known before. This document, known as the NSC-68 for short, and declassified only in 1975, committed–and still, fitfully, commits–us to the following program: First, never negotiate, ever, with Russia. This could not continue forever; but the obligatory bad faith of US-USSR meetings still serves the continuing plan. Second, develop the hydrogen bomb so that when the Russians finally develop an atomic bomb we will still not have to deal with the enemy without which the National Security State cannot exist. Third, rapidly build up conventional forces. Fourth, put through a large increase in taxes to pay for all this. Fifth, mobilize the entire American society to fight the terrible specter of communism. Sixth, set up a strong alliance system, directed by the United States (this became NATO). Seventh, make the people of Russia our allies, through propaganda and CIA derring-do, in this holy adventure–hence the justification for all sorts of secret services that are in no way responsible to the Congress that funds them, and so in violation of the old Constitution.
Needless to say, the blueprint, the continuing plan, was not only openly discussed at the time. But, one by one, the major political players of the two parties came around. Senator Arthur Vandenburg, Republican, told Truman that if he really wanted all those weapons and all those high taxes to pay for them, he had better “scare hell out of the American people.” Truman obliged, with a series of speeches beginning October 23, 1947, about the Red Menace endangering France and Italy; he also instituted loyalty oaths for federal employees; and his attorney general (December 4, 1947) published a list of dissident organizations. The climate of fear has been maintained, more or less zealously, by Truman’s successors, with the brief exception of Dwight Eisenhower, who in a belated fit of conscience at the end of his presidency warned us against the military-industrial complex that had, by then, established permanent control over the state."
> I find it curious that it's only Europeans who are worried about Russia and their expansion threat, and the most loud about it are those who don't even have a common border with Russia. On the other hand, countries with a common border -- China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, etc., are kind ho hum about the whole thing.
That's because of what the Soviets did after WWII, and let me remind you of the Warsaw Pact countries, which included Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Albania and the vast Soviet Union, countries that have suffered a soviet invasion, suffered under communism and the war reparations some had to pay, along with the draining of resources by soviet enterprises.
I could tell you about Basarabia, currently part of Moldova, a territory that was taken by force under the Molotov–Ribbentrop pact, which is the agreement they did with the Nazis, a territory in which they did what Russians do when occupying a territory, which is to uproot the population by deportation and imprisonment, along with destroying the local culture and forced building of Russian settlements.
To tell you the truth, to see such an ignorant comment on HN fills me with anger that I can hardly contain.
Unbelievable that the suffering of Baltic states for 50+ years under brutal Soviet rule is simply "forgotten" by OP. The cold war showed a clear contrast between US/Rus goals. The US wanted free and prosperous allied countries, Russia wanted an empire.
Just b/c Russia failed in their attempts to become a global power doesn't mean they somehow had more noble intentions. Quite the opposite in fact.
I am guessing you are a Romanian yourself, judging by your use of Romanian spelling of "Bessarabia". I would remind you that Romania actually joined the alliance with Hitler and provided more than a million of troops to the Eastern front. Funny that you forgot to mention it.
Due to historical happenstance Romania received a lot of land after WW1. Then it opportunistically took Bessarabia from Russia, it's former ally, while Russia was in the state of civil war. Less then thirty years afterwards Russia annexes the land back. What is there to be outraged about? Phew, Eastern Europe and its border disputes.
> I find it curious that it's only Europeans who are worried about Russia and their expansion threat, and the most loud about it are those who don't even have a common border with Russia. On the other hand, countries with a common border -- China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, etc., are kind ho hum about the whole thing.
The Baltic states, Georgia, and Ukraine beg to differ. Three of those six states have seen unwanted interference by Russia in the past decade.
A Russian invasion of China would be an interesting strategic problem. They'd have to go through Siberia, Mongolia, or Xinjiang to get to the meaty filling.
Why does NATO still exist? It's existence was supposed to be to counter the Soviet threat. Now the threat is gone and NATO is still around. It shows that the Soviet excuse was just a pretext.
Russia is the Soviet Union's continuation, and it still has a huge arsenal of nuclear weapons and is currently fighting in and occupying a European country. The threat isn't gone at all.
If Russia were fighting Ukraine and trying to steamroll over the whole country, yes. If Russia were trying to chip away at it a little at a time, causing the minimum amount of international outrage and sanctions consistent with eventually getting what they (Russia) want, you might see something very much like the current situation. It's all about deniability rather than swiftness.
"they need some pretext."
Russian law would give this pretext. Putin would be obligated by the constitution to protect "Russians" abroad. Ukraine has a huge Russian minority.
" Also even if they wanted to, they don't have the forces to occupy Kiev."
Ukraine is currently on the level of a 3rd world country. Russia would have air superiority within 24 hours. And the Russian military is still a formidable opponent, even for the US. I think the argument that Russia can't occupy Ukraine, if she wanted, is absurd.
> Russian law would give this pretext. Putin would be obligated by the constitution to protect "Russians" abroad. Ukraine has a huge Russian minority.
Russian law is not recognized outside of Russia. Besides, that logic would give him legal authority to conquer half of Eastern Europe.
> Ukraine is currently on the level of a 3rd world country. Russia would have air superiority within 24 hours
Do you have any idea what occupation means? It's soldiers, hundreds of thousands of them, and money/supplies to remain for years. Russia's economy is in decline, their armed forces are already deployed and stretched around the world.
"Russian law is not recognized outside of Russia. Besides, that logic would give him legal authority to conquer half of Eastern Europe."
In a way it does. But how are "Russians" in danger in Easter Europe?
https://www.loc.gov/law/help/russian-georgia-war.php#Russia%...
"Do you have any idea what occupation means? "
Actually I do. And I don't think it would be a big issue. Please consider that the regime currently in power in Ukraine is liked only by a small part of the population. The background and intent of the "color revolutions" in such countries is very questionable. Besides that, the military of Ukraine is basically non existent.
Do you know what the Ukrainian military bases on the Crimea Island did? They just raised the Russian flag.
And don't forget, Russia has troops even in the West of Ukraine. (Transnistia).
You mean, like WMD in Iraq? Or Libya? "We came, we saw, he died"?
Ukraine is not in the Nato. If Putin had serious interest in "claiming" it he could do it. And it would make more sense than occupying the Baltic states. He would be able to take the Baltic states. But the Baltic states ARE in the Nato. And they provide little advantage.
How did a Russian say about the Crimea Island? "Another poor region we have to feed...".
I currently see very little interest on Russia's side for geographic expansion. But geography is still on their agenda since "buffer states" have always and will always be part of Russian military strategy.
> But geography is still on their agenda since "buffer states" have always and will always be part of Russian military strategy.
It was, back when countries used to invade each other and there was no international law and order. And it seems Russia's main geopolitical goal is to return us to those days, or at least prepare themselves for when it comes. What a cynical way to approach things like Syria or Ukraine. Kill as many as possible, scorch the earth so the homeland isn't exposed in a theoretical future war.
And yes, the US is also a threat to Europe and vice versa, except that historically the US culture, business interests and political climate has been aligned with that of Western Europe, hence it makes a lot of sense to have alliances.
IMO the threat of these hegemonies is precisely why EU makes a lot of sense. Divided we'll inevitably fail.
I don't think Russia or China fit the traditional label for hegemon. They are regional or great powers that have a lot of influence over certain countries near them, but even that is limited. Russia dominates Belarus but not Poland. China has clout throughout Southeast Asia but SK and Japan are rivals.
The only hegemon is the US like the British Empire before it.
Let's just imagine that a newly-emboldened Putin decides to annex part of another European country, like he got away with over Ukraine. Let's say some Baltic state, like Estonia. Wouldn't you feel safer knowing that country was under the NATO umbrella?
You might want to stop imagining things and keep up with the reality. Because the reality is that Russia has basically no military stations around the planet in foreign countries and yet is constantly portrayed as aggressor.
Well, the bases aren't actual aggression, you know. They're generally built based on agreements with host countries. Most often the host countries enthusiastically welcome them.
Invading Georgia is aggression. Invading Ukraine is aggression. Sending "little green men" over is. Sending anti-aircraft batteries to shoot down civilian planes over the "Novorossiya" puppet regime's controlled area is.
Yeah I saw that CNN interview where the girl from Ossetia was telling what actually happened and then got cut off for "technical difficulties" :). Georgia got off easy.
As for Ukraine - yeah Russia occupied Crimea, but it was either that or risk a crack that could disintegrate it entirely. Israel struck first in the 7 day war as well, and good that they did, because otherwise they wouldnt exist. History is full of such examples.
> Because the reality is that Russia has basically no military stations around the planet in foreign countries and yet is constantly portrayed as aggressor.
Except for the ones they are engaging in full scale war (bombing hospitals and schools) to protect.
The safety comes from the idea that they would, which is what keeps the bad thing from happening.
If there is any doubt that the US would go to war, that ironically increases the risk that they would.
So basically - one says one would definitely go to war. Simply because then you maximize the chance of avoiding it. Donald Trumps administration didn't get the memo I think, when they started being vague on who might be helped by Article 5.
> I think there's been some question about some of the newer NATO members for some time though
Perhaps. And surely any country would ponder whether it would be willing to send thousands of young people to their deaths for any cause, regardless of what agreements were signed.
But the point is these things aren't supposed to be discussed in public by the parties that need to demonstrate resolve.
Unless you think the Russian government is filled with incompetent idiots I don't think they're incapable of understanding American resistance to the idea of war over Latvia regardless of what the President says.
> Unless you think the Russian government is filled with incompetent idiots I don't think they're incapable of understanding American resistance to the idea of war over Latvia regardless of what the President says.
If one thinks that "they understand what we think anyway" then the whole idea of foreign poilicy, military posture, diplomacy is moot - it's just various mind readers knowing what everyone thinks :)
Obviously the russians have a good idea what America think and vice versa. Deterrence is having that tiny doubt in the back of their minds that "maybe, just maybe, Article V is really invoked if we do X".
The only thing that is dangerous is removing that doubt - which really can only be done via a clumsy statement from one party bound by it. So long as it's guessing about the status of Article V in a Baltic crisis it's fine. All a US administration has to do is keep everyone guessing.
> The only thing that is dangerous is removing that doubt - which really can only be done via a clumsy statement from one party bound by it. So long as it's guessing about the status of Article V in a Baltic crisis it's fine. All a US administration has to do is keep everyone guessing.
Trump says keeping everyone guessing is his core policy so maybe you guys see more eye-to-eye than you think.
No other career prospects? Patriotism? Desire for revenge?
I think there's no way that we could have gone on as long as we did (and continued to maintain some presence there even still) with a draft, though. People don't really care that much about a senseless war if they don't sense that they themselves are at risk.
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that any country in the NATO umbrella being hit would lead to the United States retaliating decisively.
President trump would be advised by the generals he knows more than that he has to go in front of the American people and let them know why he has to take the actions he is taking. Sending US troops into Europe.
Believe me, there is zero doubt, if NATO is hit its game over. Why does Putin cry about NATO so much?
The history of my country (Poland) tells me that military alliances are worth shit when someone decides to call the bluff. The Second World War started with France and Britain failing to fulfil their obligations when Hitler invaded Poland. Somehow I don't expect NATO troops to show up if Russian forces cross the Polish-Ukrainian border.
They declared war and did nothing (hence names like Sitzkrieg or Phoney War). Since Polish defense strategy was based on assumption that UK and France will fulfill their obligations it was a much easier win for Germany than it could've been otherwise. I'm suprised it's not talked about more outside Poland, but this betrayal cost millions of lives.
What betrayal? The UK and France did go to war against Germany, but they were not in a position to invade Germany in 1939. France suffered more than 4 years of German occupation as a result of its decision to declare war on Germany, a pretty high price for honoring its obligations to Poland.
France did not honor it's obligations and if it wasn't in position to attack Germany then France shouldn't have made those guarantees (Maurice Gamelin's "bold relief offensive"). Thinking that Germany wouldn't have attacked France if war hadn't been declared is a bit naive.
I think the current situation with NATO is different than the alliances of WWII.
Lets say that Russia invades Europe. If NATO doesn't respond, then the alliance is null and everybody fights for themselves. Which isn't a good situation to be in, given that countries in Europe don't have the capacity to take on Russia by themselves, I mean given our experience from WWII.
We learn from mistakes and history teaches us that an invader will not be conservative about where to draw the line. The world also thought Germany will stop at Czechoslovakia too and they were wrong.
And nowadays we also have nuclear weapons and during the Cold War the presence of NATO troops in an area was enough to deter the advancement of the soviets and vice versa.
Russia can't (and doesn't want to) really "invade Europe". What they can do is effectively bring small parts of the baltics, perhaps a whole baltic state as a maximum, under the russian umbrella, and e.g. replace the government with a russian friendly one, put a military base or two there etc.
They don't have the resources to hold "unfriendly territory" (their economy is bad enough as it is). So what would happen is things that would confuse the international community. Fraudulent elections. Violence in the streets. Politicians and journalists murdered. And then suddenly that state is Russian friendly i.e. "effectively part of Russia".
What happened? Was it war? Was someone invaded? When? Is Article V invokable? Is Article V even written to cope with such a scenario? What if there was a proper democratic turn towards Russia? It's Ukraine all over again.
We can't expect (even with Trump) to see massive use of force just because a few green men are shouting in a square somewhere. Or because an election seems dubious in Riga. But wait long enough, and it's fait accompli. The Russian friendly government installed will reject any offerings of military help, because now you are asking the russians whether they want the russians out of the Baltics!
This is why the only working deterrent is to simply have massive Nato ground forces permanently in the Baltics. When you get Maidan square like things going on, you need OECD and NATO people on the ground already. They won't be admitted after a while.
Article V should be explicitly clarified to include e.g. holding elections without a long enough notice, and doing it without OECD and NATO oversight.
It would be a truly scary scenario either way. Vox explored a hypothetical invasion of Estonia [0], basically if military intervention happens both sides would be screwed (given that both sides will stick to their doctrine)
What the NATO expansion in Eastern Europe really did is that it disarmed these countries from their Warsaw-Pact era arsenal. We were forced to scrap a lot of missiles and reduce military personnel for a hypothetic defense from NATO.
Also, do you know what the UdSSR "ax theory" was? Or the "ed-escalation" strategy of the 90ies?
Look at the map. The Baltic states can't be defended. At least not with the military that is there in the moment. Could they be taken back? Unlikely because Russia would immediately retaliate tactically (nuclear).
That's why deterrence is the only thing working. If the US even suggests it might not consider an attack on Latvia the same as an attack on Washington, then there is no deterrent.
As you say, the Baltics can't be defended (at least not longer than 1-2 days) and there is no good strategy with Sweden and Finland outside NATO (Sweden accepts US use of bases - but would they in a crisis if Russia makes clear it will make Sweden a target?).
We are talking about a key component of the former Soviet Union, with a big chunk of their population being pro-Russia, as they share much of their history with Russia, so even before the soviets they were part of the Russian Empire and of the Kievan Rus' state. Don't get me wrong, I've very sympathetic towards Ukraine's citizens that are pro-EU, however if I'm seeing any country having problems in joining NATO, it's definitely them.
Sort of. Russia needed to annex Crimea prior to the Ukraine joining NATO, which was becoming more possible after the revolution in Ukraine. Russia didn't need to act prior because it isn't threatened if the Ukraine isn't looking towards joining NATO. Crimea is hugely important to Russia because of its port access, which is why Turkey is now becoming more important to Russia (If they have the Crimea ports, Turkey controls Mediterranean access). A parallel story for the Americans would be if China suddenly signed a military treaty with Panama, which means that they could presumably restrict sea access significantly.
Revolution? It is called coup d'etat, whose only outcome has been the enrichment of oligarchs and the utter destruction of the ukrainian national identity.
Now Ukraine is a mix of foreign interests, polish born oligarchs, nazi battalions ( the so-called volunteers ). What is there in for the people? Famine, high prices for gas and electricity, the Ministry of Truth ( yes there is such a thing in the new shiny "democratic" Ukraine ). Ok, keep in mind that you can go to jail there for speaking in russian tongue.
Do tell, how does a country 'attack' itself? Russia is playing a dangerous game chipping away land from it's neighbors in the name of "protecting" ethnic Russians
I have no issue with the existence of a military cooperation agreement to defend each other in the event of war breaking out, and fail to see how it would be a bad idea.
In case of a World War, military alliances are going to happen whether you want it or not, with the difference that weaker countries will be up for grabs, like Czechoslovakia in WWII. And even Poland actually, UK declaring war after Poland's invasion being sort of a surprise for Hitler.
> Why does NATO still exist? It's existence was supposed to be to counter the Soviet threat. Now the threat is gone and NATO is still around. It shows that the Soviet excuse was just a pretext.
Ask Eastern Ukraine, or Crimea, or Georgia, or Syria, or Tajikistan, or Moldova.
Or any of the Baltic states now planning on having to fight for their lives.
Because, to put it mildly, Europe has always been able to rely on the US bailing it out when it mishandled some internal or external crisis. Now it's worried it may not be able to take that for granted any more, and may have to take responsibility for its own actions.
Frankly, that's terrifying for Europe. Trump has forcibly removed our training wheels.
That said, NATO's not going anywhere. Theresa May's first action was to get the Trump to publicly reaffirm his commitment to NATO. At worst the US is going to demand other member states start paying the 2% of GDP the treaties they're signatory to actually already require.
The migrant crisis is often attributed to the Syrian Civil War; how was the Syrian Civil War "caused by inadequate US foreign policy in the Middle East"?
The refugee crisis is not just Syrian, it's also very much Afghan and Iraqi. I think the main mistake has been to consistently prioritize opposing Russia over fighting Islamism and a failure of working more eloquently towards a peaceful solution for the Palestinians.
A number of socialist leaning, authoritarian but secular regimes, all cold war allies of Russia, were removed with the help of the US and the UK (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya), leaving behind chaos and civil war. Assad was the last of the bunch and he was very nearly toppled with US help before the Russians saved his ass.
I have no sympathies for these regimes and dictators, but not realizing even after multiple failures that they were not the worst that could possibly happen in those societies was a terrible mistake.
Continental Europe is bearing the brunt and the fascist right in the US and the UK are pouring scorn over the EU for failing to sort this mess out, even exploiting it to support their claim that anything other than bigoted nationalism of the Trump and Brexit variety is bound to fail. "Told you so!"
There was a lot of opportunity for the US to put an end to Assad, with a lot more credibility then elsewhere in the Middle East, but that was decided more by the US people's reluctance to get into another war.
The result would probably have been as messy as Iraq was initially, but probably not as messy as what is there now.
Managing to pack that much condescension for Europe in a sentence is a wonderful feat.
Why do you need to be a self-hating European like that? Do you think if you cast a good enough light on the US and shit on your own enough, people from the States will somehow recognize you as one of their own?
_(%25_change_compared_with_the_previous_year)_YB16.png){kind=link}
Yes Trump is stirring the pot a bit maybe to play Russia against China. Maybe it's to get Europe to spend a little more on NATO so the US doesn't fund the vast majority of that alliance and he can cut some spending there. Whatever the mind set is, not much has changed.
The US and all of its allies are still allies.
Does anyone really think that if some "real" US interests are messed with that the United States won't fuck somebody up? I mean it's just a few years ago we went to war, why all of a sudden are we weak?
Edit: just to clarify "real" interests e.g. a NATO ally is hit, Israel is hit, Japan is hit, South Korea is hit... any US base or military vehicles, etc...