interesting article about the new world of disorder that seems to be the norm. it seems that although the cold war is now more than 20 years behind us, many US politicians cannot get past the bipolar worldview, and cannot adapt their worldview to a new and complex multipolar reality. seems like it has been a constant struggle since the early 90s for America to try to find its place in this new reality.
not much of a choice, but I definitely favor's Obama's selective engagement strategy over Romney's hegemonic primacy strategy. if his foreign policy team selection is any indication, Romney would be another W. forget 4 more years of Obama. can we afford 4 more years of W!!
I can't wait until China takes over as the world superpower, let them deal with all the other countries bullshit problems.
maybe they'll be smart enough not to bankrupt their country, and exhaust all their resources by pursuing a pointless policy of hegemonic primacy, and being the world's policeman. it's not a sustainable strategy in the long run.
yeah, I didn't have a chance to read the article yesterday, but I saw a headline on the daily beast yesterday that basically said that the previous night's foreign policy debate was won by George W. Bush. it is absolutely key to have a discussion as to the extent that the US is willing to use its meager economic resources to play world police and become bogged down in conflicts throughout the world, but especially the Middle East. yet neither candidate is willing to have this discussion. to be honest though, I understand why Obama doesn't want to have the discussion publicly, and I think I prefer his policy of selective engagement, using diplomacy, and stand-off military technology like drones to Romney's much more aggressive, almost unconditional support of Israel approach. I doubt Romney would actually put that policy into practice if he were elected, but his foreign policy advisers do seem to be neo-cons leftover from the W administration, and therefore he's likely to be much more aggressive in pursuing at transformationist policy in the ME and elsewhere. which would most assuredly accelerate the demise of the US, as the US simply doesn't have the financial resources to pursue such a policy, so it would have two negative effects - bankrupting the US economy, and alienating us from the rest of the world community - without accomplishing anything positive.
when you consider all the money and resources spent, and what we have to show for it, you really have to ask yourself, why? why are we doing this? why are we doing it the way that we're doing it? Nick Turse comes teasingly close to hinting at the real problem several times, but shies away from it every time. he talks about the failures of the American military and the failures of the various military strategies, and the vast sums of money spent on these various endeavors without asking the key question of "why." as with any human endeavor, you will find your answer if you follow the money. the only people benefiting from any of this are the arms dealers - the US military-industrial complex. sadly, it's the military-industrial complex that's driving our foreign policy, and apparently have both presidential candidates in their pockets. and while many ignorant Americans may say so what. this is foreign policy, it doesn't effect me. rest assured, our military spending has a huge effect on our budget deficit, which directly affects the economy, which affects each of us.
I think it has mostly to do what happens in a people's heads. Anyone interested enough in history will be able to point out the similarities to you that characterize hegemony cycles. As Im speaking as a citizen of a country that's been so keen on warfare up until 60 years ago, like only a little others have been before and like maybe the US is right now, there is maybe one experience the US public has not made until now. Total destruction. Quite contrary to Europe's people. Today's US population never has witnessed war on their own home soil. Not even witnessed the angst of it. Not even the USSR really would have had the means for really endangering America's soil. War is something you do secure your countries interests and access to resources but please somewhere far far away. So war is something "unreal", if you're shipping a tiny minority there, that's not really affecting a people's daily life, it's not war in its original sense. We know, it took much to get Americans out to intervene in two world wars. The civil war legacy was still known all to well. The "mind changer" for the US public was probably Vietnam. Remember, never ever after there has been such an anti-war movement. But what were the deprivations apart from lives and money for the US public back home? Got LA bombed by the Vietcong? "Sent me off to a foreign land, to go and kill the yellow man". Now in this world, if we take the EU as a whole, it's quite the same situation for both Europe and the US. Apart from a slowly rising China that we need to face, where are we gonna go? And the story from where both are coming couldnt be more different. Well for sure there is the Iwo Jima memorial, Bunker Hill but it's not that intense wave of history you tend to got overwhelmed by when you're walking through KZ Dachau, the strangely formed hills of Northern France or when you're looking at your family's history. "Remember boy that your forefathers died, lost in millions for a country's pride". By history, it's a lesson the US needs to learn yet. In war - we all lose.
Here's a book for you to ruminate upon: http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Ages-America-Final-Empire/dp/0393329771 Dark Ages America: The Final Phase of Empire It's a bit bleak and has some faults but it does attempt to tie in American domestic policy to our foreign policy and show how our economic and cultural follies at home influence our military follies overseas.
So these books...these books... China is a country built on a premise that the people will rise up and overthrow the existing order every once in a while. Dynasties collapse in the blink of an eye. Right now, Chinese anti-government protests number in the thousands, there are low-level secessionist movements in Xinjiang, Tibet and Manchuria, and their military capacity to defeat us in conventional combat is roughly thirty years behind us. Their space program is fifty years behind, their people clamor for democracy louder and louder every day, and their cities are polluted husks that drain trillions in productivity every year. Their proportion of arable land is smaller despite having a population four times larger, and their "reported" GDP levels have gone below 8% for the first time in a decade, if not longer. Moreover, China is going through, albeit at a larger scale, the same urbanization-industralization process that has gone on in most of the developed world, only with ten times the social upheaval and environmental degradation as the rest of the developed world. If China is going to overtake us, it will require nothing short of a miracle for it to happen. As for the Eurozone, its population is shrinking, its economy is or was in full-blown depression, it refuses to enrich itself with new blood via integrationist immigration or the addition of Turkey, its industrial behemoths are transforming into postrindustrial service economies, and its military capacity is an immeasurable fraction of its pre-1945 size. Its governing structure is non-existent and its people are content to lurch from crisis to crisis without any real sense of leadership. If Europe is going to overtake us, it will also require a miracle. These books are really good at highlighting the problems of America whilst ignoring the pitfalls and problems of other sections of the world. China is more likely to go to war with Russia and India and Vietnam and Korea and Japan than it is to ever challenge us for hegemony. Europe is a wonderful place to visit but it's never going to seriously challenge America in our lifetimes. Sure, America will stop being the global superpower one day - all things fall apart - but it's not going to be China or Europe, and it's not going to be before I have gray hair. The real reason why these books sell is the twofold combination of really, REALLY shitty memories on behalf of the American public (oh noes, Japan caught us!), and the amygdala in the human brain. You read "Final Stage of Empire" and you automatically think here come the black helicopters, or here comes the comeuppance for our years of reckless, conspicuous consumption. Please. We're #1, and we're going to stay #1 until someone can neutralize our nuclear bombs, carrier fleet, all-volunteer army, near-impenetrable natural defenses (two oceans, two mountain ranges, a desert to the south and Canada to the north), and the economic might of a country whose economy is the size of more than the next two economies combined. So don't waste your money on those books; they're designed to sell quickly, make a profit, and then turn around in five years and say "Oh well, we delayed it with X but the REAL apocalypse is due to Y."
*shrug* Books about the USA tend to focus, not surprisingly, on the USA. If it was titled "Dark Ages Earth" then I'd expect a full treatment of Europe, China, etc. That said, it's funny how so many Americans knee-jerk react to any criticism of the US by reflexively trying to deflect attention to other countries' problems in order to block out what's wrong here and ignore their own responsibility to try to fix what they can where they are. That dodge only works if the claim is that ONLY America has any problems, which this book patently does not.
Given we, by and large, enjoyed 7 decades of peace, I'd argue that Europe is actually winning in things that really matter. Thanks to you, of course, but still.
yeah, that's pretty much the good neighbor policy of the 19th century with regards to Central and South America. keep the people of Central and South America down. the British out. and the Americans in.
not sure what thread to put this in - doesn't really fit well in any of them, but I didn't want to start a new one. but I still wanted to post it because I think it makes some valid points about our military
interesting perspective on China's emerging role in the world, and how they're playing the Ukraine/Crimea/Russia crisis.
America's next move is to step out of NATO. It brings us very little benefit and puts us on the hook for thermonuclear war should Russia decide to visit the Baltics. The American people have no interest in going to catastrophic world war over Estonia but that's exactly what we are signed up for
I would think that even if we were not on the hook for it because of a treaty, we would have to draw the line somewhere with Russia, should it continue down the path of aggression and violating other states' sovereignty. it's one thing to want to have a sphere of influence as a great power, but especially in the modern world, that can be accomplished economically. outright invasion, occupation, and military takeover annexation of other countries - that's the kind of stuff that we've already fought world wars over.