Pax Americana vs Pax Sinica vs Multipolar World

[sunday]

2 minutes ago, urbanoid said:

I don't want to tell others how to live, I don't have fantasies of conquering and 'reeducating' the Chinese, Russians or Iranians into proper behaviour, at the same time I admit that I wouldn't wish the reeducation performed by the 'current West' on anyone. And if we were the 'correct' West of the 1950s or so? Still no, pearls, swines and all that. 

I believe that we suck, the problem is that our enemies suck more. The main problem is that they have incorrect ideas about the relations of the ruling and the ruled in the first place (even the theoretical ones, ours are correct but the practice sucks), whether it's some mandate of heaven/allah or whatever else. I don't really care what they do internally, they can establish cannibalism as a national pastime for all I care, but when they try to undermine the Western position - for example by denying their neighbouring countries their direct or indirect associations with the West, they should be bitchslapped. I don't care if it's Ukraine or Taiwan or several countries that the Iranians are subverting, they should learn their place and it should hurt, pour encourager les autres. 

In short - they are allowed to live how they want in their own countries, but anti-Western empires are verboten.

Kind of agree. One should be careful with the definition of Western World used. I know we differ mainly on that.

Even if, yes, most of our societies suck, some more than others.

Even Singapore, a country, as Simon liked to say, run for, and by, civil servants. Perhaps one of the best societies, despite of some minor peculiarities, but they are likely to support the PRC on the Taiwan matter.

Chile was a bit of a hope, but they elected some red politicos, then...

Hungary and Poland quite manage, despite the opposition of Brussels Eurocrats.

Still, I find more worrying the 2030 Agenda unelected strongmen. They are already here, molding policies both of left and right parties, so-called extreme right/left excepted, perhaps.

I am getting sleepy, sorry.

[Strannik]

1 hour ago, urbanoid said:

Yes, probably indirectly, as our economy is very much tied to the German one. Still, I believe that in the long run the things will balance themselves out. The West in general should have never allowed the situation where its wellbeing is dependent on entities it can't largely control, at least indirectly. To me geopolitics trump the economy every time. 

but you are surprised when others follow the same logic... what a joke

[urbanoid]

7 hours ago, Strannik said:

but you are surprised when others follow the same logic... what a joke

I'm not surprised, I simply... recognize the fact that they do? 

[Strannik]

4 hours ago, urbanoid said:

I'm not surprised, I simply... recognize the fact that they do? 

Oh, that is why you were using the word "monkeys"?  As a recognition? 

[urbanoid]

1 hour ago, Strannik said:

Oh, that is why you were using the word "monkeys"?  As a recognition? 

Do I recognize the fact that in Russia economy trumps geopolitics? Yes. Do I think that their whole approach to... pretty much everything is idiotic? Also yes.

Russia was a perfectly safe country, shielded by its nuclear arsenal, self-sufficient in food and energy sectors, with every chance to be a prosperous country. Instead of developing the economy they were robbing the country blind, instead of having well-off citizens they had (and have) rather poor ones, fed with ridiculous imperial dreams by the state, to keep them in line. Corruption and poverty caused a lot of brain drain since the 1990s, to the benefit of other countries, with another large wave caused by the war in Ukraine.  

Properly governed Russia wouldn't even NEED to embark on the journey of territorial expansion, pretty much everyone would line up to do business. Countries like Ukraine would be among the first to seek some closer association, while the Russian speakers from neighbouring countries would simply leave for Russia, largely solving the demographic crisis. Russia doesn't need land, it has more of it than any other country. Russia doesn't need more natural resources, it already has so much of them that they're coming out of their ears. 

But all that wouldn't be STRONK enough, in the Russian understanding of the word, eh?

[Strannik]

BS.  The whole 2014 happened because EU wanted UA market all to itself.   Your analysis is lazy and lacking.

[urbanoid]

26 minutes ago, Strannik said:

BS.  The whole 2014 happened because EU wanted UA market all to itself.   Your analysis is lazy and lacking.

You didn't address any of my points. Russia was a poor, corrupt, expansionist shithole in 2014, it was an even poorer and more corrupt shithole in 2004, just less expansionist - not due to lack of will, but lack of resources. If it wasn't, it's quite possible that neither 2014 nor 2004 would happen. Sure, Ukraine was in the same boat, (it also wasn't much of a market) but they aspired to something better - that's why they looked to the West, not to Russia.

Russia's civilizational offer is shit as it always was, though at least on paper it didn't/doesn't have to be. About the only post-Soviet country firmly in the Russian camp is Belarus, which was the most sovietised of the republics and even despite that it can't be clearly said that it's due to popular will, because it's simply not democratic and has been ruled by a 'dear leader' for close to 30 years now. Even Armenia seems to be more and more on the fence and only because they feel threatened by Turkey and Azerbaijan, if it wasn't for that they would tell Moscow 'idi nahui'.

 

[Josh]

On 6/30/2023 at 6:59 PM, Strannik said:

The funny thing is that you think you are making a joke...

If Germans don’t want to be a vassal,  presumably they can vote for a different government, just like they do in Russia.

Edited July 2, 2023 by Josh

[Josh]

On 6/30/2023 at 9:05 PM, Strannik said:

but you are surprised when others follow the same logic... what a joke

Are you are equating the Russian invasion of Ukraine with western economic policy?

[Strannik]

1 hour ago, Josh said:

If Germans don’t want to be a vassal,  presumably they can vote for a different government, just like they do in Russia.

And hopefully (yes, hope dies last :) they will eventually vote for AfD unless the German elite will outlaw it like they do it in Russia.

[Strannik]

1 hour ago, Josh said:

Are you are equating the Russian invasion of Ukraine with western economic policy?

Why, there was Libya and Iraq and many more... But the point is the same - countries do what they perceive their natsec requires. 

[Strannik]

9 hours ago, urbanoid said:

You didn't address any of my points. Russia was a poor, corrupt, expansionist shithole in 2014, it was an even poorer and more corrupt shithole in 2004, just less expansionist - not due to lack of will, but lack of resources. If it wasn't, it's quite possible that neither 2014 nor 2004 would happen. Sure, Ukraine was in the same boat, (it also wasn't much of a market) but they aspired to something better - that's why they looked to the West, not to Russia.

Russia's civilizational offer is shit as it always was, though at least on paper it didn't/doesn't have to be. About the only post-Soviet country firmly in the Russian camp is Belarus, which was the most sovietised of the republics and even despite that it can't be clearly said that it's due to popular will, because it's simply not democratic and has been ruled by a 'dear leader' for close to 30 years now. Even Armenia seems to be more and more on the fence and only because they feel threatened by Turkey and Azerbaijan, if it wasn't for that they would tell Moscow 'idi nahui'.

 

You have no points - just a concoction of contradictory racist, Russophobic, West is uber alles miasms.

[Josh]

1 hour ago, Strannik said:

Why, there was Libya and Iraq and many more... But the point is the same - countries do what they perceive their natsec requires. 

Fair enough. Russia then has earned its Iraq/Afghanistan 2. The Iraq war was the single biggest US foreign policy failure of the century. Perhaps since the civil war, really, though I’d argue that was domestic politics and doesn’t count as a decision.

[Josh]

1 hour ago, Strannik said:

You have no points - just a concoction of contradictory racist, Russophobic, West is uber alles miasms.

I think his point is being under Russian control sucked and that he isn’t arguing the west is superior in all ways, just that he personally would rather the west have the upper hand over Russia than ever risk Poland coming under Russian control again.

But that’s my interpretation; I shouldn’t put words in his mouth.

[Strannik]

21 minutes ago, Josh said:

Fair enough. Russia then has earned its Iraq/Afghanistan 2. The Iraq war was the single biggest US foreign policy failure of the century. Perhaps since the civil war, really, though I’d argue that was domestic politics and doesn’t count as a decision.

Agree on Iraq (truly a war of choice), but it's incomparable to Ukraine importance-wise. Even Taiwan (to US) is not in the same league.

Edited July 2, 2023 by Strannik

[Strannik]

12 minutes ago, Josh said:

I think his point is being under Russian control sucked and that he isn’t arguing the west is superior in all ways, just that he personally would rather the west have the upper hand over Russia than ever risk Poland coming under Russian control again.

But that’s my interpretation; I shouldn’t put words in his mouth.

He is all over the place and his only cohesive thought is that the West should be on top by any means possible.

And it requires some gargantuan suspension of reality to make a case that Russia had designs for Poland since 1989.

[futon]

1 hour ago, Strannik said:

Agree on Iraq (truly a war of choice), but it's incomparable to Ukraine importance-wise. Even Taiwan (to US) is not in the same league.

The PRC is a very big country. Very big population and lots of natural resources. There's enough mass in the PRC to draw the surrounding countries into its orbit. What enables that is the human element. Sure there's the idea that a country ought to have will to do what they want in their borders. So if they want to make a bunch of facial recognition cameras all over Xinjiang, have censorship control on the China-net, have soicial point system, then that's up to them right? Ok, but then.. what happens to how the surrounding countries look at the PRC? So there's that PRC domestic scene and then being coupled with the external policies such as the 9 dash line, support to DPRK, threats to Taiwan, and efforts in normalizing the infringment of Senkaku islands.. there's too much negative that even the colossal PRC attraction mass can't finish drawing in. So due to the strategic influence that the fate of Taiwan has, important-wise measurement goes up for some surrounding countries.. most in particular for Japan. This strategic situation around Taiwan alone already makes Taiwan very important for Japan, even more so than the PRC, because the PRC already has the mass potential to draw in surrounding countries, if only it can improve its trust ratings. So then for Japan, on top of the strategic importance comes other factors.. both are democracies (even if an over used point, it's still a point that matters) and both have good friendship. So for Taiwan, so long as Japan makes necessary preparations to make it feasibile, Japan must defend Taiwan, even if it has to depend on the US to do much heavy lifting on it. Even if Taiwan is not directly as high important-wise, its still more beneficial to the US. But then Japan's necessity to take action to help defend Taiwan could be used as something to knock the PRC some notches down via a war that ties it up with Taiwan and Japan. So the message to the PRC, don't let regional countries PRC, Japan, and Taiwan get played into getting involved in a big war. Although unfair to say since the US does put many naval assets into immediate threat, so the US would be getting played by itself by that thinking. But I'm not very confident that the PRC is patient enough to let an opportunity slip by, be it 2026/7 or sometime later.. 2035... 2042... 2050.. Yet in, Japan will have 1500 long range missiles amount other attributes to honor that necessity to defend of Taiwan.  That necessity to defend becomes null only if Taiwan chooses to merge into the PRC by Taiwan's population sentiment and diplomacy. But that isn't happening because of the beginning points of the post, among other reasons. 

In Taiwan:

 

[urbanoid]

4 hours ago, Josh said:

I think his point is being under Russian control sucked and that he isn’t arguing the west is superior in all ways, just that he personally would rather the west have the upper hand over Russia than ever risk Poland coming under Russian control again.

But that’s my interpretation; I shouldn’t put words in his mouth.

The West that we were joining institutionally in the late 1990s and early 2000s has changed since then and... not for the better in my opinion. It's still a better alternative, but we have to be very cautious and in many cases stick to our points even if it means major political conflict.

What I said is that Russia has every prerequisite to be a peaceful, democratic and wealthy country, if it indeed had been one the Ukrainians would be less likely to seek alternatives and a lot of countries would be seeking closer relations, probably including even mine. That would translate to political clout that Russia has in those countries, because it would be a natural consequence of such ties - that's pretty much how the US operates. That doesn't necessarily mean that the Ukrainians would have decided they don't want to have an independent state anymore, but... would it really matter?

Unfortunately Russia chooses to operate differently in pretty much every way. Apart from rather unimpressive economic offer there's corruption, wrong approach to the relations between the state and the citizens, instead of actual democracy there has to be some 'dear leader'/'good tsar', that occasionally speaks against bad boyars. There's a drive for the 'empire', not like the 'American Empire' based on trade and military alliances, but an actual one, straight from the 19th century. Unfortunately 19th century is what Russia wishes would come back after the 20th, instead of proceeding to 21st and understanding that certain things are no longer acceptable. 

[Rick]

6 hours ago, Josh said:

Fair enough. Russia then has earned its Iraq/Afghanistan 2. The Iraq war was the single biggest US foreign policy failure of the century. Perhaps since the civil war, really, though I’d argue that was domestic politics and doesn’t count as a decision.

Allow a short interruption and then we will return to the regular scheduled Russia debate. In reference to the bolden part, I would disagree. They, and Afghanistan,  may have been sloppily handled, but there has not been a repeat of 9/11 and the Middle East hasn't been a flashpoint for the U.S. in a number of years. 

The "single biggest US foreign policy failure of the century" has been President Biden's push on the expansion of the sin of L.G.B.T. blah, blah, blah around the world. 

[Josh]

6 hours ago, Strannik said:

He is all over the place and his only cohesive thought is that the West should be on top by any means possible.

And it requires some gargantuan suspension of reality to make a case that Russia had designs for Poland since 1989.

Not buying the last paragraph. I think Russia would gladly take the Sulwaki gap if it could just snap its fingers and own in. Plus asking the poles to ignore 1941-1989 seems like quite the gesture; look at how riled up Russia gets over “nazies” to this day despite them having rather minimal representation in German or Ukrainian parliament.

Edited July 2, 2023 by Josh

[Josh]

6 hours ago, Strannik said:

Agree on Iraq (truly a war of choice), but it's incomparable to Ukraine importance-wise. Even Taiwan (to US) is not in the same league.

It is still a war of choice, even if it’s on the Russian doorstep rather than the other side of the world. And like Iraq, it is an extremely expensive war of choice that has only detracted from the security of the country that started it.

[Josh]

1 hour ago, Rick said:

Allow a short interruption and then we will return to the regular scheduled Russia debate. In reference to the bolden part, I would disagree. They, and Afghanistan,  may have been sloppily handled, but there has not been a repeat of 9/11 and the Middle East hasn't been a flashpoint for the U.S. in a number of years. 

I don’t think Iraq had anything to do with Islamic terrorism. I think the pre war situation was perfectly sustainable. And I think the efforts there allowed Irans influence to grow hugely and wasted a vast amount of resources that could have been invested in rebuilding the military to deter other great powers.

[Rick]

2 minutes ago, Josh said:

I don’t think Iraq had anything to do with Islamic terrorism. I think the pre war situation was perfectly sustainable. And I think the efforts there allowed Irans influence to grow hugely and wasted a vast amount of resources that could have been invested in rebuilding the military to deter other great powers.

Could be. Anything except peace is possible in the Middle East. 

[urbanoid]

26 minutes ago, Josh said:

I don’t think Iraq had anything to do with Islamic terrorism. I think the pre war situation was perfectly sustainable. And I think the efforts there allowed Irans influence to grow hugely and wasted a vast amount of resources that could have been invested in rebuilding the military to deter other great powers.

Iraq had a lot to do with the ridiculous notion that you can enter the ME country, depose a dictator and establish a liberal democracy, which will affect the whole region by its shining example.

We can't even really say that it was about oil, as the US had (and still has) fuck-all to do with their oil. Actually I remember when the US was still present in Iraq and the companies from countries who were very much opposed to the invasion in the first place (France and Russia) were getting oil concessions.

If there was any 'geopolitical' idea behind the invasion it must have been badly misguided. The US position in the ME didn't benefit in any way, quite the contrary. OTOH the Iranians were allowed to spread their influence.

[futon]

1 hour ago, urbanoid said:

Iraq had a lot to do with the ridiculous notion that you can enter the ME country, depose a dictator and establish a liberal democracy, which will affect the whole region by its shining example.

...

And where did that ridiculus notion stem from? Certainly not Vietnam.. it was grounded in the old glory narrative. 1990s, Americans dazzled by winning the Cold War, US justification for its global roles with Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers, while MSM pounded on Japanese right wingers and their "historical revisionism". Fulun Gong hunting PRC goes on the WTO via D+R's blessing and the same ridiculus notion lends its naivety to people thinking "if they get middle class, then they'll become democracy". But then the indicative Liu Xiao bo's lockup could not sway the tidal wave of ballooning trade dependency as the taste of cheap products at Walmart has achieved its stay and consumption demand, the idea of "if they get middle class, then they'll become democracy" just shrugged off and tossed along with other average level American citizen held principles and that trade expansion with the PRC normalized. Then came another naive one with principles be damned.. "if trade is high, then war can't happen".. so eat it up more. 

It's that glory narrative that enabled it. And most here still remain silent on those many blah blah important points, failing to incorporate that reality into their own blah blahs as it happened away from the US/Euro-centric perspective's locality. Integrity be damned.

Edited July 2, 2023 by futon