US Politics Mega-thread - Page 5519

You have another long post on NATO which I will touch upon later, sometime this week (probably), and I still need to discuss Clinton's record. [Alright, let's start with the long-overdue critique.


And this whole post is horseshit.

You're just trying to be contrarian without providing any meaningful figures or evidence to back up your assertions that clear power indicators of Russian decline are baloney.

For instance, demographic decline is perhaps one of the fundamental indicators of economic and military power. Demographics are what allowed France to dominate Europe from the 16th to mid-19th century through their massive population advantage over the rest of Europe, and demographics are what propelled Great Britain, and later Germany, to the forefront and to French decline. Demographics are why China is the rising power, yet faces quite severe economic hardships in the future, and why the notion of an oncoming a geriatric peace in the next few decades is not unrealistic in the slightest. It's even more true today, where with high life expectancy, decline in the workforce corresponds with growing disparity between workers and dependents, and the growing fiscal need for social security and medical care for the elderly, to say nothing of the necessary increases in average worker productivity to keep an economy growing, if the size of a workforce is declining. You tell me how Russia can lose over half of it's net population by the end of the 21st century and still "grow" as a Great Power, without accounting for the brain drain and other health factors that Russia currently faces, because at current fertility rates, that's what's going to happen.

And demographic numbers are notoriously difficult to change without radical shifts in government and immigration policies. Japan for instance has tried running major fertility campaigns to little avail, and unless they're able to effect a massive change in their national culture and start taking on boatloads of immigrants, it's not going to change. Their rapid demographic decline is, fundamentally, why their economy has been in the doldrums for the past few decades, despite the intense focus on mechanization and on robots to fill the growing shortfall. France faced a similar problem in the late 19th and early 20th century, as German population continued to explode while French population growth stagnated, mitigated by being one of the few net migrant positive European nations in the period, and the demographic catastrophe for France that was World War One was only mitigated by the massive influx of migrants to France from the colonies or Europe. Demographics are long-term trends with well-noted consequences, and to say that we cannot predict the influence they will have in the future power projection capabilities of a country is willfully denying the facts.

Beyond this, Russia, since the 1990s, has seen its global influence in perpetual recession with the collapse of the USSR. The loss of the Visegrad states, the loss of the Balkans, the loss of the Baltics, and the current erosion of Russian former monopoly in the Central Asian states (for anyone who actually pays attention to it, the growth of Chinese investment and interests in the region directly challenges Russia's former primacy in the region: for instance, Russia use to be the only power capable of shipping/pipe-lining petroleum or natural gas out of the region which gave them significant clout: not anymore). The Wars in Georgia and even the Ukraine have been attempts to temporarily reverse the trends, but have been nothing if not been damaging to Russia as a whole. The whole kerfuffle over Ukraine has as much to do with the pro-Russian government of Ukraine being ousted by pro-EU partisans and Russia not wanting Sevastapol under possibly NATO/EU control as with anything else. That of course brings of the problems of Russian geography, and the problems they've historically face in building global power projection when they need to maintain 4 separate fleets (Black, Baltic, Arctic, Far East), and a vast, relatively underpopulated land empire.

The Russian economy still remains tethered to their oil fortunes to prop it up, as the remaining sectors of the economy remains underdeveloped/invested, as their case of "dutch disease" is both well-known and still entirely unaddressed. Without even commenting on their present fiscal/monetary/currency woes (which are actually quite severe, and a collapse in the ruble over it or somesuch will cause lasting economic damage), the Russian economy is in desperate need of FDI in non-petroleum/natural gas sectors, and there are systemic reasons as to why it's not showing up. Even if a turnaround is in the cards in the medium-term (it's not happening so long as sanctions remain in place), it's still going to have to grow at a sufficient pace to keep the metaphorical neck of the Russian economy above the water in terms of demographic decline.

This is without touching the state of Russia's military (which, while certainly better than it was 10 years ago, when the intelligence community doubted the majority of Russian nuclear missiles could even launch, is still regionally limited, and the most important part of the nuclear triad, the nuclear submarines, remains in dismal condition).

For the record, Russia is a Great Power. My point in that post was to note that in the traditional, military-industrial focused definition Russia is not, simply due to their limited power projection capabilities on a global scale. However, in the broader, modern definition of "power", Germany Japan, and even arguably India and Brazil are construed as "Great Powers", heck even South Korea, despite these countries having only a regional capacity for military operation. The Russian economy is still large and essential (being anywhere between the 13th and 6th, depending on if you're using PPP or nominal GDP), and no one denies that they remain a major regional player. However, to say that the long-term indicators do NOT point at Russian decline being in the cards is just being grossly ignorant of the fundamentals of power, as Russia's current position in most indicators of power are in either relative and/or absolute decline.

Your dismissal of basic indicators of economic and military strength and the fundamentals of "power" is moderately surprising, but mostly just an indicator you likely haven't scratched the basic corpus of IR literature.
I'll start you off.
The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, Paul Kennedy
This is probably the most relevant to the above.

And for follow up.
The Future of Power, Robert Nye
Theory of International Politics, Kenneth Waltz
Power & Interdependence, Keohane & Nye


And please, no "whataboutisms": it is not relevant that the US is in relative decline when we're discussing the strong possibility of absolute decline of Russia. If you did a side-by-side comparison of the United States and Russia, the United States is in far better condition, both short- and long-, in pretty much every relevant "power" category.


There are plenty of criticisms you can levy against Saudi Arabia, as a state and as an ally, but they're the best we've got at present in the region, and we need to make do with what we have as, at the very least, they are just as threatened by radical Islamic jihadist movements, and ISIL, as we are.

In the column of "allies we aren't happy with" Israel and Turkey also fall here, as the continued Palestinian occupation (and from it, our support of Israel) is probably the most important issue that undermines our credibility in (and the stability of) the region, and Turkey has been, well. Between problems with the Kurds and Endrogan cozying up to Putin and the whole demanding extradition of Gulen, is not the staunch ally we used to have.

Really, the only reliable ally of the US in the region has been the Kurds.

I understand the Israeli security complex very well, but the Occupation is quite frankly detrimental to Israel's own security, let alone the stability of the region, but politically it's too complicated to untangle. But let's not linger too much on that. For those of you interested, The Gatekeepers (2012) is a fantastic film to watch if you want to learn more about the security implications of the Occupation.


Rubbish.

NATO as it exists continues to serve a multitude of purposes, from the extension of a nuclear umbrella and deterrence to Europe, and the prevention of nuclear, efficient intelligence sharing and counter-terrorism coordination, basic conventional deterrence and the preservation of Eastern European territorial integrity, to even simple command/equipment interoperability that drastically improves the ability of NATO membership militaries to operate in conjunction with one another. Even if the traditional role of NATO as an anti-Russian defensive pact is far less relevant in the modern day, NATO remains the cornerstone of a stable European security environment.

There are of course disagreements in the alliance as to the continued evolution of NATO, but there has been nothing, outside of Trump's ludicrous comments, that actually point to the development of an actual fracture of the alliance.

Your comments here, simply put, highlight a gross lack of understanding of NATO's full extent and capacity, and utility in furthering US security interests. "Does not serve a positive purpose" my ass.


1) Imperialism. Well, thats one way to view NATO intervention in the former Yugoslavia I guess. The well-documented ethnic cleansing that was taking place had no part in it I guess, or the deliberate targeting of civilians by the Serbs and Sebrenica I guess, or the general ineffectiveness of UN Peacekeepers....I guess. No, we did it to establish pro-Western governments. Nevermind that any such government would take years to set up, the economy in the area were shattered, we left the formation of the government/state to be supervised and mediated by the UN, and the Serb leaders were put under trial for war crimes, no.

Intervention in the former Yugoslavia is one of the least debatable moves the United States has done in quite some time, and while there are plenty of things to criticize in our record of interventions, the former Yugoslavia is not one of them. Yes, I'm sure that the eventual installation of a pro-EU/NATO government was a plus, but we could've done the same with the Serbs (and the Serbs are even now still leaning more with NATO than with Russia). US foreign policy has, generally, been dictated by the "4 P's", Power, Peace, Prosperity, and Principles. Yugoslavia is a case where our intervention was primarily lead by humanitarian concerns as opposed to any thoughts of expanding influence in the region, and, to be quite frank, we were fairly late to push through the intervention.

2) Those of you skeptical, LL is correct, Russia did oppose the Bosnia and Kosovo interventions. Officially, it was because our interventions "unduely" favored the Bosniaks and Kosovars and that we weren't giving the Serbs a fair shake (or were overlooking Bosnian/Kosovar atrocities), and it may even be true (though when there was ethnic cleansing being conducted and documented, I find this claim for equivalence amusing). The Russians mostly just wanted a seat at the table and some say in the intervention/outcome. But, really, the dissolution of the Yugoslavia and the fall of the USSR must have seemed quite similar, and I wouldn't doubt they saw the parallels between the Serbs and themselves, to say nothing of feelings of Slavic bonds of brotherhood.

3) I find it sad that we forgot the lessons of the former Yugoslavia and Sebrenica, and have left Syria to fester and continue as it has. The primary, most vocal advocates for a Syrian intervention has always been the State Department (and the foreign policy community), because we, at least, remember. I understand of course that Obama is afraid of another Iraq and the political considerations that the state of the country has lead him to refuse any assistance, but our failure to properly intervene will be a stain on him, much like Somalia or Rwanda was for Clinton, and a blot on our record as a country. I however have faith that Hillary remembers Rwanda, remembers Sebrenica, and most of all the consequences and moral evils/complicity of inaction.