Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting!
NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.
Asking allies to pay is one thing. I think I’ve made clear I don’t like antagonizing our allies for minor benefits because I don’t think it’ll ultimately be better for anyone; but if we’re, say, building a base in SK to help deter NK aggression I don’t mind SK covering some of the cost. On the scale of nations the difference between us paying and them paying will be kinda small anyway. Far more offensive to me is the idea that because we’re helping defend someone, they’re obligated to forego competing with us commercially. Did anyone ever agree to that? Or are we just trying to bully people into serving our interests instead of their own?
Japan is kind of a special case, because if I’m not mistaken we forced them to put in their constitution a ban on forming a military. Frankly, given that, I don’t think we have a right to demand a penny from them. What, are we gonna keep raising the rates on threat of leaving them out in the cold, all while they’re powerless to defend themselves?
On January 26 2020 11:19 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:
On January 26 2020 09:29 ShoCkeyy wrote: The full video of Trump asking to fire the ambassador to Ukraine has been released. You can watch it at the 43 minute mark.
Currently on the move but I’ll post the video when I get a chance or if some else can post it?
It takes the guy less than a minute to convince Trump to get rid of her, just by saying she's from the Clinton administration and that the ambassador was telling people Trump would be impeached. Trump has a real tone change compared to the rest of the dinner when he says the 'get rid of her, take her out, do it' part. He does sound agitated/serious.
The Ukraine part starts few minutes earlier around 39mins. Trump seems overly surprised to hear Ukraine has oil.
The rest of the vid is kind of interesting if you want to know how a lobbyist dinner with Trump is. Lots of ass kissing and lots of bad takes.
On 8 mins where they shit on South Korea, and Trump shows he has no clue why the US is even there or what the Korea war was about.
11min he talks about the US taking in billions from the tariffs. None of the businessmen affirm him because they know it's bullshit lol
On 16mins Trump says 'WTO is a weapon to hurt the United States. And the European Union the same thing, it's a group of countries that got together to screw the United States, and they are probably worse than China'
33m30s Kanye West will pull the millennials to Trump
He makes a good point about SK. I would trade Trudeau for Trump in an instant.
Care to elaborate what point about SK you like?
I didn't hear anything exceptional. Negotiate trade in favor of U.S.A. Hints that U.S.A. military shouldn't be there. Sadly I don't think he cares about much other than short term GDP and campaign slogans. He's a bad president but the contenders are disastrous imo. Good ones blocked by MSM and the parties.
But I don’t care much about Trudeau. I do, however, care some about South Korea, and listening to that recording all I heard was some grumbling about how South Korea is ruining our steel industry (possibly with *gasp* Chinese steel) and how that’s really very ungrateful of them considering how we’re stopping North Korea from nuking them and all.
Personally I don’t understand what’s to like about that, and I’d be interested to hear what part appeals to you. The protectionism, I guess? The indignation that a state benefiting from our world policing would dare to compete with us commercially? I don’t know specifically what the “shipping Chinese steel on trains” business is about, maybe you do?
I don’t get protectionism’s appeal much honestly. The lazy argument I can make is “look at Trump’s trade war, it’s going bad for us and the stock market freaks out about it sometimes.” And I think it probably has been bad for us, but more broadly the whole premise of protectionism is “we’re going to try to set the rules of international trade to give our businesses a systemic advantage over foreign competition.” Why is that fair? If a foreign business is more efficient than ours but we manage to set the rules such that our business has an unfair advantage and runs them out of business, why is that a good outcome? If we so quickly demonstrate to other countries that we have no interest in fair dealings and will pick their pocket at first opportunity, how can we hope to maintain positive relationships with them, or expect them not to backstab us just as quickly?
Our troop presence in SK adds a twist to this. A lot of people are very critical of our wide military footprint and insistence on policing the world - I don’t like it much myself - but of all our international meddling, putting troops in South Korea to discourage North Korean aggression seems like one of the better causes we’ve taken up. North Korea invading South Korea would be a massive humanitarian catastrophe, and our troop presence meaningfully reduces the likelihood of that happening.
But it’s a bit rich for us to make all this fuss about keeping South Korea “free” and then turn around and say they don’t have the right to compete with us economically. Are they free, or aren’t they? I don’t have a bit of interest in hitting up our allies for protection money, as Trump likes to talk about, but demanding they direct their economy to grow ours rather than their own is even worse to me. Is this not extortion?
In game theory terminology, Trump’s foreign policy generally usually boils down to an “Always Forsake” policy. Shout and threaten our enemies unless they serve our interests; extort our allies out of their lunch money and threaten to sanction them or even refuse to protect them unless they pay up. It’s unabashedly immoral; but even in self-interest terms, it’s probably pretty bad policy. “Always Forsake” makes you an asshole, but also usually means nobody wants to cooperate with you so you’re ultimately worse off, too.
I wish US would stop playing world police and force/allow other countries to grow up. I don't have a problem with Trump asking for more money to cover the cost, if SK wants the US to continue as their bodyguard -- besides wishing they weren't there at all. It's reasonable to ask if it's still worth it to be there.
It's reasonable to ask sure, but you shouldn't need to. A stronger Korea and Japan keeps China's power in check. Do you think it is in US interest to maintain status as the global super power? The notion that everything comes down to money and extorting our allies because we can is misguided foreign policy. We didn't install ourselves into Korea and Japan to be their bodyguard. We installed ourselves there to exert power and influence in Asia.
In my opinion help Korea and Japan become strong enough to stand on their own as good allies, along with other nearby nations scared of China enough to do the same. I'd rather not have US or anyone as a global super power but independent nations in alliance. Doubt US will give up influence and leave, and also doubt SK wants them to.
Allowing Korea and Japan to militarize would just create an arms race in Asia (likely the world once you give up the idea of nuclear proliferation. The problem with independent nations in alliance is that they must have similar power levels. Do we want every nation in the world holding nuclear weapons? I'd say absolutely not. I'd rather not have the US or anyone as a global super power either, but I think it is better than the cold war.
Disagree about consequences of allowing them to have proper militaries. I don't think it would be necessary for every nation in the world to hold nuclear weapons. Independent nation alliance system is not achievable tomorrow. I believe we can get there eventually. To me it's a good that should be pursued. Your argument makes sense to me. Maybe you see my view as naively idealistic. That's OK.
It takes the guy less than a minute to convince Trump to get rid of her, just by saying she's from the Clinton administration and that the ambassador was telling people Trump would be impeached. Trump has a real tone change compared to the rest of the dinner when he says the 'get rid of her, take her out, do it' part. He does sound agitated/serious.
The Ukraine part starts few minutes earlier around 39mins. Trump seems overly surprised to hear Ukraine has oil.
The rest of the vid is kind of interesting if you want to know how a lobbyist dinner with Trump is. Lots of ass kissing and lots of bad takes.
On 8 mins where they shit on South Korea, and Trump shows he has no clue why the US is even there or what the Korea war was about.
11min he talks about the US taking in billions from the tariffs. None of the businessmen affirm him because they know it's bullshit lol
On 16mins Trump says 'WTO is a weapon to hurt the United States. And the European Union the same thing, it's a group of countries that got together to screw the United States, and they are probably worse than China'
33m30s Kanye West will pull the millennials to Trump
He makes a good point about SK. I would trade Trudeau for Trump in an instant.
Care to elaborate what point about SK you like?
I didn't hear anything exceptional. Negotiate trade in favor of U.S.A. Hints that U.S.A. military shouldn't be there. Sadly I don't think he cares about much other than short term GDP and campaign slogans. He's a bad president but the contenders are disastrous imo. Good ones blocked by MSM and the parties.
But I don’t care much about Trudeau. I do, however, care some about South Korea, and listening to that recording all I heard was some grumbling about how South Korea is ruining our steel industry (possibly with *gasp* Chinese steel) and how that’s really very ungrateful of them considering how we’re stopping North Korea from nuking them and all.
Personally I don’t understand what’s to like about that, and I’d be interested to hear what part appeals to you. The protectionism, I guess? The indignation that a state benefiting from our world policing would dare to compete with us commercially? I don’t know specifically what the “shipping Chinese steel on trains” business is about, maybe you do?
I don’t get protectionism’s appeal much honestly. The lazy argument I can make is “look at Trump’s trade war, it’s going bad for us and the stock market freaks out about it sometimes.” And I think it probably has been bad for us, but more broadly the whole premise of protectionism is “we’re going to try to set the rules of international trade to give our businesses a systemic advantage over foreign competition.” Why is that fair? If a foreign business is more efficient than ours but we manage to set the rules such that our business has an unfair advantage and runs them out of business, why is that a good outcome? If we so quickly demonstrate to other countries that we have no interest in fair dealings and will pick their pocket at first opportunity, how can we hope to maintain positive relationships with them, or expect them not to backstab us just as quickly?
Our troop presence in SK adds a twist to this. A lot of people are very critical of our wide military footprint and insistence on policing the world - I don’t like it much myself - but of all our international meddling, putting troops in South Korea to discourage North Korean aggression seems like one of the better causes we’ve taken up. North Korea invading South Korea would be a massive humanitarian catastrophe, and our troop presence meaningfully reduces the likelihood of that happening.
But it’s a bit rich for us to make all this fuss about keeping South Korea “free” and then turn around and say they don’t have the right to compete with us economically. Are they free, or aren’t they? I don’t have a bit of interest in hitting up our allies for protection money, as Trump likes to talk about, but demanding they direct their economy to grow ours rather than their own is even worse to me. Is this not extortion?
In game theory terminology, Trump’s foreign policy generally usually boils down to an “Always Forsake” policy. Shout and threaten our enemies unless they serve our interests; extort our allies out of their lunch money and threaten to sanction them or even refuse to protect them unless they pay up. It’s unabashedly immoral; but even in self-interest terms, it’s probably pretty bad policy. “Always Forsake” makes you an asshole, but also usually means nobody wants to cooperate with you so you’re ultimately worse off, too.
I wish US would stop playing world police and force/allow other countries to grow up. I don't have a problem with Trump asking for more money to cover the cost, if SK wants the US to continue as their bodyguard -- besides wishing they weren't there at all. It's reasonable to ask if it's still worth it to be there.
It's reasonable to ask sure, but you shouldn't need to. A stronger Korea and Japan keeps China's power in check. Do you think it is in US interest to maintain status as the global super power? The notion that everything comes down to money and extorting our allies because we can is misguided foreign policy. We didn't install ourselves into Korea and Japan to be their bodyguard. We installed ourselves there to exert power and influence in Asia.
In my opinion help Korea and Japan become strong enough to stand on their own as good allies, along with other nearby nations scared of China enough to do the same. I'd rather not have US or anyone as a global super power but independent nations in alliance. Doubt US will give up influence and leave, and also doubt SK wants them to.
Allowing Korea and Japan to militarize would just create an arms race in Asia (likely the world once you give up the idea of nuclear proliferation. The problem with independent nations in alliance is that they must have similar power levels. Do we want every nation in the world holding nuclear weapons? I'd say absolutely not. I'd rather not have the US or anyone as a global super power either, but I think it is better than the cold war.
Disagree about consequences of allowing them to have proper militaries. I don't think it would be necessary for every nation in the world to hold nuclear weapons. Independent nation alliance system is not achievable tomorrow. I believe we can get there eventually. To me it's a good that should be pursued. Your argument makes sense to me. Maybe you see my view as naively idealistic. That's OK.
I'll elaborate on why I think your view is naively idealistic. Crimea is the example of a non nuclear power being abandoned by the nuclear powers. Sure we made a gesture of sanctions, but it would not have happened if Ukraine was still a nuclear power. The nuclear weapon states made it clear that sovereignty is only upheld when it is politically expedient for them. The situation in Korea and Japan currently is that US citizens are in the line of fire so there is an easy US obligation to defend them. Especially under an isolationist president like Trump, why would the US get involved if it wasn't directly under attack?
Consider current US foreign policy regarding Iran. Trump made it clear that he didn't retaliate because of no US casualties. Reality is that concussion symptoms don't manifest immediately and there are likely a non zero number of casualties. The US is also in a position where their credibility is completely in the dumpster due to reneging on the Iran treaty. How can Japan or Korea trust that the US will come to their aid when presidents can trash treaties for absolutely no reason?
I would not be opposed to us working towards what you're talking about, but I don't see it as a possibility just looking at recent history. Japan and Korea cannot be a co-equal powers to China without their own nuclear weapons in the current world order.
On January 26 2020 11:19 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:
On January 26 2020 09:29 ShoCkeyy wrote: The full video of Trump asking to fire the ambassador to Ukraine has been released. You can watch it at the 43 minute mark.
Currently on the move but I’ll post the video when I get a chance or if some else can post it?
It takes the guy less than a minute to convince Trump to get rid of her, just by saying she's from the Clinton administration and that the ambassador was telling people Trump would be impeached. Trump has a real tone change compared to the rest of the dinner when he says the 'get rid of her, take her out, do it' part. He does sound agitated/serious.
The Ukraine part starts few minutes earlier around 39mins. Trump seems overly surprised to hear Ukraine has oil.
The rest of the vid is kind of interesting if you want to know how a lobbyist dinner with Trump is. Lots of ass kissing and lots of bad takes.
On 8 mins where they shit on South Korea, and Trump shows he has no clue why the US is even there or what the Korea war was about.
11min he talks about the US taking in billions from the tariffs. None of the businessmen affirm him because they know it's bullshit lol
On 16mins Trump says 'WTO is a weapon to hurt the United States. And the European Union the same thing, it's a group of countries that got together to screw the United States, and they are probably worse than China'
33m30s Kanye West will pull the millennials to Trump
He makes a good point about SK. I would trade Trudeau for Trump in an instant.
Care to elaborate what point about SK you like?
I didn't hear anything exceptional. Negotiate trade in favor of U.S.A. Hints that U.S.A. military shouldn't be there. Sadly I don't think he cares about much other than short term GDP and campaign slogans. He's a bad president but the contenders are disastrous imo. Good ones blocked by MSM and the parties.
But I don’t care much about Trudeau. I do, however, care some about South Korea, and listening to that recording all I heard was some grumbling about how South Korea is ruining our steel industry (possibly with *gasp* Chinese steel) and how that’s really very ungrateful of them considering how we’re stopping North Korea from nuking them and all.
Personally I don’t understand what’s to like about that, and I’d be interested to hear what part appeals to you. The protectionism, I guess? The indignation that a state benefiting from our world policing would dare to compete with us commercially? I don’t know specifically what the “shipping Chinese steel on trains” business is about, maybe you do?
I don’t get protectionism’s appeal much honestly. The lazy argument I can make is “look at Trump’s trade war, it’s going bad for us and the stock market freaks out about it sometimes.” And I think it probably has been bad for us, but more broadly the whole premise of protectionism is “we’re going to try to set the rules of international trade to give our businesses a systemic advantage over foreign competition.” Why is that fair? If a foreign business is more efficient than ours but we manage to set the rules such that our business has an unfair advantage and runs them out of business, why is that a good outcome? If we so quickly demonstrate to other countries that we have no interest in fair dealings and will pick their pocket at first opportunity, how can we hope to maintain positive relationships with them, or expect them not to backstab us just as quickly?
Our troop presence in SK adds a twist to this. A lot of people are very critical of our wide military footprint and insistence on policing the world - I don’t like it much myself - but of all our international meddling, putting troops in South Korea to discourage North Korean aggression seems like one of the better causes we’ve taken up. North Korea invading South Korea would be a massive humanitarian catastrophe, and our troop presence meaningfully reduces the likelihood of that happening.
But it’s a bit rich for us to make all this fuss about keeping South Korea “free” and then turn around and say they don’t have the right to compete with us economically. Are they free, or aren’t they? I don’t have a bit of interest in hitting up our allies for protection money, as Trump likes to talk about, but demanding they direct their economy to grow ours rather than their own is even worse to me. Is this not extortion?
In game theory terminology, Trump’s foreign policy generally usually boils down to an “Always Forsake” policy. Shout and threaten our enemies unless they serve our interests; extort our allies out of their lunch money and threaten to sanction them or even refuse to protect them unless they pay up. It’s unabashedly immoral; but even in self-interest terms, it’s probably pretty bad policy. “Always Forsake” makes you an asshole, but also usually means nobody wants to cooperate with you so you’re ultimately worse off, too.
I wish US would stop playing world police and force/allow other countries to grow up. I don't have a problem with Trump asking for more money to cover the cost, if SK wants the US to continue as their bodyguard -- besides wishing they weren't there at all. It's reasonable to ask if it's still worth it to be there.
It's reasonable to ask sure, but you shouldn't need to. A stronger Korea and Japan keeps China's power in check. Do you think it is in US interest to maintain status as the global super power? The notion that everything comes down to money and extorting our allies because we can is misguided foreign policy. We didn't install ourselves into Korea and Japan to be their bodyguard. We installed ourselves there to exert power and influence in Asia.
In my opinion help Korea and Japan become strong enough to stand on their own as good allies, along with other nearby nations scared of China enough to do the same. I'd rather not have US or anyone as a global super power but independent nations in alliance. Doubt US will give up influence and leave, and also doubt SK wants them to.
I'm actually learning Japanese as a hobby, but it made me think that Japanese and Korean culture has always been very strongly tied to China. We had a look in my language class at some typical Japanese cultural traditions such as flower arrangements, tea ceremonies, various Buddhist rituals and schools, and it can all be directly traced from contact with China. Same for language, there are many words of Chinese origin in Japanese, and obviously they use Chinese symbols for writing. So on that level, which is a bit naive obviously, wouldn't it make much more sense for Japan and Korea to be allied with China? The USA wouldn't like it one bit if Mexico was an ally of China and had all sorts of naval bases there and so on. In Europe we wouldn't like it if, idk, Italy was a Russian client state. It would create incredible tension. I haven't been convinced that US presence in that region is not a destabilizing factor and that it is preferable to a more natural Chinese regional hegemony.
Same with Iran honestly. Isn't it more natural for Iran to be the regional power when it comes to the Middle East's shiite population instead of the USA?
On January 26 2020 11:19 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:
On January 26 2020 09:29 ShoCkeyy wrote: The full video of Trump asking to fire the ambassador to Ukraine has been released. You can watch it at the 43 minute mark.
Currently on the move but I’ll post the video when I get a chance or if some else can post it?
It takes the guy less than a minute to convince Trump to get rid of her, just by saying she's from the Clinton administration and that the ambassador was telling people Trump would be impeached. Trump has a real tone change compared to the rest of the dinner when he says the 'get rid of her, take her out, do it' part. He does sound agitated/serious.
The Ukraine part starts few minutes earlier around 39mins. Trump seems overly surprised to hear Ukraine has oil.
The rest of the vid is kind of interesting if you want to know how a lobbyist dinner with Trump is. Lots of ass kissing and lots of bad takes.
On 8 mins where they shit on South Korea, and Trump shows he has no clue why the US is even there or what the Korea war was about.
11min he talks about the US taking in billions from the tariffs. None of the businessmen affirm him because they know it's bullshit lol
On 16mins Trump says 'WTO is a weapon to hurt the United States. And the European Union the same thing, it's a group of countries that got together to screw the United States, and they are probably worse than China'
33m30s Kanye West will pull the millennials to Trump
He makes a good point about SK. I would trade Trudeau for Trump in an instant.
Care to elaborate what point about SK you like?
I didn't hear anything exceptional. Negotiate trade in favor of U.S.A. Hints that U.S.A. military shouldn't be there. Sadly I don't think he cares about much other than short term GDP and campaign slogans. He's a bad president but the contenders are disastrous imo. Good ones blocked by MSM and the parties.
But I don’t care much about Trudeau. I do, however, care some about South Korea, and listening to that recording all I heard was some grumbling about how South Korea is ruining our steel industry (possibly with *gasp* Chinese steel) and how that’s really very ungrateful of them considering how we’re stopping North Korea from nuking them and all.
Personally I don’t understand what’s to like about that, and I’d be interested to hear what part appeals to you. The protectionism, I guess? The indignation that a state benefiting from our world policing would dare to compete with us commercially? I don’t know specifically what the “shipping Chinese steel on trains” business is about, maybe you do?
I don’t get protectionism’s appeal much honestly. The lazy argument I can make is “look at Trump’s trade war, it’s going bad for us and the stock market freaks out about it sometimes.” And I think it probably has been bad for us, but more broadly the whole premise of protectionism is “we’re going to try to set the rules of international trade to give our businesses a systemic advantage over foreign competition.” Why is that fair? If a foreign business is more efficient than ours but we manage to set the rules such that our business has an unfair advantage and runs them out of business, why is that a good outcome? If we so quickly demonstrate to other countries that we have no interest in fair dealings and will pick their pocket at first opportunity, how can we hope to maintain positive relationships with them, or expect them not to backstab us just as quickly?
Our troop presence in SK adds a twist to this. A lot of people are very critical of our wide military footprint and insistence on policing the world - I don’t like it much myself - but of all our international meddling, putting troops in South Korea to discourage North Korean aggression seems like one of the better causes we’ve taken up. North Korea invading South Korea would be a massive humanitarian catastrophe, and our troop presence meaningfully reduces the likelihood of that happening.
But it’s a bit rich for us to make all this fuss about keeping South Korea “free” and then turn around and say they don’t have the right to compete with us economically. Are they free, or aren’t they? I don’t have a bit of interest in hitting up our allies for protection money, as Trump likes to talk about, but demanding they direct their economy to grow ours rather than their own is even worse to me. Is this not extortion?
In game theory terminology, Trump’s foreign policy generally usually boils down to an “Always Forsake” policy. Shout and threaten our enemies unless they serve our interests; extort our allies out of their lunch money and threaten to sanction them or even refuse to protect them unless they pay up. It’s unabashedly immoral; but even in self-interest terms, it’s probably pretty bad policy. “Always Forsake” makes you an asshole, but also usually means nobody wants to cooperate with you so you’re ultimately worse off, too.
I wish US would stop playing world police and force/allow other countries to grow up. I don't have a problem with Trump asking for more money to cover the cost, if SK wants the US to continue as their bodyguard -- besides wishing they weren't there at all. It's reasonable to ask if it's still worth it to be there.
It's reasonable to ask sure, but you shouldn't need to. A stronger Korea and Japan keeps China's power in check. Do you think it is in US interest to maintain status as the global super power? The notion that everything comes down to money and extorting our allies because we can is misguided foreign policy. We didn't install ourselves into Korea and Japan to be their bodyguard. We installed ourselves there to exert power and influence in Asia.
In my opinion help Korea and Japan become strong enough to stand on their own as good allies, along with other nearby nations scared of China enough to do the same. I'd rather not have US or anyone as a global super power but independent nations in alliance. Doubt US will give up influence and leave, and also doubt SK wants them to.
I'm actually learning Japanese as a hobby, but it made me think that Japanese and Korean culture has always been very strongly tied to China. We had a look in my language class at some typical Japanese cultural traditions such as flower arrangements, tea ceremonies, various Buddhist rituals and schools, and it can all be directly traced from contact with China. Same for language, there are many words of Chinese origin in Japanese, and obviously they use Chinese symbols for writing. So on that level, which is a bit naive obviously, wouldn't it make much more sense for Japan and Korea to be allied with China? The USA wouldn't like it one bit if Mexico was an ally of China and had all sorts of naval bases there and so on. In Europe we wouldn't like it if, idk, Italy was a Russian client state. It would create incredible tension. I haven't been convinced that US presence in that region is not a destabilizing factor and that it is preferable to a more natural Chinese regional hegemony.
Same with Iran honestly. Isn't it more natural for Iran to be the regional power when it comes to the Middle East's shiite population instead of the USA?
This is how I feel as well. I can't imagine having to tolerate a powerful country having military bases in all of your neighboring countries and a hostile navy always offshore. The US justifies this by claiming to be a good and moral actor but we all know that that story is increasingly untenable. Some say that if the US doesn't dominate the whole world then China or Russia will do it, but I think there's such a thing as balance of power. It just doesn't seem right for the US to take such a threatening posture across the entire globe.
China's regional hegemony involves the map labels in its region changing to "China". Its neighbours have very good reasons to align against it. Those reasons are the-country-formerly-known-as-tibet, the-country-nobody-is-allowed-to-call-Taiwan, and the-sea-already-called-china-nobody-else-is-allowed-to-fish-in-anymore. There are many issues with the US's foreign policy stance, especially now, but China is aggressively expansionist in a way the US has never been, and its neighbours are very rightly wary of its borders encroaching towards them.
There's also thousands of years of complex history in the region that most westerners are ignorant of. It's tempting to say the nations are all Asian in the way euros are now all European, but the politics are extremely fraught and distrustful. Japan and SK, for example, have 1.3 billion reasons to be strategic parters, and recognise this, but also fucking hate each other due to a legacy of conflict going back well past ww2.
On January 26 2020 11:19 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:
On January 26 2020 09:29 ShoCkeyy wrote: The full video of Trump asking to fire the ambassador to Ukraine has been released. You can watch it at the 43 minute mark.
Currently on the move but I’ll post the video when I get a chance or if some else can post it?
It takes the guy less than a minute to convince Trump to get rid of her, just by saying she's from the Clinton administration and that the ambassador was telling people Trump would be impeached. Trump has a real tone change compared to the rest of the dinner when he says the 'get rid of her, take her out, do it' part. He does sound agitated/serious.
The Ukraine part starts few minutes earlier around 39mins. Trump seems overly surprised to hear Ukraine has oil.
The rest of the vid is kind of interesting if you want to know how a lobbyist dinner with Trump is. Lots of ass kissing and lots of bad takes.
On 8 mins where they shit on South Korea, and Trump shows he has no clue why the US is even there or what the Korea war was about.
11min he talks about the US taking in billions from the tariffs. None of the businessmen affirm him because they know it's bullshit lol
On 16mins Trump says 'WTO is a weapon to hurt the United States. And the European Union the same thing, it's a group of countries that got together to screw the United States, and they are probably worse than China'
33m30s Kanye West will pull the millennials to Trump
He makes a good point about SK. I would trade Trudeau for Trump in an instant.
Care to elaborate what point about SK you like?
I didn't hear anything exceptional. Negotiate trade in favor of U.S.A. Hints that U.S.A. military shouldn't be there. Sadly I don't think he cares about much other than short term GDP and campaign slogans. He's a bad president but the contenders are disastrous imo. Good ones blocked by MSM and the parties.
But I don’t care much about Trudeau. I do, however, care some about South Korea, and listening to that recording all I heard was some grumbling about how South Korea is ruining our steel industry (possibly with *gasp* Chinese steel) and how that’s really very ungrateful of them considering how we’re stopping North Korea from nuking them and all.
Personally I don’t understand what’s to like about that, and I’d be interested to hear what part appeals to you. The protectionism, I guess? The indignation that a state benefiting from our world policing would dare to compete with us commercially? I don’t know specifically what the “shipping Chinese steel on trains” business is about, maybe you do?
I don’t get protectionism’s appeal much honestly. The lazy argument I can make is “look at Trump’s trade war, it’s going bad for us and the stock market freaks out about it sometimes.” And I think it probably has been bad for us, but more broadly the whole premise of protectionism is “we’re going to try to set the rules of international trade to give our businesses a systemic advantage over foreign competition.” Why is that fair? If a foreign business is more efficient than ours but we manage to set the rules such that our business has an unfair advantage and runs them out of business, why is that a good outcome? If we so quickly demonstrate to other countries that we have no interest in fair dealings and will pick their pocket at first opportunity, how can we hope to maintain positive relationships with them, or expect them not to backstab us just as quickly?
Our troop presence in SK adds a twist to this. A lot of people are very critical of our wide military footprint and insistence on policing the world - I don’t like it much myself - but of all our international meddling, putting troops in South Korea to discourage North Korean aggression seems like one of the better causes we’ve taken up. North Korea invading South Korea would be a massive humanitarian catastrophe, and our troop presence meaningfully reduces the likelihood of that happening.
But it’s a bit rich for us to make all this fuss about keeping South Korea “free” and then turn around and say they don’t have the right to compete with us economically. Are they free, or aren’t they? I don’t have a bit of interest in hitting up our allies for protection money, as Trump likes to talk about, but demanding they direct their economy to grow ours rather than their own is even worse to me. Is this not extortion?
In game theory terminology, Trump’s foreign policy generally usually boils down to an “Always Forsake” policy. Shout and threaten our enemies unless they serve our interests; extort our allies out of their lunch money and threaten to sanction them or even refuse to protect them unless they pay up. It’s unabashedly immoral; but even in self-interest terms, it’s probably pretty bad policy. “Always Forsake” makes you an asshole, but also usually means nobody wants to cooperate with you so you’re ultimately worse off, too.
I wish US would stop playing world police and force/allow other countries to grow up. I don't have a problem with Trump asking for more money to cover the cost, if SK wants the US to continue as their bodyguard -- besides wishing they weren't there at all. It's reasonable to ask if it's still worth it to be there.
It's reasonable to ask sure, but you shouldn't need to. A stronger Korea and Japan keeps China's power in check. Do you think it is in US interest to maintain status as the global super power? The notion that everything comes down to money and extorting our allies because we can is misguided foreign policy. We didn't install ourselves into Korea and Japan to be their bodyguard. We installed ourselves there to exert power and influence in Asia.
In my opinion help Korea and Japan become strong enough to stand on their own as good allies, along with other nearby nations scared of China enough to do the same. I'd rather not have US or anyone as a global super power but independent nations in alliance. Doubt US will give up influence and leave, and also doubt SK wants them to.
I'm actually learning Japanese as a hobby, but it made me think that Japanese and Korean culture has always been very strongly tied to China. We had a look in my language class at some typical Japanese cultural traditions such as flower arrangements, tea ceremonies, various Buddhist rituals and schools, and it can all be directly traced from contact with China. Same for language, there are many words of Chinese origin in Japanese, and obviously they use Chinese symbols for writing. So on that level, which is a bit naive obviously, wouldn't it make much more sense for Japan and Korea to be allied with China? The USA wouldn't like it one bit if Mexico was an ally of China and had all sorts of naval bases there and so on. In Europe we wouldn't like it if, idk, Italy was a Russian client state. It would create incredible tension. I haven't been convinced that US presence in that region is not a destabilizing factor and that it is preferable to a more natural Chinese regional hegemony.
Same with Iran honestly. Isn't it more natural for Iran to be the regional power when it comes to the Middle East's shiite population instead of the USA?
I agree but doubt Japan, Korea and others trust China enough (at all?) to make that kind of alliance. Middle East is a much worse situation in my mind because of the artificial states created from the Ottoman Empire. Paper on artificial states I found insightful.
A draft of Boltons book was seen by NYT and in it he confirms the link between withholding of Ukraine aid and them having to start investigations in Trumps political opponents. What kind of person doesn't want to tell this to congress or public but sell it in a book instead. A book that would come out after the trial too.
Though I guess we already knew Bolton was a shitty person before this.
I wonder if it will change anything on Republican senator side though, while it is a first hand confirmation, it's not like there was much doubt of what happened before this either, the no first hand/ hearsay thing was already just an excuse at this point.
On January 27 2020 06:29 Belisarius wrote: China's regional hegemony involves the map labels in its region changing to "China". Its neighbours have very good reasons to align against it. Those reasons are the-country-formerly-known-as-tibet, the-country-nobody-is-allowed-to-call-Taiwan, and the-sea-already-called-china-nobody-else-is-allowed-to-fish-in-anymore. There are many issues with the US's foreign policy stance, especially now, but China is aggressively expansionist in a way the US has never been, and its neighbours are very rightly wary of its borders encroaching towards them.
There's also thousands of years of complex history in the region that most westerners are ignorant of. It's tempting to say the nations are all Asian in the way euros are now all European, but the politics are extremely fraught and distrustful. Japan and SK, for example, have 1.3 billion reasons to be strategic parters, and recognise this, but also fucking hate each other due to a legacy of conflict going back well past ww2.
The Mexican-American war? Pretty much anything west of the halfway line of the US on the north American continent, excluding Alaska. Prior to that it was other countries occupying land for you.
On January 27 2020 06:29 Belisarius wrote: China's regional hegemony involves the map labels in its region changing to "China". Its neighbours have very good reasons to align against it. Those reasons are the-country-formerly-known-as-tibet, the-country-nobody-is-allowed-to-call-Taiwan, and the-sea-already-called-china-nobody-else-is-allowed-to-fish-in-anymore. There are many issues with the US's foreign policy stance, especially now, but China is aggressively expansionist in a way the US has never been, and its neighbours are very rightly wary of its borders encroaching towards them.
There's also thousands of years of complex history in the region that most westerners are ignorant of. It's tempting to say the nations are all Asian in the way euros are now all European, but the politics are extremely fraught and distrustful. Japan and SK, for example, have 1.3 billion reasons to be strategic parters, and recognise this, but also fucking hate each other due to a legacy of conflict going back well past ww2.
The Mexican-American war? Pretty much anything west of the halfway line of the US on the north American continent, excluding Alaska. Prior to that it was other countries occupying land for you.
The way I understand expansionism, it is not strictly a reference to territory anyway, so I find the claim specious at best. The second half of the 20th century was US expansionism on a level that is unlikely to ever be matched in the future.
On January 27 2020 06:29 Belisarius wrote: China's regional hegemony involves the map labels in its region changing to "China". Its neighbours have very good reasons to align against it. Those reasons are the-country-formerly-known-as-tibet, the-country-nobody-is-allowed-to-call-Taiwan, and the-sea-already-called-china-nobody-else-is-allowed-to-fish-in-anymore. There are many issues with the US's foreign policy stance, especially now, but China is aggressively expansionist in a way the US has never been, and its neighbours are very rightly wary of its borders encroaching towards them.
There's also thousands of years of complex history in the region that most westerners are ignorant of. It's tempting to say the nations are all Asian in the way euros are now all European, but the politics are extremely fraught and distrustful. Japan and SK, for example, have 1.3 billion reasons to be strategic parters, and recognise this, but also fucking hate each other due to a legacy of conflict going back well past ww2.
The Mexican-American war? Pretty much anything west of the halfway line of the US on the north American continent, excluding Alaska. Prior to that it was other countries occupying land for you.
Sure, but if you think a conflict from a century and a half ago has the same bearing on the region as the military bases China built in its neighbours' EEZs in the last couple of years, I don't know what to tell you.
The shift in US foreign policy under Trump does factor in, of course. There's a rapidly crystallising timeline in which a neofascist US faces off against a hyper-authoritarian China for what's left of a planet in ecological collapse. If that eventuates, Japan, SK and, indeed, Australia, will have to do whatever we can to survive.
In the meantime, however, for SK and Japan to turn to China would require them to take a good look at the last year in Xinjiang and Hong Kong, and decide those are outcomes they can tolerate in the long run.
On January 26 2020 11:19 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:
On January 26 2020 09:29 ShoCkeyy wrote: The full video of Trump asking to fire the ambassador to Ukraine has been released. You can watch it at the 43 minute mark.
Currently on the move but I’ll post the video when I get a chance or if some else can post it?
It takes the guy less than a minute to convince Trump to get rid of her, just by saying she's from the Clinton administration and that the ambassador was telling people Trump would be impeached. Trump has a real tone change compared to the rest of the dinner when he says the 'get rid of her, take her out, do it' part. He does sound agitated/serious.
The Ukraine part starts few minutes earlier around 39mins. Trump seems overly surprised to hear Ukraine has oil.
The rest of the vid is kind of interesting if you want to know how a lobbyist dinner with Trump is. Lots of ass kissing and lots of bad takes.
On 8 mins where they shit on South Korea, and Trump shows he has no clue why the US is even there or what the Korea war was about.
11min he talks about the US taking in billions from the tariffs. None of the businessmen affirm him because they know it's bullshit lol
On 16mins Trump says 'WTO is a weapon to hurt the United States. And the European Union the same thing, it's a group of countries that got together to screw the United States, and they are probably worse than China'
33m30s Kanye West will pull the millennials to Trump
He makes a good point about SK. I would trade Trudeau for Trump in an instant.
Care to elaborate what point about SK you like?
I didn't hear anything exceptional. Negotiate trade in favor of U.S.A. Hints that U.S.A. military shouldn't be there. Sadly I don't think he cares about much other than short term GDP and campaign slogans. He's a bad president but the contenders are disastrous imo. Good ones blocked by MSM and the parties.
But I don’t care much about Trudeau. I do, however, care some about South Korea, and listening to that recording all I heard was some grumbling about how South Korea is ruining our steel industry (possibly with *gasp* Chinese steel) and how that’s really very ungrateful of them considering how we’re stopping North Korea from nuking them and all.
Personally I don’t understand what’s to like about that, and I’d be interested to hear what part appeals to you. The protectionism, I guess? The indignation that a state benefiting from our world policing would dare to compete with us commercially? I don’t know specifically what the “shipping Chinese steel on trains” business is about, maybe you do?
I don’t get protectionism’s appeal much honestly. The lazy argument I can make is “look at Trump’s trade war, it’s going bad for us and the stock market freaks out about it sometimes.” And I think it probably has been bad for us, but more broadly the whole premise of protectionism is “we’re going to try to set the rules of international trade to give our businesses a systemic advantage over foreign competition.” Why is that fair? If a foreign business is more efficient than ours but we manage to set the rules such that our business has an unfair advantage and runs them out of business, why is that a good outcome? If we so quickly demonstrate to other countries that we have no interest in fair dealings and will pick their pocket at first opportunity, how can we hope to maintain positive relationships with them, or expect them not to backstab us just as quickly?
Our troop presence in SK adds a twist to this. A lot of people are very critical of our wide military footprint and insistence on policing the world - I don’t like it much myself - but of all our international meddling, putting troops in South Korea to discourage North Korean aggression seems like one of the better causes we’ve taken up. North Korea invading South Korea would be a massive humanitarian catastrophe, and our troop presence meaningfully reduces the likelihood of that happening.
But it’s a bit rich for us to make all this fuss about keeping South Korea “free” and then turn around and say they don’t have the right to compete with us economically. Are they free, or aren’t they? I don’t have a bit of interest in hitting up our allies for protection money, as Trump likes to talk about, but demanding they direct their economy to grow ours rather than their own is even worse to me. Is this not extortion?
In game theory terminology, Trump’s foreign policy generally usually boils down to an “Always Forsake” policy. Shout and threaten our enemies unless they serve our interests; extort our allies out of their lunch money and threaten to sanction them or even refuse to protect them unless they pay up. It’s unabashedly immoral; but even in self-interest terms, it’s probably pretty bad policy. “Always Forsake” makes you an asshole, but also usually means nobody wants to cooperate with you so you’re ultimately worse off, too.
I wish US would stop playing world police and force/allow other countries to grow up. I don't have a problem with Trump asking for more money to cover the cost, if SK wants the US to continue as their bodyguard -- besides wishing they weren't there at all. It's reasonable to ask if it's still worth it to be there.
It's reasonable to ask sure, but you shouldn't need to. A stronger Korea and Japan keeps China's power in check. Do you think it is in US interest to maintain status as the global super power? The notion that everything comes down to money and extorting our allies because we can is misguided foreign policy. We didn't install ourselves into Korea and Japan to be their bodyguard. We installed ourselves there to exert power and influence in Asia.
In my opinion help Korea and Japan become strong enough to stand on their own as good allies, along with other nearby nations scared of China enough to do the same. I'd rather not have US or anyone as a global super power but independent nations in alliance. Doubt US will give up influence and leave, and also doubt SK wants them to.
I'm actually learning Japanese as a hobby, but it made me think that Japanese and Korean culture has always been very strongly tied to China. We had a look in my language class at some typical Japanese cultural traditions such as flower arrangements, tea ceremonies, various Buddhist rituals and schools, and it can all be directly traced from contact with China. Same for language, there are many words of Chinese origin in Japanese, and obviously they use Chinese symbols for writing. So on that level, which is a bit naive obviously, wouldn't it make much more sense for Japan and Korea to be allied with China? The USA wouldn't like it one bit if Mexico was an ally of China and had all sorts of naval bases there and so on. In Europe we wouldn't like it if, idk, Italy was a Russian client state. It would create incredible tension. I haven't been convinced that US presence in that region is not a destabilizing factor and that it is preferable to a more natural Chinese regional hegemony.
Same with Iran honestly. Isn't it more natural for Iran to be the regional power when it comes to the Middle East's shiite population instead of the USA?
Learning the language isn't knowing the history or the culture.
Back in the formative years of both nations China was the cultural and political superpower. It's not unfair to compare it to the British Empire, but even more locally influential. Japan was a client state giving tribute to China for a long period. But like a lot of island-states, both grew out of it and eventually asserted their independence and individual cultures.
China is - and has always been - strongly about one-culture. You can totally see echoes of that in Japan and Korea, but their visions of that one-culture are divergent. China would never be willing to see either of them as equal partners and they would never deign to be seen as less than that. It's fine to accept the US as a more powerful ally because the US is outside of the cultural history, but Japan's got a solid history of kicking China's face in and inflicting war crimes on them.
Likewise, Japan attacked and brutalised Korea. The Koreans don't trust the Japanese or Chinese, and the Japanese don't trust the Chinese and see the Koreans as inferior. There's really zero chance of those three nations ever really allying with each other. A united Korea would be as stridently independent of larger Asia as South Korea tries to be now.
So yes, you would end up with an arms race in Asia if you left them to their own devices. The Japanese/Chinese are going to expect an invasion from the other, and Korea will be expecting an aggressive knock from one or both at some point, because that's what's happened throughout their history.
On January 27 2020 06:29 Belisarius wrote: China's regional hegemony involves the map labels in its region changing to "China". Its neighbours have very good reasons to align against it. Those reasons are the-country-formerly-known-as-tibet, the-country-nobody-is-allowed-to-call-Taiwan, and the-sea-already-called-china-nobody-else-is-allowed-to-fish-in-anymore. There are many issues with the US's foreign policy stance, especially now, but China is aggressively expansionist in a way the US has never been, and its neighbours are very rightly wary of its borders encroaching towards them.
There's also thousands of years of complex history in the region that most westerners are ignorant of. It's tempting to say the nations are all Asian in the way euros are now all European, but the politics are extremely fraught and distrustful. Japan and SK, for example, have 1.3 billion reasons to be strategic parters, and recognise this, but also fucking hate each other due to a legacy of conflict going back well past ww2.
The Mexican-American war? Pretty much anything west of the halfway line of the US on the north American continent, excluding Alaska. Prior to that it was other countries occupying land for you.
The way I understand expansionism, it is not strictly a reference to territory anyway, so I find the claim specious at best. The second half of the 20th century was US expansionism on a level that is unlikely to ever be matched in the future.
Hard to really think of similarly effective expansion basically ever. But as much as the US did wield hard power here and there, they were spreading a certain system and ideas and letting those play out.
Basically succeeding in establishing a global order in which most nations have bought into capitalism is pretty damn advantageous, and I guess is the more sophisticated way to do empire, no doubt influenced by the pitfalls others fell into.
China is a bit more old-school in sabre rattling over territories and talking about the honour of the country, more reminiscent of classic imperialism like us Brits used to partake in.
China does have a huge amount of economic leverage going for it, one thing I can’t see is the ground being fertile for China exporting Chinese culture and values like America did in the 20th century, especially in the post-WW2 period.
I don’t know how one puts a number on all that cultural output but American culture was a big part in them advertising the American way as aspirational and getting a lot of buy in.
On January 28 2020 03:28 farvacola wrote: It’s looking more and more like we’re gonna get witnesses in the Senate, the impeachment trial might be getting extra spicy soon.
On January 28 2020 03:59 brian wrote: did anyone have any money on John Bolton being the person to make the senate trial actually substantive? no? nobody? what a timeline.
The enemy in your bed is always the most powerful. Especially once enraged because you pushed him or her out of the bed.
And the obvious "defense" strategy by Mr Infantile Ego will be to declare him to be the worst at his job ever(which might not even be a lie), which obviously speaks highly for the guy who hired him...
There is absolutely nothing to gain for the Republicans to allow witnesses. They're already at banana-republic level political partiality. I mean, if they allow witnesses yet still lock-step vote against going through with the impeachment, they'll only further underline their complete disrepect for the split of political power in the country. They might as well just remove the elector system and judiciary branch, and rename the US an absolute monarchy, with the Republican senators as the new nobility.
If they do allow witnesses, I'd assume it'd only be to rub it in peoples' noses how powerless the rules governing the elected officials are. Kinda a "Hey look, here's all kinds of stuff the rules tell us not to do, and there ain't shit you can do to prevent us from doing it"-move.
I agree we are now closer to Bolton testifying than we previously were. When the excuse for not pulling in Bolton is "nothing bad happened and Bolton would confirm that, so lets stop this circus", then Bolton says "something bad definitely happened" in a book, it certainly hurts their ability to play dumb. If Bolton read his book under oath, it would be considered air tight evidence. They can't just ignore that. But maybe they will!
On January 28 2020 03:28 farvacola wrote: It’s looking more and more like we’re gonna get witnesses in the Senate, the impeachment trial might be getting extra spicy soon.
EPT
