He was chaotic and ineffectual and mostly focused on dumb peeves. But I do think he got some good ideas through the conventional “wisdom”. His execution on everything was poor.
Good new ideas:
Focus on China as an existential threat to US hegemony.
Just freaking get out of the Middle East already.
Globalization has not been good for the working and middle class.
Globalization has lifted billions from poverty. While it didn't benefit the US middle class in a direct, more money in their pockets way, it did likely prevent horrific wars that ravaged the world in the last century. It's bad business to nuke your customers. So the US middle class did benefit from not being drafted into the global mega-conflicts we avoided.
Also, why is US hegemony a good thing? What good is it for the 96% of the world that is not the US? Does it even benefit anyone outside the US ruling class?
> Also, why is US hegemony a good thing? What good is it for the 96% of the world that is not the US? Does it even benefit anyone outside the US ruling class.
I’m from Bangladesh. The US backed world order has been amazing for the country. The World Bank and IMF have helped countries like Bangladesh modernize their economies, and they’re US-led institutions.
As the US pulls out, China displaces it. In Bangladesh, Chinese investment is flowing in, along with middle eastern culture. Neither of those things are good in my opinion.
I don’t think the US needs to continue footing the bill alone. But the other western powers don’t seem interested in helping. When I think about what I want the future of Bangladesh to look like in 50 years, I want it to be basically like the US or Canada, only with different food and religious holidays and movies and literature. And that seemed like the future in the 1990s, but it’s getting cloudy today.
This. US isolationism along with its "take my $ and going home" attitude to global institutions in order to court "one world government" conspiracists has created myriad political vacuums such as this.
It would be nice if we weren't dealing with a poorly-handled pandemic and consequential economic crisis that will take all our attention for the next 3 years. But I'm optimistic that we will develop an outward-thinking foreign policy before the end of this presidency.
> Also, why is US hegemony a good thing? What good is it for the 96% of the world that is not the US?
To paraphrase Churchill: "The US hegemony is the worst hegemony for the world, except for all the other hegemonies."
The US retreating into isolationism would likely open up a vacuum eagerly filled in by less, well, liberal-minded states. The globalization you describe was pushed by the US-EU-(Japan/India/etc.) alliance, with the US's armed forced being the big stick in case someone would object. At least this is my current understanding.
>"...with the US's armed forced being the big stick in case someone would object..."
Yup having big stick lets one tell the rest of the world to shut up and do what the're told to do. Nice example of democracy and mutual respect in action.
> Nice example of democracy and mutual respect in action.
Is that supposed to be a back-handed way of making a point? I don't understand what those things have to do with global stability.
Someone will be the de facto world police by force, now that the technology to utilize energy is so efficient. This situation has nothing to do with some sort of (USA-centered) Politically Correct philosophy. This situation is the eventuality of our time.
The laws of the world are enforced through violence. It's the ultimate power when it comes down to it, so yes, if you want maintain peace then you must also have the capacity to engage the most violence.
This is how peace is kept, regardless of how you feel about it. More importantly, power fills a vacuum, and the choices in the absence of the USA are not exactly better for the world.
>"The laws of the world are enforced through violence. It's the ultimate power when it comes down to it"
And the sky is blue. Everyone including my cat knows it. Of course one with the biggest club gets to write the laws and to ignore those when it suits. Just stop pretending to be a knight in a shining armor. And being not as shitty as some others is not a reason to claim high moral ground.
I believe America is the best country in the world with the strongest ideals. American is not only not as bad as others, it's also better.
You're free to believe something else of course, but then again most people have no perspective or experience of the suffering and violence in the world while they throw out these casual statements about how terrible America is.
America has many things I admire. And yes it is better than many countries. And some countries are better than the US. The US had also done a lot of awful things to other countries and killed/maimed/made destitute/etc way too many people. I do not see what is so casual about this.
That’s correct. This was the only way for the world to pay for WWII and for the US to stem the tide of communism and Stalin’s Russia. Now that the Cold War is over, the US middle class isn’t sure it wants to foot the bill for maintaining this system that no longer seems to provide it much benefit and, in fact, has seemed to harm it. I think the world will see a decent amount of chaos as the US pulls back from protecting global trade routes. Unless all of the other countries of the world want to agree to a global socialistic society, I think the US will likely focus on building back its manufacturing base, opening and maintaining markets for those goods to flow to, reducing the Medicare and Social Security overhead so that this isolationist system can actually survive, and then politics will be focused on traditional values vs progressive ideas. Of course the internet will make this conversation much messier than it used to be in the pre-WWII days.
I’m interested to see how the shifting demographics affect this conversation. The three biggest things that shaped history are demographics, geography, and information flow. Two of these three are going to be significantly different since the last time the US moved towards isolationism.
If you review history, large wars broke out between the major powers vying for dominance on a regular basis in the 19th and early 20th century, culminating in the First and Second World Wars. For all the negatives of what the US has done with its military since then, they're not a hundredth as bad as what went on before by any objective measure.
The Pax Americana has been good for stability and with stability comes prosperity. If the United States truly gave up its hegemony and turned isolationist, you'd see a resurgence of rearmament and jockeying for power among nations, inevitably followed by a new era of war after war.
Complete BS. The US has unilaterally kneecapped the U.N. and every other international organization capable of facilitating a fair world order. We don’t need the US to build a fair world order, contrary to the neocon ‘Pax Americana’ crap. Honestly I was surprised to see that phrase in a hacker news comment.
I'm a European lefty, and I always hated the American imperialism. I was kinda happy about Trump talking about pulling out of all the foreign wars.
Then I thought about it a bit more, and realised (and the last four years have shown) that if America withdraw, the Russians and the Chinese will move right in, and while I'm not a major fan of American imperialism, I'm even less of a fan of the Russian or Chinese flavours.
And the US built the UN and all the other multilateral organisations post WW2, so yeah they work for the US, but they're also pretty good for everyone else.
The UN only "works" because everybody understands that either you do what the US wants or you have a problem. Now? As terrible as the US is, I don't see how a country like China having the space to expand its influence is a good thing, considering the CCP's values compared to the West's values.
> For all the negatives of what the US has done with its military since then, they're not a hundredth as bad as what went on before by any objective measure.
I owe that to hundreds of years of human progression and development, not to the US.
No particular fan of the current administration here, nor do I disagree with you much.
But you have to understand, the shift of manufacturing from the US has just devastated the economies of entire regions. You have children fleeing where their families have lived for generations. I'm convinced a factor in opiates getting a toehold in these areas was due to people going on disability to try to stay economically afloat, and getting prescribed painkillers as cover for faked injuries or in recovery for real but unneccessary surgeries (I have no proof, just anecdata).
US hegemony was good for them. It helped payed their mortgages and their kids' tuitions. It's easy to magnanimous when you aren't the one losing your house or kids aren't ODing from fentanyl. And the resentment is real when you see new grads at Google or Facebook making 10 times what you make, or CEOs making 1000 times what you make.
edit: the president did little, if anything to help their situation and channeled that resentment for his own benefit. It is a matter of national security that we all fix this and I hope the new administration will prioritize it.
> I'm convinced a factor in opiates getting a toehold in these areas was due to people going on disability to try to stay economically afloat, and getting prescribed painkillers as cover for faked injuries or in recovery for real but unneccessary surgeries (I have no proof, just anecdata).
IME it's less about disability fraud and more about treatment of the physical injuries sustained from blue-collar work. Those faking it are the ones with enough foresight to sell their pills to others.
But you are otherwise right from what I've seen; the opiates are addictive, the demands of the job do not lessen (they only increase) and the rest writes itself.
Of course you are right. It can be hard work and takes a toll on the body. I know this directly. I didn't mean to imply it was all fraud, and apologize if it came off that way.
The people in those regions you mentioned are largely conservative. By that measure, isn't their issue with the Free-Market system which they prostrate themselves at the altar of? Conservatives also cite laws as being something that should be left up to the states. And they say that marginalized groups should simply move if they don't like the laws of the state they are in. So isn't the system working as they desired since people are leaving places they don't find suitable?
The function of both parties is to convince their constituents to believe in policies against their own interests.
As someone not steeped in it, I think the charitable interpretation is that these people like working a job for the dignity of supporting themselves. The jobs went away, but the desire for that dignity hasn't. So social welfare policies remain uninteresting. In fact any top-down analysis sets off their "government handout" detectors, so they're left pining for the age before the need for labor dried up.
IMO a lot could have been done (and perhaps could still be) by decreasing the definition of full time work. With technological progress, offshoring, and women entering the workforce, full time employment should be around 10-15 hours per week. It's a radical departure from the status quo, but that's due to progress being held back so long. Instead we're stuck between a rock and a hard place with an economy tuned to force people into working 40+ hours a week, but little actual work to do.
(BTW the work in cities is more about communication, so the same trend manifests itself as the creation of non-producing bullshit jobs. There is less financial pain, but similar existential pain)
It never is and never has been. But that doesn't stop people from invoking it in modern society repeatedly. And I would argue that people leaving these economically dead zones IS representative of labor meeting capital in terms of mobility.
They were union and democrat, and when the jobs left, they looked for someone to blame. I think most people can agree it's a complicated situation. But a lot of them really, really hate NAFTA and there's a reason for the post-Clinton shifts in the midwest. At this point, you have people stewing in partisan radio or tv all day. It takes a very strong person to resist that influence. Most of us wouldn't.
Almost everyone just wants to be safe, happy, economically secure, and the same for their kids. That transcends nationality, religion, or party. I think trying to frame it around economic policy reversed the way the mindset was bootstrapped.
> Also, why is US hegemony a good thing? What good is it for the 96% of the world that is not the US? Does it even benefit anyone outside the US ruling class?
As you alluded to in the previous paragraph, it's good for people because it means we're not participating in the kind of horrific wars that ravaged the world in the century before. And the US has been far less extractive than previous global hegemons. (So in that sense it's worse for US citizens, but better for the rest of the world)
Now, everything is a tradeoff, and perhaps this particular tradeoff hasn't been worth it. But there are most certainly good things that US hegemony has given the world.
The US does not have military hegemony as it shares it with the Russia (both have enough nukes to wipe out each other and the rest of the world). China would probably come to this stage soon as well.
Being economic hegemon (again likely to be challenged by China) is obviously good for the US but the rest of the world might not share this view for the large part.
I have no idea how this is relevant to a comment on US hegemony. Is this the comment you meant to reply to?
If you mean to say that BLM in the US is comparable to the great wars of the 19th and 20th centuries, I'd say that you're off by a factor of a million in deaths.
Well, it that's true it means that wars started by US have only caused less than fifty deaths...
Given that the war in Afghanistan alone caused between 500.0000 and 800.000 deaths (depending on the source), the factor is more probably around 2 to 1
> Over 111,000 Afghans, including civilians, soldiers and militants, are estimated to have been killed in the conflict. The Cost of War project estimated that the number who have died through indirect causes related to the war may be as high as 360,000 additional people based on a ratio of indirect to direct deaths in contemporary conflicts. These numbers do not include those who have died in Pakistan
> US Has Killed More Than 20 Million People in 37 “Victim Nations” Since World War II
Even if that article was remotely accurate (it isn't, see mcguire's comment), the kinds of wars that we fought before the US's new world order could produce that number of casualties in a single year (1942, 1945), so U.S. hegemony would still be a massive improvement. It's a massive improvement even over the two-pole world, as a quick glance at the battle deaths over time graph [1] shows.
Wow, you are arguing against a study by citing Vox
Just WOW
OK, let's make it easy for you
---
VIETNAMESE AND INDOCHINA WAR: A TOTAL OF 5.5 MILLION DEAD
THE VIETNAM WAR - 3.8 MILLION DEAD
1.7 MILLION MORE DEAD IN THE CAMBODIAN, KHMER ROUGE GENOCIDE
Source for death toll: Necrometrics and British Medical Journal, 2008
---
TOTAL IRAQI'S KILLED IN AMERIAN WARS (1990-PRESENT) - 3 MILLION
IRAQI SANCTIONS: 1.7 MILLION TOTAL DEAD [1]
500,000 CHILDREN DEAD [2][3]
Source:
[1] Behind the War on Terror. Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed. 2003.
[2] Food and Agricultural Organization Study (1995)
[3] Iraq Sanctions Kill Children, U.N Reports (New York Times, 1995
---
Just these major events account to more than 10 million deaths
And they stop at the first gulf war
There are many more years to cover
Good luck denying that
> 1942, 1945
The massive improvement from 80 years ago happened even in third World countries run by warlord (financed by the US)
So what?
Can we not have another 80 years of US hegemony and compare the results?
Is it asking too much?
It's how science works: the US hegemony experiment is done and the results are meh, we ended up with Trump, now let's try something else and let's try not to bet on the wrong horse this time, ok guys?
"To the families and friends of these victims it makes little difference whether the causes were U.S. military action, proxy military forces, the provision of U.S. military supplies or advisors, or other ways, such as economic pressures applied by our nation."
"The U.S. is responsible for between 1 and 1.8 million deaths during the war between the Soviet Union and Afghanistan, by luring the Soviet Union into invading that nation."
"Over the years we have repeatedly heard about the Khmer Rouge’s role in the deaths of millions in Cambodia without any acknowledgement being made this mass killing was made possible by the the U.S. bombing of that nation which destabilized it by death , injuries, hunger and dislocation of its people. So the U.S. bears responsibility not only for the deaths from the bombings but also for those resulting from the activities of the Khmer Rouge – a total of about 2.5 million people. Even when Vietnam latrer invaded Cambodia in 1979 the CIA was still supporting the Khmer Rouge."
"Some people estimate that the number of Cuban forces killed range from 2,000, to 4,000. Another estimate is that 1,800 Cuban forces were killed on an open highway by napalm. This appears to have been a precursor of the Highway of Death in Iraq in 1991 when U.S. forces mercilessly annihilated large numbers of Iraqis on a highway."
"Between 8,000 and 12,000 Nepalese have died since a civil war broke out in 1996. The death rate, according to Foreign Policy in Focus, sharply increased with the arrival of almost 8,400 American M-16 submachine guns (950 rpm) and U.S. advisers. Nepal is 85 percent rural and badly in need of land reform. Not surprisingly 42 % of its people live below the poverty level."
"Yugoslavia was a socialist federation of several republics. Since it refused to be closely tied to the Soviet Union during the Cold War, it gained some suport from the U.S. But when the Soviet Union dissolved, Yugoslavia’s usefulness to the U.S. ended, and the U.S and Germany worked to convert its socialist economy to a capitalist one by a process primarily of dividing and conquering. There were ethnic and religious differences between various parts of Yugoslavia which were manipulated by the U.S. to cause several wars which resulted in the dissolution of that country. From the early 1990s until now Yugoslavia split into several independent nations whose lowered income, along with CIA connivance, has made it a pawn in the hands of capitalist countries. (1) The dissolution of Yugoslavia was caused primarily by the U.S."
"Let us put this in historical perspective: the commemoration of the War to End All Wars acknowledges that 15 million lives were lost in the course of World War I (1914-18)." [But see the 1917-1919 flu pandemic, which may have started in the United States, making the US directly responsible for the deaths of 50 million people.]
Globalization transfer middle class jobs/wealth out of America allowing the upper class to gain a larger share of the profit, relying on the state to support the growing lower class but without a large middle class tax base.
The important question is when does it end, the economists that promoted globalization have come forward and admitted that it hurt the US more than planned.
Does it only end when the US population is in the state that the poor Chinese, et al. farmers were in before we accepted this globalism?
At some point we have to stop and say, "OK, we gave you a leg up now let's spend a few decades and rebuild our own country". This is not what is proposed by Democrat politicians, they propose we continue to transfer wealth (in many forms) to other countries and fill the income gap that is produced with social welfare programs.
I second that US policy in American continent has been very infective that still hundreds of thousands migrate to US because their countries hasnt been developed. Let's take aside Civil war in Guatemala, Salvador and Nicaragua. Migrants flood because their local governments can't produce jobs not guarantee basic safety. US trains armies and send equipment through the PPP plan which got not results. Trump idea was to stop migration and the delegation of responsability back which results in basic jobs available for americans, force those countries to develop and at the end you can help them with investment in infrastructure with private money no government tax payer money.
That's what bothers me with the world at the moment, we have powerful states fighting for their hegemony (sometimes with nuclear weapons), not thinking at all about the earth as a unified place full with people and not citizen of whatever country.
Is there a reason you ommitted the working class from your comment? I find it odd you're addressing everything the parent said except for how globalization affects the working class.
Maybe if you live in US you can afford to not care, but I live in a weak, poor, corrupted country. For us it's either US, Russia (now) or China (in the long run) and I prefer US after all.
The US does not prevent wars. It is a cause of most of the wars in modern times. It has done something like 100 military invasions. Toppled countless democratically elected leaders and undermined democracies.
US hegemony is to set be the US, not to serve the world.
Yes, that's the argument, in a hegemony (usa or otherwise), wars basically only happen when the hegemon wants them to, and the hegemon has so much soft power its rare that they want them to, and when it does happen its small scale.
The end result is ordinary people get caught up in less wars because politically war is much more rarely the right answer (either you're too politically weak to start one, or if you are the hegemon you just give people the evil eye and they usually shutup)
That doesn't make it a utopia, just a world with less war dead.
Vietnam was the US standing to a foreign power trying to take over. It is not a war on the nation, but a war on an aggressive faction. Same for Korea really.
The Vietnamese fought for freedom from colonialism. The got that from the French, almost, until the US intervened. The only aggressive factions were the French and the US.
Korea was different, and also backed by the UN. But even there things aren't as clear cut as you imply. North Korea had yet to turn into the Kim-led hard core Stalinist regime.
> Focus on China as an existential threat to US hegemony
This was already being done. That was the whole point of the end of the Obama admins shift to Asia strategy.
> Just freaking get out of the Middle East already.
Troop levels are the same today as they were in 2020. And I also don't think this is a novel idea, everyone wants out, but you have to do it in a way that doesn't leave us in a worst situation than just staying, and that is ridiculously hard. Nature abhors a vacuum.
> Globalization has not been good for the working and middle class.
This is a mixed bag. Look around and tell me that the general middle class American is worst off than they were in any other decade of modern America. We live safer, cleaner lives. What we don't feel is security, which is a consequence of 40 years of treating the government as an entity that is the problem, and not an entity that can be the solution.
Thanks for the link. I guess I was born in a time (early 80s) where populism was on an all time low. However, the Cold War did exist, and that caused FUD as well (though that term partly unfairly de-legitimizes the realistic fear). So populism, it has been on the rise ever since I became an adult. I wasn't around yet, but what I believe happened was Reagan. War on Drugs. Reaction to the counter-culture, by marginalizing these minorities. If you remember Adam Curtis' series The Power Of Nightmares, already a new threat was on the verge when the Cold War was over. And that threat was exploited on for greed and profit, at the expense of the common men and common women (the soldiers).
That isn't a consequence of globalization. I don't want to downplay the seriousness of this, because I agree that is a problem, but not one caused by globalization, but rather NIMBYism. And this goes into my point about security and government.
Even more so, by Federal Reserve ongoing policy of extremely low interest rates. If the long bond yielded 5% you'd see MUCH lower real estate appreciation, and if it got there quickly, prices would certainly drop significantly.
With that said, there are plenty of affordable places to move to, they just aren't super sexy and cool. But even San Francisco and Brooklyn were completely uncool not that long ago.
>This was already being done. That was the whole point of the end of the Obama admins shift to Asia strategy.
Exactly. You can do this the smart way, by gathering partners and encircling China with something like the TPP, or you can do it the dumb way, by picking stupid playground fights.
True, it's important to remember that every president for the last couple decades except Trump has involved us in some new armed conflict, mostly with poor results for the country. I hope that Biden will continue on this front where Trump left off.
Doesn't mean much to me. We, the public (including people like Biden, and allies of USA) were deceived by the Bush government and its lackeys (Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc) concerning WMDs in Iraq. That not only deceived the American public; the deception included Congress as well. My government (The Netherlands) got lied to as well about WMDs. We ended up with our right-wing government supporting the war in Iraq politically, but not military. I remember protesting against this war, on the streets in Amsterdam. Something I hardly ever did in my life, btw.
For reference, see the movie Vice (2018) which is basically a third party account on Dick Cheney's biography. Scooter Libby, who got sentenced due to Plamegate due to leaking Plame's name while she was an active CIA asset on foreign ground (a retaliation move), as well. He got his sentence commuted by Bush and got fully pardoned by Trump. Why? I don't believe there's a valid justification. Nepotism 101.
Btw, while Obama did a fair amount of drone strikes, was vigilant on leaks, and probably knew all about NSA's ops before Snowden leaked, he did inherit a mess from Bush. After Obama, Trump did an ample amount of drone strikes (tho we need to put both into context as drone strikes are a new technology), and while Trump did not start a war in the traditional sense he escalated enough foreign relations including NATO and other treaties like WTO, Middle East (ISIS being partly a mess USA made with Iraq invasion), China (trade conflict), Iran (killing of Suleimani). Trump was a nationalist, and an egocentric one at that, who did not follow conventional scientific consensus on e.g. climate change. I'm all for freedom and opinion, but denying an important truth which is going to affect all of humanity if we don't act Soon (tm), is dangerous. Especially for people like me who live under the sea level (Amsterdam, The Netherlands). I'm so utterly relieved that Trump is gone. Senate isn't decided yet AFAIK, but I am not anti Republican by definition, and I believe dialogue is the way forward. Dialogue based on rationalization, facts, and science though; ie. not lies, denial, deception.
Trump was rhetorically against climate change but in large part simply because he prefers to use simple words that resonate with the majority. But the policies were primarily aimed at helping the working class - stopping job drain from coal areas (doesn’t actually work, because of economics), preventing fuel price rises (not actually that popular, they tried that in France as well but got massive working class protests) and national security (promoting US and EU energy self-sufficiency means we need to rely less on unstable undemocratic regimes in the Middle East and Russia)
Tax cuts for the ultra rich (who really don't need more money to get about, as they only have gotten more rich while middle class gets marginalized [1] [2]) don't help the working class. Worker's rights, unionization, higher minimum wage, legalization to help hard working in gig economy -- these directly help a working class in a divide and conquer society as it is.
Dividing was his creed. Trump had a lot of hot air about helping Joe Sixpack, ie. rhetoric and short-term gains. On the long-term, climate change affects us all. Including the working class. We've seen some appetizers in the form of drought and massive fires. Reaction? Denial, cause he can't figure a way to profit from it.
There's ways to profit from climate change. Its a lack of willpower and lack of inventive thinking to not opt for it, and unfortunately the world can't afford to ignore it any longer.
I'm not sure those are new ideas, people have wanted to get out of the middle east since even the bush era, and china has been increasing its sphere of influence and on the road to be second super power for a while now. Similarly whether or not globalization is good for the working class or just makes the rich get richer has been publicly debated the entire time i have been alive.
I think the main difference is that trump decided to take tactical action on these positions without regards for the strategic long term consequences, which other presidents have been unwilling to do (except the globalisation point, i think most previous really liked globalisation and werent just worried about the consequences)
A dimension we under-appreciate is how much fail we’ve been tolerating for decades.
The quest to keep NK from going nuclear started decades ago and spanned administrations from both parties, and finally failed miserably and objectively before Trump got into office. This, despite all best efforts from the best minds. The status quo was hardly a defensible glide path.
Similarly, we’ve been after real change in the Mideast for decades across multiple admins from both parties. We’ve never had movement. I’m not saying that the Abraham Accords fix everything, but getting four nations to finally recognize the right of Israel to exist and engage in trade and cultural exchange is certainly visible change. Energy independence also helps lessen our conflict of interest there. That’s visible change that was seemingly unobtainium for decades. Circumstance and technology have their role in this, but there are also specific policy and regulatory frameworks that will make or break this new path over coming years.
China.. I think there’s consensus that Kissinger’s laissez faire approach to opening China has not produced the intended outcome. Basically we’ve taken a totalitarian and repressive state and made them a rich totalitarian and repressive state.
So point being that the status quo - the unmovable track our foreign policy was on for decades regardless of president - was due for a shake up. It will be interesting to see what Biden does - revert to old paths, or take advantage of the new paths?
> Similarly, we’ve been after real change in the Mideast for decades across multiple admins from both parties. We’ve never had movement.
Have to go back a little further than that, the romans also wanted change in the middle east and didn't have much luck.
> Basically we’ve taken a totalitarian and repressive state and made them a rich totalitarian and repressive state.
I'd say under trump we have taken a rich toltalitarian and reppressive state and turned them into a rich toltalitarian/reppressive state with new friends in high places.
Just because something is a change does not make it a change for the better. Maybe the previous policy was trying to hold back the tide and failing. Opening the floodgates is a change, but i'm not sure its a good change, even if holding back the tide was a failure on slow motion.
Are you saying any of the above policy shifts (NK, CN, Mideast) have opened the floodgates on something bad relative to the preceding policies? Or is this just a theoretical point? At worst they’ve done nothing (NK). I can cite several overdue improvements in Mideast and China policy though.
By “we” I mean the United States, and by real change by last several admins, I’m of course referring to attempts to break the stalemate between Israel and the other ME nations after the wars (six years, etc), not world wars. Necessarily time-bound. Not sure what Romans have to do with this unless you’re making a point about futility? The Romans certainly impacted the near East for hundreds of years, right?
> Just freaking get out of the Middle East already.
I think this is the biggest place where he said one thing, then immediately did another. We are involved in the Middle East as we ever were, and much much more so with more disastrous effects in places like Yemen. The US' involvement in Yemen should be enough to laugh Trump offstage any time he talks about "getting out of the middle east".
Please please please don't let him off the hook for this by saying he had "good ideas" here when he was talking out of one side of his mouth while civilian families are being slaughtered.
You could also point out that he has abandoned the kurds in Syria (Rojava), where they are losing ground against the turkish army and their jihadist mercenaries. They are about to ethnically cleanse the region, with dramatic consequences for the autonomous zone that has developed a seemingly fair democracy.
The military branch of the PYD party was crucial during the fight against ISIS.
Leaving them to die in Erdogan's hands is tragic.
“As we ever were” - I’m not sure what you mean by that. We’ve been involved in the Middle East substantially since oil exploration there started showing results.
Energy independence from the ME is a reliable quality by which the US (and others) will care less about the region. But this also means leaving the regional developed powers to manage the area with greater and greater autonomy (e.g. Israel and SA).
To that end, we are arguably less “involved” today. Our dependence on that oil and our direct action involvement there are directly related.
By the numbers, we are less involved than in, say, 2005 if the US body count is the metric. If civilian deaths are the metric, Iraq’s numbers have fallen off a cliff since 2017 [0]. I would guess the same for Syria but don’t have data at hand.
It’s tough to want it both ways - asking the US to intervene for peace but not spill any blood. If the ME tells us anything, it’s that peace does not come from doing nothing - it is not the region’s default state given the cultural animosities. Stability seems the best chance for civilian peace there. The US is increasingly delegating or abdicating that role to the most friendly options available.
How would you prefer that the trajectory change? More direct “peacekeeping” involvement? Total abandonment while watching a regional death match play out?
Open borders to all refugees (and literally everyone else)and make is as easy as possible for those under repressive regimes to leave. Other than that, continue to trade with the country for basically everything except weapons or anything that could be used to make weapons.
This is also how I feel about China and Hong Kong, NK, how I would have felt under WW2/Germany, and how I would feel basically every other foreign policy incident.
>Globalization has not been good for the working and middle class.
This seems overly simplistic. Globalization has led to a drop in the cost of many goods as well as multiple new markets for US industries.
I think there's a reasonable argument to be made that the spoils of globalization have not been shared as fairly as they should of, but imo that's way more linked to other policies (like tax rates & spending)
Wars are no longer called wars. The US is much more involved in the civilian slaughter happening in Yemen, we just don't call it a "war" to save face. Don't call this a victory for him, he'll rest in hell for the damage he's done here alone.
The Yemen thing is a war and called that. Just not a US war. Wikipedia has it as "Yemeni Civil War (2014–present)". "The conflict has been widely seen as an extension of the Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict." And then the US gets roped in as mates of the Saudis and enemies of the Iranians but it's not really a US thing and on the go before Donald got in there.
Yes, but we are not "involved" in the war, we are just _involved_ in the war. And I personally don't care if it was there when Trump took office, I care about what Trump did with it.
Like many things in a presidency; this is clearly partially - probably largely - guided by external developments. Sure, the president gets more say that anybody else, but I'm skeptical you can ascribe too much blame (or glory) to the outcomes here; at best you can look at the details, and see if in a given situation (ideally in retrospect) a president made the right choices.
I don't think Trump was tested in this area, and I don't think most wars were trivially the fault of the presidencies they were started in (sure, some exceptions like the most recent iraq may jump to mind). I mean, "just don't participate" is also equivalent to ceding influence to whoever feels like a bit of shelling would do them good, so that's not always a good choice - under the assumption that the US (and world) was well served by some measure of imposed order.
Course, maybe I'm misinterpreting who had agency in those situations - do you think it's largely presidents' at fault for for the post-WWII military engagements?
Where are you getting those numbers? I am looking at https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ and see only Spain at a higher death per capita of the countries you listed. Even so, I don't think anyone is pointing to the UK and saying they did it right! And the US has a 20% higher per capita death rate than France, which I would call more than "a bit higher."
I have no idea where the worldometers.info data is coming from.
Regardless of small differences, painting Covid-19 as a uniquely American problem stemming from American politics is silly. No countries have performed particularly well, despite trying everything from strict lockdowns to no response at all. East and South East Asia is outperforming, but that likely has more to do with past exposures and disease resistance than it is due to policy difference.
uh what, more likely because disease resistance? places like SK absolutely are doing well because of policy difference. Restricting access in, robust contact tracing, phased levels of lockdown that are clear and unified.
Some of these would never work in the US due to gov't structure and just the culture of people (privacy rights), but to discount American politics is a stretch. The entire debacle has been a war on misinformation from the top down.
If it is past exposures and disease resistence, how do you explain early spread in Wuhan? Why does Aus/NZ enjoy natural immunity but not Indonesia? Quarantines are effective against all infectious diseases and have been for centuries, why do you assume they were not effective in places like China and Vietnam? Where is the evidence that disease resistance plays any role?
Recently, France has been reporting about half as many cases as the entire USA despite its smaller population, and last I checked their testing wasn't even as widespread as in the US. Their numbers keep going up too. I wouldn't rely on their death rate remaining lower.
Which points to a terrible handling of COVID19 by Trump. Given the low population density of the US, the rate should be similar to other low density areas like e.g. Norway and Finland, yet it is more than 10x higher.
The US has numbers comparable to high density countries with extensive use of public transport. That is just terrible outcomes for a country where everybody drives and live far apart.
US is a mix of High and Low Density, you can not just take the national population and divide by land mass to come up with how things "should have gone" with covid
Nor is is really fair to even judge the Federal response to it at all, as under our system of government health care is largely a State matter not a federal one.
Remember the United States is a Republic of 50 States, joined together under a common Defense and Monetary system.
I don't for see large scale changes in policy under a Biden Presidency, you may get stronger messaging but power of the President is largely limited outside of dispersing money, and maybe requiring manufacturers to make certain things if there is a national shortage
Masks Mandates, Lock Downs, etc will still fall under the purview of State Governors as this how our constitution divides the powers of the government
What’s the point of a government or a monetary and defence system if it doesn’t help protect health? Surely keeping citizens alive and well is about the most basic role of a government?
You would have to provide a stronger definition of what you mean by "help protect health"
If you mean full on authoritarian rules where by the government arbitrarily decides by executive fiat who is allowed to work, leave their home, engage in commerce, or other wise gather in any way for months.
I would say no that is not a proper role of a government in a free society that has any respect for civil or human rights...
Not just that, you'd be comparing with countries that also have major cities that are particularly badly affected and have not removed those figures from their total.
IMHO that means that if the U.S. actually had a federal response, if, you know, the Trump administration was actually trying to use the federal government to help the country, that our numbers would be lower.
Which, considering the wealth and expertise of the United States, makes a sort of sense.
At least those other nations are actually making an effort, and not denying science and spreading false, destructive information.
I'm going to ask this in a sincere hope of getting an answer, regardless of how flip it sounds:
What specifically did Trump fail to do that you feel he should have done with regard to Covid? Keeping in mind that the US is a constitutional republic and does not have a lot of the same legal tools to compel people to do things en masse that other nations do.
A lock down which is properly implemented can work, with the most recent success being Australia. I’m in New Zealand and we are likely to have open borders with other clear areas in the not-too-distant future. Time will tell what the cost in dollars and lives looks like with various strategies (or lack thereof), but so far NZ’s approach seems a good choice.
The meaning of Congress’ authority to declare war has been clarified (or changed) over time to mean that Congress provides oversight to the Executive branch’s proactive use of the military. Despite that, though, I think it is still fair to say that the US can effectively not go to war if Congress is not agreeable to it unofficially, as the US hasn’t ever had a situation where its president authorized military use that Congress substantially and seriously opposed.
I guess it’s luck to a degree, but I regard it more as calling Iran’s bluff. There is no defense for their overt funding and leadership of destabilizing terrorism in the region (as evidenced). They have been to war before, it’s not “luck” that they didn’t decide to commit suicide this time. They cannot afford war, and had they started, fighting a coalition of the US, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and a few others would not be good for them, even if Russia or China decided to float them for a while. It would have resulted in a horrible, horrible outcome for the people of Iran, and say what you want about the Theocracy but it’s not that dumb.
Which is, for an US president, an almost unbelievable thing. Especially since he could have used the Iranian missile attacks on US bases to start a war there. He should get a peace Nobel prize for his actions towards world stability, which also includes his efforts to discuss with North Korea (official visit there!) and the arms sell to Taiwan.
The US hegemony exists because we have projected military force across the world, and our companies are the primary driver of globalization. Leaving the Middle East would end any dream of bringing those regions under the western umbrella (as has been successfully done in S. Korea and Japan). Ending globalization would end the thing that has made US corporations uniquely successful, and which makes US economic sanctions so strong.
And focusing on China as the new red scare would (is already?) simply result in a new Cold War, to nobody's benefit.
I personally don't think the US has any business being hegemon (feel free to check my post history), but if your primary interest is maintaining the position of the US from ~1992-2016, then your best bet is to maintain the foreign and economic policy of those times, which is basically what Biden is promising to do.
Depends on where you draw the line on the working class; if anything the working class worldwide has exploded as more people have left poverty in the past 20 years than in the past 100.
Presumably "the US working class". Globalization has enriched the wealthiest Americans and the global poor at the expense of working Americans, and that's a pretty awful charity program IMO.
Why? National mutual self-interest is probably the single most long-term stable and historically workable approach to foreign policy, economics, and so forth that I can think of.
It's not an approach to the world. The US government isn't a beneficient association that is organized to make things better for people in other countries at the expense of US citizens -- it's not an aid organization or a charity or something like that. The interests of non-citizens don't have any representation in it (it's like every other government in that regard) -- it's just the wrong organization to do something like that.
In 100 years we’ll say the same thing when Planet Earth says “it’s not our responsibility to promote the interests of the Mars people”. People just inherently suck.
I'm not saying it's a bad thing for Americans to do things for other people in a way that costs them something, even something considerable; but it is certainly strange for their government to do so by moving jobs abroad and otherwise promoting the interests of the working class of other countries as the comment I was replying to mentions.
Think about this: countries when during elections riot on the streets happen, the incumbing foment a civil war and refuse to admit he's lost the elections, are usually bombed by USA.
They usually are not bombed by the USA. Most countries sort out their own affairs in these kinds of things (witness Brazil) -- in the absence of extended disorder and open warfare.
They didn't need to, they have their men there and hid many former Nazi officials
> The 1964 Brazilian coup d'état (Portuguese: Golpe de estado no Brasil em 1964 or, more colloquially, golpe de 64) was a series of events in Brazil from March 31 to April 1 that led to the overthrow of President João Goulart by members of the Brazilian Armed Forces, supported by the United States government.The coup put an end to the government of Goulart (also known as 'Jango'), a member of the Brazilian Labour Party [...] although a moderate nationalist, Goulart was accused of being a communist by right-wing militants, he was unable to take office [...] The coup brought to Brazil a military regime politically aligned to the interests of the United States government. This regime lasted until 1985, when Neves was indirectly elected the first civilian president of Brazil since the 1960 elections.
The usual same old story.
It's the same thing they did to Lula.
But you're right, bombed was an exaggeration on my part, they usually invade or send weapons and cavalry
I suggest they stop meddling with other nations internal affairs and stop complaining if large parts of the world are challenging their self appointed role of hegemonic country and are calling them out for their past crimes
Colonization through military power is not hegemony, is tyranny
Yes but we have to decide if they are the only ones that matter.
Is it right, or wise in the long term, to use our position of power to stop the growth of wealth in non-developed countries? On the other hand, do we have any sort of obligation to elevate the standards of living of people in non-developed countries, especially when it may impact the standards of people living in our borders?
There is a moral question to be answered, especially given our purported system of values and the way in which the wealthy and wealthy countries came to be as such.
I'm not staking out a position or trying to shame anyone. I'm just saying I think it is the underlying question we should be thinking about to decide how we judge globalization and its effects.
Globalization is good in the aggregate but it does affect negatively some communities. The solution is not to stop globalization but to implement public policies to counter the negative effects.
Outsourcing manufacturing from a country with labor and environmental regulations to a place where they treat workers like slaves and treat the environment like a trash can would be an example.
Saying it’s immoral is one thing that I can agree with. But that’s different than objectively showing how it makes their lives worse. I’m looking for actual metrics like a decline in life expectancy, income, etc.
Just to be clear I’m not on one side or the other because I’m relatively ignorant on the topic. Just looking for evidence
Losing your job because it was outsourced is pretty objectively bad. You can go try to find another job in the same industry but all the competing companies are going to be looking at doing the same thing because they have to compete on margins and their competition just reduced their labor cost by a factor of 2 to 10.
I don't know what evidence for this would look like except for all the goods that are manufactured overseas that used to be manufactured domestically. I'm not making a statistical argument. I'm making an argument based on life experience and inference. Although life expectancy in the US is declining. Wages are stagnant but that's an aggregate over the population. If a 30-year-old worker loses their job and an 18-year-old worker gets hired in a different industry for the same "real wage" then that looks like no change from the perspective of population statistics.
Yes, but that’s talking to the original point I thought you were attempting to refute. I think there’s a lot of case to be made that globalization is a net negative for US workers, but the point being made was that it may also be a net positive for non-US workers. I (perhaps wrongly) assumed your comments about exporting pollution etc. was that it was a net negative in the non-US as well
I think its bad for Earthlings because it pollutes the planet and its bad for the people who lost their jobs because they can maybe afford to replace their consumer goods with crap made overseas but not save for retirement and its bad for the people overseas because they work in factories with no labor protections to make stuff for people in other countries that they cannot themselves afford. I think the whole thing is bad but inevitable.
It makes their lives worse because it puts the workers in competition with workers in those other countries.
Since you asked for metrics, here is a site for working remotely as a freelancer [1]. You'll quickly notice the pay rates are abysmal. $7/hr for a three.js developer. $250 (or lower, possibly as low s $30) to make a fully functional & tested app on android+iphone (would normally take an entire dev team probably well over 1 or 2 weeks).
These are rates below minimum wage for highly technical skills.
This is even more true for hardware too but it's hard to quantify, because e.g. you can't just compare the price of buying capacitors wholesale from Shenzhen with the price of buying capacitors wholesale from Cleveland, because Cleveland doesn't manufacture capacitors.
However, I do have some data (though it's not the most sophisticatedly obtained). Sticking with capacitors as a benchmark, I was expecting there to be 0 US companies manufacturing capacitors, but apparently there are 7 [2]. In contrast, there are apparently 228 Chinese companies manufacturing capacitors [3].
All of this is just to say it's pretty clear that globalization has moved these jobs overseas (and significantly dropped the market rate for those who remain local).
I agree with this but think it misses the actual point. To paraphrase a popular pundit, “People need to realize that things that are bad for the US may not be bad for the world.”
To clarify the point, the US largely rode a post-WW2 manufacturing boom for a couple generations where the relative quality of life for US citizens disproportionately outpaced other countries. Globalization has started to erase that disparity. So while it’s bad for the US middle and working classes it’s largely benefited pulling people out of poverty for other nations, exemplified by China. The irony is that much of this is driven by the US’s addiction to cheap shit.
I’m only saying the above because I think people are confusing the discussion, not because I think that it’s the best long term strategy
I do think it's benefited other nations, but -- getting more into personal opinion -- I also think the "help other nations" argument is mostly used to justify cheapening wages. If companies were paying foreign workers the same rates that they would have paid US workers I'd be more empathetic to the argument. But something about the fact that the top 90th percentile of Americans has seen huge gains in the last 40 years, while the middle to bottom percentile has seen neutral or losses [1] raises flags to me that the push towards globalization was selfishly motivated. I know it's a huge inference to say the stagnating wages are caused by globalization, but realistically I would say it's the combination of outsourced labor/manufacturing, immigration, rise of women in the workforce, rise of minorities in the workforce, and automation. Most of these are positive changes, but I still think the average blue collar worker suffered a cost that the hyper-wealthy elite did not, so at the moment I don't see the push for globalization as a very selfless initiative.
Yes, 100%. I don’t think it was an altruistic motive on either side. The US was acting on behalf of the monied interests and counties like China were acting to become a more dominant economy on the world stage. The fact that it lifted so many out of poverty was a by-product. What I think will be interesting is how China handles a burgeoning middle class that may want a more freedoms as their numbers grow
Wasn't the previous admin already focused on China / the Pacific region already? I do have to agree on the last point, so. And I say that as a globalist, free trade proponent and a supply chain guy. So in a sense, globalization is my job. And while a lot of people, also in developing countries, have profited from globalization, we all have to find ways to adopt the way we do things to get of the less than good parts.
I do think that a lot of people had these things on their agenda already. We didn't need Trump to come to these conclusions. Because he might have gotten the issues right, but didn't really understand them nor did he care about solutions.
Also, he didn't get out of the Middle East, he just picked a side. Not sure what that means for the region.
Not a fan of the current (soon to be previous) admin, but I have to acknowledge that a direct approach on China has been more effective than the last 3 decades of Asian pivots ( Bill Clinton tried focusing on China as well ).
American politics has brief focus windows, direct action has more impact than vague "pivots" or "focuses" which last about as long as the next crisis.
Short term, sure. But as we saw, US admins and foreign policy changes fast enough, max after 8 years. Being they only super power carries the responsibility to keep things stable. That means consistency, direct action of one single admin can very well the opposite of that. Especially when the other party plays the long game.
I would be inclined to agree, if Trump had any strategy behind that. His policies, or rather lack thereof, don't support that. I'd say he just stumbled around and got lucky once. And even that has to be seen.
Many of your goals could be accomplished by transitioning to a carbon-negative (positive?) economy that captures more carbon than it emits.
Energy independence helps us avoid relying on chinese solar panels and middle eastern oil.
Building carbon capture infrastructure in the US means the jobs would be here. Delaying means eventually pumping unprecedented amounts of money into whatever other country gets there first (probably China).
Globalization is demonized but it's a natural consequence of technology. It's easier than ever to work with production facilities around the world. We can't stop businesses from exploring more efficient production. But we can and should level the playing field. One contributor to the difference in wages for manufacturing employees is the lack of regulations and protections for workers in countries like China. Treaties that support trade are one way to level the playing field. TPP had a bunch of bad stuff in it too, so perhaps not a net win.
The much maligned TPP was aimed right at China. It was big business friendly, but it also encouraged the other large economies in the Pacific to align themselves with the US instead of China.
Actually, focusing on attacking china is a big mistake of this admin. It accelerates the decline of US hegemony as we know it. The best strategy for US is to maintain the current world order with China. Only the weaker countries "behind" US/China, e.g. India/Japan/Vietnam/Taiwan, would want the two countries to fight it out so they can benefit. And there are people in the US who believe a trade and technology war with china is easy to win, which are proven wrong.
It appears that we will go from "chaotic and ineffectual" to just ineffectual. Assuming that Republicans maintain control of the Senate, he can suggest all the leftist ideas he wants, but nothing will get done.
What concerns me is that just as Trump's election encouraged the proliferation of racism, Biden's election will encourage the proliferation of cancel/woke culture, which will lead to even more division than we have under Trump.
I agree that Trump is right that something more needed to be done with China. But like most of what he did, his execution was terrible. His need to take credit and inability to work with anyone wouldn’t let him get out of his own way. Hopefully Biden takes the idea and works with legislation and our allies to put more pressure on China.
Globalization and isolation have two sides, neither of which is all pro or con.
I'm looking forward to Trump's caustic personality leaving the equation so we can finally talk about these things in a more neutral way. A lot of people, myself included, cannot look past Trump's obvious flaws despite some of his ideas(at least the overall direction, maybe not the execution) being worth considering.
You think this will happen? The political right have openly embraced demagoguery, authoritarianism, disinformation, and a scorched-earth, because-we-can style of politics. The media have embraced the outrage-factory model for improving as revenues. The electorate have committed to becoming single issue voters. And finally, who benefits the most from this quagmire? The corporate elite who fear the threat of government intervention in free markets.
The end of US egemony could be good for the middle class outside of the US, especially South America and the Middle East.
Not saying it will, but that during the unrivaled US egemony after the end of the cold war things have been worse for the middle/poor segment of society, especially in the west.
Could be a coincidence, could be bad luck, could be a correlation.
It could go back to the laissez-faire system that was present when all the European powers were running around basically doing anything they wanted. (It should be noted that the US wasn't as isolationist as the propaganda would have you believe: how else did they get pre-revolution Cuba, PR, Guam, Hawaii, etc.?)
I think these systems align to a certain power dynamic. Because of national sovereignty, its already as close to a laissez faire approach as you can get, yet there’s a hierarchy across virtually any dimension you want to measure. So if the US loses, for example, its economic hegemony another country will take its place. Same with military or any other measure.
I don’t think the US has been isolationist since before the Spanish American war.
China's Belt and Road program seems to be establishing a competitor hegemony in the eastern sphere of influence, rather than directly replacing the US. They're building a lot of infrastructure in Africa, expanding their already massive supply chain and working effectively towards surviving a disconnection from the West.
I agree that US hegemony isn't gone yet, but we've lost so much of our manufacturing and materials sourcing that we'll soon need them more than they need us.
How are those battle ship groups funded? Foreign debt? When was the last time the US had a balanced budget?
Having a nice battleship group does little for the average american public.
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. . . . This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."
Eisenhower
People always allude to this, and it's true an adversary could (probably, maybe) sink one aircraft carrier. That same adversary wouldn't sink a second.
> Back in reality, it's true [China] could ... sink 15 aircraft carriers [in an hour].
That is unlikely. The Chinese military relies on a combination of overwhelming manpower and tactical positioning, not aircraft superiority and tactical missile deployment (although they are equipping with more and more ballistic missiles). This puts the US at a distinct advantage in almost every conflict with the Chinese military. This includes the South Seas.
The presence of the 5 US carriers* off Singapore has deterred the staged Chinese invasion force for the last few months
I was going to say China would use submarines for such, but they don't appear to have many (in contrast to USA) [1]. My next consideration would be China's red team (APT) but I'm unsure about aircraft carriers being hackable. I mean, it'd make a great fiction novel, perhaps a sequel to Cryptonomicon. Where does China's military strength lie?
> He was chaotic and ineffectual and mostly focused on dumb peeves. But I do think he got some good ideas through the conventional “wisdom”. His execution on everything was poor.
Ineffectual? I’d argue he’s one of the most consequential Presidents of the past 100 years.
He reshaped the federal bench, confirmed a 6-3 majority on the SCOTUS, overhauled the tax code, negotiated multiple Middle East peace deals, repealed and replaced NAFTA, and didn’t start a single foreign war.
His impact on the US political system will be felt for generations. Compare that to 8 years of Obama that can’t point to any meaningful accomplishment.
Just freaking get out of the Middle East already.
Globalization has not been good for the working and middle class.