The other problem is that large segments of our ruling class believes the US deserves to lose as punishment for centuries of Western Imperialism, as if no non-Western power ever built empires.
Russia doesn't have nearly enough power for these people to care.
Also, I think if you were to ask these people, they'd say the US is just as bad for increasing NATO's size together with Europe, which seems a laughably wrong position. So they'd say Russia losing the war isn't *that* much better than the opposite.
I think this is right, but I'm a lot more worried about Iran - where the current attitude seems.to be to let them get away with anything (shutting down the red sea to container traffic, bombing Israel either directly or through Hezbollah, etc) without hitting them back directly. At least with Ukraine we give enough support that Russia is paying a massive cost and probably won't take most of the land they originally wanted.
Great insights. Unlike the US and Europe, Israel seems to have learned about the need for staunch, unwavering deterrence in the ongoing direct threats from aggressive neighbors.
Iran isn’t a threat to the west. It’s not even a potential threat to Israel which isn’t the west. As usual the defenders of Israel are using the WWII as a smokescreen for their favourite pathological country. Most of the terrorism directed against the west, in any case, is from friends of the US and Israel.
Also Americans need to shut up about Neville Chamberlain who led Britain to war against Germany - a war of choice. The US had to be invaded.
Appeasement is wrongly portrayed as the ultimate mistake of the time. Britain and France had insufficient firepower at the time to credibly coerce Germany. They needed to buy time to rebuild their forces, which they eventually did (France's collapse in 1940 wasn't due to insufficient firepower)
The author writes "We should be clear about what our goals are and what we want in the world and what we will absolutely fight for."
"What we want in the world" is a function of our interests. The term national interest is often used. The problem here is *individuals* have an interest in this or that, which can inform coherent choices of action. Groups have many, often contradictory interests. Since a national is a group, the concept of national interest is incoherent. The exception to this is autocracies. In an autocracy there is only one *relevant* interest, that of the autocrat, who has an individual does have coherent interests. When the modern states system emerged, virtually all the players were autocracies or homogenous oligarchies. Thus, national interest was the personal interest of the autocrat, or the class interest of the ruling oligarchs.
Democracies have ruling classes like oligarchies, but which faction of the oligarchy have the most say is determined by elections where the wider population votes for one faction or the other. Not only that, but membership in the oligarchy is fluid, being partly depended on elections as well. This means the ruling class is not homogenous on how they think about foreign policy (or pretty much everything else).
Absolutely hit the nail on on the head. We are paying rogue regimes so that they let us stay safe and rich for one more year.
The key issue is that we live with an "end of history" mentality where all death in war is considered wrong and avoidable and where we aren't prepared to die to save our liberty.
The risk-adverse approach we have to health and drugs is also a point well made Vaishnav.
I'd love it if you could republish this on Guerre and Shalom.
I don't think your assessment is correct. Democracies have been beating dictatorships for a while now. Israel, the sole democracy in the middle east, is by far the strongest country there. To be fair Arabs haven't won a major war since like the 14th century. So they might just be a race of losers who got lucky that one time in the 7th century.
The primary reason America is becoming isolationist is not because it's become rich but because it's natural for it to be so. It's a huge resource rich country surrounded by two oceans. America was isolationist from the start and became interventionist when its relative standing in the world was overwhelming like around ww2. America is still a great economy, it's just that the rest of the world is catching up.
I'm not exactly a fan of Putin but the reality is that the conflict between the EU/NATO and Russia really had its origins back in 2008 with Bush's speech in Bucharest where he said that Ukraine will be a future member of NATO. This triggered the Georgian government to launch an invasion to regain control over the pro Russian territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia with the expectation of American support but it obviously never came and the Georgian forces were quickly defeated with 1000s dead and billions of dollars in costs. The Crimea was obviously going to be the next flashpoint and Putin was going to try to keep a pro Russian leader in control of the Ukraine. With the EU having made Poland and even Romania much better off the younger generations in the country were in favour of closer ties with the EU rather than Russia and they're was definite CIA involvement somewhere along the line even if the people were now more pro West than pro Russian. So annexation of Crimea was inevitable with it being home to Russias Black Sea fleet. Surely there was a moment to defuse the situation and prevent it escalating. But it suited quite a few western hawks to have a reset back to Russia being the enemy after the disastrous wars on terror. China's role needs closer examination too. They never recognised Russias annexation of Crimea which they surely could have done so easily and which would have probably seen 40 countries supporting Russia in any UN vote on the issue. So they're playing both sides in the conflict but Russia far more than the west.
I agree. But on the other hand, the US has too many bases and troops abroad, gives too much military aid, and is in too many endless wars. I think that the orange moron really has the right approach to foreign policy. Do whatever maximizes US GDP. We are here to win. Winning big. Winning so much it will make your head spin.
“The incentives facing decision makers are clearly visible to adversaries, since decision makers in democracies are beholden to voters…”
Not quite. Voters are very ignorant and don’t care about foreign policy, which makes them easy to manipulate. What foreign countries need to understand is how realistic U.S. elites are about maintaining U.S. hegemony. They were not realistic about Russia’s capabilities. We were told Ukraine would win.
The other problem is that large segments of our ruling class believes the US deserves to lose as punishment for centuries of Western Imperialism, as if no non-Western power ever built empires.
But doesn't everyone want to see Russia defeated as long as there's no blowback?..
Russia doesn't have nearly enough power for these people to care.
Also, I think if you were to ask these people, they'd say the US is just as bad for increasing NATO's size together with Europe, which seems a laughably wrong position. So they'd say Russia losing the war isn't *that* much better than the opposite.
I take your point but blowback can come in various forms both direct and indirect although they probably wouldn't acknowledge the latter as such.
Yes, white guilt is pathological.
I think this is right, but I'm a lot more worried about Iran - where the current attitude seems.to be to let them get away with anything (shutting down the red sea to container traffic, bombing Israel either directly or through Hezbollah, etc) without hitting them back directly. At least with Ukraine we give enough support that Russia is paying a massive cost and probably won't take most of the land they originally wanted.
Great insights. Unlike the US and Europe, Israel seems to have learned about the need for staunch, unwavering deterrence in the ongoing direct threats from aggressive neighbors.
Iran isn’t a threat to the west. It’s not even a potential threat to Israel which isn’t the west. As usual the defenders of Israel are using the WWII as a smokescreen for their favourite pathological country. Most of the terrorism directed against the west, in any case, is from friends of the US and Israel.
Also Americans need to shut up about Neville Chamberlain who led Britain to war against Germany - a war of choice. The US had to be invaded.
Appeasement is wrongly portrayed as the ultimate mistake of the time. Britain and France had insufficient firepower at the time to credibly coerce Germany. They needed to buy time to rebuild their forces, which they eventually did (France's collapse in 1940 wasn't due to insufficient firepower)
The author writes "We should be clear about what our goals are and what we want in the world and what we will absolutely fight for."
"What we want in the world" is a function of our interests. The term national interest is often used. The problem here is *individuals* have an interest in this or that, which can inform coherent choices of action. Groups have many, often contradictory interests. Since a national is a group, the concept of national interest is incoherent. The exception to this is autocracies. In an autocracy there is only one *relevant* interest, that of the autocrat, who has an individual does have coherent interests. When the modern states system emerged, virtually all the players were autocracies or homogenous oligarchies. Thus, national interest was the personal interest of the autocrat, or the class interest of the ruling oligarchs.
Democracies have ruling classes like oligarchies, but which faction of the oligarchy have the most say is determined by elections where the wider population votes for one faction or the other. Not only that, but membership in the oligarchy is fluid, being partly depended on elections as well. This means the ruling class is not homogenous on how they think about foreign policy (or pretty much everything else).
Hence there is no "we".
https://mikealexander.substack.com/p/the-problem-with-american-foreign
Absolutely hit the nail on on the head. We are paying rogue regimes so that they let us stay safe and rich for one more year.
The key issue is that we live with an "end of history" mentality where all death in war is considered wrong and avoidable and where we aren't prepared to die to save our liberty.
The risk-adverse approach we have to health and drugs is also a point well made Vaishnav.
I'd love it if you could republish this on Guerre and Shalom.
Hey Daniel, would love to ! Let me know what you need from me!
Will email.
I don't think your assessment is correct. Democracies have been beating dictatorships for a while now. Israel, the sole democracy in the middle east, is by far the strongest country there. To be fair Arabs haven't won a major war since like the 14th century. So they might just be a race of losers who got lucky that one time in the 7th century.
The primary reason America is becoming isolationist is not because it's become rich but because it's natural for it to be so. It's a huge resource rich country surrounded by two oceans. America was isolationist from the start and became interventionist when its relative standing in the world was overwhelming like around ww2. America is still a great economy, it's just that the rest of the world is catching up.
I'm not exactly a fan of Putin but the reality is that the conflict between the EU/NATO and Russia really had its origins back in 2008 with Bush's speech in Bucharest where he said that Ukraine will be a future member of NATO. This triggered the Georgian government to launch an invasion to regain control over the pro Russian territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia with the expectation of American support but it obviously never came and the Georgian forces were quickly defeated with 1000s dead and billions of dollars in costs. The Crimea was obviously going to be the next flashpoint and Putin was going to try to keep a pro Russian leader in control of the Ukraine. With the EU having made Poland and even Romania much better off the younger generations in the country were in favour of closer ties with the EU rather than Russia and they're was definite CIA involvement somewhere along the line even if the people were now more pro West than pro Russian. So annexation of Crimea was inevitable with it being home to Russias Black Sea fleet. Surely there was a moment to defuse the situation and prevent it escalating. But it suited quite a few western hawks to have a reset back to Russia being the enemy after the disastrous wars on terror. China's role needs closer examination too. They never recognised Russias annexation of Crimea which they surely could have done so easily and which would have probably seen 40 countries supporting Russia in any UN vote on the issue. So they're playing both sides in the conflict but Russia far more than the west.
I am sorry, what is this "we"?
I agree. But on the other hand, the US has too many bases and troops abroad, gives too much military aid, and is in too many endless wars. I think that the orange moron really has the right approach to foreign policy. Do whatever maximizes US GDP. We are here to win. Winning big. Winning so much it will make your head spin.
The US has massive uranium deposits and this corporation is quite possibly selling their citizens (us) out to the highest bidder. As usual Pimps do..
“The incentives facing decision makers are clearly visible to adversaries, since decision makers in democracies are beholden to voters…”
Not quite. Voters are very ignorant and don’t care about foreign policy, which makes them easy to manipulate. What foreign countries need to understand is how realistic U.S. elites are about maintaining U.S. hegemony. They were not realistic about Russia’s capabilities. We were told Ukraine would win.
Um, initially the experts fully expected for Ukraine to collapse during the first few weeks.
But then they reversed course when we began arming them.
Yes, after it turned out the Ukrainians were actually doing a decent job defending their country.