is the U.S really declining or others are just catching up?
Life at the End of American Empire
71–80 of 88 posts
Re: Life at the End of American Empire
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thus, ironically, the problem for both the right and the left is the same one- that governments today are too weak . The right needs an at least temporarily strong government to effect the dismantling of the state , whereas the left needs a strong government not merely to respond to the grinding conditions of the economic “recovery”, but to overturn previous policies, put in new protections and find some alternative…
This honestly reads as "working as intended" to me. No side can become the tyrant and get everything it wants and screw the other ~50%.
I don’t think the intention was to never solve anything though.
Re: Life at the End of American Empire
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd say the US's first total loss was the Civil War. The North didn't really win. 100 years of Klan terror should be enough proof, not to mention the continuing rule of the South by landowning oligarchs who keep the place a festering corrupt shithole.
This wasn't even remotely what the Civil war was fought over. It was a struggle against the Federal government system from DC imposing themselves over states rights in the South. Also, you might get more reception for your ideas if you don't paint half the country as a "festering shithole". The majority of Americans don't live in the ivory towers of NYC and San Francisco.
The South's own declarations of secession make pretty clear just what impositions from DC were bothering them. A bunch of English-aristocrat-wannabes afraid they'd have to give up their aspirations on account of the whole owning-people-thing.
Re: Life at the End of American Empire
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Soviets were kicked out by the Taliban. How could a democracy be started with them? How can you make the Iraqi fractions live together if there is oil money to be distributed? How do you conquer Russia if they have nuclear weapons and still plenty of tanks?
> The Soviets were kicked out by the Taliban The Taliban got their weapons and training from the US, all funded by the Saudis, orchestrated by a congressman [1] and oil heiress from Texas. The history is well known at this point. > How could a democracy be started with them? Democracy was probably never a goal in the effort, certainly not for the Saudis, and not for the Taliban or the US either. Weakening the USSR th…
So Afghanistan was a victory and not a loss.
Re: Life at the End of American Empire
#75"Any single defeat can be attributed to particular and ad hoc circumstances, but America is unique among the world’s dominant powers of the past 500 years in its repeated failure to achieve military objectives over decades. Those failures are even more extraordinary because they occurred in the absence of a rising military rival and as America’s ability and willingness to produce and pay for the weapons needed for mi…
The Soviets were kicked out by the Taliban. How could a democracy be started with them? How can you make the Iraqi fractions live together if there is oil money to be distributed? How do you conquer Russia if they have nuclear weapons and still plenty of tanks?
> The Soviets were kicked out by the Taliban
No, they weren't. The Taliban didn't exist until much later, the group that the Soviets were forced out by became the government and then later fragmented into a number of different factions. The Taliban was one of them, but so were many of the factions fighting against the Taliban.
Re: Life at the End of American Empire
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US has had plenty of moral lapses in its military adventures, but one suspects that the powers of the past 500 years would have been far more willing to obliterate entire nations without concern for civilians.
> The US has had plenty of moral lapses in its military adventures, but one suspects that the powers of the past 500 years would have been far more willing to obliterate entire nations without concern for civilians. Simply not true. There was a reason why european wars were fought in the fields and not in cities/population centers in the past. Also, past powers tended to conquer nations/cities in order to subjugate t…
I appreciate your comment (and didn't downvote you). What I wrote does not enjoy the benefit of citations, which I don't have handy.
My point wasn't that these things don't happen, just that we maybe, just _maybe_ have slightly more compunction about killing tens of millions of people at the push of a button (which we can now do) than someone from 1665 would. Would Oliver Cromwell have just nuked Ireland? I imagine his hand would have been stayed only by the thought of all the ruined grazing land.
But, of course, I could be wrong. I don't think humans are inherently better now than 500 years ago. And the 20th century has a grab bag of atrocities to choose from.
Re: Life at the End of American Empire
#77It’s funny that the author on one hand acknowledges that the government sucks at everything it does, whether it’s education, infrastructure, or health insurance. He also acknowledges that the federal government has a tendency to constantly engage in costly foreign wars regardless of who happens to be in office. Yet his proposed solution is to give the government even more money and even more power.
I think a good way to balance or engage better performance out of whoever is in office is to completely rid the federal tax. All people will pay their state tax, and the local/state government will be responsible to provide the federal government money out of the state pool. I think it will drastically change 1) how much the federal government can spend 2) What it gets spent on because the states would much rather ke…
I recommend studying the current European Union then. This is pretty much the status quo over here. And yes, it ensures that the states have way more power. But make your own conclusions.
Re: Life at the End of American Empire
#78"Any single defeat can be attributed to particular and ad hoc circumstances, but America is unique among the world’s dominant powers of the past 500 years in its repeated failure to achieve military objectives over decades. Those failures are even more extraordinary because they occurred in the absence of a rising military rival and as America’s ability and willingness to produce and pay for the weapons needed for mi…
This analysis is only partially correct, but it echoes what is the (mostly) prevailing wisdom of the last couple years about "what went wrong". To start, we actually did have a success: Gulf War I. It was an overwhelming victory, with extensive enemy casualties and minimal allied losses. It's strategic significance was not what it did to the US position in the Middle East however, but rather what it did to the Genera…
No clear understanding and no willingness to accept the outcome created by ones actions. And thus invest the time, resources and political will to stay in those countries for multiple generations to ensure they have a chance at building up a modern democratic society.
Re: Life at the End of American Empire
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US has had plenty of moral lapses in its military adventures, but one suspects that the powers of the past 500 years would have been far more willing to obliterate entire nations without concern for civilians.
> The US has had plenty of moral lapses in its military adventures, but one suspects that the powers of the past 500 years would have been far more willing to obliterate entire nations without concern for civilians. Simply not true. There was a reason why european wars were fought in the fields and not in cities/population centers in the past. Also, past powers tended to conquer nations/cities in order to subjugate t…
You may also add Germany to the first two ...
Re: Life at the End of American Empire
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The Soviets were kicked out by the Taliban The Taliban got their weapons and training from the US, all funded by the Saudis, orchestrated by a congressman [1] and oil heiress from Texas. The history is well known at this point. > How could a democracy be started with them? Democracy was probably never a goal in the effort, certainly not for the Saudis, and not for the Taliban or the US either. Weakening the USSR th…
So Afghanistan was a victory and not a loss.
Short term yes, but long term?