81–90 of 483 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you trying to suggest the taliban wouldn't have launched an assault if the date wasn't moved and the US pulled out? I feel your desire to throw a political punch has utterly blinded you here.
That is exactly what I'm claiming, as evidenced by the timeline and events as they occurred. To label a resounding defeat as a withdrawal, simultaneously claim the withdrawal treaty was Trump's plan (but not hold Biden to account for breaking it), and then also claim that this was a continuation of the previous administration's policy... I mean these responses are inline with the sort of "facts don't matter" tribal r…
Haven't read the book, but for those who don't know who Zeihan is, his work follows two threads of post-WWII history: 1. Deglobalization; and 2. Depopulation The article focuses mostly on deglobalization, but depopulation is in the horse pulling the cart. Many are familiar with the deglobalization idea from the last US presidential administration. The current administration kept those tariffs, and abided by the previ…
> Their populations will shrink with mathematical certainty. Yeah you know why? Because both parents sitting in offices 8 hours a day have no means of looking after their kids. And a mother giving birth needs to return to work in a few months time, else she there's no pay. Oh and neither parent can give up work to raise these future adults because living expenses are too high. I don't know why everyone is so surprise…
I don’t think the issue is simply “cities have less space, working couples have less money”. Its likely more complicated than that, because nothing really explains why people in India’s vast rural areas would have so few kids.
Haven't read the book, but for those who don't know who Zeihan is, his work follows two threads of post-WWII history: 1. Deglobalization; and 2. Depopulation The article focuses mostly on deglobalization, but depopulation is in the horse pulling the cart. Many are familiar with the deglobalization idea from the last US presidential administration. The current administration kept those tariffs, and abided by the previ…
> and abided by the previous commitment to exit Afghanistan. Ummm, what? Biden moved the date for withdrawal back, to make it coincide with a 9/11 anniversary. Then, seeing that the US would just arbitrarily change treaties, the Taliban launched an assault and reconquered the country. I get that historical revisionism is popular with political partisans, but usually you wait until goldfish have forgotten the details…
Are you implying that not delaying the withdrawal would have resulted in the Taliban leaving the rest of the country alone and going about their business?
From what I understand about it, the treaty was falling apart from the very beginning due to the US Government conducting negotiations without involving the Afghan government [1].
[1]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawal_of_United_States_tr...
[edited] verb tense
Big error there: the US is a net exporter of fuel now but it sure wasn't for most of the Cold War.
How does someone writing in a magazine or blog for the shipping industry not know that? Petroleum and petroleum products make up more than half of the world's tonnage of ocean-going shipping and have since the start of the Cold War!
Also, if you share a continent with a potential invader (like for example Ukraine does) then you should invest mainly in your army. It is exactly when you are secure in your own continent (or island) like the US is (and Britain before it was) that it starts to make sense to invest heavily in a Navy, to address the residual military threat. All countries with populations next to an ocean would benefit from a good navy, but only rich countries with no pressing need for a good army can afford the luxury of a navy strong enough to repel any other country's navy. All the other countries of the world with coastal populations just have to put up with the risk of an attack from one of the world's dominant navies.
And if the US didn't have a good navy, it would be vulnerable to the countries that did, regardless of where in the world that countries was located. Contrary to the sentence I quoted, an ocean is no barrier to a sufficiently well-funded navy. The only protection from a blue-water navy is a better navy. Well, that might be starting to change now (in the future, the best protection might be hypersonic missiles with advanced guidance and sensory systems plus a constellation of satellites to surveil the oceans plus an array of listening stations in the ocean) but it has been true for centuries and is probably still true.
Peter Zeihan has a point (namely, the US has less of an incentive to use its dominant navy to protect the world's shipping than it did during the Cold War) but the OP has not successfully reproduced Zeihan's argument. (Also, the US continues to have an incentive to continue to maintain a dominant navy, briefly because even if you are already the most militarily secure nation on Earth, it still makes sense to buy more security if you can do so at a reasonable cost, and for the US, a good navy is probably a reasonable cost.)
Haven't read the book, but for those who don't know who Zeihan is, his work follows two threads of post-WWII history: 1. Deglobalization; and 2. Depopulation The article focuses mostly on deglobalization, but depopulation is in the horse pulling the cart. Many are familiar with the deglobalization idea from the last US presidential administration. The current administration kept those tariffs, and abided by the previ…
> The vast majority of major countries with the exception of the US and Mexico have passed a point of no return demographically Where is the data to back this statement up? Sub-Sahara African countries have been growing by 2.5% over the last decades. Just one example. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.GROW?locations=Z...
Emigration from Africa is likely to become huge destabilizing factor in richer countries with declining population. Similar to current Hispanic majority in California, African majority population is likely in some European countries in mid term.
I'm confused about two things:
1. "Not a single ship captain works in the Pentagon or any of the major national security think tanks." - I doubt there are satellite operators, travel industry execs, farmers or construction workers either. US military leaders are tasked with zero substantial threats to US peace, security and order, and mostly succeeds, with the exceptions rare enough to be newsworthy (JFK/etc assassinations, WTC93 and 9/11, etc)
2. "Nearly everyone prospered and the oceans became safe for ships of immense size and slow speed, unlocking economies of scale that became possible only because the ocean became safe enough for shippers to put all their eggs – or at least 26,000 TEU’s worth of eggs – in one basket." - AFAICT, the TEU/container is the unit of shipping, not the whole ship. This means that ships can get larger and larger without increased financial/etc risk to producers or consumers. For many reasons, shipping companies own many ships and individual losses are a financial matter and not existential threat.
thoughts?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you trying to suggest the taliban wouldn't have launched an assault if the date wasn't moved and the US pulled out? I feel your desire to throw a political punch has utterly blinded you here.
That is exactly what I'm claiming, as evidenced by the timeline and events as they occurred. To label a resounding defeat as a withdrawal, simultaneously claim the withdrawal treaty was Trump's plan (but not hold Biden to account for breaking it), and then also claim that this was a continuation of the previous administration's policy... I mean these responses are inline with the sort of "facts don't matter" tribal r…
I'd suggest stepping back and evaluating your political blinders.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would imagine that this would first manifest itself in smaller countries. For example Mali employs the Wagner group out of Russia as a supplement for its Army. And I believe they are used by other countries as well. I don't see nuclear-armed nations using private companies, but possibly being the source of troops and technology. Really I don't see U.S. citizens joining mercenary groups, quality of life is too good.…
> I don't see nuclear-armed nations using private companies Russia is using Wagner Group in Ukraine. Does that count as a private company?
Is your argument is the fact that Wagner operations seem to be closely tied to the whims and wishes of the Russian government? Thats true for all Russian companies. Gazprom is exactly the same.
Interesting to combine this line of thinking with the transition from nation-states to market-states: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1744057060106386... The power vacuum that's arisen from populism & isolationism is about to create a gigantic untapped market for firms that provide the services of a state - defense, dispute resolution, and currency - for a fee, to gigantic multinational corporations. At t…
The modern Westphalian nation-state may just be an accident of history, eventually replaced by other mechanisms. Arguably it already has begun; tech monopolies are starting to provide "government-like" rules and enforcement.