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Why Europe Is Warning of Pax Americana's End

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Re: Why Europe Is Warning of Pax Americana's End

#221

Post by westbywest »

madgar wrote: post #78
knz wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how this relates to US allies questioning the reliability of the US? Our allies (as a country not necessarily it's population) are usually involved in the same conflict and support the same worldview towards Russia. It's been widely reported that allies are increasingly military spending and reassessing defense strategies after comments/actions by Trump.

Widely reported by fake news! Any and all media with few exceptions* is the enemy of the United States now, of course they say those things. * InfoWars, RT and Breitbart excluded

Excluding the Russian state media outlet RT from the "enemies of the United States" group, while including local media outlets you presumably disagree with, seems pretty fallacious. To put it mildly.

Re: Why Europe Is Warning of Pax Americana's End

#222

Post by jonathanstrange »

EdiX wrote: post #197
jonathanstrange wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt that the EU is falling apart, but if it ever does, then certainly more because of perceived issues rather than real ones. Although it was created democratically and by countless unanimous votes of its member states, the EU has always been an easy scapegoat for national politicians who did not do their own job right. In the UK, they quite obviously got the revenge for this behavior. (Remember, most MPs were an…

> because of perceived issues rather than real ones 10 years of stagnation or decline of GDP in all top 5 countries of the eurozone (which account for 50% of all GDP of EU) is not a perceived issue.

I don't want to start some longish economic argument here, but given that the EU is primarily a trade union and only around 1% of the total GDP of all member states is spent on the EU by its members, or, in other words, spending to the EU budget by member states is ridiculously small in comparison to national spendings by the respective national governments, it's hard to find an argument that could somehow contribute this development to the EU. How would more trade barriers improve the economy of individual member states? (Note that I do not deny that Germany and the UK might be able to exploit their strong economic forces in bilateral treaties to gain advantages over smaller countries within the EU in some trade wars, but I'm talking about the prosperity of the 28 EU countries as a whole.)

Moreover, if you honestly compare EU GDP development to the rest of the world, you will also find out that the EU has done fairly well despite the financial crisis that hit it harder than the US.[1]

[1] http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/...

Re: Why Europe Is Warning of Pax Americana's End

#223

Post by droopyEyelids »

zzleeper wrote: post #110
Gustomaximus wrote: post #77

From the article: "It needs to move toward more military integration, which means streamlining procurement. European armies use too many different weapons systems: seventeen main battle tank families compared with just one for the U.S.; 20 types of fighter planes compared with just six; and 13 kinds of air-to-air missiles compared with three." While I dont doubt there are efficiencies to be had, I feel they fail to r…

Wait wait.. Russia plainly invaded two of its neighbors, and annexes part of them. Is that just "behaving badly" in your book?

First off, I think Russia is a corrupt kleptocracy.

But think about it for just one second. Crimea contains Russia's _only_ warm water port. For the whole country. A country that spans two continents.

Look back on how America treated 'Panama'. America has dozens of warm water ports on both oceans, and it overthrew countries a thousand miles away to secure shipping convenience.

It's inconceivable how long Russia has allowed itself to go without a warm water port. And in the scale of international lawlessness, the Russian invasion of Crimea is totally justifiable 'bad behavior'.

And this isn't even going into the peninsula's tumultuous past. http://www.forbes.com/sites/gregsatell/2014/03/01/5-things-y...

Re: Why Europe Is Warning of Pax Americana's End

#224

Post by jbattle »

jerf wrote: post #82
markhahn wrote: post #70

The US is just pouting, and it's shameful. We need adults in the room, being thoughtful, pointing out, for instance, that withdrawing is not a form of strength, and only permits other countries (China) to fill the vacuum. The vote for DT was a nihilistic, anti-establishment moment from a demo that wants change but isn't willing to think about what kind of change.

"withdrawing is not a form of strength" Umm.... wasn't that almost literally Obama's position? Haven't other countries been filling the vacuum in? Doesn't it make a lot more sense to look at Trump's election precisely as a rejection of eight years of that idea? Aren't we supposed to be very afraid of Trump being a maniac with the nuclear button and using the US military to do crazy things? Obama wasn't that long ago.…

Obama campaigned specifically on getting out of Iraq & Afghanistan. IIRC he was gung-ho on getting more involved in Pakistan. He authorized military operations in dozens of countries and didn't question the bipartisan consensus on foreign policy in any significant way

Re: Why Europe Is Warning of Pax Americana's End

#225

Post by eli_gottlieb »

madgar wrote: post #78
knz wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how this relates to US allies questioning the reliability of the US? Our allies (as a country not necessarily it's population) are usually involved in the same conflict and support the same worldview towards Russia. It's been widely reported that allies are increasingly military spending and reassessing defense strategies after comments/actions by Trump.

Widely reported by fake news! Any and all media with few exceptions* is the enemy of the United States now, of course they say those things. * InfoWars, RT and Breitbart excluded

Please include a sarcasm marker where appropriate.

Re: Why Europe Is Warning of Pax Americana's End

#226

Post by aaron-lebo »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #211
aaron-lebo wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: Russia is an authoritarian country and not a shining example of freedom. That being said.... If you were Russian and you'd spent the last century watching the West undercut you and try and control you at every step (for valid reasons in a lot of cases), you'd be threatened, too. They went from being a superpower to having 100 million more people than California with the same GDP, while watching their own…

>Russia isn't justified in what they've done, but put yourself in their shoes. Of course it doesn't help that history has been exceedingly cruel to the Russian people, but it's given them a lot of pride and being dictated to by the US has upset that pride. This sounds a lot like apologizing for Germany's feelings in 1930. Except, of course, the Russians had their 1933 in 2010 or so. They did get shafted! They've also…

I'm not apologizing for them, just saying there are centuries of history wrapped up into this.

Russia has done some evil things to others and its own people (understatement), but it's not US (good) vs Russia (evil). It's a little here and a little there and if we ever want to reach across the table and have real peace it's by treating them and every other country with respect instead of as a doormat.

Do American policy makers care if the average Russian has a hard life? Not really. But Russians certainly do and they are doing what they perceive to be protecting their own interests, for right and wrong.

Cornered animals fight. We've backed a starving bear into a corner and are surprised when it lashes out.

Re: Why Europe Is Warning of Pax Americana's End

#227

Post by portpecos »

bluetomcat wrote: post #202
geoka9 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, "treating Russia with respect" to Russia means "let us do with our neighbouring countries as we please regardless of their wishes". So of course _that_ had to be declined.

And how is that different from the US intervening in "non-neighbouring" countries like Iraq or Afghanistan, or the UK going to war with the "neighbouring" Falkland Islands?

>And how is that different from the US intervening in "non-neighbouring" countries like Iraq

Because the US is a hero for liberating the Iraqi people.

Re: Why Europe Is Warning of Pax Americana's End

#228

Post by emodendroket »

alkonaut wrote: post #155
emodendroket wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that's the theory, yeah. I think there's been some question about some of the newer NATO members for some time though. http://www.interpretermag.com/americans-are-prepared-to-die-...

> I think there's been some question about some of the newer NATO members for some time though Perhaps. And surely any country would ponder whether it would be willing to send thousands of young people to their deaths for any cause, regardless of what agreements were signed. But the point is these things aren't supposed to be discussed in public by the parties that need to demonstrate resolve.

Unless you think the Russian government is filled with incompetent idiots I don't think they're incapable of understanding American resistance to the idea of war over Latvia regardless of what the President says.

Re: Why Europe Is Warning of Pax Americana's End

#229

Post by geoka9 »

dagenleg wrote: post #214
atsaloli wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

South Ossetia used to be part of Georgia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Ossetia

And Kosovo used to be part of Serbia. Just because a region is/was a part of your country does not mean you can do whatever you want in there.

So I guess you can do shelling and ethnic cleansing of those who don't support your desire to break away?

http://www.rferl.org/a/Eyewitness_Accounts_Confirm_Shelling_...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing_of_Georgians_...

Re: Why Europe Is Warning of Pax Americana's End

#230

Post by krakensden »

atsaloli wrote: post #192
yokisan wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sigh . Must we? "EU investigation says Tbilisi launched indiscriminate assault on South Ossetia..with a massive artillery attack" https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/sep/30/georgia-attack...

South Ossetia used to be part of Georgia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Ossetia

Yes, but it's not ethnically Georgian, which was sort of the problem. That wikipedia article toes the Georgian line, which is sort of disappointing, but they do cite the EU report (via the 'world socialist news', which I don't really want to cite) that the pretext was manufactured.

The Russian point of view is that they were stopping an ethnic cleansing right on their border, before it could get too far. It's not a crazy point of view, the Georgians were shelling a mostly non-Georgian city. The US is also not a super neutral observer, we were selling them tons of weapons, and the Georgians were pandering pretty hard to us.

It looks like the full EU report is mirrored by the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/30_09_09_iiffmgc_...

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