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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

#251

Post by seppin »

krakensden wrote: post #230
atsaloli wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

> Yes, but it's not ethnically Georgian, which was sort of the problem.

This is the Russian argument, if a sovereign country has a majority of ethnic Russians, it's ok to invade that country on their behalf.

As a neutral, do you actually agree with this? It seems crazy.

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

#252

Post by seppin »

yokisan wrote: post #216
atsaloli wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Crimea used to be part of Russia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimea A poor argument, we can agree.

Hong Kong used to be a Chinese fishing village. I can't believe people use this argument with a straight face.

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

#253

Post by Gustomaximus »

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?

I'm Australian. We tend to understate things as our way of expression. If you nit pick on words, you miss the theme. I find this is a good chuck of the internets problem in exploring a high emotion topic. The old cant see the forest for the trees.

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

#254

Post by DarkKomunalec »

Elrac wrote: post #241
DarkKomunalec wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You get automation either way - immigration only buys you ten or so years before the costs fall below even immigrant wages, after which you're left with unemployed immigrants. And lets not pretend the availability of cheap labour has nothing to do with jobs being low-end. Medical doctors sure is a funny example to give however - the USA has a lot of immigrants - how well has that worked in keeping healthcare affordab…

Immigration is keeping health care affordable in Germany and probably a bunch of other European countries. Until the Brexit, cheap foreign labor helped keep prices low in the UK. The USA don't have a problem with immigrants - they have a problem with the runaway corruption of their political leaders. Corporate lobbyists get to write laws for representatives to rubber stamp. The reason the same drugs cost 5x more in t…

I'd love some statistics on this - what is the proportion of immigrants who are doctors, and how does that compare to the native population (for Germany, the U.K., etc..)? How does it depend on the immigrant's country of origin? And, if the goal is to reduce medical costs - why not accept only doctors?

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

#255

Post by madgar »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #225
madgar wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't see why repeating the US's current governing party line requires a sarcasm tag. 40% of American voters agree with everything I'm saying and they decide what the US government does

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

#256

Post by antientropic »

kgabis wrote: post #183
GlennS wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, what? Britain and France declared war on Germany two days after it invaded Poland.

They declared war and did nothing (hence names like Sitzkrieg or Phoney War). Since Polish defense strategy was based on assumption that UK and France will fulfill their obligations it was a much easier win for Germany than it could've been otherwise. I'm suprised it's not talked about more outside Poland, but this betrayal cost millions of lives.

What betrayal? The UK and France did go to war against Germany, but they were not in a position to invade Germany in 1939. France suffered more than 4 years of German occupation as a result of its decision to declare war on Germany, a pretty high price for honoring its obligations to Poland.

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

#257

Post by seppin »

rrggrr wrote: post #123
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…

> Russia has good reason to be worried about their defense. The western powers have been doing most of the invading lately. Show me a recent Western intervention that threatens Russia's legitimate security interests. Syria? Perhaps. Aside from that your assertion is unsupported.

> Russia has good reason to be worried about their defense. The western powers have been doing most of the invading lately.

Who is under a greater threat of being invaded: Russian by the west or a ex-Soviet Union Baltic state by Russia?

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

#258

Post by jdpedrie »

wuschel wrote: post #95
jerf wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.…

> (...) always been at WA with Eurasia. That is an interesting formulation that reminds me former presidential advisor Zbigniew Brzeziński's book "The Grand Chessboard".

The quoted text is a reference to Orwell's 1984.

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

#259

Post by Gustomaximus »

vondur wrote: post #250
zzleeper wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Well, we pushed NATO onto the borders of Russia. I can't imagine the US would be too happy with Russian military bases on our borders.

Also you have to remember Ukraine only became a country in 1991. Before that is was USSR. For someone like Putin, Ukraine is still a rouge state to be brought back in the fold. Like Taiwan/China. I feel the world has moved on from USSR boarders but I also understand how someone who lived longer may see things differently. Its not that long ago.

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

#260

Post by mcguire »

mkaziz wrote: post #172
justaman wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US had problems "keeping those wars 'won'" because the US had to attempt to minimize civilian deaths. If there ever is an event where this isnt the case, you can bet it would be wrapped up in a few weeks.

Yeesh, minimize civilian deaths? "The Iraq Body Count project (IBC) figure of Documented civilian deaths from violence is 155,923 – 174,355 as of March 2016. This includes reported civilian deaths due to Coalition and insurgent military action, sectarian violence and increased criminal violence.[19] The IBC site states: "it should be noted that many deaths will probably go unreported or unrecorded by officials and me…

150,000? Wow, that might even be more than the Al-Anfal campaign.
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