51–57 of 57 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which countries do you think actually depend on security guarantees by the USA? Do you really think Europe or Australia would fall when the USA disappeared tomorrow?
Europe would become part of Greater Russia and Australia would become part of Greater China.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Europe would become part of Greater Russia and Australia would become part of Greater China.
What is your evidence for this this? Why do you think countries can not coexist? Why will countries always conquer everything they can?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is your evidence for this this? Why do you think countries can not coexist? Why will countries always conquer everything they can?
My evidence is 5000 years of human history. What is yours?
I argue essentially nobody wants to fight wars, everybody just wants to have a reasonable good life. In the past we fought wars because we had kings and dictators that could force their people to fight wars for them for whatever dumb reasons they pleased and without incurring high personal costs.
But in a democracy, why would people send themselves to the battlefield? There are just no good reasons to fight wars. The most rational one is probably for resources, but simply trading them is increasingly often the more economic solution. What else? Religion, ideology, status? Why should I care? You want an Islamic state or a Communist society? Go ahead, try it, I don't care as long as you let me continue doing my thing in my country.
Sure, there are still people around that feel the need to impose their religious and ideological believes onto others but that is a declining group. Or do you seriously believe China would go to war because they want to spread their political or religious views?
According to Wikipedia the inland waterways of the US carry cargo worth $73 billion each year - which is about 4% of US GDP. In that context the fascination with inland waterways seems a bit odd.
The tyranny of distance and logistics might be hard for people making Internet services to imagine.
And so the final imperative of the dominant power of North America is to ensure that this never happens - to keep Eurasia divided among as many different (preferably mutually hostile) powers as possible. What a disturbing view of the world.
Um, how do you precisely think the rational of the american leadership actually goes then? No country as large as USA operates without holding it's own power as the main goal. What else would the main goal of the foreign policy of USA be then?
Humans long have tried to develop theories that predict the behavior of nations and its outcomes. It's perhaps the most important question to ask, with the survival, prosperity, and freedom of billions at stake. But it's a very difficult model to build, based on billions of human decisions and many other factors, including geography.
One well-established theory (though I don't know how popular among experts currently) is that geography, including climate, ultimately is a powerful factor determining the fate of nations. For example, a nation without arable land inevitably will have a small population and everything that follows from that: A small economy, a weak military, etc. Some real-world examples: Probably the biggest factor in Britain's survival in WWII was that they had a body of water between them and the German army; if they had switched geographies with the French, the results would have been much different. The U.S.'s WWII success and eventual post-war primacy was mostly because oceans separated the country from its enemies, providing an unmolested homeland, economy and manufacturing of war goods. The geography of Ukraine is easily traversed by large armies, leading to Russia being invaded through Ukraine many times over history (Napoleon and the Nazis come to mind); that is a big reason they want to control Ukraine. Russia's lack of access to the Mediterranean and Atlantic has greatly limited their naval power and thus their influence in Europe; that's why they care so much about Crimea and Syria, where they have naval bases with access to the Mediterranean. China's land borders are the Himalayas, other mountains and deserts, and poor areas such as Central Asia and Siberia; thus their trade is highly dependent on sea routes, resulting in their current actions to control the South China Sea. Overall, the regions of influence China tries to claim now is the same as when the Qing dynasty was ascendant in the 17th and 18th centuries - everything else changes, but geography stays the same.
Wrote one historian: If time is the locomotion of history, place could be the gradient against which it is pitted. Dynamic, the one hurtles forward; inert, the other holds it back.[1]
How these issues play out is another matter. China could resolve it's South China Sea concerns via multilateral agreements, or through military aggression. Also, there are other theories, including realism and constructivism.
----
[1] John Keay, in India: A History. Keay is not a credentialed academic historian but has written respected surveys of history; I don't know how well his theory ultimately holds water, but it's the best expression of the issue I've seen.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Realpolitik 101. Which is the only kind of politik proven to work with a track record.
So Russia occupying Crimea is just politics, just drawing borders in a way favorable to you?
> So Russia occupying Crimea is just politics...
The politics of it is this -
When the government of Ukraine was violently overthrown, and an un-elected regime was brought in that did not represent a significant portion of the people of Ukraine, Crimea had every right to join Russia - as it had been part of Russia for the majority of the last 200 years, Russians were the largest part of its population, and a turnout of 80%+ at the polls voted 90%+ yes.
> just drawing borders in a way favorable to you?
Why is it that people who do not live in Crimea want to decide the fates of the the people who do live in Crimea?