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America Is Now a Rogue Superpower

theatlantic.com

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Re: America Is Now a Rogue Superpower

#51

Post by adolph »

bamboozled wrote: post #17
jmyeet wrote: post #16

How times have changed when a neoliberal institution (not quite as bad as The Economist) openly says this: > Even the threat of terrorism from the region was a consequence of American involvement, not the reason for it. Had the United States not been deeply and consistently involved in the Muslim world since the 1940s, Islamic militants would have little interest in attacking an indifferent nation 5,000 miles and two…

China has played much much better chess so it's not surprise they're benefiting. However, I don't really see how China will benefit from Iran being in ruins. Can you elaborate on how China benefits ? From what I can tell, The USA is either going for force a regime change or it's going to ruin Iran. Where will China get oil from then? You might say Russia but that's a precarious situation for them to be in.

> The USA is either going for force a regime change or it's going to ruin Iran. Where will China get oil from then?

A positive story for China might be: a.) building port complexes and other industrial facilities is something China export as construction, engineering and financial services; b.) oil is a global commodity and a rising price everywhere doesn't create a relative disadvantage.

Re: America Is Now a Rogue Superpower

#52

Post by anakaine »

bamboozled wrote: post #17
jmyeet wrote: post #16

How times have changed when a neoliberal institution (not quite as bad as The Economist) openly says this: > Even the threat of terrorism from the region was a consequence of American involvement, not the reason for it. Had the United States not been deeply and consistently involved in the Muslim world since the 1940s, Islamic militants would have little interest in attacking an indifferent nation 5,000 miles and two…

China has played much much better chess so it's not surprise they're benefiting. However, I don't really see how China will benefit from Iran being in ruins. Can you elaborate on how China benefits ? From what I can tell, The USA is either going for force a regime change or it's going to ruin Iran. Where will China get oil from then? You might say Russia but that's a precarious situation for them to be in.

The Belt and Road initiative gets a shot in the arm. No tarrifs, free trade, lower cost finance with fewer encumbrances. Efforts to establish the Renminbi as a second reserve currency have been quiet, but these trade alliances and alternate banking arrangements are already making it a possible reality. US perception is that belt and road was unpopular and a failure, but its little different from US economic imperialism. The amount of money flowing through BRICS and the rise of China as the world's largest creditor is testament to this.

Cheaper weapons have shown to be effe tive in holding off a technologically superior force, and China is both great at producing them and happy to sell them to spec.

The US not being able to produce weapons at a fast enough cadence to refill the stockpile is an indicator that US weapons manufacturing is currently unsustainable, and prohibitively expensive. Both are weakness.

The US has shown that it cannot maintain moderate effort on two fronts. Not only is it financially almost unable to do so, only by the good graces of being the reserve currency, it would significantly struggle to maintain distributed engagements - this is military intelligence if an adversary wanted to engineer multiple conflicts requiring US attention globally to spread the US thin.

Re: America Is Now a Rogue Superpower

#53

Post by adventured »

anakaine wrote: post #44
12971h wrote: post #24

Robert Kagan is not wrong about many points, but it is worth noting that he is one of the leading neocons, husband of Nuland, and architect of PNAC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_C... The think tank (Brookings Institute) which he is part of laid out the Iran strategy "Path to Persia" something like 15 years ago. I think he does recognize that the US needs Europe for projecting power, so t…

Who even is the deep state any more? MAGA was sure it was backroom democrats. Project 2025 has provided much of the playbook for this administrations run, and thats deep red conservative territory. Meanwhile we have an overwhelming body of evidence for market manipulation and extreme profit taking on the war and oil fronts, pointing to politically aligned financiers. I don't think the deep state is any discernible si…

The deep state is any agent of meaningful power/influence that works for the government or is very closely entangled with the government, and that retains some or all of their power/influence from one admin to the next.

That includes for example powerful figures in the Pentagon or intelligence agencies that remain from one admin to the next. These people all have agendas of their own, and they network as people do. Dick Cheney was a deep state figure across a couple of decades, often working in the shadows. So was Rumsfeld. So was Kissinger across a few decades during his prime power/influence years. They all had long-term agendas, their ideas about the world, and extremely deep connections throughout the Federal Government.

It's not a mysterious conspiracy. It's just people with power/influence pursuing outcomes that they'd like to see happen, and working with other like-minded people to get there.

Re: America Is Now a Rogue Superpower

#54

Post by kelnos »

WarmWash wrote: post #22
jmyeet wrote: post #16

How times have changed when a neoliberal institution (not quite as bad as The Economist) openly says this: > Even the threat of terrorism from the region was a consequence of American involvement, not the reason for it. Had the United States not been deeply and consistently involved in the Muslim world since the 1940s, Islamic militants would have little interest in attacking an indifferent nation 5,000 miles and two…

Maybe it will finally get a critical mass of people to realize how much oil and gas sucks.

I think in the US we already have that; it's just that our current leadership is in love with oil and gas and thinks renewables are "woke" or something. The number of renewable energy projects that have been cancelled or stalled here in the past year+ is gross.

It is nice that some Trump supporters are seeing prices at the pump and are having second thoughts about their Dear Leader. But a) it's disappointing that that's what it takes, and b) he still has a rabid base of people who love him despite his policies being the exact opposite of what they need to prosper (not to mention many of his policies being the exact opposite of what he campaigned on).

So we can only assume that renewables will continue to be kneecapped in the US at least for the next ~3 years. Hopefully European countries are fast-tracking renewable projects, but those things take time to build and bring online. (Hopefully they've been doing so since the Ukraine war started, really. The current Iran-related energy crisis is bad, but it's not like Europe had been sitting pretty with energy resources a month ago.)

Re: America Is Now a Rogue Superpower

#55

Post by dnautics »

adventured wrote: post #23
dnautics wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

on the other hand the us interventions have betrayed that chinese radars e.g. don't "work as advertised", to the point that there have been purges at chinese military industrial manufacturers. on top of the recent purges in the military hierarchy, it seems like action against Taiwan is delayed for a few years. conversely the US brass now has a fire lit under its ass due to low ammo stockpiles and and excuse to replen…

If they move on correcting that properly of course. We'll see what they do. The US requires an exceptional surge in manufacturing output for ammo.

of course, but point being: status quo was it wasn't happening, and the trajectory wasn't good.

Another example: Someone will have egg on face for leaving AWACs out on a tarmac (exactly dumb thing that we made fun of russia for doing) and so that seems unlikely to happen, if for no other reason than doctrinally, for the next minimum half decade or so.

Re: America Is Now a Rogue Superpower

#56

Post by anakaine »

jmyeet wrote: post #45
bamboozled wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China has played much much better chess so it's not surprise they're benefiting. However, I don't really see how China will benefit from Iran being in ruins. Can you elaborate on how China benefits ? From what I can tell, The USA is either going for force a regime change or it's going to ruin Iran. Where will China get oil from then? You might say Russia but that's a precarious situation for them to be in.

The US cannot ruin Iran short of the widespread use of nuclear weapons. Air power has never resulted in regime change. Never . It takes boots on the ground and one just needs to look at a map. Iran is surrounded on 3 sides by mountains and the Gulf on the fourth. Iran's drones and ballistic missiles are incredibly cheap, well-defended and impossible to meaningfully disrupt. The interceptors used to stop them are runn…

I quite enjoyed the depth of that comment. Good write up.

Regarding countries friendly to the US - watching just how many foreign leaders have been diplomatically blunt or even hostile with the US has been interesting. Even the Australian prime minister, a famously boot-heeled position, has been publicly critical of the US.

Right now in Australia we are paying $3.30 AUD for a litre of diesel. That's over $8.50 USD per gallon.

Re: America Is Now a Rogue Superpower

#57

Post by gspetr »

anakaine wrote: post #44
12971h wrote: post #24

Robert Kagan is not wrong about many points, but it is worth noting that he is one of the leading neocons, husband of Nuland, and architect of PNAC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_C... The think tank (Brookings Institute) which he is part of laid out the Iran strategy "Path to Persia" something like 15 years ago. I think he does recognize that the US needs Europe for projecting power, so t…

Who even is the deep state any more? MAGA was sure it was backroom democrats. Project 2025 has provided much of the playbook for this administrations run, and thats deep red conservative territory. Meanwhile we have an overwhelming body of evidence for market manipulation and extreme profit taking on the war and oil fronts, pointing to politically aligned financiers. I don't think the deep state is any discernible si…

> Who even is the deep state any more?

The same thing it's always been: The military-industrial complex.

> MAGA was sure it was backroom democrats.

It's not that hard to distinguish "them", just look at how fast the mainstream media threw Biden under the bus over Afghanistan withdrawal.

1)POTUS orders the withdrawal.

2)Generals botch the withdrawal on purpose.

3)Mainstream media (left and right) eviscerates the POTUS. This sends a strong message to this POTUS, as well as any subsequent Presidents: "Don't mess with the profits of the complex or else."

This was the tipping point for me when I realized that the deep state is not a just a bogeyman conjured up by the right wingers. Should you cross the complex, it will just as easily come for you even if you're a Democrat that's been in politics for 50 years.

Finally, the Atlantic is as establishment as it gets. No matter which party is in power, their editorial board serves the ruling class, of which almost nobody on HN is a part of.

Whether their interests align with yours or not you can ascertain just by looking at approval ratings of the US Congress.

Re: America Is Now a Rogue Superpower

#58

Post by jbm »

exceptione wrote: post #43
jmyeet wrote: post #16

How times have changed when a neoliberal institution (not quite as bad as The Economist) openly says this: > Even the threat of terrorism from the region was a consequence of American involvement, not the reason for it. Had the United States not been deeply and consistently involved in the Muslim world since the 1940s, Islamic militants would have little interest in attacking an indifferent nation 5,000 miles and two…

Good points, except this one: > And Europe and the US will likely make peace with Russia over Ukraine because of spiralling energy costs thanks to America's reckless misadventure in the Gulf. MAGA is investing hard in trying to kill the EU from within by exporting conservative dipshit organisations, blue-printed from the USA. I see al kinds of recruitment going on here. If they succeed there is a small chance Europe…

It's not just the EU, you can see these organizations in Canada and in Japan. For example, I watch youtube channels ostensibly created to discuss Japanese Real Estate (I'm thinking about Rakumachi) which suddenly pivot to posting American right wing talking points in Japanese on their shorts channel. (Their long form RE content is usually interesting)

Re: America Is Now a Rogue Superpower

#59

Post by jbm »

exceptione wrote: post #49
bamboozled wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China has played much much better chess so it's not surprise they're benefiting. However, I don't really see how China will benefit from Iran being in ruins. Can you elaborate on how China benefits ? From what I can tell, The USA is either going for force a regime change or it's going to ruin Iran. Where will China get oil from then? You might say Russia but that's a precarious situation for them to be in.

> China has played much much better chess so it's not surprise they're benefiting. They didn't play chess at all, but unlike the USA, they didn't poop on the board and didn't smudge the other players with their drool. We are forgetting now that the belt and road initiative, as well as the wolf warrior diplomacy, had put China on the lowest rankings in global perception. China had to do literally nothing to "play bett…

Somewhat hilariously, the US adopted the same Wolf Warrior diplomacy.

Maybe public diplomacy is simply adjacent to local politics to the US. I still think this will backfire spectacularly over the medium term.

Re: America Is Now a Rogue Superpower

#60

Post by orwin »

lo_zamoyski wrote: post #39
orwin wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You assume way too much competence on either side.

Worse, it is simply unrealistic no matter how competent you are. Conspiracy theories always hinge on highly improbable conditions to hold or require someone have fantastical abilities.

Right, even if both governments/leaders were competent, that would have been way to hard to engineer volontarily. I will keep assuming ego and delusions.
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