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America Is Now a Rogue Superpower

theatlantic.com

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Re: America Is Now a Rogue Superpower

#61

Post by Hfuffzehn »

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.

I'll give you a small scale example for that.

A year ago, when discussing AI adoption in an European business, the idea of looking at Chinese providers or Mistral was not seriously considered. The obvious answer was Microsoft/Azure and OpenAI.

That has changed nowadays. As a direct consequence of the behavior of the American government towards its "allies".

You can extrapolate from that. This isn't about short term oil supply problems when the whole world (lead by China) is moving to renewables anyways. It is about long term strategic consequences.

Re: America Is Now a Rogue Superpower

#62

Post by jmyeet »

adventured wrote: post #53
anakaine wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. D…

There is this building where guys wearing masks wheel you into a room behind locked doors at dawn and then use drugs to knock you out. They then take sharp knives and cut you open and rummage around your insides, sometimes taking organs out. Blood goes everywhere. The footage is gory. When they're done with you it may takes you weeks to recover.

The rest of just call his "surgery at a hospital".

My point is that you've just described in nefarious terms the "civil service" or the "administrative state". Every government department is full of career civil servants who will go through many administrations. Only the very top officials in any department are political appointees. We're talking the secretary, their deputies and some positions under those.

Government simply cannot function without career civil servants who end up becoming subject matter experts in what they're administering.

Or, you know, you can nerfariously say "deep state".

Re: America Is Now a Rogue Superpower

#64

Post by atmavatar »

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 and always has been the ultra-wealthy.

Rampant, uncontrolled consolidation of media, PACs, lobbying, and granting cushy jobs to retired congresspeople all give the wealthiest individuals extremely outsized control over what happens in the US government.

Re: America Is Now a Rogue Superpower

#66

Post by xg15 »

kackerlacker wrote: post #48
xg15 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, given that there are some theories floating around that Trump is actually executing the "Path to Persia" paper, it's interesting that those people are (ostensibly) distancing themselves from it.

I think most far from center paper writers are more successful if they don't let reality limit their ideas. Probably few consider a real idiot with enough power to ruin them as a threat when they start putting pen to page.

"Be careful what you wish for, it might come true"

Re: America Is Now a Rogue Superpower

#68

Post by progmetaldev »

atmavatar wrote: post #64
anakaine wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 and always has been the ultra-wealthy. Rampant, uncontrolled consolidation of media, PACs, lobbying, and granting cushy jobs to retired congresspeople all give the wealthiest individuals extremely outsized control over what happens in the US government.

I think the problem is that the "deep state" really came into public consciousness with Trump, on his first run. While I agree with your definition of the deep state, that is not what most people think of in current days, and Trump is probably the deepest of deep state you can legally be. He ran against the deep state, while being deeply embedded inside it. It was just easier to pass off because he wasn't a politician (at least from an American point of view, not sure of your country of origin).

Re: America Is Now a Rogue Superpower

#69

Post by pandaman »

jmyeet wrote: post #62
adventured wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. D…

There is this building where guys wearing masks wheel you into a room behind locked doors at dawn and then use drugs to knock you out. They then take sharp knives and cut you open and rummage around your insides, sometimes taking organs out. Blood goes everywhere. The footage is gory. When they're done with you it may takes you weeks to recover. The rest of just call his "surgery at a hospital". My point is that you'…

Calling it "civil service" instead of "deep state" does not make it any better. We don't have either in the Constitution so whatever you call it, it has to be removed from power.

Re: America Is Now a Rogue Superpower

#70

Post by throw0101c »

fuzzfactor wrote: post #67

Can't read the Atlantic any more since it became private, but nobody can deny that America's more of a rogue and less super than it was a year ago.

> Can't read the Atlantic any more since it became private

It has always been in private ownership, never having been owned by a publicly traded company:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Atlantic#Ownership_and_edi...

Currently majority ownership is with Laurene Powell Jobs (widow of Steve Jobs).

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