Jump to content
itsamoose

International Politics

Recommended Posts

This article is probably the best overall cliff notes I've seen regarding the Brexit, and while there seems to be debate about the specifics, the broad themes I've come across are

 

  • Regardless of what happens next, the US has now become the default world market for the next few years
  • More debates regarding the EU will be brought up in EU countries, and regardless of whether or not they make it to a referendum right wing movements are likely to gain steam
  • The UK will see a temporary slowdown or recession that may turn into something more, depending on how it affects the EU and US markets generally
  • People generally seem to be more concerned with how this will affect soccer matches than anything else

I don't know enough about the structure of the EU, or Britain's involvement in it to say more, and for the most part everything I've read about it so far is really just speculation largely based on how long it takes for the UK to transition away from the EU and negotiate new trade deals.  Personally I'm concerned with how social movements respond to this in the EU, since from a casual observer's perspective it seems like right wing nationalistic movements are becoming more common and influential throughout Europe.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

sounds like some good news might finally be coming out of Syria with the US and Russia getting a ceasefire negotiated, hopefully more to come.

 

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/09/syria-civil-war-russia-clinch-syria-deal-160910031517683.html

 

Well, that was quick. 

 

http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/19/middleeast/syria-aid-convoys-attacked/index.html?adkey=bn

 

Russia blows up an aid convoy

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

 

Interesting update on Ukraine for people like me who haven't heard much about it in a while.  The more I see about this conflict in particular, as well as Syria, the more I think that this kind of thing is just how wars are going to be fought in the future between powerful or influential governments.  It seems like the days of officially sanctioned, or even declared war have come to an end and we're now in the era of conflicts that are just as deadly and costly, but waged under the radar in an almost informal setting.  

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
On 10/9/2016 at 11:21 PM, itsamoose said:

Interesting update on Ukraine for people like me who haven't heard much about it in a while.  The more I see about this conflict in particular, as well as Syria, the more I think that this kind of thing is just how wars are going to be fought in the future between powerful or influential governments.  It seems like the days of officially sanctioned, or even declared war have come to an end and we're now in the era of conflicts that are just as deadly and costly, but waged under the radar in an almost informal setting.  

1

 

I feel that it's been like this since the Cold War, more or less. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Some days I think that it would be good for the west to start World War III and get it over with. How many decades can this soft response to continuing Russian aggression and disregard for humanist values last? On the other hand... maybe there really is a (relatively) peaceful solution, just letting their economy slowly bleed so they would be less and less capable of exercising their military power.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, Erkki said:

Some days I think that it would be good for the west to start World War III and get it over with. How many decades can this soft response to continuing Russian aggression and disregard for humanist values last? On the other hand... maybe there really is a (relatively) peaceful solution, just letting their economy slowly bleed so they would be less and less capable of exercising their military power.

Part of the problem is that the west only really cares about human values in the west. No one in Europe or the US really cares about it in Africa, Asia, the Middle East or South America. As bad as Russia is acting internationally the Iraq invasion and Libya intervention had far more destabilizing effects and these are rarely even discussed or debated.

Almost all of the currently foreign policy crises America faces are to a large extent results of our own policies, we helped fund the mujaheddin in Afghanistan that became the Taliban who are currently re-conquering the country, we invaded and destabilized Iraq setting up the ground work for ISIS, we overthrew the democratically elected government of Iran and put in a brutal dictator leading to the Iranian Revolution, we recommended economic shock therapy to Russia which allowed oligarchs like Putin to gain inordinate amounts of power as well as treating the country like a defeated enemy rather than a brother nation after the fall of the USSR. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

That viewpoint makes it seem like you think the US is or should be in total control of everything strategic that happens in the world. It's easy to connect some dots in hindsight, everything that happened before seems like a cause for what happened later.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
50 minutes ago, Erkki said:

That viewpoint makes it seem like you think the US is or should be in total control of everything strategic that happens in the world. It's easy to connect some dots in hindsight, everything that happened before seems like a cause for what happened later.

I don't think the US should be in control of everything obviously. I know every one of these situations was not 100% our fault, but we do not consider the long term consequences of our actions in the foreign policy realm. The Iraq war was 100% a war of choice and it has caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and spawned a new international terrorist group. We are about to elect someone who voted for it and is advocating a no fly zone in Syria. This would put us in direct conflict with the Syrian government and/or Russia.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
6 hours ago, Erkki said:

That viewpoint makes it seem like you think the US is or should be in total control of everything strategic that happens in the world. It's easy to connect some dots in hindsight, everything that happened before seems like a cause for what happened later.

I read it as the opposite point of view: The US getting involved or trying to be in control in most cases ends in disaster. Same for most European powers. Heck, even within Europe things can go pearshaped quite badly, see: the Balkan war.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm not entirely certain the Sanctions on Russia from the west are particularly effective given how the global economy works.  They still trade Freely with China in particular, but other countries as well, and since the sanctions hit Russia the war in eastern Ukraine has become more and more technologically advanced.  The Sanctions were designed it seems to get the Russian people to demand an end to the action, but this thinking seems to be the the product of western politicians and diplomats thinking about how they would influence a western populous.  While I can't say for certain what people in Russia actually think of the conflict, I don't think the same rules apply to a place where virtually all government media is controlled, conspiracy theories are often presented as fact, and even to the point of the administration preventing local artists from performing because they are critical of the Kremlin.  

 

Generally though, while it's certainly true that the US has had a number of obvious failures of foreign policy that have lead to negative consequences around the globe, from my understanding of the various situations this is the result of thoughtlessness more so than any kind of directed effort to exert control.  For example China has invested a lot of money in Africa recently, and the deals go something like this.  First a Chinese bank agrees to lend an African nation some money at a favorable rate, and in return China gets exclusive rights to the natural resources of that country on the land that they are negotiating for.  So then that country hires a Chinese firm to come mine the resources, paid for with the money from a Chinese bank, and hires locals to fill in the low level positions while filling management with Chinese citizens.  All of the resources then go to China, even firms within that country have to purchase the resources dug up in their backyards from China.  They do tend to do quite a bit of good in those countries at the same time, like building airports and other facilities needed to process these jobs, but these countries are effectively giving up their material wealth for what is really an economic colonization.  In the West we tend to give out money on the basis of political change, which brings with it some instability.  While western intervention, whether military, economic or diplomatic does carry uncertainty with it by virtue of these changes, I don't think it's fair to equate that stability, largely born of unforeseen consequences, with the purposeful and deliberate exploitation practiced by countries like China and Russia.  The situation in eastern Ukraine and Crimea was a deliberate act by the Russian government to increase it's size and influence, US involvement in Libya on the other hand was a NATO operation aimed at ending human rights abuses with no follow through, which resulted in a power vacuum.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
7 hours ago, itsamoose said:

I'm not entirely certain the Sanctions on Russia from the west are particularly effective given how the global economy works.  They still trade Freely with China in particular, but other countries as well, and since the sanctions hit Russia the war in eastern Ukraine has become more and more technologically advanced.  The Sanctions were designed it seems to get the Russian people to demand an end to the action, but this thinking seems to be the the product of western politicians and diplomats thinking about how they would influence a western populous.  While I can't say for certain what people in Russia actually think of the conflict, I don't think the same rules apply to a place where virtually all government media is controlled, conspiracy theories are often presented as fact, and even to the point of the administration preventing local artists from performing because they are critical of the Kremlin.  

 

Generally though, while it's certainly true that the US has had a number of obvious failures of foreign policy that have lead to negative consequences around the globe, from my understanding of the various situations this is the result of thoughtlessness more so than any kind of directed effort to exert control.  For example China has invested a lot of money in Africa recently, and the deals go something like this.  First a Chinese bank agrees to lend an African nation some money at a favorable rate, and in return China gets exclusive rights to the natural resources of that country on the land that they are negotiating for.  So then that country hires a Chinese firm to come mine the resources, paid for with the money from a Chinese bank, and hires locals to fill in the low level positions while filling management with Chinese citizens.  All of the resources then go to China, even firms within that country have to purchase the resources dug up in their backyards from China.  They do tend to do quite a bit of good in those countries at the same time, like building airports and other facilities needed to process these jobs, but these countries are effectively giving up their material wealth for what is really an economic colonization.  In the West we tend to give out money on the basis of political change, which brings with it some instability.  While western intervention, whether military, economic or diplomatic does carry uncertainty with it by virtue of these changes, I don't think it's fair to equate that stability, largely born of unforeseen consequences, with the purposeful and deliberate exploitation practiced by countries like China and Russia.  The situation in eastern Ukraine and Crimea was a deliberate act by the Russian government to increase it's size and influence, US involvement in Libya on the other hand was a NATO operation aimed at ending human rights abuses with no follow through, which resulted in a power vacuum.

First off what China is doing is what a lot of western companies have been doing for years. Many of the conflicts revolving around nationalization of companies stems from exploitative trade deals set up during the cold war.

Secondly since World War II the US has been destabilizing many countries through direct invasions as in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Panama, Grenada, Somalia, Lebanon and The Dominican Republic. We also have backed rebel groups in places like Nicaragua, Syria, Afghanistan and Cuba. As well as backing coups in Iran, Chile and Venezuela among others. This doesn't even cover all the repressive dictatorships we are still supporting. The US is currently bombing Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Pakistan with no real end in sight for any of those campaigns. At some point we have to accept that we are meddling all over the world and are not producing the desired results, my concern is that the next president is probably going to be someone who backed several operations that have gone extremely poorly and doesn't seem to have learned any lessons from them.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
3 hours ago, Cordeos said:

First off what China is doing is what a lot of western companies have been doing for years. Many of the conflicts revolving around nationalization of companies stems from exploitative trade deals set up during the cold war.

Secondly since World War II the US has been destabilizing many countries through direct invasions as in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Panama, Grenada, Somalia, Lebanon and The Dominican Republic. We also have backed rebel groups in places like Nicaragua, Syria, Afghanistan and Cuba. As well as backing coups in Iran, Chile and Venezuela among others. This doesn't even cover all the repressive dictatorships we are still supporting. The US is currently bombing Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Pakistan with no real end in sight for any of those campaigns. At some point we have to accept that we are meddling all over the world and are not producing the desired results, my concern is that the next president is probably going to be someone who backed several operations that have gone extremely poorly and doesn't seem to have learned any lessons from them.

 

Yes what China is doing is similar to what American companies have done, not the American government.  My point with that analogy is that in the west there is a firewall between private enterprise that doesn't exist in eastern countries like China and Russia.  That does raise some serious concerns and differences between who is responsible for the negative consequences of that kind of action.  African nations can and have kicked out western companies who step over the line, but it isn't possible to do this with China because the companies are effectively extensions of the government.  You can't kick out the company without also kicking out the government.

 

On the other point I agree the US has had a number of interventionist failures around the world, but again this is the result of a lack of forethought more than anything.  I think and genuinely hope that is changing in the future, but I don't think it's fair to paint the entire thing as a wholly American endeavor or a wholly bad one.  We are constantly asked by the UN and other world powers to intervene, and sometimes for good reasons like the Ebola crisis and others, and in many of these cases other countries like Canada and the UK are involved as well.  It's easy to say that the someone like Saddam Hussein is preferable when we don't have to be the ones living under their rule.  Iraq and Afghanistan look like a mess now but let's not forget that as a result of these western actions girls are allowed to go to school and press freedom has become a reality.  I kind of hate this argument I'm making because it is fundamentally a lesser of two evils one, which really just means everyone is wrong, but I can't just see it as all bad.  Yes the west and the US in particular has had failures, but if you can find me another country that has had as much power as the US and has been as benevolent with it as it has I'll raise that flag.  Until then, I can't imagine a scenario where there is a perfect response to what are incredibly complicated political situations that lead to these kind of interventions.  I don't think there has ever been a time I history where cultural or governmental change didn't lead to a period of instability or at the very least uncertainty.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, itsamoose said:

 

Yes what China is doing is similar to what American companies have done, not the American government.  My point with that analogy is that in the west there is a firewall between private enterprise that doesn't exist in eastern countries like China and Russia.  That does raise some serious concerns and differences between who is responsible for the negative consequences of that kind of action.  African nations can and have kicked out western companies who step over the line, but it isn't possible to do this with China because the companies are effectively extensions of the government.  You can't kick out the company without also kicking out the government.

 

On the other point I agree the US has had a number of interventionist failures around the world, but again this is the result of a lack of forethought more than anything.  I think and genuinely hope that is changing in the future, but I don't think it's fair to paint the entire thing as a wholly American endeavor or a wholly bad one.  We are constantly asked by the UN and other world powers to intervene, and sometimes for good reasons like the Ebola crisis and others, and in many of these cases other countries like Canada and the UK are involved as well.  It's easy to say that the someone like Saddam Hussein is preferable when we don't have to be the ones living under their rule.  Iraq and Afghanistan look like a mess now but let's not forget that as a result of these western actions girls are allowed to go to school and press freedom has become a reality.  I kind of hate this argument I'm making because it is fundamentally a lesser of two evils one, which really just means everyone is wrong, but I can't just see it as all bad.  Yes the west and the US in particular has had failures, but if you can find me another country that has had as much power as the US and has been as benevolent with it as it has I'll raise that flag.  Until then, I can't imagine a scenario where there is a perfect response to what are incredibly complicated political situations that lead to these kind of interventions.  I don't think there has ever been a time I history where cultural or governmental change didn't lead to a period of instability or at the very least uncertainty.

Companies have tons of influence over our foreign policy and our government has made decisions on supporting or opposing governments based on their positions on nationalization of industry. Big reasons behind the coup in Iran and the support for rebels in Nicaragua were because of business interests. We are always far more willing to back a business friendly dictator over an elected left winger.

My point is that there is never any discussion of all the problems we have created internationally and we are about to elect another president who wants to keep using all the failed tactics. We simply do not have a foreign policy establishment that considers the consequences of their actions. I think its extremely important that we consider the long term resentments and terrible prescient our drone war is creating. We are losing the war in Afghanistan after being there for 15 years and it is barely ever mentioned. The US doesn't seem to be learning from its mistakes and no one in power seems to care at all.

Women being able to go to school in Iraq is great (even if we don't care about this happening in any of our Gulf Allies), but how many women and children are dead because of our unnecessary war there? How many are now refugees because we laid the ground work for ISIS? What will the long term consequences of the US backing corrupt, violent governments in Iraq and Saudi Arabia? How long will we support the proto-apartheid state Israel is becoming?

P.S. Our NATO ally Turkey is currently the biggest jailer of journalists and has been for some time. Iraq also ranks as #2 for journalists getting murdered with no one punished so yeah, press freedom is going great there. Afghanistan is #6.

https://www.cpj.org/reports/2016/10/impunity-index-getting-away-with-murder-killed-justice.php#index

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Really interesting talk from before the election that covers a lot of the post Trump race vs. economics debate. Also addresses the rise of anti-establishment/demagogues/populists globally
 

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

×