"... something we haven't really seen since the late 1800s. This is a world in which the United States dominates its own territory, that China dominates the Pacific, and that the Europeans dominate Europe — but if they don't get their act together, maybe Vladimir Putin dominates Europe.... I think this is where we see the America First doctrine becoming something closer to Americas First — Americas with an S — that he views the region as basically the subsidiary of the United States. And you know, I've traveled with President Trump. I've covered 5 American Presidents since I got back to Washington... and my takeaway is that Trump is really not an isolationist. He never has been. He's actually more of a unilateralist.... He wants the total freedom of action. He knows that he is not really interested in democracy promotion. He knows that he wants to prioritize economics and economic development over everything, even if those economics don't necessarily come with security benefits to the us.... [E]ach region of the world — and even our allies — are going to have to learn to depend on themselves.... I think the fundamental trust in the US as the defender of a certain set of concepts of the West has been shattered for some time...."
Says David Sanger in today's excellent episode of the NYT "Daily" podcast, "Trump’s Plan to Reorder the World."
AND: Here's the "National Security Strategy" document Sanger is discussing.
ADDED: There's some discussion of the Monroe Doctrine in that podcast, so here's Trump's message from December 2: "America 250: Presidential Message on the Anniversary of the Monroe Doctrine."
On December 2, 1823, the doctrine of American sovereignty was immortalized in prose when President James Monroe declared before the Nation a simple truth that has echoed throughout the ages: The United States will never waver in defense of our homeland, our interests, or the well-being of our citizens. Today, my Administration proudly reaffirms this promise under a new “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine: That the American people—not foreign nations nor globalist institutions—will always control their own destiny in our hemisphere.
More than 2 centuries ago, President Monroe proclaimed before the United States Congress what is today known as the legendary “Monroe Doctrine”—a bold policy that rejects foreign interference of faraway nations and confidently asserts United States leadership in the Western Hemisphere. “The American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers,” President Monroe professed. With those mighty words, every nation knew that the United States of America was emerging as a superpower unlike anything the world had ever known—and that nothing could ever rival the strength, unity, and resolve of a freedom-loving people.
In the centuries since, President Monroe’s doctrine of sovereignty has guarded the American continents against communism, fascism, and foreign infringement, and as the 47th President of the United States, I am proudly reasserting this time-honored policy. Since I took office, I have aggressively pursued an America first policy of peace through strength. We restored U.S. privileged access through the Panama Canal. We are reestablishing American maritime dominance. We are disrupting non-market practices in the international supply chain and logistics sectors.
My Administration is also halting the flow of deadly drugs flowing through Mexico, ending the invasion of illegal aliens along our southern border, and dismantling narco-terrorist networks all across the Western Hemisphere. To defend our Nation’s workers and industries, I recently secured historic trade deals with El Salvador, Argentina, Ecuador, and Guatemala, allowing greater and more streamlined market access. Reinvigorated by my Trump Corollary, the Monroe Doctrine is alive and well—and American leadership is coming roaring back stronger than ever before.
Today, we renew our pledge to always uphold American sovereignty, security, and safety first. Above all, we vow to protect our cherished national legacy of republican self-government against all threats, foreign and domestic.
Posts
112 comments:
The old booga-booga.
Time for Europe to grow up. If they want to be roommates with jihadis and extend wars in Ukraine then they can pay their own way too.
It's way simpler than that. Trump wants US foreign policy to serve American interests - period. No more rescuing Somalia from warlords, Euros from Serbian aggression, Libya from Khadafi, etc
There's some truth to that in that Trump takes seriously the mantra I've heard my entire life from people who don't take it seriously--the United States is not the world's policeman.
We may provide the backbone to the security of the free world, but the days when everyone else could expect a free ride should have been over half a century ago.
As an hispanophile, I have my own reasons for liking the emphasis on the Americas--the north and south should be more tightly bonded and stand together in its interactions with the rest of the world. (Europe is a fading power block and needs less focus, not more.)
"He knows that he is not really interested in democracy promotion. He knows that he wants to prioritize economics and economic development..."
That independence clause "He knows" reminds me of how president Obama used to be written about. "He knows" is doing some mighty lifting.
Vee Vill Rule Zee Vurld !! It's mid-term electioneering, stirring up the voting base, pure and simple.
"The closest analogy I can make is Trump and the White House itself, the next president can come in and scrape all the gold off of the Oval Office walls and put turf back down in the rose garden. But whoever it is is not going to be able to go rebuild the East Wing. There's gonna be a ballroom and you're gonna have to learn how to live with it or like it. And .....the world is going to assume that the United States always has the ability to turn back in on itself, and that each region of the world and even our allies are going to have to learn to depend on themselves.
And I don't think that there is anything we can do over the next generation..... I think the fundamental trust in the US as the defender of a certain set of concepts of the West has been shattered for some time...."
I think the fundamental trust in the US as the defender of a certain set of concepts of the West has been shattered for some time...
Yep. And it happened way before any of the current actors were on the stage. Most of the bad ideas from Brussels flow back through Marx and Rousseau.
"...what is today known as the legendary “Monroe Doctrine”—a bold policy that rejects foreign interference of faraway nations and confidently asserts United States leadership in the Western Hemisphere...."
As Walter Kirn has pointed out recently, the Monroe Doctrine is often evoked when what is really being discussed are the consequences of muscular policies that Teddy Roosevelt actually implemented.
One possibility of what we get out of it is basically a spheres of influence kind of organization of the world...
something we haven't really seen since the late 1800s... [E]ach region of the world — and even our allies — are [sic?] going to have to learn to depend on themselves.
"Basically, all the worst parts of the Bible."
even if those economics don't necessarily come with security benefits to the us.
More NYT BS. 1995 to 2015 was nothing but Administrations making economic deals at the detriment of US security.
Aggie said...Vee Vill Rule Zee Vurld !! It's mid-term electioneering, stirring up the voting base, pure and simple.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here as the rest of your quote shows the opposite--Sanger is upset that Trump and his supporters have no interest in ruling the world.
"This is a world in which the United States dominates its own territory, that China dominates the Pacific, and that the Europeans dominate Europe — but if they don't get their act together, maybe Vladimir Putin dominates Europe"
Mackinder's "Geographical Pivot of History" rearing its ugly head again.
"Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland;
who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island;
who rules the World-Island commands the world."
Trade and sailing the ocean sea produce great wealth, but it costs a ton and is logistically precarious. Only time will tell if Mackinder was right.
One could quibble with some of his statement but the general essence is excellent and welcome IMO.
tim maguire said...
“Europe is a fading power block and needs less focus [of US policy] not more.”
Since at least the Renaissance, a quarter of the world’s population has lived in Europe, varying from 22-30%. Today Europe is just 8% of the global total, and no European country has had a birth rate at the population sustaining rate of 2.1 in over half a century. Europe is under breeding itself into irrelevance and extinction.
I'm sick and tired of pouring out American blood and treasure for the benefit of Europe, Israel, and the various Arab satrapies that are being bribed to be nice to Israel. Ingrates and backstabbers, one and all. Let them deal with the Russian and Chinese and Muslim menace all by themselves, and leave us out of it.
I'd be happy if Trump withdrew every single American soldier from European soil.
Trump’s activities wrt stopping wars is fundamentally an exercise in replacing destructive war with constructive economic growth between the warring countries. Mutual economic interest is a powerful lever to peace. Trump recognizes the insane amount of death that wars produce, let alone the grift, and wants all of it stopped. Others differ.
I think the fundamental trust in the US as the defender of a certain set of concepts of the West...
What concepts were defended by Biden? Did we send people to die for a concept? Let me reword the retard:
I think the fundamental trust in experts in the US or the concept of even having experts has come to a screeching halt in the West...
There's this, also (free link attached to tweet.)
https://twitter.com/roddreher/status/1999012706645586168?s=19
all this blah blah is so ridiculous. The american power elite loves dominating the world and being the world's policeman and nanny. During the Cold war they had to accept that the Commies controlled 1/2 of Europe, the USSR, and China. And settle for the rest.
Once the berlin wall fell, their ambitions included the whole world. Now, China and Russia have re-asserted themselves. Even India is going its own way.
Meanwhile, the USA elite has squandered its goodwill by their crazed bluster and useless Middle east wars. And by building up everyone else has lost its financial and military edge. We can't dominate like we used to. Boo Hoo.
Instead of accepting reality, they try to paint Paint Trump as an "Isolationist" and cheer on weirdos like Miss Lindsey who wants to bomb and kill anyone who looks sideways at us.
I wonder how many more borrowed $billions we'd have wasted on Ukraine if "Kam" had be elected.
The Monroe Doctrine was aspirational for many decades, and didn't prevent the French, for instance, from mucking about in this hemisphere--even to the extent of sending fleets and armies to fight in Mexico.
We protested, of course.
Luckily for us both China and Russia have limited aims. China seems willing to wait for Tawian to accept its part of China. And Russia just wants Ukraine to be neutral. All the screeching and hollering is just the warmongers trying to start another world war.
I think Trump is dealing with the new realities that have come ito be with passing time. The USA engaged with the world in one way right after World War II when we were the strongest economy on earth surrounded by broken nations, when Communist party takeovers were happening in Eastern Europe and China, when there were colonial powers, when the present black African nations were colonies filled with rural, uneducated tribal people. In that situation, we might feel that we bordered every country and every problem was ours.
But the European economy has recovered, Communism has fallen, colonies have become nations. They can handle their situations. Sending money to do their health care or build their roads for them makes no sense. And it has cost us a lot. We need that money ourselves.
And Trump is reordering our national priorities to fit the new situation. Venezuela has been shipping fentanyl to the US, killing 40,000 to 70,000 people a year. And yet it's somehow wrong for the US to kill 80 fentanyl shippers? We aren't at war? The police of Boise, Idaho should be stopping Venezuela with warrants? The reaction to the deaths of a few Venezuelan fentanyl shippers as compared to the reaction to the deaths of thousand upon thousands of unwitting American users is the model for 21st century anti-Americanism. There's people who like to see us hurt, they're on the left, and Trump is fighting them.
Well we were busy with the Civil war
Even as late as the 1900s the Europeans were trying to strong arm countries in - or bordering - the Carribbean into paying their debts or else. Had the French attempt to build the Panama Canal succeeded we have might have gotten Panama - but under the control of France.
The tough part will be how American interests are defined and who is defining them.
"Few of those outraged by the document have bothered to distinguish between Europe — a geographical area that is also shorthand for the culture that arose over the centuries from a mix of Greek rationalism and Middle Eastern monotheism — and the European Union, a 33-year-old experiment that aims to replace the continent’s nation-states with a novel form of transnational governance based in Brussels."
From the free link below:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/11/opinion/national-security-strategy-us-europe.html?unlocked_article_code=1.708.ymkl.YMFlmVrHtnst&smid=url-share
Is there really such a long-term plan? My impression was that Trump is trying to rectify the relationship between the US and Europe so that we aren't paying for their defense. Has he really given much thought to what happens after that?
NATO's premise was defense against the Soviet threat. When that went away, so did much of NATO's reason for being. It's good to have a club of like-minded developed countries whose values and interests coincide or complement each other, but we have to function in a much wider world now.
Do our values and interests coincide with those of Europe? Not as much now as in the past, but I'd caution against too much dismissal of decadent Europe. We have been on that downward slide as well. Seen from other parts of the world, North America and Europe aren't so different.
AI's forklift analogy sounds a lot like Trump's National Security Strategy:
So to answer directly: No, using AI is not like bringing a forklift to the gym, because most of us are not in the gym for the sake of lifting weights as an end in itself. We are there to transform ourselves in certain ways, and the intelligent use of tools (including cognitive tools) has always been part of how human beings pursue self-transformation. The real question is whether we can retain critical agency in choosing when the tool serves the end and when it quietly substitutes a different end altogether...Thank you [for your attention to this matter?].
From the Trump administration "National Security Strategy."
A “strategy” is a concrete, realistic plan that explains the essential connection between ends and means: it begins from an accurate assessment of what is desired and what tools are available, or can realistically be created, to achieve the desired outcomes....
American strategies since the end of the Cold War have fallen short—they have been laundry lists of wishes or desired end states; have not clearly defined what we want but instead stated vague platitudes; and have often misjudged what we should want... In sum, not only did our elites pursue a fundamentally undesirable and impossible goal, in doing so they undermined the very means necessary to achieve that goal: the character of our nation upon which its power, wealth, and decency were built.
All of us Putin Puppets are glad you assholes are finally accepting reality.
I've always been partial to a "neighborhood" analogy of foreign policy. The world is like a subdivision that doesn't have an HOA but lots of its residents think it does or strongly desire one.
Not only do I not want my neighbor poking around in my business or my property, I sure as hell don't want to poke around in theirs but you can't stop friendships and enmities from forming, much less domestic violence or resident whackjobs. Despite not having an HOA there is some primitive understanding among everyone in the subdivision of what is and is not acceptable.
The USA has been de facto head of an HOA that doesn't exist and the neighbor's wives it's been cheating with have been increasingly vocal over the decades about it throwing more of its weight around the neighborhood like some corrupted Southern sheriff (IYKYK). The USA needs tell the PTA-brigade to back the eff off.
The quoted parts really aren’t a bad take. Interesting. I suspect from their perspective simply saying it is the self evident criticism.
It isn’t a reorder bit rather a return to what civilization does with the absence of war.
The strategy seems to be about bringing back the time of the Great Powers. That is fundamentally unstable.
The Pax Americana, which so many seem to like to deride, has kept the general global peace for 80 years, and permitted free use of the oceans and skies for trade, and has (often just by implication) provided for the security of billions. The result has been an enormous increase in global prosperity.
After all that, the usual human tendency to get bored, and seek slights and nurse resentments seems to be ending it. It used to just be the demented left that hated the garrisons on the walls, but now everyone hates them, including the garrisons.
Our children, should they survive the coming age of demons, will think we were incredible idiots.
I wish Musk godspeed in getting some people at least to Mars.
They may be the last of us.
@buwaya, absolutely. In a universe where we haven't evolved a perfectly foolproof way to coerce behavior without violence, we absolutely need to keep our eggs in more than one basket. It is doubtful we will evolve this naturally any time soon, and we are essentially psychotic apes wielding godlike power and armed with nuclear weapons.
We could be far closer to the Great Filter than we collectively realize, but Musk definitely does.
In five years, we won't be able to afford $1+ Trillion defense & New World Order budgets, so retrenchment is inevitable. Settling up with W Hemisphere enemies better get done soon. Public support for NATO will collapse as more people realize Europe is no longer free and its leaders are suicidal.
It's a good thing China is depopulating faster than we are, but they have a bigger cushion. I don't understand why India has let so many of its brainiest flee to us, unless they include spies, as the Chinese do.
This crossed my mind also: he wants the world divided into spheres of influence: he gets the Americas, China gets EastAsia, Russia probably gets Europe. The rest is a playground.
Probably thinks the same about the US, to be divided among him and the other used car salesmen.
You could afford anything if you restore sanity to your finances. You are wasting much more than a defense budgets worth on excess medical costs.
And thats just one category, without adding up the rest.
"Trade and sailing the ocean sea produce great wealth, but it costs a ton and is logistically precarious. Only time will tell if Mackinder was right."
So far, rail shipping containers using China to Europe rail, has lost out to cargo ships.
buwaya said...
The strategy seems to be about bringing back the time of the Great Powers. That is fundamentally unstable.
The Pax Americana, which so many seem to like to deride, has kept the general global peace for 80 years, and permitted free use of the oceans and skies for trade, and has (often just by implication) provided for the security of billions.
You could have kept Pax Americana.
But then you refused to pay for it.
Then you demanded that we invade Russia and Africa and the Middle East for you and keep China from practicing mercantilism.
Europe is the drunk uncle that needs to move out of our basement.
"We have been on that downward slide as well. Seen from other parts of the world, North America and Europe aren't so different."
Apparently the USA portion of the global economy has remained the same at 24%
But Europe has fallen from around the same to 18%.
Yes, you read that right, Europe with a larger population than America,. and some lower wage places, too, is LOSING as a percent of total global economy.
China is nimble socialist but with capitalist engine, while Europe is bureaucratic socialism.
.."He knows that he is not really interested in democracy promotion"..
Serious Question: WHY SHOULD HE (or WE) BE?
democracy is majority rule..
the muslim majority in Europe wants not only sharia law,
but the licence to rape and kill ALL infidels.. ALL.
How is that something WE should support?
WHY is that something WE should support?
NATO was "supposed" to defend Europe from invasion;
instead, NATO welcomed the invaders
"So far..."
It will be interesting to see what unrestricted drone & nuclear submarine warfare looks like in the next big one. And there will be one.
The problem with boats is you can't live on them...for very long anyway. This isn't Waterworld.
https://www.datapandas.org/ranking/rape-statistics-by-country
Using PPP, which you should, the US economy vs the world is down from 20% to 14.8% in 20 years. The US is "declining" as much as Europe. That is of course because poor countries have been getting much richer.
Ex. the Philippines has been averaging @ 6% growth for the last 15 years. And its far from unique. There are lots of places like that.
would YOU buy a new Mercedes Benz? How about in 5 years?
Who do you think will be building it?
What will they be building it WITH? (steel? Energy? Plastics?)
gilbar said...
.."He knows that he is not really interested in democracy promotion"..
Serious Question: WHY SHOULD HE (or WE) BE?
democracy is majority rule..
We shouldn’t. Democracy is a shitty form of government that always leads to bad outcomes.
The people of most countries in the world require some form of despotic treatment.
buwaya said...
Using PPP, which you should, the US economy vs the world is down from 20% to 14.8% in 20 years. The US is "declining" as much as Europe. That is of course because poor countries have been getting much richer.
Ex. the Philippines has been averaging @ 6% growth for the last 15 years. And it’s far from unique. There are lots of places like that.
2 big reasons why our PPP is down:
We have been subsidizing the world providing them with security.
Globalists have been shipping our economy to other countries.
Time for that to stop.
and, of course; HERE is the important point:
The Future Belongs to Those Who Show Up
Who is you?
Ive paid my US taxes to the IRS for 40 years. And I'm still paying the IRS now (though most has gone to Spain).
PPP isnt "down", its that you have to use it to adjust price levels. The real US economy is getting overtaken by all these poor countries that are getting richer.
And they are getting richer faster because they are starting ftom a low base.
"globalists" is anyone who wants to make a buck by buying cheaper. Fancy French word is "arbitrage". There is no conspiracy.
Yes debt on extraneous elements has reduced purchasing power
As Peter Zeihan likes to say, the United States bribed up an alliance to fight the Cold War. Paying the price to do that when the alternative was likely nuclear annihilation made a lot of sense from a defense perspective and in the aftermath of WWII. It never made sense from an economic perspective, and it's not going to come back no matter how hard people keep wishing it would. The conditions simply don't exist for its existence, and nobody would want them to occur again.
Much of expenditures in the necessary campaigns was wasted
EU %of global gdp PPP 2024 is 13.99%
There is no easy way to estimate for 20 years ago because its not the same countries.
US GDP was normally higher than "Europe" however defined.
David sangers last fairy tale about the biden administration was something like the princess bride aa told by vizzini
You could afford anything if you restore sanity to your finances. You are wasting much more than a defense budgets worth on excess medical costs.
A huge part of that should be laid at the feet of lawyers, not the medical system. In any urban area nowadays, half or more of the billboard advertisements and TV commercials are from plaintiff's lawyers urging legal action for medical malpractice, slip and fall accidents, and motor vehicle collisions. The threat of a medical malpractice suit from the plaintiff's bar is so great that the number of CT scans ordered in our emergency rooms has tripled in the last twenty years, the great majority of them being of no real value to patient care, from an already high baseline far exceeding anything they do in Europe or Canada. Doctors are terrified of failing to catch even the smallest or most subtle or least significant injury, and losing everything they own to the rapacious ambulance chasers.
Well its an approximation how much is governmental how much is industrial managerial
According to this EU is down from 26% to 14%.
here is the link:
https://www.imf.org/en/publications/weo/weo-database/2023/april/weo-report?a=1&c=998%2C&s=PPPSH%2C&sy=1980&ey=2028&ssm=0&scsm=1&scc=0&ssd=1&ssc=0&sic=0&sort=country&ds=.&br=1
China - other than wanting taiwan - has few ambitions. Who are they going to conquer? Vietnam? They've been the big dog in Asia for a very long time, and given their size and wealth don't need to expand anywhere.
As for Russia, with 1/3 the population and 1/7 the GDP of the EU, its no threat unless the EU allows it to be.
USA is down from 22% to 14%
But this is using PPP....
buwaya said...
"globalists" is anyone who wants to make a buck by buying cheaper. Fancy French word is "arbitrage". There is no conspiracy
Absolutely. And people who practice labor arbitrage get to pay taxes now to support the country they want to sell things in.
This American obsession with sticking our nose into every conflict everywhere in the world has nothing to do with protecting our interests, let alone protecting the American people.
The same people who want to send $200 billion to Ukraine, support open borders and zillions of illegals just walking accross our Southern Border.
Miss Lindsey was recently upset at Ireland for renaming a Dublin Park that honored a Zionist. But what about South Carolina? Evidently, that's no concern of Lindsey Graham. He's more concerned about "Killing Russians" and Israel.
Well they have sought to conquer vietnam in past
Ireland is being subsumed by newcomers largely from the middle east and africa
FDR tried to "give" Indochina to China in 1944-1945. A trusteeship. Evidently, he thought it had been part of China before, given the name.
The Chinese didn't want it.
If I remember my Vietnam war history, we were told we couldn't invade N.Vietnam with South Vietnamese troops because "The Chinese would come in".
We also couldnt mine Haipong Harbor because the Soviets would be upset or some nonsense. It wasn't until '72 that Nixon finally got the courage or brains to do it. Just one more example of why risking your life in one of these dumb foreign wars should be avoided. The people at the top when they aren't stupid or venal.
We need to fall in line and support our Commander in Chief. The mating call of the american moron.
Arbitrage generally refers to cost of goods differentials, specifically to price differentials through regulatory (e.g. labor, environmental) allowances.
So, that ship is owned by a Ukrainian, living in Geneva, sanctioned but not enforced by the Biden administration, linked to Hizbolla and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Another axis in the Iran-Hamas Affair under Obama and Biden fueling antisemitism... uh, antizionism, and collateral damage.
They were chinese territory perhaps a 1,000 years ago, certain the le and trinh dynasties were autonomous
"China has few ambitions."
Bullshit.
China is using "Belt and Road" to make other countries indebted to China. In other words if you owe China, China owns you.
Never forget the most salient point of Chinese culture.
China is the center of the world. Therefore all other countries owe something to China.
If you are not Chinese you are viewed as a lesser form of life.
Xi is simply the latest emperor.
Kudos to Sanger for actually listening to what Trump is saying and observing what Trump is doing. This puts him way ahead of most of the "experts."
The middle kingdom is their self image
America became involved with china through the opium trade
Which proved very profitable for some families
We've been too small and poor a country to sustain Cold War
levels of foreign involvement since at least 2000.
Sooner or later reality lays its cards on the table; I think that moment is coming soon.
The Power elite have nothing but contempt for the average American, which is why they're always spouting hysterical, contridictory, and/or illogical nonsense.
One day, group X or Country Y is the most important thing in the world and America must come to its rescue otherwise blahdeblah. Then time goes on, and its as if group X or country Y never existed.
With Russia, the warmongers alternate between "Russia's gonna conquer the World 11!!!" and "The walls are closing in on Putin, Russia on the verge of collapse". So which is it?
Europe’s real problem is its continued reluctance to state plainly what it is seeing and to adapt accordingly. If EU leaders still act as if this can be managed with tone and small concessions, they will keep misreading the situation and the relationship will keep degrading.
The biggest risk is European disunity. If individual states chase bilateral exceptions, Europe drifts toward a vassal dynamic where each country is weaker and more exposed to coercion. The answer is to pool sovereignty where leverage actually matters, in foreign affairs and defence, just as Europe has done in trade and, for many members, currency. Without common positions and credible shared capabilities, Europe will be negotiated with, and pressured, piecemeal.
Europe should adopt a unified, unsentimental approach and treat the US as it treats China: sometimes a partner, sometimes a threat, based on interests rather than nostalgia. That also means stepping back from Pacific commitments that are not Europe’s arena, and focusing on Europe’s own strategic priorities and leverage. Reduced European alignment in the Pacific could also create incentives for China to moderate its support for Russia in exchange for more stable and predictable terms with Europe.
Another great example was George Bush was going to bring Democracy to the world. Here's his batshit crazy 2nd Inaugural:
"We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.
"So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world."
And of course, our power elite gets to decide who is a "tyrant" and who is "democratic". LOL!
Again, there's no bogeyman threatening Europe. Russia has 1/3 the population and 1/7 the GDP. The French and UK have nuclear weapons. Russia doesn't even want to conquer Ukraine, just a part that's full of Russian speakers.
BTW, Bush also said in the inaugural that the USA is just an idea. Not a people. So, why not have open borders and import 10 million Africans. After all, all they have to do is believe.
Even in the reagan administration we chose our battles the dems always thought they were the wrong ones
Chiang fell in part because of the interference of american communists and fellow travellers at state
There were similsr instsnces with wlliaer and rubottom re batista and langleys crew were clueless about fidel
Putin already dominates Europe … with oil.
He has no need nor any ability to dominate it militarily.
Same with the shah although no particular figure was involved
Brezinski was barely involved there
The Muslims will dominate Europe. Europeans are dying off. They don’t reproduce.
Alliances can become prisons. You have to be open to diplomacy between blocs rather than simply strengthen one bloc and pit it against another. Lesson of 1914.
The NSS is put out every couple of years or so, by every administration. The Dems of course always include Climate Change as one of our existential strategic challenges.
Not only does this NSS not say that, it says "We reject the disastrous “climate change” and “Net Zero” ideologies that have so greatly harmed Europe, threaten the United States, and subsidize our adversaries."
Dayenu. CC, JSM
Kak: "Europe should adopt a unified, unsentimental approach [to the US]"
Victor Davis Hanson talked about this today. He pointed out how the EU and NATO have the same core of 25-some nations in common. They are in essence the same thing. Yet the EU tells America to leave them alone, while NATO tells America how much it's needed. Schizophrenia. CC, JSM
@JSM, United States of Europe can't out-USA the USA. They chose to stick with dynastic battlefield nobility and bleeding each other to death. We tried to help, but they're 200 years late to the party and they should accept their situation. It would be more dignified, and nobody dies with dignity like battlefield nobility.
gilbar said...
“would YOU buy a new Mercedes Benz?”
No. Even 55 years ago, Janis Joplin was asking God to get one for her instead.
So, no change.
it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.
I used to think this way as a starry-eyed young Libertarian.
Older and wiser, I now know that great swathes of people in multiple parts of the world are unfit for democracy, and in most such cases, are disdainful of it at best, or even actively hostile. A certain segment of humanity seems to like the whip on their back.
And indeed are any of us fit for pure democracy? The Athenians were unworthy of it, surely, and the Founding Fathers designed our republican form of government specifically to thwart it.
Find better podcasts. Sanger is so ill informed he does not merit being treated seriously. For example, the notion that Russia is a threat to Europe. The same Russia that invaded Ukraine almost four years ago and has yet to conquer 20% of Ukraine since they invaded. The same Russia that is an economic and demographic basket case. The Russia that has had 1-2 million of its skilled, educated young adult population flee to other countries in those four years. The Russia that is militarily exhausted and resorting to using 50-year-old tanks and small commercial ATVs. The Russia that had already suffered a strategic defeat three and a half years ago. I could do China too. Sanger is a fool.
james said...
Find better podcasts. Sanger is so ill informed he does not merit being treated seriously. For example, the notion that Russia is a threat to Europe. The same Russia that invaded Ukraine almost four years ago and has yet to conquer 20% of Ukraine since they invaded.
For the last 4 years: Russia is about to fall.
Also for the last 4 years: Russia is an existential threat to Europe.
you don't begrudge a regional power with 6,000 nuclear weapons, but you don't make them ten feet tall,
General Ivachev, the veteran of the Prague incursion in 68,
was a Cassandra in how poorly this was going to turn out,
this has been historically true for a while, from the Afghan incursion to Chechnya, in the first instance, they caught the car,
killing Amin Tariki, as they had done before with his predecessor, the mastermind of that decapitation strike,
General Drozdov, a founder of the Spetznaz forces, initally considered a plan for retreat, nearly a generation later, some mid level veterans of the wat, made a similar mistake with Grozny and General Dudayev, it took them two years,
the experience in Kabul and Baghdad, should make us a little less confident about these type of operations, even if they seem a little cut and dry, like a strike against La Guaira, where the boats motor out of, their Annapolis and Ft McHenry
with Kabul certainly they quickly discovered, that forces to the South and West, like those organized by Colonel Sultan, and to the North, by Ahmad Massoud, would it 'a street in hell' to quote Bernard Fall, as we would discover about a decade later,
For the last 4 years: Russia is about to fall.
Also for the last 4 years: Russia is an existential threat to Europe.
Several WW2 podcasts I've seen lately claim Nazi Germany was on the brink of bankruptcy in '38-9 due to the way they financed their arms buildup and public works. Taking & looting Austria, Czechoslovakia, and half of Poland was deemed a financial necessity. Sounds far fetched to me.
that was the plan, spelled out in Mein Kampf,
In one of my fondest old movies Mama York was asked by her drafted son why is America going to the Europe place to kill Germans. She said “Don’t rightly know Avin, don’t rightly know.”
Well, we found out. Europe was a killing field from the Romans to Charlemagne to the wars of religion to the Duke of Parma to Napoleon to Bismarck to the Kaiser to Hitler. American occupation put that to a stop for the past 80 years.
An iron rule is that if you save someone and help them, they will hate you and hold deep animosity to you. No good deed goes unpunished.
So Europe is always going to be passive aggressive to the US. It’s human nature. The US is certainly not perfect but is never going to be as good as Europe no matter what its policy is, to European eyes.
This is mitigated here and there, from time to time, by genuine feelings of friendship. I have work colleagues in Paris that I have visited in August and we walked thru the streets poking our fingers in the stone walls dimpled by US .50 cal bullets fired by LeClerc’s Free Frenchmen.
somewhat like athens and the Delian league,
even among the UK right, there is a certain strain of anti americanism, it was attenuated under Thatcher, maybe the pressure on behalf of the provos, accentuated it,
but it resumed under Cameron, who as we've noted before, has all the wrong instincts like the Libyan incursion, which still has consequences, his groveling to China, and Hamas, among other propensities, perhaps Johnson had ameliorated it, and Farage is outside the park
across the pond, the French which we largely helped liberate,
still resent us for that, the lefties like the late Jack Lang but also Gaullists, like Chiraq,
So we're finally going to kick the whole "nation dedicated to a proposition" thing into its grave. Good riddance. Maybe now we can get around to being a nation dedicated to a nation.
@ John Mosby: Europe’s challenge isn’t complacency (or at least not anymore), it’s impossible trade-offs.
To build a sovereign Europe, a radical increase in military spending is required to build the necessary defense infrastructure, recruit millions of military personnel and expand the reservists. Not to mention the logistics required to run regular training and coordination exercises with allies for all scenario planning.
This wouldn’t be a problem if European governments were running fiscally responsible budgets. They could raise taxes and borrow more to finance this uprating of defense spending. The problem is Europeans governments -- with few exceptions -- already run high tax, high borrowing governments with high debt to GDP ratios. Following the pandemic, their scope to raise taxes is limited and their scope to increase borrowing is non-existent.
This leaves the impossible trade offs. In the face of rapidly aging populations -- whose health, pension and social care costs will soar -- how can democratic governments cut spending and get reelected? With shrinking workforces (and therefore shrinking tax bases) what can the tax lever meaningfully deliver? Without a thriving corporate or tech sector, where is the economic growth that would provide fiscal space?
Europe needs to address these impossible trade offs head on, and at serious risk to losing elections, if it’s going to be able to finance a sovereign Europe.
“ This is a world in which the United States dominates its own territory, that China dominates the Pacific, and that the Europeans dominate Europe — but if they don't get their act together, maybe Vladimir Putin dominates Europe.... ”
Did he read the paper? Where does he get the “China dominates the Pacific” when a significant portion of the paper is dedicated to the importance of the US maintaining its dominating position in the Pacific, jointly with its allies, and expressly preventing Chinese domination?
Even for Europe, there’s a significant sleight of hand, as if that was comparable to China dominating the Pacific. As far as “Vladimir Putin dominat[ing] Europe”, no, the greater concern in the paper is that Europe, both through increasing autocratic and bureaucratic rule as well as through uncontrolled immigration, loses the cultural and political commonalities that tie Europe to the US.
Indeed, while this paper argues against the multilateralism of the sort that the world, and Europe, has increasingly engaged in post WW2, with unaccountable “multilateral” organizations that are more autocratic than representative, it embraces a different type of multilateralism where individual nation states work together to promote their shared interests. At a minimum, it’s a form of multilateralism with far greater democratic accountability.
This is the end of empire. Retreat from the eastern hemisphere is assured. Isolation from Latin America probable. A dwindling stock of comparative advantages will ensue. A bigger Switzerland -- comfortable and insular.
It was the best of times, now it is the worst of times. America can no longer influence China and South America is lost. America is a Swiss outpost, neutral, hoping that it can live off of the gold in the teeth of murdered minorities shopped by its enemies.
Like sand in the hourglass these are the days of Kaks life.
If Trump insisted on permanent loyalties and permanent enmities, what incentive would anyone have to suck up to him? No fixed morals just an endless black hole of manipulation and self-centeredness.
The ambiguity is a strength because it creates leverage.
That is the skill that gives the bully his leverage. Trump is gifted at these skills because it is instinctive and then sharpened by experience.
See? I told you about Kak.
Oh noes...anyways
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