"Lots of Americans don’t know that Laos is a country, much less where it is, much less that we vaporized about a tenth of their population during the Korean war"
Re the point about Hamas and Trump…what do you make of the narrative that Putin didn’t invade Ukraine until Trump was out of office because Trump was so unpredictable that it was quite possible that he’d start WWIII, whereas under the less erratic Biden the likelihood of direct confrontation was much lower? This seems eminently plausible to me, although I suspect it was probably not much of a factor in Hamas’ decision.
The interventions in Korea and Vietnam were no different. The US never "invaded" Vietnam; it was invited in by the RVN. I don't see why defending Korea was any more justified. In the cases of Laos and Cambodia, North Vietnam was running supply lines and setting up bases in them even though they were supposed to be neutral
I don't think interventionist foreign policy is well-explained by nationalist bias. The party that currently maintains the more explicit "America First" branding is also the one advocating abstention from international conflicts in favor of spending that money domestically. While a nationalist might undervalue the harms of intervention to non-citizens, they would also undervalue the benefits those countries might reap from the US security umbrella. If allied countries can reduce their own military expenditures in response, then defense spending may function as a massive form of institutionalized wealth redistribution to less well-off nations.
"Sometimes a foreign policy debate is over whether a particular action contributes to stability or chaos. From one perspective, NATO expansion into Eastern Europe has solidified borders and kept the peace. From another, it is NATO expansion itself that led to Russia feeling under threat and provoked the current conflict in Ukraine."
So which is it? If Richard is going to support foreign intervention to increase order, he ought to have a pretty good view what actions actually facilitate that.
The stuff on regime change is equally nuts. All of our regime changes in the Middle East were failures, but we should overthrow the Iranian regime? This will turn out different then all of those because...
And of course foreign governments won't react to the perception that we are constantly looking for a chance to overthrow them at all. Nope, they certainly won't view it as fundamentally hostile.
We should overthrow regimes if we don't like their economic policy?
Didn't we support two color revolutions in Ukraine for exactly that reason? Isn't that why John McCain was in Maiden Square telling the revolutionaries that the US would back them all the way? Why wait a year to elect a new president and sign a different trade deal with you can help violently overthrow the government! I mean the people that came to power in Ukraine both times didn't seem to make Ukraine better off economically, but hey we gave it a shot.
Borders are sacrosanct and we need to defend Ukraine, but Taiwan isn't worth fighting for? WTF is this shit?
Ukraine is a made up province of the Soviet Union whose borders are arbitrary and everyone knows it. It came into existence in 1991 and has been a deeply divided and failed state ever since. Its GDP per capita was 1/3 Russia's. It maintains its war on the Donbass by press ganging fuckers unfortunate enough to leave their homes for a minute that can't afford the $5k bribery fee for a medical exemption (because Ukraine is such a poor shithole).
That's sacrosanct and worth defending to the last, despite no American or even human interest, at the risk of nuclear war and with no potential upside???
And we can't just get it a little right. Status Quo Ante-bellum on the table in March/Apr 2022? Tell the Ukranians to turn it down because our wunderwuffen are going to help them take back Crimea!
But Taiwan, an effectively independent nation since the 1940s with clearly defined borders (it's a fucking Island) that is a rich successful democracy allied to us for 70+ years isn't worth defending? Whose citizens lives will not doubt be worse under the CCP (can't say that about Ukraine and Russia). Whose position is of extreme strategic important to the USA and its key strategic partners (Japan, SK, AZ). But according to you we shouldn't defend it because "strategic ambiguity" isn't sacrosanct like LEGAL BORDERS. What a flip flopping shitshow.
Ukraine is an ambiguous state. It's a failed arbitrary shitshow that would have folded in five seconds it not propped up. Taiwan is a real country.
But we can't just admit that sparking a revolution in Ukraine and then pressuring them into a war that devastated their country was dumb, so we have to make up some dumb shit about the sacrosanct nature of BORDERS. Borders are why Ukraine needs to conquer Crimea and...ethnically cleanse the Russians (my understanding is that their current policy is they plan to forcibly expel the hundreds of thousands of Russians that moved there since 2014).
No, we couldn't just leave the whole fucking thing alone. Big favor you did Ukraine. Way better then just having another election and trying to pass a new law.
“In Latin American, as well as much of the global south, the U.S. hasn’t been much of a player since the end of the Cold War.”
I’ll respond more fully later but this sentence really stood out as amazingly misguided. The US doesn’t keep the peace in Latin America in the same way cops don’t even when you don’t see them actively arresting people.
The part about the US being more involved in the Middle East and it having a lot of conflict reminds of me of those liberals who ask why poor black neighborhoods are policed more and blame the cops for crime.
The Clinton years were after the Cold War ended, so it makes sense that things were peaceful even though they cut spending. The end of the Cold War is presumably why they felt they could cut spending. (Russia and China were very weak in the 90’s.)
So what do you think American foreign policy should be? You list some interventions you think were wrong, do you think the US should have had the same foreign policy minus those interventions? Or do you think the US should withdraw from NATO and close the bases in Asia?
"Lots of Americans don’t know that Laos is a country, much less where it is, much less that we vaporized about a tenth of their population during the Korean war"
*Vietnam war
Re the point about Hamas and Trump…what do you make of the narrative that Putin didn’t invade Ukraine until Trump was out of office because Trump was so unpredictable that it was quite possible that he’d start WWIII, whereas under the less erratic Biden the likelihood of direct confrontation was much lower? This seems eminently plausible to me, although I suspect it was probably not much of a factor in Hamas’ decision.
The interventions in Korea and Vietnam were no different. The US never "invaded" Vietnam; it was invited in by the RVN. I don't see why defending Korea was any more justified. In the cases of Laos and Cambodia, North Vietnam was running supply lines and setting up bases in them even though they were supposed to be neutral
I don't think interventionist foreign policy is well-explained by nationalist bias. The party that currently maintains the more explicit "America First" branding is also the one advocating abstention from international conflicts in favor of spending that money domestically. While a nationalist might undervalue the harms of intervention to non-citizens, they would also undervalue the benefits those countries might reap from the US security umbrella. If allied countries can reduce their own military expenditures in response, then defense spending may function as a massive form of institutionalized wealth redistribution to less well-off nations.
The whole Hanania article is terrible.
"Sometimes a foreign policy debate is over whether a particular action contributes to stability or chaos. From one perspective, NATO expansion into Eastern Europe has solidified borders and kept the peace. From another, it is NATO expansion itself that led to Russia feeling under threat and provoked the current conflict in Ukraine."
So which is it? If Richard is going to support foreign intervention to increase order, he ought to have a pretty good view what actions actually facilitate that.
The stuff on regime change is equally nuts. All of our regime changes in the Middle East were failures, but we should overthrow the Iranian regime? This will turn out different then all of those because...
And of course foreign governments won't react to the perception that we are constantly looking for a chance to overthrow them at all. Nope, they certainly won't view it as fundamentally hostile.
We should overthrow regimes if we don't like their economic policy?
Didn't we support two color revolutions in Ukraine for exactly that reason? Isn't that why John McCain was in Maiden Square telling the revolutionaries that the US would back them all the way? Why wait a year to elect a new president and sign a different trade deal with you can help violently overthrow the government! I mean the people that came to power in Ukraine both times didn't seem to make Ukraine better off economically, but hey we gave it a shot.
Borders are sacrosanct and we need to defend Ukraine, but Taiwan isn't worth fighting for? WTF is this shit?
Ukraine is a made up province of the Soviet Union whose borders are arbitrary and everyone knows it. It came into existence in 1991 and has been a deeply divided and failed state ever since. Its GDP per capita was 1/3 Russia's. It maintains its war on the Donbass by press ganging fuckers unfortunate enough to leave their homes for a minute that can't afford the $5k bribery fee for a medical exemption (because Ukraine is such a poor shithole).
That's sacrosanct and worth defending to the last, despite no American or even human interest, at the risk of nuclear war and with no potential upside???
And we can't just get it a little right. Status Quo Ante-bellum on the table in March/Apr 2022? Tell the Ukranians to turn it down because our wunderwuffen are going to help them take back Crimea!
But Taiwan, an effectively independent nation since the 1940s with clearly defined borders (it's a fucking Island) that is a rich successful democracy allied to us for 70+ years isn't worth defending? Whose citizens lives will not doubt be worse under the CCP (can't say that about Ukraine and Russia). Whose position is of extreme strategic important to the USA and its key strategic partners (Japan, SK, AZ). But according to you we shouldn't defend it because "strategic ambiguity" isn't sacrosanct like LEGAL BORDERS. What a flip flopping shitshow.
Ukraine is an ambiguous state. It's a failed arbitrary shitshow that would have folded in five seconds it not propped up. Taiwan is a real country.
But we can't just admit that sparking a revolution in Ukraine and then pressuring them into a war that devastated their country was dumb, so we have to make up some dumb shit about the sacrosanct nature of BORDERS. Borders are why Ukraine needs to conquer Crimea and...ethnically cleanse the Russians (my understanding is that their current policy is they plan to forcibly expel the hundreds of thousands of Russians that moved there since 2014).
No, we couldn't just leave the whole fucking thing alone. Big favor you did Ukraine. Way better then just having another election and trying to pass a new law.
“In Latin American, as well as much of the global south, the U.S. hasn’t been much of a player since the end of the Cold War.”
I’ll respond more fully later but this sentence really stood out as amazingly misguided. The US doesn’t keep the peace in Latin America in the same way cops don’t even when you don’t see them actively arresting people.
The part about the US being more involved in the Middle East and it having a lot of conflict reminds of me of those liberals who ask why poor black neighborhoods are policed more and blame the cops for crime.
The Clinton years were after the Cold War ended, so it makes sense that things were peaceful even though they cut spending. The end of the Cold War is presumably why they felt they could cut spending. (Russia and China were very weak in the 90’s.)
So what do you think American foreign policy should be? You list some interventions you think were wrong, do you think the US should have had the same foreign policy minus those interventions? Or do you think the US should withdraw from NATO and close the bases in Asia?