Once unemployment gets high enough, democracy will win out, provided there’s enough money to pay for this new order. Right now there isn’t.
It might not even be strictly necessary to have money 50 years from now. They used to say “teach a man to fish…” but 50 years from now they’ll say “Give a man a 3D printer” and he’s fine.
I had McCain in mind. I’ll admit that hawkishness will vary with the individual President. That said, Romney surrounded himself with neo-con dead-enders like Bolten, and Rand Paul won’t make it out of the Republican primary. Given that the US foreign policy establishment varies from somewhat to all-out hawkishness, I’d expect a Republican President to be more interventionist, if only because of the pool of experts he draws from. Unlike domestic policy though, I agree that this tendency is less than hard and fast.
I personally think that foreign policy rhetoric can vary between parties, but foreign policy actions are pretty constrained by reality. There are situations where it would be insane to use military force and situations where there is no choice but to do so, and very few situations in between. And as I think we’re seeing in Syria, an example of “in between”, the real issue isn’t whether we go to war in Syria, but whether we do it now or later. McCain would have done it yesterday, Obama will probably do it tomorrow. If Iran gets close enough to nukes, any President bombs them. If the Russians invade the Baltics, any President goes to war with Russia.
Fate of Latvia starts WWIII. Thermonuclear war, all die. Latvia sad.
Heh. Unlikely. The only incentive to use nukes is if your country or regime’s survival is at stake. Driving Russia out of the Baltics is a bigger version of driving Saddam out of Kuwait. Putin would lose nothing but prestige and probably put an end to his ambitions. But he’d survive and Russia would survive. Only an insane man would order the use of nukes over that.
However, if we let NATO die because we chucked our treaty obligations as soon as it became inconvenient, that would have farreaching consequences that very well could lead to a general European war and possibly a nuclear holocaust. If we abandon a NATO member, we basically withdraw from Europe and encourage the more powerful European states to make seperate deals with Russia. No one will trust our word anymore.
Also, I’d note that many decisions to go to war aren’t ours alone, since we are in a military alliance. If Russia moves on the Baltics and our European allies say, “We have to resist this with force”, there is no way in a million years Obama would forever destroy his legacy by “going it alone” on disregarding our promises.
Well the unemployment will not decrease wealth. Remember, each person is replaced by a robot that produced what they produced, either just as fast or more quickly and cheaply. So wealth will not be a problem, in that respect.
“I say to the people of Estonia and the people of the Baltics, today we are bound by our treaty alliance. We have a solemn duty to each other. Article 5 is crystal clear: An attack on one is an attack on all. So if, in such a moment, you ever ask again, ‘who will come to help,’ you’ll know the answer — the NATO alliance, including the Armed Forces of the United States of America, right here, [at] present, now!” (Applause.) “We’ll be here for Estonia. We will be here for Latvia. We will be here for Lithuania. You lost your independence once before. With NATO, you will never lose it again.”
Promises don’t get much firmer than that. We’re committed.
Scenario: suddenly there is clamoring in Narva by its majority (82%) ethnic Russians (in fact, almost 50% are Russian citizens) for independence. “Local militias” take over the city. They shut out Estonian authorities and conduct a referendum for independence. 95% vote yes. Then they ask to join Russia. Russia agrees.
Is this an “attack”? You and I know that the “local militias” are Russian troops. But if you don’t really want to fight Russia (as you know EU and Obama don’t want to) you can pretend that this is an internal Estonian matter and not an “attack”. So Article 5 doesn’t apply. Good bye, Narva.
I seriously disagree: the Iraq War was a war of choice, as were our efforts in Libya. Any President would have invaded Afghanistan after 9/11, but our extended counterinsurgency wasn’t necessary. The problem is that the media, even the serious media, sees military excursions as an exercise in Presidential pseudo-psychology. This “Strong” vs. “Weak” shtick militiates a realistic assessment of US interests and even values. There is ample opportunity for GWBush/McCain/Kristol clusterfucking and insufficient institutions that can keep it in check.
Part of the fundamentals are that Americans love kicking ass but they dislike quagmires, extended military occupation, and retreat. These impulses are in conflict: optimal policy has problematic politcal optics.
That said, Scowcroft is a Republican, so the Democratic and Republican positions don’t cleave as neatly as they do in domestic policy.
In Ukraine the Russians haven’t been able to do more than make mischief until they commit Russian troops or do something overtly aggressive like annex territory. If they want to make trouble in the Baltics, we aren’t likely to try to stop them beyond sanctions, but once they commit troops or annex territory, Article 5 is invoked and it’s war.
You seem to be ignoring the first 4 or 5 years of his presidency. He didn’t come out of the gate like this, the Republicans did.
He wasn’t as bad, because Republicans couldn’t stop him. But he still managed to be as undiplomatic as possible in meetings with them and threw hissy fits whenever his agenda was blocked, even though his agenda could only be blocked if enough Democrats helped Republicans do it.
Once Republicans won the House, he went into constant attack mode and hasn’t let up since. He’s the only President I’ve ever seen attack compromises he agreed to. It not only makes him look petty, but weak. “I only made this deal because I was forced to!”
He can’t even help himself when it’s not a partisan issue. “Pulling out of IRaq wasn’t my idea.” And now we know he is going to delay his immigration move until after the elections. He’s the most passive aggressive ninny this nation has ever seen.
You could run a 32 screen multiplex with all this projection.
Uh huh. that’s why he claimed the sequester wasn’t his idea. He didn’t just attack a compromise, he attacked the very idea he came up with.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/02/17/bob_woodward_sequester_was_obamas_idea.html
It seems pretty clear that Obama never wanted to get to yes and was pretty miffed that the Republicans did actually say yes to something. Ruined his day.
None of these things are clear to anyone except folks who already decided Obama was “petty and weak”, or whatever. Politics as usual.
Which is exactly what a certain candidate promised he would end. Instead, it’s been business as usual. He hasn’t even tried to change politics. If anything, his administration is more secretive and more obsessed with spin than any that came before.
Obama Outperforms (Saint) Reagan on Jobs, Growth and Investing
From that notorious left wing rag, Forbes.
And all that in spite of the GOP members of Congress blocking every attempt at an expansionary fiscal policy, other than tax reductions, and even blocking some of them.
Why does the GOP block fiscal policy? Because they hate the president more than they love America. That’s the only possible explanation.
Another update from Wang in face of Chad Taylor dropping out in Kansas.
The actual PEC Election Day pediction is now 70% of a Dem Senate leader, trending up since going flat at 50/50 for the first half of August. Duly noted 538 gives the GOP a 63.5% chance of control.
I’ve already made my bet with Bricker but I wonder if he still will to make the same bet with anyone else …
CBS released their polls of basically all the Senate races. And Wang is using hallucinogens.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/
He claims to be going by just polls, but the polls don’t say what he says they say.
Don’t seem to offer a lot of comfort for your position, either. Rather the opposite, actually.