Sanctioning the World, the US Inadvertently Launches Multipolarism

On this forum, I so often see the naive view of so many on the left. They just assume the USA will be wealthy because somehow we are entitled to it - and if we are nice the world will all agree that we perpetually will get a bigger piece of the pie.

The USA became wealthy because it was the most kick-ass country on earth - no other reason - and the focus ALWAYS was on wealth accumulation. Even our strategy in WW2 was about wealth accumulation, and it worked brilliantly.

Sadly, the STUPID idea of being likable became the new goal, to be GOOD morally about everything. In this, all the wealth and power obtained via WW2 has been squandered away - and more. This era is the first time in USA history in which the USA has no ability to be self sufficient even if we had to be.

 

Until he decided to try to militarily conquer every major power on earth, it worked out fantastically well and he was being praised worldwide - not just in Germany - for unprecedented economic success. Germany shifted from poverty and crushing debt to vast wealth. Everyone wanted to do business with Germany. Hell, Hitler was even Time Magazine Man Of The Year and liberals and conservatives alike in the USA and West were heaping praises on him. However, English and France increasingly were trying to find any way to economically strangle Germany - and then Hitler realized how weak they were, believing he could conquer mainland Europe, force a peace with the UK, and eliminate communism in Russia.

In terms of economics, Hitler was astonishingly successful. After WW2, Germany against followed the model of government directed re-industrialization. So did Japan. This is the source of China's massive growing wealth as well. At the same time, American liberals crushed American industry with regulations and the super rich bought off Congress to eliminate tariffs to drain American money via their foreign child-labor sweatshops.

We should follow that model - specifically to engage in a massive re-industrialization of the USA, including heavy industry such as steel. All base materials. The USA should go back into the ship building industry. Definitely the electronics industry. THAT is the "infrastructure" the government should rebuilt while still capable of doing so.

HUGE penalties should apply to any money taken out of the USA. Any sale in the USA should be TAXED - regardless of where the company says their home office is located. The USA should be tough, not "nice."

Only true fools and chumps believe foreign policy has anything to do with being nice. Never has. Never will. It is about power.

 

Our "power" has now been reduced to economic coercion (sanctions 'r us), color revolution and employing various rebels/terrorists to achieve our aims.

Hey, it worked for a while but now the whole world has seen our playbook, is wise to it and is getting disgusted by it.

The time to rebuild America was after the fall of the USSR, but instead we squandered the opportunity on power trips and doing Israel's bidding in the Middle East, all the while kicking our debt can further down the road.

Well, here we are in 2018 with a $21 trillion debt and interest rates poised to rise so that recycling our debt will become a huge strain on our economy. So where does this money come from now? Is anybody even buying Trump's tough guy shtick when all the world can see how hollow our empire has become?

 

So the Paris Accords were mostly fiction, nothing lost there. We can work to create more effective climate strategies so withdrawing from a phony deal makes room for a real one. I'm not a Trump man and I don't see his brief time at the top any more ruinous than any other 4 years in our history. Coal isn't going to make some dramatic comeback. Natural gas has pushed it off its perch.

 

The first thing China and India will challenge is each other. You do realize that they are rivals and not allies, right?

You speak of something repeating over and over again in history, well that one thing is the need for an indispensable nation. The Roman Empire was the first such hegemon. When Rome fell and no power was able to replace it we experienced 500 years of the Dark Ages. Right now and for the last 100 or so the US has been that indispensable nation. I don't see a nation challenging us that can fulfill all the roles we are fulfilling. One of the requirements to provide modern world leadership are liberal habits of mind. By that I mean an openhanded generosity of thought, not bounded by authoritarianism, orthodoxy or traditional forms. A willingness to respect or accept behavior or opinions different from one's own; to be open to new ideas, to be respectful of individual rights and freedoms. These are traits that mark the indispensable nation. China and India fall far short in these respects and far as China is concerned their statist view point is opposed to much of those traits.

 

I don't accept your premises. You have not given these matters much thought.

 

I'm very much in favor of patchwork and heterogeneity. I loathe hegemony.

 

That is your right. As my right to think that what you have written about exceptionality of the US, stability, caring of climate etc is nonsense.

 

Nevertheless geopolitics doesn't care what we loathe. It just is. It isn't going to change because man is not going to change. You don't believe in the perfectibility of man, do you Murray?

 

I don't believe in a "Human Subject". I'm antihumanist, philosophically speaking.

 

Germany has always favored an authoritarian society. No surprise they would eventually lean toward Russia.

 

What is a "Human Subject" to use your words? And what in your mind is a humanist, the thing you are anti?

 

Antihumanism is a philosophical position defined by skepticism towards the concepts of human nature and humanity on the basis that they are historically relative and metaphysical. A "Human Subject" refers to the nature of humanity being the subject of philosophical inquiry.

 

So you think of yourself as a skeptic then?

 

god I missed him... the spook.. allastair crooke... thanks for bringing him out of the closet SH

Trump's Middles Eastern Policy is not his entirely own, he used North Korea as an excuse to send more ships into the South China Sea and surrounds (wouldn't put it past Xi to pay Kim Jong Un an absolute god awful fortune to hand over his nuclear program so Trump withdraws his naval carriers from this area). Xi after all has business to attend in relation to Taiwan, he can't do it with the US navy swarming the area.

As for the US Dollar, Trump has been talking it down, besides what is going to take it's place? The renimbi? not likely, the Trade war has made China a rocky choice (exactly Trump's intent) and China is up to it's neck in debt, who knows how much money have left China since it's boom began, much of it is invested in Australian real estate (now the second most expensive in the world after Hong Kong) The Euro... nuhuh... Russia is making too many waves in Europe besides half of Russia's wealth is either in London or the surrounding islands... controlled by but a few 100 if that many people.... not to mention the amount of sanctions it's currently subjected to. Germany is the only country in Europe that remain strong, isolated it stands with so much weight around it's neck....cozying up to Russia and Iran in direct conflict with the US.

I don't believe turmoil around the world is bad for America, in fact it now stands as a beacon/sanctuary again.... when all else is falling to pieces. In fact it's peacetimes that gives America more grief, simply because countries like China, Iran and Russia are left to continue their expansionist ideologies undeterred.

 

Obama did everything for 8 years except submit to being butt ****ed

If thats what it takes to be “liked” we dont need it

 

I agree. Winning the cold war should have stopped our meddling, but it didn't. And that meddling at the end of the day creates more problems, and more money to be borrowed and spent. I think particular forces in the US got used to the gravy train supplied by the defense spending of the cold war in combating the communist revolution, and they demand that it continue. And that is exactly what has happened. They need a great enemy now, to justify that spending. We have never gone on to a peace time economy post ww2. We had an opportunity to do that with the end of the cold war and the end of the communist revolution. And refused to do it. So, an empire can over extend itself, as all empires have done, and we are following that lead. And no one has the intelligence to see it in DC, or they simply do not care.

 

The sanctioning of Iran was completely avoidable. The sanctioning of Russia? Not so much. Putin knew the consequences of his actions, and he evidently accepted them. It was his choice. Sanctions are a perfect lever for Russia, because the world can make it without their relatively small economy, but they are still dependent on the world. Unlike with China, sanctions against Russia cost us little. What’s more, they send a firm but nonviolent message.

 

The idea that the world was really ever "unipolar" was nonsensical from the start.

Whether or not the world is "multipolar" is not up to the Americans. What is up to the Americans is formulating a geostrategy that factors in our limitations and the capabilities of other actors.

 

The Germans disagree. Bush, Obama, and Trump have all failed to reduce German-Russian interdependence, and it's going to become a more significant factor going forward.

Generally, Germans see Americans as the greater threat as compared to Russia. The unpopularity of Putin among Germans is incidental. The massive natural resource wealth and large, cheap, educated workforce make Russia a prime ally of the Germans.

We have nothing to offer except complications.

The "liberal international order" will only exist for as long as Cold War geostrategy retains it's momentum. That momentum started a long process of breaking down in 2008.

"The West" will cease to be seen as a geopolitical actor of it's own, because it never has been one.

 

Forgive for pointing out the obvious. Prior to 1990's the term did not exist, so your "centuries" claim doesn't stand up.

Oh but I have. Many times. A multipolar world seems far more attractive to me than one arrogant nation bossing everyone around and telling them what they must and must not do. That approach to foreign affairs is devoid of respect to friend and foe alike.

China and India represent multipolarism. I can live with them working together on some things (as they do) and having their own national interests and objectives at other times.

On the contrary, as we see from recent years and decades the US is a nation that glorifies in war and exports conflict around the world. Somewhere in the region of 800+ US military bases dotted around the globe tell us everything we need to know about US foreign policy; it comes out of the end of a barrel.

When it's diminished and no longer globally effective I'll say good riddance.

 

Nevertheless the British and US have performed the role of providing world leadership. Its irrelevant what you want to call it. Very weak objection on your part.

The US doesn't boss other countries around. Russia and China try to do that. The US leads the world because the free world, you know the part that is attractive to free people, wants to follow our direction. You still fail to describe how a multipolar world would work.

You sound like Putin.

 

lol....if America falls how will the rest of the world survive without our skirt for them to cling to?

 

I've said it before and I'll keep saying it - the good ol' US of A is the most dangerous country, and the greatest threat to world peace, on the planet, so **** the good ol' US of A! I curse all you arrogant braggarts.

 

And it's only a matter of a very short time before you are, too! You're loathed, but you're A too stupid to realise it, and B to understand why.