Turkish troops launch offensive into northern Syria, says Erdogan

[Gaidax]

And BTW, for the record, I'd wish Assad, Erdogan and Russia would be gone and Rojava get their own state.

Unfortunately it's simply not going to be a thing, the window of opportunity for all that was closed years ago.

[Skroe]

Right now you need to concentrate on fixing your own shit.

US is not what it used to be back in the 20th century and as the time goes on its power will wane. At very most US has clout to have another shot or two at what you allowed yourselves a decade or two ago and that's about it and it won't be burning it for Kurds, who are more than questionable allies for US. (BTW, Rojava allies of US, nice joke).

In that specific part of the world US became a bit player. Whatever happens in Syria and Turkey is largely out of US hands and US has little appetite at the moment to invest in that place further.

Syria was literally handed to Russia by the impotent international policy of Obama and in my opinion quitting it altogether at this point is the correct course of action. People are 8 years late to the party here, should have thought about Kurds and what not 8 years before when US had a real chance to remake Syria in its image.

Yeah bunch of baloney.

Wanna know how this story ends? Just like last time. With us us deciding to fuck some dysfunctional corner of the globe into the very earth itself, you trying to stop us, and then you helpless in your own impotency as we do it anyway and the greatest power on Earth reminds every living soul that this is our planet, and you just live here as glorified renters. Hell, it may even be a time share. That's how this always ends. With us reminding you that there is only one superpower in the world, and you mistake us humoring middle income countries with modest populations as some kind of equality. There is no equality. There is only power, and we have most of it and you all have basically none of it.

Delusions of grandeur? I think not. Your little countries operate in rules and institutions built by and manged by us. You communicate on networks run by us. You are dependent on our technology, our industry (or Chinese or German), our wealth, our capability. You have so gelded yourselves of what you can do on your own, or in small groups, that the only countries in the world that could sustain a large scale war outside their borders for more than 30 days have been reduced to China and Russia. And the latter is questionable. That is America's great victory since World War II. We have tamed most of the nations of Eurasia (so to speak) from being able to launch massive regional wars on their own. We have broken almost all your ability to act independently. You are contained in prison cells your call countries, or at worst, can only grab outside the proverbial bars, a few hundred miles into neighboring lands.

From a historical angle, with a little bit of rhetorical flourish, America built the greatest empire the world's ever seen since in the wake of World War II. One of assent. One where you all rule yourselves within your lands - glorified prison cells - a little people and their little traditions focused on parochial interests, but we rule all between it and pay for most of it. And at our demand you have utterly broken your ability for independent action in order to be safe and share in some of our wealth. Those who try to violate this become Iran. Or North Korea. And Turkey may be next. If it tries will try. It will fail. Just like all the others. It will toe the line or it will know isolation and poverty.

You're right. America is not what we were in the 20th century. We're significantly more powerful. A remarkable thing happened since 2001. You see... true, America's relative power compared to China has declined. The world is gearing up for the New Cold War between the two of them. Liberal Democratic Capitalism as forged by America versus the Chinese Authoritarian Capitalist alternative. US power vis a vis China has declined by about half. Much of that due to China's own advancement, but also due to America's classical "imperial disaster" in the brushfire wars since 2001.

But despite that... and here's the fun part - everyone else not named China got weaker. Way weaker. America got a black eye. Most of the rest of you broke your arms and legs.

The EU? Once billed as a peer to the US with the Euro a dollar replacement, has been shambling crisis to crisis since 2008. It is is consumed by Brexit now, and will be consumed by keeping itself together and internal reform for the next thirty years. Make no mistake. I'm a massive proponent of the EU. It _must_ succeed. But it is also at the very start of a long process that might.... MIGHT... at the very end of have it reach its potential. Come back in the 2050s.

Russia? Russia is revanchist and taking risks. It's also vastly weaker than it was in 2001. It's lost about half its power or more. In 2001 it was easily the world's second most powerful country. Now it's probably the fourth or fifth, and falling, as its economy declines and Putin ages. The smart money is on the Russian Federation breaking up into new successor states in the post-Putin era.

The other BRICS? Brazil is and will remain a mess. India is far from China 2.0. South Africa hasn't done anything.

Germany is certainly greater than it was as German unification took root. And so is Japan as its post-war generations grew in political power and as Asia grew as economic power. France is about the same. The UK is vastly weaker. It's gone from the third most powerful country in 2001 to maybe the sixth, depending where Russia is.

In short, a remarkable thing happened. America's relative decline versus China has happened simultaneously as the two of them together sped up and pulled away from the pack. And that is how experts predict the 21st century will go. There will be the American sphere, the Chinese sphere and weak international order between it. And everyone living therein is within a domain where America sets the rules, or China sets the rules. But few set their own rules, outside their borders.

Make no mistake. How Trump handled this is a disaster for American interests, a betrayal of the Kurds, and an American humiliation. But the Middle East is also yesterday's battlefield. It's importance -even the importance of committing serious resources against ISIS - was questionable years ago and is more questionable in years ahead. I even said back in 2013, the only enduring value of the Syrian war is to mess with Russia (I will quote myself at request). If Russia wants to have all of ruined Syria... it can have it. The long term practical implications are minor, because Syria does not factor in the New Cold War between the US and China, which is the only thing that matters in the 21st century. It is, in many ways, the last front in the Brush fire wars waged between two Global Cold Wars as the world's two mightiest nations clash again.

The future is the Indo-Pacific area and to a much lesser degree, Eastern Europe. That means mostly oceans, islands and in the air. The US's priorities are and must be China, Russia, Space, Cyberspace, North Korea, Iran in that order. Terrorism is way down the list... a rash to deal with on a recurring basis.

So let's keep perspective. It's an abomination what Trump did. But also Syria was something that was questionable to get into in the first place, and doesn't play a role in American strategic security against the REAL threats of the 21st century going forward. That we opened the door to Erdogan's crimes against humanity is a moral stain on America. But in terms of power and what it means in the 21st century, the bases we're opening the Pacific, the B-21 bomber program, hypersonic weapons development, and de-linking the US-Chinese economies matters far more.

Oh and before you retort with a bunch of nonsense about the Chinese Belt Road initiative, just remember, the biggest loser from that is the country that straddles all of Eurasia - Russia. And they're working over time to make sure China doesn't rob their near abroad from out from under them, doing our work for us. That's America's greatest strategic advantage in the 'Great Game'. We can always count on you folks fighting over who dominates which neighbors. You'll always be weak and divided, while we sit, ont he other side of the world, in a fortress of nigh unassailable power, plotting for the next rebound.

That is what true power in international relations looks like.

[Voidwielder]

On values... if Turkey won't commit to liberal democracy in full, then it has no business in the room.

Turkey appears to be getting back in to it's historical position as a regional power - stumbling and grasping, yes but certainly in a much more assertive position than where it was ten years ago. You really think it would be wise to alienate a country like that, country which could conceivably ally itself with Russia? This might sound like a stretch but the last time Islamic world as pacified was under Turkish rule. I've been there many times, it hasn't lost it's social and cultural potency one bit, unlike Europe where Christianity died in the trenches of the First World War.

As someone who lives in a country which borders Russia and is a member of NATO, I'd rather have Turks on our side, even if they are a difficult family member to live with.

[Gaidax]

With us us deciding to fuck some dysfunctional corner of the globe into the very earth itself, you trying to stop us, and then you helpless in your own impotency as we do it anyway and the greatest power on Earth reminds every living soul that this is our planet, and you just live here as glorified renters.

Who is "you"?

Also nice delusions of grandeur there. I see Comedy Central is in town. Greatest power on Earth currently can't even get out of its own poop it sat in since 2016. I'd laugh, but I get more of that out of your glorious Commander in Chief and Emperor for that one in Twitter - better memes there.

/popcorn

[UndedoKoleda]

Who is "you"?

Also nice delusions of grandeur there. I see Comedy Central is in town. Greatest power on Earth currently can't even get out of its own poop it sat in since 2016. I'd laugh, but I get more of that out of your glorious Commander in Chief and Emperor for that one in Twitter - better memes there.

/popcorn

This guy is deranged as hell, everyone who've spend more than a month on MMO-Champ Off-Topic knows this.

[Infraction]

[Fuiking]

Skroe normally has some good points, and yet again he hits true.

[Voidwielder]

Who is "you"?

Also nice delusions of grandeur there. I see Comedy Central is in town. Greatest power on Earth currently can't even get out of its own poop it sat in since 2016. I'd laugh, but I get more of that out of your glorious Commander in Chief and Emperor for that one in Twitter - better memes there.

/popcorn

He's right. The dysfunction you see in US is not a bug but a feature of the system, despite which US has become the worlds only superpower. Leaders, personalities do not, ultimately, matter here. Things the build and sustain power are rooted in much more fundamental things - geography and human capital. On the former, US won the Golden Ticket. You could not create a better map for a world power in RTS editors.

[Skroe]

Turkey appears to be getting back in to it's historical position as a regional power - stumbling and grasping, yes but certainly in a much more assertive position than where it was ten years ago. You really think it would be wise to alienate a country like that, country which could conceivably ally itself with Russia? This might sound like a stretch but the last time Islamic world as pacified was under Turkish rule. I've been there many times, it hasn't lost it's social and cultural potency one bit, unlike Europe where Christianity died in the trenches of the First World War.

As someone who lives in a country which borders Russia and is a member of NATO, I'd rather have Turks on our side, even if they are a difficult family member to live with.

First, we need to keep perspective. The Russia storyline of the New Cold War is the b-plot. In the first Cold War, the focus was on Europe, while there was periodic mischief and crisises in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. Most of those were on a simmer, but the main face off was Europe.

This time it's reversed. The main face off will be in the Indo-Pacific region, while there is an occasional flare of problems in Europe and the Middle East. The very unusual thing for people living in Europe is to realize the 21st century isn't really about them. They kind of have their own sub-lot as the European Union stands up over the coming decades to (hopefully) reach its full potential while Russia is laser focused at undermining it. Remember what Ukraine is about - mostly the EU, not really the US. Russia as we know it cannot survive between an EU that is hegemonic in the European peninsula of Eurasia and China that is hegemonic in continental East Asia.

Erdogan's neo-Ottoman ambitions are nothing new, but he's found his ability to really act on them extremely limited. His economy is held together by ductape and staples. Europe is no friend to it. Russia is a frenemy. Saudi Arabia isn't interested in a defacto neo-Ottoman empire (so to speak) pushing it out as the dominant Muslim power in the Middle East.

In a very classically historic sense, there isn't much room for Turkey to move. It can't move closer to Europe. It can only move so much closer to Russia before creating new problems. It can't encroach much more on the Saudis.

During the Iraq War, Turkey's greatest advantage was it saved us money. It meant we didn't need to do air refueling. It meant we could use truck convoys instead of C-17s and C-5s. The war against ISIS got a lot cheaper when we stopped utilizing carrier aircraft and aircraft from Qatar and Kuwait and started to just fly from right over the border from Turkey.

But the War on Terror is over. America lost. Ho hum. And now we're gearing up for what comes next.

And that's the thing that's been painfully lost in this backwards looking thread.

What.
Comes.
Next.

The US and China - beyond Trump's idiocy - are not doing what they're doing in the name of more War on Terror. Or war on Iran. They're getting ready for something the world hasn't seen since most of us were infants, and really, in its most mature form, since the late 1940s and 1950s. Oh yes, the great disaster still lies before the United States most likely. Because the creation of the Chinese Sphere in competition to the American one, as foreseen by foreign policy experts, means that just like how America was pushed to edge of Eurasia in the decade after World War II (after being in the very heart of it), that's going to happen again, this time with China.

How does Turkey factor into that? It doesn't. It's not near China. It's only on the way to the B-plot (Russia) and yesterday's problem (the Middle East). So we should tell them to take a walk.

Or let me put it more plainly, by reaching back to my first post in the thread.

We should move the bombs from Turkey to Romania, but the bombers that carry them should be mostly doing rotations through the Pacific, and armed with anti-ship air launched cruise missiles. Because the Pacific matters and the Middle East doesn't.

The War on Terror is over. We lost. But the new era of Great Power Conflict has arrived, and it means that the period between the two Cold Wars basically can be thrown in the bin.

- - - Updated - - -

Who is "you"?

Also nice delusions of grandeur there. I see Comedy Central is in town. Greatest power on Earth currently can't even get out of its own poop it sat in since 2016. I'd laugh, but I get more of that out of your glorious Commander in Chief and Emperor for that one in Twitter - better memes there.

/popcorn

Trump isn't America, and you know it. And he isn't permanent. He's our national wet fart. But meme if it makes it easier for you. The same shit was said (by others) when Obama was President. As ever, its easier to make excuses for weakness rather than stare it in the eye.

I just hope you remember this conversation when American bombers start doing something you think shouldn't be done, and then you wonder "how could they ignore us? Don't we matter?"

Because, to put it poetically, it's hard to hear you up here on Mount Olympus.

Or to put it more prosaically, nobody else has America's economic, political and most of all, military power projection. So when we use it despite your wishes, and you can't do a damn thing about it, just like the last four times since 1992, remember how you got there. Remember the national choices *you* folks made. Might doesn't make right, but power commands attention. Which means the list of countries that can make us pause is limited to about four or five, and none can truly stop us. And that's just the order of things now.

- - - Updated - - -

He's right. The dysfunction you see in US is nothing a bug but a feature of the system, despite which US has become the worlds only superpower. Leaders, personalities do not, ultimately, matter here. Things the build and sustain power are rooted in much more fundamental things - geography and human capital. On the former, US won the Golden Ticket. You could not create a better map for a world power in RTS editors.

To further this point one just have to look at China. They're a rich country now. They have a lot more military power than they once have. And a lot of it is essentially a super-militarized border patrol because they are surrounded by people they've had wars with or have invade, not in the least of which are China and India. And Japan a quick skip and a hop away.

The US has Mexico and Canada. Which means all our focus is on expeditionary conflicts. This create a powerful positive feedback loop with our foreign and economic policy.

One just has to consider the now defunct INF treaty. Because of geography alone, before it the US could threaten the USSR with Intermediate Range Weapons from Western and Central Europe. The USSR could threaten Western and Central Europe with such weapons. But the US was so far away, with no places for Russia to have a foothold, that it could not threaten America directly with Intermediate Range weapons.

As I said... the "bad decade" is probably coming. The one in which the New Cold War goes from wonkish emerging concept of the current reality to the front page of every news website on Earth and at the tips of everyone tongue. The one that sees America pushed to the very fringes of Eurasia. But because America's geographical isolation, we have an inexhaustible ability to regroup. Very simply. And a big part of that is because we'll never have to patrol our borders like Russia, China, India, Turkey or others do.

[Gaidax]

Scaweyyy big bad US will send bombers after me.

Guess it makes sense, after all my monthly net revenue exceeds that if entirety of US, so guess it makes me a target.

Here's my projection, after the inevitable second term of your chief clown, US will spend a good decade licking wounds and trying to mend the internal strife at which point your presumed ability to send bombers flying will all but evaporate, given the rise opposing forces you can't just ignore.

What you have now is merely the seeds of what how the world will look like 20 years from now, that's why US needs to cut down on roofies you seem to be gulping with every meal and start thinking about how to prepare for what's to come.

That said for all the bullshit that Trump does, I think he's on the money when it comes to important stuff, you need to stop fighting pointless wars and start taking China as a threat more seriously on a national level.

[Skroe]

Scaweyyy big bad US will send bombers after me.

That's... not at all what I said. We're talking about other country's ability to influence US policy. When the US determines to take a course of action and truly expend power, there is not much anyone can do to stop it.

You may not take it seriously. You should, because the world you live in is far more likely to be defined by an activist United States pushing back against Chinese encroachment into its domain, then retrenchment. This will have profound implications for your domestic policy and your economic policy.

Country's understand it, which is they foreign country lobbying in the US is such big business that's ensnared powerful people operating on foreign government's behalf the past few years. Because to a large degree, global affairs are decided indirectly in the US Congress, than in the halls of the United Nations.

Guess it makes sense, after all my monthly net revenue exceeds that if entirety of US, so guess it makes me a target.

What does this even mean?

Here's my projection, after the inevitable second term of your chief clown, US will spend a good decade licking wounds and trying to mend the internal strife at which point your presumed ability to send bombers flying will all but evaporate, given the rise opposing forces you can't just ignore.

If you think this is the case, you don't understand America, Americans or what's going on in the world at all. Literally at all.

I mean... really. You might as well wish for a unicorn.

P.S, that bomber been flying since 2014, just off the record. This is from 2014.



The US has been preparing for what's to come since the 2012 Defense Budget, and from a policy angle since 2014. That was 7 and 5 years ago respectively. We're not talking about the future anymore. We're talking about the present.

What you have now is merely the seeds of what how the world will look like 20 years from now, that's why US needs to cut down on roofies you seem to be gulping with every meal and start thinking about how to prepare for what's to come.

More like 5 years. We're living in the middle of the closing years of of the post-Cold War era. It's hard to say. The New Cold War may have begun in 2014. We won't be able to see clearly until we're another few years about. And were Trump to get a second term - and unless Democrats get smart I think he will - it's going to be dominated by China, who will likely make their move before 2025.

But I will say, I've been talking about this stuff in detail, here, since early 2012. I used to be the known as foreign policy guy, not an anti-Trump guy. It's now late 2019. Seven, nearly eight years have passed, and everything has occurred largely as I said it would.

This Turkey stuff. The Kurds. A disaster. A black mark on America. A moment of deep shame. But in terms of what it means to the big picture? Basically lucky. Because the Middle East is yesterdays battlefield, and tomorrow is about China, and little more than China. And for that, we've been preparing for years.

[Breccia]

Fighting continues in Northern Syria despite bla bla bla you all saw this coming.

[Skroe]

Fighting continues in Northern Syria despite bla bla bla you all saw this coming.

So you're saying Vice President WomenScareMe McSmallFlags and Secretary of State Apocalyptic Christian accomplished zip?

STUNNING DEVELOPMENT!

- - - Updated - - -



Why is it against forum rules to @ every Trump defender? Because they deserve to be strapped to a board and waterboarded with this shit.

They made this possible.

This is on them.

They own this, now and forever.

[SirBeef]

Fighting continues in Northern Syria despite bla bla bla you all saw this coming.

Not wishing harm on anyone but I was hoping this would happen just so this administration would look even more lame.

[Draco-Onis]

Fighting continues in Northern Syria despite bla bla bla you all saw this coming.

And the Trump humiliation of the US continues.

[Slant]

Btw, I'd like to make sure everyone understands this is what I will be referring to when refugees swap over to Europe and I use it to make sure Americans understand Europe is cleaning up their shit after them once more. Which is how this will most likely play out. This isn't the first time this is happening. Well done USA. Yes, I know... not your President. But definitely your problem, not ours.

Think of this the next time you shit on Europe for not investing enough into military spending.

[Skroe]

Btw, I'd like to make sure everyone understands this is what I will be referring to when refugees swap over to Europe and I use it to make sure Americans understand Europe is cleaning up their shit after them once more. Which is how this will most likely play out. This isn't the first time this is happening. Well done USA. Yes, I know... not your President. But definitely your problem, not ours.

Think of this the next time you shit on Europe for not investing enough into military spending.

I've made what I think has been an intelligent and balanced argument about Europe and military spending for years. You know, about the whole industrial policy behind it, the necessity (and lack of) consolidation. The inefficiencies and duplication. And why it's ridiculous to just demand "Europe spend more" but also saying "Europe has to organize its defense approach to make its euros go much, much further". I think it's been very fair.

But I'm pretty much done with caring about that argument. Or NATO defense spending as a whole.

The Chinese 70th Anniversary parade really just put into focus that for all the talk of Russia... of Putin... of refugees and Brexit and Turkey and terrorism Iran, Climate Change, Ukraine and everything in between... the only thing that really matters is that the United States and China are rapidly arming up to point the most advanced and capable weapons yet imagined, and unprecedented in the modern history of the world, the world's two largest economies are headed for a clash.

Europe can spend. Or Europe can not. It really doesn't matter anymore. It's about China and the US. Europe is too far removed from mattering in that front. Keeping the front down vis a vis Russia? Sure. But Russia has more internal problems than external ones on the horizon. For China, some of those weapons they put on display were mock ups. Many were not. And those that were, there is little reason to think China won't vault the technical and monetary hurdles to make them work given time. And they're so far beyond anything else Russia has planned or shown, or Europe has planned or shown. It is coming down to what they are pointing at us, and we are pointing at them, and we're the only two directly competing in that specific sphere. To be clear, I wouldn't expect Europe's help on it either. I don't think Europe really needs to worry about having Hypersonic cruise missiles or other exotic weaponry.

You know I'm a big time Europhile. But Europe can essentially do as they want on security matters as I see it. They just do not have a role to play in the main conflict of the 21st century. Their role is in the B-plot... namely where do Russia and Europe figure in as the US and China battle for supremacy over the entire world. Europeans may welcome that lack of centrality for a change. Or they may feel frustrated as events happen around them with little ability to effect big picture stuff. Regardless, we need to be careful not to overstate the relevance of events like this to the emerging global competition. Abandoning an ally in the Kurds would be more meaningful if blocs and alliances were a core element in the war ahead. As a result there isn't any relevance, not in the least because China has no allies, and largely due to geography, the US's only meaningful allies against China are Japan, South Korea and Australia. This will not be a Cold War of blocs, but rather two titans wrestling while everyone else tries to live around them and keeping their head down.

[Shalcker]

Btw, I'd like to make sure everyone understands this is what I will be referring to when refugees swap over to Europe and I use it to make sure Americans understand Europe is cleaning up their shit after them once more. Which is how this will most likely play out. This isn't the first time this is happening. Well done USA. Yes, I know... not your President. But definitely your problem, not ours.

Think of this the next time you shit on Europe for not investing enough into military spending.

Swap over to Europe... and then swap back from Europe to go shoot Kurds:

The Syrian photographer/cameraman of a pro-Turkey Syrian group who recently filmed executions in NSyria, traveled in 2015 as a refugee to #Germany where he applied for asylum. He stayed near city of #Halle, in monastery "Kloster Helfta" in town Lutherstadt Eisleben

His name is Alhareth Rabah, group he is with: Ahrar alSharqiya.

[Slant]

You make this sound like it would be something bad for Europe. I personally consider NOT being engaged in a world war to be a BIG plus, especially considering that we "hosted" the last two already. Europe also doesn't seek "supremacy over the entire world". That is a twisted concept only appealing to smalldick nobrains with a lot of hunger for power to compensate.

But we WILL be pissed when we, again, will have to harbour those that fell off to the sides in wars we neither started nor wanted any part in, draining our social systems dry with no financial support from any of the front line players.

Seconded. This is exactly it. If the US wants to have a dick contest with China, they can have it. In the meantime, I'd rather have us work on securing and tightening that global trade network we're starting. The real challenge? It's not US vs. China. It's the rest of the world deciding to work together on the actual lasting world peace order. Based on mutual respect and cooperation. I don't think we'll achieve it, but I think we'll make some important mistakes so someone else can achieve it in the distant future.

[Skroe]

You make this sound like it would be something bad for Europe. I personally consider NOT being engaged in a world war to be a BIG plus, especially considering that we "hosted" the last two already. Europe also doesn't seek "supremacy over the entire world". That is a twisted concept only appealing to smalldick nobrains with a lot of hunger for power to compensate.

But we WILL be pissed when we, again, will have to harbour those that fell off to the sides in wars we neither started nor wanted any part in, draining our social systems dry with no financial support from any of the front line players.

I'm not saying it's bad. Not at all.

What I am saying though is that it is different.

China has been effectively broken since the 1600s and America didn't exist then. Europe has been at the center of everything since then. All the great settlements of the past 500 years that built the international order was we know it, except for two centered on Europe. Its where the largest wars of all time were waged. Even ostensible global conflicts and global trade had their beating heart in Europe.

This gave Europe a lot of say over things. As a unit and as individual countries.

But what is happening now is something unprecedented. The shape of the next global order - the one our grandchildren will live in - will come as a result of who wins the the struggle between China and the US. Will it be Pax Americana 2.0? An extension of the World War II Liberal Democratic Order? Or will it be replaced with Chinese Authoritarianism and will liberal democracy give way to authoritarianism and so-called managed democracy? Regardless, Europe's role in shaping it will be far more limited than it was in shaping the post-World War II order as we know it (and they played a major role in that).

The thing I'm trying to get across is that there is no finality in any of this, anymore than there was the end of the Cold War, or the end of World War I, or whatever the hell just got blown up as a status quo in Syria by Trump last week. Europe sits on the sidelines for the main theme of the 21st century... the US or China wins, and for all we know, the next saga in the human story picks up in the 2120s or 2130s, when the focus is on Europe again. History is always followed by more history. It never ends. There is no such thing as the permanent settlement.

I guess the word I'm looking for is "contextualize". Like most Americans I'm disgusted, ashamed, embarrassed and angry that President Trump's disastrous decision. But I also have to put it in perspective with regards to what I've been reading and sharing for years now... that yes, it all matters to a degree of sorts for "the now"... but for tomorrow and the main theme of the 21st century - the US/China New Cold War - things like this have little consequence. The 70th anniversary parade China just had matters far more.

So getting back to the matter of Europe's position being "good vs bad", the context is, good or bad is irrelevant so long as we recognize the shape of the world that we're entering. By rights, the US should have an enormous advantage on China with it's enormous network of rich, power and capable allies. But functionally, except for three of them (Russia, South Korea and Australia), they're all very far away from China, and of those three only one, Japan, is really alarmed by China's moves, thus effectively negating the so-called enormous advantage we had. So recognizing that's the new-context importance of alliances in the world event that matters most (the New Cold War), what conclusions can we draw about European defense spending, or the US being the worst ever to the Kurds? That they're fights of questionable relevancy. Does a Kurdish state advance America's counter-China cause? Of course not. It's the right thing for there to be, but of course not. Does Europe increasing defense spending by 200% fundamentally benefit the US position vis a vis China? Only if it would allow the US to move equipment and personnel from Europe to Asia, but there isn't all that much of it in continential Europe anymore in the first place (compared to 1992). So why bother focusing on it?

If there is one place Europe has significant sway and the US and Europe must cooperate on that would effect our strategic goals, it's the limiting / eliminating the sale or transfer of advance technologies to China to keep them technologically as far behind the Western world as possible. And on that, Europe has been mostly a reliable partner on.

In short, how we all view the world with respect to security - this very Middle Eastern, European, Terrorism - is fading fast as the new world of the East Asia-Pacific region comes into view, and we all need to adjust our world views about what is important and what is not accordingly. Winning arguments - again, say over defense spending - for things that just don't matter anymore... serves what purpose? The world changes and we need to change with it.

[Skroe]

Seconded. This is exactly it. If the US wants to have a dick contest with China, they can have it. In the meantime, I'd rather have us work on securing and tightening that global trade network we're starting. The real challenge? It's not US vs. China. It's the rest of the world deciding to work together on the actual lasting world peace order.

Europe's global trade network scheme is as likely to fail as the last two times it tried it in the last twenty years for pretty much the same reason - it's one major stake holder pushing a set of rules that the other two (larger) state holders just aren't interested in playing by. And "everyone else" isn't enough to make it an alternative. The emerging consensus of the coming global order being divided between a Chinese Sphere, a US sphere and a weak international sphere, leaves room for this kind of thing. Especially since it's an open question if the EU even exists in a recognizable form in 30 years. You know me. I hope it does. But we can't take that for granted. The European project could take a different post-EU form in response to something else entirely.

That last sentence though. That's... I like you Slant... you're a smart guy... but that's so European.

There hasn't been a lasting settlement in all of history for whatever was defined "the world" in that point of time, because as decades turn over, the foundations of that settlement shifted. All Europe’s great settlements (and keep in mind Europe largely constitute "the world" from the 15th century to the 20th) – Westphalia, Utrecht, Vienna, Versailles, Yalta – have lasted no more than two generations. Maastrict might be the latest entry. As might the United Nations Charter.

Hell, as I just wrote above, looking ahead, there is no reason to think that whatever the outcome of the US-Chinese conflict, however long it lasts, will lead to a sustainable world order anymore than the prior attempts. It'll buy two generations. Maybe three. And then power will shift again, events will transform and a new competition will emerge.


I think you can count on large swathes of Eurasia to be destroyed again within the next couple hundred of years. Almost every great city of Eurasia is built atop the ruins of one that was devastated by war that led to some settlement in which the survivors declared a new era of perpetual peace. And then two generations later it happened again. There is absolutely no reason to think that global integration will do more than expand the battlefield and raise the stakes, especially if Climate Change and 200 years of very profligate industrial age living leads to widespread scarcity of presently common goods and materials.

Francis Fukyama thought that we had arrived at the end of history with the fall of the Soviet Empire. He ended up being the wrongest scholar of the modern era. History is always followed by more history.

Don't get me wrong. I am not shaming the seeking of a permanent settlement. Moreso I am just pointing out the utter futility of it given that attempts far short all fall apart when, 50 years later or so, some upstart power decides that the settlement their grandparents signed on to doesn't work for them anymore.

That is, after all, how we are here with China. China has arrived, and it's decided the order that Europeans and Americans wrote for the entire human race in the late 1940s deny's China its historic rights, and thus must be replaced. And thus the wheel turns.

- - - Updated - - -

Good or bad not in the moral meaning, but in terms of what would Europe gain.
And that second point is exactly the issue: Europe doesn't want a world shaped like a gun. It also doesn't want to flat out project political values or systems. What we want is: No fighting among anyone, fruitful trade WITH everyone, and ideally for a minimum of human rights to exist. War is the the exact opposite of all these goals.

But here's the thing: because Europe's relative power is so much less than the US and China, and it will not have a peer-level domain to the US and China, and the thrust of the conflict is so far removed from it, Europe's ability to affect those goals outside of its immediate vicinity is limited.

Uhm, not really though. We are exporting industrial and economic knowledge to China for quite some time now, and it's a profitable thing. Also: Artificially keeping a peoples in the dark ages does only two things: It goes against the peoples' overall wealth, and it's bad for doing business with them. IF we were partner to such a practice, it most certainly was by accident or motivated by other things (like legal issues).

You're mistaken. Europe has sharply limited China's access to strategic technologies (manufacturing, materials, biotechnology, space and telecommunications). Some of that is because US IP, and your use of it, flat out prevents you from doing so. But much of it is that Europe does not desire a competitor.

Case in point - personal story - my team was just in Spain a couple of weeks ago (I skipped out for personal reasons). We're buying up an entire Spanish robotics start up, moving their people and their tech to the US en masse. My group was sent over to review the technology in person. China tried to buy them up last year. The Spanish government blocked the sale. Us though? We sailed through. And my company, though independently run in the US, is a subsidiary of a Japanese company.