Diplomatic relations are inseparably tied to trade and defense and they do not sour until there is sufficient material incentive to do so. Thank you for ignoring this and forgetting that motherfucking trade is at the very heart of diplomatic tensions with China in the first place.
The ties which bind a fruitful diplomatic relationship absolutely can unravel if each party's intentions are not clearly understood, which is precisely the importance of good negotiation. A big reason Brexit happened was because David Cameron and his European counterparts failed to negotiate a settlement which could have appeased the British people, and the result was that neither party got what they wanted. All this, despite the fact that the UK already had more than generous concessions from the EU, and the EU the economic benefit of being tied to one of the world's largest economies.
A mutually beneficial relationship, destroyed by inept negotiation.
To bring this back to Trump, US trade relations with China is arguably a good place to start. From the very beginning, Trump made it clear that he wanted to negotiate a more equitable trade relationship with China, while apparently failing to understand any of the important structural reasons why the US and China had such an inequitable relationship to begin with: namely, that US wages are not competitive. He ignored advice from economists (1100 of whom attempted to reach out to him), and very soon started placing tariffs on Chinese imports.
The result? The US economy took a hit, American purchasing power took a hit, American farmers took a hit, US manufacturing jobs took a hit, and China? The trade deficit with China only increased, as did the strength of Chinese exports worldwide. From the US side, it was a resounding failure by any measure.
This is why I stress the importance of having competent leaders in power. It's not enough to understand the material realities which bind international diplomacy; you have to make sure that the people you elect also share this understanding, and I haven't seen much evidence that Trump genuinely does. The most important measurement of any leader's success is how accurately the results of their actions achieve their stated goals, and on everything from trade, to international relations, to America's domestic management of the current pandemic, Trump's leadership has ranged from inept to disastrous.
You seem so obsessed with rhetoric and decorum that you’re forgetting how Trump, despite brash public statements, is dead fucking serious on actually executing policy.
This is what matters.
It's not rhetoric and decorum I'm especially concerned about, it's the carelessness with which Trump seems to forge international relations. I'm not convinced that he has a serious understanding or appreciation of how to implement policy or conduct diplomacy, irrespective of how clumsy his public statements may be, and I haven't seen any hard evidence that could sway my opinion.
Even the famous example of NATO defense spending that we've been talking about is hardly something that Trump can take credit for. NATO members agreed to a pledge to commit themselves to spend 2% of GDP on defense back in 2014, and they don't appear to be any more or less on track to do that by the specified date than they would have been otherwise. Admittedly, this is a difficult thing to assess, but the fact that the current upswing in European defense spending began in 2014 would seem not to vindicate Trump here.
Returning to the issue of diplomacy, where rhetoric and decorum undoubtedly is important, is the effect that it can have beyond the personal relationship that exists between leaders: there's also the matter of what each leader's public statements communicate to the population of the country they're dealing with, and the pressure that this can place upon the leader they're attempting to negotiate with.
If we take the NATO example for instance: when Trump disparages European countries and their leaders as weak and freeloading, that might poll well among his supporters, but it makes him broadly unpopular across Europe; the downstream impact of which is the creation of a political incentive for European leaders not to want to work too closely with Trump, and by extension, the United States. In other words, Trump's careless statements are not without consequence; they come with the very real possibility that America's allies will wish to delay full cooperation with the US until Trump is firmly out of office, to "sit it out", as you put it in regards to Russia.
Long before Hamas existed, Israel fought major ground wars with regional powers. While they had the fucking bomb. It’s really my fault for assuming that you knew the context I was referring too. Last I checked Egypt and Saudi Arabia aren’t smoldering craters.
As far as I'm aware, Israel isn't believed to have developed functional nuclear capabilities until after the Six-Day War, and the world wouldn't even know that they had them until the Vanunu leak in 1986. Whatever limited nuclear capabilities they may have had during the Yom Kipper War, it wouldn't have been in their interest to use them for the simple reason that they had the support of the United States.
It made far more sense for Israel to fight a conventional ground war against the far less functional Arab armies, and the alternative of nuclear escalation could very well have led to large-scale nuclear war. Let's not forget who the Arab coalition's principle backers were: the Soviet Union! There's just no way an Israeli nuclear strike could have been on the table as an option given that surrounding context.
So no, I don't accept the comparison between the two scenarios. If the United States truly did withdraw from NATO, and a desperate Russia posed an existential threat to the rest of Europe, a nuclear exchange would very much be on the table.
Also, what somehow makes France more likely than Israel to risk international sanctions, cataclysmic instability, and, oh yeah, fucking mass murder on behalf of a minor European player?
I don't believe they would. I have never denied that Russia could successfully push it's luck with the Baltic states in the absence of US hegemony; I even stated explicitly that I think they would in a prior post to you. We seem to be talking past one another here. Your argument appears to be that in the absence of the US, Russia would be emboldened to encroach into the borders of it's Eastern European neighbors, while I have been arguing that the impact of a total US withdrawal from NATO wouldn't fundamentally flip the odds in favor of Russia as far as Europe as a whole is concerned. These arguments are not mutually exclusive, and we appear to agree on both of them.
First off, I love how suddenly public perceptions don’t matter and we’re down to strategic realities and pragmatism. I know you probably just let that slip but I’d like to think that I’m getting through to you.
I never said that public perceptions don't matter, only that they're not necessarily reflective of how a nation is going to decide upon a policy or plan of action, especially in a time of crisis. Members of the public selected at random aren't charged with making these sorts of consequential decisions, their elected representatives are.
Secondly, holy shit, how many times do I have to say to you that the main danger the EU faces without US support is incremental aggression against allied states. This, and the catastrophic effects it would have on European political and economic stability. It’s their main incentive to keep dealing with the United States in the first place.
I wanted to illustrate to you that a protracted ground war with Russia was possible which I’m hoping you’ve come around to. Especially since it informs my view of what’s at stake for Europe and NATO, as well Trump’s relevant diplomatic behavior. I’ve even agreed with you that the instant Russia eyes total domination, an alliance of European states will likely win.
I'm not debating the dangers of incremental Russian aggression, nor that NATO would be significantly weakened without the support of the United States. What I find dubious is the insinuation that this would have significant ramifications for NATO beyond the countries most immediately effected: all of whom became members during the fifth enlargement of NATO back in 2004, in an obvious political move against Russia.
NATO membership would more than likely have to be scaled back if the United States ever did decide to withdraw from it, but I maintain that the overall character of the alliance and the strong economic and political incentives which bind it's most significant players would not change. Russia isn't strong enough to shake that, and economic realities between Russia and the EU being what they are mean that they're never likely to try.
Yeah but Obama didn’t lower shit till Congress was in a position to make him, and you still wanted to paint a dishonest picture of his fiscal priorities. Plus, accounting for deficit as a percentage of GDP, the difference between the stabilized Obama budget and Trump’s pre-Covid numbers is minor, and only started to really change when the DNC won the house.
I don't claim to know what Obama's true fiscal priorities were, only what happened under his watch. I also doubt that it was the Republicans who introduced any concerns about getting the deficit under control, given the fact that they voted for an extension of the Bush-era tax cuts and the continued military presence in Afghanistan while Obama was in office. The fact remains, whichever party you give the most credit to, that the deficit was effectively reduced under the Obama administration, which is not the case now.
Biden’s website indicates a desire to expand the ACA. That sounds like more money than Obama to me. Fiscal responsibility is but one of the issues I’m taking into account before pulling the lever, but to be quite frank a lot of that went out the fucking window when we decided to commit to a deficit of 17% of our GDP in a scramble to save the economy. Either Trump or Biden could run historic budget surpluses for 4 years and it still wouldn’t undo that.
If Biden's plan to expand the ACA includes a genuine public option (as was planned, and then later abandoned, in the original bill) then it's quite possible that it would save the US taxpayer money, not cost more. Most universal healthcare systems cost less taxes per capita than Medicare and Medicaid, and it's because they utilize the benefits of government procurement to drive down prices.
The mantra that healthcare provision should be left entirely to markets is almost solely an American one. Most countries recognize the inherent inelasticity in the demand for healthcare, and they prepare accordingly. If either candidate can sort out America's healthcare system, I think that would be a good thing.
So riddle me this friend. You seem like a decent guy. You want America to be respected. You don’t much like the face Trump puts forward, which I get, even if you’re painfully uninformed as to the real world impact and context of his actual policies.
Hell, I don’t think you’ve been fair to me in assuming I don’t wish the guy showed a little more decorum in the first place. I wish he would. I just put a little more weight on actual results.
After all of that, are you willing to cast your vote for a man with dementia? Are you really comfortable throwing your support behind the walking corpse that was the best the DNC could come up with? Can you really, truly, look at Joe Biden playing with his dentures and trailing off mid-sentence during the best fucking press clips his desperate campaign can muster, and say that you want that man to be the face of the free world? That he’d do a better job than Trump, despite his flaws?
I don't think this election really hinges on whether or not Biden is personally up to the task of governing, but on who he nominates as his Vice President, and who he's likely to put in his cabinet. If Biden wins, then I think the best case scenario would probably be for him to take a backseat, and delegate the most important diplomatic functions to his deputy and chiefs of staff.
I have some pretty serious concerns about the mental state of both candidates, to be honest. Trump is impulsive and vindictive, while Biden is showing some very obvious symptoms of cognitive decline. Neither are qualities I'd want in a leader, under the best of circumstances.
More importantly, are you willing to ignore the domestic culture war and say with a straight face that Donald Trump is the one undermining American democracy and not the rabble of assholes perfectly willing to resort to violence and intimidation to push their myopic and self-destructive views?
I think both are undermining American democracy, and I think that both heavily feed off of one another. The most damaging development in American politics over the last decade, I think, has been the erosion of sensible voices who can unite the country and steer it in a forward-looking direction. I first started to see the rot set in with the emergence of the Tea Party Movement and Occupy Wall Street, although there is little doubt that the discourse has declined further in the age of social media.
My hope is that whatever happens in November, the United States can heal from it's current crisis, although I don't have a lot of optimism, given the choice that America is being presented with. Ultimately though, it is a choice the American people have to make, and I will support the result regardless of the outcome.
That would be the entirety of Human history.
Not true. Globally, democracy was on the increase for more than a century before the 2008 financial crash. It's only in the last decade that this has started to reverse.
