Originally Posted by JDFP

God, I hope so. I fully intend on standing with Rand in 2016. Perhaps we can concentrate on more important matters than ISIS like building a wall, fence, and security perimeter around Mexico in finally doing something about illegal immigrants (oh I forgot that phrase isn't P.C.). We can stop screwing around with going on offense and start dealing with national issues instead.

I doubt that anyone in the elite wants to do much beyond window dressing on restricting immigration. Too many of them have nannies, gardeners ect. that would have to go.

Originally Posted by JP

Personally, I think we ought to ask our, for all intents and purposes, 51st state of Israel to step up to the plate and let them finally have clear reign of the region. Let them know we support whatever their desires are for ensuring their safety and survival and that we won't put up any qualms with them doing what they want to do. I guarantee we wouldn't have to worry about ISIS any longer if we give them free reign. They'd be happy to accommodate. It's far more easy than relying on a ragtag group of would-be revolutionaries to take out ISIS (how'd that ultimately work out with the Mujahideen again?).

I don't really understand why we don't allow Israel to do more in dictating control of the region - for one, they're already there and have the capability.

j.p.

As long as we depend on middle eastern sources for a significant part of our energy fuel we will be entangled in that region. I am amazed, or actually I'm not because of the investments transnational corporations have made, in how no one really equates energy autarky with being free of Mesopotiamian politics.

Also, the fact that so many Americans don't understand the ''whack-a-mole'' quality of our current reactions is troubling. We act quite a bit like that kid in middle school, and I think tat we all knew one, who could be set up as the sucker time and time again by waggish classmates.

Originally Posted by '58 Flat

We want to help the Kurds and the Yazidis and the Assyrian and Chaldean Christians - but we want to obliterate the Alawites in Syria?

Either we stand for protecting religious minorities in the Middle East, or we don't - and how does enabling the Saudis in their latter-day Inquisition against the heretical Alawite "cult" further the national security interests of the United States?

But Bashar Assad is a "dirtbag," you say. But wasn't Augusto Pinochet a dirtbag too? And Anastasio Somoza, homosexual child molester Alfredo Stroessner in Paraguay, and the death squadists in El Salvador and the apartheidists in South Africa?

This is what happens when you are embroiled in a bipolar struggle for survival. You cannot afford the luxury of being prim and prickly when choosing your allies.

Finally, what an irony it is that Assad is the one genuine moderate Muslim in the region - and we want to destroy him.

It's about being smart and taking the long view, historic as well a future cast - i.e., not doing something stupid.

Sorry, but believing Assad, a guy who used nerve gas to kill thousands, is a moderate Muslim doesn't meet that benchmark.

Being stupid is believing kindly Uncle Assad sang a sweet lullaby to gently put these kids to sleep -



- psss, those kids aren't sleeping... or breathing.

Originally Posted by playwrite

Erbil - there are countless stories of Kurds (and now, of course, add the Yazidis and several other minority religious groups) telling Americans that they will never forget what we did for them.

I already said that air support of the Kurds makes sense. What makes the Kurds special is that during the massive Iraq violence in 2005-2007, this wasn't going on in Kurdistan. This was because Arabic-speaking people were not allowed to be in Kurdistan without escort. This strategy worked because there aren't many Kurdish speaking jihadists. This strategy cannot work in Iraq because everybody speaks Arabic. Another example is Australia. Availability of guns is limited; people are not allowed to bring guns into the country and so there are relatively little gun violence. In the US people freely own and carry guns and there is lots of gun violence.

It is no more possible to suppress violent men with guns in Iraq than it is in America. Here in America we just accept it, there are simply too many gun enthusiasts, drug warriors and soft racists. The Iraqis have to accept it, they simply have too many gun-toting jihad enthusiasts. If you suppress one flavor of jihadist, another flavor will pop up elsewhere.

That buys us a place at the table when Kurdistan is inevitably formed and inevitably seen by Turkey (as well as Iran) to be a knife poking them in the gonads. Most people haven't tuned into how totalitarian Turkey is becoming and how fed-up they are getting from being denied EU entry. Maybe some ripe pickins for Putin who's newly-acquired Crimea property still doesn't change the fact that his fleet at his only warm water port is still easily bottle up at Bosporus [and yea, I know about Kaliningrad, but no Russian can fart there without Brussels and the Pentagon first knowing his suffering some indigestion]. Turkey turning east would be a game changer and they're being existentially threatened by a new oil-rich Kurdistan just south of their most sensitive area just might turn the trick.

Here you are arguing from a geopolitical viewpoint. I understand this because I used to be on the same page. The question I now ask is why do we need to care about whether Russia gets a warm water port, or whether Turkey is shifting east? Why should we care about the great game?

Think about this at a more fundamental level. Where did the great game come from? The whole corpus of foreign policy is based on the abstract concept of nation states as "actors" who have "interests", just like people do. It's sort of like the notion of corporations as people. In the case of nation states, they once really were people. Recall Louis XIV: "I am the state". At one time the interests of the state were the professional interests of the monarch. But what is a monarch's profession? What were the professions of Edward III, Henry V or Louis XIV? I think you can call them professional "war leaders". And how do war leaders achieve career success? By winning wars and expanding the areas under their control. So one can think of "national interests" initially as the interests of the monarch. After the GR 4T the monarch was replaced by economic elites rather than military (aristocratic) elites.

After WW II Europe shucked their empires, with Russia as the last in 1991. The great game has been obsolete since WW II (actually WW I is when the system dynamics changed). And since then it has been the sound of one hand clapping as the US is the only power that still wants to play.

And what did all that great game playing and those 50-year concentrations of war studied by modern theorists accomplish? Pretty much the same thing as the American game playing in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. A lot of dead people and broken stuff.

Baghdad - We nominally have a place at the table in Iraq's Shialand. While they're all Shiites the history between Arabs and Persians goes back way farther and it's mostly pretty ugly. We provide the balance, and it gives us the real channel to work out that little arrangement over somebody's nuclear program.

Again, why do I want a place at the table. Providing the balance sounds like a thankless job. Why should be do it?

Let Baghdad become Iraq's Sarajevo on steroids and all bets are off. With the House of Saud jumping in, EVERYONE has the excuse needed to go full nuke as we sit on the sidelines. You really think Israel and Pakistan are going to also side on the sidelines? That would be kind of silly.

Ask yourself, why does Iran suddenly feel an urgent need to have nukes? Perhaps Iran noticed America proclaiming Iraq, Iran and North Korea as the axis of evil and then invading Iraq. I think any fair observer would have to note that of these three, the North Korean regime is the most evil. So why didn't America invade them? No need to speculate about that, we are pretty upfront about not wanting to fight a war with NK because they have nukes. Since having nukes stopped America from invading NK, as long as Iranians think America wants to invade them, they are going to want nukes.

Israel has had nukes for a long time, and that hasn't caused the Saudis to get nukes, even though they are sworn enemies. Why do you suppose nuclear Pakistan is going to want to get involved in the Middle East when nuclear China and nuclear Russia don't feel a need? Or do you subscribe to the notion than all the folks there are just crazy Muslims.

Riyadh - the big prize. And where did most of the 9/11 hijackers come from? Do you think they were the only ones from the land of Saud? Any thought about where those foreign ISIL friendly folks are coming from? The House of Saud understands this.

Again you play in ellipsis. There is no understanding behinds these statements, just a bunch of jargon that makes it look like you have thought this out.

Do you think this time they'll raise oil prices to make a point?

What on earth are you talking about?

They've been there, done that back in the 70s; didn't work out so well for them the....That's not going to happen again.

Well duh.

What do you think will happen if they instead drop oil to $75?

Not much, oil prices are volatile. It will like happen when we get a recession. What's the big deal.

How many decades do you think it will take before anyone invests in another "frackin miracle" after billions in investing in $100+ extraction goes completely belly up taking out railroads and state govts along the way?

Anyone stupid enough to invest billions in assets that only have value in a world of $100+ oil is a fucking idiot would not long have kept his billions, even if he had not invested.

It's a complex world out there. The good news is we got an adult in the Oval Office that doesn't buy into the ISI-are-supermen narrative but he also doesn't buy into the narrative that we'll all be peachy-keen if we just withdraw from the world's problems and live off the commerce - that's China's role.

Again, not content, no thought, just condescension.

You need better material

Originally Posted by herbal tee

... As long as we depend on middle eastern sources...

As of 2013, at 10 million barrels per day (MBP), the US was third in total oil production to Saudi Arabia (11.5) and Russia (10.8); for 2014, there is little doubt that US production has exceeded Russia. Some analysts have US exceeding the Saudi's before the end of this decade.

The current problem is that our use exceeds our production by 8.9 MBP,, but that has likely fallen bellow 8.0 in 2014. Moreover, some analysts believe US production will eventually eclipse its use some time in the 2030s (even without wholesale conversion to electric cars which will be charged soley by gas/solar power electric grid).

But currently there is that shortfall of around 8 MBP. About 2/3's of that comes from the Western Hemisphere (Canada being about 1/2 of that and Mexico another 1/4, then Venezuela and Colombia). About a 1/4 comes from the Middle East (nearly 3/4 of that is from Saudi Arabia and the rest from Iraq and Kuwait) but that has been dropping even before the latest upheavals. China is much more dependent on ME oil and as well as the EU (along with Russian oil).

One might conclude that we could make up any shortfall from the ME with just some more pumping domestically and within the Western Hemisphere. However, unless the global economy changes drastically (i.e., global trade comes to a near standstill), oil prices are pretty fungible worldwide and any worldwide shortage would hit our gas pumps (and economy) pretty hard.

But even if that were not the case, would it be wise to leave a power vacuum in the Middle East? Would it be a great idea to give China the excuse to greatly increase not only its blue water fleet but it's land presence as well? Or to do so in conjunction with Putin? I'm pretty sure he would oblige them. Do we then just let them run the China Sea as they see best or do we also let them run the Indian Ocean? Do you think the fallout from the nukes between China and India will reach our shores?

Originally Posted by herbal tee

Also, the fact that so many Americans don't understand the ''whack-a-mole'' quality of our current reactions is troubling. We act quite a bit like that kid in middle school, and I think tat we all knew one, who could be set up as the sucker time and time again by waggish classmates.

And that's why its good to have an adult in the Oval Office that doesn't buy into the ISIL supermen narrative but also doesn't buy into the sophomoric viewpoint that the world would somehow be a more pleasant place without us.

Magic ponies, of all stripes, can be dangerous.

Originally Posted by playwrite

It's about being smart and taking the long view, historic as well a future cast - i.e., not doing something stupid.

Sorry, but believing Assad, a guy who used nerve gas to kill thousands, is a moderate Muslim doesn't meet that benchmark.

Pw, Assad is at most a moderate Muslim. More likely he is a nominal-at-best Muslim but a fairly determined secular nationalist. Basically like Saddam was. Or Nasser or Ataturk or Gaddafi.

The era of secular Arab / Middle Eastern nationalism came and went, with the last holdouts mostly deposed in this 4T. The last stronghold is Turkey, which has dirty hands too against its non-Turkic surviving Indo-European ethnic minorities.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

....
The question I now ask is why do we need to care .....

It might be kind of fun to go back and argue the details, but I can see that what it comes down to is really this question .... it might even reflect that some of us are getting to that certain age and adopting certain attitudes. I can empathize.

I think the only suggestion I can make to you of value is to travel more. I'm not suggesting you have to go to Benghazi or to Donestk, but I am suggesting something more than lily-hoping from one NYC corner with a Starbucks to a Parisan corner with a Starbucks to a Roman corner with a Starbucks.

Instead, get out into some select suburbs of Paris, London, Berlin and talk to some of the people in what the broader populations of these cities would consider "ethnic grocery stores." Then maybe head down to some suburbs of Jerusalem, Beirut, Cairo, Karachi, and attend some religious gatherings of all persuasions where political discourse is allowed or at least not likely to be discovered. Maybe from there head up to Moscow and attend some speeches by Putin underlings on National Unity Day. Then off to Beijing to read some opinions by future Party leaders in local papers generally not available in the rest of the world.

What you are going to discover is a shitload of people who not only don't like how the game has played out (some even upset with the results since the 12th Century) but they very specifically blame YOU and will not be happy until they see that YOU have come to understand your luxury of believing the game does not have to be played.

"'Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness..." One can only imagine how much more pleasant the world was back in Twain's time - at least for Americans.

You may choose to not play "the game" but that doesn't mean the game will not continued to be played. You've just chosen to play it very poorly and it will have inevitable and undesirable consequences for you.

For example, play the game and you come to understand that the issue is not why Iran will build the bomb; the issue is that Israel will not let them. The resulting region-wide conflagration will result in $20 gas, if you can find it, and that will turn your Starbucks into a govt-sponsored soup kitchen where you will have to dialogue with the other people in line because the Internet is generally not available due to the frequent power outages.

All simply due to the poor game playing of believing you actually have the luxury of not playing.

Originally Posted by JDFP

Yes, ISIS wants the U.S. military to launch strategic air strikes against them in killing them and their capacity to commit atrocities. That's logical.

j.p.

Somehow I fail to see much rational thought in ISIS except as the 'rationality' of sociopaths. Settling with sociopaths is practically impossible until those sociopaths are rendered helpless.

Originally Posted by herbal tee

I doubt that anyone in the elite wants to do much beyond window dressing on restricting immigration. Too many of them have nannies, gardeners ect. that would have to go.
As long as we depend on middle eastern sources for a significant part of our energy fuel we will be entangled in that region. I am amazed, or actually I'm not because of the investments transnational corporations have made, in how no one really equates energy autarky with being free of Mesopotiamian politics.

Also, the fact that so many Americans don't understand the ''whack-a-mole'' quality of our current reactions is troubling. We act quite a bit like that kid in middle school, and I think tat we all knew one, who could be set up as the sucker time and time again by waggish classmates.

Which "we" are you referring to, we Americans, or we the West? Have you actually looked at the sources of oil for the US and their respective fractions of the whole?

Originally Posted by '58 Flat

We want to help the Kurds and the Yazidis and the Assyrian and Chaldean Christians - but we want to obliterate the Alawites in Syria?

It's Assad who wants to obliterate most of the other folks in Syria, and has already killed 200,000 of them, and chased away millions. I don't know why you favor the slaughter of the people in Syria.

Either we stand for protecting religious minorities in the Middle East, or we don't - and how does enabling the Saudis in their latter-day Inquisition against the heretical Alawite "cult" further the national security interests of the United States?

Helping the Free Syrian Army helps in the fight against the Islamic State group, and it helps bring a moderate government to Syria that doesn't support terrorists and commit genocide.

But Bashar Assad is a "dirtbag," you say. But wasn't Augusto Pinochet a dirtbag too? And Anastasio Somoza, homosexual child molester Alfredo Stroessner in Paraguay, and the death squadists in El Salvador and the apartheidists in South Africa?

so why then should we support any of these dirtbags and monsters?

This is what happens when you are embroiled in a bipolar struggle for survival. You cannot afford the luxury of being prim and prickly when choosing your allies.

Finally, what an irony it is that Assad is the one genuine moderate Muslim in the region - and we want to destroy him.

Assad is the least moderate person in the world. Sir, you are not following the news.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

It's Assad who wants to obliterate most of the other folks in Syria, and has already killed 200,000 of them, and chased away millions. I don't know why you favor the slaughter of the people in Syria.

Even if this is true - which I gravely doubt - the Alawites still have the same right to practice their faith as anyone else in the region - just as the Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc., who pretty much stand in relation to Christianity exactly the same way that the Alawites stand in relation to Islam, have the same right to practice their faith as anyone else in America does.

Helping the Free Syrian Army helps in the fight against the Islamic State group, and it helps bring a moderate government to Syria that doesn't support terrorists and commit genocide.

No. Helping the Free Syrian Army - which in reality is about as free as the FairTax is truly fair - only helps the Saudis (Mecca is in effect the Vatican City of Islam) carry out their Inquisition against the heretical Alawites.

so why then should we support any of these dirtbags and monsters?

Because, as the enemies of our enemies, they were our friends - just like Joseph Stalin, the ultimate dirtbag (or at least until Mao came along), was during World War II.

Assad is the least moderate person in the world. Sir, you are not following the news.

Show me where Assad is any kind of religious fanatic. Indeed, the Ba'ath Socialist Party, a branch of which his father headed (the other branch having ruled Iraq from 1958 until 2003), was at least conceptually atheist!

It is only a marginal exaggeration to say that Bashar Assad is the Mitt Romney of the Middle East.

Originally Posted by '58 Flat

Even if this is true - which I gravely doubt - the Alawites still have the same right to practice their faith as anyone else in the region - just as the Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc., who pretty much stand in relation to Christianity exactly the same way that the Alawites stand in relation to Islam, have the same right to practice their faith as anyone else in America does.

Why would you "gravely doubt" what is reported by every reputable news organization? If you do that, it's called willful ignorance. This has nothing to do with anyone's rights to practice a faith. The revolt against Assad started peacefully as an Arab Spring uprising against a tyranny.

No. Helping the Free Syrian Army - which in reality is about as free as the FairTax is truly fair - only helps the Saudis (Mecca is in effect the Vatican City of Islam) carry out their Inquisition against the heretical Alawites.

There is no such inquisition. To say so is willful ignorance, and reflects badly upon you.

Because, as the enemies of our enemies, they were our friends - just like Joseph Stalin, the ultimate dirtbag (or at least until Mao came along), was during World War II.

None of the folks you mentioned were our friends, and were not necessary to defend against any so-called enemy.

Show me where Assad is any kind of religious fanatic. Indeed, the Ba'ath Socialist Party, a branch of which his father headed (the other branch having ruled Iraq from 1958 until 2003), was at least conceptually atheist!

It is only a marginal exaggeration to say that Bashar Assad is the Mitt Romney of the Middle East.

What religious label you pin on Assad has nothing to do with his monstrous, immoderate, right-wing conduct. That is obvious. Again, if you don't know what that is, you are wiillfully ignorance of what's going on in the world, and would not know genocide if it ever happened to you and your friends. Assad is an illegitimate tyrant, whose dictates have no significance, validity or worthiness of any attention whatsoever from anyone. Syria has no current government, and Obama need not consult any such pretended regime. Mitt Romney has not murdered 200,000 people or sent millions into exile from the United States. What an odious comparison. You ought to be severely ashamed of yourself for making it.

If you have sex before marriage, you do not go to hell. There is no hell, and such is no sin.

Originally Posted by playwrite

What you are going to discover is a shitload of people who not only don't like how the game has played out (some even upset with the results since the 12th Century) but they very specifically blame YOU and will not be happy until they see that YOU have come to understand your luxury of believing the game does not have to be played.

Sure people like a free lunch. And sure they will be upset if it gets taken away from them. Look China has four time the population and it is going through industrialization. When it is finished it will have a far larger economy than the US. That's just math. From economic power flows financial power power. And financial power breeds military might. As the Spanish captains used to say, victory goes to he who has the last escudo.

So the Chinese are going to end up as the next hegemonic power, if such a thing continues to be relevant. And it will be THEY who will have to play the great game, if game playing continues to be relevant. But I don't think it is relevant. As Chris Rock put it, the Germans don't want to fight a war anymore. None of the old Great Powers do. Why should we?

You may choose to not play "the game" but that doesn't mean the game will not continued to be played. You've just chosen to play it very poorly and it will have inevitable and undesirable consequences for you.

So you have been hinting that somehow the US is forced (how?) to play a game that everybody else manages to avoid having to play.

For example, play the game and you come to understand that the issue is not why Iran will build the bomb; the issue is that Israel will not let them. The resulting region-wide conflagration will result in $20 gas, if you can find it, and that will turn your Starbucks into a govt-sponsored soup kitchen where you will have to dialogue with the other people in line because the Internet is generally not available due to the frequent power outages.

You say Israel will not "let" Iran get nukes. Well it seems that they "let" Pakistan get nukes. And it also seems that they very much want the US to do this job for them. If it was really up to the Israelis for Iran to get nukes, then they would not need to spend so much time and money bribing US legislators to do the job for them. Don't you think it is more likely that the Israels don't think they can stop Iran from getting nukes, but that maybe the US can? And that's why they are putting so much effort into trying to get America to be their bitch.

But suppose you are right. Israel feels so strongly about Iranian nukes that when Iran finally tests a bomb they initiate a massive first strike and destroy the country. Do you suppose the US can continue to support a rogue nation like that? When the Russian and Chinese leaders call the president, do you really think he will risk WW III on protecting Israel. Or do you suppose he will agree to stand down, while China and Russian destroy Israel with their nukes. Problem solved.

Of course even the evil empire never saw fit to engage in a first strike (and they had MAD capability) Do you really think Israel is going to go there? And if they aren't going to launch their nukes at Iran, then it really is not in their power to prevent Iran from getting a bomb.

So what you are really talking about is some sort of conventional exchange between Israel and Iran, which might draw in other nations. Well there have been Arab-Israeli wars before and the world did not end. You are going to have to present a lot more facts and analysis to support your prediction that Mideast war means $20 gas and electric power shortages. The US already produces more than half of the oil it consumes. World price will rise until the demand meets non-Mideast supply. That is not $20 gas. I'm already set up for $10 gas. In 1973 oil prices quadrupled over a short period of time. The effect of your scenario would probably be less than that.

Electric power comes entirely from domestic energy, so here you are talking nonsense. The point is there really aren't any really serious consequences for rank-and-file Americans here in America from any realistic scenarios you can come up with. Elite Americans with major financial and business interests in the region, yeah sure. So what, the vast majority of Americans don't have such interests.

Remember, if the world is going to deal with global warming before we get irreversible melting, a big chunk of the the known reserved of fossil fuels have to stay in the ground. Might as well be Mideast energy reserves that don't get used.

China will get hit harder by Mideast crisis than we will. They are going to end up the hegemon anyways. Let them deal with it.

Originally Posted by '58 Flat

Assad is the least moderate person in the world. Sir, you are not following the news.

Show me where Assad is any kind of religious fanatic. Indeed, the Ba'ath Socialist Party, a branch of which his father headed (the other branch having ruled Iraq from 1958 until 2003), was at least conceptually atheist!

It is only a marginal exaggeration to say that Bashar Assad is the Mitt Romney of the Middle East.

I think you two are talking past each other. Assad is not a religious fanatic; like Saddam Hussein and some other Middle Eastern strongmen, he's pretty secular. However, he is a thug, just like Hussein and Qaddafi were. A brutal piece of work who has no compunction about butchering his citizens. Comparing him to Mitt Romney is absurd.

Whether we should try to take him out is another question...I'll leave wiser minds then mine to figure that one out.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

Sure people like a free lunch. And sure they will be upset if it gets taken away from them. Look China has four time the population and it is going through industrialization. When it is finished it will have a far larger economy than the US. That's just math. From economic power flows financial power power. And financial power breeds military might. As the Spanish captains used to say, victory goes to he who has the last escudo.

So the Chinese are going to end up as the next hegemonic power, if such a thing continues to be relevant. And it will be THEY who will have to play the great game, if game playing continues to be relevant. But I don't think it is relevant. As Chris Rock put it, the Germans don't want to fight a war anymore. None of the old Great Powers do. Why should we?

Asking why the US (more interventionist) can't be like Europe (less interventionist) sort of ignores the reason why they're different; it's a luxury they enjoy from the US being the more interventionist. The US isolates itself, then Europe will be back to its old ways pretty quick. Now, this is where you now say, "so what?" Well, we've been there done that.

Bringing up Germany also sort of ignores fairly recent history of their (along with Japan) total defeat and basically being set on a path of no aggression; you are aware that we still have extensive bases in Germany and up until rather recently in Japan. Do you really think they would play the game as they do if we withdraw from our role?

And yes, China, by sheer numbers, may have an economy that eventually eclipses ours but unlikely to eclipse the joint economies of the Western world along with India. And besides, the basis for China's continuing growth is their maintaining a workable relationship with the rest of us. How do they balance their desire to expand their influence (e.g. China Sea resource exploitation) with the need to maintain workable relationships with their neighbors and the rest of the world. Do we just let them all fumble about or do we act as a middle man and counter balance the potential for extremes?

I think we are on a path that will get us to the luxury of withdrawal as a steadying force in the world. We were pretty close in Europe until Ukraine, but I just see that as one of the inevitable aftershocks of the breakup of the Soviet Union - two steps forward, one step back - but I'm pretty sure it will eventually work it's way out. I'm also pretty confident that China will continue to become a peaceful partner in a stable web of highly integrated countries.

On the other hand, if we simply withdraw and leave the game to all others, I see both Russia and China turning highly aggressive in their "near borders" and creating all sorts of problems for their neighbors - at a minimum, sending periodic shock waves through the global economy, and while still remote, possible radioactive fallout. The cost to US in maintaining its active role in providing a stabilizing influence as it currently does is relatively minor; it fact, it is perhaps the one area where federal spending is widely politically supported and without that spending, we would probable be in an economic depression.

The more challenging issues are the Islamic World and to a lesser extent, North Korea. Taking the last one first, I'm not as confident as you that a cult-nation has the rationale to come out on the sane side of the MAD dilemma. And the only thing keeping both S. Korea and Japan from exceeding N.Korea's nuclear capability is our geopolitical game decision to put them under our umbrella. Without that, I see no way that N.Korea doesn't take it as an existential threat if those countries decide to build, ... and being a cult nation, I think it highly likely we get the big boom. We now have a pretty clear understanding just how much radioactive fallout would hit our homeland from the Fukushima accident which would be relatively minor compared to a nuclear exchange - you can be as much an isolationist as you want but that's not going to stop you from glowing in the dark.

The Islamic World, however, is the real issue we face. Not only have books been written but planes have brought down skyscrapers. There's the old arguments of whether appeasement, disengagement, butt kicking or some combination we can get into, but I really just see all that as different game strategies. We can come back to those.

What I really find interesting about your perspective is that you seem to want to ignore the lessons of the past, the resulting geopolitical structures of today, and the challenges that are unfolding. Just write it all off and say we just don't want to play any more. Interesting.

However, what I find really alien, for myself, is the rest of your response - 'so what if there is a nuclear exchange, or 'so what if we get quadrupling of energy price' - either of which would make the Great Depression (let alone what we've been going through since 2008) seem like a walk in the park.

You'd risk all that because of ISIL? Do you really find them that scary?

I just don't even with all the worst ramifications you can muster up. I just don't.

I see that you do, and I see that lack of proper balance as just very poor game playing.

Originally Posted by '58 Flat

Even if this is true - which I gravely doubt - the Alawites still have the same right to practice their faith as anyone else in the region - just as the Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc., who pretty much stand in relation to Christianity exactly the same way that the Alawites stand in relation to Islam, have the same right to practice their faith as anyone else in America does.

The problem with the Assad crime family of Syria is not that they are Alawites. The problem is that the Assad family has shown themselves murderous tyrants. There is nothing wrong with Bashir Assad that a well-tied rope and a seven-foot drop would not solve.

Freedom of religion is no guarantee of democracy, but its absence is inconsistent with democracy.

No. Helping the Free Syrian Army - which in reality is about as free as the FairTax is truly fair - only helps the Saudis (Mecca is in effect the Vatican City of Islam) carry out their Inquisition against the heretical Alawites.

The Free Syrian Army cannot be worse than either the Assad crime syndicate or ISIS. If one must choose between Schuschnigg and Hitler or between Kadar and Pol Pot...

Because, as the enemies of our enemies, they were our friends - just like Joseph Stalin, the ultimate dirtbag (or at least until Mao came along), was during World War II.

We were on the side of the people of the Soviet Union more than we were on the side of Stalin. Yes -- Hitler was worse than Stalin. Hitler had a higher murder rate per capita between 1938 and 1945 (there were constraints upon Hitler before September 1, 1939). Hitler was just getting his murder machine working at full speed just as the Allies closed in on him. Hitler had plans for killing all Poles once he finished off the Jews of Europe; Stalin never planned to slaughter whole nations.

Stalin was insane -- paranoid. He turned on his own, but he showed surprising patience on other countries. He made sure that the only people to be killed in central and Balkan Europe before Commies fully took over were people like Nazi war criminals and the wartime fascist leaders of satellite countries -- basically the sorts of people that the British and Americans willingly turned over.

Show me where Assad is any kind of religious fanatic. Indeed, the Ba'ath Socialist Party, a branch of which his father headed (the other branch having ruled Iraq from 1958 until 2003), was at least conceptually atheist!

Arab (national) socialist. It was neutral on religion because it was un-Islamic. Of course if religion got in the way, the clergyman would be murdered. After the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, the Shi'ites went after the judicial process that had murdered an ayatollah (I figure that that is about on par with murdering a Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church).

Try looking at it this way. Imagine a Klan-dominated America (the Klan is a fascist clique) in the 1930s, and a Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church puts up a principled opposition to Klan crimes. He is arrested, brought before a show trial with a Vishinsky/Freisler- like hanging judge, convicted, and sentenced to death -- and of course executed. After America is defeated in the Second World War, the hanging judge is arrested in Japanese-occupied Nebraska (I have to turn the good guys and bad guys around) and turned over for trial in Chicago, where the Germans have let power go to the largely-Catholic population that they quickly came to trust. Catholics, Jews, and blacks are ready for revenge. Justice will be adequate, and that means due process of the law. Hanging in a makeshift prison for ordering a man of conscience cast into a big-cat enclosure isn't quite complete retribution, but it is about all that is available as a punishment of a perpetrator of one of the forms of martyrdom depicted in Quo Vadis .

It is only a marginal exaggeration to say that Bashar Assad is the Mitt Romney of the Middle East.

Mitt Romney is not and was never going to be that bad. The worst that he could have been as President would have been the new Herbert Hoover. Unlike either Assad, Herbert Hoover was not a criminal. Mormonism was going to be the least of his problems as President.

The only way to stabilize the middle east and end the threat of Islamism would be if this stabilization is part of a comprehensive clearing out of the bad guys and a general reorganization for the Mideast. Only restorationism and it's concept of the general pacification of the middle east and long-term reorganizing of the region into military administrative regions would bring a reasonably permanent stability to the region.

Originally Posted by Cynic Hero '86

The only way to stabilize the middle east and end the threat of Islamism would be if this stabilization is part of a comprehensive clearing out of the bad guys and a general reorganization for the Mideast. Only restorationism and it's concept of the general pacification of the middle east and long-term reorganizing of the region into military administrative regions would bring a reasonably permanent stability to the region.

The United States is not now at war with any country in the Middle East. It will be up largely to Muslims to bring ISIS war criminals to account. Such is little different from American and British Christians (and those were largely Christians) to put nominally-Christians on trial for violating the ethical norms of Christendom.

Murder, slaving, and plunder are un-Christian. Guess what -- they are also un-Islamic.

The Kurds and the Shi'ites could try ISIS figures for such crimes as persecution of non-Muslims and for the destruction of Shi'ite mosques as violations of Islamic law.

Sociopathy more defines ISIS than does Islam.

Originally Posted by playwrite

Asking why the US (more interventionist) can't be like Europe (less interventionist) sort of ignores the reason why they're different; it's a luxury they enjoy from the US being the more interventionist. The US isolates itself, then Europe will be back to its old ways pretty quick. Now, this is where you now say, "so what?" Well, we've been there done that.

Once hegemons retire, they don't come back. Sweden once made a bid as a Great Power. They had the wisdom to see that they couldn't realistically play that game and they retired with grace. The Netherlands is a small country but were so dynamic they were actual hegemon for about half a century. Like Sweden, they too had the wisdom to know when they could no longer play this game and they too retired with grace. Then there is the greatest of all the hegemons, Great Britain. Mistress of the greatest empire in history, when it was her time she too retired with grace, voluntarily shedding her empire. And how is life for a Brit today?

Now consider Spain. Nobody ever played more intensively than Spain. Did she have the sense to retire in 1600 when the game was up? She went down kicking and screaming. Spain spent 80 YEARS on their own Vietnam. And how is the life of a typical Spaniard today compared to a Brit, Dutchman or a Swede?

You are suggesting we hang on like Spain. I am saying the hell with that.

Bringing up Germany also sort of ignores fairly recent history of their (along with Japan) total defeat and basically being set on a path of no aggression; you are aware that we still have extensive bases in Germany and up until rather recently in Japan. Do you really think they would play the game as they do if we withdraw from our role?

Yes they probably would. The reason is simple. There used to be benefits from playing the game. But empire isn't a profitable gig anymore. That's why all they have all given up their empires.

And yes, China, by sheer numbers, may have an economy that eventually eclipses ours but unlikely to eclipse the joint economies of the Western world along with India.

The economy of a hegemon typically does not eclipse the combined economies of the other powers. That doesn't mean they aren't the hegemon.

And besides, the basis for China's continuing growth is their maintaining a workable relationship with the rest of us.

This is true for everyone.

How do they balance their desire to expand their influence with the need to maintain workable relationships with their neighbors and the rest of the world.

The same way their predecessors did.

Do we just let them all fumble about or do we act as a middle man and counter balance the potential for extremes?

You mean play the role Britain did for us? I don't think so, we aren't as good as this stuff as the Brits were. Look Spain spent 80 years before being forced to give up their rich Dutch provinces. The effort drained them; they never recovered. In contrast, the Britain gave up their rich American colonies in just 6 years and fully recovered. America spent ten years on the worthless Vietnam province that was never even theirs (it was French). What kind of an idiot does that? The same sort of idiot that invades Iraq.

I think we are on a path that will get us to the luxury of withdrawal as a steadying force in the world.

Why do you want that? Look stability makes the world safe for investors. In the old world, people invested in the advanced countries with governments than can keep order. Ricardo pointed to this tendency for capital to stay inside the advanced countries that made comparative advantage work. But in this new stable world, capital can go to where labor is cheap. This diminishes the clout of labor and stacks the deck in favor of the haves over the have nots. Seeking stability creates a comfy world for the haves maintained by the blood of the have nots.

Why is this agenda in the interest of rank and file Americans, the vast majority of who are not billionaires or even centimillionaires?

On the other hand, if we simply withdraw and leave the game to all others, I see both Russia and China turning highly aggressive in their "near borders" and creating all sorts of problems for their neighbors - at a minimum, sending periodic shock waves through the global economy, and while still remote, possible radioactive fallout.

Whether we withdraw or not that is going to happen. It's supposed to happen, if the game is still worth playing. It is this assumption that I question. The fact is China and Russian have been MUCH too quiescent for this assumption to be true. So inactive are the nation states that old-style non-state entities like military religious orders and pirates have made a comeback.

The cost to US in maintaining its active role in providing a stabilizing influence as it currently does is relatively minor;

I don't call the eventual $3 trillion price tag for Iraq/Afghanistan minor. I don't count the continual annual expenditure of more than $0.5 T for "national defense" that was unable to defend against 19 guys with box cutters a minor expense.

without that [war] spending, we would probably be in an economic depression.

You need to provide some facts and analysis to back this extraordinary statement.

Taking the last one first, I'm not as confident as you that a cult-nation has the rationale to come out on the sane side of the MAD dilemma.

Ah, the white man's burden.

And the only thing keeping both S. Korea and Japan from exceeding N.Korea's nuclear capability is our geopolitical game decision to put them under our umbrella. Without that, I see no way that N.Korea doesn't take it as an existential threat if those countries decide to build, ... and being a cult nation, I think it highly likely we get the big boom.

If you are so sure of yourself, then why wait, just first-strike NK now and be done with it.

The Islamic World, however, is the real issue we face. Not only have books been written but planes have brought down skyscrapers. There's the old arguments of whether appeasement, disengagement, butt kicking or some combination we can get into, but I really just see all that as different game strategies. We can come back to those.

The Islamic world is only an issue for us because we want to make them an issue.

However, what I find really alien, for myself, is the rest of your response - 'so what if there is a nuclear exchange, or 'so what if we get quadrupling of energy price' - either of which would make the Great Depression (let alone what we've been going through since 2008) seem like a walk in the park.

We went through a quadrupling of the oil price in the 1970's and it was a walk in the park compared to the Depression. But I don't think if an Iran-Israeli standoff is going to cause a quadrupling of oil prices. What exactly is the mechanism? Is Iran going to shut the Persian Gulf in the face of the Chinese, Indian, and European fleets, all who are more capable than theirs? A neo-isolationist America would still have a Navy too, and we too would be there.

And yes I worry about an Israeli-Iranian nuclear war about the same as I do about an asteroid impacting the earth. Both would be disasters. I also believe that if either of these things are going to happen, there is not much we can do to stop them. But I don't think they are even remotely likely. Look there is only on power than has ever actually used nukes on civilian targets. And more than sixty years of experience has shown that they can be deterred.

You'd risk all that because of ISIL? Do you really find them that scary?

There aren't scary to me at all. I am only risking things that exist in your imagination. I don't worry about zombies or vampires either.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

Once hegemons retire, they don't come back. Sweden once made a bid as a Great Power. They had the wisdom to see that they couldn't realistically play that game and they retired with grace. The Netherlands is a small country but were so dynamic they were actual hegemon for about half a century. Like Sweden, they too had the wisdom to know when they could no longer play this game and they too retired with grace. Then there is the greatest of all the hegemons, Great Britain. Mistress of the greatest empire in history, when it was her time she too retired with grace, voluntarily shedding her empire. And how is life for a Brit today?

Now consider Spain. Nobody ever played more intensively than Spain. Did she have the sense to retire in 1600 when the game was up? She went down kicking and screaming. Spain spent 80 YEARS on their own Vietnam. And how is the life of a typical Spaniard today compared to a Brit, Dutchman or a Swede?

You are suggesting we hang on like Spain. I am saying the hell with that.


Yes they probably would. The reason is simple. There used to be benefits from playing the game. But empire isn't a profitable gig anymore. That's why all they have all given up their empires.


The economy of a hegemon typically does not eclipse the combined economies of the other powers. That doesn't mean they aren't the hegemon.


This is true for everyone.


The same way their predecessors did.


You mean play the role Britain did for us? I don't think so, we aren't as good as this stuff as the Brits were. Look Spain spent 80 years before being forced to give up their rich Dutch provinces. The effort drained them; they never recovered. In contrast, the Britain gave up their rich American colonies in just 6 years and fully recovered. America spent ten years on the worthless Vietnam province that was never even theirs (it was French). What kind of an idiot does that? The same sort of idiot that invades Iraq.


Why do you want that? Look stability makes the world safe for investors. In the old world, people invested in the advanced countries with governments than can keep order. Ricardo pointed to this tendency for capital to stay inside the advanced countries that made comparative advantage work. But in this new stable world, capital can go to where labor is cheap. This diminishes the clout of labor and stacks the deck in favor of the haves over the have nots. Seeking stability creates a comfy world for the haves maintained by the blood of the have nots.

Why is this agenda in the interest of rank and file Americans, the vast majority of who are not billionaires or even centimillionaires?


Whether we withdraw or not that is going to happen. It's supposed to happen, if the game is still worth playing. It is this assumption that I question. The fact is China and Russian have been MUCH too quiescent for this assumption to be true. So inactive are the nation states that old-style non-state entities like military religious orders and pirates have made a comeback.


I don't call the eventual $3 trillion price tag for Iraq/Afghanistan minor. I don't count the continual annual expenditure of more than $0.5 T for "national defense" that was unable to defend against 19 guys with box cutters a minor expense.


You need to provide some facts and analysis to back this extraordinary statement.


Ah, the white man's burden.


If you are so sure of yourself, then why wait, just first-strike NK now and be done with it.


The Islamic world is only an issue for us because we want to make them an issue.


We went through a quadrupling of the oil price in the 1970's and it was a walk in the park compared to the Depression. But I don't think if an Iran-Israeli standoff is going to cause a quadrupling of oil prices. What exactly is the mechanism? Is Iran going to shut the Persian Gulf in the face of the Chinese, Indian, and European fleets, all who are more capable than theirs? A neo-isolationist America would still have a Navy too, and we too would be there.

And yes I worry about an Israeli-Iranian nuclear war about the same as I do about an asteroid impacting the earth. Both would be disasters. I also believe that if either of these things are going to happen, there is not much we can do to stop them. But I don't think they are even remotely likely. Look there is only on power than has ever actually used nukes on civilian targets. And more than sixty years of experience has shown that they can be deterred.


There aren't scary to me at all. I am only risking things that exist in your imagination. I don't worry about zombies or vampires either.

Again, for most of today's world, I would suggest we are on a path toward the US no longer being, needing, or wanting hegemony status. In fact, I question the entire construct of hegemony of the past applying to the present and even less so for the future. About the only folks operating with territorial objectives are Russia and ISSL - the former is going to get a land bridge so that they can pretend to supply an area with a navy port that has no relevance; the latter will likely be gone in couple months. Also, in a transnational corporate world, just how important is a national economy in determining hegemony? Particularly where the comparison is 100s of millions having little individual buying power vs. a few hundred million having relatively high buying power? By the time China emerges as the potential hegemon derived from some totaling of GDP within it's border, the notion of hegemon (possible even borders) will be a myriad of academic opinions and debates but not much practical use.

What we are dealing with today are some nations, in particular Russia and China, that are operating to some degree, but certainly much much less so than in the past, as if national hegemony (and the need to counter it) is an operational construct. As I said before, I'm fairly confident that will pass and coincide with your hope-for loss of our status - but NOT to see China or anyone else come to fill the void because the whole notion of hegemony will have gone out of contemporary global relationships and operations.

Where I directly disagree with you is that I believe the US presence, as hegemon, is needed in these late stages to keep things on track toward your goal of our throwing off the yoke. I also believe not doing so will have severe consequences for us; I find it hard to believe that someone who has tracked the markets and economy and seen the amplification of impacts from global events that is unprecedented in history would be so nonchalant. Can I have some of those meds that you must be on?

So, again, for most of the world, I see your hope-for removal of the yoke as possible, but only if we continue to play the game for a bit longer in the latter stages. You bring up Vietnam. Yes, that was a mistake in many ways. But the entire context to measure whether it was or not is nearly completely gone and unlikely to ever arise again. Way past time to move on.

Again, the two exceptions to the rosy picture are N.Korea and the Islamic world. As a rouge state, I'm not as sanguine as you about N. Korea's leadership and institutions resulting in error-free rational decision making. And it's not, as you say, "the White Man's burden," it's much more China's along with S.Korea and Japan. It's indirectly ours through our alliances and are interactions with China. I hope the Chinese will bring this to a positive end as an issue, and we can influence that; I have no doubt, however, that without our influence, it would end in a much more negative manner (nuclear race with Japan and S. Korea) with major repercussions for us.

The more problematic exception is the Islamic world. The issues are much more intractable and the consequences much more severe. Today's world is not the 1970s; economies are not only much more interconnected, they are much more in synch and vulnerable - 2008 taught us that. If there is a nuclear exchange in the Region, no one is going to go back in and get the oil flowing for about a 1000 years - and that might be how long it takes for Western countries to pull out of the economic depression to afford the effort.

You brought up Bush's invasion of Iraq. Yea, that's not how the game should be played. Given the situations in Islamic world today, I'm comfortable with how Obama is playing it. I see just leaving it to its own devices as a grave mistake; you disagree. So what? What you're suggesting is not the reality and it's not going to be.

By the way, I seek stability that results in far less senseless killings. I think we can find other ways to deal with employment problems.

That $0.5T created a lot of jobs, by the way, and nobody's taxes went up as a result. Maybe understanding how our monetary system actually works would be a great step toward throwing the hegemony yoke aside.

Originally Posted by playwrite

Again, for most of today's world, I would suggest we are on a path toward the US no longer being, needing, or wanting hegemony status. In fact, I question the entire construct of hegemony of the past applying to the present and even less so for the future. About the only folks operating with territorial objectives are Russia and ISSL - the former is going to get a land bridge so that they can pretend to supply an area with a navy port that has no relevance; the latter will likely be gone in couple months.

We are on the same page here.

Also, in a transnational corporate world, just how important is a national economy in determining hegemony? Particularly where the comparison is 100s of millions having little individual buying power vs. a few hundred million having relatively high buying power?

Are you envisioning individual corporations having their own militaries, to replace defunct national ones? Otherwise, what political and more importantly cultural structures are going to support the economic activities of the transnational corporations, if the state has been starved out of existence?

What we are dealing with today are some nations, in particular Russia and China, that are operating to some degree, but certainly much much less so than in the past, as if national hegemony (and the need to counter it) is an operational construct.

Again on the same page.

As I said before, I'm fairly confident that will pass and coincide with your hope-for loss of our status -

Two points of disagreement here. First this does not have to pass for the US to abandon the hegemonic task. Second, there is no "hoped for" loss of status, that loss occurred a long time ago. The hegemonic system is not breaking down now, it became irrelevant shortly after WW I. However nobody who even detect that it was absent for sure until WW II broke out. But then there are lags. Anyone born before 1925 will have spent at least of their formative years during a period when it appeared superficially that the hegemonic system was still working. But it wasn't as the Berlin crisis showed. Normally, when the new hegemon arises from victory in what Modelski calls a global war, it enjoys a few decades of unchallenged power (the World Power period). For example after the end of hostilities in 1609, the Netherlands proceeded to help itself to the Portuguese trading empire and established a string of new trading colonies at the same time. Britain enjoyed some decades in the sun after the treaty of Utrecht in 1714. S&H give the name "Augustan age of empire" to the 1T that ran over this time. I'm sure you are familiar with the new Brit-centered world order that emerged after the treat of Vienna in 1815.

WW I was clearly the next of these global contests, except it was not followed by any sort of world power phase. Barely a decade after Versailles you had a re-emergent Germany making the same bid for power that had just be turned back a decade earlier. WW I had to be fought all over again as if WW I had never happened. Modelski and others address this problem by treating WW I and WW II as a single stretch of Global War over 1914-1945. But that doesn't help. Because immediately after the second war you had another great power (USSR) challenging the new US hegemon. This behavior is classic behavior for the "Agenda-setting" period, when the future challenger to the hegemon establishes themselves as the dominant regional power. This doesn't fit with a US World Power era from 1945-1973, as Modelski has it. In my second book I proposed a fix. The link is missing the figures, I don't have an intact online version, but the tables illustrate the idea.

Basically I have a modified cycle in which the 1980's was a warless "Global War period" in which the US emerged triumphant over the USSR challenger, starting a new Modelsik leadership cycle. So the two decades after 1990 was a US World Power period, and since around 2010 we have been in the Agenda-setting delegitimization period. But almost nobody is acting their part. With the exception of Russia, who in the Ukraine is trying to establish dominance, which is what challengers are supposed to be doing now (according to my version of the cycle) nobody else is. Yeah, China is flexing its muscles a bit in the South China Sea, which looks like maybe they too are going to play the game. But it just feels half-hearted to me, and Putin strikes me as a joke. But none of the Europeans, or the Brazilians or the Indians seem to be interested.

If you ascribe to the Modelski version its even worse. We are now supposed to be in the coalition-building era, when the power of old hegemon (US) is rapidly falling and the other powers are lining up to take us down and replace us with one of the them. I see nothing like that happening. I think you would agree with me here too.

Where I directly disagree with you is that I believe the US presence, as hegemon, is needed in these late stages to keep things on track toward your goal of our throwing off the yoke. So, again, for most of the world, I see your hope-for removal of the yoke as possible, but only if we continue to play the game for a bit longer in the latter stages.

Here I think you are making a category error. The world order is not a finished product. It is not something that once built can then serve its purpose without the builder's constant effort. It is more like a marriage. Unless both parties continuously work to maintain that relationship, it collapses. It is not like if we just solve just a few more problems the world order will settle itself out and we can then live as the other nations.

Today's world is not the 1970s; economies are not only much more interconnected, they are much more in synch and vulnerable - 2008 taught us that.

Economies are more connected because states have chose this option. Suppose the US state placed a steep tariff on all imports, or implement policy that devalued the dollar severely. Or suppose international lawlessness and piracy made it harder for firms to transport goods long distance or to extract resources for large areas of the world. Any of these would affect multinational corporations far more adversely than Western states.

Also panics like 2008 occurred through the 19th century, when there was less of an integrated world economy. Panics comes from financial bubbles caused by too much money, too much supply and too little demand. That is, economic inequality. As long as you have high levels of economic inequality, events like 2008 have to happen. No matter how clever you try to engineer the system, wealth must be put to work under Capitalism. To otherwise more longer than a short period of time, is anathema to capitalists. So the investment will happen, the leverage will be employed, the bubbles will grow and collapse, each time their is a statistical probability for a panic. Sooner or later the number comes dues. It's like the business cycle; it still cycles, no matter what policymakers do.

If there is a nuclear exchange in the Region, no one is going to go back in and get the oil flowing for about a 1000 years - and that might be how long it takes for Western countries to pull out of the economic depression to afford the effort.

This is nonsense. Why would there be a 1000-year depression just because Mideast oil supplied are cut off? What would happen is oil prices would go up. People would find solo trips in their autos too expensive to justify such trips. So they would carpool, and share the expense. Oil consumption would collapse unit demand and supply meet. That's how markets function. The price of gasoline would rise.

Well converting natural gas to gasoline is straightforward. If gas becomes expensive, like say $7-8 bucks a gallon, and it is known that is will stay expensive, which your scenario would ensure, then US chemical companies and going to start doing this. At these prices motor fuel from agricultural and forestry residues, algae, and even municipal wastes makes sense. There would be massive tooling up of industrial operations to do these things, and major hiring. Not really so bad for the US, not so good for the Chinese or the Indians, but things will still be better for them than there were just a few decades ago.

You brought up Bush's invasion of Iraq. Yea, that's not how the game should be played.

But as long as we have the means to do these things, they are going to get done poorly some of the time. And the bad that happens when they are done poorly outweighs the good that is done when they are done well. So in the net there are more losses than gains.

That $0.5T created a lot of jobs, by the way, and nobody's taxes went up as a result.

More jobs would have been created by spending that domestically and taxing the rich for half of it. Defense spending is not a particularly potent stimulus, as I am sure you know. Also a big part of financial crises are asset bubbles that ultimately reflect too much wealth in too-little hands. Confiscatory taxation can temporarily address this imbalance by bleeding of a little for that wealth. Over the long term is works by changing the business culture to substitute non-monetary forms of compensation for monetary compensation (to avoid taxation and as a response to a social & political environment less friendly to plutocrats) as happened post-WW II.

Just because it is not politically possible at present to raise taxes or implement a tariff does not mean that those of us who are not billionaires should then continue to actively support policy that largely benefits them.

By the way, I seek stability that results in far less senseless killings.

This is not possible. You are not going to get conservatives to be less conservative from dropping bomb on them. ISIS are extreme social conservatives who see the only way to redeem their culture is to purge the non believers and the heretics. We have a far milder version of the same sort of thinking with the Minutemen and militia movements. Do you suppose that the fracas at the Bundy ranch would be better dealt with by a show of force Waco-style?

Why should bombing ISIS persuade very, but not extremely, conservative Muslims to becoming more moderate, as opposed to more extreme? Now I support using air power to help the Kurds, because the benefit of maintaining the more moderate Kurds is achievable (the Kurds have a proven tack record of keeping order in their own land). I do not support using air power to help the Iraqis or the Syrians, because neither had a track record of success. Iraq has not had a functional government since we ousted Hussein. The Syrian government was unable to maintain stability after the Arab spring uprising, so they too are hopeless. Of the other actors only ISIS has shown any evidence of having their act together, but I am not going to support those assholes. So stability is not an option in that region. I'm sorry but we are not gods.

The choice is not between more or less senseless killings. The choice is between who gets killed senselessly. No matter what we do people will get killed senselessly. But as we get involved, we will be responsible for some of those deaths. And they will hate us even more and that will spur yet more ISIS clones.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

The hegemonic system is not breaking down now, it became irrelevant shortly after WW I. However nobody who even detect that it was absent for sure until WW II broke out. But then there are lags. Anyone born before 1925 will have spent at least of their formative years during a period when it appeared superficially that the hegemonic system was still working.

This is a good reason why GIs Interbellums could pass off 1910s nostalgia with 1912 being its banner year as nostalgia overall for a Westphalian World as I believe another person coined it.

A few examples of Nostalgia for that Westphalian world order that I can think off the top of my head:

Gigi
My Fair Lady
Pollyanna
The Music Man
Mary Poppins
The Great Race
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines


While Silents seemed to have little to no context of that kind of world system, and thus little nostalgia for it if at all.

~Chas'88

Originally Posted by Mikebert

You are not going to get conservatives to be less conservative from dropping bomb on them. ISIS are extreme social conservatives who see the only way to redeem their culture is to purge the non believers and the heretics. We have a far muter version of the same sort of think with the Minutemen and militia movements. Do you suppose that the fracas at the Bundy ranch would be better dealt with by a show of force Waco-style?

ISIS is beyond persuading, I think

I opposed bombing them as long as they stayed within the area they had originally taken. But when they started attacking the Kurds and Christian exiles, I could see bombing them as a defense measure for these folks. So now it's too late to avoid being their enemy, so we might as well be their enemy, as we had been before anyway (when they were Al Qaeda in Iraq, Saddamists, etc.). We have now bombed them, and they are retaliating against us.

Why should bombing ISIS persuade very, but not extremely conservative Muslims to becoming more moderate, as opposed to more extreme? Now I support using air power to help the Kurds, because the benefit of maintaining the more moderate Kurds is achievable (the Kurds have a proven tack record of keeping order in their own land). I do not support using air power to help the Iraqis or the Syrians, because neither had a track record of success. Iraq has not had a functional government since we ousted Hussein. The Syrian government was unable to maintain stability after the Arab spring uprising, so they too are hopeless. of the only actors only ISIS has shown any evidence of having their act together, but I am not going to support those assholes. So stability is not an option in that region. I'm sorry but we are not gods.

Uh, the IS militants are as extreme as it's possible to be extreme. They are not persuadable; as David Brooks puts it, the goal of US policy regarding the IS is to keep the Middle East from getting any worse, so that in that case it becomes again a haven of terrorists who can attack The West. That's as much as we can hope for. Stability is a long ways away, agreed.

The choice is not between more or less senseless killings. The choice is between who gets killed senselessly. No matter what we do people will get killed senselessly. But as we get involved, we will be responsible for some of those deaths. And they will hate us even more and that will spur yet more ISIS clones.

Probably this will happen. Air strikes need to be against visible military targets, if possible. That can only accomplish limited aims, and can go wrong. Supporting (along with allies) the groups (meaning IMO the Iraqi government and the Free Syrian Army) that you consider questionable (and I can agree they are questionable) is therefore the only option to allowing a genocidal regime to get stronger and eventually be more threatening to the whole region and our allies. I also think the Sunni tribes will rise up against the IS that rule them if and when the Iraqi government proves to be more inclusive. Supporting the Sunni people there against the IS would be less questionable. We can't hope to bring peace and freedom to the region anytime soon, but we can try to help move things in that direction, and thus keep things from getting worse, IF we have the right balance between intervention and isolation/withdrawal. I suspect that a balanced policy is better than just not being involved at all, although I understand the latter view.

Originally Posted by JDFP

God, I hope so. I fully intend on standing with Rand in 2016. Perhaps we can concentrate on more important matters than ISIS like building a wall, fence, and security perimeter around Mexico in finally doing something about illegal immigrants (oh I forgot that phrase isn't P.C.). We can stop screwing around with going on offense and start dealing with national issues instead.

I suppose that makes sense to people of your persuasion.

Personally, I think we ought to ask our, for all intents and purposes, 51st state of Israel to step up to the plate and let them finally have clear reign of the region. Let them know we support whatever their desires are for ensuring their safety and survival and that we won't put up any qualms with them doing what they want to do. I guarantee we wouldn't have to worry about ISIS any longer if we give them free reign. They'd be happy to accommodate. It's far more easy than relying on a ragtag group of would-be revolutionaries to take out ISIS (how'd that ultimately work out with the Mujahideen again?).

I don't really understand why we don't allow Israel to do more in dictating control of the region - for one, they're already there and have the capability.

j.p.

I'd like to see it. Israel is a bunch of genocidal asshole oppressors and murderers. But they are OUR genocidal asshole oppressors and murderers; we bought and paid for them and claim as our "very valuable allies we must defend." So what are they doing for us? At least they could give us some covert help, or even some boots on the ground. It's problematic because our allies and enemies might object.

I'd like to see Israel take out Assad, if a pretext would happen. The danger there is an attack by Russia and Iran on Israel to defend their "ally." But if somehow it could be arranged, they could finish off Assad and clear the way for the moderates to take over and then help us clear their country of the IS.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

ISIS is beyond persuading, I think

I was referring to those who reject the path taken by ISIS, but who have some sympathies with their goals, who may be further radicalized by US involvement.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

... Why should bombing ISIS persuade very, but not extremely, conservative Muslims to becoming more moderate, as opposed to more extreme? Now I support using air power to help the Kurds, because the benefit of maintaining the more moderate Kurds is achievable (the Kurds have a proven tack record of keeping order in their own land). I do not support using air power to help the Iraqis or the Syrians, because neither had a track record of success. Iraq has not had a functional government since we ousted Hussein. The Syrian government was unable to maintain stability after the Arab spring uprising, so they too are hopeless. Of the other actors only ISIS has shown any evidence of having their act together, but I am not going to support those assholes. So stability is not an option in that region. I'm sorry but we are not gods.

The choice is not between more or less senseless killings. The choice is between who gets killed senselessly. No matter what we do people will get killed senselessly. But as we get involved, we will be responsible for some of those deaths. And they will hate us even more and that will spur yet more ISIS clones.

It's interesting that the supposed experts on the region see no viable west-leaning players interested in getting even a little dirty fighting these guys. Turkey is begging off entirely. Egypt is claiming too many other things are on its plate. Jordan claims the same. The Saudis, Kuwaitis and Yemenis are likewise disinterested So why should we get involved beyond helping the Kurds, who are helping themselves already?

We have no business being the first skin in a game that's not really ours to play.