ref: "Donald Trump Jr. is one of the most contemptible men the United States has ever produced. Russians have raped Ukrainian children below the age of four." Don't hold it in, Claire, tell us what you really think!
In foreign policy debates like this one I often feel like I have to take fire from both sides simultaneously.
On the one side, there are the isolationists, America-firsters, and Paleocons - people like Tucker and the writers at The American Conservative - who view any US support for embattled democracies as, at best, a waste of money and, at worst, a reckless provocation of an otherwise-harmless Russia and China.
On the other side, there are people like you and Holley, who recognize the downsides of the collapse of the US-led security order, but who seem think the collapse could be avoided if it weren't for the unique nastyness of Donald Trump and his idiot voters.
But I think you are blaming Donald Trump for developments that have been underway since long before he ran for office. Start with Taiwan, which signed a mutual defense treaty with the United States in 1955, and then, in 1968, signed the non-proliferation treaty under pressure from the US, with the understanding being that Taiwan would not need nuclear weapons since it could rely on the US for protection if invaded. Then, over the next decade, the US withdrew its troops from Taiwan and finally repaid Taiwan's misplaced trust by unilaterally terminating the defense treaty in 1979, on top of the additional hostile act of breaking off diplomatic relations with Taiwan and partially recognizing the Beijing government's claim to Taiwan's territory. Yet despite withdrawing from its own commitments to Taiwan, the US continued to insist that Taiwan was bound by the NPT, and engaged in hostile espionage to sabotage Taiwan's nuclear weapons program. Donald Trump had nothing to do with this - it was mostly President Nixon, Carter, and Reagan.
Then consider the matter of Ukraine. In 1994, Ukraine yielded to US pressure, signed the NPT, and dismantled the thousands of nuclear weapons it had inherited from the USSR. In return for this, the United States, Britain, and Russia all signed an agreement promising to respect Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity... which they went on to shamelessly violate. The United States provoked Russia by sponsoring multiple coups in Ukraine - in 2004 and again in 2014 - and when the second one led to the Russian seizure of the Crimea, the US took no decisive action to stop it. You can't blame Trump for this either - it happened under Presidents Bush and Obama. Likewise, America's indecisive response to the 2022 invasion - where Ukraine got enough weaponry to drag the war on for nearly three years, but not enough to strike inside Russia, and where nearby NATO powers like Poland (which have a much stronger interest in the region than the US does) were discouraged from joining the war the way they probably would have done if NATO didn't exist. (Since, without America as backstop, the Poles would know that they had to either fight the Russians side-by-side with the Ukrainians, or alone after Ukraine fell.) Again you cannot blame Trump for this, the initial invasion happened under Obama and the escalation, and ham-handed American response, were all Biden.
If anything Trump is improving the situation by just being blunter about the fact that America's putative allies need to pull more of their own weight and shouldn't count 100% on America coming to their aid if attacked - and his rhetoric seems to have borne fruit in the fact that democracies in both Europe and Asia ramped up their defense spending while he was in office. It certainly isn't fair to blame him for burning down a security structure that was intact without him. The decisions that have convinced so many other democracies that the United States is a fair-weather friend only (and which will likely lead to nuclear proliferation as an alternative to leaning on the US for support) were made by Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Obama, and Biden.
I've written all about this theme on my own substack, in an article entitled "The Poland Paradox: How Faraway Allies Make Small Countries Less Safe."
The title refers to the failure of Poland's famous 1939 mutual defense treaty with Britain to prevent Poland from being ruled by a foreign totalitarian regime after World War II ended. But I give other examples of the process, too - the idea is that when a small country wants to maintain its future survival, it should not rely on a far away nation which could abandon it with little setback to its own interests. While it would be nice to live in an ideal world where the United States was extremely far-thinking and always kept its promises and always acted as if preserving countries like Ukraine and the Republic of China was a vital US interest, that's not the world we live in - as has already been shown by Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Obama, and Biden.
"The United States provoked Russia by sponsoring multiple coups in Ukraine." No. We did not. This is Russian propaganda and it is deeply offensive to Ukrainians, who are just as capable as we are--perhaps more capable--of desiring democratic governance and independence from Russia.
Maybe you have a different definition of "sponsoring" than I do, but the Americans definitely did more to influence Ukraine's 2004/5 election doever, and the 2014 revolution, than the Russians did to influence America's 2016 election, something you have complained about over and over again.
Also, the fact that this is the only aspect of my comment you've found to take issue with shows that my larger argument - that the United States has repeatedly demanded that its allies denuclearize and then reneged on the security guarantees it offered in return, and that Donald Trump is not responsible for this - is pretty airtight.
Twilight, your comments show your view of American defense commitments is as dim as your handle suggests -- that is to say, you have convinced me that based on past examples of "distant alliances" our security guarantees are are not iron-clad, and that Donald Trump's blunt "America First" position could actually be more helpful in convincing Europe to build up its own defenses and not relying on NATO membership and invocation of Article 5 to trigger massive intervention by the US in the event of a Russian attack
From what I have read about both NATO and our Pacific alliances with Japan and South Korea (where US troops are stationed), however, it does not appear that the US has made promises it has no intention of keeping, though we may have insufficient resources of conventional weapons and manpower to act as a credible deterrent or, in a worse case scenario, to tip the odds in favor of victory in the event of an attack.
While supporting Ukraine with arms, money and diplomatic effort, President Biden had stated at the outset of the invasion that "America is not going to war against Russia." At the outset that seemed (to me at least) to be a strange statement. As I recall, at that early stage of the war, the US was putting together a massive aid package for Ukraine; there was domestic opposition to doing so on the grounds that a) supplying weaponry to a belligerent (even to one being invaded) could be construed as an act of war, and b) the security guarantee given by the US in the Minsk Accord was not a formal treaty obligation the US was bound to respect.
I for one considered Biden's statement to be made to calm domestic fears of "foreign entanglements", not as a signal to the Kremlin of US intentions. Of course, that is only speculation on my part, as I haven't had time to ask Joe about what he meant by it (I've been distracted these past few months and haven't updated my ToDo List yet).
Gabbard is a Russian asset, Trump is a Russian asset, Musk is a Russian asset... At this point, what do you even mean by "Russian asset"? What relationship to Russia do you think these people have, that warrants the designation "asset"?
In the conventional definition, we could consider anyone who, wittingly or unwittingly, makes public comments or analyses that align with the propaganda or official statements of a foreign adversary, would be considered an asset to them (i.e. the foreign adversary). No control by or money from or particular relationship with Russia is required -- they "just happen" to believe the line favored by the Kremlin, and serve as stooges or "useful idiots" in rebroadcasting that point of view.
The implication, though, is that Ms Gabbard, Trump, Musk and others have been duped by Russia and are being fed information that they compliantly re-broadcast, effectively "laundering" its original source in the Kremlin.
Yes. In Tulsi's case, I wonder if she's a witting asset--that is, if she knowingly takes orders from Moscow. It is very hard to understand the *extent* of her pro-Russian alignment otherwise.
No. No it wouldn't. If you had asked me before this nomination who I'd guess are the two public figures most likely to be conscious, witting assets of the Russian Federation, I would have said, "Tucker Carlson and Tulsi Gabbard." She can't be explained away.
OK, let's put this "asset" question to one side for a moment, if I may. Do you think she is insincere in her foreign policy positions, e.g. that war against jihadists is necessary, that regime-change wars are almost always a bad idea, that there are intellectual cliques in America's establishment who destructively sow great-power conflict, and so forth?
I would like to see her appear before a Senate committee that had done its homework and was not afraid of asking very tough questions of this woman. Her political resume suggests that she is an opportunist, someone determined to get her name in the papers, with no firm commitment to government service. So maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong. So prove me wrong, Republicans: Show me how she is a great and steadfast patriot and not a conniving little minx.
So one thought of mine which might to be a more positive message than I normally have is that the easiest way for Germany, Poland, et all to obtain nuclear weapons is with French cooperation which I would not necessarily assume would not be forthcoming. The problem is France would demand a very high price of Poland, Germany, etc which would basically be for everyone else to assume French leadership of Europe, allow for much higher spending levels under the stability and growth pact, etc. basically the French price for other countries to nukes with French help is too high for others in Europe to bare politically(i.e. Germany would have publicly acknowledge they are second fiddle to France). So one way to look at it is the fact the most European countries aren't even close to paying the price the French would demand for nuclear cooperation shows that the rest of Europe isn't serious about getting nukes. One caveat we really don't know how Ukraine thinks about these issues Ukraine isn't an EU or NATO member state and we don't really know if it was would it be closer to France or Germany/Atlanticism within both organizations. The assumption is always the latter but we really don't know. We also do know that Francois Mitterrand secretly encouraged Ukraine to keep it's Soviet nukes. In conclusion I just can't see Friedrich Merz someone who is very prideful of the Germany economy and the post 1945 Adenuaer CDU tradition arriving in Paris, the capital of what he considers a "lesser" economic power cap in hand asking for nuclear weapons. Nor can I see his supporters like Andre Bauer wanting this either.
**There is also a longtime argument in certain French foreign policy circle that the whole purpose of the Force De Frappe is to keep America engaged in Europe as an offshore balancing power. If the US completely left Europe all it would do is make a Franco-Russian nuclear war more likely at some point, a war the US can't avoid. Now I suspect Trump and his people don't see it this way but I think it is a valid argument. Remember before France obtained nuclear weapons there were plans during the early Cold War period for a second Dunkirk retreat and second D-Day cross channel landing in case of a massive Soviet ground invasion something that many in France with the experience of German occupation were hardly eager to go through again. French nuclear weapons basically made sure an East vs West conflict would go nuclear before there was ever a need for another Dunkirk.
ref: "Donald Trump Jr. is one of the most contemptible men the United States has ever produced. Russians have raped Ukrainian children below the age of four." Don't hold it in, Claire, tell us what you really think!
In foreign policy debates like this one I often feel like I have to take fire from both sides simultaneously.
On the one side, there are the isolationists, America-firsters, and Paleocons - people like Tucker and the writers at The American Conservative - who view any US support for embattled democracies as, at best, a waste of money and, at worst, a reckless provocation of an otherwise-harmless Russia and China.
On the other side, there are people like you and Holley, who recognize the downsides of the collapse of the US-led security order, but who seem think the collapse could be avoided if it weren't for the unique nastyness of Donald Trump and his idiot voters.
But I think you are blaming Donald Trump for developments that have been underway since long before he ran for office. Start with Taiwan, which signed a mutual defense treaty with the United States in 1955, and then, in 1968, signed the non-proliferation treaty under pressure from the US, with the understanding being that Taiwan would not need nuclear weapons since it could rely on the US for protection if invaded. Then, over the next decade, the US withdrew its troops from Taiwan and finally repaid Taiwan's misplaced trust by unilaterally terminating the defense treaty in 1979, on top of the additional hostile act of breaking off diplomatic relations with Taiwan and partially recognizing the Beijing government's claim to Taiwan's territory. Yet despite withdrawing from its own commitments to Taiwan, the US continued to insist that Taiwan was bound by the NPT, and engaged in hostile espionage to sabotage Taiwan's nuclear weapons program. Donald Trump had nothing to do with this - it was mostly President Nixon, Carter, and Reagan.
Then consider the matter of Ukraine. In 1994, Ukraine yielded to US pressure, signed the NPT, and dismantled the thousands of nuclear weapons it had inherited from the USSR. In return for this, the United States, Britain, and Russia all signed an agreement promising to respect Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity... which they went on to shamelessly violate. The United States provoked Russia by sponsoring multiple coups in Ukraine - in 2004 and again in 2014 - and when the second one led to the Russian seizure of the Crimea, the US took no decisive action to stop it. You can't blame Trump for this either - it happened under Presidents Bush and Obama. Likewise, America's indecisive response to the 2022 invasion - where Ukraine got enough weaponry to drag the war on for nearly three years, but not enough to strike inside Russia, and where nearby NATO powers like Poland (which have a much stronger interest in the region than the US does) were discouraged from joining the war the way they probably would have done if NATO didn't exist. (Since, without America as backstop, the Poles would know that they had to either fight the Russians side-by-side with the Ukrainians, or alone after Ukraine fell.) Again you cannot blame Trump for this, the initial invasion happened under Obama and the escalation, and ham-handed American response, were all Biden.
If anything Trump is improving the situation by just being blunter about the fact that America's putative allies need to pull more of their own weight and shouldn't count 100% on America coming to their aid if attacked - and his rhetoric seems to have borne fruit in the fact that democracies in both Europe and Asia ramped up their defense spending while he was in office. It certainly isn't fair to blame him for burning down a security structure that was intact without him. The decisions that have convinced so many other democracies that the United States is a fair-weather friend only (and which will likely lead to nuclear proliferation as an alternative to leaning on the US for support) were made by Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Obama, and Biden.
I've written all about this theme on my own substack, in an article entitled "The Poland Paradox: How Faraway Allies Make Small Countries Less Safe."
https://twilightpatriot.substack.com/p/the-poland-paradox
The title refers to the failure of Poland's famous 1939 mutual defense treaty with Britain to prevent Poland from being ruled by a foreign totalitarian regime after World War II ended. But I give other examples of the process, too - the idea is that when a small country wants to maintain its future survival, it should not rely on a far away nation which could abandon it with little setback to its own interests. While it would be nice to live in an ideal world where the United States was extremely far-thinking and always kept its promises and always acted as if preserving countries like Ukraine and the Republic of China was a vital US interest, that's not the world we live in - as has already been shown by Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Obama, and Biden.
Trump is just the messenger.
"The United States provoked Russia by sponsoring multiple coups in Ukraine." No. We did not. This is Russian propaganda and it is deeply offensive to Ukrainians, who are just as capable as we are--perhaps more capable--of desiring democratic governance and independence from Russia.
Maybe you have a different definition of "sponsoring" than I do, but the Americans definitely did more to influence Ukraine's 2004/5 election doever, and the 2014 revolution, than the Russians did to influence America's 2016 election, something you have complained about over and over again.
Also, the fact that this is the only aspect of my comment you've found to take issue with shows that my larger argument - that the United States has repeatedly demanded that its allies denuclearize and then reneged on the security guarantees it offered in return, and that Donald Trump is not responsible for this - is pretty airtight.
Twilight, your comments show your view of American defense commitments is as dim as your handle suggests -- that is to say, you have convinced me that based on past examples of "distant alliances" our security guarantees are are not iron-clad, and that Donald Trump's blunt "America First" position could actually be more helpful in convincing Europe to build up its own defenses and not relying on NATO membership and invocation of Article 5 to trigger massive intervention by the US in the event of a Russian attack
From what I have read about both NATO and our Pacific alliances with Japan and South Korea (where US troops are stationed), however, it does not appear that the US has made promises it has no intention of keeping, though we may have insufficient resources of conventional weapons and manpower to act as a credible deterrent or, in a worse case scenario, to tip the odds in favor of victory in the event of an attack.
While supporting Ukraine with arms, money and diplomatic effort, President Biden had stated at the outset of the invasion that "America is not going to war against Russia." At the outset that seemed (to me at least) to be a strange statement. As I recall, at that early stage of the war, the US was putting together a massive aid package for Ukraine; there was domestic opposition to doing so on the grounds that a) supplying weaponry to a belligerent (even to one being invaded) could be construed as an act of war, and b) the security guarantee given by the US in the Minsk Accord was not a formal treaty obligation the US was bound to respect.
I for one considered Biden's statement to be made to calm domestic fears of "foreign entanglements", not as a signal to the Kremlin of US intentions. Of course, that is only speculation on my part, as I haven't had time to ask Joe about what he meant by it (I've been distracted these past few months and haven't updated my ToDo List yet).
Gabbard is a Russian asset, Trump is a Russian asset, Musk is a Russian asset... At this point, what do you even mean by "Russian asset"? What relationship to Russia do you think these people have, that warrants the designation "asset"?
In the conventional definition, we could consider anyone who, wittingly or unwittingly, makes public comments or analyses that align with the propaganda or official statements of a foreign adversary, would be considered an asset to them (i.e. the foreign adversary). No control by or money from or particular relationship with Russia is required -- they "just happen" to believe the line favored by the Kremlin, and serve as stooges or "useful idiots" in rebroadcasting that point of view.
The implication, though, is that Ms Gabbard, Trump, Musk and others have been duped by Russia and are being fed information that they compliantly re-broadcast, effectively "laundering" its original source in the Kremlin.
Yes. In Tulsi's case, I wonder if she's a witting asset--that is, if she knowingly takes orders from Moscow. It is very hard to understand the *extent* of her pro-Russian alignment otherwise.
Growing up after the Cold War was over, would be sufficient to explain it.
No. No it wouldn't. If you had asked me before this nomination who I'd guess are the two public figures most likely to be conscious, witting assets of the Russian Federation, I would have said, "Tucker Carlson and Tulsi Gabbard." She can't be explained away.
OK, let's put this "asset" question to one side for a moment, if I may. Do you think she is insincere in her foreign policy positions, e.g. that war against jihadists is necessary, that regime-change wars are almost always a bad idea, that there are intellectual cliques in America's establishment who destructively sow great-power conflict, and so forth?
I would like to see her appear before a Senate committee that had done its homework and was not afraid of asking very tough questions of this woman. Her political resume suggests that she is an opportunist, someone determined to get her name in the papers, with no firm commitment to government service. So maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong. So prove me wrong, Republicans: Show me how she is a great and steadfast patriot and not a conniving little minx.
So one thought of mine which might to be a more positive message than I normally have is that the easiest way for Germany, Poland, et all to obtain nuclear weapons is with French cooperation which I would not necessarily assume would not be forthcoming. The problem is France would demand a very high price of Poland, Germany, etc which would basically be for everyone else to assume French leadership of Europe, allow for much higher spending levels under the stability and growth pact, etc. basically the French price for other countries to nukes with French help is too high for others in Europe to bare politically(i.e. Germany would have publicly acknowledge they are second fiddle to France). So one way to look at it is the fact the most European countries aren't even close to paying the price the French would demand for nuclear cooperation shows that the rest of Europe isn't serious about getting nukes. One caveat we really don't know how Ukraine thinks about these issues Ukraine isn't an EU or NATO member state and we don't really know if it was would it be closer to France or Germany/Atlanticism within both organizations. The assumption is always the latter but we really don't know. We also do know that Francois Mitterrand secretly encouraged Ukraine to keep it's Soviet nukes. In conclusion I just can't see Friedrich Merz someone who is very prideful of the Germany economy and the post 1945 Adenuaer CDU tradition arriving in Paris, the capital of what he considers a "lesser" economic power cap in hand asking for nuclear weapons. Nor can I see his supporters like Andre Bauer wanting this either.
**There is also a longtime argument in certain French foreign policy circle that the whole purpose of the Force De Frappe is to keep America engaged in Europe as an offshore balancing power. If the US completely left Europe all it would do is make a Franco-Russian nuclear war more likely at some point, a war the US can't avoid. Now I suspect Trump and his people don't see it this way but I think it is a valid argument. Remember before France obtained nuclear weapons there were plans during the early Cold War period for a second Dunkirk retreat and second D-Day cross channel landing in case of a massive Soviet ground invasion something that many in France with the experience of German occupation were hardly eager to go through again. French nuclear weapons basically made sure an East vs West conflict would go nuclear before there was ever a need for another Dunkirk.
https://youtu.be/dcOT9pLSeUs?si=KalGmloeaWfgOsY0
When the UK left left the EU my reflex reaction was I do not want a EU dominated by a counterweightless France
😥