I actually think that Zeihan's suggestions about what America should do in the Middle East are actually kind of dangerous. That is that if the US keeps the sanctions Trump imposed on Iran and doesn't re-enter the nuclear deal and just tries to wash it's hand of the situation I suspect two things will happen Iran will get nukes and eventually the sanctions will crumble away probably after Iran gets the bomb. I guess the way I look at is the US' only real interest in the region is stopping Iran from getting nuclear weapons and everything else is kind of a sideshow(just as the US has a broader global interest in stopping further proliferation anyway in the world).
Now one could argue from a purely political level the GCC countries and Israel will be most affected by Iran getting nukes(far more than the US is or even the European members of NATO) so to the extent they are too stupid to realize there essential interests well the US and Biden should just go along with whatever they want even they are just going to shoot themselves in the foot however, me personally I think this is pretty short-sighted.
Thirdly while I don't think Europe and France especially is that eager for Iran to have nukes I think they would prefer a situation that if Iran did get nukes ALL the blame would get shouldered by the US for it having allowed such an outcome to occur. Thus while France and others might go along with US sanctions imposed by Trump for now(I have my doubts whether this will be true in 5 or 10 years) I think if it comes to military action against Iran by the US France and other NATO members will give absolutely NO assistance to the US and will to force those in the US especially in Congress who opposed the JCPOA from the get go to shoulder all of the burden and blame.
Maybe to put it another way let's say a future Trump-type President demands that France and European countries participate in some type of military action against Iran in regards to it's nuclear power or else the US will withdraw from the NATO treaty. Well I think it is quite certain the US would then have to withdraw from NATO to make good on the threat with all the consequences of that decision.
Something that just dawned on me after writing the previous comment is someone perhaps even myself should write-up something about the actual North Atlantic Treaty for the CG in terms of what is in treaty in terms of the obligations and rights of the parties as it exists now. The reasons I bring this up is as I suggested in my previous comment I think there will be at least someone on the Trumpist right in the US that will call for outright withdrawal for the on the part of the US as permitted under Article 13 something Trump himself never actually did. In response I think people like myself, Claire, and Toomas(and I guess I would probably put all the rest of the Cosmopoltan Globalist writers in this group) should start thinking about invoking article 12 of the North Atlantic Treaty which says as follow(I will point out the treaty has now been in force for 71 years):
After the Treaty has been in force for ten years, or at any time thereafter, the Parties shall, if any of them so requests, consult together for the purpose of reviewing the Treaty, having regard for the factors then affecting peace and security in the North Atlantic area, including the development of universal as well as regional arrangements under the Charter of the United Nations for the maintenance of international peace and security.
The only explanation I have ever heard for not invoking an Article 12 treaty renewal conference is that NATO has worked so well that "opening up" the treaty again could only call into question something that is already a well tuned engine. The problem with this in my opinion is while this might have been true at one time I personally would not consider NATO to be a well tuned engine at the moment and I think those of us like myself(and I would think Claire and others too) need to come to the conclusion that NATO after 71 years needs an oil change(Perhaps this should be the title of an article).
Something else I want to bring up to in response to Zeihan. There is often a lot of talk about the role the US Navy plays in protecting global merchant shipping in areas like the South China Sea and Strait of Hormuz. There is one thing the doesn't get brought up often, most of the world's commercial shipping is done under so called Flags of Convivence which are not countries like the US or France who are major naval powers. In fact I would go so far as to say the likes of Panama and Liberia don't have any navies at all. The issue is while the US Navy has very specific laws passed by Congress calling on it to assist US Flagged vessels in international waters anywhere in the world this role of the US Navy I think can be strongly interpreted both under US domestic law and international law to not apply to non US flagged vessels except where there is NATO mutual defense style treaty in effect say affecting a Belgian ship in international waters on the North Atlantic(i.e. within the NATO area of operations).
So if you are China or Iran and you would to mess-up international shipping passing the S China Sea or Hormuz you aren't going to go after the one odd US flagged merchant ship passing through once in a blue moon which would be an obviously causus belli for a full fledged US retaliation. You are instead going to go after some Liberian or Panamian ship of which there are tons and which it is not at all clear on what basis the US navy can respond as a matter of US and international law.
One solution to this would be for the world's merchant fleet to "re-flag" to the US or at least to the registries of other major Western naval powers. At the very least shipowners would now be paying taxes to the US govt in return for the already implicit protection of the US Navy. The problem is reflagging to the US flag will cost big bucks in terms of safety rules, taxes, and seafarers wages enough possible to grind the gears of globalization right to a halt. So if China really wants to mess things up for the West just make so it impossible for an merchant ship to get through the S China Sea unless it is US flagged with the explicit protection of the US Navy. Then watch the price of shipping skyrocket.
Feb 15, 2021Liked by Claire Berlinski, Rachel motte
Claire, if he’s not too busy, it would be great to get Robert Zubrin’s take on NASA’s Perseverance Rover which is supposed to land on Mars this coming Thursday. I’ve read that in addition to utilizing a drone to test flight navigation on Mars, it also contains an experiment (championed by Zubrin) designed to ascertain whether CO2 on Mars might be converted to 02.
As a card-carrying Cosmopolitan Globalist, hearing from him about this would be great for your readers.
I actually think that Zeihan's suggestions about what America should do in the Middle East are actually kind of dangerous. That is that if the US keeps the sanctions Trump imposed on Iran and doesn't re-enter the nuclear deal and just tries to wash it's hand of the situation I suspect two things will happen Iran will get nukes and eventually the sanctions will crumble away probably after Iran gets the bomb. I guess the way I look at is the US' only real interest in the region is stopping Iran from getting nuclear weapons and everything else is kind of a sideshow(just as the US has a broader global interest in stopping further proliferation anyway in the world).
Now one could argue from a purely political level the GCC countries and Israel will be most affected by Iran getting nukes(far more than the US is or even the European members of NATO) so to the extent they are too stupid to realize there essential interests well the US and Biden should just go along with whatever they want even they are just going to shoot themselves in the foot however, me personally I think this is pretty short-sighted.
Thirdly while I don't think Europe and France especially is that eager for Iran to have nukes I think they would prefer a situation that if Iran did get nukes ALL the blame would get shouldered by the US for it having allowed such an outcome to occur. Thus while France and others might go along with US sanctions imposed by Trump for now(I have my doubts whether this will be true in 5 or 10 years) I think if it comes to military action against Iran by the US France and other NATO members will give absolutely NO assistance to the US and will to force those in the US especially in Congress who opposed the JCPOA from the get go to shoulder all of the burden and blame.
Maybe to put it another way let's say a future Trump-type President demands that France and European countries participate in some type of military action against Iran in regards to it's nuclear power or else the US will withdraw from the NATO treaty. Well I think it is quite certain the US would then have to withdraw from NATO to make good on the threat with all the consequences of that decision.
Something that just dawned on me after writing the previous comment is someone perhaps even myself should write-up something about the actual North Atlantic Treaty for the CG in terms of what is in treaty in terms of the obligations and rights of the parties as it exists now. The reasons I bring this up is as I suggested in my previous comment I think there will be at least someone on the Trumpist right in the US that will call for outright withdrawal for the on the part of the US as permitted under Article 13 something Trump himself never actually did. In response I think people like myself, Claire, and Toomas(and I guess I would probably put all the rest of the Cosmopoltan Globalist writers in this group) should start thinking about invoking article 12 of the North Atlantic Treaty which says as follow(I will point out the treaty has now been in force for 71 years):
After the Treaty has been in force for ten years, or at any time thereafter, the Parties shall, if any of them so requests, consult together for the purpose of reviewing the Treaty, having regard for the factors then affecting peace and security in the North Atlantic area, including the development of universal as well as regional arrangements under the Charter of the United Nations for the maintenance of international peace and security.
The only explanation I have ever heard for not invoking an Article 12 treaty renewal conference is that NATO has worked so well that "opening up" the treaty again could only call into question something that is already a well tuned engine. The problem with this in my opinion is while this might have been true at one time I personally would not consider NATO to be a well tuned engine at the moment and I think those of us like myself(and I would think Claire and others too) need to come to the conclusion that NATO after 71 years needs an oil change(Perhaps this should be the title of an article).
Something else I want to bring up to in response to Zeihan. There is often a lot of talk about the role the US Navy plays in protecting global merchant shipping in areas like the South China Sea and Strait of Hormuz. There is one thing the doesn't get brought up often, most of the world's commercial shipping is done under so called Flags of Convivence which are not countries like the US or France who are major naval powers. In fact I would go so far as to say the likes of Panama and Liberia don't have any navies at all. The issue is while the US Navy has very specific laws passed by Congress calling on it to assist US Flagged vessels in international waters anywhere in the world this role of the US Navy I think can be strongly interpreted both under US domestic law and international law to not apply to non US flagged vessels except where there is NATO mutual defense style treaty in effect say affecting a Belgian ship in international waters on the North Atlantic(i.e. within the NATO area of operations).
So if you are China or Iran and you would to mess-up international shipping passing the S China Sea or Hormuz you aren't going to go after the one odd US flagged merchant ship passing through once in a blue moon which would be an obviously causus belli for a full fledged US retaliation. You are instead going to go after some Liberian or Panamian ship of which there are tons and which it is not at all clear on what basis the US navy can respond as a matter of US and international law.
One solution to this would be for the world's merchant fleet to "re-flag" to the US or at least to the registries of other major Western naval powers. At the very least shipowners would now be paying taxes to the US govt in return for the already implicit protection of the US Navy. The problem is reflagging to the US flag will cost big bucks in terms of safety rules, taxes, and seafarers wages enough possible to grind the gears of globalization right to a halt. So if China really wants to mess things up for the West just make so it impossible for an merchant ship to get through the S China Sea unless it is US flagged with the explicit protection of the US Navy. Then watch the price of shipping skyrocket.
Claire, if he’s not too busy, it would be great to get Robert Zubrin’s take on NASA’s Perseverance Rover which is supposed to land on Mars this coming Thursday. I’ve read that in addition to utilizing a drone to test flight navigation on Mars, it also contains an experiment (championed by Zubrin) designed to ascertain whether CO2 on Mars might be converted to 02.
As a card-carrying Cosmopolitan Globalist, hearing from him about this would be great for your readers.
See,
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1257126
I just put in a request. I'll let you know what he says.
Bravo; the Perseverance has landed (safely). Even if Dr. Zubrin is too busy to write, maybe he could provide some interesting links.