They aren't going to all out war with us over Korea. If anything, it would be defensive positions within Korea (similar to syria). You act like if we attack Korea, Russia is suddenly going to roll into eastern europe and subsequently lead to the destruction of their entire country. They don't even care about North Korea, they just want to show strength on their border.

[Edited on September 25, 2017 at 12:29 PM. Reason : even if we fight them there, we aren't going to war in other places]

9/25/2017 12:28:36 PM

So does the fact that NK ***THINKS*** we declared war against them matter, or is already way too late to try and reason with them?

9/25/2017 2:54:32 PM

Matter? Yes. Change anything? Hard to say but I lean towards no.

9/25/2017 2:58:15 PM

you guys shpuld read more into nk relations with china and russia. they arent allies. its not even close.

9/25/2017 3:38:28 PM

Related but they also don’t want to deal with the flood of refugees if a power vacuum in NK appears. Less allies and more self-interest. I’m sure if it was up to China/Russia they’d rather see the whole peninsula disappear.

[Edited on September 25, 2017 at 4:15 PM. Reason : X]

9/25/2017 4:15:21 PM

It really has little to do with alliances or non-alliances. Russia and China both do not want us in their neck of the woods and certainly don't want us expanding. They fear we could use a war in NK as a pretext to extend our reach to their borders. Simple as that and why, whether they like NK or not, they will support and ultimately defend them. They did it in the Cold War and they'll do it again.

9/25/2017 4:17:32 PM

Quote :

"You are trying to equate the aggressive, imperialistic foreign policy of the US with "human nature" which is just wrong all around. Other nations have not been in continuous war and only a handful of nations have spread violence across the globe. "

By and large, nations are at war as often as they think they can win.* For some countries, that leads to warfare that is more continuous than it might be for others. The geographical spread of warfare ("violence across the globe") is a function of the same basic limits, though in this case they probably tend to be more narrowly technical restrictions. The USA has fought wars around the world because it has a hegemonically powerful navy that permits it to do so. The UK did the same thing before we did, on much the same basis. Spain did the same thing before that, subject to the limitations of their technology. And so it goes, the spread of each empire's violence narrowing the further we go into the pasts - not because of some fundamental change in culture, but because of the quality of boats.

Any superlatives that the United States might win for duration of geographic extent of warfare are due entirely to its capacity, rather than its intent or ideology. We are uniquely powerful, not uniquely bellicose.

* - This is "win" in a broad sense, not a strict interpretation of military victory. Most of the world could vanquish Togo in head-to-head combat, but they don't bother because best case scenario, you win...Togo.

Quote :

"In general, humans are only violent when their basic needs are in peril."

This is so completely opposed by the body of human history that I hardly know where to begin. Both World Wars were started by people who thought their power was ascendant, and only ended when their basic needs were in real and immediate peril. Working our way down through smaller wars, the trend is overwhelmingly the same: nations start wars when they think they are powerful, not when they are starving or on death's door.

Quote :

"So does the fact that NK ***THINKS*** we declared war against them matter"

No. The situation on the peninsula isn't great but this whole "declared war" thing is a tired old line that DPRK likes to trot out from time to time. It's all the less meaningful since, in the absence of a formal peace treaty, the Korean War never actually ended.

Quote :

"you guys shpuld read more into nk relations with china and russia. they arent allies. its not even close."

I'm confused by the tendency of some in this thread, going back to the OP, to try to paint Russia and North Korea as allies. As far as I know, there really isn't much to that.

As far as China...no, PRC and DPRK aren't what you'd normally call "allies." But that doesn't mean much. PRC doesn't want a unified, pro-US Korea on their border. That means that their interests can align with DPRK's. Do I think that China would throw in military with Pyongyang in the event of Korean War 2? No, not unless they had a set of more serious grievances against us. Honestly I think if it came to an imminent shooting war, China would tap their preferred NK generals for a coup d'etat.

9/26/2017 1:10:10 AM

Quote :

"Both World Wars were started by people who thought their power was ascendant, and only ended when their basic needs were in real and immediate peril. Working our way down through smaller wars, the trend is overwhelmingly the same: nations start wars when they think they are powerful, not when they are starving or on death's door."

This is a compelling argument.

If NK is having success in creating nukes and missiles, Russia is having success in taking down America— doesn’t this seem like the recipe for war?

Militaristic, authoritarian nations who are feeling a new sense of power?

9/26/2017 1:43:38 AM

^A key point here is that those people were allowed to execute that power by populations undergoing nationalist fervor. that's a growing, worldwide trend right now. That includes in the United States where you now have a President telling people they should lose their jobs because they're exercising protest rights.

9/26/2017 9:15:55 AM

Quote :

"If NK is having success in creating nukes and missiles, Russia is having success in taking down America— doesn’t this seem like the recipe for war?"

Well, it's all relative. North Korea has had some successes, but nothing to convince them that they would win any war that they started. Their technical coups mostly give them greater defensive confidence. The risk there isn't that they'll use that to start something, but that it will allow them to puff out their chests just enough that somebody else starts a preemptive war with them. The "somebody else" would certainly be "the US." Still, I don't see it happening.

Russia is more worrying, and I'd argue that their growing confidence and power already has led to war, in Ukraine and arguably in Syria. For me the more instructive question is why they haven't pressed even harder. Abundance of caution while they test their strength, maybe, or a realization that the engine driving their resurgence (oil) is unreliable and necessarily tied to the very places they'd be most likely to attack.

Quote :

"A key point here is that those people were allowed to execute that power by populations undergoing nationalist fervor."

Eh, I'm not buying this. "Nationalist fervor" isn't a plague that randomly breaks out, with symptoms that include aggressive wars. To the extent that it exists at all, it is a creation (rather than a creator) of the factors that lead countries to war. A rise in national strength buoys national pride. Meanwhile, a country that wants to start a war generally has to drum up some "nationalist fervor" to get people excited about it. Put another way, a country doesn't go to war because its people are jingoists; a country encourages jingoism so that it can go to war.

9/27/2017 12:16:59 AM

^Doesn't the rising nationalistic emotion lead to the election of extreme candidates who then end up leading the nation into war due to increased conflict with other nations as a result of withdrawing from the world community?

Quote :

"Abundance of caution while they test their strength, maybe, or a realization that the engine driving their resurgence (oil) is unreliable and necessarily tied to the very places they'd be most likely to attack. "

I think part of this too is Russia is being pragmatic and not overextending themselves, particularly with their newly upgraded and as of yet, really untested, military and everything that goes with it. My guess is Putin learned from Russia's previous experience in Afghanistan as well as the US' experience in Afghanistan, particularly as it relates to economics given the fact that Russia is hurting (sanctions/oil/flight of wealth/etc)

[Edited on September 27, 2017 at 2:26 PM. Reason : a]

9/27/2017 2:24:52 PM

Quote :

"Doesn't the rising nationalistic emotion lead to the election of extreme candidates who then end up leading the nation into war due to increased conflict with other nations as a result of withdrawing from the world community?"

This reasoning falsely presupposes "elections" and "candidates," neither of which are the historical norm and neither of which really apply to North Korea (or really Russia, for that matter). And in cases where extremists are elected, it's usually not because the population wants a war. Off the top of my head I can't think of a major politician who was elected on a platform of "I will start a war." Voters may like the benefits of war, particularly victorious war - national prestige, gained territory, etc. - but they're not enamored of war itself. Even most Germans in 1939 were not excited about the prospect of another bout.

It also falsely assumes that only "extreme" politicians or governments start wars. I don't think anybody would call James K. Polk a frothing-at-the-mouth radical, but his administration made war with Mexico and took over half the country. The British Empire waged countless small (and a few large) wars, in spite of being politically moderate and deeply concerned with maintaining the status quo. World War I was not started or conducted by political extremists.

9/27/2017 3:15:09 PM

Quote :

"This reasoning falsely presupposes "elections" and "candidates," neither of which are the historical norm and neither of which really apply to North Korea (or really Russia, for that matter)."

Absolutely valid. I was more referring to the United States and Europe in this respect. Growing nationalist tendencies in both drives a wedge between European nations and ourselves and by doing that, we end up 1) competing more with each other and 2) ceding unity that allows nations like Russia and China to make things worse.

And subsequently, as a result of that division and deterioration, conflict arises.

9/28/2017 1:08:01 PM

I agree that the waning unity of the West is detrimental to the global order in general, and in particular with regards to Russian ambitions.

However, I'm still not sold on nationalism on either side as a cause of that unity, and still less on radical politics. To the extent that either has cropped up recently, I maintain that they are comorbid with declining Western unity rather than a cause of it. I'd go further and say that they all have the same underlying causes, which boil down to a profound angst and distrust brought about by 15 years of war without victory, economic meltdown, and the perception that both of these were brought about by Western institutions lying to their people.

Take NATO. NATO was fraying before Donald Trump came along and started playing that up. It has always had issues, and the strain has been increasing since the collapse of the Warsaw Pact seemed to remove its raison d'etre. Then the alliance finally gets activated after 9/11, and everyone comes to our aid - only to be rewarded by a decade and a half of aimless occupation in Afghanistan, a war in Iraq that most of them opposed, and terrorism in their home countries. So some Europeans might, understandably, have doubts about their relationship with the United States. But on the flip side, it pains me to say that Donald Trump has a point - we foot more than our share of the bill for NATO and aren't exactly met with gratitude for it. So some Americans have their doubts about Europe. And for years there, nobody except its immediate neighbors felt particularly threatened by Russia. Put it all together and you've got an alliance which, while still extant, is not to be relied upon as the same bulwark it might once have been.

All of those things were true before Donald Trump got elected and pointed some of them out.

---

As a stray observation, I don't really feel as though America is currently undergoing a resurgence of nationalism. Mistrust, anxiety, and insularity, maybe, but not nationalism as I have always understood it. The election of Donald Trump was a repudiation of American greatness - the man's slogan baldly states that America is not great.

9/28/2017 2:28:32 PM

bump

4/10/2018 1:00:09 AM

do you still think china is going to fight north korea and that russia is going to ally with north korea?

[Edited on April 10, 2018 at 4:29 AM. Reason : like you said in op]

4/10/2018 4:29:01 AM

Depends on how each of them are feeling about us when it happens.

4/10/2018 1:03:17 PM

Starting today?

Major airlines have been warned (or have warned themselves) of possible strikes.

4/11/2018 8:43:02 AM

Kennedy on the verge of nuclear war: "Do we have any back-channels that we can contact to help settle this thing? We need to get them on the phone"

Trump on the verge of nuclear war: "Hmmm, let's see here, what can I say in 120 characters or less that sounds cool about missiles?"

4/11/2018 9:40:58 AM

member when trump said that it's bad to telegraph your war plans

4/11/2018 9:46:06 AM

a war in syria is not a world war just because 2 powers are involved

4/11/2018 11:29:07 AM

Pakistan nukes India in response to Kashmir. Iran backs Pakistan, Russia and China back Iran, US backs India, NATO fractures?

8/31/2019 10:09:08 AM

I don't see Pakistan starting a nuclear war with a country that has considerably more manpower, strategic depth, and nuclear weapons.

If they did, I don't know why Iran would feel compelled to get involved. They don't have a deep-seated historical enmity with India, nor all that close a friendship with Pakistan.

If China decided to get involved, it would be more because of its historically close ties with Pakistan (as well as its strategic competition with India) than because of any particular fondness for Iran.

The United States and India aren't very friendly, going back to the Cold War, when it was loosely affiliated with the USSR (sort of an informal Moscow-Delhi counter to the Beijing-Islamabad friendship). We wouldn't leap to India's defense. Even if China did get involved, which I doubt, it's not like there would be an existential threat to India. They'd lose Kashmir and some Chinese border territories and the world would keep turning.

So basically none of your scenario really works for me. Except maybe NATO fracturing, but that could happen for, like, no reason at this point.

8/31/2019 5:08:20 PM

^I didn't know that about USSR/India. I'll have to find some shit to read on that.

8/31/2019 9:02:08 PM

China and SK sign defense agreement:

https://news.yahoo.com/china-signs-defense-agreement-south-005403276.html?format=embed®ion=us&lang=en-US&site=news&player_autoplay=1

11/19/2019 3:45:09 PM

Sounds peaceful to me. Not sure why you put it in a WW3 thread. China can sort out any differences between north and south korea and maybe even help unite the two. Probably just open up NK to the world economy without regime change while guaranteeing the security of the South. Problem solved.

11/19/2019 4:03:39 PM

I’m genuinely curious as to what you think reunification would look like. Do you really think that the guy who used AA to kill his uncle and poisoned his half-brother would be like “yep, I’m consenting to putting myself up to a popular election and will totally accept the results?”

(I’m immediately regretting asking this as I’m sure you don’t believe any of the bad stuff about KJU)

11/19/2019 4:06:46 PM

Reunification only happens on China's terms, which means the governing style of NK wins, which means at least half the population either engage in civil war of flee the country as refugees.

Who knows what earl's take on this is...

11/19/2019 6:03:02 PM

What? Who said anything about popular elections? China doesn't even have popular elections. Basically start off with a friendly border with normalized trade and interaction between all of the countries. No more war. NK isn't the only country with the death penalty. NK could be like a mini China.

11/19/2019 6:07:17 PM

The US is back testing intermediate range nuclear missiles today. We should sanction them hard and make life a living hell for the people living there. Put pressure on their maniac president.

On a serious note, where does the constitution warrant us having to perpetually defend Europe?

[Edited on December 12, 2019 at 5:58 PM. Reason : its gone too far]

12/12/2019 5:54:34 PM

Quote :

"where does the constitution warrant us having to perpetually defend Europe"

It's all right there in the preamble. We chose to do so as a matter of strategic policy in order to a) keep the next war smaller (assuming we couldn't deter if from happening [which we've been decent at]) and b) make sure it doesn't happen anywhere near us.

12/13/2019 3:26:57 PM

Quote :

"Reunification only happens on China's terms"

I don't think we should take it for granted that China wants a unified Korean peninsula. Even a "friendly" regime could be a thorn in its side, as the Kim regime has repeatedly shown. And a divided country pointing guns at each other is one that can't spend much time plotting to get out from Beijing's shadow.

The South Koreans aren't all that enthusiastic about reunification, no matter whose terms it would be on. They've got sense enough to know that they'll be footing the bill to develop the North either way. That goes double for young people in the ROK.

I think the United States would prefer the Kim regime go, but I'm not sure I see a huge strategic interest for us in bringing the two together. It would agitate China, we'd almost inevitably end up sharing the burden of building up the North, and the main advantage it gives us - removing an entity we don't really know what to do with - could be more easily achieved by the replacement of the current leadership with another, slightly more "stable" and "transparent" China-friendly Communist regime.

No, among the major actors in this little play, only North Korea is really enthusiastic about merging with the south, for much the same reason that a tapeworm is enthusiastic about merging with your lower GI tract.

Quote :

"On a serious note, where does the constitution warrant us having to perpetually defend Europe?"

Article VI:

"This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding."

We duly ratified the North Atlantic Treaty in 1949, making it part of "the supreme law of the land."

[Edited on December 15, 2019 at 9:39 PM. Reason : bolding]

12/15/2019 9:39:15 PM

It doesn't seem to me that any defence 'pact' can obligate war within the bounds of the constitution. Regardless of treaty, congress should have to formally declare war before we can come to the defence of an attacked nato member. Furthermore, it doesn't seem to be anything in the treaty that requires us to invest so much in the preemptive defence of europe and reads more like "we have to go help them if they are attacked".

I think if we announced we were doing that, the wealthy countries of europe would all announce that they would be picking up spending over the same time period to compensate. Then we could cut a deal where they pay us for that. This would be my strategy everywhere and you could spin it as making our allies stronger, more self- reliant, while cutting our costs and improving trade.

12/15/2019 10:27:37 PM

You asked a question, I answered it. You don't like the answer, but you don't get to ignore the facts. The Constitution gives special weight to treaties and we signed a big ol' treaty obligating us to defend Europe.

If you'd even glanced at the text of the Treaty, you'd see that it does require some "investment in the preemptive defense of Europe."

Quote :

"Article 3 In order more effectively to achieve the objectives of this Treaty, the Parties, separately and jointly, by means of continuous and effective self-help and mutual aid, will maintain and develop their individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack."

Members must help themselves, and they must help each other - preemptively.

Then, too, the Treaty explicitly sets up a Council to flesh out the somewhat ill-defined articles of the text:

Quote :

"Article 9 The Parties hereby establish a Council, on which each of them shall be represented, to consider matters concerning the implementation of this Treaty. The Council shall be so organised as to be able to meet promptly at any time. The Council shall set up such subsidiary bodies as may be necessary; in particular it shall establish immediately a defence committee which shall recommend measures for the implementation of Articles 3 and 5."

These bodies setting, among other things, collective defense policy and military spending targets (and, without me reading through the public read out of every defence committee meeting in the last 70 years, presumably says something about the U.S. keeping some guys in Europe).

All that's what NATO requires. If nothing else, the treaty clearly gives the United States legal cover (if such were needed) to invest in the defense of Europe - which answers your question about what is Constitutionally "warranted."

But such legal cover is not needed. The Constitution makes the President "Commander in Chief." While the powers associated with that role are not expanded upon in the document, from the beginning they have consistently been interpreted as broad enough to enable military actions in the absence of a formal declaration of war. That they have done so with so little variation or opposition for more than 200 years effectively associates them with the definition of "Commander in Chief."

And I do mean "from the beginning." People involved in drafting and signing the Constitution certainly thought "Commander in Chief" gave them pretty expansive military powers. Washington led troops against rebels, Adams engaged in the Quasi War against France, Jefferson and Madison launched the (undeclared) Barbary Wars. That's James Madison, AKA the Guy Who Wrote the Goddamn Constitution. Then we could go into a long, long list of undeclared wars against Native Americans, Latin American countries, China, and a host of others.

Look man, I get that you want us out of Europe to ensure Russian domination of the world or whatever, and that's fine. (Well, it's not fine, it's so awful and dumb that I assume you're trolling and wouldn't respond except that such awful dumbness is prevalent enough to elect Trump) But you're going to need another line of argument besides "It's unconstitutional," because you don't have a fucking leg to stand on there.

12/16/2019 8:17:17 AM

Quote :

"You asked a question, I answered it. You don't like the answer, but you don't get to ignore the facts. The Constitution gives special weight to treaties and we signed a big ol' treaty obligating us to defend Europe. If you'd even glanced at the text of the Treaty, you'd see that it does require some "investment in the preemptive defense of Europe.""

I liked the answer. It was a good answer and that is why I moved on. I basically respond to everything I disagree with so that may make it come off as disagreeable. All of the things I don't respond to, are things that don't stand out to me as off enough to warrant a response. It doesn't mean I don't like them. I just wanted that to be put out here so that we could start the discussion on common ground.

I read the treaty and there seems to be a lot of weak points where we could apply pressure possibly causing the whole thing to fall apart. There is a minimum interpretation of our obligations and we could act according to meeting those minimum requirements. Right now, we are basically acting according to the maximum interpretation of our obligation which, in my opinion, the main thing keeping NATO alive.

It seems like an anti-NATO president could do a lot of things within both the constitution and treaty that could significantly, maybe even critically weaken NATO. People were saying Trump committed treason for weakening NATO. There is no basis for that which is one of the reasons I wanted the constitutional authority laid out.

Quote :

"Members must help themselves, and they must help each other - preemptively. Then, too, the Treaty explicitly sets up a Council to flesh out the somewhat ill-defined articles of the text:"

Russia/USSR etc does not seemed to be mentioned anywhere in the text. Germany is making gas deals with Russia. Turkey is making arms deals with Russia. I don't see how this agreement prevents us from becoming more friendly towards Russia. This would certainly anger some NATO members and jeopardize their security.

Quote :

"in particular it shall establish immediately a defence committee which shall recommend measures for the implementation of Articles 3 and 5.""

Aren't we represented on this committee, don't we have a lot of influence? Who is on this committee? Can the president appoint people to this committee? What is the course of action if a member feels the committee is acting against the spirit of the treaty or against the will of its members?


What would happen if we went down to 2%? Are we aloud to lets say, cut more out of Europe than at home? Could we go down to 2% by only cutting back in Europe?
[image]http://These bodies setting, among other things, collective defense policy and military spending targets (and, without me reading through the public read out of every defence committee meeting in the last 70 years, presumably says something about the U.S. keeping some guys in Europe).

All that's what NATO requires. If nothing else, the treaty clearly gives the United States legal cover (if such were needed) to invest in the defense of Europe - which answers your question about what is Constitutionally "warranted."[/image]
Well yeah I mostly agree but the point is that although we may be constitutionally permitted to be in Europe, we aren't constitutionally required to do so and this is important because you can't just say a president who doesn't want to do so is a traitor against our country. Maybe a traitor to Europe, but not a traitor to the US.

Only 7 countries are meeting their NATO requirement. I don't know how this works, but how can we be obliged to hold up our end if other members aren't holding up their end? How is the treaty not nullified? Do we really have to come to the defense of any of the countries that are less than 2%?

To what extent can congress sign away our resources to another country? It doesn't seem right if congress can sign a treaty saying our population will be taxed and that money will just be given to a foreign power.

Quote :

"But such legal cover is not needed. The Constitution makes the President "Commander in Chief." While the powers associated with that role are not expanded upon in the document, from the beginning they have consistently been interpreted as broad enough to enable military actions in the absence of a formal declaration of war. That they have done so with so little variation or opposition for more than 200 years effectively associates them with the definition of "Commander in Chief.""

Along these lines, an anti-NATO president can also remove troops and from what I've read, due to all sorts of precedence, a president can now cancel treaties without congress. I don't know how true this is, but it seems legit.
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/donald-trump-can-unilaterally-withdraw-treaties-because-congress-abdicated-responsibility-ncna870866

Quote :

"Look man, I get that you want us out of Europe to ensure Russian domination of the world or whatever, and that's fine. (Well, it's not fine, it's so awful and dumb that I assume you're trolling and wouldn't respond except that such awful dumbness is prevalent enough to elect Trump) But you're going to need another line of argument besides "It's unconstitutional," because you don't have a fucking leg to stand on there."

First of all, Russian domination of the world is not possible nor is it a goal. They are pinned in and DO want to come out from being pinned in but they don't, nor do they have the means to dominate the world.

My desire for getting out of Europe is primarily fiscal. As the graphics show, Europe can (and would) spend more to defend itself from Russian (or any) dominating threat. They don't now because poor americans are eager to pay it for them.

12/16/2019 2:07:32 PM

literal russian talking points

12/16/2019 2:25:13 PM

I don't get it - if all you want is a legal mechanism to leave NATO, we can just... Leave. Article 13 gives a way out. It would be a little awkward because you get out by telling the United States government that you're getting out, but there it is, with no need to subvert the committee or sneak around.

Nobody's argument is "We have to defend Europe because NATO says so.". We want to have troops in Europe for many, many reasons, and we created and joined NATO to make that happen.

12/16/2019 2:50:22 PM

and people would proceed to call getting out "treason". There may even be some of those people here willing to admit they'd be in that group.

Quote :

"Nobody's argument is "We have to defend Europe because NATO says so.". We want to have troops in Europe for many, many reasons, and we created and joined NATO to make that happen. "

Nobody's argument is we want to leave NATO so that Russia can dominate but here we are....

Who is "we" in the "we" who want to have troops in europe for many many reasons? What percentage of Americans do you think would take the option to take 2% of their paycheck to put troops in Europe if they could keep that 2% instead? IMO, that is who you should include in your "we"

What do you think our reasons for joining NATO were? I think the reason they sold was to counter the USSR which no longer exists revealing the real reason being to feed the military industrial complex. The stronger, more formidable soviet boogeyman has been replaced by the weak, Russian boogeyman and it doesn't really strike the same fear.

12/16/2019 5:22:06 PM

To be clear, you definitely want us to leave NATO because you're a weak minded moron who has consumed too much Russian state propaganda

[Edited on December 16, 2019 at 6:32 PM. Reason : Bot everyone's argument, but it is yours ]

12/16/2019 6:32:11 PM

Quote :

"and people would proceed to call getting out "treason"."

It's always moving in fucking circles with you. You ask how we can legally stay in NATO, I tell you, then you talk about ways to legally leave NATO, and then when you're presented with a means to do so, you say "people will cry treason!" and before we can even respond, you move on to the seemingly contradictory position that "people" don't really like NATO anyway.

Quote :

"What percentage of Americans do you think would take the option to take 2% of their paycheck to put troops in Europe if they could keep that 2% instead? "

Well, first of all, we don't spend 2% of our money on NATO, so your question is bullshit from the get go. And if we fix the question to a more simple "What percentage of Americans support our participation in NATO?" then recent surveys suggest that, worst case, the answer is "just under half." That is, again, the low end of the surveyed spectrum; others put the American public's support for NATO at around 80%. This is all referring to stuff done in the past year, incidentally.

Quote :

"What do you think our reasons for joining NATO were?"

It was aptly stated as "Keep the Germans down, the Russians out, and the Americans in," or words to that effect. Expanding on the "Germans down" oversimplification, it was meant to keep as much of Europe on the same team as possible so they'd quit starting world wars with each other.

Quote :

"I think the reason they sold was to counter the USSR which no longer exists revealing the real reason being to feed the military industrial complex."

All that it really reveals is that institutional momentum is a thing. When the USSR fell, NATO had been the cornerstone of Western military strategic thought for as long as anybody involved could remember. It's not like everyone was going to scramble to Brussels to dismantle the thing as soon as Gorbachev hit the bricks. There was a period of sloppily using NATO for things it was ill-designed for, like bombing Serbia, while the relevant players tried to reinvent an alliance that had been doing a pretty good job for half a century.

The thing is, we don't need NATO to feed the military-industrial complex. We can do that just fine on our own. If anything, the MIC would be better off with Europeans fighting each other.

12/16/2019 10:21:18 PM

Quote :

"you say "people will cry treason!" and before we can even respond, you move on to the seemingly contradictory position that "people" don't really like NATO anyway."

ITs not the same people. "People" said Helsinki was treason but those were just the loudest voices (the media) and most of the country didn't care.

Quote :

"Well, first of all, we don't spend 2% of our money on NATO, so your question is bullshit from the get go. And if we fix the question to a more simple "What percentage of Americans support our participation in NATO?" then recent surveys suggest that, worst case, the answer is "just under half." That is, again, the low end of the surveyed spectrum; others put the American public's support for NATO at around 80%. This is all referring to stuff done in the past year, incidentally."

Theres a lot to unpack here. I just used 2 as a conservative figure because 15% of our budget is military. What % of that is going towards NATO? I don't know but I'm confident we would be able to cut it far below 13% if we took out NATO related spending. Hell, you'd probably arrive near there if you just considered the gap that NATO countries are failing to spend.

Just to be clear, it doesn't really matter to me about NATO specifically, I really want to cut defense spending across the board. NATO is just low hanging fruit. Obviously, defense should be about defending this country, so I'd start by cutting out all of our defense of other countries. Making our people foot the bill for the defense of wealthier people is insane.

The way the question is phrased include getting the money back? Without clearly spelling out the opportunity cost, those polls you're referencing are biased. I could make a biased poll too. Lets poll people rationing insulin if they would rather have insulin or troops stationed in Estonia.

When you think about opportunity cost, it gets really wild. For example, we could use a small cut in defense spending to feed and educate every child on Earth and still spend more than Russia and China combined.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2015/10/julia-gillard-on-what-it-will-take-to-educate-every-kid-in-the-world.html
https://reliefweb.int/report/world/multibillion-dollar-question-how-much-will-it-cost-end-hunger-and-undernutrition

Quote :

" The thing is, we don't need NATO to feed the military-industrial complex. We can do that just fine on our own. If anything, the MIC would be better off with Europeans fighting each other."

You so nonchalantly operate under the assumption of "adult in the room" theory where the US is the only country mature enough to keep chaos from breaking out everywhere in the world. Plus, theres an EU now, with a lot of the countries on the same team. NATO can also survive without us.

[Edited on December 17, 2019 at 4:36 PM. Reason : can't afford healthcare or education but spend all our money defending people who have those things]

[Edited on December 17, 2019 at 4:39 PM. Reason : we don't need that]

12/17/2019 4:34:47 PM

> it's wrong to think that america is or should be the only adult in the room
> this treaty of multiple countries is bad

top kek

12/17/2019 5:21:57 PM

My thoughts https://thewolfweb.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=650331

12/17/2019 5:26:47 PM

saving this here to remember to watch later:
The rise of Vladimir Putin (extended cut) | DW Documentary
https://youtu.be/LMoVtSr0l5o

12/18/2019 8:42:08 AM

https://www.conflictnations.com

12/18/2019 9:14:56 AM

Quote :

"You so nonchalantly operate under the assumption of "adult in the room" theory where the US is the only country mature enough to keep chaos from breaking out everywhere in the world."

I really don't. You're just very, very dense.

As I've said over and over again, the United States isn't especially "mature" or even "good" for purposes of this discussion. It is, however, especially powerful. We cemented a peace in Europe by being strong enough to enforce unity while simultaneously deterring Soviet incursions.

Quote :

"Plus, theres an EU now, with a lot of the countries on the same team. NATO can also survive without us."

Well, I don't know how much you want to lean on the EU during an era of Brexit and rising Euroscepticism, and NATO absolutely cannot withstand US departure. That whole system is predicated on our participation and indeed our military leadership. A successor alliance might take its place if we left, but NATO would be dead.

So aside from the fact that your assertions are wrong, they're also undesirable from a U.S. geopolitical perspective. We don't want a Europe that is strong and unified without us. They'd be very nearly an even match for the United States, and there's no reason to think they'd be particularly friendly.

Also, you completely ignore my point, even though you quoted it: if the goal is to feed the military-industrial complex, we'd be better off with a Europe consumed by wars. Do you disagree?

[Edited on December 18, 2019 at 10:40 PM. Reason : ]

12/18/2019 10:40:04 PM

https://t.co/XyRmqH6CBn?amp=1

Iran and China close to signing a military and trade deal

7/11/2020 8:26:24 PM

India and the US have been increasing trade and making deals. Probably a reaction. Today Google announced $10 billion investment in India.

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/03/us-india-trade/554321/

https://m.economictimes.com/news/defence/india-us-sign-3-billion-deal-for-purchase-of-15-chinook-heavylift-and-22-apache-attack-helicopters/amp_articleshow/49142634.cms

https://m.economictimes.com/industry/energy/oil-gas/us-deadline-ends-india-stops-purchasing-iranian-oil/amp_articleshow/69475495.cms

[Edited on July 13, 2020 at 8:50 AM. Reason : A]

7/13/2020 8:42:19 AM

I had forgotten about this thread. Am I the only one confused as to why, in earl's chart regarding NATO spending, somehow the United States spends more than North America and more than NATO, both of which the United States is a part of?

7/13/2020 9:33:04 AM

It just a confusing graphic.

It's snowing total contributions as a portion of GDP. The US isn't spending more than all of NATO or North America. It just has a high contribution percentage than the NATO average or the North America average.

7/13/2020 9:48:32 AM