china and russia suck and i dont think they should be on there...how would they go about taking those countries off?

8/26/2006 2:38:25 PM

kill the prime minister of malaysia

8/26/2006 2:54:08 PM

India needs to be on the security council

8/26/2006 3:30:17 PM

^

8/26/2006 3:53:33 PM

Simple, have the U.S. military invade and occpy the U.N. building and hold the deligates hostage until they pass a resolution amending the U.N. charter.

8/26/2006 4:55:17 PM

we should run the world as a Fascists state

loneshark knows whats up.

8/26/2006 7:25:06 PM

Just create a new No China and Russia club.

8/26/2006 7:29:40 PM

Theres no way we could take China off.

Russia is less important but they have more of an historical place.

this is a shitty idea.

8/26/2006 7:35:13 PM

if anything, they have grounds for kicking us out.

8/26/2006 8:05:16 PM

If anyone should be kicked off, it's France. They're an important country, sure, but they're not quite (nor have they ever been since the UN was created) Security Council important. Of course, it'll never happen, one because it's damn near impossible to remove someone, and two because the rest of the world would assume it was just us being mad that they aren't our lapdogs. And sure, I am mad about that, but France's decline from a global power is true independent of that.

8/26/2006 9:04:39 PM

now you guys know that i'm not a UN supporter by any means, and that I'm a firm supporter of American hegemony. That being said, china deserves a permanent place on the security council, as much as any country deserves a place. Russia probably deserves one as much or a little less than India does, but they used to be a super-power so they get it by inheritance.

8/26/2006 9:11:43 PM

I think that they should kick everyone out and then put the 7 poorest countries in the world on just to see their reaction.

8/26/2006 9:21:48 PM

The UN is a joke.

8/26/2006 9:23:50 PM

^^ sounds like the same type of concept that was used in the formation of the human rights commission


[Edited on August 26, 2006 at 9:28 PM. Reason : s]

8/26/2006 9:28:08 PM

ok i could agree to a comprimise...only kick one of those 2 countries off, and add india in their place

that would even it out pretty good

8/27/2006 3:00:54 AM

we use their resolutions are reasons for war

[Edited on August 27, 2006 at 3:05 AM. Reason : AHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH]

[Edited on August 27, 2006 at 3:05 AM. Reason : ha]

8/27/2006 3:05:09 AM

Quote :

"And sure, I am mad about that, but France's decline from a global power is true independent of that."

I hate agreeing over this.

China can have their spot. India still deserves one as well.

8/27/2006 4:25:12 AM

The same semi-socialist Indians who practices nuclear brinksmanship with Pakistan and are much weaker than all the other countries on the security council?

While we're permanently adding more anti-muslim countries to the council, let's add Israel!

Adding India would just be a feel-good measure that offers no real strategic advantage, assuming that the security council has a strategic advantage to offer, anyway.

8/27/2006 10:53:57 AM

skokiaan, I don't think you understand why we want to put it on the Security Council. You don't put countries on the SC because they're shiny happy peaceful places. If that were true we could pack it with Scandanavia and be done with it. You put countries on their because they are among the most significant in the world in areas like population, economy, military strength, and political sway.

8/27/2006 11:12:44 AM

Really? I could have sworn countries were solely put to split up the spoils of world war 2 between the allies. France and england might as well be the same as Scandinavian countries.

Quote :

"population, economy, military strength, and political sway."

India doesn't even have all of this, especially political sway. Furthermore, what's the point in giving them a seat even if they had these features? Are they going to magically help us resolve problems in the middle east -- the giant elephant in the room? Are they going to help us check North Korea? Iran? Of course not.

Adding India for the reasons you mentioned is a feel-good measure that doesn't really help us solve any problem (and probably creates more problems, since they are anti-muslim). Permanent membership isn't a reward you give some country just because they have collected all the merit badges.

8/27/2006 11:27:00 AM

Quote :

"Permanent membership isn't a reward you give some country just because they have collected all the merit badges."

Actually, it's exactly that. If you deny a country a country the powers and responsibilities that its status obviously merits, and indeed put weaker countries in positions over it, you're asking for trouble -- at the very least, you're asking for your system to be rendered useless.

No, what permanent membership isn't is something that you give or deny countries because of their political leanings, which is what you seem to be suggesting.

Quote :

"Are they going to magically help us resolve problems in the middle east"

Realistically is there any change to the Security Council's makeup that would do this? Any at all?

Quote :

"India doesn't even have all of this, especially political sway."

It has population, it has (or will soon have) an economy on par with China's, it is a nuclear power witha large military that is deployed worldwide with UN peacekeeping forces. I'll agree it doesn't have much political sway -- yet. But they have gotten us to do a lot for them, which is something, and even with 3/4 of those things it's still beating France.

8/27/2006 11:46:32 AM

India:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castling

8/27/2006 12:34:42 PM

Easy solution: US withdraws from the UN, the UN collapses, no more worries, no more problems.

8/27/2006 2:10:55 PM

Seeing as the EU is holding up quite well im sure the UN would manage to a certain degree if the US left. Removing ourselves from the UN would only worsen the problems in the middle east and ruin our world relations. Lets hope the USA doesnt go crazy and elect Randy as president because we would be FUCKED.

[Edited on August 27, 2006 at 3:25 PM. Reason : FUCKED~!]

8/27/2006 3:24:47 PM

American hedgemony is all that should matter to us. The EU will prove to be an iept, socialist, immoral, weak replacement if the US leaves the UN.

8/27/2006 3:29:14 PM

if you think that we have control over the world through this false sense of security then I think your in crazytown. Leaving the UN will do nothing to increase our status in the world and will not some how fix any of our problems.

8/27/2006 3:42:27 PM

Quote :

"1. leadership or predominant influence exercised by one nation over others, as in a confederation. 2. (esp. among smaller nations) aggression or expansionism by large nations in an effort to achieve world domination. "

I wonder which meaning people have in their mind when they say "hegemony".

8/27/2006 3:46:35 PM

in guessin Randy's version isnt the nice one.

8/27/2006 3:49:42 PM

Quote :

"Easy solution: US withdraws from the UN, the UN collapses, no more worries, no more problems."

I think Stalin's saying was "no man, no problem".

HOWEVER, I am not trying to make some kind of US->USSR parallelism. I completely agree, the UN is absolutely useless, and the US is the only country in the UN which ever actually gets anything worthwhile done.

8/27/2006 4:15:20 PM

^if only more people agreed that the UN was useless and harmful, especially to US hegemony.

8/27/2006 4:59:02 PM

im sorry the cold war is over and things arnt so simple randy.

[Edited on August 27, 2006 at 5:12 PM. Reason : "]

8/27/2006 5:11:47 PM

I like the idea of U.S. hegemony and I'm not ashamed of it. What I don't like is the unrealistic idea that we will have it for long under any circumstances -- if indeed we actually have it now.

The meaning of "hegemon" that we have always worked with in class is basically, "any country that is more powerful, all told, than pretty much everyone else thrown together." It sounds like a pretty dictatorial and straight up malevolent thing, but it has a few benefits, at least according to the theory of hegemonic stability -- when you have a hegemon, you don't have a major war. It's the time in between hegemons when you have potential for really bloody, widespread stuff like the World Wars.

It can imply a certain degree of oppression by the hegemonic power against other nations, which is bad, but not, I think, inevitable. It is also a milder form of oppression than might be seen otherwise -- if the hegemon is too-heavy handed, he unites everyone against him. He can handle that in the short term, but probably not the long. So whatever kind of inequality you get under a hegemon is arguably preferable to the rather harsher form you find in an interhegemonic situation when everyone is killing everybody they can get their hands on because there isn't a superpower with a vested interest in a peaceful status quo holding everyone back. That is, of course, assuming that the only two options are hegemonic and interhegemonic periods, and that the sort of broader international cooperation that is the goal of the UN is impossible.

So, as for my thoughts on the UN -- I'm for it because there's no real reason to be against it, at the very least. It is nowhere near a threat to our hegemony (if such even exists, which I frankly think is doubtful), and if it ever becomes such a threat, it can be in two very simplified ways:

1) It finally presents a model of international cooperation that is preferable to US hegemony in terms of providing world peace and prosperity, in which case I am probably all for ceding our power in its favor, or,

2) It has merely become a tool of another nation, group of nations, or international interest that just seeks to become a new hegemon that wears the clothes of international cooperation but carries the beating stick of, well, us. In this case, bomb the shit out of them.

Until we get to one of those points, I see no need to disband the UN, especially because it's not nearly so useless as you make it out to be. I am capable of distinguishing between "inefficient and not living up to its potential" and "an utterly worthless sack of shit that is repugnant to Americanism."

8/27/2006 5:14:47 PM

Quote :

"2) It has merely become a tool of another nation, group of nations, or international interest that just seeks to become a new hegemon that wears the clothes of international cooperation but carries the beating stick of, well, us. In this case, bomb the shit out of them."

Hey, thanks for showing your (and by proxy, the US's) true peaceful colors.

8/27/2006 5:21:43 PM

Oh, we won't have to start the fight. A shift between hegemonies is bloody almost by definition. It doesn't matter who starts shooting, we'll have to do it at some point as the outgoing power.

I would hope by now you knew better than to take me 100% literally all the time.

8/27/2006 5:33:53 PM

the way in which the world works today creates an environment where the hegemon of the past is not needed. IMO the US is not a hegemon in the sense the UK was a 100 years ago. We cant even deal with a small country in the middle east let alone exert our power over the whole world. The UN has tons of problems but to think the US can some how remove itself and then take on the rest of the world is some stupid fascist bullshit.

^GOP, the cold war shows that two countries vying for the spot of hegemon do not have to have a bloody war. Nukes changed that in a major way. This is some serious stone age thinking going on grumpers.

[Edited on August 27, 2006 at 5:38 PM. Reason : !.]

8/27/2006 5:36:20 PM

Quote :

"We cant even deal with a small country in the middle east let alone exert our power over the whole world."

This is just silly thinking. Just because we won't do something doesn't mean we can't. Iraq could be subdued, possibly at the cost of the lives of millions of Iraqis, but it could. We just won't, which is fine.

Had we fought like this in the World Wars, we'd probably have never won them, either.

Quote :

"GOP, the cold war shows that two countries vying for the spot of hegemon do not have to have a bloody war."

Are you seriously suggesting that we relive the Cold War, with the constant threat of the nuclear annihilation of the planet?

It's probable that we just got damn lucky the first time around with that. I don't want to roll the dice again on a dual-power situation.

Quote :

"the way in which the world works today creates an environment where the hegemon of the past is not needed."

You're gonna have to back this up with, I don't know, something.

8/27/2006 5:49:31 PM

Quote :

"This is just silly thinking. Just because we won't do something doesn't mean we can't. Iraq could be subdued, possibly at the cost of the lives of millions of Iraqis, but it could. We just won't, which is fine. Had we fought like this in the World Wars, we'd probably have never won them, either."

Im not saying that we couldn't completely keep Iraq under control, but how could we deal with a country like China. Of course we could destroy a large portion of the country but controlling it would be next to impossible even with help from the UN. This might be my opinion but this is a huge flaw in the idea of the US as a hegemon

Quote :

"Are you seriously suggesting that we relive the Cold War, with the constant threat of the nuclear annihilation of the planet? It's probable that we just got damn lucky the first time around with that. I don't want to roll the dice again on a dual-power situation."

this isnt what im saying. Im saying that the USSR vyed for the spot of hegemon and they failed without any bloodshed. Bloodshed isnt needed for a hegemon switch, economy has a larger part now.

Quote :

"You're gonna have to back this up with, I don't know, something."

ha, I guess I feel that the US isnt a hegemon in the sense we are or could keep peace throughout the world with our military might. Sure we have shitloads of nukes but that doesnt do us much good now. no sources


[Edited on August 27, 2006 at 6:03 PM. Reason : ?]

8/27/2006 6:02:22 PM

Quote :

"this isnt what im saying. Im saying that the USSR vyed for the spot of hegemon and they failed without any bloodshed. Bloodshed isnt needed for a hegemon switch, economy has a larger part now."

We never had direct conflict but you better believe there was plenty of bloodshed from US/USSR tension... it just played out in lesser venues, like Afghanistan.

8/27/2006 9:31:27 PM

no US and USSR inflicted bloodshed on each other...

8/27/2006 10:10:59 PM

Quote :

"Of course we could destroy a large portion of the country but controlling it would be next to impossible even with help from the UN."

This is probably true, but for reasons that don't have much to do with hegemonic stability.

Most of your thinking in the world of international politics deals with the concept of nations as Unitary Rational Actors. That is, they have one unified command and they act in their own best interests. As a result, these theories don't take into account so much the minor, or at least "unofficial," resistance and sectarian groups that might come about in the wake of combat with China.

I don't think it is beyond the reach of the American military to destroy the Chinese government and its apparati. It wouldn't be easy by any means, and it may well not be a given, but it's doable. They could almost certainly not occupy it with any effectiveness afterwords, because many, many resistance organizations would come about in the wake of that conflict. Those groups being incapable of real international operation almost by definition, however, are not entirely relevant.

Quote :

"this isnt what im saying. Im saying that the USSR vyed for the spot of hegemon and they failed without any bloodshed."

It doesn't matter what you were saying, it's what was true. They vied for power (arguably; much of what I've seen argues that they mostly just wanted to survive) and lost without any direct conflict, sure. But on many occasions it came damn close to that on a extinction-level scale. Economy arguably won that particular fight. That it will tend to do so from now on is hardly certain. And remember, economy won in large part because of how many guns it generated.

Quote :

"Bloodshed isnt needed for a hegemon switch, economy has a larger part now."

Even assuming that everything else you've said is completely accurate, you cannot draw this conclusion, because no switch happened. We didn't see what was necessary for a switch, we saw what was necessary to maintain the current hegemon, and I've never denied that economy is one of many ways to do this.

Quote :

"ha, I guess I feel that the US isnt a hegemon in the sense we are or could keep peace throughout the world with our military might."

But to some extent we have. There has not been a massive conflict since WWII. The cycle of progressively larger-scale wars has been broken, and in the areas where you see the bloodiest and most devastating conflicts you also tend to see ones where we have no interest in stopping them. I never said it would guarantee total world peace, but hegemony does seem to keep a lid on things even now. We've likely prevented or contributed largely to the prevention of several wars that had the potential to be global and far worse than anything we have seen. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that, without American power on the scale we've seen, China would have invaded Taiwan, North Korea would have again invaded the South, and the U.S.S.R. would have gone after more of Europe. That's likely just the tip of the iceberg. Europe hasn't fought itself in generations because of the international cooperation that organizations like NATO, which came about largely because of American political power.

8/27/2006 11:20:25 PM

a continued debate would just run in circles at this point but I agree with your points. I wasnt so much disagreeing with your side of the hegemon arguement but more attacking Randy and his meatheadedness. The fact that the US had such a grip on the world after WW2 spured the creation of NATO and the UN which can be directly contributed to the absence of fighting in Western Europe and the relative peace amongst industrialized nations. The US doesnt need the same "im going to kick the shit out of you" idealism and imo cant have that mindset in todays world.

8/28/2006 9:45:00 AM

I do kind of disagree. After WW2 Europe was no longer in any position to wage war with itself, hence world peace. WW2 was merely the completion of WW1.

Which begs a question: If instead of accepting Germany's surrender at the end of WW1 the allies had fought their way in to occupy Berlin and set up a puppet government, would WW2 have occured? It strikes me that after WW1 many German's, that had been listening to propaganda up until the very end, felt the war ended suddenly. However, after WW2, there was no such psychological paradox, no urge to think "we would have won if not for the idiot politicians in Berlin."

The Allies should have held out for unconditional surrender and occupied the country for a decade or so. Or am I smoking something ?

8/28/2006 10:02:46 AM

I always thought it was obvious that Hilter and Nazism came about because of the shitty way the end of WW1 was handled. The creation of NATO and the UN and the occupation of German prevented another war between europe and prevented the problems that occured after WW1 with the league of nations and Germany's horrible economy.

I dont see how you're disagreeing tho

8/28/2006 10:50:26 AM

Hitler came about from how the end of WW1 was handled

8/28/2006 10:51:58 AM

thanks treetwister for reading my post and summarizing it

8/28/2006 10:58:15 AM

Hitler was spawned from the Treaty of Versailles

8/28/2006 11:05:11 AM

Quote :

"if anything, they have grounds for kicking us out."

hahahaa

Quote :

" France and england might as well be the same as Scandinavian countries."

looks like you totally missed his point.

Quote :

"GOP, the cold war shows that two countries vying for the spot of hegemon do not have to have a bloody war. "

Korea
Vietnam
Afghanistan
Bay Of Pigs
U2s shot down
etc

Quote :

"This is just silly thinking. Just because we won't do something doesn't mean we can't. Iraq could be subdued, possibly at the cost of the lives of millions of Iraqis, but it could. We just won't, which is fine."

Exactly. If we went full-tilt (even without taking in nuclear), it would be over, like, yesterday, and in probably the most decisive and dramatic fashion in history.

Quote :

"Im not saying that we couldn't completely keep Iraq under control, but how could we deal with a country like China. Of course we could destroy a large portion of the country but controlling it would be next to impossible even with help from the UN. This might be my opinion but this is a huge flaw in the idea of the US as a hegemon"

Yeah, no way we could control China, at least not without destroying it into primative oblivion first...which we could do, I suppose.

Having the ability to take over the world is not the measure of hegemony. Nobody's ever been able to do that, or come anywhere THAT close to it.

I would wager that, at least until/unless we became starved of resources and/or economically hurt by the lack of trade, that the entire world combined wouldn't be able to do shit to us on our own soil (short of nuclear war, which would doubtlessly lead to their complete ruin). I contend that, as of 28 Aug 2006, we're pretty much supremely dominant.

the trick is to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away, and know when to throw down the royal flush.

Quote :

"ha, I guess I feel that the US isnt a hegemon in the sense we are or could keep peace throughout the world with our military might."

No, certainly not in that sense, but...

Quote :

"But to some extent we have. There has not been a massive conflict since WWII."

Quote :

"I always thought it was obvious that Hilter and Nazism came about because of the shitty way the end of WW1 was handled. "

yeah, the Allies kinda just smacked the bear with a stick. They should've either left it alone or shot it in the head.

8/28/2006 11:22:30 AM

Quote :

"The Allies should have held out for unconditional surrender and occupied the country for a decade or so."

This in and of itself would not have prevented the next big war, which, to my mind, was inevitable.

Obviously, Germany wasn't the only one to go fascist -- in order to prevent Italy and Japan from taking that tack, you'd have also had to give them all the stuff they thought they deserved after the war, which would have meant taking away from somebody else, and then all those somebodies just would have been all the more pissed off and you'd have to sit on them all the harder.

Second, it isn't as though WWII had to be against fascism. The bolshies were around by then, too, and they were at least as ideologically opposed to us as Hitler was. Without Hitler to keep them in check, we may have gone at it with them (remember the game Red Alert? )

Besides, we couldn't have gone after the Germans much harder. They'd surrendered. It probably would have been just as bad if, after their total capitulation, we just said, "No, we're gonna keep shooting you even when you're waving white flags."

8/28/2006 3:14:22 PM

Quote :

"The UN is a joke"

8/28/2006 3:16:01 PM

Explain how.

8/28/2006 3:17:13 PM