White Supremecists Slay 49 in NZ Mosques

[Dill]

(03-22-2019, 11:21 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Quote:The U.S. is pulling back its diplomatic investments in regions of the world precisely where the vacuum can be filled by authoritarian states like China and Russia.  The former is quietly constructing a competing world order with soft power as it strengthens its military.

let it be filled by those countries.  I can't count how may times on left leaning news sites like The Guardian that I've seen comments yearning for the day that China supplants the Us.  Let it happen in parts of the world, let them have what they claim to want.  In any event Russia is a regional power and, nuclear weapons aside, is unlikely to ever be more.  Let China have more influence so nations can see how good they had it under the Pax Americana.

Two points/questions:

1. The governments and the majority of the people in places like Japan, South Korea, The Philippines, Thailand, Singapore and Taiwan would not like to switch out the U.S. for China as a regional balancing power. It hardly makes sense for the US to abandon that global space because some Americans don't like comments in a British newspaper. Suppose the US pulls its troops out of S. Korea and ends its military alliance with them. Would China stop North Korea from invading South? 

2. How would a China-filled vacuum affect U.S. markets and employment if China gets to set conditions on our trade with SK, Japan, Taiwan etc.?

These points/questions should be considered with respect to U.S. alliances as well, and especially its relation to Europe.

(03-22-2019, 11:21 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Quote:Still further, I would add that all the measures constructed to make sure we don't get another WW, like the UN, military alliances and treaties, the IMF, etc. are now perceived as outdated, full of free riders soaking the American taxpayer.

As far as military alliances, Europe has seen to the decline in that status far more than the US.  The US has been doing the heavy lifting for decades while countries like Germany use the portions of their budget they would otherwise have to devote to the military to the "butter" side of the ledger.  But what are the real world consequences of this decline?  Is Europe going to ally itself with China or Russian?  Somehow I think not.  For all the pissing and moaning they do about us I can't see them latching on to those countries.  As for going it alone, good luck.  The nations in the EU are growing ever more fractious, with Italy, Austria and perhaps France and the Netherlands now leaning closer to the Eastern European nations that they are to Germany or Belgium.

Europe generally does not behave as a country, allying itself with whomever.  So I don't see a future in which "Europe" allies with Russia or China or the U.S. I do see a possible future in which a large number of European countries cooperate with Russia and China in ways that frustrate U.S. policy.

After WWII, the U.S. was in a unique position to enter into a military alliance with a number of European states to increase its protection, resources, and ability to project power.  The original purpose was to prevent the Soviet Union from entering a vacuum of power in Western Europe which would appear if the U.S. pulled back its troops and returned to isolationism, as it did after WWI.  The US wanted to do the "heavy lifting" of the alliance because of the leverage in leadership that went with it.  Claims Europeans free-ride tend not to factor in the costs to them and advantages to us of having bases in their countries for forward deployment.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, people questioned NATO's usefulness in world in which liberal democracy was now expected to proliferate.  After 9/11, after Putin snatched the Crimea and invaded Ukraine, and now that China is on its way to super power status, that questioning has subsided somewhat.  So it remains plain (at least to the US foreign policy establishment) that a US supported by NATO military and cooperating with the EU economically is a massive counterweight to countries who would impose a more authoritarian international order wherever possible.  The US and the EU/NATO are massive force enhancers for each other when it comes to setting the terms of international order.

Were the EU to fall apart and the US to back out of NATO, the "real world consequences" would be pretty bad for the liberal international order built after WW II. We would see more military conflict disruptive of trade--especially in the Middle East, but also Africa, and so more refugees. Millions more--and desperate breeding grounds for violent ideologies/actors.

The ability of the US/UN/EU to sanction countries like Russia, North Korea, Pakistan or Iran, or to police conflicts, would quickly become nil. 

I don't see a safer world here at all, with conflicts awaiting to erupt in the Far East, along the India-Pakistan border, and across multiple fault lines in the Middle East.  So what if we have enough oil, but the countries which constitute our foreign markets, like Japan and Germany, don't?