[Tainari88]

Supports my own speculation about China that it definitely has a strong interest in having influence over the -stan countries as its access to the west.

Countries many perhaps do not give much mind to in the west are of prime importance to the ambitions of China’s economic security.

The PRC is wanting to be equal in capabilities economically and militarily by nid century. The USA is seeming to accept that it will have to negotiate with the PRC and will have to be adjusting. One of the issues they point out in this interesting report from the Pentagon? Is that China is not spending the exaggerated amounts of defense wastage as the US does. It means they will invest in research and development and training.

In the end, the most important thing the USA can do to better its prospects is to unite and not polarize. Accept the new Americans are not going to be white people. And they will have to accept a USA that is much more diverse culturally, linguistically and historically than ever before in its history. Which is a multicultural view of the USA. Not the WASP version of its past. That is reality.

https://www.airandspaceforces.com/artic ... long-game/

The mega projects for infrastructure for Mexico is chugging along. The Tren Maya in my area of the world is happening folks. We were driving back from Campeche and the jungle is full of construction for that project. The PRC is in there, and it has headquarters in Mexico already. The train is going to be ready to go in December of 2023.

Here is the summation in Spanish.

[JohnRawls]

:eh:

What is that supposed to mean? They are indeed Western but not European or white( They are Asian ).

[Fasces]

You have to define your terms better. Japanese and South Koreans would be insulted to be called Western. They're aligned with the West, that doesn't make them a socially or culturally Western state.

Many consider it controversial whether Eastern Europe or Latin America is "Western" and here you are throwing Japan and Korea into it. shambles.

What on Earth do you mean by Western, then? Rich?

[JohnRawls]

You have to define your terms better. Japanese and South Koreans would be insulted to be called Western. They're aligned with the West, that doesn't make them a socially or culturally Western state.

Many consider it controversial whether Eastern Europe or Latin America is "Western" and here you are throwing Japan and Korea into it. shambles.

What on Earth do you mean by Western, then? Rich?

Western is a set of values, it is not cultural. European is cultural. Rule of law, democracy, tolerance, separation of power, human rights etc are Western values.

[Fasces]

[quote=“JohnRawls"]
Rule of law, democracy, tolerance, separation of power, human rights etc are Western values.[/quote]

So are colonialism, Catholicism, Nazism and nationalism.

In your world, when the early European explorers arrived as conquerors to North America and stumbled across the democratic confederation known as the Iroquois League, were the Iroquois Western and the Europeans not?

[JohnRawls]

[quote=“JohnRawls"]
Rule of law, democracy, tolerance, separation of power, human rights etc are Western values.

So are colonialism, Catholicism, Nazism and nationalism.

In your world, when the early European explorers arrived as conquerors to North America and stumbled across the democratic confederation known as the Iroquois League, were the Iroquois Western and the Europeans not?[/quote]

Western values are not static and values in general are not static so not sure what your argument is here. We do not have the same values we had 2000, 500 heck even 50 years ago. Also it is hard to determine when Western values appeared but I would say around the end of ww2 or start of cold war when world started being divided in 2-3 camps ( east, west and non-alligned ).

Although saying that they existed before is not a mistake also. Perhaps after ww2 and during cold war they have become more rigidly structured overall.

[JohnRawls]

So are colonialism, Catholicism, Nazism and nationalism. :


In your world, when the early European explorers arrived as conquerors to North America and stumbled across the democratic confederation known as the Iroquois League, were the Iroquois Western and the Europeans not?

Western values are not static and values in general are not static so not sure what your argument is here. We do not have the same values we had 2000, 500 heck even 50 years ago. Also it is hard to determine when Western values appeared but I would say around the end of ww2 or start of cold war when world started being divided in 2-3 camps ( east, west and non-alligned ).

Although saying that they existed before is not a mistake also. Perhaps after ww2 and during cold war they have become more rigidly structured overall.

[Fasces]

@JohnRawls the word for you want to describe is 'liberal democracy' you don't need to mutilate 'Western' to make it fit. No one will understand you if you do that.

ong as MAGAs don't take over. At least the US won't take us as far backwards as Russia/China would.

The US is the principal cause of this sort of national regression. Hegemonic status of the West is a historical aberration - 500 years of the last 10,000 - and is not permanently sustainable. The West needs to prepare for a world in which the global center of economics and political power are not in the West, but in Africa and Asia. They are failing. The US needs to show its commitment to a true international rules-based order, which means accepting that the rules will sometimes constrain their freedom to act. The US has refused to do so - they even have a law letting them bomb the International Criminal Court if they try to enforce human rights laws against Americans. Because of this, there is little trust in the validity of the rules based order or American hegemony in rising powers such as India, China, Nigeria, or others.

The West needs to accept the inevitability of the loss of its position of prestige and start setting the groundwork for an equitable world order that can replace it without devolving into petty regional fiefdoms, as you say. But I can't blame Russia or China for this, as they're not in the driver's seat.

[Unthinking Majority]

@Rich is the guy that thinks NATO should perform a thunder run right into red square from Poland.

What could go wrong?

[Unthinking Majority]

This is actually why China is able to fool people like some of our pofo members. It is true, China is interested in establishing it's regional empire mostly, but to maintain it's playground, it will need to manipulate/control/influence globally. Pofoers will say "you see! China doesn't want to establish a global hegemony!". However, what Xi wants still has negative global consequences. It seeks to send us back to an age of empires, an age of colonization and vassal states. An age where smaller nations must be colonies to regional empires in order to survive a meager existence. It is not forward looking. Russia has a similar mindset, but structurally, they are worse off than China. Hence, they are now becoming one of those colonies of China. I don't want that kind of world. IN short, giving China it's regional playground (i.e. empire), is bad for the whole world. It's not just bad for those in China's backyard, because to maintain it's own regional empire, China must establish a system that is underpinned by regional empires globally. Puerto Rico, may not be a colony of China in this case, but it will more strongly be a colony of the US under this system. Worse than it is today.

China wants more than to be a regional empire. They want as much power and ability to control the world as possible, not necessarily militarily, but economically and technologically, in order to secure their own interests and security as much as possible. Not much different than the US and the western alliance. The difference is that the leaders of the US and allies answer to their own people who are generally peace-loving, and corporations, while Russia and China are ruled by oligarchs and unaccountable dictators who could go nutty at any time with nothing to stop them as long as they have the loyalty of the men around them.

[Fasces]

The difference is that the leaders of the US and allies answer to their own people who are generally peace-loving, and corporations

You should take a gander at the first few pages of the Ukraine-Russia war thread to see those peace-lovers at work.

[Unthinking Majority]

@JohnRawls the word for you want to describe is 'liberal democracy' you don't need to mutilate 'Western' to make it fit. No one will understand you if you do that.



The US is the principal cause of this sort of national regression. Hegemonic status of the West is a historical aberration - 500 years of the last 10,000 - and is not permanently sustainable. The West needs to prepare for a world in which the global center of economics and political power are not in the West, but in Africa and Asia. They are failing. The US needs to show its commitment to a true international rules-based order, which means accepting that the rules will sometimes constrain their freedom to act. The US has refused to do so - they even have a law letting them bomb the International Criminal Court if they try to enforce human rights laws against Americans. Because of this, there is little trust in the validity of the rules based order or American hegemony in rising powers such as India, China, Nigeria, or others.

The West needs to accept the inevitability of the loss of its position of prestige and start setting the groundwork for an equitable world order that can replace it without devolving into petty regional fiefdoms, as you say. But I can't blame Russia or China for this, as they're not in the driver's seat.

The West has its share of them blame. But its not like the USSR were fair players either.

The US could have dropped nukes on Moscow and Beijing in 1945 and forced their surrender, destroyed communism immediately, demilitarized them, and turn them into vassal states like Japan, and expanded their territory into Mexico and wherever else they wanted. Instead they created the UN. The USSR quickly developed nukes and this started the Cold War.

[Fasces]

The West has its share of them blame. But its not like the USSR were fair players either.

I think that's a bit of an oversimplification. The USSR was equally responsible for creating the UN, and had FDR and Williams remained in office until 1945, I think there is a much that could have been done to avoid the Cold War because these parties had an understanding. Truman, Bynes, and Acheson, all die-hard anti communists, set the tone for things and pushed the USSR out, completely reversing course on US foreign policy in the early 40s. It's a problem that has plagued the State Department since. But we've had this rodeo before, no need to rehash it.

[Unthinking Majority]

[quote=“JohnRawls"]
Rule of law, democracy, tolerance, separation of power, human rights etc are Western values.

So are colonialism, Catholicism, Nazism and nationalism.

In your world, when the early European explorers arrived as conquerors to North America and stumbled across the democratic confederation known as the Iroquois League, were the Iroquois Western and the Europeans not?[/quote]
Pre-Columbus the Aztec Empire and Inca Empire did what they needed to survive in a dangerous and competitive world of limited resources. So did European empires, the US, USSR, and now China.

Hitler took it too far, like when the Aztec warriors or American soldiers raped women or murdered a village for no good reason, because when you give people power many of them act like assholes. Unlimited power means unlimited asshole potential, like Hitler and Stalin. The only thing that stopped Trump from turning into Putin was that the American people are ultimately in control in that system.

[Unthinking Majority]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7s5pT3Rris&ab_channel=TheProgressiveMagazine

You should take a gander at the first few pages of the Ukraine-Russia war thread to see those peace-lovers at work.

John McCain didn't win the election, Obama did. The nutjob bloodthirsty base of the GOP are, thankfully, not the majority and not the swing voters that decide elections.

Most regular people want security and will support a fight if they think they need it to protect themselves, but generally don't want to go to war. The children of politicians aren't the ones sent to fight them. ie George W Bush tricked Americans through lies that the Iraq War was necessary. Muhammad Ali would have disappeared in a jail cell probably forever if he lived in China or Putin's Russia because they don't typically allow protest that goes against the government's agenda.

[Unthinking Majority]

I think that's a bit of an oversimplification. The USSR was equally responsible for creating the UN, and had FDR and Williams remained in office until 1945, I think there is a much that could have been done to avoid the Cold War because these parties had an understanding. Truman, Bynes, and Acheson, all die-hard anti communists, set the tone for things and pushed the USSR out, completely reversing course on US foreign policy in the early 40s. It's a problem that has plagued the State Department since. But we've had this rodeo before, no need to rehash it.

FDR wasn't going to rule forever. What understanding, that communism was never going to expand and the USSR would never obtain nukes and have the US maintain nuclear hegemony? That wasn't going to last decades.

[Tainari88]

@Unthinking Majority how many years was the USA involved in its war with Afghanistan? Nearly 20 years. And the USA killed thousands of tribes in North America that were Native tribes of North America. They invaded almost every country from the Latin American group of nations. Africa was not colonized because according to historians the Europeans had sliced up Africa among themselves and due to its proximity to the USA, the USA stated as long as the Europeans with rare exceptions kept its hands off of Latin America, the USA would not be interfering in the European division of the African continent. No, UM, the USA is very very imperial. It is the only nation on the face of the Earth to Atom bomb another nation. The only one.

If it had dropped a bomb on Mexico and or Canada? To force compliance? Would you have thought them the fair and just Empire?

The USA has issues with shootings. Partly in my opinion because it has used violence to resolve conflicts in interests during its entire history practically. It went to war to declare its independence from England. It went to war to acquire more territories and expand westward. It went to war with each other...in the American Civil War. It wen to war with Mexico for more land. It went to war to get colonies in the Spanish American war. It went to war in WWI, a very unpopular war, it went to war in WWII, in a European conflict that encompassed Asia. It dropped the two A bombs. It went to war with Korea, with Vietnam, with Iraq with lies about WMDs that never existed, it went to war in Afghanistan, it has been at war for almost all of its history. Yet they are the peace loving nation?

Russia has a bloody past as well. So does Japan, and the Chinese were a bunch of different dynasties with in fighting and yet China is the center of a lot of influence on a cultural level on the rest of Asia.

But, to believe that the USA is the peaceful culture? Hell, they just had another shooting at a high school I attended in the early eighties where two staff were killed and the kid then went and committed suicide. Those shootings are getting so common that they are becoming commonplace. There is nothing damn normal about schools becoming scenes of bloody death and gore.

Mexico is full of drug crime violence. But schools are not. It is restricted to a corrupt drug criminal cartel. The USA is about random crazy shootings. Over what?

The culture is about resolving conflict with deadly weapons. The Right to Bear Arms is becoming the Right to Resolve Conflict with War.

There has to be a cultural change in the USA and there has to be an acceptance of other world players being involved in the negotiations of power. On all levels. It is best to have more than one powerful nation. It is best to have a multipolar world. It is like banks. You do not want a too big to fail bank being the ONLY BANK and it is HUGE making all the decisions. You need to break up those too big to fail monopolization of power....and break it up into manageable pieces. Especially with nuclear threats. Got to have it dispersed. Otherwise if there is too much concentration of power in one nation only and the rest of the world has to be bullied into oppressive relationships there is no counterbalancing going on to keep the violence and overreactions at bay.

Multi-polarity is actually a better safety system than just one superpower dictating and spreading itself too thin....

[wat0n]

Wasn't the world multipolar in the 19th century? It seems to me like it wasn't all that safe, even if war never got as bad as it got in the 18th century (with the Seven Years' War AKA WW0.5) or the 20th century (self explanatory, I would also say the world was pretty multipolar in the first half of that century - easily the most violent one).

[Unthinking Majority]

Multi-polarity is actually a better safety system than just one superpower dictating and spreading itself too thin....

Multipolarity led to WWI and WWII and the Cold War. The US hasn't been messing with Latin American governments for the last 30 years at the level it did during the Cold War.

If the world can't live in peace I want to be on the side that's more powerful and safe, and have it controlled by democracies and not dictators.

[Tainari88]

Multipolarity led to WWI and WWII and the Cold War. The US hasn't been messing with Latin American governments for the last 30 years at the level it did during the Cold War.

If the world can't live in peace I want to be on the side that's more powerful and safe, and have it controlled by democracies and not dictators.

Corrupted democracies are not democracies. Democracies are fragile if you do not protect the core of it. If you allow the plutocrats to dictate all of the politicians policies it is not a functioning democracy UM. The Right in the USA is actively seeking to disenfranchise voters.

For me the Right in the USA is anti-democratic. Both parties are sellout parties with zero real democratic practices. And again, unless they stop that behavior there is nothing of democracy left.

Dictators are out there and so are kings and queens. If you want the entire world to be what? Liberal democracies like the USA has? The reality is that the liberal parts are few. And the democratic process has been seriously dissipated and no one has been actively seeking to respect self-determination and democratic practices for a long long time in the foreign policy of the USA. If you study what the US government says it stands for abroad and what it actually winds up doing? Are totally contradictory. It is not bringing democracy and prosperity to the nations it invades to bring American style democracy to the ignorant peoples. It is not leaving behind any of those nations recently it has been at war with as liberal democracies has it? Afghanistan? Iraq? I see American democracy in the Taliban and the Iraqi Freedom Campaign. I do not think so.