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Cyrano4747 posted:I mean, it took a pretty swift kick in the balls in 2003, but yeah poo poo went from "oh wow, an engine flamed out" to "oh gently caress the wings fell off."  Figure 1: US Foreign policy, 2017
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Oct 12, 2019 02:17
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Stravag posted:Honestly I would be all in favor of Isreal'ing the Kurds their own state complete with billions in financial and hardware aid every year for free Agreed Actually, Israel would probably be greatly in favor of Israel'ing the Kurds
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Oct 12, 2019 02:22
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Overnight abandonment is bad and I agree with that - but we still have the problem: if the Kurds were going to be steamrolled as soon as the US left, there's no way out, right? The US would have to maintain a permanent presence to protect the Kurds. Likewise, the Afghan government will collapse as soon as the US leaves. Again, the US is abandoning allies to their inevitable doom (death or otherwise). So, what's the solution? An ever growing list of client states with US protection is both unwise and unrealistic (American politics are only going to get more isolationist, not less, as the Social Security / Medicare crisis hit). The attitude that the US must stand with every ally to the utmost is also the recipe for the endless overseas commitments that have decisively corrupted American politics. It furthermore encourages every ethnic group to try and get US support at whatever cost in order to gain their independence. (Yay moral hazard) There isn't a good solution. As a genuine question, is Erdogan planning genocide, ethnic cleansing, or political repression?
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Oct 12, 2019 02:47
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Sperglord posted:As a genuine question, is Erdogan planning genocide, ethnic cleansing, or political repression? The term they used is "correcting demographics." Also how is ethnic cleansing different from genocide?
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Oct 12, 2019 03:14
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Sperglord posted:if the Kurds were going to be steamrolled as soon as the US left, there's no way out, right? I continue to think that's a pretty big "if". The Kurds are well armed, well experienced, and have been doing this for a very long time. I'm sure they think it's nice that the latest superpower to wander into the region shared some interests with them, but I doubt it's necessary for their survival.
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Oct 12, 2019 03:17
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McNally posted:The term they used is "correcting demographics." The extent i think? Maybe just numbers? Or it could be a ethnic cleansing is just in this area and genocide is wherever you can find them? Honestly i don't know if there's a difference and i fell lovely from being able to come up with those. The fact that we have multiple words for the practice is disheartening
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Oct 12, 2019 03:22
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McNally posted:The term they used is "correcting demographics." There is significant overlap between the two. As I recall from university courses, ethnic cleansing might pertain to the killing of an "Other" group in a specific region rather than the whole of the group itself. Genocide is the extermination of an ethnic group in its entirety. E; FB
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Oct 12, 2019 03:24
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McNally posted:The term they used is "correcting demographics." Formally genocide intends to destroy an entire people's existence, ethnic cleansing removes from a territory. In holocaust terms its death camps vs madagascar plan
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Oct 12, 2019 03:26
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McNally posted:The term they used is "correcting demographics." Genocide has a very specific definition under UN convention - basically, targeting a specific group for death based on religion/ethnicity/politics/other reason. There's probably more but I can't remember offhand. Ethnic cleansing does not, so if a leader is accused of ethnic cleansing (see: Rohingya in Myanmar right now) it begets a different, more muted international condemnation vs. a genocide that generally requires direct intervention. It comes down to what is codified in international law vs. what isn't. How it's functionally different is a matter of debate, but generally speaking it comes down to repression/relocation/not killing them (at least not directly). EFB by hobbesmaster
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Oct 12, 2019 03:27
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If this is getting too into politics territory, I'll delete it - But the whole US thing of every four to eight years, someone can come in and nullify treaties/military protection/whatever, as has happened heavily over the past term, is going to erode our international reputation down to a nub. How are we ever going to be able to convincingly bring adversaries into treaties with us? I'm more hawkish than your average dude, but I also think diplomacy, diplomacy, and more diplomacy is the way to run the world.
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Oct 12, 2019 03:57
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Captain Log posted:If this is getting too into politics territory, I'll delete it - Because generally the treaties and agreements aren't nullified and are held to reasonably well. That is why the US has such a long list of allies. The Trump administration has been pretty uhhh... unorthodox with regards to foreign policy.
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Oct 12, 2019 04:05
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Hey, look on the bright side, Australia will literally never not follow you into stupid forever wars no matter how much dumb poo poo you do!
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Oct 12, 2019 04:07
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Warbadger posted:Because generally the treaties and agreements aren't nullified and are held to reasonably well. That is why the US has such a long list of allies. The Trump administration has been pretty uhhh... unorthodox with regards to foreign policy. The only example (until the current administration) I can think of for a President undermining his predecessor on foreign policy is Nixon and LBJ over Vietnam. I'm probably wrong, and of course there have been policy shifts, but yeah, these are weird times for the US.
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Oct 12, 2019 04:09
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It's not just that - there has been a brain drain of the US State Department that will easily take 50 years or more to fix. The State Dept. was always seen as a (more or less) apolitical government agency where some of the country's best and brightest took a GS pay grade doing work they could've been paid 3-5x more for, or worked pro bono simply for the ability to say the US Government and State Department values their expertise and input on their CV. After Trump, the State Dept. will forever be tainted as just another entity to pack with "your tribe," and it will take a lot to convince future career diplomats to risk starting a career in Foreign Service with another future administration who might treat them like disposable interns and ~big gubbermint~ wastes of spending. At the rate we're going, what the State Dept. used to do as a simple function of its existence will need to be outsourced to private firms who see diplomacy as just another line item on a quarterly earning sheet, and whose loyalties and discretion will be *way* more easily compromised.
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Oct 12, 2019 04:14
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BIG HEADLINE posted:It's not just that - there has been a brain drain of the US State Department that will easily take 50 years or more to fix. The State Dept. was always seen as an apolitical government agency where some of the country's best and brightest took a GS pay grade doing work they could've been paid 3-5x more for, or worked pro bono simply for the ability to say the US Government and State Department values their expertise and input on their CV. After Trump, the State Dept. will forever be tainted as just another entity to pack with "your tribe," and it will take a lot to convince future career diplomats to risk another administration who will treat them like disposable interns and ~big gubbermint~ wastes of spending. It's less that it was completely disassembled and more that the administration doesn't really care what it says and is constantly bouncing back and forth on policy to the point it's incoherent. I know a some people who left, more who stayed - at least on the foreign service side. That isn't to say a lot of experienced and overall excellent people weren't lost, but I still think things will turn around reasonably quickly with a sane administration leading things. Edit: Basically imagine the greatest minds of a generation trying to convince a cranky 2 year old not to shove a fork into an electric socket over the phone and you've got a reasonably good idea of what's going on. Warbadger fucked around with this message at 04:28 on Oct 12, 2019 |
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Oct 12, 2019 04:18
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McNally posted:The term they used is "correcting demographics." That is one hell of a euphemism
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Oct 12, 2019 04:21
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BIG HEADLINE posted:It's not just that - there has been a brain drain of the US State Department that will easily take 50 years or more to fix. The state department under multiple presidents has basically pursued its own policy independent of the administration and that's why so much foreign policy has been shifted onto the military: they do what they're told. quote:The State Dept. was always seen as a (more or less) apolitical government agency where some of the country's best and brightest Not my impression
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Oct 12, 2019 04:28
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Hauldren Collider posted:The brain drain is the fix. The state department has, imo, long been full of people who are basically not in favor of American foreign policy success. The military has not been a good tool of US foreign policy. A big reason why US foreign policy has been a trash fire since 2003 has been various war hawks and generals successfully selling to politicians that foreign policy problems have a kinetic solution. The result has been a decade of mis-allocated resources and a total failure to successfully advance the foreign policy aims of the US. You cannot point to Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, etc and claim success driven by the military intervention. Now, I don't blame the US military at large for this. The bigger problem is that they have been sent into theater after theater with no clear objective or frame of engagement. I will very firmly blame the hawks and generals who pushed to sideline, de-fund, and denigrate the state department for over a decade because their solutions and approaches were not macho enough and didn't involve the use of enough ordnance. The state department has desperately worked to keep things more or less on even keel despite what has been going down in various places. The Army is very, very good at doing what they are told and clearing a battlefield. Unfortunately that has meant that they have been dutifully doing the wrong thing as asked to by their superiors.
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Oct 12, 2019 04:45
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Munin posted:The military has not been a good tool of US foreign policy. A big reason why US foreign policy has been a trash fire since 2003 has been various war hawks and generals successfully selling to politicians that foreign policy problems have a kinetic solution. The result has been a decade of mis-allocated resources and a total failure to successfully advance the foreign policy aims of the US. You cannot point to Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, etc and claim success driven by the military intervention. I agree with you halfway here in that ideally we'd have a State department for diplomatic things and a military for military things but the reality is that State has been inmates running the asylum for a long time and they just were at best wasting time on nonsense in random third world countries with no oversight and at worst actively working against policy from elected officials.
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Oct 12, 2019 04:48
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I also feel that the military has been bad about saying "It's not really my job to suggest political solutions, buuuuut" and then suggesting political solutions that are also heavy on military poo poo. This has been partially a result of absence of policy and state dept/admin influence, but also just comfort creating one's own sphere of influence.
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Oct 12, 2019 05:42
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mlmp08 posted:I also feel that the military has been bad about saying "It's not really my job to suggest political solutions, buuuuut" and then suggesting political solutions that are also heavy on military poo poo. This has been partially a result of absence of policy and state dept/admin influence, but also just comfort creating one's own sphere of influence. Do you think that is an outgrowth of the service-worship that seems to be prevalent in a lot of America?
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Oct 12, 2019 05:52
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I just don't know how anyone enters into negotiations with the US with any sort of good faith in the future. Even if you have a more competent administration and what that entails diplomatically, you're only a few years at max from someone that's going to roll in and upend it all for no real reason and you're back to square one.
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Oct 12, 2019 06:02
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Sperglord posted:Wait, so the US should pursue nation-building for the Kurds? That seems to be the general consensus here. The Kurds were doing their own nation-building just fine, they only need to not have the Turks or the Assad regime stomping around doing nation-destroying. Sperglord posted:Overnight abandonment is bad and I agree with that - but we still have the problem: if the Kurds were going to be steamrolled as soon as the US left, there's no way out, right? The US would have to maintain a permanent presence to protect the Kurds. There's still a permanent US presence in countries like Belgium and South Korea. Warbadger posted:It's not so much a matter of the US pulling out. That was eventually going to happen. It's how the pullout was conducted in the shittiest and most underhanded way possible completely out of the blue. Yep. It's not just that the forces pulled out, it's that before they shared with Turkey all their intel about where YPG bases were and got the Kurds to dismantle fortifications. Guest2553 posted:And those who still call themselves allies. Don't forget about us~ When Trump was asked about whether he feared the jihadists held in captivity by the Kurds would be set free by Turkey's meddling, his reply was "lol who cares they won't go to the US they'll go to Europe".
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Oct 12, 2019 07:16
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Captain von Trapp posted:Erdogan has explicitly threatened it.
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Oct 12, 2019 07:59
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Cat Mattress posted:
Yeah I don't get it. US foreign policy is demanding military bases all over the world and then complaining about how that costs them money. Does the US want to be the global hegemon or not?
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Oct 12, 2019 08:33
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Fearless posted:Do you think that is an outgrowth of the service-worship that seems to be prevalent in a lot of America? Maybe? It's probably easier to muddle along somewhere and say "just trust the military" than it is to muddle along somewhere and say "this is my political vision." Both are not good answers, but the former puts up the shield of disingenuously letting an admin say that talking poo poo about the policy = talking poo poo about the military.
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Oct 12, 2019 10:15
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Turkey shelled a prison that held a bunch of isis fighters. Held. Past tense. They're out now.
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Oct 12, 2019 12:44
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Memento posted:Turkey shelled a prison that held a bunch of isis fighters. "The enemy of my enemy is my enemies' ally's problem." 
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Oct 12, 2019 13:49
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Captain Log posted:But the whole US thing of every four to eight years, someone can come in and nullify treaties/military protection/whatever They can't, not unilaterally, unless Congress lets them. If Congress actually thought it was important, they've had the last three administrations and umpteen years to actually exercise their Article I powers and authorize military action ratify a treaty or direct expenses on the behalf of whomever. They very pointedly haven't, in a bipartisan way. Doesn't stop them from yelling and posturing, of course.
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Oct 12, 2019 13:51
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Captain von Trapp posted:They can't, not unilaterally, unless Congress lets them. If Congress actually thought it was important, they've had the last three administrations and umpteen years to actually exercise their Article I powers and authorize military action ratify a treaty or direct expenses on the behalf of whomever. They very pointedly haven't, in a bipartisan way. This is probably the biggest issue. Foreign policy isn't supposed to be run as the domain of the executive. They have powers to speak and negotiate on behalf of the country, of course, but supposedly Congress is the one that needs to actually ratify treaties and the like. Once that's done it becomes law of the land. Congress has been notably absent from pretty much anything foreign policy related for gently caress near 40 years.
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Oct 12, 2019 14:19
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edit: nevermind.
Cyrano4747 fucked around with this message at 14:48 on Oct 12, 2019 |
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Oct 12, 2019 14:21
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Fearless posted:Do you think that is an outgrowth of the service-worship that seems to be prevalent in a lot of America? No...it is a direct consequence of the military trying very hard to take a more holistic approach to conflict. Think during the World Wars/Cold War military, things were either WAR or NOT WAR, and the military's concern was the WAR side. Nowadays, the DOD is trying to look at things on a big giant spectrum ranging from "is our best friend" to "global thermonuclear war" and everything in between. So, one can have conflict, and meaningfully participate in said conflict, with not a shot being fired. The issue of course is this puts the DOD well into the fiefdoms of other parts of the government.
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Oct 12, 2019 14:26
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Cyrano4747 posted:Do you have any sources on this or is this just your opinion? Because it runs counter to a lot of what I've seen and read about how state department officials work, both in terms of grand US diplomacy and in terms of every day embassy-level bullshit. I do work with several people who used to be in State and I think they mostly corroborate it although are less pessimistic and negative. I think I can make a higher effort post on why I feel this way in a bit, but I should warn everyone that I have one of the most contrarian viewpoints possible
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Oct 12, 2019 14:31
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bewbies posted:No...it is a direct consequence of the military trying very hard to take a more holistic approach to conflict. Interestingly, there was a pretty big fight over that following WW2. the War Department flat out insisted that occupation policy was an outgrowth of war and hence their domain, while meanwhile it very quickly started to become a political issue as the cold war heated up and people began to think about occupation as rehabilitation of a potential ally more than militarily preventing the old foe from re-emerging, which put it right into State's ballpark. It also didn't help that a lot of military structure was really, really not well suited to policy making. A good example of this that I'm very familiar with is the attempts to rehabilitate German education. The guy in charge of the Education and Religious Affairs division (they were co-mingled in Germany going back a century before this) was only a Major. He was all onboard for trying to make German schools not suck and produce kids who weren't Nazis, but as a major he had basically zero pull in the occupation hierarchy and had difficulty doing things like getting textbooks printed for German schools. Educational policy was a huge issue and it really improved once State took over in . .. 47 I think? 48?
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Oct 12, 2019 14:35
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Captain von Trapp posted:They can't, not unilaterally, unless Congress lets them. If Congress actually thought it was important, they've had the last three administrations and umpteen years to actually exercise their Article I powers and authorize military action ratify a treaty or direct expenses on the behalf of whomever. They very pointedly haven't, in a bipartisan way. Yelling and posturing is how they keep their jobs with the less important of their two constituencies, the voters. Now that there's no more pork barrel spending and Congress basically does not do anything anymore*, yelling and posturing is how Congressmen show the voters that they are on the same team. The more important of their constituencies is of course the massively wealthy entities that pay them their (legal) bribes. *It's been eleven years since the last major legislative package passed Congress. They don't even pass a budget. To take a broader perspective, this is converging in everyone with power's interests. Congress doesn't want to wield power, because it's very difficult and they need to spend all their time raising money anyway. It's much easier to sponsor whatever legislation your lobbyists hand to you, and there's not much chance of it getting passed on the national level anyway so best not to waste too much time there. It is a better use of your time to posture and yell and travel the country getting wealthy people and organizations to bribe you. This suits the entities who already control most of the country through economic means just fine, because Congress being totally unresponsive to popular sentiment is a great state of affairs if you're a deeply unpopular multinational like Deutsche Bank or Exxon. Foreign policy is just a sideshow. The people who actually run Congress don't care what happens in Syrian Kurdistan. Donald Trump being the executive is embarrassing for people at Goldman but its preferable to someone like Obama or God forbid Sanders or Warren who might actually try to do something. Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 14:42 on Oct 12, 2019 |
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Oct 12, 2019 14:40
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OK, we're diving right into domestic US politics in a way that is tangentially related at best to the whole Kurd situation. I"m going to draw a line under this before it gets dumb. I fully cop to being part of it getting here, so I'm not an innocent either, but the trajectory isn't looking good. Move on to something else, like what version of the F15 was coolest. Did you know that the main cannon for the Eurofighter Typhoon is made by Mauser? I like that airplane a whole lot more now.
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Oct 12, 2019 14:46
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Cyrano4747 posted:...like what version of the F15 was coolest. Streak Eagle. The facto that there hasn’t been a Streak Raptor is a loving crime.
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Oct 12, 2019 15:06
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You can't polish RAM composites to a mirror shine so it just wouldn't be the same.
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Oct 12, 2019 15:08
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Cyrano4747 posted:OK, we're diving right into domestic US politics in a way that is tangentially related at best to the whole Kurd situation. I"m going to draw a line under this before it gets dumb. I fully cop to being part of it getting here, so I'm not an innocent either, but the trajectory isn't looking good. Move on to something else, like what version of the F15 was coolest. Supposedly the old Saab Viggen crew had a higher opinion about the french DEFA 553(?) 30mm than of said Mauser BK 27mm that replaced it on the Gripen. Really wish I had a link handy, but maybe TheFluff would have a better quality source anyway? And all F15s are boring. Give me a soviet aerodynamic wonder, a haughty french special, a british ...thing, or a canadian sorrow any day instead 
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Oct 12, 2019 15:21
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Cyrano4747 posted:This is probably the biggest issue. Foreign policy isn't supposed to be run as the domain of the executive. They have powers to speak and negotiate on behalf of the country, of course, but supposedly Congress is the one that needs to actually ratify treaties and the like. Once that's done it becomes law of the land. Congress has been notably absent from pretty much anything foreign policy related for gently caress near 40 years. Bingo, it's something a lot of insiders even have become concerned about. Particularly after the current example of "what if we elect an idiot after we take all the brakes off", of course. I would be hopeful but congress remains a garbage fire more interested in fringe partisan issues than the day to day running of the country. Warbadger fucked around with this message at 16:39 on Oct 12, 2019 |
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Oct 12, 2019 16:36
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