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Neurolimal posted:I'm skeptical that it will actually amount to anything, but the logic for ignoring the possibility of US intervention would likely be that the US is heavily aiding two wars, recovering from a third, with an incredibly unpopular president that likely doesn't want a third simultaneous war going on, with unimpressive or unreliable results in recent years backing distant war allies [that are fighting against a peer army]. Counting on US war weariness and public opinion is a risky bet because there's a clear record of the two-party duopoly taking America to war against domestic opinion regardless of who is in power or who wins the next election. Russia made this same miscalculation.
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Dec 5, 2023 02:27
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Silver2195 posted:Is there a clear record of this? I think basically every war the US was involved in since the invention of opinion polling had majority public support at the beginning. The fact that you found it necessary to add the bolded qualifier should tell you something, no? Public opinion on the Iraq War turned negative in 2004, yet the war dragged on for years regardless of public opinion (and in 2004 there was no real choice, both candidates were pro-war as usual). And do I need to even mention Vietnam And while the US government did successfully manufacture consent for the Iraq War at the beginning, that isn't actually a prerequisite for going to war. Public opinion was opposed to most of the interventions the US would eventually do in Libya, but they did it anyway. Same in Bosnia in the 1990s, and then Kosovo. And of course US public opinion is behind a permanent cease fire in Gaza but that hasn't stopped the US government from supplying weapons for mass slaughter there. Aside from blood for oil, American elites have ideological and geopolitical reasons to want to destroy Venezuela, and imo it would be very foolish of Maduro to disregard that and assume there'd be no will among the US to elites punish a country within America's sphere of influence. That's one of the miscalculations Russia made, right. Not the only one of course (they assumed they'd win the war in a few weeks apparently), but they also seem to have doubted the US government's ability to get its public opinion behind another war, or its ability to ignore public opinion, or both, and welp. So hopefully the referendum is just the usual nonsense of appealing to jingoism and nationalism to shore up support for the government, and not like a prelude to an invasion that would probably end in the US going Gulf War 1 on Venezuela. Silver2195 posted:The US itself is not actually at war at Russia, incidentally. The US itself has not actually been at war with anyone since Japan surrendered in '45 what's your point. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 02:38 on Dec 6, 2023 |
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Dec 6, 2023 02:28
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Silver2195 posted:The qualifier reflects your own words ("taking America to war against domestic opinion"). Fair enough, I didn't intend to exclude prolonging wars that became unpopular so could have worded that more carefully, but in any case, I provided you the examples you asked for. khwarezm posted:This is a completely ridiculous equivalence, thousands of American servicemen have died in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, none have died in Ukraine. This is true but I don't see how it's relevant. The US is spending a great deal of money fighting a proxy war against Russia, something that (imo) Russia erroneously gambled US planners would not have the ability and/or desire to do. I think it would be a mistake for Maduro to make a similar assumption. The nature of the war, whether US soldiers are dying, whether there was a formal declaration, etc don't affect my point as far as I can see.
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Dec 6, 2023 04:16
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mobby_6kl posted:
A proxy war is a type of war. The relevant question isn't whether the US is at war with Russia (it hasn't been at war with anyone in a very long time), or whether the US's involvement in the war rises to the level of police action, it's whether it makes sense to assume the US isn't able to intervene at all. Would you say the Soviet Union didn't have to worry about what America would do when it invaded Afghanistan since the proxy war America fought with them there wasnt the police actiony kind of war? It was obviously still a problem for them! Even if the US is only able to expel Venezuela from Guyana with a proxy war by putting together a regional coalition and supplying then without any American boots on the ground that would still be a problem for Maduro. I get the urge to score some kind of technical point on exact wording on the internet, but you're not even technically correct, here. A proxy war is a type of war, it's on the spectrum of involvement In a war that I was talking about being a possible concern for Maduro. E: And you don't have to take my word for it. Just ask Obama's secretary of defense: quote:“We are engaged in a conflict here. It’s a proxy war with Russia, whether we say so or not,” said Leon Panetta, the former CIA director and defense secretary under Barack Obama. “I think the only way to basically deal with Putin right now is to double down on ourselves, which means to provide as much military aid as necessary.” Speaking to Bloomberg News on March 17, Panetta laid out the U.S. strategy: “Make no mistake about it: Diplomacy is going nowhere unless we have leverage, unless the Ukrainians have leverage, and the way you get leverage is by, frankly, going in and killing Russians. That’s what the Ukrainians have to do. We’ve got to continue the war effort. This is a power game. Putin understands power; he doesn’t really understand diplomacy very much.” VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 12:25 on Dec 6, 2023 |
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Dec 6, 2023 11:50
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mobby_6kl posted:
Those responses were pointing out how facile the statement "the US itself is not actually at war with Russia" was in a discussion about whether the US is capable of intervening in a war at all. Most of the wars involving the US since 1945 weren't in the same universe as Vietnam. Elias_Maluco posted:Oh, Im pretty sure the USA could obliterate Venezuela. The whole south america if they wanted. Having a military budget bigger than the whole loving world added togheter has to be worth something. The question is: would be worthy? Probably not. Also, bombing the poo poo out of a weaker country is always easy, is what what to do after that is the hard part I think the US has reasons, both geopolitical and ideological to intervene. It's the hegemonic power in the Western Hemisphere and its control is weakened if countries there can defy it, invade their neighbors without US permission, etc. Bombing a nominally socialist country to smithereens to discourage support for socialism because look how bad people in socialist regimes suffer, etc. Unpopular presidents sometimes welcome a war before an election to distract from domestic problems and benefit from a rally around the flag effect. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 13:57 on Dec 6, 2023 |
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Dec 6, 2023 13:25
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Dek posted:Meanwhile in Argentina, Milei imposed a series of economic measures. Wow they actually voted to do to themselves what the IMF and the World Bank usually have to send the CIA in to force on people. Or 51% of them did, I really feel for the other 49% who tried to stop this
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Dec 14, 2023 20:57
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I never got why embassies have complete immunity from arrests. With how turbo-corrupt ambassadors are, really feels like it should be the opposite, arrest 'em as soon as they arrive.
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Apr 10, 2024 00:54
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