The frequently heard charge that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine violates ostensibly sacred international “norms” holds no water. No such norms exist — at least none that a great power will recognize as inhibiting its own freedom of action. For proof, we need look no further than the recent behavior of the United States which has routinely demonstrated a willingness to write its own norms while employing violence on a scale far exceeding anything that Russia has done or is likely to do.
All very much true, unfortunately. The way the US managed to fall into the oh-so seductive post-WWII destructive logic - first with the red scare and then multiple international indiscretions/violations of its own values because "whatever we do is ok, because we are the good guys" is probably the biggest factor inhibiting real international progress to a rules-based order. The US has basically given Russia and China carte blanche to do whatever they want in their own (self-defined) sphere of influence. All three of them are a huge impediment to progress.
That said, I still believe in the inherent values of the Enlightenment on which the US constitution is founded. If only the US had lived by them in its foreign policy post WWII we would be in a lot better state to counter autocratic regimes right now.
Since WWII at the very latest, we should have been living with the understanding that we are a global village. The completely autark nation state has long been made redundant, except in the minds of its rulers, it seems.
In Friedmanâs âhot, flat and crowdedâ world governed by tech-driven globalization, superpower land-grabs should have no place. The United States would enjoy unchallenged preeminence.
That Vladimir Putin has somehow not received the memo or has chosen to ignore its dictates is beyond flabbergasting. When it comes to audacity, Putin has demonstrated the sort of chutzpah that has long been a Friedman signature. But the sense of dismay akin to betrayal expressed by Friedman and other commentators is entirely manufactured.
In fact, Putin has acted in accordance with geopolitical imperatives that predate the modern era. Nation-states compete against one another to advance their own interests. Pursuant to that competition, they employ various means, with suasion typically the preferred option. Given the uncertainty inherent in war, along with the likelihood of unintended consequences and higher than expected costs, violence tends to be a last resort. But last resort does not mean never. In international politics, these are the enduring facts of life.
The frequently heard charge that Putinâs invasion of Ukraine violates ostensibly sacred international ânormsâ holds no water. No such norms exist â at least none that a great power will recognize as inhibiting its own freedom of action. For proof, we need look no further than the recent behavior of the United States which has routinely demonstrated a willingness to write its own norms while employing violence on a scale far exceeding anything that Russia has done or is likely to do.
So much propaganda we've lived with without questions and now it's turned sideways
As in the colonizing narratives of old, the invasion was presented as necessary, not connected to any strategic interests of the United States, but of a larger benevolent project (âOperation Iraqi Freedomâ in the second Gulf War) of bringing freedom and democracy to foreign lands. In the American imagination, they were not really aggressors, bombing another sovereign nation into the stone age, but magnanimous do-gooders trying to rid another a diseased foreign land from its affliction.
Now the hegemon is Russia. It does not occur to any American pundit dissecting the Russian assault on Ukraine that those American actions appeared just as cruel and even befuddling as Russian actions seem today. Why would the Russians bomb a kindergarten, someone on Twitter asked the other day? Well, why did the American military bomb innocent civilians, including seven children, on the outskirts of Kabul just a few months ago? Just as Americans eagerly gobbled up the fictions of their own benevolent intentions, so, too, must Russians believe the line that is told to them. Theirs is a âpeacekeepingâ mission in Ukraine, one that is geared toward preventing the genocide of ethnic Russians in the Donbas and Luhansk region. Putinâs propaganda isnât close to reality because the war propaganda of a hegemon never is.
Obama was between a rock and hard place in regards to Libya. The USA owed NATO allies in Europe. The Libya catastrophe is on the British and French*. Dumbasses...... Did the British and French not learn anything from failed US interventions?
Blowback: Weapons and violent Islamic movements have spread across the Sahel.
* Naturally, nobody listened to the Germans. Sigh.....
Ok, so I missed this until now. So what again is the question you impose on me here ? Please explain.
No question, just a comment that Obama really messed up in Libya, not because of the Benghazi bullshit but because he didn't stay the fuck out. One could also speculate that it was a substantial erosion of trust in America. What else could other nations conclude if someone gives up their nuke program and still gets ousted? Of course Trump continued that sorry trend with Iran and the Kurds.
eta: flagged you because you complain that people here won't criticize the democrats
The initial US-led coalition against Syria wrongly believed it would be a quick endeavor...
Obama really hosed this one up, as he did in Libya (no not Benghazi). Here's one for kurtster: Kadafi completely dismantled his uranium enrichment program but Obama had to send military support to his opposition instead of staying the f out. We know he really did dismantle the program because the uranium is sitting in Tennessee.
Ok, so I missed this until now. So what again is the question you impose on me here ? Please explain.
(... ) It is troubling to consider, given the questions raised here, that the evidence of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is at the heart of everything we think about nuclear weapons. This event is the bedrock of the case for the importance of nuclear weapons. It is crucial to their unique status, the notion that the normal rules do not apply to nuclear weapons. It is an important measure of nuclear threats: Trumanâs threat to visit a ârain of ruinâ on Japan was the first explicit nuclear threat. It is key to the aura of enormous power that surrounds the weapons and makes them so important in international relations.
But what are we to make of all those conclusions if the traditional story of Hiroshima is called into doubt? Hiroshima is the center, the point from which all other claims and assertions radiate out. Yet the story we have been telling ourselves seems pretty far removed from the facts. What are we to think about nuclear weapons if this enormous first accomplishment â the miracle of Japanâs sudden surrender â turns out to be a myth?
The initial US-led coalition against Syria wrongly believed it would be a quick endeavor...
Obama really hosed this one up, as he did in Libya (no not Benghazi). Here's one for kurtster: Kadafi completely dismantled his uranium enrichment program but Obama had to send military support to his opposition instead of staying the f out. We know he really did dismantle the program because the uranium is sitting in Tennessee.
While Joe Biden has faced some mild Congressional pushback for bombing the Iraq-Syria border, Tulsi Gabbard says her former colleagues are ignoring the larger issue: the ongoing US dirty war on Syria. After a decade of proxy warfare that empowered Al Qaeda and ISIS, the US is now occupying one-third of Syria and imposing crippling sanctions that are crushing Syriaâs economy and preventing reconstruction.
How can your book help BAR readers understand the current political and social climate?
David Vine: Most BAR readers probably donât need much help understanding the current climate, but I hope my book will contribute to both understanding and political action around the COVID-19 pandemic, the struggle for racial justice, and the militarization of U.S. life. With the pandemic, my book shows how the U.S. governmentâs disastrous COVID response is not simply the fault of the Trump administration. Responsibility for this disaster lies in no small part in the long history of U.S. wars. Decades of investment in war have come at the expense of investments in public health infrastructure and the broader health and welfare of the countryâs people. The Post-9/11 Wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, and beyond have cost U.S. taxpayers at least $6.4 trillion. A tiny fraction of those trillions could have saved countless lives by funding adequate supplies of PPE, testing and vaccine-production capacity, ventilators, and other public health tools.
I hope The United States of Warhelps show how U.S. wars have not provided protection but instead have made the country and the world less secure and more vulnerable to the real threats to our security. So too, I hope the book underlines the urgency of ending whatâs become a system of endless war.
As the BLM/M4BL protests have shown, the United Statesâ endless wars have been fought at home and abroad. The United States of War explains how extrajudicial police murders and other violence inflicted on Black and Latinx communities, Native Americans, other people of color, and the poor are intimately linked with the long history of American warfare waged almost exclusively against people of color, dating to independence and 1492. My book shows how the U.S. military, much like police forces, has largely served the interests of businesses and wealthy, mostly white, mostly male elites.
Far from undermining Middle East allies, Jeffrey said, Trump has sought âto build up our alliance system and basically stop nagging at them, show that Washington has their back including their domestic situations â they can do pretty much what they want, but theyâre going to have to step up and do things.â
