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[Lyn Farel]

I think you are misinterpreting my presentation as wanting to maintain the alliance.  I honestly don't.

I want the United States to pull out of the Middle East and Europe and withdraw from NATO and withdraw forces from the Korean Peninsula, Japan, and Australia.

I want the United States to focus on defense of its borders and not worry about North African or Middle Eastern dictators or a resurgent Russia.

I want to reduce US Military spending by 50%.

I was presenting data as to why western European leaders are interested in maintaining the Alliance.

Then I misinterpreted and you have my apologies.

This. I am a nationalist, as in, I want what is best for my nation, largely because I'm in it. But, frankly, I'm tired of the United States either carrying the burden for other countries, or trying to "help" them. The United States, has the economic capability to be the most powerful and pre-eminent nation in the world without firing a shot, and we can stay that way for a long, long time if we don't keep bleeding ourselves out with pointless alliances, worthless (for us) military actions, and ham-fisted attempts at "nation-building". If Russian wants to pave a highway for their tanks through London and Paris (and they don't), the only care we should have is whether they'll buy asphalt from us. And if China decides to take over Japan, Korea, and Australia (and they won't), we should see if they'd like to buy yachts for all those new harbors.

Trying to be the policeman of the world was a terrible idea. Trying to be unselfish and a civilizing force was a terrible idea. Trying to take advantage of the uncivilized, when we did, was a terrible idea. For the most part, trying to keep your own corner of the map from going to hell is the best you can do.

Well yeah, I would rather say "had the economic capability to be the most powerful and pre-eminent nation in the world" considering how your economy looks like these days. You don't think too high of yourselves, don't you ?

"Being unselfish and a civilizing force". Yeah well, if we are here to fall into cheap shots and insufferable comments, coming from a reactionnary 300 years old country with close to no culture, well, yeah, let's talk about "civilization". You see, that's the kind of comment that I would rather like to avoid and this is precisely why I bet you whatever you want that even with a thread split, this topic is already doomed to be catacombed.

At least we agree on the fact that the wars you started only brought you hatred and a terrible reputation.

Also, I really doubt that even Russia has the power to devastate Europe without being devastated itself.

[Ken]

Well yeah, I would rather say "had the economic capability to be the most powerful and pre-eminent nation in the world" considering how your economy looks like these days. You don't think too high of yourselves, don't you ?

I'll just leave this here...

[Desiderya]

I was presenting data as to why western European leaders are interested in maintaining the Alliance.

It always goes both ways. The US was taking part in a lot of conflicts since WW2, claiming that this international presence ( Or "demonstrating a capacity and willingness to project power across its borders since 1945", to re-use one of your lines ) was done for the benefit of european countries is mindboggling. There was european support in afghanistan and iraq, too.


@Ken: This looks like the graphs from my Civ4 matches.
But yeah, there's a vast difference between economic power of a nation and the distribution of wealth in the populace. We're seeing the same disparity between rich and poor in Germany, where essentially the middle class gets eradicated. Some make it and profit, most slowly fall down.

[Natalcya Katla]

There is no such thing as an unselfish act in international politics. Never has been, never will be. I say this as a Norwegian, whose country has specialized in appearing unselfish on the international stage. Anyone, anywhere, who sincerely believes that their country has ever helped anyone anywhere else in the world without a thought of "what's in it for us" had better wipe the rosy tint off their glasses.

That said, as a European student of American history, it irritates me how many otherwise intelligent Europeans stubbornly cling to the idiotic idea that America somehow magically appeared out of a cultural and historical vacuum sometime during the 1770s, and that the country therefore has almost nothing in the way of history and culture. It doesn't help, of course, that American history and culture is habitually misrepresented by American media and people in the public eye (no, Christine O'Donnell, Thomas Jefferson's contemporaries would not have labeled him "conservative"), but the culture and history is certainly there, and readily visible to anybody who bothers to actually take a look. You might still come away not liking the culture - that does not mean it does not exist.

On a related note, any muppet who believes that America has been somehow culturally "tainting" Europe since the end of WW2 had best put a sock in it, too. Some (again, otherwise intelligent) people seem to have this bizarre idea that Europe used to be  a society of ladies and gentlemen who would spend their leisure time reading and discussing Göthe, right up until Donald Duck came along and ruined it all. I'm sorry, but the number of opinionated European intellectuals has not been decreasing since then, and the British Gin Craze of the 18th century is far more representative of historical grassroots European culture than Socrates and Aristotle ever were.

[/rant.]

[Vikarion]

Well yeah, I would rather say "had the economic capability to be the most powerful and pre-eminent nation in the world" considering how your economy looks like these days. You don't think too high of yourselves, don't you ?

That the United States is the most economically powerful nation in the world by orders of magnitude isn't a boast. It's simply a "brute fact", as it were. Yes, there's been a recent downturn, but the reality is that the U.S. has experienced quite a few of these, and this one is likely to be no more serious.

"Being unselfish and a civilizing force". Yeah well, if we are here to fall into cheap shots and insufferable comments, coming from a reactionnary 300 years old country with close to no culture, well, yeah, let's talk about "civilization". You see, that's the kind of comment that I would rather like to avoid and this is precisely why I bet you whatever you want that even with a thread split, this topic is already doomed to be catacombed.

That remark was made with a taste of irony, actually. It is true, by the way, that the U.S. is a civilizing force compared to, say, the Taliban or other, similar organizations. It is also true that our attempts to build Afghanistan and help other countries that offer us no real advantage in return qualify as unselfish behavior (I don't mean "charitable". I mean that the primary motivation in those cases is fairly humanitarian in intention). My argument, however, is that you can't make democracy work, you can only hope people want it to, and that such attempts to create better countries usually backfire.

I don't pretend to care about whether the U.S. has a "good culture" in the eyes of other countries. I don't think it matters. As for "reactionary", the only way that that label can be made to stick is if we compare the United States to a select few countries, say, Sweden, Denmark, France, Germany, and Norway. When compared to the greater whole of mankind, the United States is a very liberal and free nation. When negative rights are considered - the right to free speech, assembly, religion, etc., the U.S. is probably the best in the world. That doesn't necessarily make it the most liberal nation out there or the best place for anyone to live, but it is definitely high on the list.

As for being catacombed, I think that most people in this thread have been very civilized on a touchy subject. If you would like to prevent "issues", you have the power to moderate your own tone.

At least we agree on the fact that the wars you started only brought you hatred and a terrible reputation.

Reputation and hatred mean very little in international politics. If the United States could ensure peace and prosperity for itself by being feared and hated, as Rome did, I would advocate that. International relations is a game of sharks, so trying to be "liked" is a fools errand. But there is no need for the United States to be hated, nor any reason for us to try to make others love us. Such things should be irrelevant to us - we should be concentrating on what is best for the United States.

Also, I really doubt that even Russia has the power to devastate Europe without being devastated itself.

Even weakened, Russia has the capability to take on any one European country without much fuss. But I doubt that they would. Still, remember that what we are talking about here are not the more western countries of Europe, but the Baltic and eastern European ones, like Lithuania, Georgia, Ukraine, and etc. Those are more of a tempting target.

My point is that NATO was established to keep a rather unpleasant regime in Moscow from deciding to take a stroll through Paris. It's unlikely that that will happen at this point, very unlikely indeed, and the United States has no self interest in containing Russia.

[GoGo Yubari]

That said, as a European student of American history, it irritates me how many otherwise intelligent Europeans stubbornly cling to the idiotic idea that America somehow magically appeared out of a cultural and historical vacuum sometime during the 1770s, and that the country therefore has almost nothing in the way of history and culture. It doesn't help, of course, that American history and culture is habitually misrepresented by American media and people in the public eye (no, Christine O'Donnell, Thomas Jefferson's contemporaries would not have labeled him "conservative"), but the culture and history is certainly there, and readily visible to anybody who bothers to actually take a look. You might still come away not liking the culture - that does not mean it does not exist.

That goes into the same bin as France's supposed lack of military achievements, I'd say. While we're at it, I'd say the United States had some very defining cultural characteristics when the nation was conceived which certainly continued to give it flavor for a long time. Despite it being often considered a hodge podge mixture of cultures, you'd have to initially consider it very English in flavor at the leadership level without ignoring the strong current of liberty that goes back into the French Revolution. Lots of great ideas were being advanced back then and there. Too bad a lot of them have been forgotten by today and are often grossly misrepresented to stir populist fervor when not forgotten.

An American culture has continued to develop for three hundred years which isn't exactly a short time for a limited lifespan human living right now. For those that think that it is, it should be wise to remember that the birth of the United States was not a total cultural reset either and the immigrants carried their own cutural identities with them without being mindwiped at the border, just as the ideas of the Founding Fathers in plotting the nation's course had already taken time to develop over the course of history.

As a country with a consistent government, it is one of the longest serving on the planet. That gets forgotten often as well. Most of the other countries in the world have collapsed, reformed and done so many times over in the time the Unites States have been going on.

[Desiderya]

You have made excellent points. I don't get the whole antiamericanism, it's been big in Germany in the wake of the No to the Iraq War for some time.

[GoGo Yubari]

You have made excellent points. I don't get the whole antiamericanism, it's been big in Germany in the wake of the No to the Iraq War for some time.

Well... the United States have done lots of things to earn that bad rep too. Certainly during the George Bush Junior administration it became very fashionable in Europe to dislike the Americans. Can't say that I was ever a fan of his leadership either (or well, NeoCon leadership in general would perhaps be more accurate), but I think it's important to separate one's dislike for the leadership of a country from a general dislike of that country's nationals.

It's the same for Russia: why would I as a Finn dislike the Russian people for complying with their political masters when they invaded us? I'm sure they didn't like coming to die attempting to invade a country they cared nothing for, either. At least to keep on harboring a hatred after over half a century would be absurd. Point of fact, I quite like Russians!

There are things in modern America which I do dislike though. The nigh unregulated power of banks, the overly pronounced influence of money in politics... frankly, I think the American experiment/dream is, if not over, at least on hold. There has already been a silent revolution by large corporate interests over there which still keeps on keeping on and it really drives a lot of their more negative foreign policies as well. An impersonal power - money - has taken over and its representatives are mostly immune to legal consequences.  It is very difficult to change that, but not impossible.

I guess from an American perspective its my liberal bias showing and well whatever, but I would personally reject their two polar political division as capable of adequately representing my thinking in regards to politics (there's another issue I have with their system as it exists now).

You could say that things like the power of banks is a problem all over and if one looks at history, one can see how regulation vs deregulation has been debated for well over a hundred years all around the world. Its just a damn shame how the founders of the United States were very well aware of the issues (in the terms of their own time) and to see their great ideas sidelined is distressing.

I think getting money out of politics would start a cascading effect that might actually fix everything else that seems to be bent out of shape out there.

[Desiderya]

You have made excellent points. I don't get the whole antiamericanism, it's been big in Germany in the wake of the No to the Iraq War for some time.

Well... the United States have done lots of things to earn that bad rep too. Certainly during the George Bush Junior administration it became very fashionable in Europe to dislike the Americans. Can't say that I was ever a fan of his leadership either (or well, NeoCon leadership in general would perhaps be more accurate), but I think it's important to separate one's dislike for the leadership of a country from a general dislike of that country's nationals.

Exactly. The dislike was certainly en vogue, and not limited to the leadership or its decisions, akin to the style of discussion Lyn Farel used on this topic a few posts ago, ie, negative beyond facts.

[Natalcya Katla]

I agree.

[Lyn Farel]

That said, as a European student of American history, it irritates me how many otherwise intelligent Europeans stubbornly cling to the idiotic idea that America somehow magically appeared out of a cultural and historical vacuum sometime during the 1770s, and that the country therefore has almost nothing in the way of history and culture. It doesn't help, of course, that American history and culture is habitually misrepresented by American media and people in the public eye (no, Christine O'Donnell, Thomas Jefferson's contemporaries would not have labeled him "conservative"), but the culture and history is certainly there, and readily visible to anybody who bothers to actually take a look. You might still come away not liking the culture - that does not mean it does not exist.

If you refer to my previous post in this bit of text, I think it would be best to add that it is not my point of view. I find that quite caricaturing and stupid too. But considering we have been on with caricatures since the beginning...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiamericanism : make it what you want to do, but I find this article quite interesting.

That the United States is the most economically powerful nation in the world by orders of magnitude isn't a boast. It's simply a "brute fact", as it were. Yes, there's been a recent downturn, but the reality is that the U.S. has experienced quite a few of these, and this one is likely to be no more serious.

So, you were only talking about GDP ? Okay. :/

That remark was made with a taste of irony, actually. It is true, by the way, that the U.S. is a civilizing force compared to, say, the Taliban or other, similar organizations. It is also true that our attempts to build Afghanistan and help other countries that offer us no real advantage in return qualify as unselfish behavior (I don't mean "charitable". I mean that the primary motivation in those cases is fairly humanitarian in intention). My argument, however, is that you can't make democracy work, you can only hope people want it to, and that such attempts to create better countries usually backfire.

I don't pretend to care about whether the U.S. has a "good culture" in the eyes of other countries. I don't think it matters. As for "reactionary", the only way that that label can be made to stick is if we compare the United States to a select few countries, say, Sweden, Denmark, France, Germany, and Norway. When compared to the greater whole of mankind, the United States is a very liberal and free nation. When negative rights are considered - the right to free speech, assembly, religion, etc., the U.S. is probably the best in the world. That doesn't necessarily make it the most liberal nation out there or the best place for anyone to live, but it is definitely high on the list.

As for being catacombed, I think that most people in this thread have been very civilized on a touchy subject. If you would like to prevent "issues", you have the power to moderate your own tone.

My remark was also made of irony. It was also not clear enough for people to bite it like I did on your own.

cf my answer to Natalcya.

Reputation and hatred mean very little in international politics. If the United States could ensure peace and prosperity for itself by being feared and hated, as Rome did, I would advocate that. International relations is a game of sharks, so trying to be "liked" is a fools errand. But there is no need for the United States to be hated, nor any reason for us to try to make others love us. Such things should be irrelevant to us - we should be concentrating on what is best for the United States.

I would disagree. It can matter at least a little since, unlike the US for example, some other countries enjoy from better relations with middle east countries, etc. I may be an idealist but I do think that when you want to deal with other countries, it is always better when they don't hate you too much.

Unless you plan to make war of course.

Even weakened, Russia has the capability to take on any one European country without much fuss. But I doubt that they would. Still, remember that what we are talking about here are not the more western countries of Europe, but the Baltic and eastern European ones, like Lithuania, Georgia, Ukraine, and etc. Those are more of a tempting target.

My point is that NATO was established to keep a rather unpleasant regime in Moscow from deciding to take a stroll through Paris. It's unlikely that that will happen at this point, very unlikely indeed, and the United States has no self interest in containing Russia.

One yes, though with nuclear weapons in the equation i'm not even sure of that. But, the whole Europe, I doubt it.

Also, you might be forgetting that even those countries are part of the EU. Again I may be an idealistic moron, but I doubt all Europe will do nothing if Russia starts to piss in its cheerios like that.

[Lyn Farel]

The thing in european anti americanism seems to mostly have emerged since the bush administration indeed. Well, it is quite obvious that republicans have more or less always been at least a bit alien to europeans, but that was obviously not enough for that anti americanism feeling to spread like wildfire. In the link I provided above stats seems to tend heavily toward the Bush junior administration overall, where in most european countries US popularity dropped of approximately 30% (which is quite huge).

There is also another factor that mostly comes from banks and capital, overall. The subprimes crisis seems to have played a noticeable role in that opinion change, and coupled with remembrances of from where also came the Great Depression in the most extreme cases, it must not have helped either.

[Jev North]

Regarding the rise of European anti-Americanism, hm. Two words, really: Freedom Fries.

[Natalcya Katla]

If you refer to my previous post in this bit of text, I think it would be best to add that it is not my point of view. I find that quite caricaturing and stupid too. But considering we have been on with caricatures since the beginning...

Okay, that's fair enough, then. There are enough people who do genuinely subscribe to that idea that it tends to raise my hackles when it's brought up.

On the topic of Russian belligerence in Europe, I agree with those who say that a military invasion is extremely unlikely unless they are militarily provoked into doing so (which I seem to recall was the case in the fight with Georgia). Not because they can't do it, though France's nuclear arsenal is still big enough to serve as a real deterrent, I believe. It's simply that they don't need to make military threats that might escalate beyond comfort when all they have to do to put pressure on Europe is to turn off the gas. Europe is dependent enough on Russian fossil fuels by now that big chunks of the continent are going to plunge into an energy crisis if Russia were to instigate an economic boycott. It's easier than invading, it's cheaper than invading (since trade would stop then, anyway), and it carries close to zero risk of military retaliation from the countries under pressure.

[orange]

If you refer to my previous post in this bit of text, I think it would be best to add that it is not my point of view. I find that quite caricaturing and stupid too. But considering we have been on with caricatures since the beginning...

Okay, that's fair enough, then. There are enough people who do genuinely subscribe to that idea that it tends to raise my hackles when it's brought up.

On the topic of Russian belligerence in Europe, I agree with those who say that a military invasion is extremely unlikely unless they are militarily provoked into doing so (which I seem to recall was the case in the fight with Georgia). Not because they can't do it, though France's nuclear arsenal is still big enough to serve as a real deterrent, I believe. It's simply that they don't need to make military threats that might escalate beyond comfort when all they have to do to put pressure on Europe is to turn off the gas. Europe is dependent enough on Russian fossil fuels by now that big chunks of the continent are going to plunge into an energy crisis if Russia were to instigate an economic boycott. It's easier than invading, it's cheaper than invading (since trade would stop then, anyway), and it carries close to zero risk of military retaliation from the countries under pressure.

Let's play that out just a little.  This is hypothetical.

Assume Russian Nationalist are in power in the Kremlin.  They state a significant interest in unifying the Russian people like  the large minorities in Estonia and Latvia.

What can Europe (and the world for that matter) do to prevent, counter such a move?

As you said, most of Europe is dependent on Russia (CIS) for fossil fuels (something like 40% of imports).  Russia can say "If you want gas, we get to do what we want."

I doubt France or Britain (or the US) are willing to pull the nuclear trigger for Estonia and Latvia.  I also doubt Russia is willing to nuke western Europe (its primary customer).