If this is your position Peter: then you are basically dooming the President to being completely unable to respond to any crisis whatsoever. By the time Congress got its act together (I was quite tempted to use an earthier phrase given their inept character) and authorized Biden to do anything: Taiwan would have been conquered.
So what you're REALLY arguing is: Taiwan isn't worth fighting over, and the US should just capitulate to China. Which is fine, that's an opinion. It would be a WRONG opinion, because regardless of whether the US lost a war with China, or if we chose not to fight one, over Taiwan: American hegemony is over. So you're actually not arguing that the US shouldn't fight: you're arguing that China already has it over the US.
I think you're incredibly wrong on all accounts. But I've long since accepted that you've gone over to the isolationist wing of American FP.
I'm glad to read this comment. I found Peter's post poorly attuned to nuance. Biden was not setting US policy in the event of an attack on Taiwan; he was using the diplomatic tool of public speech to discourage such an attempt. That is precisely what we should want him to be doing.
The situation in Taiwan is complex, both historically and in terms of contemporary politics. But this is not simply an internal Chinese matter. A PRC attack following the Russian campaign in Ukraine would signal a new normal, where major nuclear powers use that threat as a shield to extend territorial control, step by step. While no one may now know how this can be prevented in theory, since this is a new stage of international relations, prevention in practice means finding balances similar to what the Biden administration is aiming for in Ukraine: creating heavy disincentives off the battlefield, and, if that is inadequate, attempting to discover an effective conventional strategy that will make both conventional persistence and escalation to nuclear too costly for an aggressor to pursue. In the case of Taiwan, the administration clearly believes it has learned a lesson from Ukraine and is adopting a more proactive diplomatic stance at the outset. Let's hope it works. The Ukraine war suggests that anything less is likely to invite aggression.
New thinking on strategies for the emerging period will grow out of these experiences, for better or worse. It's fine for pundits to offer criticisms as this proceeds--they may come up with valuable ideas. But sloppy criticisms based on simplistic models, such as Peter's reduction of Biden and the White House's rhetorical dance to an assertion of presidential authority that neither has made (not to mention the know-nothing approach of Caitlin Johnstone cited in the prior comment), are likely to push public opinion in a way that skews rather than aids useful diplomatic policy formation.
"America is in deep trouble. Its economy is visibly sinking while standards of living are dropping and will decline further as military spending grows while both the increasingly “woke” educational system and industrial base are no longer competitive. We have a plausibly psychopathic government that is bringing us to the brink of war with several nuclear powers. What we Americans need is not another war, but rather an end to war, particular those wars that can somehow kill most or even all of us. Instead, help build pressure to wind down the Ukraine war through negotiations, stop feeding Zelensky with weapons and money. Leave China alone and stop being Israel’s patsy against Iran and inside Syria. Try to get along with competitors. It would indeed be a Brave New World, wouldn’t it? A country at peace with itself and working to benefit the American people – something that we have rarely seen since 1945." Caitlin Johnstone
I find Ms. Johnstone's comment incoherent, Mr. Breathnach. The US economy is in surprisingly good shape (much stronger than the PRC's), given the stress it has been placed under by the pandemic, US military spending happens to have dropped last year, and our industrial base is indeed competitive, although we have narrowed it because the base of the economy has shifted away from broad goods production to tech and service sectors. We have indeed had a psychopath as head of state, but it is not the current one.
Indeed, let us "put an end to war." How does negotiating a victory for a serial war initiator help that? What could "leave China alone" possibly mean? Would she recommend to the rest of the world that it "leave the US alone?"
There are strong cases to be made for learning the lessons of our misadventures in Viet Nam, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and on and on. But so far as I can see Ms. Johnstone is not making one. One lesson not to learn is: Since approach "A" didn't work, the approach that will work is "~A." Those are the only possible alternatives.
In setting-up this Friday's interview you imply there are 2 contradictory positions to resolve the I-P situation:
"liberal Zionists who support a Palestinian state alongside Israel, and those further to their left who see Israel, in its entirety, as an apartheid state"
In fact, I believe the two positions are compatible. If there were division into two-states, the "apartheid everywhere" would no longer exist, even though the Jewish state will likely discriminate against Palestinians and visa-versa.
So I accept the designation of Israel as apartheid at the same time that I envision some level of separation as essential for peace.
that's reasonable. my point was that many who consider an apartheid state would still consider it one if there were not equality for Palestinian citizens and the right of refugees to return.
The fantasy of good guys and bad guys is itself one of the weapons of war. War is politics, force and fraud. America is indeed slouching toward a nuclear exchange.
The US has the option to decline escalating to such an exchange at any point. Avoiding early signals that it plans to do so is not "slouching"; it is the proactive use of rhetoric and policy ambiguity as weapons to avoid war. They may not work, but they may work well enough to shift conditions favorably for the time being.
If this is your position Peter: then you are basically dooming the President to being completely unable to respond to any crisis whatsoever. By the time Congress got its act together (I was quite tempted to use an earthier phrase given their inept character) and authorized Biden to do anything: Taiwan would have been conquered.
So what you're REALLY arguing is: Taiwan isn't worth fighting over, and the US should just capitulate to China. Which is fine, that's an opinion. It would be a WRONG opinion, because regardless of whether the US lost a war with China, or if we chose not to fight one, over Taiwan: American hegemony is over. So you're actually not arguing that the US shouldn't fight: you're arguing that China already has it over the US.
I think you're incredibly wrong on all accounts. But I've long since accepted that you've gone over to the isolationist wing of American FP.
I'm glad to read this comment. I found Peter's post poorly attuned to nuance. Biden was not setting US policy in the event of an attack on Taiwan; he was using the diplomatic tool of public speech to discourage such an attempt. That is precisely what we should want him to be doing.
The situation in Taiwan is complex, both historically and in terms of contemporary politics. But this is not simply an internal Chinese matter. A PRC attack following the Russian campaign in Ukraine would signal a new normal, where major nuclear powers use that threat as a shield to extend territorial control, step by step. While no one may now know how this can be prevented in theory, since this is a new stage of international relations, prevention in practice means finding balances similar to what the Biden administration is aiming for in Ukraine: creating heavy disincentives off the battlefield, and, if that is inadequate, attempting to discover an effective conventional strategy that will make both conventional persistence and escalation to nuclear too costly for an aggressor to pursue. In the case of Taiwan, the administration clearly believes it has learned a lesson from Ukraine and is adopting a more proactive diplomatic stance at the outset. Let's hope it works. The Ukraine war suggests that anything less is likely to invite aggression.
New thinking on strategies for the emerging period will grow out of these experiences, for better or worse. It's fine for pundits to offer criticisms as this proceeds--they may come up with valuable ideas. But sloppy criticisms based on simplistic models, such as Peter's reduction of Biden and the White House's rhetorical dance to an assertion of presidential authority that neither has made (not to mention the know-nothing approach of Caitlin Johnstone cited in the prior comment), are likely to push public opinion in a way that skews rather than aids useful diplomatic policy formation.
"America is in deep trouble. Its economy is visibly sinking while standards of living are dropping and will decline further as military spending grows while both the increasingly “woke” educational system and industrial base are no longer competitive. We have a plausibly psychopathic government that is bringing us to the brink of war with several nuclear powers. What we Americans need is not another war, but rather an end to war, particular those wars that can somehow kill most or even all of us. Instead, help build pressure to wind down the Ukraine war through negotiations, stop feeding Zelensky with weapons and money. Leave China alone and stop being Israel’s patsy against Iran and inside Syria. Try to get along with competitors. It would indeed be a Brave New World, wouldn’t it? A country at peace with itself and working to benefit the American people – something that we have rarely seen since 1945." Caitlin Johnstone
I find Ms. Johnstone's comment incoherent, Mr. Breathnach. The US economy is in surprisingly good shape (much stronger than the PRC's), given the stress it has been placed under by the pandemic, US military spending happens to have dropped last year, and our industrial base is indeed competitive, although we have narrowed it because the base of the economy has shifted away from broad goods production to tech and service sectors. We have indeed had a psychopath as head of state, but it is not the current one.
Indeed, let us "put an end to war." How does negotiating a victory for a serial war initiator help that? What could "leave China alone" possibly mean? Would she recommend to the rest of the world that it "leave the US alone?"
There are strong cases to be made for learning the lessons of our misadventures in Viet Nam, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and on and on. But so far as I can see Ms. Johnstone is not making one. One lesson not to learn is: Since approach "A" didn't work, the approach that will work is "~A." Those are the only possible alternatives.
In setting-up this Friday's interview you imply there are 2 contradictory positions to resolve the I-P situation:
"liberal Zionists who support a Palestinian state alongside Israel, and those further to their left who see Israel, in its entirety, as an apartheid state"
In fact, I believe the two positions are compatible. If there were division into two-states, the "apartheid everywhere" would no longer exist, even though the Jewish state will likely discriminate against Palestinians and visa-versa.
So I accept the designation of Israel as apartheid at the same time that I envision some level of separation as essential for peace.
that's reasonable. my point was that many who consider an apartheid state would still consider it one if there were not equality for Palestinian citizens and the right of refugees to return.
I look forward to your speech on 10th June in Berlin. Thanks for making it available to us.
Miriam
Where is the recording for last week's Brett Stevens discussion?
Didn't you know, recordings come on Wednesdays.
no. I'm a new subscriber. I still haven't figured out where the older videos are.
email ksilverman@gradcenter.cuny.edu and he'll show you
Thank you!
The fantasy of good guys and bad guys is itself one of the weapons of war. War is politics, force and fraud. America is indeed slouching toward a nuclear exchange.
The US has the option to decline escalating to such an exchange at any point. Avoiding early signals that it plans to do so is not "slouching"; it is the proactive use of rhetoric and policy ambiguity as weapons to avoid war. They may not work, but they may work well enough to shift conditions favorably for the time being.