"Asked if he has an exit strategy for Iran in case war does break out, Trump told reporters, "You're not going to need an exit strategy. I don't need exit strategies." "
- Daniel Dale is a reporter for CNN and the curator of the President's lies.
At least Rumsfeld had "We'll be treated like liberators."
Trump isn't even planning on pie-in-the-sky best case scenarios.
GoodKingJayIIIThey wanna get mygold on the ceilingRegistered Userregular
So, can someone explain to me why John Bolton has such a war boner for Iran? I’m being flip but also serious. How many foreign policy experts have said that war with Iran would be a mistake of colossal proportions?
What does he want? What does he expect we’ll gain? Oil? Is he just insane? I disagree with most hawks but a lot of them, I can get where they’re coming from. I don’t understand Bolton at all and I think that’s why I find him so disturbing.
So, can someone explain to me why John Bolton has such a war boner for Iran? I’m being flip but also serious. How many foreign policy experts have said that war with Iran would be a mistake of colossal proportions?
What does he want? What does he expect we’ll gain? Oil? Is he just insane? I disagree with most hawks but a lot of them, I can get where they’re coming from. I don’t understand Bolton at all and I think that’s why I find him so disturbing.
So, can someone explain to me why John Bolton has such a war boner for Iran? I’m being flip but also serious. How many foreign policy experts have said that war with Iran would be a mistake of colossal proportions?
What does he want? What does he expect we’ll gain? Oil? Is he just insane? I disagree with most hawks but a lot of them, I can get where they’re coming from. I don’t understand Bolton at all and I think that’s why I find him so disturbing.
They took our embassy when he was ~30 and crystalizing his view of the world.
So, can someone explain to me why John Bolton has such a war boner for Iran? I’m being flip but also serious. How many foreign policy experts have said that war with Iran would be a mistake of colossal proportions?
What does he want? What does he expect we’ll gain? Oil? Is he just insane? I disagree with most hawks but a lot of them, I can get where they’re coming from. I don’t understand Bolton at all and I think that’s why I find him so disturbing.
While I don't imagine we will see the most vocal liberal internationalist/interventionist policy makers talk about war with Iran and be taken seriously (Clinton for example) anymore (or at least for a long while), there certainly is a Liberal Internationalist case to be made for war with Iran.
From the perspective of a favorable (to the US and by extension the liberal world order) world order: Iran engages in clandestine action which undermines the influence of the US in the region. Iran is also indirectly (and likely directly as the IRGC is heavily involved in black markets), through their proxy Hezbollah, involved in transnational criminal activity.
They also occupy a strategic position which can threaten the flow of petroleum out of the gulf. Oil is a key interest for the US in the region but not in the manner of "war for oil" conspiracy theories in which the goal is US consumption. Relative stability of the oil market is in the interests of the US and the liberal world order, as is the stable access of gulf oil by the primary consumers of it who are in our interest (Europe, though the largest country of origin for petroleum imports into Europe is Russia). On the Russia piece, a stable oil market outside of Russia also serves to keep Russia from gobbling up market share. ME oil production is actually something we've weaponized in the past to attack the Soviet Union economically and could just as effectively be used to attack Russia.
From the perspective of promotion of liberal democracy and liberal democratic norms: Iran, like China, represents a threat to the spread of liberal democracy. Iran presents an alternative system which isn't void of democratic institutions but isn't liberal democracy. Like the Chinese system (authoritarian/vanguardism combined with a mixed market, but still heavily state influenced, economy) the Iranian system could represent an alternative system in the region.
This argument isn't immune from criticism, far from it. You could ask any Realist or Realism adjacent academic/author and they could likely each point you to one or many criticisms they've made about this framework in general and US involvement in the Middle East specifically.
That forth paragraph is an argument for bombing the entire middle east including Israel.
(Also the 2nd TBH)
That's the relatively unspoken reality of Democratic Peace Theory: even though democracies rarely fight each other they seemingly are eager to fight non-democracies.
That forth paragraph is an argument for bombing the entire middle east including Israel.
(Also the 2nd TBH)
Correct.
Also a variety of nations in Africa, Central America, South America, and the Korean Peninsula.
So, yeah, that sounds about right.
John Bolton is to regime change as Art Laffer is to lower taxes. There's no evidence it will ever work, and plenty that it won't, but that's probably just because we haven't tried hard enough.
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JuliusCaptain of Serenityon my shipRegistered Userregular
That forth paragraph is an argument for bombing the entire middle east including Israel.
(Also the 2nd TBH)
Correct.
Also a variety of nations in Africa, Central America, South America, and the Korean Peninsula.
So, yeah, that sounds about right.
John Bolton is to regime change as Art Laffer is to lower taxes. There's no evidence it will ever work, and plenty that it won't, but that's probably just because we haven't tried hard enough.
I'm pretty sure John Bolton isn't interested in promoting liberal democracy. He may believe in regime change, but he was also there for Iran-Contra so he clearly doesn't care if a new regime is a liberal democracy.
That forth paragraph is an argument for bombing the entire middle east including Israel.
(Also the 2nd TBH)
Correct.
Also a variety of nations in Africa, Central America, South America, and the Korean Peninsula.
So, yeah, that sounds about right.
John Bolton is to regime change as Art Laffer is to lower taxes. There's no evidence it will ever work, and plenty that it won't, but that's probably just because we haven't tried hard enough.
I'm pretty sure John Bolton isn't interested in promoting liberal democracy. He may believe in regime change, but he was also there for Iran-Contra so he clearly doesn't care if a new regime is a liberal democracy.
Well, his definition of work probably isn't "democracy" as "does what it's told".
That forth paragraph is an argument for bombing the entire middle east including Israel.
(Also the 2nd TBH)
Correct.
Also a variety of nations in Africa, Central America, South America, and the Korean Peninsula.
So, yeah, that sounds about right.
John Bolton is to regime change as Art Laffer is to lower taxes. There's no evidence it will ever work, and plenty that it won't, but that's probably just because we haven't tried hard enough.
I'm pretty sure John Bolton isn't interested in promoting liberal democracy. He may believe in regime change, but he was also there for Iran-Contra so he clearly doesn't care if a new regime is a liberal democracy.
Agree. I don't see where he's ever seemed particularly concerned with idealism of foreign democracy so much as the compliance of foreign powers with our agenda. It's just easier to justify war in places where it can be dressed up as spreading freedom, so that's where the hammer tends to fall.
("The hammer," I assume, is what he calls his moustache)
Bolton's also one of the last Project for a New American Century wonks still active in government as opposed to living it up on the right-wing lecture circuit or something like that. Their entire thing was openly hegemonic militarism to ensure American dominance over the world by chopping down countries on their naughty list one by one.
They spun things in terms of Ensuring The Preeminence Of Liberal Democracy For All Blah Blah Wharrgarbl, but you didn't need to look that closely at the subtext to see that a lot of the motivation really was just the same "power for power's sake" mentality that drove most other armed expansionism in the past. There's a reason people in that thinktank used terms like "colony" to describe what they wanted with Iraq.
So, can someone explain to me why John Bolton has such a war boner for Iran? I’m being flip but also serious. How many foreign policy experts have said that war with Iran would be a mistake of colossal proportions?
What does he want? What does he expect we’ll gain? Oil? Is he just insane? I disagree with most hawks but a lot of them, I can get where they’re coming from. I don’t understand Bolton at all and I think that’s why I find him so disturbing.
War with iran is as unto republicans what chicken bones are unto dogs; a delicious treat that mean people won't let them have despite really, really wanting them.
They also occupy a strategic position which can threaten the flow of petroleum out of the gulf. Oil is a key interest for the US in the region but not in the manner of "war for oil" conspiracy theories in which the goal is US consumption. Relative stability of the oil market is in the interests of the US and the liberal world order, as is the stable access of gulf oil by the primary consumers of it who are in our interest (Europe, though the largest country of origin for petroleum imports into Europe is Russia). On the Russia piece, a stable oil market outside of Russia also serves to keep Russia from gobbling up market share. ME oil production is actually something we've weaponized in the past to attack the Soviet Union economically and could just as effectively be used to attack Russia.
I'm interested in understanding what the angle is on this. War for oil as you put it is my understanding of all our interactions in the middle east. Essentially oil is too much of an interest for people who want to line their pockets and they influence world leaders to initiate war in the region to control the oil for further profits or to destabilize other countries so that they have to work with oil interests. For instance in Iraq western oil interests took control of the oil industry and made a good bit of money after destabilizing the country.
Is the argument that America needs the oil? I thought we were self sufficient in this area and actually sell a good bit.
Also why is war the assumed response to the challenges Iran poses
An argument can be valid (that is, following from its premises) without being correct (that is, aligning with a maximally-understood reality). As NSDFRand stated, they are not presenting an argument they believe to be correct, only valid from the perspective of John Bolton.
My favorite musical instrument is the air-raid siren.
They also occupy a strategic position which can threaten the flow of petroleum out of the gulf. Oil is a key interest for the US in the region but not in the manner of "war for oil" conspiracy theories in which the goal is US consumption. Relative stability of the oil market is in the interests of the US and the liberal world order, as is the stable access of gulf oil by the primary consumers of it who are in our interest (Europe, though the largest country of origin for petroleum imports into Europe is Russia). On the Russia piece, a stable oil market outside of Russia also serves to keep Russia from gobbling up market share. ME oil production is actually something we've weaponized in the past to attack the Soviet Union economically and could just as effectively be used to attack Russia.
I'm interested in understanding what the angle is on this. War for oil as you put it is my understanding of all our interactions in the middle east. Essentially oil is too much of an interest for people who want to line their pockets and they influence world leaders to initiate war in the region to control the oil for further profits or to destabilize other countries so that they have to work with oil interests. For instance in Iraq western oil interests took control of the oil industry and made a good bit of money after destabilizing the country.
Is the argument that America needs the oil? I thought we were self sufficient in this area and actually sell a good bit.
No, the opposite actually. We don't need the oil itself but a stable supply to our allies and a stable market in general is in our interests (specifically a favorable world order).
When you think about the interests of the US the general categories of interest area usually thought of as: Defense of the Homeland, Favorable World Order, Economic Prosperity, and Projection of values. There is of course overlap between the interests (for example a favorable world order for the US is likely to intersect with economic prosperity via free trade). Depending on the framework/grand strategy you approach foreign policy from you will have a different order of priority for each of these interests. Or you may omit an interest entirely.
So grand strategies coming from a Liberal Internationalist framework are going to focus heavily on a favorable world order. Grand strategies coming from a Realist framework, like off shore balancing, which are much more "lean back" will focus on defense of the homeland and may even omit projection of values (depending on how "lean back" the proponent is, it's more like a range of preferred involvement in the international system rather than a binary Internationalist or Isolationist) because from a Realist perspective there is no value in attempting to build an international system and there is no value in projecting values because states are all pursuing the same thing: power/security.
Of course in actual practice everything is much less categorically defined. Even if, for example, I were to point out the parts of the current administration's foreign policy which seems to pull from a Realist view of the world that doesn't mean the actors themselves would describe their world view as realist nor would they be able to simply implement a Realist foreign policy grand strategy. Because they aren't acting in a vacuum.
They also occupy a strategic position which can threaten the flow of petroleum out of the gulf. Oil is a key interest for the US in the region but not in the manner of "war for oil" conspiracy theories in which the goal is US consumption. Relative stability of the oil market is in the interests of the US and the liberal world order, as is the stable access of gulf oil by the primary consumers of it who are in our interest (Europe, though the largest country of origin for petroleum imports into Europe is Russia). On the Russia piece, a stable oil market outside of Russia also serves to keep Russia from gobbling up market share. ME oil production is actually something we've weaponized in the past to attack the Soviet Union economically and could just as effectively be used to attack Russia.
I'm interested in understanding what the angle is on this. War for oil as you put it is my understanding of all our interactions in the middle east. Essentially oil is too much of an interest for people who want to line their pockets and they influence world leaders to initiate war in the region to control the oil for further profits or to destabilize other countries so that they have to work with oil interests. For instance in Iraq western oil interests took control of the oil industry and made a good bit of money after destabilizing the country.
Is the argument that America needs the oil? I thought we were self sufficient in this area and actually sell a good bit.
No, the opposite actually. We don't need the oil itself but a stable supply to our allies and a stable market in general is in our interests (specifically a favorable world order).
When you think about the interests of the US the general categories of interest area usually thought of as: Defense of the Homeland, Favorable World Order, Economic Prosperity, and Projection of values. There is of course overlap between the interests (for example a favorable world order for the US is likely to intersect with economic prosperity via free trade). Depending on the framework/grand strategy you approach foreign policy from you will have a different order of priority for each of these interests. Or you may omit an interest entirely.
So grand strategies coming from a Liberal Internationalist framework is going to focus heavily on a favorable world order. Grand strategies coming from a Realist framework, like off shore balancing, which are much more "lean back" will focus on defense of the homeland and may even omit projection of values (depending on how "lean back" the proponent is, it's more like a range of preferred involvement in the international system rather than a binary Internationalist or Isolationist) because from a Realist perspective there is no value in attempting to build an international system and there is no value in projecting values because states are all pursuing the same thing: power/security.
Of course in actual practice everything is much less categorically defined. Even if, for example, I were to point out the parts of the current administration's foreign policy which seems to pull from a Realist view of the world that doesn't mean the actors themselves would describe their world view as realist nor would they be able to simply implement a Realist foreign policy grand strategy. Because they aren't acting in a vacuum.
Do you disagree that America is destabilizing the region in order to pursue a world order of their making by way of maintaining control of oil?
They also occupy a strategic position which can threaten the flow of petroleum out of the gulf. Oil is a key interest for the US in the region but not in the manner of "war for oil" conspiracy theories in which the goal is US consumption. Relative stability of the oil market is in the interests of the US and the liberal world order, as is the stable access of gulf oil by the primary consumers of it who are in our interest (Europe, though the largest country of origin for petroleum imports into Europe is Russia). On the Russia piece, a stable oil market outside of Russia also serves to keep Russia from gobbling up market share. ME oil production is actually something we've weaponized in the past to attack the Soviet Union economically and could just as effectively be used to attack Russia.
I'm interested in understanding what the angle is on this. War for oil as you put it is my understanding of all our interactions in the middle east. Essentially oil is too much of an interest for people who want to line their pockets and they influence world leaders to initiate war in the region to control the oil for further profits or to destabilize other countries so that they have to work with oil interests. For instance in Iraq western oil interests took control of the oil industry and made a good bit of money after destabilizing the country.
Is the argument that America needs the oil? I thought we were self sufficient in this area and actually sell a good bit.
No, the opposite actually. We don't need the oil itself but a stable supply to our allies and a stable market in general is in our interests (specifically a favorable world order).
When you think about the interests of the US the general categories of interest area usually thought of as: Defense of the Homeland, Favorable World Order, Economic Prosperity, and Projection of values. There is of course overlap between the interests (for example a favorable world order for the US is likely to intersect with economic prosperity via free trade). Depending on the framework/grand strategy you approach foreign policy from you will have a different order of priority for each of these interests. Or you may omit an interest entirely.
So grand strategies coming from a Liberal Internationalist framework is going to focus heavily on a favorable world order. Grand strategies coming from a Realist framework, like off shore balancing, which are much more "lean back" will focus on defense of the homeland and may even omit projection of values (depending on how "lean back" the proponent is, it's more like a range of preferred involvement in the international system rather than a binary Internationalist or Isolationist) because from a Realist perspective there is no value in attempting to build an international system and there is no value in projecting values because states are all pursuing the same thing: power/security.
Of course in actual practice everything is much less categorically defined. Even if, for example, I were to point out the parts of the current administration's foreign policy which seems to pull from a Realist view of the world that doesn't mean the actors themselves would describe their world view as realist nor would they be able to simply implement a Realist foreign policy grand strategy. Because they aren't acting in a vacuum.
Do you disagree that America is destabilizing the region in order to pursue a world order of their making by way of maintaining control of oil?
I don't think the intention is to create instability based on historical National Security Strategies I've read (which usually include regional breakdowns). Rather I think the issues coming from US activity in the region are the result of a few factors even if sincerity isn't the cause:
Practitioners and policy makers who don't understand the region culturally or historically
Practitioners and policy makers who don't view their own world view or preferred strategies critically (I think this is probably even more contributory than a lack of understanding of the region, though both interact, an example here is a focus on elections, liberal democratic norms and institutions, and economic growth through free trade and neoliberal policy when engaging in democracy promotion and these create blind spots for practitioners and policy makers)
A post 9/11 refocus of Liberal Internationalist grand strategy towards military force (an example of grand strategy not being implemented in a vacuum, some Realists would argue that OIF and OEF, and by extension Libya and Syria,are inextricable from a Liberal Internationalist framework and were inevitable, I'm unsure how much I buy that argument yet but it is compelling)
They also occupy a strategic position which can threaten the flow of petroleum out of the gulf. Oil is a key interest for the US in the region but not in the manner of "war for oil" conspiracy theories in which the goal is US consumption. Relative stability of the oil market is in the interests of the US and the liberal world order, as is the stable access of gulf oil by the primary consumers of it who are in our interest (Europe, though the largest country of origin for petroleum imports into Europe is Russia). On the Russia piece, a stable oil market outside of Russia also serves to keep Russia from gobbling up market share. ME oil production is actually something we've weaponized in the past to attack the Soviet Union economically and could just as effectively be used to attack Russia.
I'm interested in understanding what the angle is on this. War for oil as you put it is my understanding of all our interactions in the middle east. Essentially oil is too much of an interest for people who want to line their pockets and they influence world leaders to initiate war in the region to control the oil for further profits or to destabilize other countries so that they have to work with oil interests. For instance in Iraq western oil interests took control of the oil industry and made a good bit of money after destabilizing the country.
Is the argument that America needs the oil? I thought we were self sufficient in this area and actually sell a good bit.
No, the opposite actually. We don't need the oil itself but a stable supply to our allies and a stable market in general is in our interests (specifically a favorable world order).
When you think about the interests of the US the general categories of interest area usually thought of as: Defense of the Homeland, Favorable World Order, Economic Prosperity, and Projection of values. There is of course overlap between the interests (for example a favorable world order for the US is likely to intersect with economic prosperity via free trade). Depending on the framework/grand strategy you approach foreign policy from you will have a different order of priority for each of these interests. Or you may omit an interest entirely.
So grand strategies coming from a Liberal Internationalist framework is going to focus heavily on a favorable world order. Grand strategies coming from a Realist framework, like off shore balancing, which are much more "lean back" will focus on defense of the homeland and may even omit projection of values (depending on how "lean back" the proponent is, it's more like a range of preferred involvement in the international system rather than a binary Internationalist or Isolationist) because from a Realist perspective there is no value in attempting to build an international system and there is no value in projecting values because states are all pursuing the same thing: power/security.
Of course in actual practice everything is much less categorically defined. Even if, for example, I were to point out the parts of the current administration's foreign policy which seems to pull from a Realist view of the world that doesn't mean the actors themselves would describe their world view as realist nor would they be able to simply implement a Realist foreign policy grand strategy. Because they aren't acting in a vacuum.
Do you disagree that America is destabilizing the region in order to pursue a world order of their making by way of maintaining control of oil?
I don't think the intention is to create instability based on historical National Security Strategies I've read (which usually include regional breakdowns). Rather I think the issues coming from US activity in the region are the result of a few factors even if sincerity isn't the cause:
Practitioners and policy makers who don't understand the region culturally or historically
Practitioners and policy makers who don't view their own world view or preferred strategies critically (I think this is probably even more contributory than a lack of understanding of the region, though both interact, an example here is a focus on elections, liberal democratic norms and institutions, and economic growth through free trade and neoliberal policy when engaging in democracy promotion and these create blind spots for practitioners and policy makers)
A post 9/11 refocus of Liberal Internationalist grand strategy towards military force (an example of grand strategy not being implemented in a vacuum, some Realists would argue that OIF and OEF, and by extension Libya and Syria,are inextricable from a Liberal Internationalist framework and were inevitable, I'm unsure how much I buy that argument yet but it is compelling)
I understand you have a bit more knowledge of what people said and what their ideology of the time was but generally this is all done to ensure control of oil because of its value/importance to the world market. Unless I am misunderstanding.
Maybe saying destability isn't the goal but rather it's not, not the goal.
They also occupy a strategic position which can threaten the flow of petroleum out of the gulf. Oil is a key interest for the US in the region but not in the manner of "war for oil" conspiracy theories in which the goal is US consumption. Relative stability of the oil market is in the interests of the US and the liberal world order, as is the stable access of gulf oil by the primary consumers of it who are in our interest (Europe, though the largest country of origin for petroleum imports into Europe is Russia). On the Russia piece, a stable oil market outside of Russia also serves to keep Russia from gobbling up market share. ME oil production is actually something we've weaponized in the past to attack the Soviet Union economically and could just as effectively be used to attack Russia.
I'm interested in understanding what the angle is on this. War for oil as you put it is my understanding of all our interactions in the middle east. Essentially oil is too much of an interest for people who want to line their pockets and they influence world leaders to initiate war in the region to control the oil for further profits or to destabilize other countries so that they have to work with oil interests. For instance in Iraq western oil interests took control of the oil industry and made a good bit of money after destabilizing the country.
Is the argument that America needs the oil? I thought we were self sufficient in this area and actually sell a good bit.
No, the opposite actually. We don't need the oil itself but a stable supply to our allies and a stable market in general is in our interests (specifically a favorable world order).
When you think about the interests of the US the general categories of interest area usually thought of as: Defense of the Homeland, Favorable World Order, Economic Prosperity, and Projection of values. There is of course overlap between the interests (for example a favorable world order for the US is likely to intersect with economic prosperity via free trade). Depending on the framework/grand strategy you approach foreign policy from you will have a different order of priority for each of these interests. Or you may omit an interest entirely.
So grand strategies coming from a Liberal Internationalist framework is going to focus heavily on a favorable world order. Grand strategies coming from a Realist framework, like off shore balancing, which are much more "lean back" will focus on defense of the homeland and may even omit projection of values (depending on how "lean back" the proponent is, it's more like a range of preferred involvement in the international system rather than a binary Internationalist or Isolationist) because from a Realist perspective there is no value in attempting to build an international system and there is no value in projecting values because states are all pursuing the same thing: power/security.
Of course in actual practice everything is much less categorically defined. Even if, for example, I were to point out the parts of the current administration's foreign policy which seems to pull from a Realist view of the world that doesn't mean the actors themselves would describe their world view as realist nor would they be able to simply implement a Realist foreign policy grand strategy. Because they aren't acting in a vacuum.
Do you disagree that America is destabilizing the region in order to pursue a world order of their making by way of maintaining control of oil?
I don't think the intention is to create instability based on historical National Security Strategies I've read (which usually include regional breakdowns). Rather I think the issues coming from US activity in the region are the result of a few factors even if sincerity isn't the cause:
Practitioners and policy makers who don't understand the region culturally or historically
Practitioners and policy makers who don't view their own world view or preferred strategies critically (I think this is probably even more contributory than a lack of understanding of the region, though both interact, an example here is a focus on elections, liberal democratic norms and institutions, and economic growth through free trade and neoliberal policy when engaging in democracy promotion and these create blind spots for practitioners and policy makers)
A post 9/11 refocus of Liberal Internationalist grand strategy towards military force (an example of grand strategy not being implemented in a vacuum, some Realists would argue that OIF and OEF, and by extension Libya and Syria,are inextricable from a Liberal Internationalist framework and were inevitable, I'm unsure how much I buy that argument yet but it is compelling)
I understand you have a bit more knowledge of what people said and what their ideology of the time was but generally this is all done to ensure control of oil because of its value/importance to the world market. Unless I am misunderstanding.
Generally yes, since oil became such an important resource it has been a focus of grand strategy. Since oil was discovered in the peninsula/in the gulf the region has likewise had a focus in US grand strategy and even most proposed strategies which aren't entirely isolationist.
I will have to find the title of it but there's a pretty good, not overly long either thankfully, book on the topic. IIRC it collects scholarly articles on different topics where oil and US grand strategy meet but it's been a few months since I touched it.
Though of course it's difficult to dismiss arguments of democracy promotion coming from the actors themselves. But oil is inextricable from any strategy involving the region.
Generally yes, since oil became such an important resource it has been a focus of grand strategy. Since oil was discovered in the peninsula/in the gulf the region has likewise had a focus in US grand strategy and even most proposed strategies which aren't entirely isolationist.
I will have to find the title of it but there's a pretty good, not overly long either thankfully, book on the topic. IIRC it collects scholarly articles on different topics where oil and US grand strategy meet but it's been a few months since I touched it.
Though of course it's difficult to dismiss arguments of democracy promotion coming from the actors themselves. But oil is inextricable from any strategy involving the region.
I'd argue there was a good bit of rationalizing our involvement in the region in the pursuit of maintaining control of oil. We didn't feel the need to invade some southeast asian countries or african countries in order to promote democracy.
Our main focus militarily and clandestinely is in the middle east and south american countries that have large reserves of oil.
Generally yes, since oil became such an important resource it has been a focus of grand strategy. Since oil was discovered in the peninsula/in the gulf the region has likewise had a focus in US grand strategy and even most proposed strategies which aren't entirely isolationist.
I will have to find the title of it but there's a pretty good, not overly long either thankfully, book on the topic. IIRC it collects scholarly articles on different topics where oil and US grand strategy meet but it's been a few months since I touched it.
Though of course it's difficult to dismiss arguments of democracy promotion coming from the actors themselves. But oil is inextricable from any strategy involving the region.
I'd argue there was a good bit of rationalizing our involvement in the region in the pursuit of maintaining control of oil. We didn't feel the need to invade some southeast asian countries or african countries in order to promote democracy.
Our main focus militarily and clandestinely(probably not a word) is in the middle east and south american countries that have large reserves of oil.
Certainly there is some selectivity. We don't operate in a vacuum so there are factors in play other than the things we want to do as well.
An example of this happening (when we had a more broad grand strategy but became "sucked into" and focused on a smaller area) was Vietnam. NSC68 described a much more global grand strategy against the Soviets and COMINTERN, however we pivoted to South East Asia (multiple factors for why could be argued, or I suppose multiple actors could be blamed) and pulled focus away from other regions in our interest. Ironically this (the Vietnam War) could be argued to have indirectly kickstarted the Iranian nuclear program.
Likewise 9/11 moved our focus to the Middle East to the detriment of operations elsewhere.
I think that is starting to change now, or at least I've heard a rumor from someone who was told directly that CENTCOM is going to lose some focus in the near future and money will be going towards EUCOM and maybe Indo PACOM with a refocus away from the ME.
The way I see things right now is that we're in the equivalent position of post-WW2 UK. Our political, social, and economic capacity for war is completely drained and our military is currently stretched to its breaking point.
Maintaining our military spending at its currently levels is draining the US economy and has left us near destitute. Our infrastructure is on the brink of ruin, our society and politics on the brink of total breakdown. Hell our environment cannot sustain the US military's output of carbon dioxide.
At the same time our military is understaffed and undermaintained for its current missions. Special forces deployments all over the world have left them spent, and we have a recruitment crisis in the regular forces, leaving units facing multiple deployments that break them. The US navy cannot meet its massive backlog of ship maintenance. So we cannot maintain our current military as it is, and even if we did it cannot meet its current missions without significant investment and expansion. The military budget is as big as its ever been but it isn't enough, while our social spending has been frozen and eaten away by inflation for decades now.
I just laugh when I think about the US military trying to invade Iran. The US military will destroy itself crashing against those mountains.
Jephery on
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"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
I support not needlessly wasting multiple generations of our youth, trying desperately to maintain the facade of our former hegemonic power. That ship has sailed into the West, our 1 nation, world police force is no longer sustainable (if it ever truly was, afterall, we didn't have a win larger than Grenada till Desert Storm post WWII).
The arrow of time moves ever forward and gone are the days when a man who played second billing to a chimpanzee can take out a lien on our country's future to outspend our rivals into submission.
No matter where you go...there you are. ~ Buckaroo Banzai
Trump spent his time at the G20 joking about election meddling with Putin and wistfully contemplating journalism in the US being more like Russia. (You know, murdered)
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Trump spent his time at the G20 joking about election meddling with Putin and wistfully contemplating journalism in the US being more like Russia. (You know, murdered)
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Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
It gets better.
"Asked if he has an exit strategy for Iran in case war does break out, Trump told reporters, "You're not going to need an exit strategy. I don't need exit strategies." "
- Daniel Dale is a reporter for CNN and the curator of the President's lies.
At least Rumsfeld had "We'll be treated like liberators."
Trump isn't even planning on pie-in-the-sky best case scenarios.
We are so fucked if Bolton gets Trump on board.
How about we go to war because fuck you thats why
All I could think of when I heard this was
Duck Soup
I mean, Iran will actually have a nuke in a couple years now, if not sooner. Thanks to us.
Keep America Great!
What does he want? What does he expect we’ll gain? Oil? Is he just insane? I disagree with most hawks but a lot of them, I can get where they’re coming from. I don’t understand Bolton at all and I think that’s why I find him so disturbing.
They took our embassy when he was ~30 and crystalizing his view of the world.
While I don't imagine we will see the most vocal liberal internationalist/interventionist policy makers talk about war with Iran and be taken seriously (Clinton for example) anymore (or at least for a long while), there certainly is a Liberal Internationalist case to be made for war with Iran.
From the perspective of a favorable (to the US and by extension the liberal world order) world order: Iran engages in clandestine action which undermines the influence of the US in the region. Iran is also indirectly (and likely directly as the IRGC is heavily involved in black markets), through their proxy Hezbollah, involved in transnational criminal activity.
They also occupy a strategic position which can threaten the flow of petroleum out of the gulf. Oil is a key interest for the US in the region but not in the manner of "war for oil" conspiracy theories in which the goal is US consumption. Relative stability of the oil market is in the interests of the US and the liberal world order, as is the stable access of gulf oil by the primary consumers of it who are in our interest (Europe, though the largest country of origin for petroleum imports into Europe is Russia). On the Russia piece, a stable oil market outside of Russia also serves to keep Russia from gobbling up market share. ME oil production is actually something we've weaponized in the past to attack the Soviet Union economically and could just as effectively be used to attack Russia.
From the perspective of promotion of liberal democracy and liberal democratic norms: Iran, like China, represents a threat to the spread of liberal democracy. Iran presents an alternative system which isn't void of democratic institutions but isn't liberal democracy. Like the Chinese system (authoritarian/vanguardism combined with a mixed market, but still heavily state influenced, economy) the Iranian system could represent an alternative system in the region.
This argument isn't immune from criticism, far from it. You could ask any Realist or Realism adjacent academic/author and they could likely each point you to one or many criticisms they've made about this framework in general and US involvement in the Middle East specifically.
(Also the 2nd TBH)
There was a (brief) time when it wasn’t.
That's the relatively unspoken reality of Democratic Peace Theory: even though democracies rarely fight each other they seemingly are eager to fight non-democracies.
It isn't the only response.
Correct.
Also a variety of nations in Africa, Central America, South America, and the Korean Peninsula.
So, yeah, that sounds about right.
John Bolton is to regime change as Art Laffer is to lower taxes. There's no evidence it will ever work, and plenty that it won't, but that's probably just because we haven't tried hard enough.
I'm pretty sure John Bolton isn't interested in promoting liberal democracy. He may believe in regime change, but he was also there for Iran-Contra so he clearly doesn't care if a new regime is a liberal democracy.
Well, his definition of work probably isn't "democracy" as "does what it's told".
Agree. I don't see where he's ever seemed particularly concerned with idealism of foreign democracy so much as the compliance of foreign powers with our agenda. It's just easier to justify war in places where it can be dressed up as spreading freedom, so that's where the hammer tends to fall.
("The hammer," I assume, is what he calls his moustache)
They spun things in terms of Ensuring The Preeminence Of Liberal Democracy For All Blah Blah Wharrgarbl, but you didn't need to look that closely at the subtext to see that a lot of the motivation really was just the same "power for power's sake" mentality that drove most other armed expansionism in the past. There's a reason people in that thinktank used terms like "colony" to describe what they wanted with Iraq.
War with iran is as unto republicans what chicken bones are unto dogs; a delicious treat that mean people won't let them have despite really, really wanting them.
I'm interested in understanding what the angle is on this. War for oil as you put it is my understanding of all our interactions in the middle east. Essentially oil is too much of an interest for people who want to line their pockets and they influence world leaders to initiate war in the region to control the oil for further profits or to destabilize other countries so that they have to work with oil interests. For instance in Iraq western oil interests took control of the oil industry and made a good bit of money after destabilizing the country.
Is the argument that America needs the oil? I thought we were self sufficient in this area and actually sell a good bit.
An argument can be valid (that is, following from its premises) without being correct (that is, aligning with a maximally-understood reality). As NSDFRand stated, they are not presenting an argument they believe to be correct, only valid from the perspective of John Bolton.
No, the opposite actually. We don't need the oil itself but a stable supply to our allies and a stable market in general is in our interests (specifically a favorable world order).
When you think about the interests of the US the general categories of interest area usually thought of as: Defense of the Homeland, Favorable World Order, Economic Prosperity, and Projection of values. There is of course overlap between the interests (for example a favorable world order for the US is likely to intersect with economic prosperity via free trade). Depending on the framework/grand strategy you approach foreign policy from you will have a different order of priority for each of these interests. Or you may omit an interest entirely.
So grand strategies coming from a Liberal Internationalist framework are going to focus heavily on a favorable world order. Grand strategies coming from a Realist framework, like off shore balancing, which are much more "lean back" will focus on defense of the homeland and may even omit projection of values (depending on how "lean back" the proponent is, it's more like a range of preferred involvement in the international system rather than a binary Internationalist or Isolationist) because from a Realist perspective there is no value in attempting to build an international system and there is no value in projecting values because states are all pursuing the same thing: power/security.
Of course in actual practice everything is much less categorically defined. Even if, for example, I were to point out the parts of the current administration's foreign policy which seems to pull from a Realist view of the world that doesn't mean the actors themselves would describe their world view as realist nor would they be able to simply implement a Realist foreign policy grand strategy. Because they aren't acting in a vacuum.
Do you disagree that America is destabilizing the region in order to pursue a world order of their making by way of maintaining control of oil?
I don't think the intention is to create instability based on historical National Security Strategies I've read (which usually include regional breakdowns). Rather I think the issues coming from US activity in the region are the result of a few factors even if sincerity isn't the cause:
Practitioners and policy makers who don't understand the region culturally or historically
Practitioners and policy makers who don't view their own world view or preferred strategies critically (I think this is probably even more contributory than a lack of understanding of the region, though both interact, an example here is a focus on elections, liberal democratic norms and institutions, and economic growth through free trade and neoliberal policy when engaging in democracy promotion and these create blind spots for practitioners and policy makers)
A post 9/11 refocus of Liberal Internationalist grand strategy towards military force (an example of grand strategy not being implemented in a vacuum, some Realists would argue that OIF and OEF, and by extension Libya and Syria,are inextricable from a Liberal Internationalist framework and were inevitable, I'm unsure how much I buy that argument yet but it is compelling)
I understand you have a bit more knowledge of what people said and what their ideology of the time was but generally this is all done to ensure control of oil because of its value/importance to the world market. Unless I am misunderstanding.
Maybe saying destability isn't the goal but rather it's not, not the goal.
Generally yes, since oil became such an important resource it has been a focus of grand strategy. Since oil was discovered in the peninsula/in the gulf the region has likewise had a focus in US grand strategy and even most proposed strategies which aren't entirely isolationist.
I will have to find the title of it but there's a pretty good, not overly long either thankfully, book on the topic. IIRC it collects scholarly articles on different topics where oil and US grand strategy meet but it's been a few months since I touched it.
Though of course it's difficult to dismiss arguments of democracy promotion coming from the actors themselves. But oil is inextricable from any strategy involving the region.
I'd argue there was a good bit of rationalizing our involvement in the region in the pursuit of maintaining control of oil. We didn't feel the need to invade some southeast asian countries or african countries in order to promote democracy.
Our main focus militarily and clandestinely is in the middle east and south american countries that have large reserves of oil.
Certainly there is some selectivity. We don't operate in a vacuum so there are factors in play other than the things we want to do as well.
An example of this happening (when we had a more broad grand strategy but became "sucked into" and focused on a smaller area) was Vietnam. NSC68 described a much more global grand strategy against the Soviets and COMINTERN, however we pivoted to South East Asia (multiple factors for why could be argued, or I suppose multiple actors could be blamed) and pulled focus away from other regions in our interest. Ironically this (the Vietnam War) could be argued to have indirectly kickstarted the Iranian nuclear program.
Likewise 9/11 moved our focus to the Middle East to the detriment of operations elsewhere.
I think that is starting to change now, or at least I've heard a rumor from someone who was told directly that CENTCOM is going to lose some focus in the near future and money will be going towards EUCOM and maybe Indo PACOM with a refocus away from the ME.
Maintaining our military spending at its currently levels is draining the US economy and has left us near destitute. Our infrastructure is on the brink of ruin, our society and politics on the brink of total breakdown. Hell our environment cannot sustain the US military's output of carbon dioxide.
At the same time our military is understaffed and undermaintained for its current missions. Special forces deployments all over the world have left them spent, and we have a recruitment crisis in the regular forces, leaving units facing multiple deployments that break them. The US navy cannot meet its massive backlog of ship maintenance. So we cannot maintain our current military as it is, and even if we did it cannot meet its current missions without significant investment and expansion. The military budget is as big as its ever been but it isn't enough, while our social spending has been frozen and eaten away by inflation for decades now.
I just laugh when I think about the US military trying to invade Iran. The US military will destroy itself crashing against those mountains.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
I support not needlessly wasting multiple generations of our youth, trying desperately to maintain the facade of our former hegemonic power. That ship has sailed into the West, our 1 nation, world police force is no longer sustainable (if it ever truly was, afterall, we didn't have a win larger than Grenada till Desert Storm post WWII).
The arrow of time moves ever forward and gone are the days when a man who played second billing to a chimpanzee can take out a lien on our country's future to outspend our rivals into submission.
~ Buckaroo Banzai
*sighs, no longer at all surprised*
Of course.
There's a lot of negatives in that.
Does that mean that Republicans support the idea of using the AUMF for Iran, or they're against it?
If the former, then they can all go get fucked over attacking Obama for using the AUMF.
If the latter, "blind squirrel finds a nut" finally did something right.
They're pro-war.