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[US Foreign Policy] A Generation of War
moniker
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
A new thread to discuss what amounts to our supposed policies to foreign nations.
Previously on The Earth:
President Trump leaves Vietnam early for reasons unrelated to pulling an all nighter to live tweet his indicted co-conspirator's Congressional testimony.
We are closing the Palestinian Consulate and running relations out of a Section desk at the Israeli embassy in Jerusalem.
South America continues to have America in it.
Also: Tariffs? No war but the trade war. But also, maybe actual war.
What will happen next?
*************
Official prevention of cross contamination post.
*************
The Russian investigation, and related issues: Mueller Russian Investigation Thread
Sundry other corrupt practices: The numerous other Trump investigation threads.
General Middle East goings on: The Middle East Thread
Canada specific things and what even is cheese? : Canada Thread
BREXIT: Hiberno-Brittania thread
Venezuela? : South America Thread
Trump immigration policy, Muslim ban and beyond: Immigration Policy Thread
Firings and Hirings of Senior Government positions: Trump Cabinet Thread
*************
Previously on The Earth:
President Trump leaves Vietnam early for reasons unrelated to pulling an all nighter to live tweet his indicted co-conspirator's Congressional testimony.
We are closing the Palestinian Consulate and running relations out of a Section desk at the Israeli embassy in Jerusalem.
South America continues to have America in it.
Also: Tariffs? No war but the trade war. But also, maybe actual war.
What will happen next?
*************
Official prevention of cross contamination post.
*************
The Russian investigation, and related issues: Mueller Russian Investigation Thread
Sundry other corrupt practices: The numerous other Trump investigation threads.
General Middle East goings on: The Middle East Thread
Canada specific things and what even is cheese? : Canada Thread
BREXIT: Hiberno-Brittania thread
Venezuela? : South America Thread
Trump immigration policy, Muslim ban and beyond: Immigration Policy Thread
Firings and Hirings of Senior Government positions: Trump Cabinet Thread
*************
moniker on
+7
This discussion has been closed.
Posts
Even if South Korea wants to be low key anyway, we were just at a Summit. Seems like we could have gotten a little concession for it.
But now it’s coming right after Trump stormed out in a huff being all “No Deal!”
...No deal, but here’s a little concession from us anyway.
The enterprise of continually expanding America's military spending, while cutting joint operations with allies in potential conflict regions, is strategically baffling yes.
Being able to flawlessly interface with an ally's military in times of crisis is extremely important. Logistics wins wars.
This can't be overstated. I don’t have the exact numbers (at work, on phone), but an intolerable number of friendly fatalities in joint forces conflicts are due to failed integration.
From improper IFF identification, to lack of knowledge of movement, to poor joint planning, to consistency or knowledge of standard practices.
Stuff that military exercises like the ones cancelled, are designed to mitigate.
Yeah. Joint operations like that don’t so much improve the chances of the allies winning a war on the Korean Peninsula as reduce the cost in lives and materiel. On both sides of the conflict and both military and civilians. It’s a pretty callous move.
They asked for a lot, but they did not technically ask for "all sanctions" be removed.
And here's the dumbest part.
They went to the summit, knowing for weeks that this is exactly what North Korea was going to demand, because its the same thing they've been wanting in all the talks leading up to this summit. So its possible that the Trump Administration knew ahead of time that the plan was to just leave abruptly and take a big shit on all of Vietnams efforts to host and cater to both leaders.
It also... makes the concession of the military training exercises even more baffling.
Great. Fucking great. I hate living in interesting times.
We passed "interesting times" in about August of 2017. Ever since Charlottesville, reality in the US is best described by the late George Carlin as "Mongolian Clusterfuck".
And at this point can we just get the interns and IT team at the State Department to take over the actual tasks of diplomacy? Seemingly ever higher level functionary from Pompeo down to section/regional leads couldn't find their ass with a map, flashlight, and a GPS navigator.
~ Buckaroo Banzai
We cancelled some then, but I remember the US going back on that and saying they would resume.
Trump submitted it and signed Abe's name, didn't he?
I'm not upset at the cancellation of the exercises, but I am facepalming at the predictably incompetent Trump diplomacy. It's really all up to Moon and Kim (are those the right one-name references?) to make any progress here.
The Nobel committee just announced the nomination was forged.
Wait, so Abe hasn't said that it's valid? We only have President Trump's account to go on?
That is...gonna be fascinating.
There were TWO forged nominations ostensibly from the U.S., one last year and another this year, and nothing has been said linking them to Japan or Abe.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-forged-nobel-nomination_us_5a988410e4b0a0ba4ad18d44
They announced that a nomination was forged. We don't know what relation, if any, that has with the Japanese nomination that has been reported on.
Besides that: what exactly has trump done to further the cause of peace? He's effectively given Hamas and other organizations like it zero reason to trust the united states or pursue diplomacy, Africa and south america have strained relationships at best with the US due to his lack of message discipline, NATO is strained, Russia is spreading it's inflence primarily by destabilizing the rest of the world and NK is only halting their nuclear program because of structural instability.
Like, if there was an award for the stellar opposite of the Nobel peace prize he'd be a sure fire winner for that.
(* almost purely on the basis of Not Being W, it must be admitted. And now Trump has gone and set a whole new standard in Being Terrible At Diplomacy.)
But wait...there's more!
Christ, what an ignorant asshole.
It really is amazing that this man has gotten as far in life as he has considering how utterly narcissistic he is; Like for christ's sake, he's like a kid on christmas morning anytime some third rate autocrat gives him a pat on the head and actively defends their motivations for praising him from people who've made a living out of studying them.
It wasn’t Cohen.
It wasn’t that North Korea was asking for what they had been asking for.
It was because Trumps fragile little ego was hurt that his “grand bargain” was rebuffed.
So he threw a tantrum and left immediately.
The master negotiator is in reality a little whiny manchild who gives up on something after the slightest bit of resistance from anyone who actually matters. He tried to serve the same thing we've been trying to get the North to take for years and years and Un refuses, and Trump just bails on the whole thing and looks like an angry toddler who's pissed he didn't get to stick a fork in the outlet even though he was such a good boy and did everything he thought he was supposed to. And now we can see we've given up so much for absolutely nothing of substance or value from the NKs.
The best people.
I can has cheezburger, yes?
The Grand Negotiator
For someone who bills themself as THE deal maker, in his two years, he's got a shitty record.
Canada? Nope. Mexico? Nope. The EU? Nope. Individual elements of the EU? Nope. China? Nope. TPP? Nope. Iran? Fucked that proper. North Korea? Fucked that too. I'm sure I missed some.
Other than blowing up NAFTA and replacing it with essentially a carbon copy (and pissing off both other parties in the process), when has he even come out even?
Tired of winning? I'm waiting for him to start.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/02/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-torture-american-citizen.html It is depressing this probably won't move the needle when it comes to relations with Saudi Arabia.
When you're born rich, you can quite literally afford to be narcissistic.
Anyone viewing Trump as a "consummate dealmaker" would have to have binge watched a couple seasons of The Apprentice and then completely slept through the past two years.
And the 20 preceding the apprentice
I'm pretty sure the only pne that sees Donald Trump as a dealmaker are 1)Donald Trump and 2)John Barron
Maybe he was hoping North Korea didn't bother to read up on him, just like he didn't bother to read up on them?
And that comes from our cultural fetishizing of businessmen. Trump has a has a hucksters instinct to tap into archetypes and stereotypes.
For a person to keep believing in "Trump the Dealmaker" they have to ignore pretty much all reality. His Korean summit is clearly a pitiful failure, but his followers won't care.
The power of a bully only comes from punching down. Trump was a "dealmaker" because he pushed around small contractors and renters who couldn't fight back. That's their idea of power and deals.