man

Ctrl f democratic

Sad asl tho

So are US actions with regards to Russia really just 100% irrational from a strategic pov for American imperialism?

Or are all the negatives worth getting Europe fully back in US orbit along with American weapon and oil companies going crayz?

Would the Iraq war and how disastrous it would end up being for America have a part in the big brain Freudomarxist irrational empire thesis

Ofc Saddam wasn't compliant to US interests and for a long time and there was a real interest in his overthrow but was he really that much of a threat to US hegemony that it warranted what the US did from a purely strategic pov

These project for a new American century neocon fellas all are a bit more irrational than the big brain fellas. Brzezinski and Kennan were outright against it for example (Kissinger was in favor tho)

Also that team B George H. W. Bush set up at the CIA to fabricate intelligence to make the USSR seem more threatening had two future PNAC signatories Donald Rumsfeld & Paul Wolfowitz

Wonder how much of this would have to do with the difference that the end of the cold war made All the big brain fellas came up during the cold war of course

@krishna_bound @DontAtMe @cloud_rap

Brzezinski, who opposed the March 2003 invasion and has publicly denounced the war as a colossal foreign policy blunder, began his remarks on what he called the “war of choice” in Iraq by characterizing it as “a historic, strategic and moral calamity.”

“Undertaken under false assumptions,” he continued, “it is undermining America’s global legitimacy. Its collateral civilian casualties as well as some abuses are tarnishing America’s moral credentials. Driven by Manichean principles and imperial hubris, it is intensifying regional instability.”

Brzezinski derided Bush’s talk of a “decisive ideological struggle” against radical Islam as “simplistic and demagogic,” and called it a “mythical historical narrative” employed to justify a “protracted and potentially expanding war.”

“To argue that America is already at war in the region with a wider Islamic threat, of which Iran is the epicenter, is to promote a self-fulfilling prophecy,” he said.

“I will not worry further about the multiple, unnecessary, and grave dangers into which Mr. Bush is now so lightheartedly leading us. I am like someone on a ship crossing a great ocean. I know that the course taken by those on the bridge is dreadfully incorrect, but having been neither consulted nor allowed to feel that my opinion, even if volunteered, would be welcome or respected. ... I can only be inwardly prepared for what is coming, and mumble helplessly, as did the discarded and dying Bismarck, ‘Wehe meinen Enkeln.’ (God help my grandchildren).” - George Kennan

foreignpolicy.com/2012/04/30/what-if-realists-were-in-charge-of-u-s-foreign-policy

Interesting article which talks about how foreign policy post-cold war has been less dominated by realism and more so by liberal IR theory and that neoconservatism is basically just liberal interventionism on steroids (I would agree but add it's also a lot more reactionary). And that this explains many blunders in foreign policy that they would deem irrational like Iraq, NATO expansion and not focusing more on China. I don't agree with everything though, like Libya for example but it's an interesting take

I think a lot of this has to do with the US not having a real giant threat to their empire (especially ideologically) like the USSR anymore when the cold war ended.

The world without Sino-Soviet split
The world if Lenin died age 90
The world if the German Revolution succeeds
The world if Stalin didn't do f***shit in Catalonia and Greece
The world if USSR went through with OGAS
The world if Walter Rodney led Guyana and Mauricr Bishop led Grenada and instigated a revolution in the Caribbean to form a Caribbean Union and the Grenada Invasion ends up as Bay of Pigs 2.0
The world if Andropov doesn't die so soon
The world if fellas learnt Esperanto and English becomes the language of reactionaries
The world if Allende survived and the pink wave happens in the 1970s, morphing into the red wave in the 1990s/2000s
The world if Russia had a civil war in the 1990s leading to communist Siberia and ethnic republics in Volga and Ural regions
The world if glasnost and perestroika doesnt happen and they instead go for cybernetic planning
The world if Gang of Four won
The world if Lin Biao survives
The world if the Secret Speech never happens
The world if Trotsky and Stalin co-exist
The world if USSR already fights against Nazi Germany in 1938 and wins in 1943 and takes over Europe until Germany and then is smarter about dealing with those countries
The world if Ghadafi makes an African Union
The world if Nelson Mandela implements socialism in South Africa
The world if communists get their way in Mozambique, Angola, which leads to revolutions in Madagascar, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Botswana, and they form a federation, and the king of Swaziland gets guillotined (fuck him in particular)

It's totally rational for the USA
The USA is the equivalent of a mafioisi wrecking your windows at night and then coming around in the morning, acting surprised and offering to protect you in exchange for a monthly fee

The problem is they didn't anticipate how much energy prices can fuel inflation, however the current situation isn't a real threat yet and they can weather the storm more or less easily as of now

The US politicians can live off taxpayer money via the military-industrial complex which is just a way to extract wealth from the workers

This complex needs wars to run, not to mention the falling rate of profit and the access for new oil

The USA simply needed a new target for a new war, and the lessons of the Vietnam War were forgotten, and 1991 Gulf War invasion seemed successful enough

I am willing to bet the USA will start another big war soon enough

But inflation isn't the only negative tho, you also got Russia & China getting closer

There's definitely a material incentive for war in and of itself, but that doesn't mean all wars are beneficial for the empire as a whole.

Like the MIC definitely benefitted from the Iraq war but as a whole I would say it weakened American imperialism.

I think it's also a thing to note that the big brains have less direct ties (afaik) to the military industrial complex compared to neocon mfs

A contradiction of capitalism is that the short-term interests of special groups, in this case even special groups of bourgeois, will be put over the long-term interests of bigger groups. The US bourgeoisie isn't capable of long-term planning, especially since neoliberalism

1. Inflation doesn't need to be negative for the bourgeoisie, their debts are wiped by it
2. China IMO hasn't gotten closer to Russia, it's just that their stance didn't change while Europe's stance changed, so Russia has to cling on closer to them. If China really allows this and this really works (the economic geography isn't very favorable), then that's one thing. But China might p**** out

The realism fellas typically come out of universities and diplomatic service, whereas the liberalism fellas are regular politrixters

End of history/Fukuyama did a big number on people, us youngsters might not fully understand but you had communists abandoning s*** overnight, the US elites drank their own kool-aid and are still on that high

With the US of today that's true, but that's not always been the case tho. Of course you got other examples of capitalist states today like China for example. But also it was Eisenhower himself that warned of and coined the term of military industrial complex, weapons manufacturers didn't always have this big of a role in US policy directly.

The growing influence of the MIC precedes it (it probably has something to do with it), but ater the end of the cold war there's been a theoretical shift in American foreig policy that's much less based on realism and more towards liberal internationalism/neoconservatism.

How and why that happened is what I'm more so thinking about.

But China already has become closer with Russia. Even before the invasion, and I think they will continue to get closer as well. This is actually part of the argument that realists like Mearsheimer make against US aggression towards Russia.

On december 15th, China and Russia had a summit where they showed support for Russia's security proposals, denounced Western meddling in China, talked about more trade between the two countries and said that their partnership "exceeds an alliance", that was on the same day Russia's security proposals got rejected by the way.

In the past the annexation of the Crimea brought China and Russia closer as well.

"At present, certain international forces under the guise of 'democracy' and 'human rights' are interfering in the internal affairs of China and Russia, and brutally trampling on international law and recognized norms of international relations," China's state-run Xinhua news agency quoted Xi as saying.

"China and Russia should increase their joint efforts to more effectively safeguard the security interests of both parties."

"A new model of cooperation has been formed between our countries, based, among other things, on such principles as non-interference in internal affairs and respect for each other's interests," Putin told Xi.

One top Russian official told media in December 2021 that the relationship now “exceeds an alliance.”1 Chinese state media, meanwhile, have vocally backed Russia in arguing that the current crisis stems from the US “using NATO as a tool to cannibalize and squeeze Russia’s strategic space.”

The ideological confrontation with USSR led the US elites to reflect upon their system soberly, for example the Sputnik Shock

Once this confrontation ended, the USA lost its reason to remain rational and could indulge in the rationalizations and delusions liberalism entails

This is mostly stuff before the invasion, I don't think they got any closer than they alreadx have been since a decade or so

Russia will seek further closeness but it remains to be seen if it works long-term

Maoist China when USA approaches
Dengoid China when Russia approaches

Yeah I think that's definitely part of it

Also those insane military budgets that were previously justified with the threat of the USSR had to be justified somehow as well

The USA wasn't as good in fracking for oil yet and the oil producers weren't all pro US, the USA wanted to increase its oil access and protect the petrodollar as well

@Scratchin_Bandit Saddam decided to sell oil for euros instead of dollars prior to the invasion