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Thread: Great Power contentions

  1. #31
    Coffee farmer extraordinaire Member spmetla's Avatar
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    Default Re: Great Power contentions

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...?ocid=msedgntp
    White House: US-China war over Taiwan 'would broaden quickly'
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    China and the United States face a growing likelihood of conflict over the status of Taiwan, a contest that current and former officials fear could lead to upheaval unseen since World War II.
    “I am sure that we are going to be in a kinetic conflict with China in five years,” retired Army Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, the Pershing Chair in Strategic Studies at the Center for European Policy Analysis, said Wednesday. “I hope I'm wrong, but I believe within the next five years there's going to be a kinetic conflict — missiles, submarines, aircraft; not so much land operations. … It’s just about inevitable.”

    That prospect presents a high-stakes dilemma for U.S. officials, who could face a choice between rallying to the embattled island democracy or conceding the loss and allowing Chinese communist officials to achieve a major victory that might empower Beijing to break the broader U.S. alliance network and dominate the Indo-Pacific region. President Joe Biden’s team has declined to say explicitly whether he would send U.S. forces to defend Taiwan, but his administration is telling Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping not to risk a clash with the United States.

    "I think it would broaden quickly, and it would fundamentally trash the global economy in ways that I don't think anyone can predict," Kurt Campbell, the White House National Security Council’s lead official for the Indo-Pacific, said Tuesday during a discussion hosted by the Financial Times while contemplating what would happen if the U.S. and China were to come to blows.

    Campbell refused to declare explicitly that the U.S. would defend Taiwan in a crisis, in keeping with a long-standing U.S. policy of “strategic ambiguity” about how Washington would respond.

    "I believe that there are some significant downsides to the kind of what is called strategic clarity that you lay out,” he said.

    U.S. officials and lawmakers are nevertheless growing more emphatic in their message of support for Taiwan, as Campbell’s boss made clear last week.

    “What we would like to see is stability in cross-strait relations and no effort to unilaterally change the ‘status quo,’” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told the Aspen Institute in remarks that attracted attention in Taiwanese media. “That is how we are going to continue to approach the Taiwan issue going forward, with steadiness, clarity, and resolve with respect to our view that there should be no unilateral changes to the 'status quo.'"

    Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned China on Tuesday that “it would be a very serious mistake” to change the status quo — a multi-decade situation in which Beijing has refused to relinquish its claim to sovereignty over the island, but likewise refused to try to bring the island under the mainland regime’s control by force. Chinese communist officials have never renounced the possible use of force, but they have prioritized “peaceful reunification” nonetheless.

    Blinken’s statement dovetailed with then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s pledge in October that “whether it's Taiwan or the challenge presented to Japan, the United States will be a good partner for security in every dimension.”

    Hodges, speaking to the United Kingdom-based Council on Geostrategy, suggested that the Western failure to make Chinese officials regret their crackdown on Hong Kong over the last year has emboldened Beijing to risk a military conflict.

    “I just think the language coming out of Beijing about Taiwan, the fact that nobody did anything, truthfully, about what the Chinese have done in Hong Kong, to include the U.K. surprisingly, how little the response has been, and then the increasing aggression, aggressiveness, by the Chinese in the South China Sea — it seems to me it’s just about inevitable,” Hodges said. “I don’t want to say inevitable, but it’s very close to it.”


    A not unsurprising but still worrying situation. Given the diplomatic blitz that Blinken has done in the region I can assume that the 'quad' plus UK and maybe some bits of the EU will stand by Taiwan if the island of formosa is attacked outright.

    With the UK's new Carrier Strike Group on it's first operational world tour I wonder if it will choose to pass through the Taiwan straits at all for freedom of navigation purposes or go East around the island when headed to Japan.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...?ocid=msedgntp
    Exclusive: China plans to revive strategic Pacific airstrip, Kiribati lawmaker says
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    SYDNEY (Reuters) - China has drawn up plans to upgrade an airstrip and bridge on one of Kiribati's remote islands about 3,000km southwest of Hawaii, lawmakers told Reuters, in a bid to revive a site that hosted military aircraft during World War Two.

    The plans, which have not been made public, involve construction on the tiny island of Kanton (also spelled Canton), a coral atoll strategically located midway between Asia and the Americas.

    Kiribati opposition lawmaker Tessie Lambourne told Reuters she was concerned about the project, and wanted to know whether it was part of China's Belt and Road Initiative.

    "The government hasn't shared the cost and other details other than it's a feasibility study for the rehabilitation of the runway and bridge," Lambourne told Reuters. "The opposition will be seeking more information from government in due course."

    The office of Kiribati President Taneti Maamau did not respond to questions.

    The Chinese foreign ministry did not immediately respond to questions.

    Despite being small, Kiribati, a nation of 120,000 residents, controls one of the biggest exclusive economic zones in the world, covering more than 3.5 million square kilometres of the Pacific.
    Any significant build-up on Kanton, located 3,000 kilometres (1,864 miles) southwest of Hawaii and U.S. military bases there, would offer a foothold to China deep into territory that had been firmly aligned to the U.S. and its allies since World War Two.

    "The island would be a fixed aircraft carrier," said one adviser to Pacific governments, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the project.

    The U.S. Navy's 7th Fleet and U.S. State Department's Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

    Kiribati (pronounced Kiribas) has in recent years been at the centre of a tussle between China and the U.S. and its Pacific allies.

    In late 2019 it severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan in favour of China, in a decision overseen by Maamau, who went on to win a closely contested election on a pro-China platform.

    The diplomatic shift, which mirrored events in the Solomon Islands, was a setback for self-ruled Taiwan, which China claims as a province with no right to state-to-state ties. Taiwan counts the U.S. as an important international backer and supplier of arms.

    Kanton has been used by the U.S. for space and missile tracking operations and its near 2-kilometre (6,562 ft) runway hosted long-range bombers during the war.

    The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) said in a paper last year that Chinese facilities on Kiribati would be positioned across major sea lanes between North America, and Australia and New Zealand.

    Beijing has labelled the think tank as "anti-China".

    Along with its strategic significance, the waters around Kanton are rich in fish, including tuna, although commercial fishing is prohibited as the island is in a marine protected zone.

    There are around two dozen residents on Kanton who rely on subsistence fishing and supply ships.

    (Reporting by Jonathan Barrett. Additional reporting by Beijing Bureau. Editing by Gerry Doyle)


    China's navy has used the establishment of a base in Djbouti to learn how to conduct operations far from their shores and what it would take to really project naval power. wonder if this airfield would lead to a port as well. Either way it's China extending influence into an area that the 'west' has largely ignored since it's been decolonized. I'm sure the locals would appreciate some investment into their infrastructure, also it would make deep sea exploitation easier, mining rare earths from the ocean's bottom will be an industry relatively soon.
    Last edited by spmetla; 05-06-2021 at 00:20.

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    Four stage strategy from Yes, Minister:
    Stage one we say nothing is going to happen.
    Stage two, we say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it.
    Stage three, we say that maybe we should do something about it, but there's nothing we can do.
    Stage four, we say maybe there was something we could have done, but it's too late now.

  2. #32
    Coffee farmer extraordinaire Member spmetla's Avatar
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    Default Re: Great Power contentions

    Just thought I'd keep it in this thread as Turkey bringing up the idea has implications for NATO, the EU, and the US relationship with Israel and Turkey.
    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...?ocid=msedgntp
    Erdogan pushes for Turkey to oversee Jerusalem and provide air support to Palestinians
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    Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his domestic political allies have floated sending military forces to Jerusalem, including fighter jets, to give Palestinians air cover as the Israel-Hamas crisis gives him an opportunity to boost his regional influence and standing at home.
    “If there is a call, let us answer it,” Turkish lawmaker Devlet Bahceli, who leads the nationalist party in a coalition with Erdogan, said Tuesday. “Let us stop the bloodshed and ensure peace and stability.”

    That statement reinforces Erdogan’s message in a late Monday speech, in which the Turkish leader proposed to alter the administration of Jerusalem. Such a development would upend the current Arab oversight of the holy sites and place a NATO country and its military in an adversarial setting with Israeli forces.

    "At this point, we believe there's a need for a separate arrangement on Jerusalem,” Erdogan said Monday. "In today's circumstances, it would be the most correct and consistent course of action for Jerusalem to be administered by a commission of representatives from the three faiths. Otherwise, it doesn't appear it will be easily possible to achieve lasting peace in this ancient city.”
    Erdogan floated the idea of sending an “international protection force" last week following a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, although the Kremlin team showed no public sign of interest in such an effort.

    The Turkish leader observed that Israel has air power while the militants in Gaza do not, without committing to a specific military proposal — a notable absence that lends itself to the assessment that Erdogan is trying to boost his sagging political approval ratings at home, rather than orchestrate a major shift in the regional balance of power.

    “This is Erdogan being strategically ambiguous on purpose,” former Turkish opposition lawmaker Aykan Erdemir, a senior analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told the Washington Examiner. “He’s proposing a vague idea of either a peacekeeping force or a Turkish deployment, knowing fully well it will not materialize, but at the same time, appealing to his voter base and his fans around the world.”

    Still, such a domestic political maneuver could reinforce the suspicions between Gulf Arab states and Erdogan, whose Muslim Brotherhood sympathies and affinity for the late Ottoman Empire has fed tensions between the leaders of the Sunni Muslim world.

    “Arab leaders would see this as threatening, even if it’s just rhetoric because ultimately such rhetoric not only appeals to Erdogan’s support base at home, but it also appeals to the Arab street and sympathizers of the Muslim Brotherhood,” Erdemir said. “Even though nothing concrete is expected to come out of Erdogan’s calls, it still has the capacity to undermine traditional Arab leaders.”

    Jordan’s King Abdullah II has “custodianship” of the holy sites in Jerusalem, a status he has determined to maintain in the face of speculation that other Arab powers might try to muscle him out. “I will never change my position toward Jerusalem in my life,” he said in November. “All my people are with me.”
    Erdogan and Bahceli, his coalition ally, accused the United States of emboldening Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “The indifference of leaders in the Muslim world strengthens Israel’s hand,” Bahceli said.


    I'll assume all of this is just Erdogan posturing for domestic politics benefit but Turkey has been a bit of a wild card the last few years and looking at the resource exploration they're doing around Cyprus I wouldn't put it past them to form an 'alliance' of sorts with Hamas or the PLA.

    "Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?"
    -Abraham Lincoln


    Four stage strategy from Yes, Minister:
    Stage one we say nothing is going to happen.
    Stage two, we say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it.
    Stage three, we say that maybe we should do something about it, but there's nothing we can do.
    Stage four, we say maybe there was something we could have done, but it's too late now.

  3. #33
    Stranger in a strange land Moderator Hooahguy's Avatar
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    Default Re: Great Power contentions

    Quote Originally Posted by spmetla View Post
    I'll assume all of this is just Erdogan posturing for domestic politics benefit but Turkey has been a bit of a wild card the last few years and looking at the resource exploration they're doing around Cyprus I wouldn't put it past them to form an 'alliance' of sorts with Hamas or the PLA.
    The first part seems to be it. There is no chance in hell that this is a serious proposal. Or even feasible.

    Not to mention that the idea of Turkey providing air support for the Palestinians is kinda laughable considering their air force is not doing so great after the 2016 coup attempt and the subsequent purging of the air force.
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  4. #34
    Coffee farmer extraordinaire Member spmetla's Avatar
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    Default Re: Great Power contentions

    Russia warns Britain it will bomb ships next time
    https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/bri...ia-2021-06-24/
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    LONDON, June 24 (Reuters) - Russia warned Britain on Thursday that it would bomb British naval vessels in the Black Sea if there were any further provocative actions by the British navy off the coast of Russia-annexed Crimea.

    Russia summoned the British ambassador in Moscow for a formal diplomatic scolding after the warship breached what the Kremlin says are its territorial waters but which Britain and most of the world say belong to Ukraine.

    Britain said Russia was giving an inaccurate account of the incident. No warning shots had been fired and no bombs had been dropped in the path of the Royal Navy destroyer Defender, it said.
    In Moscow, Russia summoned Ambassador Deborah Bronnert for a reprimand over what it said were Britain's "dangerous" action in the Black Sea - while foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused London of "barefaced lies".

    "We can appeal to common sense, demand respect for international law, and if that doesn't work, we can bomb," Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told Russian news agencies.

    Ryabkov, referring to Moscow's version of events in which a Russian aircraft bombed the path of the British destroyer, said that in future bombs would be sent "not only in its path, but also on target."

    The Black Sea, which Russia uses to project its power in the Mediterranean, has for centuries been a flashpoint between Russia and its competitors such as Turkey, France, Britain and the United States.

    Russia seized and annexed the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 and considers areas around its coast to be Russian waters. Western countries deem the Crimea to be part of Ukraine and reject Russia's claim to the seas around it.

    Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the British warship, which was travelling from the Ukrainian port of Odessa to the Georgian port of Batumi, was acting in accordance with the law and had been in international waters.

    "These are Ukrainian waters and it was entirely right to use them to go from A to B," Johnson said. British Defence Minister Ben Wallace accused Russian pilots of conducting unsafe aircraft manoeuvres 500 feet (152 m) above the warship.
    "The Royal Navy will always uphold international law and will not accept unlawful interference with innocent passage," Wallace said.

    Under international law of the sea, innocent passage permits a vessel to pass through another state's territorial waters so long as this does not affect its security.

    Britain disputed the Russian version of events, with Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab calling it "predictably inaccurate".

    BLACK SEA DISPUTE

    During its 2008 war with Georgia, Russia bristled at U.S. warships operating in the Black Sea, and in April the United States cancelled the deployment of two warships to the area.

    Ties between London and Moscow have been on ice since the 2018 poisoning with a Soviet-developed nerve agent known as Novichok of ex-double agent Sergei Skripal, a mole who betrayed hundreds of Russian agents to Britain's MI6 foreign spy service.

    The British destroyer visited the Ukrainian port of Odessa this week, where an agreement was signed for Britain to help upgrade Ukraine's navy.

    Russia said it had ventured as far as 3 km (2 miles) into Russian waters near Cape Fiolent, a landmark on Crimea's southern coast near the port of Sevastopol, headquarters of the Russian Navy's Black Sea fleet.

    Britain's BBC released footage from the ship showing a Russian coast guard warning that he would shoot if the British ship did not change course.

    "If you don't change the course, I'll fire," a heavily accented Russian voice said in English to the British ship. The BBC said shots were fired and that as many as 20 Russian aircraft were "buzzing" the British ship.

    Britain said the shots were part of a Russian gunnery exercise. Russia released footage filmed from a Russian SU-24 bomber flying close to the British ship.

    "These aircraft posed no immediate threat to HMS Defender, but some of these manoeuvres were neither safe nor professional," Britain's Wallace said.

    Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Kate Holton


    I doubt anyone takes this threat too literally it seems that Putin will try and test the limits of the US commitment to NATO by threatening the UK.

    An Army brigade posted to Taiwan, and other ways to counter China being floated
    https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-...being-floated/
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    If the Army is serious about countering the Chinese military in the Pacific, it needs to permanently station an Armored Brigade Combat Team on Taiwan, according to some think tankers.

    That type of basing decision would likely abandon the current policy of strategic ambiguity toward Taiwan, which intentionally leaves it unclear as to whether Americans would defend the island in a cross-strait conflict. Uncertain about their superpower backers, Taiwanese leaders are less likely to unilaterally declare independence and China is less inclined to hurry to war.

    Still, arguments for a kind of “tripwire force” have gained steam in recent months, including from a fall of 2020 essay published in a U.S. Army professional journal.

    Such a force would make China know it would confront U.S. troops on the first day of any planned invasion of the island or push eastward into the Pacific, said Dr. Loren Thompson, CEO of the Lexington Institute. Thompson spoke about the service’s role in U.S. Indo-Pacific Command at an Association of the U.S. Army panel on Wednesday.

    “There is no substitute for being there on the first day of conflict,” Thompson said.
    Before the United States formally recognized the Chinese government in the 1970s, the Army had 30,000 troops stationed in Taiwan, Thompson said. Currently, the Army has no permanently based troops on the island.
    Fellow panelist, Dr. Tom Karako, director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, used his opening remarks to lay out a case for the Army’s continued development of ground-based long-range precision fires.

    That effort was briefly criticized earlier this year as a kind of funding “power grab” that sought to expand the Army’s role over capabilities resident in the Air Force, Karako said.

    That criticism, lodged publicly by Gen. Timothy Ray, head of Air Force Global Strike Command during a Mitchell Institute Aerospace Advantage podcast on March 31 drew quick and sustained backlash from fellow Air Force and later Navy leaders. Those critical of Ray’s comments have emphasized that the Army’s fires pursuit complements the capabilities of the other services.

    Bolstering his advocacy of stationing an ABCT along with support capabilities in Taiwan, Thompson said that “there are big problems with depending on long-range air power and naval forces” to deter or prevent an invasion of Taiwan.

    The Air Force has only a handful of bases within the 2,000-mile range of Taiwan, he said. And more than half of the two dozen locations suggested for basing air assets for use in the Pacific have runways too short for a B-52 bomber to take off.

    To top it off, the air service only has 158 long-range bombers in its entire fleet, many of which are not operational day-to-day, Thompson said.

    Thompson added that if the Air Force were to use nuclear-capable bombers on conventional missions to China, it could trigger China’s use of its nuclear arsenal.

    The Navy, he said, has a “relatively small fleet to deploy” in the crowded area around Taiwan. And its assets would be vulnerable to growing Chinese Navy capabilities.

    By having an ABCT and other assets on the island, the Army could use mobile ground fires to hit invading ground forces and even strike at-sea targets, Thompson said.

    He pointed back to similar stationing during the Cold War in Europe to deter the Soviet Union. And currently, U.S. forces in the Baltic region and on the Korean peninsula to deter Russia and North Korea, respectively.

    Others, however, have argued that a scenario in which U.S. military intervention is guaranteed may not serve the intended purpose.

    In an article published this month for War on the Rocks, Harvard professor Alastair Johnston, National Chengchi University election researcher Tsai Chia-hung, and others, detailed surveys they conducted in 2019 and 2020 on a random sample of the Taiwanese population.

    “On the one hand, strategic clarity could enhance deterrence because it increases the Taiwanese people’s willingness to fight,” the researchers wrote of the survey results. “On the other hand, strategic clarity could reduce deterrence because it appears to increase the Taiwanese people’s support for independence.”

    Senior Chinese officials warned Taiwan earlier this year that independence could mean war.


    I know I've made it clear that I'd fully support this type of 'tripwire' support of Taiwan. I don't think an armored brigade would be the right answer though, perhaps an Infantry Brigade with armor attached as well as significant ADA attachments too.
    That it's being floated in a US military newspaper is a hell of a provocation on its own.
    Last edited by spmetla; 06-25-2021 at 04:32.

    "Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?"
    -Abraham Lincoln


    Four stage strategy from Yes, Minister:
    Stage one we say nothing is going to happen.
    Stage two, we say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it.
    Stage three, we say that maybe we should do something about it, but there's nothing we can do.
    Stage four, we say maybe there was something we could have done, but it's too late now.

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  5. #35
    Praefectus Fabrum Senior Member Anime BlackJack Champion, Flash Poker Champion, Word Up Champion, Shape Game Champion, Snake Shooter Champion, Fishwater Challenge Champion, Rocket Racer MX Champion, Jukebox Hero Champion, My House Is Bigger Than Your House Champion, Funky Pong Champion, Cutie Quake Champion, Fling The Cow Champion, Tiger Punch Champion, Virus Champion, Solitaire Champion, Worm Race Champion, Rope Walker Champion, Penguin Pass Champion, Skate Park Champion, Watch Out Champion, Lawn Pac Champion, Weapons Of Mass Destruction Champion, Skate Boarder Champion, Lane Bowling Champion, Bugz Champion, Makai Grand Prix 2 Champion, White Van Man Champion, Parachute Panic Champion, BlackJack Champion, Stans Ski Jumping Champion, Smaugs Treasure Champion, Sofa Longjump Champion Seamus Fermanagh's Avatar
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    Default Re: Great Power contentions

    I still say that none of us are willing to bleed to stop Russia in the Ukraine/Crimea. So we might as well not provoke them until we are.


    As to point two, is there any support among the Taiwanese government for this? Much less the difficulties noted in the piece itself.
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  6. #36

    Default Re: Great Power contentions

    Apparently Ethiopia's army just got its ass kicked by the Tigray resistance.

    It has been pointed out that though Ethiopia is perhaps the longest-lived African polity today, for almost none of its history has it aspired to democracy; it is one of the world's surviving great empires. And modernity shows a poor track record for empires.
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  7. #37
    Headless Senior Member Pannonian's Avatar
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    Default Re: Great Power contentions

    Quote Originally Posted by Montmorency View Post
    Apparently Ethiopia's army just got its ass kicked by the Tigray resistance.

    It has been pointed out that though Ethiopia is perhaps the longest-lived African polity today, for almost none of its history has it aspired to democracy; it is one of the world's surviving great empires. And modernity shows a poor track record for empires.
    China and Russia are doing quite well.

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    Default Re: Great Power contentions

    Wiki Source

    The US withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan adds another Great Power to the list of those outlasted by the Muslim Tribes of the Afghani mountains. As usual, the Great Power was largely undefeatable by the locals in any conventional way, but susceptible to harassment, guerilla tactics, and ultimately unwilling to continue to pay the cost in blood and treasure of imposing its designs on that polity (term used loosely; the loose political cultural framework of the region is part of its resilience). Persia, Macedon, England, Soviet Russia, and the USA have all failed. Only the Mongols had more than a nominal rule over the area and they did so by nearly depopulating it with a level of brutality seen neither before nor since. Even then, in time, the Mughal were more of its nominal than practical rulers. Nor is it an issue associated with Muslim fanaticism as two of the failed attempts predate that religion.

    Yes, I know that my government is currently claiming their belief that the Afghan government will not fall to the Taliban. I suspect that the only substantial difference between this and April 1975 will be the absence of a subsequent musical. I do hope we get the interpreters and their close kin out quickly. It is the least we should do.
    "The only way that has ever been discovered to have a lot of people cooperate together voluntarily is through the free market. And that's why it's so essential to preserving individual freedom.” -- Milton Friedman

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  9. #39

    Default Re: Great Power contentions

    Quote Originally Posted by Pannonian View Post
    China and Russia are doing quite well.
    China is a solid contender (and the US is something like an - choosing my words carefully here - unusual case), but, ah, Russia's imperial record is not a confident one.

    Quote Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh View Post
    Persia, Macedon, England, Soviet Russia, and the USA have all failed.
    The empire-killer sobriquet is at least a little overblown, given that Persian empires have dominated much or all of modern Afghanistan for almost as long as they existed, granting that Afghanistan has always been a political borderland and crossroads of Eurasian trade (even Bronze Age Crete relied on Afghan tin IIRC) and migration of itinerant Denisovans and Aryans and Bactrians and Saka and the like.

    But it probably has something to do with the Iranian heartland lying within a thousand miles of what are now Kabul and Kandahar - recurrent campaigning distance, nearer than the Mediterranean in the other direction...

    Yes, I know that my government is currently claiming their belief that the Afghan government will not fall to the Taliban. I suspect that the only substantial difference between this and April 1975 will be the absence of a subsequent musical. I do hope we get the interpreters and their close kin out quickly. It is the least we should do.
    What we can be sure of is that the Taliban will be forced to moderate its methods if it wishes to hold the rest of the country, just as Hanoi had to. The Taliban reportedly already inversely tailor somewhat the level of repression to the level of resistance by village and province. Most of Afghanistan is way more pissed off at the Taliban than the Vietnamese were with each other (ethnic minorities were more easily marginalized in Vietnam too).


    Speaking of Afghanistan, I'd like to take another moment to reflect on the early 2000s as historical era. Holding strong opinions on Iraq's place in foreign policy is a little before my time, but for those - ordinary people I mean - who gratuitously and advisably got wrong almost everything that can be got wrong, what's the retrospective look like? I assume I will one day survive to be similarly wrong about some momentous cycle, a source of great anxiety.

    In principle, the (abashed) errant ought to have wanted to outsource their judgement to those who easily and eruditely exposed all the deceits and fallacies of the Criminal Elite and the common-clay currencies (not that erudition was required). Doesn't seem like that took place in practice though? Paul Krugman is one of the few major pundits or commentators writing today, to my limited awareness at least, whose political analyses throughout the 2000s perform as comprehensively prescient at all timescales.

    It helps to recall an observation that Gail Sheehy made last year: ''The blind drive to win,'' she wrote, ''is a hallmark of the Bush family clan. One thing that G. W.'s childhood friends told me repeatedly was that he has to win, he absolutely has to win and if he thinks he's going to lose, he will change the rules or extend the play. Or if it really is bad he'll take his bat and ball and go home.''

    Now consider this: More than two months ago George W. Bush endorsed a ''stimulus'' bill so tilted toward corporate interests that even many conservatives were startled. This left only two ways a bill could pass the Senate: Either the Democratic leadership would collapse, or Mr. Bush would accept something that didn't look like a personal win. It didn't, and he wouldn't.
    Anyway, there are endless discussions to have about "reasons-as-causes" for why Republicans wanted to take down Saddam Hussein, why the Bush administration invaded Iraq, and why most or a plurality of liberals went along with it, but I like the meta sendups in this vein. I'll reprint it in whole.

    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
    The second– and third-most downloaded articles at the journal Security Studies both tackle the causes of the Iraq War. This might reflect an imbalance of supply and demand: there aren’t that many articles in leading international-relations journals that focus on the question of why the United States invaded Iraq.

    We can find a number of partial explanations. Many believe that American global dominance was at least a permissive condition; the absence of great powers prepared to deter or punish U.S. military action gave Washington a relatively free hand. A more controversial position is that we should basically take the Bush administration at its word – or, at least, once we strip out the hyperbole. In this account, the U.S. invasion was a specific example of the more general logic of preventive war.

    … determined to prevent Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein from acquiring nuclear weapons, the US administration was unable to prove that Iraq was not, in fact, developing them. Faced with the possibility of a large and rapid power shift in favor of Iraq and operating with imperfect information about Iraq’s militarization decision, the administration of US President George W. Bush opted for a preventive war, which was mistaken because there was no active Iraqi nuclear program.
    Given the weakness of the case that Iraq posed an imminent threat of nuclear proliferation, some contend that the war was intended to demonstrate U.S. power: to “shock and awe” the rest of the world. The September 11 attacks made members of the Bush administration particularly anxious to reassert U.S. dominance.

    I’ve come to believe that it’s a mistake to focus on any one cause, especially when we’re talking about “reasons as causes.” Different factions within the Bush administration supported the war for different reasons. I also question analysis which assumes that any given member of the Bush administration understood, or cared, how bad the case for war was. The officials who thought Hussein had a non-trivial WMD program, for example, went looking for evidence that he did. If that evidence didn’t exist then, well, he’d hidden an advanced nuclear program before, hadn’t he?

    This leads us to a different set of questions: what about the Bush administration led to such collective irrationality? My colleague Elizabeth Saunders argues that the Bush administration was prone to poor decision making because it combined a president who lacked foreign-policy experience with highly experienced senior officials: “Bush’s inexperience led to poor monitoring of his subordinates” and “contributed to an atmosphere in which subordinates” did not see “themselves as accountable to a well-informed leader.”

    A senior administration official told Packer in an interview that “no one ever walks into the Oval Office and tells them they’ve got no clothes on—and persists … I think it’s dangerous that we have an environment where our principal leader cannot be well-informed. It’s part and parcel of the office,” but more so in this administration, which was “scary, because of the president and the atmosphere and the people there.”
    Many of the explanations floating around – whether in academia or in more general discussion – sideline Bush altogether. As Fred Kaplan notes in his review of Robert Draper’s 2020 book To Start a War: How the Bush Administration Took America into Iraq:

    Draper’s central insight is to place George W. Bush at the center of the action. When it came to invading Iraq, Bush truly turns out to have been “the decider,” as he once described himself. And in those instances when others took charge, his style of decision-making was to let them, whereas most other presidents would have asked questions, mulled the options, perhaps convened a meeting of the National Security Council (NSC) to weigh the pros and cons of a proposal. Draper convincingly shows that, under Bush, there was “no ‘process’ of any kind,” at any stage of the war, from the decision to invade to figuring out how post-Saddam Iraq should be governed.
    This tracks with Saunder’s argument: Bush’s total lack of experience – or basic interest – in foreign policy introduced numerous pathologies into what passed for a decision-making process in his administration:

    In the weeks after September 11, many of Bush’s underlings were startled to witness this affable but aimless president—uncertain of himself, uneasy with his legitimacy after losing the popular vote and eking out a thin Electoral College edge thanks to a 5–4 Supreme Court ruling, content to spend half of his time away from Washington clearing brush weeds back at his ranch in Texas—suddenly seized with a “piercing clarity of purpose” and an “unchecked self-confidence.” Draper paints a vivid scene of Bush speaking to a group of Asian journalists in the Oval Office, pointing to portraits of Churchill, Lincoln, and Washington, aligning himself as their peer, and viewing himself as “a leader who knew who he was and who knew what was right.” And one thing he knew, being (as Bush himself put it) “a good versus evil guy,” was that “the time had now come to confront Saddam Hussein.”

    It is remarkable—and a central theme in the book—how swiftly so many senior officials fell into line, some of them against their better judgment, for reasons of misguided duty, crass cynicism, or converging motives. Wolfowitz, Libby, and a few other neocons had never pushed for an actual invasion—they fantasized about prodding small bands of Iraqi Shias and dissidents to crush Saddam’s army with the help of US air strikes—but they signed on to it, and took part in the cherry-picking of raw intelligence data that seemed to confirm that Saddam had WMDs and was affiliated with al-Qaeda, as the way to fulfill their dream. (WMDs were, as Wolfowitz later put it, “the one issue that everyone could agree on.”)
    Draper’s account singles out George “It’s a slam dunk, Mr. President” Tenet for making sure that skepticism from the intelligence community couldn’t derail the war train.

    … almost everyone in Bush’s inner circle really believed that Saddam had WMDs—if not nukes, then chemical or biological weapons, which a 1991 UN Security Council resolution banned him from developing. Those types of weapons were certainly within his capacity: he had built them a decade before, even used them in the Iran–Iraq War, but destroyed most of them under UN auspices after the first Gulf War. And there were still widespread suspicions—abetted by Iraq’s efforts to mislead UN weapons inspectors—that some remained hidden and that he could resume production.

    But the intelligence analysts who were most expert in the region and in the technology for making and handling WMDs couldn’t find persuasive evidence to make the case that Saddam had any, and Tenet did what he could to suppress their skepticism. A holdover from the previous administration, he had been frustrated by Bill Clinton’s lack of interest in what the CIA had to offer. For any CIA director, the president is the “First Customer”—the sole source of the agency’s power—and under Clinton that power had dissipated. By contrast Bush, especially after September 11, was riveted by the agency’s reports; he had Tenet personally deliver its Presidential Daily Briefing at 8 AM, six days a week. At last, the CIA had a seat at the big table, and Tenet wasn’t going to blow it.
    If you can get around the paywall, the review essay is definitely worth reading. Kaplan briefly draws the obvious comparison with Trump, noting that “in Trump, these traits were compounded by a prideful ignorance (Bush at least read books and intelligence reports) but mitigated by a lack of appetite for war.”

    We’ve spent twelve of the last 28 years with Republican administrations. Each of the three terms that they served were marked by catastrophic governance failures – Iraq, Katrina, the Great Recession, COVID-19 – that left hundreds of thousands of people dead. Given that record, it makes a certain amount of sense that the party has become subservient to a massive, relatively decentralized disinformation ecosystem. It’s hard to imagine how it could survive without it.

    It’s also important to remember that Bush badly botched a critical moment in global history; he left the world a more dangerous place, the country weaker at home and abroad, and his party primed to move in an (even) more toxic direction. Yes, he wasn’t a crypto-fascist. He didn’t seek to profit personally from his position. He did notch a few genuinely good policies. But he was, now matter how you slice, devastatingly bad at his job.
    Last edited by Montmorency; 07-14-2021 at 23:02.
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  10. #40
    Coffee farmer extraordinaire Member spmetla's Avatar
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    Default Re: Great Power contentions

    The empire-killer sobriquet is at least a little overblown, given that Persian empires have dominated much or all of modern Afghanistan for almost as long as they existed, granting that Afghanistan has always been a political borderland and crossroads of Eurasian trade (even Bronze Age Crete relied on Afghan tin IIRC) and migration of itinerant Denisovans and Aryans and Bactrians and Saka and the like.
    The graveyard of empires always seemed off when actually looked at, wasn't the graveyard of any empire, it just takes a protracted campaign to actually conquer/suppress/neutralize.

    What we can be sure of is that the Taliban will be forced to moderate its methods if it wishes to hold the rest of the country, just as Hanoi had to. The Taliban reportedly already inversely tailor somewhat the level of repression to the level of resistance by village and province. Most of Afghanistan is way more pissed off at the Taliban than the Vietnamese were with each other (ethnic minorities were more easily marginalized in Vietnam too).

    Yes, I know that my government is currently claiming their belief that the Afghan government will not fall to the Taliban. I suspect that the only substantial difference between this and April 1975 will be the absence of a subsequent musical. I do hope we get the interpreters and their close kin out quickly. It is the least we should do.
    That aspect right there is why I'm confident that there will be an ongoing civil war between the more Dari/turkic plus Hazarra North and the Pashto pro-Taliban South. Just like ISIS seemed on the cusp of victory in Iraq as they neared Baghdad I imagine that the same will happen in Afghanistan as they near Kabul and the North, resistance will harden as they go into territory that is of an 'enemy' ethnicity.

    Switching from resistance and terrorism to governance is not easy, the deal with the devil that the Taliban has made with the drug growing and smuggling will be difficult to sustain if they go back to their zero-tolerance attitude of the 90s. Putting the genie in the bottle of connectedness to the rest of the world will cause resistance in the generally pro- Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GiROA) cities.
    Moderation will likely cause the more hard-line elements to splinter as reactionary religious movements tend to do as they have to compromise principle for the pragmatism of good governance. ISIS branded groups will likely absorb the more fundamentalist groups too if the Taliban do try to moderate.

    There's also the difficulty of having uniformed recognizable militias/military and buildings needed to govern the South. That would give GiROA easily identifiable targets for their limited air force. The Taliban cannot govern from 'within' the population and will need to establish a government with conventional police and so on just like ISIS did as well as the the Tamil had to in Sri Lanka. Attacking a Taliban government is somewhat easier than a Taliban resistance.

    I think my major question for the region will be what do Pakistan and China do? Pakistan has always feared a united Afghanistan 'behind' it and China would not be friendly to a Taliban government that would likely export its extremists against the other anti-muslim super power in the region that's currently trying to suppress the Uighurs.

    Russia offered U.S. use of Central Asia bases for Afghan intel - paper
    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...per/ar-AAMgmki
    I find the above link interesting, it was Russian pressure that led to the US having to close down its use of the Manas airbase in Kyrgyzstan. I know Russia does fear more Islamic radicals in central asia and the caucasuses and I assume that they'd like US influence in the region to provide some counter to the Chinese silkroad investments that's rapidly eroding Russian influence in Central Asia.

    I imagine that with the US out of Afghanistan the threat of a permanent US base in the region is gone which makes courting US influence and money to counter Chinese influence and money as useful.

    Russia may be a Chinese 'ally' but I think the Russians see the Chinese as their long term threat that's useful at the moment when Russia is a bit of a pariah in 'The West.' Russia remains the only European colonial power that still has its East Asian territories that were taken at China's expense during the century of humiliation.
    Last edited by spmetla; 07-17-2021 at 20:59.

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  11. #41
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    Default Re: Great Power contentions

    Quote Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh View Post
    Wiki Source

    The US withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan adds another Great Power to the list of those outlasted by the Muslim Tribes of the Afghani mountains. As usual, the Great Power was largely undefeatable by the locals in any conventional way, but susceptible to harassment, guerilla tactics, and ultimately unwilling to continue to pay the cost in blood and treasure of imposing its designs on that polity (term used loosely; the loose political cultural framework of the region is part of its resilience). Persia, Macedon, England, Soviet Russia, and the USA have all failed. Only the Mongols had more than a nominal rule over the area and they did so by nearly depopulating it with a level of brutality seen neither before nor since. Even then, in time, the Mughal were more of its nominal than practical rulers. Nor is it an issue associated with Muslim fanaticism as two of the failed attempts predate that religion.

    Yes, I know that my government is currently claiming their belief that the Afghan government will not fall to the Taliban. I suspect that the only substantial difference between this and April 1975 will be the absence of a subsequent musical. I do hope we get the interpreters and their close kin out quickly. It is the least we should do.
    A bit irrelevant to current issues, but my question touches the ''graveyard of empires'' slogan, so I will ask it anyway. Why did Persians and Macedonians fail? Bactria remained a Persian satrapy until the end and the Greeks/Macedonians managed to establish a prosperous kingdom that outlasted Greek/Macedonian control over Iran.

  12. #42
    Coffee farmer extraordinaire Member spmetla's Avatar
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    Default Re: Great Power contentions

    The list of failures in Afghanistan is shorter than successes, every empire that invaded it up to the modern era succeeded. It is rough mountains land so power is decentralized an it takes a concerted effort over time to conquer all the tribes, getting them on side or making them part of the power base like the Persians did in establishing their Satrapies, Alexander did by marrying Roxanne and settling intermarrying his soldiers up to the Mongols that led to the existence of the current Hazarra minority.

    The British, Soviets, and US have failed to 'conquer' or pacify Afghanistan though all with caveats. The British failed at conquering the whole of Afghanistan but did succeed at conquered what they considered strategically important and worth conquering ie the Khyber pass and Peshawar. The British and Russians essentially 'created' Afghanistan by drawing lines around what they would both agree not to conquer, it certainly wasn't a unified political concept before.

    The Soviets invaded in the middle of a civil war, the extreme policies of Amin after he took over Afghanistan put it into a state of general revolt. The Soviets wanted to impose a more moderate communism on Afghanistan but Amin had already done his damage. Not that the Soviets would have succeeded, outside intervention into a civil war tends to go poorly, especially when the intervention is to take over one side instead of help it.

    The US failure can be termed in failing to stop support for the Taliban and failure in stopping the tacet Pakistan support for the Taliban throughout the war. The biggest failure on the US side though has been I think by injecting too much money and material to the Afghan government which has made it incredibly corrupt and by not engaging the countryside. A conservative rural society can't be won over by securing the cities and major highways and building the Afghan Army as only capable of manning checkpoints instead of conducting effective counter insurgency. The failures in Afghanistan parallel a lot of the Nationalist failures in China and South Vietnam's failures too. Both those nations were famously corrupt and inept, letting Afghanistan become corrupt and inept and just accepting it because 'when it Rome' was stupid. Having the equipment to fight and win regular battles but not doing the reforms and engagement necessary to win over the majority rural population will not win a civil war. The US failure has been a failure to win the important battlefield which was the buy-in from rural Afghanistan for the new government. In hind-sight it should have remained a special forces war from the overthrow of the Taliban on, with the US focused on defeating Taliban and Al-Queda, not providing security and governing, with a return of the King for adding some legitimacy to the tribal leaders.

    The current Afghan government has the capability to win, but just holding onto the provincial capitals, Kabul, and the highways is not the way how. US and probable Chinese investment may keep the current government from falling but I don't see them winning a civil war soon. The Taliban have to fail at governing and splinter before that could happen and Pakistan would have to stop trying to prevent a united Afghanistan behind them.
    Last edited by spmetla; 07-23-2021 at 00:24.

    "Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?"
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    Stage two, we say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it.
    Stage three, we say that maybe we should do something about it, but there's nothing we can do.
    Stage four, we say maybe there was something we could have done, but it's too late now.

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  13. #43

    Default Re: Great Power contentions

    Cute cartoon from 1878.




    Also, I didn't know that Afghan Shah Durrani in the 18th century ruled the combined modern extent of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
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  14. #44
    Coffee farmer extraordinaire Member spmetla's Avatar
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    Default Re: Great Power contentions

    Yeah, the Durrani concept of Afghanistan was forcebly limited to the 'durand' line and adjusted after the Anglo-Afghan wars. Bear in mind the Persians and Russians were threatening Herat at the time too. The tribal regions of Pakistan are all ethnic 'afghans' which is why the Pakistan factor is vital to peace in Afghanistan. It's interesting how Afghanistan has been less a 'graveyard of empires' but a victim of "The Great Game" for the last 200 years. That Afghanistan has a border with China is purely because the British wanted to make sure they shared no common border with the Russian Empire in establishing a buffer state.

    The Chinese efforts to gauge if the Taliban will tolerate the Xinjian/Uighur/East Turkestan liberation/terrorist forces will certainly have an impact on the area. If the Taliban say the right things they may get the support the current GiROA doesn't from the PRC though I can imagine that the PRC will hedge all bets.
    https://www.reuters.com/world/china/...on-2021-07-28/

    Wang said the Taliban is expected to "play an important role in the process of peaceful reconciliation and reconstruction in Afghanistan", according to an account of the meeting from the foreign ministry.

    He also said that he hoped the Taliban would crack down on the East Turkestan Islamic Movement as it was a "direct threat to China's national security," referring to a group China says is active in the Xinjiang region in China’s far west.

    "Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?"
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    Four stage strategy from Yes, Minister:
    Stage one we say nothing is going to happen.
    Stage two, we say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it.
    Stage three, we say that maybe we should do something about it, but there's nothing we can do.
    Stage four, we say maybe there was something we could have done, but it's too late now.

  15. #45
    Coffee farmer extraordinaire Member spmetla's Avatar
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    Default Re: Great Power contentions

    Chinese Maritime Expansion and Potential Dual-Use Implications on Critical Maritime Chokepoints
    https://www.tearline.mil/public_page...-hypothetical/
    Overview
    Though Chinese "Belt-and-Road Initiative" (BRI) investments and related economic activities abroad have been a touchpoint for international studies, this report poses a hypothetical "what if" scenario and seeks to address one facet of the potential implications if Chinese facilities abroad are used for dual-use military/civilian purposes.

    The current strategic environment has placed the United States and its allies on a seemingly inexorable path towards confrontation with the People’s Republic of China. Given the close relationship between Chinese corporations and military entities, based on the concept of Military-Civil Fusion, this report addresses the hypothetical implications of the military use of seventeen civilian (BRI related) ports with respect to eight identified critical maritime chokepoints.
    Activity
    To accomplish the goals stated above, an analysis of open source imagery to assess the type of threats that could be hosted at seventeen BRI ports utilizing both military and civilian shipping as transport has been conducted. The implications and extent of these threats have been graphically superimposed over maps of strategic sea routes to visually reinforce the extent of the potential future strategic obstacles. Consequently, it is assessed that Chinese BRI developments could theoretically pose a threat to seven of eight identified critical maritime chokepoints. However, as a caveat to this conclusion, there are a multitude of factors that serve as obstacles to the realization of this hypothetical end-state.......
    First Taiwan Arms Sale in Biden Administration Is Approved
    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...alflow-organic
    The Biden administration has approved its first arms sale to the island democracy of Taiwan, a potential $750 million deal, amid rising tensions with China.

    It calls for selling Taiwan 40 new M109 self-propelled howitzers and almost 1,700 kits to convert projectiles into more precise GPS-guided munitions, according to a State Department notification to Congress on Wednesday.

    The proposed sale must go through a congressional review process and then through negotiations between Taiwan and contractor BAE Systems Plc, which is also providing the U.S. Army with the latest version of the howitzer, before a contract is signed and delivery times are hashed out.

    Although the new proposed sale isn’t especially large in scope or ambitious in the weaponry provided, it is certain to be denounced by China..........
    The first article by Tearline is an interesting look into the potential use of all of China's Civil-Military infrastructure its buying and building around the world and potential implications for a war between the US and/or NATO and China.

    "Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?"
    -Abraham Lincoln


    Four stage strategy from Yes, Minister:
    Stage one we say nothing is going to happen.
    Stage two, we say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it.
    Stage three, we say that maybe we should do something about it, but there's nothing we can do.
    Stage four, we say maybe there was something we could have done, but it's too late now.

  16. #46

    Default Re: Great Power contentions

    From the writer who made the best case for describing Putinate Russia as a fascist society, a detailed essay I somehow pulled from my unspeakable reading list on the refeudalization of Russian social relations. Metamodernism is a hell of a weltgeist: everything old becomes a new mixed metaphor.
    https://www.the-american-interest.co...zombie-nation/

    It is crucial to distinguish between two types of elites: the old Soviet nomenklatura4 and today’s Russian spetssub’ekty (“special subjects,” or those possessing a special status that ma­kes them immune to arrests, police searches, or cases brought by ordinary pro­se­cutors). The former were entitled to some financial or material benefits, while the latter are explicitly singled out for immunity in Russia’s Criminal Procedure Code. According to article 447, the category includes all deputies, judges, prosecutors, investigators, governors, mayors, personnel of the accounting chamber and electoral commissions, and a few other categories of public servants. Unlike the Soviet nomenklatura, today’s spetssub’ekty lie officially outside Russia’s declared system of laws.

    This group is often colloquially referred to as the “new nobility,” a term first invented by employees of the Federal Security Service (FSB) to de­signate themselves as the crème de la crè­me of the current elite.5 In a broader sense, the “new nobility” has come to signify Russia’s multilayered bureaucratic and paramilitary elite. Yet there remain clear stratifications within this elite that bear close resemblances to those in traditional feudal society. Today’s Russian elite has its equivalent of the noblesse d’épée and the noblesse de robe, or strongmen and bureaucrats. It has a well-structured hierarchy, with clear lines of authority; the old medieval rule that “my vassal’s vassal is not my vassal” works quite well in Russia these days.

    At the same time, the supreme ruler administers the system via his Praetorian Guard, namely, the Federal Security Service (FSB). Criminal cases against FSB officers are opened around six times less frequently than against police officers and prosecutors, and around 30 times less frequently than against other spetssub’ekty, as official Supreme Court statistics show. This Praetorian Guard has become the real source of power in Russia, and it is orga­nized along the lines of a medieval military order.

    In short, in today’s Russia all the elements that existed in ancien régime France seem to have been restored: There are noblesse (d’épée and de robe) and clergy, and both are becoming increasingly powerful. As of 2016, there were approximately 200,000 FSB employees in Russia, more than 400,000 officers in the Ministry of Interior and ot­her security agencies, up to one million civil servants in “significant” positions, and around 100,000 clerics and monks. This approximates the demographic makeup of pre-revolutionary France, with its 140,000-150,000 nobles and 120,000 priests, together constituting a little over 1 percent of the population.
    In the mid-11th century, the Kievan prince Yaroslav the Wise and some of his heirs produced the first Russian legal code, widely known as the Rus­skaya Pravda, or “Russian Law.”7 In many aspects it resembles early European codes like the Lex Salica. One of the most important features of the Russkaya Pra­vda was a detailed description of levies (wergeld) imposed upon murderers. As in most European codes of that time, such levies were to be paid in silver or gold to the victim’s relatives, but what is remarkable is the multitude of different penalties assigned, each corresponding to the particular social status of the victim. The crucial point is that in the Rus­skaya Pravda “there is no wergeld for a kholop,” or slave. In practice this meant that a master could kill his serfs and slaves at will, since they were not considered peop­le. If another person killed a master’s kholop, he would pay not a wergeld, but a penalty as if he had killed cattle or destroyed property. Kholops were in Russia not subjects but objects of property rights who might be sold or exchanged both domestically and internationally.
    [...]
    Moreover, kholopstvo was not only a legal status attributed to those who were partly slaves and partly serfs, but a category widely used even among the higher strata of Russian society. This practice became especially widespread after the Czar of Moscow retook Russian lands from the Mongols to become the undisputed ruler of the country. The noblemen considered themselves kholops while addressing the Czar from the end of the 15th century until the reforms of Peter the Great.11 What we see in today’s Russia—and what characterizes it much more than banal corruption or the ab­sence of the rule of law—is the rebirth of the kholops’ attitude to the state and to its ruler, and the reconstitution of a multilayered, highly stratified social structure. So much, then, for the 70-year effort to create the classless society and its “new man.”
    In today’s Russia one can see the restoration of “feudal” practices in at least two different ways. First of all, a system of wergeld similar to the one described in the Russkaya Pravda is returning to everyday life, even if it is not strictly codified. The existing system presupposes that the life of a state ser­vant is worth more than that of an average subject, a view that differs markedly from the custom in most Western societies... [See examples passim]
    he second important trend may be seen on the regional level. The feudal system, after all, was based on several layers of subordination, and it is in Russia’s regions where contemporary practices most resemble the medieval. For one there is the obvious negligence of merito­cratic principles seen in the appointment of regional governors (even since their “election” by local citizens was restored in 2011, not a single ca­se of the Kremlin candidate losing has been recorded). Much more im­portant is the changing attitude of the local masters as to the opportunities their positions open for them.

    For centuries in Russia the government service was considered to be a so-called korm­leniye: “feeding,” to put it literally—meaning the possibility for a bureaucrat to enrich himself while holding his position. In short, officeholders treated their posts as private fiefdoms. Before that the Russian czar awarded his outstanding servants and loyalists with pomestya (estates), making them landlords for life but not allowing them to pass the land to their heirs. The practices of the early 2000s resembled this picture, as local governors focused on amassing money in one way or another skim off the budget or take bribes from large industrial companies. The situation later changed as regional administrators began to build full-scale “business empires” that in some cases effectively owned the whole region or town.

    Such cases are numerous and well-known in Russia. When Alexander Tkachev was elected governor of Kras­nodarskiy Krai in 2001, he and his father owned an agricultural farm of about 12,000 acres they we­re lucky enough to privatize in the early 1990s. By the time he moved to Moscow 15 years later after having been appointed Mi­nister of Agriculture, he was the largest landlord in all Europe, with more than 1.15 million acres of arable land under his direct control, equivalent to 9 percent of the entire territory of the province he used to govern.
    The emerging trend in Russia is toward the transformation of entire regions from pomestya (estates) into real votchinas (patrimonies, or allodia), which were common prior to the 16th century as a kind of absolute hereditary possession that could be transferred from the older to younger generation without restriction. The Russian leadership, by all appearances, has encouraged this trend.
    [...]
    Such encouragement from the top is perfectly in line with the policy of the “(re)nationalization of elites” announ­ced by Vladimir Putin so­on after his return to the Kremlin in 2012, which manifested itself in a nominal ban on the appointment to public office of individuals who directly or through family members own real es­tate, commercial assets, or even bank accounts outside Russia. Now it is much more rational for elites to keep funds in Russia, since feudalism at home is more acceptable than participating in capi­talism abroad. In short, the “feudalization” of the country is proceeding apace, reinforced by both the Kremlin’s foreign policy and, unwittingly, by the sanctions and other restrictive measures imposed on Russia by Western powers.
    One is the ongoing stratification of current Russian society into those who are consi­dered gosudarevy lyudi (Czar’s men) and those who are counted as kholopy. This is not the kind of income inequality that has been intensively analyzed as the crucial problem endangering the stability of Rus­sian society; rather, it is a status inequality, with not bourgeois but distinctly feudal roots and causes. Contemporary Russian society has become a complicated system where legal norms are not so much neglected as entirely irrelevant if the parties to any dispute belong to different so­cial strata. Laws are respected only if the parties to legal proceedings are “equal” in terms of the implicit hierarchy. This stratification has also become the fundamental pillar of a new system of social management, which nurtures not so much totalitarian attitudes on the upper level but omnipresent servility attitudes on the “lower” one, making Russian society hopelessly un-modern. What we can expect from this is by no means a return of totalitarianism in its 20th-century meaning, but rather the creation of an absolutist system similar to those common in Europe two or three centuries ago. The ide­ology of such a system consists of “stability” and it is oriented only on the stable and unchallenged rule of the kholops by their immediate masters and by the “new nobility” as a consolidated social class. It’s not about economic development but social control.


    Geopolitical analysis of Russia is incomplete without the lens of its internal structure and hierarchical relations, which determine its fundamentally reactionary commitments on the world stage. Such a system has not, to my awareness, reformed without profound emulsifying violence against the ruling class.

    Unsurprisingly, I believe the basic ideology of conservatism develops itself - if not necessarily then in our historical contingency - into the classic cyberpunk mixture of totalitarianism and demodernism of social purpose. Russia, China, India, America, Islamic State, it's all the same bottom line. "This is our final and decisive battle", once more unto the breach.

    (Currently listening to a conversation on how the damn dirty Mexicans, Chinese, Vietnamese, Pakistanis, and Arabs are outbreeding and enslaving the White race and we need to purge them for national security and renewal.)
    Last edited by Montmorency; 08-08-2021 at 02:40.
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  17. #47
    Coffee farmer extraordinaire Member spmetla's Avatar
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    Default Re: Great Power contentions

    China Strengthens Claims Over Disputed Waters With New Maritime Law Against Foreign Ships
    https://www.newsweek.com/china-stren...-ships-1624479
    China will begin requiring foreign vessels to report their call signs and cargo before sailing into its "territorial sea"—a term it applies to all the islands it claims in the South China Sea and beyond.

    The new regulation under China's Maritime Traffic Safety Law will come into effect on September 1, according to a notice published last Friday by the country's Maritime Safety Administration.

    Observers say the move could see further attempts by Beijing to control the civilian and military traffic around its claimed territories, which include hundreds of South China Sea features, but also extend to Taiwan, its outlying islands and the Japan-controlled Senkaku island chain in the East China Sea.

    The reporting rule applies to submersibles, nuclear vessels, ships carrying radioactive materials as well as vessels transporting "toxic and harmful substances" including oil, chemicals and liquefied gas, China's maritime authority said.
    Seems that China is taking advantage of NATO/US distraction in Afghanistan to try and further its goals in the South China Sea. As most vessels will likely comply with it outside of foreign naval ships doing freedom of navigation things it will add to their pushing their claims into de facto control.

    "Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?"
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    Four stage strategy from Yes, Minister:
    Stage one we say nothing is going to happen.
    Stage two, we say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it.
    Stage three, we say that maybe we should do something about it, but there's nothing we can do.
    Stage four, we say maybe there was something we could have done, but it's too late now.

  18. #48
    Darkside Medic Senior Member rory_20_uk's Avatar
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    Default Re: Great Power contentions

    Quote Originally Posted by spmetla View Post
    China Strengthens Claims Over Disputed Waters With New Maritime Law Against Foreign Ships
    https://www.newsweek.com/china-stren...-ships-1624479


    Seems that China is taking advantage of NATO/US distraction in Afghanistan to try and further its goals in the South China Sea. As most vessels will likely comply with it outside of foreign naval ships doing freedom of navigation things it will add to their pushing their claims into de facto control.
    Hardly surprising.

    There are small moves that countries such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and India are oh so slowly realising they might have to do something themselves which is probably a good thing in the long term.

    An enemy that wishes to die for their country is the best sort to face - you both have the same aim in mind.
    Science flies you to the moon, religion flies you into buildings.
    "If you can't trust the local kleptocrat whom you installed by force and prop up with billions of annual dollars, who can you trust?" Lemur
    If you're not a liberal when you're 25, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain.
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  19. #49
    Coffee farmer extraordinaire Member spmetla's Avatar
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    Default Re: Great Power contentions

    Philippines vows to ignore China maritime law, seeks US help
    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...?ocid=msedgntp
    Philippine Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana has promised that Manila will ignore China’s amended maritime law, which now requires foreign vessels sailing in the South China Sea to report their information to Chinese authorities.

    “Our stand on that is we do not honour those laws by the Chinese within the West Philippine Sea because we consider that we have the sovereign right within this waters. So we will not recognise this law of the Chinese,” Lorenzana said during an event marking the Philippines’ Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) with the United States.

    Lorenzana made the statement as he continues his visit to the United States to press for a review of the MDT and to lobby for more advanced military equipment for the Philippines in the face of Chinese territorial threat.

    China, which claims historical rights over most of the areas in the South China Sea, amended its Maritime Traffic Safety Law in recent months. It took effect on September 1.

    The law requires all foreign vessels sailing in the South China Sea to report their information to Chinese authorities.

    A 2016 ruling at The Hague said China’s claim over most of the South China Sea has no legal basis, but Beijing has ignored the decision and has continued to expand its presence in the area, building artificial islands complete with runways and docks, igniting more tensions with neighbouring countries.
    Several Southeast Asian countries, including the Philippines, have overlapping claims with China in the South China Sea.

    On Monday, the Chinese state-owned publication Global Times reported that the revised maritime law has taken effect as of September 1.

    It covers five types of vessels including submersibles, nuclear vessels, ships carrying radioactive materials, ships carrying bulk oil, chemicals, liquefied gas and other toxic and harmful substances, and other vessels “that might endanger China’s maritime traffic safety”, according to the Global Times.

    Beijing clarified that the new law does not hinder freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.

    But the US calls it a “serious threat”, and a foreign policy expert has described it as an attempt by China to force other countries to submit to its control by reporting their ships to Chinese authorities.

    In January, China also passed the Coast Guard Law that for the first time explicitly allows its coastguard to fire on foreign vessels within their jurisdiction.
    Upgrade, update
    Amid concerns over China’s growing dominance in the South China Sea, the Philippines, a longtime ally of the US, wants Washington to increase its military commitments.

    Lorenzana, the Philippine defence chief, said it is time for a comprehensive review of Manila’s alliance with the US, saying the Philippines is getting less from its relationship with Washington than even non-treaty allies.

    He said there is a need to “upgrade” and “update” the alliance and to make clear the “extent of American commitments”.

    “Some questions being asked in Manila are, do we still need the MDT; should we amend it,” he told Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies on Wednesday, referring to the 1951 pact. “What is clear is that we need a comprehensive review of our alliance.”

    Lorenzana pointed out that the US treaty with Japan, its World War II enemy, was more explicit than that with Manila when it came to determining whether it applied in the Pacific maritime area, where the Philippines has come under increasing pressure from China over rival territorial claims.

    He said this explained why seven out of 10 Filipinos supported President Rodrigo Duterte’s call for engagement with China rather than confrontation and more than half doubted US reliability as an ally in South China Sea disputes.

    Lorenzana said US-Philippines relations would “have to evolve in recognition of new geopolitical realities, most especially the rise of China”.

    He said Manila and Washington should consider revising the MDT and other defence pacts to ensure both could better respond to “grey zone threats” like state-sanctioned Chinese maritime militia forces that have been intimidating smaller states.

    Previously, Duterte had also blamed the US for failing to enforce an agreement it mediated between Beijing and Manila regarding the simultaneous withdrawal of naval forces from the disputed Scarborough Shoal, which until 2012 was administered by the Philippines.

    China took over control of Scarborough Shoal after the Philippines withdrew from the area after obtaining a promise from the US. China and the Philippines were supposed to withdraw their troops from Scarborough Shoal, but Beijing did not honour the agreement, and Washington did not enforce it.
    US reluctance
    Manila has repeatedly protested what it calls the “illegal” and “threatening” presence of hundreds of Chinese “maritime militia” vessels inside its exclusive economic zone (EEZ) as defined by a 2016 ruling at The Hague.

    Hundreds of Chinese vessels were spotted sailing within the Philippine EEZ on several occasions this year, prompting an angry reaction from Manila. But Duterte had also said the Philippines cannot afford to confront Beijing militarily.

    In his statement from Washington, DC, Lorenzana echoed Duterte’s complaints about the US reluctance to supply the Philippines with state-of-the-art weaponry.

    He said Manila was in the mid of an unprecedented military modernisation programme and needed to move beyond Vietnam War-era hardware that had been provided by Washington in the past.
    “Non-treaty allies … have been receiving billion-dollar military aid and advanced weapons systems from the US. Perhaps, a longtime ally like the Philippines, facing major adversaries in Asia, deserves as much, if not more, assistance and commitment,” he said.

    Lorenzana’s remarks came after Duterte in July restored the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) governing movement of US troops in and out of the country, something strategically vital for American efforts to counter China. While there are no more US bases in the Philippines, the two countries hold annual military exercises until Duterte issued his threat to end the pact last year.

    Duterte had pledged to terminate the VFA after Washington denied a visa to a Philippine senator who is an ally of the president.

    For Washington, having the ability to rotate troops through the VFA is important not only for the defence of the Philippines, but also strategically when it comes to countering China in the region.

    In July, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken repeated a warning to China that an attack on Philippine armed forces in the South China Sea would trigger the mutual defence treaty.
    It is good to see that some in the Philippine establishment are still wary of China and see the value of US support. Their military and especially their navy and coast guard are woefully inadequate to protect their territorial waters which as an archipelago nation is sad.
    As for the US supporting them more, well, the US has in the past always sold them hand-me down equipment as it was phased out. When the US bases were closed though the Philippines kinda stopped any sort of investment in their military, probably due to the use of the military by the dictator Marcos to stay in power so long.
    The US still sells them some equipment but equipment itself is much more complicated and expensive than in the past which is why their Navy's largest vessels are former US hamiliton class cutters instead of frigates like every one of their neighbors.
    If they want substantial US investment reopening Clark AFB would certainly spur that on, Guam is inadequate for what we're using and our investment would assist in their protection of their territorial waters as land-based aircraft can then patrol the South China Seas more easily.

    The above comments are hopeful for US relations but it'd be better if it'd come from Duterte himself instead of a lower official.

    "Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?"
    -Abraham Lincoln


    Four stage strategy from Yes, Minister:
    Stage one we say nothing is going to happen.
    Stage two, we say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it.
    Stage three, we say that maybe we should do something about it, but there's nothing we can do.
    Stage four, we say maybe there was something we could have done, but it's too late now.

  20. #50
    BrownWings: AirViceMarshall Senior Member Furunculus's Avatar
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    Default Re: Great Power contentions

    Surprised the Oz submarine shenanigans hasn't made it to the backroom yet:

    Australia cut's bait, Shorfin Barracuda boned, UK happy as a clam, yanks Cock a snook, and china Done up like a kipper!

    https://www.iiss.org/blogs/analysis/...lia-submarines

    https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-p...ty-2021-09-16/

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/...f-eu-impotence

    https://www-politico-eu.cdn.ampproje...rine-deal/amp/
    Last edited by Furunculus; 09-17-2021 at 14:13.
    Furunculus Maneuver: Adopt a highly logical position on a controversial subject where you cannot disagree with the merits of the proposal, only disagree with an opinion based on fundamental values. - Beskar

  21. #51
    Darkside Medic Senior Member rory_20_uk's Avatar
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    Default Re: Great Power contentions

    Given how much business Australia does with China I was rather surprised they've chosen purchase this - although it does make a smidge more sense than diesel subs. Anything that annoys the French in general and Macron in particular is something to smile at.

    And on what apparently might be a related event, China has asked to join the Pacific trade pact which again was quite surprising since I imagine the entry requirement is a level of transparency that they don't usually do.

    Given the UK has also asked to join the group, the UK could end up with a trade agreement with China. Given that both the UK and China would have to be unanimously voted in this is something of a stretch.

    An enemy that wishes to die for their country is the best sort to face - you both have the same aim in mind.
    Science flies you to the moon, religion flies you into buildings.
    "If you can't trust the local kleptocrat whom you installed by force and prop up with billions of annual dollars, who can you trust?" Lemur
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  22. #52
    Headless Senior Member Pannonian's Avatar
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    Default Re: Great Power contentions

    Quote Originally Posted by rory_20_uk View Post
    Given how much business Australia does with China I was rather surprised they've chosen purchase this - although it does make a smidge more sense than diesel subs. Anything that annoys the French in general and Macron in particular is something to smile at.

    And on what apparently might be a related event, China has asked to join the Pacific trade pact which again was quite surprising since I imagine the entry requirement is a level of transparency that they don't usually do.

    Given the UK has also asked to join the group, the UK could end up with a trade agreement with China. Given that both the UK and China would have to be unanimously voted in this is something of a stretch.

    What's your view on this?

  23. #53
    Darkside Medic Senior Member rory_20_uk's Avatar
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    Default Re: Great Power contentions

    Quote Originally Posted by Pannonian View Post
    What's your view on this?
    A purely trade group with no judicial oversight, limited Civil Servant baggage (salaries and pensions) and as yet no mission creep? I'd probably be in favour.

    An enemy that wishes to die for their country is the best sort to face - you both have the same aim in mind.
    Science flies you to the moon, religion flies you into buildings.
    "If you can't trust the local kleptocrat whom you installed by force and prop up with billions of annual dollars, who can you trust?" Lemur
    If you're not a liberal when you're 25, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain.
    The best argument against democracy is a five minute talk with the average voter. Winston Churchill

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  24. #54
    Coffee farmer extraordinaire Member spmetla's Avatar
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    Default Re: Great Power contentions

    Given how much business Australia does with China I was rather surprised they've chosen purchase this - although it does make a smidge more sense than diesel subs. Anything that annoys the French in general and Macron in particular is something to smile at.
    Well this is definitely an own goal by China as they essentially drove Australia into US arms through their retaliation for the Aussies looking into COVID19 origin together with their very blatant meddling in Aussie politics and intimidation of Chinese nationals working or attending school in Australia.
    Australia has for years just wanted a balanced relationship between Beijing and the US and the Chinese have made clear they demand kowtowing not equality.

    Given the UK has also asked to join the group, the UK could end up with a trade agreement with China. Given that both the UK and China would have to be unanimously voted in this is something of a stretch.
    I imagine the Australians will opt for the UK's Astute class SSNs as the UK shipyards could spare the expertise to help the Australians tool up for manufacturing while the US shipyards are at capacity already.
    Also, closer relations will likely entail upgrades in Australian ports to allow for docking and perhaps dry docking capability of US and UK ships, nuclear subs of course but I'd imagine the Queen Elizabeth CV could use more suitable ports so that she and the Prince of Wales can have a closer 'home port' when on patrol in the Far East.
    Also, with the UK having divorced the EU this will likely add a bit more clarity to the UK's foreign policy as it wasn't really clear what their role was to be outside Europe as the commonwealth is not quite the Empire it used to be.

    The choice for SSNs makes great sense though, Diesels and AIP are amazing but given the the range that Australia patrols for its natural interests nuclear gives a lot more endurance. Also, by working with the UK and US which already share intel with Five Eyes that means they can essentially plan their patrols together a bit more closely so there's less overlap or capability gap.
    The EU/France may be miffed but the UK and US subs are definitely more capable and seeing as the effort is directed against China it's in the interest of Australia to have better interoperability with the US and the UK (seeing as they are asserting they're interests in the region again while Germany and France really only have trade interests).
    Last edited by spmetla; 09-17-2021 at 21:27.

    "Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?"
    -Abraham Lincoln


    Four stage strategy from Yes, Minister:
    Stage one we say nothing is going to happen.
    Stage two, we say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it.
    Stage three, we say that maybe we should do something about it, but there's nothing we can do.
    Stage four, we say maybe there was something we could have done, but it's too late now.

  25. #55
    Member Member Crandar's Avatar
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    Default Re: Great Power contentions

    Dunno, this sounds more fluff than substance to me. Australia doesn't have the technical capacity to build and maintain nuclear submarines and its naval bases are of questionable quality. To me, it looks more like an attempt to please America and ratify the diplomatic treaty than a genuine endeavour to improve Australia's military potential. It could also work as a distraction for the domestic front. The government's popularity is waning, following allegations of corruption and the parliament rape scandal.

    Also I have a feeling Biden forgot Scot Morrison's name.
    Last edited by Crandar; 09-17-2021 at 22:36.

  26. #56

    Default Re: Great Power contentions

    The ASPI brief I posted in the other thread suggests Australia wouldn't achieve an operational SSN fleet of the size it intends until well into the 2030s, although it's a couple years old and can't account for the scope of allied commitments to assisting Australia.
    Vitiate Man.

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  27. #57
    BrownWings: AirViceMarshall Senior Member Furunculus's Avatar
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    Default Re: Great Power contentions

    Furunculus Maneuver: Adopt a highly logical position on a controversial subject where you cannot disagree with the merits of the proposal, only disagree with an opinion based on fundamental values. - Beskar

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  28. #58
    Senior Member Senior Member ReluctantSamurai's Avatar
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    Default Re: Great Power contentions

    This has gone rather under the radar:

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...attles-economy

    Econ was never a strongsuit for me, either in high school or college, but this whole Evergrande situation for China bears watching...
    High Plains Drifter

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  29. #59
    BrownWings: AirViceMarshall Senior Member Furunculus's Avatar
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    Interesting view on why Canada didn't fit into tha inaugaration of AUKUS, and what it might do to rectify matters:

    https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opin...s-already-the/
    Last edited by Furunculus; 09-19-2021 at 13:10.
    Furunculus Maneuver: Adopt a highly logical position on a controversial subject where you cannot disagree with the merits of the proposal, only disagree with an opinion based on fundamental values. - Beskar

  30. #60
    Coffee farmer extraordinaire Member spmetla's Avatar
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    Default Re: Great Power contentions

    While it'd be nice to have had Canada on board I'd rather they invest in Arctic security and patrolling as climate change makes that area more important. Canada hasn't been a significant naval power since the early 1970s when they retired their sole aircraft carrier so they're isn't much they could contribute military wise anyhow.

    They're also large contributors towards peace keeping missions world wide which I think is valuable and important as the US public doesn't seem to support US Soldiers under UN rules and regulations meaning we don't contribute many troops, just money. It'd be nice to see them more onboard with the US but being the smaller politer neighbor I can understand also not wanting to just look like a US toady.

    As for NZ, they haven't been a close US ally since the 70s when they stopped allowing port calls by nuclear powered ships. They still work fairly close but the fact that when purchasing navy ships that they want to make sure they aren't too capable just so they can't work closely with the US Navy shows that they're good partners but not really allies, at least to the US.

    Econ was never a strongsuit for me, either in high school or college, but this whole Evergrande situation for China bears watching...
    I'm really curious what the CCP chooses to do. Seeing as they're sharply reining in their companies' forays into capitalism they may just let it collapse and then nationalize it as an example of the folly of using the western economic model. The economic impact will be interesting but the domestic political impact will probably be more telling.

    Russia's ruling pro-Putin party wins election but loses some ground - early results
    https://www.reuters.com/world/europe...wn-2021-09-19/

    Kinda as expected in Russia's elections when you try to poison and then arrest the biggest opposition candidates.

    Always interesting to see the views of some of the electorate though:
    One Moscow pensioner who gave his name only as Anatoly said he voted United Russia because he was proud of Putin's efforts to restore what he sees as Russia's rightful great power status.

    "Countries like the United States and Britain more or less respect us now like they respected the Soviet Union in the 1960s and 70s… The Anglo-Saxons only understand the language of force," he said.

    Other voters voiced anger at United Russia at a polling station in Moscow, where the party has fared worse in recent years than in other regions.

    "I'm always against United Russia," said Roman Malakhov, who voted Communist. "They haven't done anything good."

    There was also widespread apathy, with official figures showing turnout at around 47%.

    "I don't see the point in voting," said one Moscow hairdresser who gave her name as Irina. "It's all been decided for us anyway."
    Copied from the ISIS/Taliban thread:
    ////////////FIRST PART PROBABLY BELONGS IN GREAT POWER CONTENTION THREAD/////////////////////
    Bottom line: Is it very easy or very difficult to deter China on Taiwan, and if it's very difficult would adopting the most aggressive posture not ironically encourage China to be both more willing and more able to impose its will (this is known as "tragic drama")

    If it's very easy, just make the commitment, station a fleet or two, and call it a day - no discussion needed.
    I'd say it's difficult to deter China on Taiwan. As for making a commitment, that's part of the tragedy of the current situation with Taiwan and the flaw in the one-China policy. One-China policy was banked on the idea that opening up China would liberalize them and then allow for a peaceful rise and reunification, that was sorta working up until the early 2000s.
    China has now reversed their path of liberalization and gone back toward the path of repression, this has pushed Taiwan's youth from wanting reunification, especially in light of the crack downs in Hongkong, social credit scores, etc...
    With this, the US has now become coupled with China economically, it could break this relationship but that would be difficult and costly to the US and all the other major economies that have moved their industrial base and supply chains to China.

    The logic of an aggressive posture is that by being willing to risk war and the economic fallout in the near future, that risk is actually higher for China as they depend on sealanes for most of their trade, part of why they're investing in the new belt/road initative. A war would be economically costly to the whole world but would absolutely ruin China if it happened in present day.
    This is also tied with the fact that Xi Jinping has been the most powerful Chinese leader in 30 years and seems determined to be cemented in its memory on the same level as Mao Zedong. That type of meglamania can be unpredictable like we saw in the last four years of Trump. Granted Xi is actually smart man and calculating unlike Trump but that doesn't exclude him from wanting to accomplish the goal of reunification by force if needed.
    Just remember that the US position and that of its allies in the region is reactionary to China's new aggressive posture. They seek to change the status quo, forcibly if needed and are actively contending with the US at all levels short of conflict at the moment. Combine this with the ultra-nationalism and you get an opponent that won't negotiate on this issue leaving them with only one recourse if they want to force the issue.

    Deterring from what and in what capacity needs to be delineated. We already have a NATO commitment to mutual defense, which is the most important step.
    Mutual defense is only valuable if the members are capable and willing to defend each other. If some 'little green men' tried to overthrow Latvia's government in a Crimea type scenario are the NATO allies in the region capable of assisting? are they even willing? Trump question whether we should go to war to help Estonia was a huge hit to the idea of mutal defense.
    I personally think the major litmus test for NATO will be some crazy thing cooked up by Turkey over some Greek islands, Cyprus, Syria, or Armenia. Do we mutually defend one NATO ally against another. If one NATO ally starts a war that then draws in Russia in a limited way does that trigger article five? The Armenia-Azerbaijan war last year is fortunate in it's not expanding beyond those two countries.

    I don't see why the UK and France and Germany need to be militarizing for offensive operations into Eastern Europe. Today we know that Russia's strategic position in its near-abroad is weak, and not getting any stronger, as the (to some surprising) failure to check Ukrainian post-Russian ambitions demonstrated. Putin has a hard time trudging through his priorities for even Belarus. A massive armament campaign for NATO to achieve the capability to credibly strike against a hypothetical Russian occupation of Ukraine or Estonia would be socially corrosive and horrendously costly both before and during (any) deployment, in the latter case in terms of lives and materiel. It would also, naturally, incentivize further hostility from the Russian regime (if you think Europe can recommit to an arms race, Putin certainly can too - to hell with the domestic economy - in order to negate European augmentation).
    Who's talking about offensive operations? No sane person wants to start shit with Russia much less go on an offensive against them. It doesn't need to be a massive armament campaign, no one is advocating for a quarter million US troops back in Germany and its allies having dozens of armored divisions standing by.
    As for Putin being able to afford an arms race, I don't think he can. There's a reason why India has more modern T-90 tanks than Russia, Russia can't afford them. Russia is so cash strapped they still sell the Chinese jet-engines and air defense systems fully knowing that they will eventually be reverse engineered and that the Chinese will overtake Russia in most of its overseas arms sales.
    Russia is currently a threat that needs to be contained, it may not be a long term threat as who knows what it will be once Putin leaves. He certainly doesn't share the lime light, that tends to leave the successors to popular dictators vulnerable to infighting and domestic power plays.
    Europe needs to be capable to play the long game against Putin and deter more action on his part in the bordering states. The long-term should be to try and do what failed in the 90s and finally bring Russia home into Europe (not the EU or NATO). China is not a good partner for Russia and never has been, it's been a good source of cash at the expense of Russia losing it's military edge and secrets but China's ambitions in the far east and central asia will lead to their becoming enemies again at some point.
    https://www.foreignaffairs.com/artic...ina-and-russia

    Getting NATO allies to at least get their readiness levels up so they could commit the few forces they have to a crisis if needed would be the most useful. No point in an air force if lack of spare parts means they can't be used when needed.
    https://www.dw.com/en/german-militar...ion/a-42603112

    Core European sealanes, borders, and airspace are secure from foreign powers as far as I know (not that there's a contender other than Russia here). If you mean that the EU needs more ships to shoot at Ivory Coast pirates or Mediterranean migrants, I don't see why. It might be more helpful to get a handle on what role Turkey is going to play in the region.
    As most of European/EU issues center around trade then Naval power is actually one of the best investments they can make. You may scoff at piracy but it is a problem that naval patrols have helped to mitigate. The core causes of piracy exist but short of nation building Somalia, Yemen and plenty of other countries the easier and more cost effective solution is sealane protection. Warships are expensive but if you're going to build ships then ideally they're capable of more than just deterring pirates, probably best to have the capability to lauch and support SOF too, or perhaps fly the flag where free navigation is threatened (South China Seas). Strategic lift capability and reach is extremely useful by air and sea and has uses for humanitarian aid as well moving troops ,there's a lot more to defense spending than tanks and troops though those are necessary too. Building NATO logistical and cyber-warfare capabilities that were independent of the US would be hugely useful and have uses beyond conventional warfare too.
    As you mention migrants though the EU seriously needs a lot more investment in FRONTEX. Belarus, Russia, Turkey, and Morocco all use migrants as a weapon, opening and closing the flow over the border as needed to punish the border nations of Europe and create European domestic infighting. It's like a modern day reverse Barbary-pirates scenario, give these concessions or we let thousands more over the border to become your problem. Just look at Lithuania bearing the brunt from Belarus in response to their raising diplomatic status of Taiwan's office.
    European sealanes and interests go a bit farther than just Europe's periphery though, the blockage of the Suez was hugely costly to European trade. The arctic is melting and Canada, Norway and Denmark/Greenland aren't exactly poised to stop Russian resource exploration when that eventually happens. Ice breakers and artic capable coast guard and aerial patrols will be a necessity as the Northwest passage becomes more common for Europe-East Asian trade (shorter and therefore cheaper for Northern/Western Europe).

    Do you mean cruise missiles? My knowledge of the relevant systems is limited, but I recall that a modern navy will have strong countermeasures against any such systems, as best demonstrated by the Coalition naval forces during the Gulf War. Wouldn't the best practicable option be quantity rather than superior technical sophistication? Dozens to hundreds of missiles against landing craft close to shore (with the caveat that the entire Chinese sealift would never all be exposed at a single moment) seems like the only option.
    It's a fair bit more complicated than that, the weapons and defenses have moved a long way from the Gulf War. If we're relying on line of sight weapons against landing craft then the invasion is already a success. In short though, Taiwan needs what you've mentioned before, good area-denial capability and we should help build it. Taiwan doesn't have much strategic depth so relying on defense to fend off the PLA in the face of drone swarms, ballistic missiles, electronic and cyber warfare can only do so much. Given the geographic, qualitative, and numerical advantage of China that's only a method to buy time. The deterrence is in the capability to come to the aid of Taiwan if needed, this deterrence must not be vulnerable to a Chinese first strike either (a modern day Pearl Harbor in another form) which is why the US has been moving Marines out of Okinawa and to Guam and hopefully now to Australia too. With the Philippines not being available the US has lost a lot of strategic depth too and is relying on only a few major bases to cover and project power into a very large area.

    That latter outcome is too high a risk for the CCP, as it would lose enormous quantities of domestic legitimacy, international standing, economic stability, military readiness, and so on, all for the sake of empty posturing; Taiwan would be further out of reach than ever. Since the CCP has demonstrated its rationality many times, assuming it retains that rationality we keep returning to the principle that any overt measure to reduce Taiwan's independence has to be projected to be rapid and decisive from the Chinese point of view.
    China's record for rationality has been slipping a lot as of late, they take much more risk for much less gain than the previous three generations have. When you keep telling your population that 'our time is now and the US must step back and allow us to take our rightful place' they eventually expect their leaders to act on it. A generation raised on propaganda eventually results in people ruling that believe that same propaganda.
    Last edited by spmetla; 09-20-2021 at 19:32. Reason: added in stuff from other thread

    "Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?"
    -Abraham Lincoln


    Four stage strategy from Yes, Minister:
    Stage one we say nothing is going to happen.
    Stage two, we say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it.
    Stage three, we say that maybe we should do something about it, but there's nothing we can do.
    Stage four, we say maybe there was something we could have done, but it's too late now.

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