The Chucklehead Doctrine

 

I got this YouTube video forwarded by a leftist friend of mine. This guy never discusses politics. So this might be a sign that things are close to the breaking point on the left, in terms of their frustration with the outrageous actions of Trump.

I add my responses.

“America falsified history in order to advance its proud history of pushing its weight around...”

The history of the US is mostly one of isolationism—of avoiding engagement in foreign alliances or foreign wars. This has been the backbone of American polity since Washington. The US avoided empire during the period of hectic colonizing, in contrast to the nations of Europe. It could have owned all of the Western hemisphere.

America became engaged in the wider world reluctantly with the First World War, then reluctantly with the Second, and then with the Cold War; since the British and French were prostrate, and there was nobody else left to defend democracy. 

Notably, it is remarkable that over the many decades since 1812 the US has not ever “pushed its weight around” by trying to annex Canada with all its resources. As the Canadian military admits, it could do so in about two days.

“US participation in Vietnam was ‘ignoring allies, ignoring history...’”

The US became engaged in Vietnam in defense of an ally, the Republic of Vietnam. Among allies who fought at their side: France, Australia, Philippines, South Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, New Zealand, Cambodia, Laos. They were diplomatically supported by the UK, who had just fought a similar action in Malaysia, and most other NATO countries.

“Millions dead, and they still called it peace with honour."

The US did not start the war in Vietnam, and so cannot be blamed for the body count. There is no way of knowing whether more or fewer would have died in the region without US involvement. Only fewer Americans.

Iraq - "allies begging them not to invade." 

Allies who participated militarily in the invasion: UK, Australia, Poland, Spain, Italy, South Korea, Ukraine.

Around 45–49 countries supported the coalition in some way. The worst that can be said is that it did not have official UN approval. Which the UN has only given for military action five times in its history. Hard to get that, with Russia and China having vetoes.

"UN inspectors saying ' look, there's nothing there.'"

UN inspectors did not declare Iraq free of weapons of mass destruction. They onl6 said they had not found any yet. Iraq had been refusing inspections, in violation of the ceasefire. They had finally allowed the inspectors in under threat of war.

Climate change—the rest of the world supposedly tackled the problem while the US "threw snowballs in the Senate."

US carbon emissions fell 20% from 2005 to 2023-- 30% per capita. Not as quickly as Europe, but much faster than other major emitters.

Over the same period, China’s and India’s emissions have been growing sharply.

Claim that “the American government is bringing drugs and crime into Canada.”

This is false, in that he blames the American government, who are not involved. It is true that drugs and crime are flowing both ways across that border, and it is true that there is more coming into Canada from the US than into the US from Canada. That is neither here nor there: the US government is of course more concerned with the flow south. They are cracking down on their borders, and they want Canada to do the same.

War by Other Means

 

Joe Biden is working for the government of China.

I was recently watching a video on the history of Iran. As a matter of policy, Britain controlled the government of Iran for years in the early 20th century simply by strategically bribing key officials.

Why not? In the end, it is the cheapest option: cheaper than fighting a war, or sending foreign aid, or making any sort of a government-to-government deal. And it avoids provoking possible conflict with other powers also seeking influence.

So why not China? Now that China’s prosperity gives its government some serious money to work with, why wouldn’t they do the same thing Britain once did? They are not strong enough to overcome the US in war; strategic bribery costs much less.

Especially since, unlike in the case of Britain, bribery is a part of the traditional Chinese way of doing business. 

Surely, then, they will have tried; they will have tried to bribe key figures in a country as important to them as the USA.

If this has not previously been an issue, it is because, in the developed world, we could count on most of our elite being too honourable to sell out their country. That was in some significant part why Britain could control Iran through bribery, but Iran could not control Britain. 

But we have seen a visible decline in the morality of our elite in the past few decades. That sort of patriotism is long dead on the left. They will openly declare the US evil in its inception.

We know, in fact, that the Chinese are doing so: they are bribing, infiltrating, and compromising. We heard recently of prominent academics accepting secret funding from China. We hear of Diane Feinstein’s office, and Eric Swalwell’s office, being infiltrated by Chinese spies. We hear of huge numbers of Chinese spies present in the US. 

Joe Biden, as a longterm senator and then VP, on the left and not publicly predisposed to be anti-CCP, would have been an obviously worthwhile target. He must have been approached.

Biden has a reputation of being for sale. He has acquired a personal fortune in office. He has long been understood to be in the pocket of the insurance industry in his home state.

And we have direct evidence he is on the Chinese payroll, from his son’s laptop, confirmed by his son’s business partner.

I think Biden spoke with surprising openness when asked about China’s treatment of its Uyghurs at a recent town hall:

“So, the central -- to vastly overstate it, the central principle of Xi Jinping is that there must be a united, tightly controlled China. And he uses his rationale for the things he does based on that. I point out to him, no American president can be sustained as a president if he doesn't reflect the values of the United States. And so the idea I'm not going to speak out against what he's doing in Hong Kong, what he's doing with the Uyghurs in western mountains of China, and Taiwan, trying to end the One-China policy by making it forceful, I said -- by the way, he said he gets it.

Culturally, there are different norms that each country and their leaders are expected to follow.”

He is excusing the Uyghur genocide as “different cultural norms.” And he seems to have assured Xi Jinping that his opposition to the genocide or to the Hong Kong takeover is purely pro forma, to satisfy public opinion. It does not reflect his own views, and he is not actually going to do anything.

The same attitude could have maintained good relations with Hitler in 1938. Biden sees himself as fundamentally on the same side as Xi, and essentially in opposition to the US population. They must just be kept quiet so business can be done.

If China owns Joe Biden, who else have they bought? 

Justin Trudeau probably need not have been bought. He looks to me like what Lenin used to call a “useful idiot,” with delusions of glamour about Communism. On the other hand, Trudeau has shown himself to be buyable by others. And his actions towards China seem contrary to good sense and Canadian interests. To be sure, his government has also been in conflict with China; but that seems to have been forced on him by the need to honour an extradition treaty with the US.

I suspect from their actions and public stances that China has down payments as well on President Duterte of the Philippines, and President Moon of South Korea.

Nobody in China goes in through the front door. Everything has a back door.

The US, or Britain, or someone, ought to be smart enough to buy Xi Jinping.

North Korea Denuclearizes?

Seen in Vienna.

I did not like Trump and did not want him to get the Republican nomination; I would have only voted for him, if I had a vote in US elections, when the choice came down to him or Hillary Clinton. Better the boor than the crook.

But I think by this point, it must be conceded that either 1) Trump is a very good president, 2) Obama was a very bad president, or 3) both.

Kim Jong Un has apparently just agreed to stop nuclear development and denuclearize without preconditions. The theory is that Trump was responsible for this. He called DPRK’s bluff, not offering any gifts to pacify them, as they had always gotten in the past. At the same time, his sabre-rattling on trade with China convinced the Chinese to put the screws to Kim for the sake of a better deal.

This is not the first sudden, shocking, happy foreign policy development under Trump. ISIS is just about gone in Syria and Iraq; it was born and grew to global prominence on Obama’s watch. Russia had already announced its intention to leave Syria, but Trump has also managed to humiliate Putin by his combined air strike last week, probably convincing Russia to pull in its horns elsewhere as well. Notably, virtually all of Putin’s recent adventurism, since the invasion of Georgia in 2008, has been under Obama’s administration. Russia had to feel pretty confident in all of it that the US would stay passive. When you get right down to it, Russia has a GDP equivalent to Italy’s. If there were a general war, and given that it were not nuclear, Russia could not stand up for long toe-to-toe to Britain or France, let alone NATO. It is spectacular what Putin has been able to achieve. It is hard to believe it was possible without some American connivance.

The economy and the stock market in the US has been booming since Trump took office. Some are saying this has everything to do with Trump’s policy of cutting regulations, and the Republican tax bill. It is certainly telling that, under Obama, Canada regularly did better than the US economically. Now, suddenly, under Trump, Canada is lagging the US on the economic figures.

Trump seems to have made a substantial difference quickly and at little cost.

Many of the things that Obama did, especially in foreign policy, seemed jaw-droppingly wrong at the time. With the collapse in oil prices, the US had a golden opportunity to force Iran and Cuba—long supported and subsidized by Venezuela, since the Soviet bloc stopped funding them—into important concessions. What Obama did instead was to offer them important concessions from the US at just the moment they could best prop up those regimes and save their hides. And, of course, offered no support to opposition movements in Iran.

The US role in overthrowing Gaddhafi in Libya too seems to have been handled as badly as it could possibly be handled, in terms of US interests. If the US was going to get involved, in the first place, by the announced Obama policy of “leading from behind,” they simply paid for the privilege of handing away their prestige to others. If they were going to do what it took to overthrow Gaddhafi, they should also have had some plan in place for his replacement, or some expectation of who or what would take his place. Instead, humiliatingly, they could not even protect their consulate or their Ambassador.

Obama also threw away a huge amount of American prestige in Syria, by declaring a “red line” over chemical weapons, and then backing down as soon as it was crossed. Handing prestige over to Russia for supposedly brokering the deal. Besides showing any allies the US could not be trusted, this probably intensified and prolonged the Syrian civil war and its bloodbath, by leaving a vacuum for lesser powers to get engaged. Also boosting the prestige and interests of Iran, Russia, and now Turkey, at US expense.

And this US-sanctioned chaos over Syria and Libya provoked a refugee crisis that now threatens to overwhelm and permanently change Europe. And has already played a part in breaking up the EU.

All thanks to Obama’s administration.

Even Trump’s boorishness seems to be a wise strategy. Civil discourse is broken in the US; whether or not he was directly responsible, this certainly developed under Obama. You cannot play by the rules any longer, or you just get bullied. Trump seems expert at not getting bullied: he will stand put and fight toe to toe with any attacker. At the same time, he does not seem (so far) to bully anyone else. Again, this is in contrast to Obama, who presented a smiling face, but had the IRS, the Education Department, the Justice Department, and maybe the FBI, bully people in dubiously legal ways.

I sometimes wonder whether God gives the USA his special providential care. He sends along improbable people like Trump when they are needed.

What Needs to Be Done

 

Far-called our navies melt away—
On dune and headland sinks the fire—
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

NATO's current membership.

In the face of general American retreat from global responsibility, something needs to be done. Someone or something must fill the power vacuum that is developing. The American recessional may be temporary. It may be based on Barack Obama’s broad assumption that all that is needed for world peace and happiness is for the US to pull back everywhere. This seems insanely naïve, but it is a sentiment actually commonly heard on the US and on the international left. If so, things may change with the next administration. But it also seems entirely possible that this is a permanent bug out. The US is by instinct isolationist; it is hard to care much about the world outside when you have the world’s two largest oceans on either side. Your local championship can easily look like the “World Series.” If there is a further world beyond these shores, who cares?

So long as they saw a clear and present danger, first from Hitler and then the Communists, Americans could be made to care up to a point. Now that is gone. Russia is, as Obama says, a “regional power.” So is Iran, or China.

But do the rest of us want Iran and China and Russia to fill the coming void? If not, given that nobody else is strong enough to replace the US, there is an obvious alternative. It is called collective security. 

NATO, which already includes most of the big democratic players, needs to expand into a worldwide military alliance. The alliance needs to c all in, most notably, Japan, who is said to want in, and India, if they can be made interested. Singapore might not be able to provide much military might itself, but is a sound democracy and has obvious value as a naval and air post controlling the crucial shipping lanes between Europe and Japan. Australia is not so insignificant a power. The general rule ought to be, if you’re a stable democracy, you’re in.

Besides the general advantage of said collective security for existing democracies, this would promote the future of democracy by making it a more attractive option to currently non-democratic governments. Go democratic, and your borders are assured. 

A free trade agreement would also be nice. That looks as if it is likely to happen anyway. 

This world-wide democratic alliance would then be able to act in the interest of democracy where the UN is paralyzed or unreliable, due to its inclusion of everyone, including the nasties.

There's more than one point to this compass rose.

Obama Wins One

Stock photo of Obama smiling. But why?

The post-debate snap polls show a clear win for Obama this time.

Will it matter? Maybe not. First, given the economic situation, Americans are not thinking much about foreign policy. All Romney needed to do in those circumstances is come across as plausible, and as someone who would not start a war. That seems to be what he concentrated on in the debate, and he succeeded, by all accounts. Had he gone hard after Obama, all he might have done is shift the focus of the campaign to foreign policy, which is not his best argument. Winning the debate as a debate, for him, might have been a losing strategy.

Obama, on the other hand, may have lost some campaign ground in exchange for winning the debate. He was aggressive once again; people are talking about his “death stare.” This will cost him likability, and likability is, I have argued, the most important ingredient in American electoral success.

I don't know whether Obama had a better strategy available to him. If he had stayed calm and presidential, the debate would probably have been dull, and the focus would have remained on the economy. He needed to wave some red flags to try to get the bull to charge. But then, everything hinged on Romney being rattled into making some obvious blunder, like Ford saying Poland was not under Soviet domination back in '76. Or at least sounding angry and warlike. He didn't.

So the debate probably won't by itself cause any big shift in the campaign dynamics, but it will confirm Romney as a safe choice.

Going into the debate, Romney had the momentum. This debate was the last obvious chance to switch that momentum. Unless there is a late "October surprise" or gaffe by either candidate, that momentum in a tight race looks likely to carry Romney over the top; RealClearPolitics's poll of polls currently has Romney at 47.6 vs 47.2, even with the widespread apparent pro-Democratic bias in the polls. 

I note, though, with interest and surprise, that the InTrade market, usually extremely reliably, still leans strongly toward an Obama win. Does somebody know something about an October surprise we don't know?

Ethics and Foreign Policy

Still dead

I cannot really fault US foreign policy for siding with dictators during the Second World War or the Cold War, when it was a matter of clear and present danger and the lesser of two evils. But is there any longer a need for such an approach? I wonder what would happen that would be so terrible if the US--uniquely among nations, it should be said--decided today to pursue a foreign policy on purely ethical grounds?

After all, relatively safe behind its oceans, the US could probably afford the risks better than most other great powers in history. (Lesser powers have more often been able to afford it—they have fewer vested interests). It is even getting to the point of being able to afford it in terms of strategic oil reserves, thanks to Canada's tar sands and the new fracking technology. And, as more democracies come into existence year by year, the risks of such a policy grow less and less.

It might work best longer term, too. Wherever the US has a history of supporting an oppressive government, sooner or later, that government falls, and the population of that country are revealed as hostile to the US—Iran after the Shah, for example. Any aid money sent to such regimes is also mostly wasted. Conversely, wherever the US has a history of opposing an oppressive government, sooner or later that government falls, and the population are revealed as pro-US—Eastern Europe, for example. So, longer term, if there is no present emergency, US interests might be better served by sticking to the straight and narrow and not supporting dictators. Otherwise you only lose later what you win today.

No doubt the US would not always get it right. The average American, for example, has an unreasonable prejudice against monarchies and religion-linked regimes. Things like a “right to bear arms” can be questioned. Nevertheless, at least the US would stand for something. They would get some credit for this even among those who disagree.

At some point, on the pure logic of it, the strategy will probably be tried. And the world may be better for it.

American Recessional?

Is it racist to say "Hold the fort!"?

A few commentators point out that, eerily, Mitt Romney said nothing about the war in Afghanistan in his acceptance speech. This, of course, is because the Republicans feel their best bet is to stress the economy. But there may also be something to Condoleeza Rice’s comment, earlier in the convention, that Americans are weary of the burden of international leadership.

I bet they are. Everyone seems to get tired of it after a while. You pay for everything, and no matter what you do, you get blamed for everything. Caring much about the wider world does not come easily to the American consciousness, snug and secure and largely self-sufficient as America is behind its two oceans. “Isolationism” has been the American default position. Now that the clear and present danger of a rival Communist Bloc has faded, following Fascism’s earlier military defeat, it may be hard for the gringos to see the point of keeping up the far-flung battle line. Heck, there’s not even an empire in it for them.

Condi at the keyboard.

So what would really happen if America pulled back? Rice warned that one of two things would happen: either there would be chaos, or some other power, antithetical to American ideals, would take its place.

Was she right? I, for one, am grateful for Pax Americana, but neither do I expect the sky would fall without it. In Europe, surely NATO without America is big and strong enough to protect its own interests against a not particularly resurgent, and not particularly bellicose, Russia. Who else need they fear? Morocco?

In the Far East, China would probably be able to take Taiwan. Big problem? Maybe not. Was it such a big problem when they took Hong Kong and Macao? North Korea is nutty, but militarily South Korea is more than a match for North Korea on their own. On the wider stage, India is probably a rough match for China in a land war, and alliances involving both India and Japan—manpower plus high technology--could keep a balance of power in the area, should China become aggressive.

The Middle East is the one problem spot. In the Middle East, without US backing, Israel might be in an awkward position. More or less as they are now; with all due respect, no matter what anybody does, it looks as though the Israel experiment is demographically doomed. It does not help the US’s own interests to be keeping them on life support.

Iran is a bigger worry to the general Mideast peace. However, it does look again as though there is a natural balance of power here, even without the US: Shia Iran vs. the Sunni Gulf Cooperation Council.

A natural balance of power, of course, does not entirely preclude war. This is true whether or not the US is involved, though. If Iran and Saudi Arabia came to war, there could easily be a disruption in oil supply—not so much to the US, but to Europe, China, and Japan.

Could Europe, China, and Japan handle this, if necessary? Why not? Europe did until America showed up, and told them not to, in the Suez Crisis. Europe is more unified now, and more militarily unified. And it has China and Japan to help.

Of course, the Middle East as a whole is in turmoil. Whither Egypt? Whither Syria? Whither Libya? That said, since nobody really knows what is likely to happen, it is not clear that American intervention would lead to better results, from the American point of view, than American isolation. Was it useful to America to have intervened in Egypt to get rid of Mubarak in favour of the Muslim Brotherhood?

There are humanitarian concerns, sure, in the Middle East and elsewhere. These can be addressed ad hoc by coalitions; these coalitions need not be led by the US. The mechanisms are in place, and have been used, in Libya, in Kosovo, in Iraq.

Yes, if America withdrew, other powers would be able to fill the void. But I don’t think China is in any condition to go for world hegemony; its political system is not all that stable, and it is not, per capita, a wealthy country. And there is no one else on the horizon. What we would have, instead, is a network of regional powers, perhaps in alliances.

Kind of like we had, again, before the US cavalry showed up in the 20th century.

WikiLeaks

Is that blood? Or ketchup?

From what I have seen, the Wikileaks documents that have come out do not, on balance, seem damaging to the US at all. They are more embarassing to some other governments, and put the US's public claims in a rather better light than the left is generally inclined to allow them.

We have learned, for example, that China does not think much of North Korea, expects it to collapse within three years of Kim Jong Il's death, and has no problem with Korea being reunified from Seoul.

Hmm--very damaging to North Korea, less so to China. But for the US? Looks like a troop of Boy Scouts.

We have learned that the Gulf Arabs are far more concerned with Iran than with Israel, and would not only support, but have encouraged, any pre-emptive strike—even a land invasion.

Hmm--very damaging to Iran, less so to the Gulf Arabs. But for the US? Look like a troop of Boy Scouts.

We have learned that Iran has acquired from North Korea missiles that, while not a threat to the US, could hit most of the capitals of Europe.

Hmmm--very damaging to Iran, less so to Europe. But for the US? Looks like a troop of Boy Scouts.

It all almost sounds like a needed wakeup call for those who have been doubting US foreign policy and saying silly things about "US hegemony" and supposed plots involving oil.

Has it all been a clever CIA ploy, to get favourable information out there without alienating friendly governments who would be embarrassed by it? Sure, there are a few embarassing revelations: that US diplomats have been spying, for example. That US intelligence is so insecure. But you almost have to throw at least that much chum into the water to make it all look bona fide. I note that nothing “top secret” has been leaked; and I note that the chief suspect in the leak is an Army private. It does sound rather implausible that mounds of US secret documents were within easy hacking reach of a private soldier. If, on the other had, you need a scapegoat, an Army private is a pretty small fish to have to fry.

But I doubt, in the end, that this is the case. It is a conspiracy theory. There are indeed conspiracies, but on the whole, governments are not that smart. On average, probably somewhat less smart than an Army private.

I think the fact that the leaks tend to support US interests and embarass other governments is more likely simply due to US foreign policy being fundamentally reasonable, well-meaning, moderate, and transparent. What they have said in public has generally been what they have said in private; so there are few real secrets to reveal.

In other words, the US simply turns out to be the good guys.

Who knew?