#us power

[kb-p2730]

[canadianabroadvery]

On Propaganda and Failed Narratives: New Understanding of Afghanistan is a Must - Palestine Chronicle

"On Propaganda and Failed Narratives: New Understanding of Afghanistan is a Must - Palestine Chronicle" https://www.palestinechronicle.com/on-propaganda-and-failed-narratives-new-understanding-of-afghanistan-is-a-must/

On Propaganda and Failed Narratives: New Understanding of Afghanistan is a Must

Afghanistan is now in urgent need of a government that truly represents the people of that country. This is the true national narrative of A

One of the best assessments of the Afghanistan debacle that I've read.

[newstfionline]

Trump sparks a debate over the future of American power

By Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post, December 17, 2018

President Trump will retreat to his Florida resort at the end of this week. Nearing the halfway point of his term in office, his political isolation in Washington is deepening. A slew of candidates balked at taking the job of White House chief of staff--a post of tremendous influence that has in the age of Trump become a poisoned chalice from which few want to drink. A funding spat with the Democrats prompted Trump to vow a government shutdown, much to the chagrin of members of his own party. And the legal inquiries into the president’s campaign and businesses are mounting.

It’s not just Trump’s domestic agenda that’s facing scrutiny. Last week, Trump received a stinging bipartisan rebuke from Congress over his administration’s embrace of the Saudi-led war in Yemen and the particularly reckless royal holding power in Riyadh. The high-profile climate meetings that took place in Poland only underscored the extent to which this White House has alienated itself from the international mainstream on environmental policy--and highlighted, yet again, how the rest of the world is plowing ahead in spite of Trump, not with him.

Of course, Trump came to power vowing to be a disrupter on the global stage. He said he was intent on reforming a post-World War II international order that had outlived its usefulness for Americans. But the White House’s efforts overseas--including its rejection of the Paris climate accord, the waging of trade wars, the unraveling of the Iran nuclear deal, the persistent belittling of allies and the perplexing coddling of autocrats--have unsettled Washington as much as they have disturbed American partners abroad.

To be sure, discussions about the waning of the United States as the world’s sole superpower predate Trump. But two years of his tumultuous presidency have intensified Washingtonian angst about the future of American power and how America should seek to lead a more fractured planet--or whether it should try at all.

“It’s historical fact that great nations and empires all have a beginning and an end,” said James Jones, a retired U.S. general, former national security adviser to President Barack Obama and outgoing chairman of the Atlantic Council, speaking Friday in Washington at a forum hosted by his think tank. “There’s a naive belief in our country that there’s some sort of destiny, that the primacy of the United States is ensured for some reason forever. I don’t think that’s the case.”

To that end, the Atlantic Council, an organization deeply invested in the furtherance of American leadership, is planning on floating a new set of principles to safeguard the “rules-based order”--the euphemism often used to explain the status quo authored by the United States more than half a century ago. It wants to “revitalize” and “defend” this order, not just from the rising authoritarian might of China, but in the face of Trump’s own nationalist and protectionist agenda and those of his ilk.

At the forum, speakers warned of the White House’s disregard for “values-based” foreign policy--seen both in Trump’s cynical accommodation of figures such as the Saudi crown prince as well as his demagoguery over migrants and refugees coming to the United States. Washington, they feared, was seeing its credibility evaporate among allies. This sentiment was echoed by Jake Sullivan, a former Obama administration official and Hillary Clinton adviser, in a recent essay outlining what a liberal, post-Trump foreign policy ought to look like.

“An energized, inspiring, and ultimately successful foreign policy must cut through Trump’s false, dog-whistling choice between globalism and nationalism,” wrote Sullivan. “It must combine the best kind of patriotism (a shared civic spirit and a clear sense of the national interest) and the best kind of internationalism (a recognition that when your neighbor’s house is on fire, you need to grab a bucket). And it should reject the worst kind of nationalism (damn-the-consequences aggression and identity-based hate-mongering) and the worst kind of internationalism (the self-congratulatory insulation of the Davos elite).”

But that’s a tricky needle to thread. On the right, Trump and his lieutenants have spent their time in power casting the liberal pieties of the Obama era as supposed obstacles to the American national interest and see themselves at the forefront of a nationalist wave taking control across the world.

Among the Democrats, there’s a burgeoning debate about what kind of counter to “internationalism” ought to be embraced: It’s easy to scorn the “Davos elite,” but it’s another thing to pursue policies that target the power and privileges of influential multinational corporations or question the shibboleths of free trade and laissez-faire capitalism. It’s sensible to urge American restraint in the Middle East and other geopolitical flash points, but it’s harder to convince official Washington to eschew new military entanglements.

And though Trump and his political rivals may not agree on much, both may succumb to the old temptations of the Cold War.

At the Atlantic Council’s forum, the specter of China loomed over proceedings. Adm. Michael Rogers, a former head of the National Security Agency, feared China could outpace the United States in its abilities to wage cyberwarfare. Sen. Tom Cotton (R.-Ark.), a figure largely loyal to Trump, described China as “a unique adversary in the world.” Though Cotton’s hawkish views on Iran have earned him many detractors, there aren’t that many lawmakers on the other side of the aisle who would disagree with his antipathy toward Beijing.

That the United States is almost inexorably lurching into a great-power confrontation with China ought to be a concern, suggested Emma Ashford and Trevor Thrall of the libertarian Cato Institute. “The growing consensus on China is troubling. Having identified China as America’s biggest strategic challenge, neither party has identified a clear goal,” Ashford and Thrall wrote. “Nor have they articulated how a new approach to China would provide a foundation for a broader vision of American foreign policy ... The risk of creating a self-fulfilling prophecy on China--through confrontation without purpose--is real.”

Analysts liken the febrile moment to an earlier era of 19th century politics, when Europe’s industrializing, imperial powers entered into alliances that ultimately convulsed the world into conflict.

“What we are seeing today resembles the mid-nineteenth century in important ways: the post-World War II, post-Cold War order cannot be restored, but the world is not yet on the edge of a systemic crisis,” wrote Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations.

A century ago, that crisis arrived. This time, the current crop of American politicians--Trump included--can still stave off calamity.

“Now is the time to make sure one never materializes, be it from a breakdown in U.S.-Chinese relations, a clash with Russia, a conflagration in the Middle East, or the cumulative effects of climate change,” Haass continued. “The good news is that it is far from inevitable that the world will eventually arrive at a catastrophe; the bad news is that it is far from certain that it will not.”

[erebusvincent]

People...have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power.

Bill Clinton, legitimate president and person in charge of his faculties 

We will get this America back.

[newstfionline]

How the Middle East is depleting American power

Michael Brendan Dougherty, The Week, April 11, 2017

Once upon a time, a man could write checks his bank account couldn’t cover. Since shops and banks wouldn’t know for a few days, he had time to live large. And when his scam went sideways, the crook could always skip town and forge some new documents: Find a new bank, and a new set of marks. A con artist could live life this way. But a nation can’t. And a superpower really can’t.

That’s why it’s more than a little frightening that President Trump, a man who knows bankruptcy law as well as any crook and has done enough bad deals he can’t get American banks to finance his ventures, is now in charge of the country’s foreign policy.

Right now, the U.S. military has a lot of credit on the world stage. But the way Trump seems ready to write checks on its account should make us nervous. Trump watched a few horrifying cable news segments and now the United States may have a new objective in the Syrian Civil War: the removal of the Bashar Al-Assad’s regime.

But unlike your local shopkeepers, the other great powers of the world have an idea of what’s in the U.S. account. They know what our navy can do, and how far each model of our airplanes can fly on one tank of gas. They know where we’re vulnerable. They can estimate, roughly, what the tolerance for war is among American people.

They know that previous administration bequeathed to Trump some combination of ground troops, special forces, and air operations in six Muslim countries: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Syria, and Somalia. And they get the breaking news alerts just like you, showing that Trump seems to be deciding to join the U.S. more directly to more fronts in the Syrian Civil War. Here in America, many commentators interpreted Trump’s decision to go after Assad as a sign that America had gotten its swagger back.

But great powers around the world noticed that the U.S. has a tighter monthly budget on power right now and is not in a position to be demanding. A professor of international relations at Fudam University in Shanghai described the feeling in China over this development.

Mr. Shen added that many Chinese were “thrilled” by the attack because it would probably result in the United States becoming further mired in the Middle East.

“If the United States gets trapped in Syria, how can Trump make America great again? As a result, China will be able to achieve its peaceful rise,” Mr. Shen said, using a term Beijing employs to characterize its growing power. “Even though we say we oppose the bombing, deep in our hearts we are happy.” [The New York Times]

Speaking of China, the U.S. has several priorities near it. We want to keep the trading routes in the South China Sea accessible, and the prosperous city states there as independent as possible. We want to see our allies like South Korea and Japan thrive. And we want China to help contain North Korea, in case its insane ruler threatens our friends. We also probably don’t want China to do anything really provocative in Siberia, which it easily could. This week the U.S. is sending ships to the Korean peninsula, to send more messages about the North Korean regime and what will, won’t, or can’t be tolerated from it.

It’s easy to imagine China soon finding itself in a position to ask us to alter one or more of our positions in its neighborhood. The U.S. just has to be distracted by its quest to find the Thomas Jeffersons from Yemen to Libya, and then be met with a crisis. That crisis could be the North Korean regime collapsing from its internal corruption, and South Korea asking for help securing its weapons, or preventing the spillover of people from overwhelming their society overnight.

Even a relatively weakened state like Russia can find itself in more favorable negotiating circumstances with the U.S. merely because of our promiscuity in making promises. Want their help in transitioning Syria away from Assad? Want greater Russian assistance in guaranteeing that Iran sticks to its commitments? Then Nikki Haley may have to stop talking about Crimea and Ukraine.

For some hawks in the U.S., everything is a priority, and backing down anywhere is a sign of lost credibility. But if the United States cannot properly rank priorities, or husband its power, it will find that the value of its commitments can fall in a cascade and reduce to zero very quickly. Our Middle Eastern interventions since 2001 have resulted in few gains and a multiplication of ongoing debits on America’s account. America’s critical allies and rivals in Europe and in Asia are asking themselves what will be left over for them in the American treasury of power after our Middle Eastern adventures. So should we.

[newstfionline]

Will the United States Remain a World Power?

James Altucher, LinkedIn Pulse, December 19, 2016

My six year old daughter asked me, “What’s so great about the United States anyway?” And I didn’t know what to say to her.

I’m from the US. But there’s many problems in how the US plays out its role both at home and in the world. How to answer about a country that engages in horrific wars, had slaves, has a 15% poverty rate, and yet has always called itself “the land of opportunity” and with reason.

There are really two question: how do you define “world power” and is this a good thing or a bad thing. Maybe it’s better to be a small power and still have lots of wealth and conveniences (think: Luxembourg).

First: are we a world power? Yes, the United States is by far the biggest world power.

GDP (the amount of dollars the US makes) is $18 trillion dollars. The entire world is $75 trillion. That means, we are almost 25% of the world’s economy even though we only have about 4% of the people.

Military Power: There’s no right or wrong way to assess this. But let’s assume that a country is a military power if it can quickly gather forces into any region and engage. You do this with aircraft. The US is #1 in the world with over 13,000 aircraft. The next eight countries: Russia, China, India, Japan, South Korea, France, Egypt, Turkey all added together are about the same as the United States. We are number one in nuclear submarines, destroyers, cruisers, etc.

Science: The US ranks #1 in citations (how many times scientific papers cite papers written in the US) with 35,000,000 between 1993–2008. I know this seems outdated but it covers a long period and demonstrates the strides in biotech, chips, robotics, AI, plant-based foods, energy, etc.

Athletic prowess: Again, despite being only 4% of the world population, the US is #1 in Olympic medals with over 2800. If you add up the Soviet Union + Russia you still get only around 1800.

Where do people go? Despite however the world feels about the US, the US is where people go on vacation. Again, despite how tiny the US is versus the world: the US is #1 in tourism with $200 billion spent here by tourists. versus #2 China with $108 billion.

Gold. People say, what if the dollar is not the #1 currency? Doesn’t matter. The world defaults to Gold when that happens. The US has 8000 tons of gold reserves. Number 2 is Germany with 3000 tons.

Trump? Clinton? Who cares. Pundits have been predicting the decline of the United States since 1792 and innovation outside of government has always outpaced the government’s ability to destroy the United States economy.

You can say the US is not #1 in esteem held by other countries. I agree with this. I don’t think the US should police the world. I think we should stop engaging in any wars.

I have a 17 year old daughter right now. There is basically zero condition that would allow me to say to her, “I think you should pick up a gun, go to a strikingly poor country, and murder other 17 year olds.” No matter what was happening in that country.

And yet the US has 800 military bases in 70 countries around the world.

The last time the US “legally” declared war according to the Constitution was 1941 when we entered World War II.

And yet we are in involved in at least six wars right now and we have special operations going on in 134 countries according to The Nation.

I am naive about war and killing and helping other countries that might need it. But this seems like a disaster to me.

What will happen in the future? Why do we need countries at all? They only lead to nationalism, trade wars, immigration problems, dictatorships, corruptions (name me a single government that is not corrupt?).

Facebook has quietly bonded 2 billion people together across their single platform. I talk to people from at least 50 different countries a day across social media.

We once were nomadic tribes of 150 people. Then when we had to protect our wheat, we became villages. Then villages developed specialties and developed into cities. Then cities merged into kingdoms. Then empires. (See the book, “Sapiens” by Yuval Hariri).

The United States is by far the biggest empire ever.

But there will be a next. Evolution of government structures over the past 12,000 years requires that there will be a next. Economics requires that there will be a next.

Global communication requires that there will be a next. The relatively recent discovery that racial and ethnic differences are much smaller than people believed requires that there will be a next.

The expansion of technologies that will have global footprints (biotech, virtual reality, faster transportation) will tighten the stitches that hold us all together. There will be a Next.

I’m signing up now. I’m a Citizen of Next.

[krethem]

In the eyes of critics, the US appears to be able to act as it pleases without any accountability or consequences for unleashing destruction onto other countries. These same critics often see Chinese and Russian power as the only means to hold the US accountable. Russia’s defiance over the Syrian Civil War, for example, is not seen as a destructive campaign to sustain a brutal dictator; it is seen as a means to confront the US for its provocations. In contrast, US power is seen as a means to hold China and Russia accountable in places where China and Russia have the power to dominate others nations. Considering the oppression of North Korea, the Saudi bombing of the Houthis in Yemen, the Syrian Civil War, the Turkish-Kurdish Conflict, and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, among numerous other examples, there is a lack of accountability for those who use power to defy international standards for human rights. No one seems to be able to hold even the governments of these relatively weak countries accountable for the destruction they cause. On the international stage, rivalries between world powers like the US, China, and Russia have the potential provide some check on their power, but it does nothing to hold the leadership of these countries accountable for their wrongdoing. Read more at http://www.washingtonoutsider.org/editors-blog/accountability-for-world-powers-can-china-russia-balance-us-power