Ukraine
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@dogmeat You should probably read the actual essay, which is one of the most influential of the last 50 years, before glibly dismissing it.
I've had the book for decades and it was profoundly instrumental on how I perceived global politics. That and Graham Hancock's Lords of Poverty.
@dogmeat - you may quibble with the groupings, but I find it persuasive in its argument that fault lines emerge from the contrast between Western universalism, rise of Muslim militancy and Chinese assertion etc. With the benefit of hindsight it's difficult to say that they don't hold true and were prescient at the time of writing.
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@antipodean I haven't read the book but I have read a few more articles on it today. I still think the Latin America and African continental 'empires' are a total fabrication and one that he should have ignored at the time.
If the Central tenet is that we were not going to see the Pax Americana that many foresaw with the fall of the Berlin Wall and that rather than broader cross border consensus and groupings we were going to see the advance of tribalism, then yes spot on. However, the first point was not exactly startling and although I was surprised by the second - only until the break-up of Yugoslavia.
As for the rest. The rise of China was entirely predictable and had been since Deng Xiaopeng's reforms. the USA and (particularly) Japan were already in relative decline. The resurgence of Islam was already underway but I don't think anyone saw how deep it would go and the idealogical backlashes it would invoke. However this hardly a coherent movement. There is just as much inter-Islam rivalry as external and many muslim nations are allies of the west. As I said the inclusion of Latin America and Africa are risible and India has yet to come anywhere near realising its potential.
For me the real surprise has been the impotence and constant mis-steps taken by Europe. I thought greater Federalism was in everyone's interests and that would be obvious to all. Instead we have dissolution and dissatisfaction, probably because it became a bureaucratic rather than political entity.
Did he predict the rise of the autocratic, popularist across all these empires? If he did then fair play to him. These leaders have fed the nationalist identity that has led to the nationalism and identity politics that support the original thesis and are a danger to us all, but none of the summaries I have read talk about the rise of the charismatic idealogues around whom all these cultural empires coalesce.
From my brief reading the book does appear to have swum against the tide of western optimism, but that optimism only lasted a scan half decade. Did he predict the dumbing down of societies that has allowed all this to occur and the culture wars that have emasculated (oops) the west? It is all very much like living through themlast days of the republic or Edwardian England.
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@dogmeat sure, there are valid criticisms and the benefit of hindsight thirty years down the track, but he was the one who originally wrote the essay. So for all the "everyone could see it", he was the first to write about it convincingly and coherently.
He addressed the politics of identity, and pages devoted to "Islam: Consciousness Without Cohesion", the impact of non-Western migration to Western countries etc.
Anyway, I think it's worth a read so you can make up your own mind.
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@antipodean said in Ukraine:
@dogmeat sure, there are valid criticisms and the benefit of hindsight thirty years down the track, but he was the one who originally wrote the essay. So for all the "everyone could see it", he was the first to write about it convincingly and coherently.
He addressed the politics of identity, and pages devoted to "Islam: Consciousness Without Cohesion", the impact of non-Western migration to Western countries etc.
Anyway, I think it's worth a read so you can make up your own mind.
I read it in Dr. Lewis Fretz's class (he was fucking awesome). I think for everything it may get wrong, it got plenty right, especially in helping people to see these civilizations as a filter through which various conflicts could be viewed.
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For me the real surprise has been the impotence and constant mis-steps taken by Europe. I thought greater Federalism was in everyone's interests and that would be obvious to all. Instead we have dissolution and dissatisfaction, probably because it became a bureaucratic rather than political entity.
I think the problem with Europe has been because it became a political entity. One with lots of ideals but with minimal shared political will and far too remote from its citizens and their concerns so it's seen as lacking legitimacy. It focusses too much on convergence and not enough on co-operation, IMHO. Doesn't help that the bureaucracy looks like the epitome of incompetence and arrogance and often acts without much thought to the outside world either.
The response to the Ukraine conflict has been interesting though, where groups of EU countries (and former-EU UK) have worked together well to provide military assistance. The EU hasn't tried to lead but support where it can - the EU is setting up training bases for Ukrainian armed forces and leveraging and allying with the UK training programme with already involves Dutch, Swedish & Polish military instructors - as well as those from Canada, Oz and NZ.
Perhaps the Ukraine conflict and the dangers that Europe faces, might herald a more realistic, responsive and effective EU. Here's hoping.
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What is the dollar value on those downed 502 aircraft?
Google says the KA52 chopper is c $15m, so using that number for all 502, that is $7.5b...
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Will be interesting to see if islamic jihad kicks off in the Russian caucasus.
Have been waiting for the jihad shoe to drop. Will US go all out on promoting that stuff, or would it get in the way of exploiting central Asian resources, now that Russia is so weak?
Or they may focus on Iran and leverage the unrest there?
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This is interesting. Happened 3 weeks ago.
This was reported 2 days ago:
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What are the chances Putin further restricts energy supplies to Europe during winter?
Can he do that , further, without cutting to Hungary? And Serbia. And reasonably sizable russian-sympathic population (but not current govt) in Bulgaria?
I dont know the answer to that.
I've found the gas pipelines reporting to be quite lacking. Far too simplistic, the only simple pipeline geopolitically are the 2 nordstream ones, and they are already gone.
There are 2 big-ass mainline pipelines running right through Ukraine that have kept running right through the war. Got to be a reason for that. Probably that it is Hungary main supply.