3 ms·

I am not sure I like the idea of a global system led by a country that has been at war ever since world war 2 (arguable the cold war was not a war but that is d

by belorn 7y ago

I am not sure I like the idea of a global system led by a country that has been at war ever since world war 2 (arguable the cold war was not a war but that is debatable). The is a good reason why the US spend more on their military then the rest of the world combined. They are at war. Same reason why their surveillance operations operate indiscriminately against anyone they can target. They are at war. Countries in peace time operate very differently from countries in war time, and the behavior of the US is one of a country in war. EU could be better but it was original designed to create a single market in order to improve production and decrease the risk of war within EU. In order to apply that model globally you would need to make a global single market, and that concept has a lot of problems since you then need a single common standard for all production of products, services and goods, and it need to be uniformly enforced. Neither seems such as good entity to put our hopes on for a common basic value set in regard to liberal democracy, rule of law, and universal human rights. It should also be noted that the US do not agree to the EU definition of universal human rights, something that was quite talked about during bush and obama era when officials argued in favor of torture as a interrogation method. As a non-US citizen, I would like to see the US elect someone who want to end their constant wars. Trump was almost such candidate with his "american first" slogans, even if the chance of that actually happening was slim. Sanders is a new chance, as he want to redirect military funding into social safety nets and health care. Biden however, similar to clinton, has been part of the government that increased funding to the military and in his public statements there is nothing to imply that under their rule there will be finally peace time.

mschuster91 7y ago
> As a non-US citizen, I would like to see the US elect someone who want to end their constant wars. But who and what follows after the US drop out and retreat? Just look at Kurdistan: the Kurds are being all but eradicated by Erdogan and Assad. Afghanistan is going to fall back to the Taliban Islamists. Iraq? Steering towards collapse. Libya is essentially fucked beyond repair. China is free to do whatever they want, same for Russia. Human rights are only words on a paper when there is no one to back them against those who openly crap on said paper. I agree the EU should be stepping up to the voids that the US leaves, but unfortunately a chaotic power transfer is chaotic and will result in suffering and death.
- belorn 7y ago
  As Sweden took in a lot of refugees from the middle east I actually hear a lot of their own views on the subject. As long as the rest of the world are infusing the area with money in exchange for oil the wars there will continue. There exist a good reason why nations stopped allowing money going to blood diamonds. Inequality fuels conflict and oil money has a long and proven history of increasing inequality. Cutting off the money river would do more to stabilizing the region than any number of more military bases, bombs, drones and invasions could ever achieve. Yes, china and Russia would jump in in order to attempt seizing that oil in the absent of US interest, and in order to prevent them we would need to make it worthless for them to do so. Just like with money laundering we would have the new problem of oil laundering. If we look at EU for inspiration, the peace inspired treaty that created it was primarily focused on steel. Steel production was expensive, required a lot of workers and energy, and involved a complex chain of inter-dependent markets. Nation measured themselves in their ability to create steel. The iron miners however did not get massively rich. Nor did the coal miners. EU managed to connect the sources for iron, coal, and nuclear energy, and in large this was the revolution in Europe for equality. The lower the friction of that market the more interconnected the involved countries became. As we now move away from a world focused on steel that union has seen increased instability. Just now in corona times people are arguing if countries of more successful management strategies will bail out those that is currently failing. We don't really feel it like we used to do if one country in EU drop in equality. The US tactic of using bombs and invasions in order to create equality did also not work in the middle east. It might had worked in a steel focused era such as that after the second world war. Similar the EU tactic might had worked in the middle east if the oil market would behave more similar to that of steel. Right now however I doubt either will create the equality needed for peace. The most promising strategy would be to just leave them alone and make sure that the oil is never going to be worth wasting blood over.

by belorn 7y ago

mschuster91 7y ago

> As a non-US citizen, I would like to see the US elect someone who want to end their constant wars. But who and what follows after the US drop out and retreat? Just look at Kurdistan: the Kurds are being all but eradicated by Erdogan and Assad. Afghanistan is going to fall back to the Taliban Islamists. Iraq? Steering towards collapse. Libya is essentially fucked beyond repair. China is free to do whatever they want, same for Russia. Human rights are only words on a paper when there is no one to back them against those who openly crap on said paper. I agree the EU should be stepping up to the voids that the US leaves, but unfortunately a chaotic power transfer is chaotic and will result in suffering and death.

belorn 7y ago
As Sweden took in a lot of refugees from the middle east I actually hear a lot of their own views on the subject. As long as the rest of the world are infusing the area with money in exchange for oil the wars there will continue. There exist a good reason why nations stopped allowing money going to blood diamonds. Inequality fuels conflict and oil money has a long and proven history of increasing inequality. Cutting off the money river would do more to stabilizing the region than any number of more military bases, bombs, drones and invasions could ever achieve. Yes, china and Russia would jump in in order to attempt seizing that oil in the absent of US interest, and in order to prevent them we would need to make it worthless for them to do so. Just like with money laundering we would have the new problem of oil laundering. If we look at EU for inspiration, the peace inspired treaty that created it was primarily focused on steel. Steel production was expensive, required a lot of workers and energy, and involved a complex chain of inter-dependent markets. Nation measured themselves in their ability to create steel. The iron miners however did not get massively rich. Nor did the coal miners. EU managed to connect the sources for iron, coal, and nuclear energy, and in large this was the revolution in Europe for equality. The lower the friction of that market the more interconnected the involved countries became. As we now move away from a world focused on steel that union has seen increased instability. Just now in corona times people are arguing if countries of more successful management strategies will bail out those that is currently failing. We don't really feel it like we used to do if one country in EU drop in equality. The US tactic of using bombs and invasions in order to create equality did also not work in the middle east. It might had worked in a steel focused era such as that after the second world war. Similar the EU tactic might had worked in the middle east if the oil market would behave more similar to that of steel. Right now however I doubt either will create the equality needed for peace. The most promising strategy would be to just leave them alone and make sure that the oil is never going to be worth wasting blood over.