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Interesting as I think we are witnessing a global shift in power to the East. China’s rise and the US’s fall from hegemony is starting to be felt in geopolitic

Interesting as I think we are witnessing a global shift in power to the East. China’s rise and the US’s fall from hegemony is starting to be felt in geopolitics. Russia (IMO)may simply be pressing ahead while it sees the US’s power currently diminished. The US withdraw of Afghanistan has not helped matters. It demonstrated that although the US military’s budget is 10 times more than its closest rival, this expense does not equal 10 times a more powerful army. Instead we have shown our current military structure is overly bureaucratic and inefficient. Until the US can restructure and gets it house in a bit better order I think we may see Russia continue to press forward in the short term.

Jcowell 5y ago
It’s not a matter of power but a matter of morals I think. The U.S has every ability annihilate any enemy but the collateral damage to do so restricts it heavily. If the goal of the US was straight up imperialism/colonialism it would be a very different story.
- trasz 5y ago
  It’s not about morals - nobody in US seems to care about the million people they killed in Middle East - it’s about dead American soldiers looking bad in the TV.
  - torstenvl 5y ago
    False statements don't help public discussion. It is not true that the U.S. killed a million people in the Middle East. And this is not some sophistic semantic argument either, as it remains not true when you include Afghanistan. The number of civilian casualties is not even close. It is also not true that the U.S. doesn't care about civilian casualties. The U.S., U.K., and Australia are the only countries I know that put lawyers in air strike operations cells to ensure the law of armed conflict is followed. The French red card holders receive training but don't tend to be lawyers, believe similar is true for Germans and Italians. You'd be hard pressed to find anyone who takes this obligation more seriously than the U.S. and closest allies.
    - trasz 5y ago
      Some estimates indicate million killed in Iraq alone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORB_survey_of_Iraq_War_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORB_survey_of_Iraq_War_casualt.... Apart from Afghanistan, you'd also need to add civilian victims of US sanctions. The fact that US uses lawyers "to ensure the law of armed conflict is followed" does not mean they care about civilians; it means they care about being sued in case they killed someone whose family can afford lawyers.
      - torstenvl 5y ago
        A country cannot be sued for causing a civilian death in war. Your speculation about motivations has no basis in reality. Additionally, the link you posted about deaths in Iraq does not say what you think it says.
        trasz 5y ago
        Individual soldiers can, and US is very protective about its war criminals (see Iran Air 655). Almost every country cares about civilians more the US: by not waging wars.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - mempko 5y ago
      The U.S. also takes it seriously when whistle blowers and journalists leak a story that tells the opposite. Torturing Chelsea Manning and going after Julian Assange for example. The million excess deaths from the wars is very realistic and plausible. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War
      - torstenvl 5y ago
        Chelsea Manning wasn't tortured. The USG even paid for her gender reassignment surgery, and she was released early from her sentence. No reasonable person can call that torture. The claim isn't "there were a million excess deaths in a multiparty conflict," the claim is that the U.S. killed a million people. The vast majority of civilian killings were by ISIS and Shia militias.
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  Lol. The US is far from that powerful. You don't win wars by annihilation, you win wars by achieving political goals. The US wasn't able to reach these goals in no small part because of too much collateral damage. If you want to know what a more sucessful campaign in Afghanistan looked like, the USSR invaded Afghanistan and their allied regime lasted over a year until Yeltsin caused the to fall and gave Afghanistan to the Taliban by imposing sanctions. You'll note that it's not increased brutality that was successful. It was having actually effective allies on the ground that made and broke the Soviet campaign. What's more, the campaign of shock in the initial stages of invasion was brutal, and did a lot of collateral damage, and didn't work and actually was counterproductive. It was only when the Soviets and their allies managed to actually get a competent and motivated Afghan military towards the later stages of the war that the war started turning in their favour. The US was never able to achieve their political goals and the US-backed government was never competent and motivated even after twenty years. It was a failure of the US military to achieve its goals. No amount of additional collateral damage would have done anything, it was simply a failure. In fact, less morals would have made things worse. Also, see Iraq which was even more brutal and still completely unsuccessful with Iraq veering under Iranian control.
- KaiserPro 5y ago
  > It’s not a matter of power but a matter of morals I think. Its a matter of will. What is in it for the USA to start/finish a hot war with russia? Russia has has different rules of engagement which means that they are prepared to be a bit more ruthless when it comes to doing a war. This means that for the US to win, it will need to commit a fucktonne of resources, of which a politically damaging number will be destroyed. The US isn't going to commit that much because there is no real strategic win for this. Russia is basically being textbook russia. Its been doing this shit in this region off and on for the last 150+ years. Its far easier to let ukraine blunt russia's fighting force, than it is to loose american troops. Its not a moral judgement, its raw hard domestic politics.
nradov 5y ago
Despite the debacle in Afghanistan, the US military remains extremely powerful with an unmatched capacity to project that power around the world. Russian leaders are under no illusions about that. However, military power is meaningless if you're not willing to use it. President Biden has already clearly stated that the US will not intervene militarily to defend Ukraine, and will only apply economic sanctions.
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  The debacle in Afghanistan showed that the US military is incompetent when it comes to actually achieving their goals. Let's say the US does intervene in Ukraine. The US still won't be able to take Crimea for obvious reasons. Ukraine itself will be even more of a shithole. In the end, when the US leaves Ukraine, Will things be better or worse? Who knows, and that's why an intervention there is not on the table. If it was easy and straightforward and would deal a decisive blow to Russia, it would already be done.
  - torstenvl 5y ago
    > The debacle in Afghanistan showed that the US military is incompetent when it comes to actually achieving their goals How so? That's a pretty novel interpretation. Why do you view Afghanistan as a military failure rather than a political one?
    - sudosysgen 5y ago
      It's really not a novel interpretation. The goal of a military operation is to achieve political goals. There is no clear delineation between the two. If the political goals weren't reached then the military failed. A military is only as good as its leadership, is it not? Well, the ultimate leadership is the president.
      - torstenvl 5y ago
        That is definitely novel, yes. Political success often depends on military success, but I've never heard anyone claim the opposite. The implication of your position is that the only way the U.S. military could have "succeeded" would have been to mutiny. That seems... odd.
vmception 5y ago
Russia did the same thing a decade ago in Georgia and US didnt intervene. Followed by Crimea, which sparked uhhh sanctions. And a decade before that was when the soviet union fell apart. What time period, exactly, are you referring to that correlates with US influence waning? Russia has always been on autopilot regardless of US influence, when you look back at it. The answer doesnt rely on talking about other ways influence shifts or trying to convince everyone to be scared of a world without US soft power omg oh noes, its about what it has to do with Russia’s expansionist actions.
- ianai 5y ago
  USSR fell apart in the 90s. 1992, iirc? I’d just remind the discussion that the US just pulled out of its wars. Also, war has a way of pushing past any debt discussions. Nowadays, people assume kinetic war is out precisely because of the threat of nuclear war and economic integration of economies. Russia is really assuming anything it does won’t trigger nuclear war nor cut off its ability for economic exchange. Same with China. Taken to a logical extreme, what Russia and China want to do in expanding their borders IS war, they just think there’s fuzziness about what triggers all out kinetics. But of course small steps of expansion are the mechanics of all out war. Edit-Further, the wide rise of nationalistic forces across the globe are signs of growing openness towards war. This path isn’t as unilaterally beneficial to Russia nor China as those parties believe. And if this were a game of risk, the opposing forces of China/Russia expansionism would be looking to unite the rest of the globe against it by whatever means at least undermine the threat of war or economic integration with R/C.
everybodyknows 5y ago
> US military’s budget is 10 times more than its closest rival Ten times more than China's budget? Source, please.

Jcowell 5y ago

It’s not a matter of power but a matter of morals I think. The U.S has every ability annihilate any enemy but the collateral damage to do so restricts it heavily. If the goal of the US was straight up imperialism/colonialism it would be a very different story.

trasz 5y ago
It’s not about morals - nobody in US seems to care about the million people they killed in Middle East - it’s about dead American soldiers looking bad in the TV.
- torstenvl 5y ago
  False statements don't help public discussion. It is not true that the U.S. killed a million people in the Middle East. And this is not some sophistic semantic argument either, as it remains not true when you include Afghanistan. The number of civilian casualties is not even close. It is also not true that the U.S. doesn't care about civilian casualties. The U.S., U.K., and Australia are the only countries I know that put lawyers in air strike operations cells to ensure the law of armed conflict is followed. The French red card holders receive training but don't tend to be lawyers, believe similar is true for Germans and Italians. You'd be hard pressed to find anyone who takes this obligation more seriously than the U.S. and closest allies.
  - trasz 5y ago
    Some estimates indicate million killed in Iraq alone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORB_survey_of_Iraq_War_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORB_survey_of_Iraq_War_casualt.... Apart from Afghanistan, you'd also need to add civilian victims of US sanctions. The fact that US uses lawyers "to ensure the law of armed conflict is followed" does not mean they care about civilians; it means they care about being sued in case they killed someone whose family can afford lawyers.
    - torstenvl 5y ago
      A country cannot be sued for causing a civilian death in war. Your speculation about motivations has no basis in reality. Additionally, the link you posted about deaths in Iraq does not say what you think it says.
      - trasz 5y ago
        Individual soldiers can, and US is very protective about its war criminals (see Iran Air 655). Almost every country cares about civilians more the US: by not waging wars.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
  - mempko 5y ago
    The U.S. also takes it seriously when whistle blowers and journalists leak a story that tells the opposite. Torturing Chelsea Manning and going after Julian Assange for example. The million excess deaths from the wars is very realistic and plausible. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War
    - torstenvl 5y ago
      Chelsea Manning wasn't tortured. The USG even paid for her gender reassignment surgery, and she was released early from her sentence. No reasonable person can call that torture. The claim isn't "there were a million excess deaths in a multiparty conflict," the claim is that the U.S. killed a million people. The vast majority of civilian killings were by ISIS and Shia militias.
sudosysgen 5y ago
Lol. The US is far from that powerful. You don't win wars by annihilation, you win wars by achieving political goals. The US wasn't able to reach these goals in no small part because of too much collateral damage. If you want to know what a more sucessful campaign in Afghanistan looked like, the USSR invaded Afghanistan and their allied regime lasted over a year until Yeltsin caused the to fall and gave Afghanistan to the Taliban by imposing sanctions. You'll note that it's not increased brutality that was successful. It was having actually effective allies on the ground that made and broke the Soviet campaign. What's more, the campaign of shock in the initial stages of invasion was brutal, and did a lot of collateral damage, and didn't work and actually was counterproductive. It was only when the Soviets and their allies managed to actually get a competent and motivated Afghan military towards the later stages of the war that the war started turning in their favour. The US was never able to achieve their political goals and the US-backed government was never competent and motivated even after twenty years. It was a failure of the US military to achieve its goals. No amount of additional collateral damage would have done anything, it was simply a failure. In fact, less morals would have made things worse. Also, see Iraq which was even more brutal and still completely unsuccessful with Iraq veering under Iranian control.
KaiserPro 5y ago
> It’s not a matter of power but a matter of morals I think. Its a matter of will. What is in it for the USA to start/finish a hot war with russia? Russia has has different rules of engagement which means that they are prepared to be a bit more ruthless when it comes to doing a war. This means that for the US to win, it will need to commit a fucktonne of resources, of which a politically damaging number will be destroyed. The US isn't going to commit that much because there is no real strategic win for this. Russia is basically being textbook russia. Its been doing this shit in this region off and on for the last 150+ years. Its far easier to let ukraine blunt russia's fighting force, than it is to loose american troops. Its not a moral judgement, its raw hard domestic politics.

nradov 5y ago

Despite the debacle in Afghanistan, the US military remains extremely powerful with an unmatched capacity to project that power around the world. Russian leaders are under no illusions about that. However, military power is meaningless if you're not willing to use it. President Biden has already clearly stated that the US will not intervene militarily to defend Ukraine, and will only apply economic sanctions.

sudosysgen 5y ago
The debacle in Afghanistan showed that the US military is incompetent when it comes to actually achieving their goals. Let's say the US does intervene in Ukraine. The US still won't be able to take Crimea for obvious reasons. Ukraine itself will be even more of a shithole. In the end, when the US leaves Ukraine, Will things be better or worse? Who knows, and that's why an intervention there is not on the table. If it was easy and straightforward and would deal a decisive blow to Russia, it would already be done.
- torstenvl 5y ago
  > The debacle in Afghanistan showed that the US military is incompetent when it comes to actually achieving their goals How so? That's a pretty novel interpretation. Why do you view Afghanistan as a military failure rather than a political one?
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    It's really not a novel interpretation. The goal of a military operation is to achieve political goals. There is no clear delineation between the two. If the political goals weren't reached then the military failed. A military is only as good as its leadership, is it not? Well, the ultimate leadership is the president.
    - torstenvl 5y ago
      That is definitely novel, yes. Political success often depends on military success, but I've never heard anyone claim the opposite. The implication of your position is that the only way the U.S. military could have "succeeded" would have been to mutiny. That seems... odd.

vmception 5y ago

Russia did the same thing a decade ago in Georgia and US didnt intervene. Followed by Crimea, which sparked uhhh sanctions. And a decade before that was when the soviet union fell apart. What time period, exactly, are you referring to that correlates with US influence waning? Russia has always been on autopilot regardless of US influence, when you look back at it. The answer doesnt rely on talking about other ways influence shifts or trying to convince everyone to be scared of a world without US soft power omg oh noes, its about what it has to do with Russia’s expansionist actions.

ianai 5y ago
USSR fell apart in the 90s. 1992, iirc? I’d just remind the discussion that the US just pulled out of its wars. Also, war has a way of pushing past any debt discussions. Nowadays, people assume kinetic war is out precisely because of the threat of nuclear war and economic integration of economies. Russia is really assuming anything it does won’t trigger nuclear war nor cut off its ability for economic exchange. Same with China. Taken to a logical extreme, what Russia and China want to do in expanding their borders IS war, they just think there’s fuzziness about what triggers all out kinetics. But of course small steps of expansion are the mechanics of all out war. Edit-Further, the wide rise of nationalistic forces across the globe are signs of growing openness towards war. This path isn’t as unilaterally beneficial to Russia nor China as those parties believe. And if this were a game of risk, the opposing forces of China/Russia expansionism would be looking to unite the rest of the globe against it by whatever means at least undermine the threat of war or economic integration with R/C.

everybodyknows 5y ago

> US military’s budget is 10 times more than its closest rival Ten times more than China's budget? Source, please.