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> Syria was the worst part, Agreed. Obama came in from the context of the wars in Iraq/Afghanistan and wanted to avoid another similar, and was too cautious an

> Syria was the worst part, Agreed. Obama came in from the context of the wars in Iraq/Afghanistan and wanted to avoid another similar, and was too cautious and non-confrontational, especially once Russia got involved. > Pushing NATO members to meet their defense spending obligations ended up being damn-near prescient This was not “pushing” so much as “ineffective trash talking”. And it had nothing to do with making NATO or European militaries effective, but was based on Trump’s inability to understand anything except in narrowly transactional terms, not comprehending the possibility of second-order effects or complex systems and therefore unwilling to listen when people try to explain that supporting NATO and maintaining the prevailing geopolitical order is in America’s long-term interest. With maybe some bonus of trying to help Putin. > I'd love to see more breaking down of trade relations with China Trump’s #1 foreign policy “accomplishment” was pulling the USA out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, undermining US economic and social power in the region to China’s great benefit. > Withdrawing from Afghanistan was way overdue and it disgusted me The USA should have pulled out of Afghanistan years before (or never gone in at all), but the way the Trump administration handled the transition was profoundly incompetent, and made things much harder for the Biden administration (the only president of the past 4 with the guts to go through with it).

corrral 4y ago
> Trump’s #1 foreign policy accomplishment was pulling the USA out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, undermining US economic and social power in the region to China’s great benefit. Yeah, I know. Again, I'm not saying he was good. Just that I didn't think there'd even be a single half-assed compliment I'd be able to muster for anything he did. He exceeded sub-zero expectations, and probably, for whatever reason (yeah, likely largely ineffective management of his administration) at least didn't do anywhere near as much harm as the the guys who ran things the prior 16 years. Not via his foreign policy actions, at least. Sorry if any of this came off as "I like most of Trump's foreign policy". What I'm getting at is that I'm pretty harsh even on popular Democratic presidents, and not incapable of admitting "that was kinda OK" with Republicans even when they're an actual no-BS joke like Trump, but still think Biden's not screwed the pooch so far (he still might, certainly) on foreign policy. And I'm inclined to dislike him because I'm getting really sick of ancient dudes sitting in the Oval Office—could we get a youthful 60-year-old, even? Please?—and don't care for a lot of his legislative record. Point is, if Biden's badly screwing up foreign policy, this particular devoted foreign policy cynic isn't seeing it. But, again, there's always tomorrow.
TMWNN 4y ago
>> Pushing NATO members to meet their defense spending obligations ended up being damn-near prescient >This was not “pushing” so much as “ineffective trash talking”. Trump and Stoltenberg argue on camera (<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vpwkdmwui3k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vpwkdmwui3k>). Who turned out to be right? Who turned out to completely, totally, 100% wrong? If Trump was so bad for NATO and Ukraine's defense, why didn't the current war didn't begin in 2017-2020? Let me guess: You think that the current state of the Ukrainian military (in terms of training and weaponry) that enabled it to survive the initial Russian invasion in February when few believed it could, somehow magically began in January 2021. It is a fact that the Trump administration continued and accelerated the training and arming of Ukrainian military by the US that his predecessor began. Let me also guess: You are one of those gullible who say that Merkel was always against German dependence on Russian gas but could not do anything about it. For 16 years! There is more "evidence" that Merkel is a long-term Russian intelligence asset, recruited from her youth in East Germany,^1 than that of Trump being the same. One guess on which claim is incessantly repeated by the bien-pensants of the chattering classes. ^1 Something else never talked about is how her parents moved from West to East Germany when she was a baby
- jacobolus 4y ago
  Trump was literally impeached for secretly withholding congressionally appropriated military aid to Ukraine and then extorting the Ukrainian president to make up a fake scandal about his political opponent in return for keeping aid flowing. Several of Trump’s top advisors/officials were directly corruptly involved with previous Russian puppet leaders of Ukraine and corrupt pro-Russia Ukrainian oligarchs, notably Paul Manafort, who had directly worked for years to undermine Ukrainian democracy (Manafort was imprisoned in the USA for his illegal Ukraine-related fraud, among other charges. If you want to single out an American to blame for the current war, Manafort is your best bet.) Remember, Trump fired the US ambassador to Ukraine because she was opposed to Ukrainian (and American) corruption, and instead sent Rudy Giuliani, Rick Perry, and Gordon Sondland – an incompetent hotel developer who bought his way into a cosplay job as EU Ambassador – to further his corrupt schemes, including not only the extortion plan to invent scandals about Biden, but also replacing the leadership of a Ukrainian state-owned gas company so that it could give contracts to Trump’s corrupt American allies, ending the US attempts to extradite Firtash (a criminal Ukrainian oligarch with Russian mafia ties who hired Rudy Giuliani and other Trump allies), etc. When Trump’s extortion scheme was exposed and blew up as a scandal, Congress appropriated additional aid for Ukraine, and Trump was driven by the scandal and intense public and congressional scrutiny (not to mention pressure from the US military) to continue the aid. (He still wanted to be re-elected, remember, so didn’t want to look totally corrupt.) Thankfully the USA is not (as of 2016–2022) a dictatorship, and the president does not personally decide all national policy. So when Trump had some bright ideas like nuking a hurricane or selling off Puerto Rico, those didn’t actually happen. When Trump suggested pulling the US out of NATO, there were still enough powerful and sane figures in the US defense establishment who were able to thwart that proposal. * * * You are right that the US and NATO did some (though in retrospect it perhaps should have been more) to help Ukraine from 2014–2021. That training, funding, and support was surely one important part of the Ukrainian army’s recent success. Score one for the US military and US federal government. * * * > who say that Merkel was always against German dependence on Russian gas I don’t know about Merkel per se but German political parties clearly have significant corruption problems. The German response to the Ukraine war has been a disappointing indictment of the whole German political class. More generally, many Europeans (and Americans, etc.) have been bought off (explicitly or implicitly) by money embezzled from the Russian people by various oligarchs and organized criminals. Russian corruption is a serious worldwide problem, and other countries should continue to make large-scale coordinated responses, ending money laundering, seizing corrupt assets, and imposing legal liability on local residents (e.g. the legal, real estate, and financial services industries) who knowingly participate.

corrral 4y ago

> Trump’s #1 foreign policy accomplishment was pulling the USA out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, undermining US economic and social power in the region to China’s great benefit. Yeah, I know. Again, I'm not saying he was good. Just that I didn't think there'd even be a single half-assed compliment I'd be able to muster for anything he did. He exceeded sub-zero expectations, and probably, for whatever reason (yeah, likely largely ineffective management of his administration) at least didn't do anywhere near as much harm as the the guys who ran things the prior 16 years. Not via his foreign policy actions, at least. Sorry if any of this came off as "I like most of Trump's foreign policy". What I'm getting at is that I'm pretty harsh even on popular Democratic presidents, and not incapable of admitting "that was kinda OK" with Republicans even when they're an actual no-BS joke like Trump, but still think Biden's not screwed the pooch so far (he still might, certainly) on foreign policy. And I'm inclined to dislike him because I'm getting really sick of ancient dudes sitting in the Oval Office—could we get a youthful 60-year-old, even? Please?—and don't care for a lot of his legislative record. Point is, if Biden's badly screwing up foreign policy, this particular devoted foreign policy cynic isn't seeing it. But, again, there's always tomorrow.

TMWNN 4y ago

>> Pushing NATO members to meet their defense spending obligations ended up being damn-near prescient >This was not “pushing” so much as “ineffective trash talking”. Trump and Stoltenberg argue on camera (<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vpwkdmwui3k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vpwkdmwui3k>). Who turned out to be right? Who turned out to completely, totally, 100% wrong? If Trump was so bad for NATO and Ukraine's defense, why didn't the current war didn't begin in 2017-2020? Let me guess: You think that the current state of the Ukrainian military (in terms of training and weaponry) that enabled it to survive the initial Russian invasion in February when few believed it could, somehow magically began in January 2021. It is a fact that the Trump administration continued and accelerated the training and arming of Ukrainian military by the US that his predecessor began. Let me also guess: You are one of those gullible who say that Merkel was always against German dependence on Russian gas but could not do anything about it. For 16 years! There is more "evidence" that Merkel is a long-term Russian intelligence asset, recruited from her youth in East Germany,^1 than that of Trump being the same. One guess on which claim is incessantly repeated by the bien-pensants of the chattering classes. ^1 Something else never talked about is how her parents moved from West to East Germany when she was a baby

jacobolus 4y ago
Trump was literally impeached for secretly withholding congressionally appropriated military aid to Ukraine and then extorting the Ukrainian president to make up a fake scandal about his political opponent in return for keeping aid flowing. Several of Trump’s top advisors/officials were directly corruptly involved with previous Russian puppet leaders of Ukraine and corrupt pro-Russia Ukrainian oligarchs, notably Paul Manafort, who had directly worked for years to undermine Ukrainian democracy (Manafort was imprisoned in the USA for his illegal Ukraine-related fraud, among other charges. If you want to single out an American to blame for the current war, Manafort is your best bet.) Remember, Trump fired the US ambassador to Ukraine because she was opposed to Ukrainian (and American) corruption, and instead sent Rudy Giuliani, Rick Perry, and Gordon Sondland – an incompetent hotel developer who bought his way into a cosplay job as EU Ambassador – to further his corrupt schemes, including not only the extortion plan to invent scandals about Biden, but also replacing the leadership of a Ukrainian state-owned gas company so that it could give contracts to Trump’s corrupt American allies, ending the US attempts to extradite Firtash (a criminal Ukrainian oligarch with Russian mafia ties who hired Rudy Giuliani and other Trump allies), etc. When Trump’s extortion scheme was exposed and blew up as a scandal, Congress appropriated additional aid for Ukraine, and Trump was driven by the scandal and intense public and congressional scrutiny (not to mention pressure from the US military) to continue the aid. (He still wanted to be re-elected, remember, so didn’t want to look totally corrupt.) Thankfully the USA is not (as of 2016–2022) a dictatorship, and the president does not personally decide all national policy. So when Trump had some bright ideas like nuking a hurricane or selling off Puerto Rico, those didn’t actually happen. When Trump suggested pulling the US out of NATO, there were still enough powerful and sane figures in the US defense establishment who were able to thwart that proposal. * * * You are right that the US and NATO did some (though in retrospect it perhaps should have been more) to help Ukraine from 2014–2021. That training, funding, and support was surely one important part of the Ukrainian army’s recent success. Score one for the US military and US federal government. * * * > who say that Merkel was always against German dependence on Russian gas I don’t know about Merkel per se but German political parties clearly have significant corruption problems. The German response to the Ukraine war has been a disappointing indictment of the whole German political class. More generally, many Europeans (and Americans, etc.) have been bought off (explicitly or implicitly) by money embezzled from the Russian people by various oligarchs and organized criminals. Russian corruption is a serious worldwide problem, and other countries should continue to make large-scale coordinated responses, ending money laundering, seizing corrupt assets, and imposing legal liability on local residents (e.g. the legal, real estate, and financial services industries) who knowingly participate.