Trashing American Allies Turns Out to Be Bad for National Security
theatlantic.com73 points by breve a day ago
73 points by breve a day ago
I have to be honest, allies refusing to join in on a unprovoked attack on a (to them) third party has exactly nothing to do with American "national security" outside of the n+1 and n+2 decisions that America's choices may impact. (ie would a historic ally such as greenland now refuse to come to america's aid in defense)
it may snub America's power to attack on foreign soil but that is independent of actual security concerns
Antagonizing all your neighbors doesn't make the neighborhood safer for you?
What I really struggle with is just how much more of this guy we have to put up with.
Even after he's gone, he's poisoned the GOP, quickly distilling them down to MAGA sycophants; barely a backbone between them. Real conservative politics has been deselected, slaughtered to make room for this faux-Christian xenophobic TradChad tribalism.
He's harming traditional Democrat policy too. Left-leaning people are easily pulled to the extreme when they see people being attacked in the streets and unnecessary wars in their name.
The rest of the world is tired. We don't understand why we're paying more for everything because this delinquent US government has started yet another fuel war. We just want stability and Trump isn't it.
the GOP produced him and the Christian xenophobic anti-everyone policies have been a 50 year project that's now coming to fruition. Trump is bad and so is the rest of the Republican party. this problem doesn't go away when he does.
It’s not that simple and we shouldn’t be so eager to blame our neighbours.
Trump has been heavily involved with Russian money ever since US banks refused to loan him more money for his repeated bankruptcies. At that time, Putin was head of the KGB, iirc (could fact check this I’m not 100 percent sure). Also very sus ties through marriage. I’m not sure he is -happily- compliant, but from whatever combination of stick and carrot that may exist, there is little doubt in my mind that the administration is carrying so much water for Russia that europa would blush.
If you want to see the whole story in embarrassingly human terms all you have to do is watch the physical interaction between Trump and Putin when they are in close proximity. The monkey doesn’t lie.
If you pay attention, almost everything the admin does benefits Russia in some way. Eroding soft power. Undermining nato. Crippling us debt. Hamstringing innovation through reckless trade shenanigans. Undermining trust. Abandonment of Ukraine, an erstwhile critical ally. Hand wavey condemnation of Russia but with no teeth whatsoever. Collapsing the straits of Hormuz. The list goes on and on.
Our neighbors are exactly the ones to blame.
Putin didn't elect him. Our neighbors did -- almost 80 million of them, and tens of millions more who decided that either choice was fine with them.
The ones who voted for him are not calling for him to be turned out of office. The elected representatives are supporting this action, and their constituents aren't turning on them, either.
He's doing what Putin wants, but he couldn't do it if it weren't also what tens of millions of Americans want. There are many ways they could do something about it, and they aren't. The overwhelming majority of them will vote to continue it come November.
Putin is not the problem. My neighbors are.
Before him there was the sense that there were [at least] two groups within the GOP. We had something similar in the UK before Brexit, the French had a much broader centre-right movement before Le Pen.
Radical populists have a habit of cuckooing all the moderates out of the party nest. I'm not sure the GOP made Trump, but they sure as hell let him in.
The worst part is that it often didn’t even achieve anything.
Sometimes you piss people (countries) off by necessity because there are overriding objectives but Trump does it for ego etc.
It’s such a childish own goal
Things could get realy bad as the US admin is attracting the most fauning, syncofantic, grifter, psychopaths the world has ever known, attracting, enabling, and becoming dependent on. We are talking true psycopaths here, those who have no morality or sense of right or wrong, but very strong ego's. The real danger is from within the US, and from a very small dependent state, varrios alligned nations have absolutly no choice in stepping back as comminication chanels are just blaring threats and incomprehnsable noise, all to try and salvage the petrodollar, for which there is no hope, none. $200 oil will be the final push that see's Chinas solar PV production behemouth go into high gear at full industrial scale and show proffit at prices that oil can never compete with as primary energy. China can litteraly take a nap, wake up a little bit, roll over, mumble "tell me when it's over", and relax, and everybody else is seeing that this is also, not there
How would one reach $200 oil without some sort of price restriction inhibiting further increases? I can’t imagine anything going north of $150 without pitchforks and strong action to prevent and/or forcibly reverse increases.
> I wonder what would happen if we “finished off” what’s left of the Iranian Terror State, and let the Countries that use it, we don’t, be responsible for the so called “Strait?” That would get some of our non-responsive “Allies” in gear, and fast!!! President DJT
That does not sound like someone who has this under control, which makes me wonder if his conclusion is valid. Does he really know the allies well enough to say how they will react?