“Appeasement” of Russia Paying Dividends
If every foreign leader had Adolf Hitler’s approach to international politics, then it would make sense to treat every foreign leader like Adolf Hitler. But somehow the American right doesn’t understand that Hitler was an unusual kind of guy, and insists on viewing every effort to engage in practical international behavior as the second coming of the Munich Agreement. In the real world, Obama’s approach is working:
President Obama, in his first visit to the opening of the United Nations General Assembly, made progress Wednesday on two key issues, wringing a concession from Russia to consider tough new sanctions against Iran and securing support from Moscow and Beijing for a Security Council resolution to curb nuclear weapons.
It shouldn’t be this hard to remember, but international conflict tends to hurt both sides (certainly Germany wound up much worse off as a result of starting WWII) and cooperation hurts both sides. Cooperation is often hard to achieve, but usually it’s possible and it’s always worth trying for.
84 Responses to ““Appeasement” of Russia Paying Dividends”
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September 24th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
Conflict hurts, cooperation hurts, clearly we should just build a giant wall around the country and pretend nowhere else exists.
September 24th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
You should edit the post to correct the statement that cooperation hurts both sides.
It IS confusing.
September 24th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
“…coopertion hurts both sides…?”
Shouldn’t that be “cooperation helps both sides?”
Maybe I’m dumb.
September 24th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
Nice entry into the Yglesias Typo Of The Year Award. Of course, it probably does get dull having to remind people all the time that cooperating is good. I’d probably make some typos too if I had to explain the same things to neocons every day.
September 24th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
If Hitler was such an unusual kind of guy, then why is OBAMA following so many of his policies? Ask your German hosts to explain that.
September 24th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
“then why is OBAMA following so many of his policies?”
Perhaps you could elaborate on which of Hitler’s policies Obama is following. More money for road construction is about all I can think of. And that’s not particularly evil.
September 24th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
Ok Duvall, I’ll bite. Which of Hitler’s policies is Obama following? Run of the mill stuff like forcing people to pay taxes don’t count.
September 24th, 2009 at 6:26 pm
Duvall, could you list Hitler’s policies that Obama is ostensibly following? Hitler was a militant, totalitarian ideologue. Obama is a pragmatist and is wonkish. I could stand it if he were more liberal, but not being extremist is his appeal (after Bush). They’re like polar opposites as political figures.
September 24th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
I’m beginning to think Matt has some undiagnosed condition. It’s way beyond quick and sloppy typing.
September 24th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
I thought Duvall was doing some sort of sarcastic statement making fun of the crazies.
September 24th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
Duvall is almost certain pulling you guys’ leg.
September 24th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
Obviously Matt is unfamiliar with the lessons in international relations to be gleaned from “The Mouse that Roared.”
September 24th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
Agreeing with #4, I DO get tired of explaining that every ‘bad’ foreign leader isn’t the same as Hitler.
September 24th, 2009 at 6:43 pm
After the Russians have considered and rejected those tough new sanctions (or have arranged some security-council Kabuki in which they pretend to support them while China wields the veto), how much are these ‘dividends’ going to be worth, now?
September 24th, 2009 at 6:45 pm
I think that Matt is being a little one-sided here.
Sure, it may be that cooperation with Russia clearly serves US national interests and promotes international security. But, does adopting a policy of cooperation help numerous insecure, cowardly middle-aged men maintain a delusion that their political loyalties are an indication of toughness and machismo?
Probably not. And if one gives equal weight to both of those goals, all of a sudden the cost/benefit analysis of cooperating with Russia vs. deliberately antagonizing Russia suddenly looks a lot more even. You could say something similar about the cost/benefit analysis of invading Iraq.
September 24th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
Got to love it – Obama throws Poland and the Czech Republic under the bus on missile defense, and in return Russia says “we’ll think about it” to Iran sanctions. Wow, appeasement is really paying off!
September 24th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
Everybody Hurts
September 24th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
I thought Duvall was doing some sort of sarcastic statement making fun of the crazies.
Yes, it was a joke.
September 24th, 2009 at 7:05 pm
Parody is hard.
Nothing but cool heads should prevail in nuclear issues. Nuclear weapons are too destructive to be game pieces in emotional theater.
September 24th, 2009 at 7:07 pm
16: Yes, how awful to deny the Poles and Czech a non-working missile defense system that they didn’t want.
September 24th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
Pacifism and love of dictators are the sign of inconsistency and of this ideological nonsense : that the United States represent a danger to the world !
For this president, America must be constrained : it is “God, damn America”, Jeremy Wright said (he is the beloved mentor of Obama).
At the General Assembly of the so-called “United Nations”, Ahmadinejad of Iran focus his gibberish on – what a surprise – the sadistic brutality of the Israelis and world domination by Jews who instrumentalized America to achieve their end. Some kind of translation of Hitler at Nuremberg (without the charisma of the german socialist leader).
Half of the delegations left the great hall of the UN, where the small unshaven iranian despot went to the rostrum. A treatment usually reserved for Israeli speakers.
His country, my friends, is just months away from the ability to produce its first atomic bomb.
Therefore, instead of listening to the venomous of the gnome, the five permanent members of the Security Council, plus the Germans, preferred to meet in another room, the kind in which it actually does business.
And they agreed on something. They will meet with envoys from Tehran, not in Turkey as initially thought, but in Geneva, from 1 October.
The 5+1 have also adopted the principle – even Barack Hussein Obama – that discussions with the guys of Khamenei should lead to the abandonment of their nuclear weapons program, and there was a deadline for achieving this understanding (on this point, opinions diverge a bit, with Nicolas Sarkozy, which suggests a deadline set to end next November, and others who have not articulated a specific date).
UNFORTUNATELY, this pushes a hypothetical military action, if the Shiites insist, only in May 2010.
In the scenario that the urgency of this operation appear to Israelis to no longer suffer delay, before the expiry of those imposed by the “agenda”, they would probably have to go alone and so, against the will of the “international community”.
BUT.
They can expect other states to rally to their side in an interventionist coalition, at least the Americans and French, probably, the English also. We understand why Benjamin Netanyahu felt less alone after the meeting of harmonization between the superpowers.
An agreement in which Prime Minister of Israel was the chief architect.
It was he, indeed, who would have established the strange deal between Obama and Putin : vote for sanctions against Iran, against non deployment of U.S. anti-missile missiles in the Czech Republic and Poland.
Another victory at New York in the eyes of Netanyahu : the abandon by everyone, the 5+1, President Obama, and even major Sunni Arab states, of both the urgency to resolve the so-called Israeli-Palestinian dispute, and the will to put pressure on Israel.
My friends, if the mullahs or their representative Ahmadinejad were sincere, they would have welcomed the Security Council for having followed their directive, but by their reaction, they showed that this proposal to a meeting about the dismantling of arsenals was an attempt to block dialogue by placing blame on the others.
September 24th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
Brand new definition of “under the bus” that us stupid libs have never heard of, I guess.
September 24th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
Re Matthew’s comment “Appeasement of Russia Paying Dividends”
———–
You can always tell when Matthew is getting within 100 miles of the Russian-Sweden border, can’t you?
September 24th, 2009 at 7:22 pm
Jeeze, fleur. Hysterical much? I’d rather the survival of the human race not boil down to a pissing contest over what men say.
September 24th, 2009 at 7:39 pm
16: Yes, how awful to deny the Poles and Czech a non-working missile defense system that they didn’t want.
You mean a working missile defense system that they wanted? Right, thought so.
September 24th, 2009 at 7:40 pm
within 100 miles of the Russian-Sweden border
Hopefully Matt will opine on the epistemological status of “within 100 miles of the Russian-Sweden border.”
September 24th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
Second Jeff R. This is hilarious. As I’ve said before, Russia never actually felt threatened by this missile shield. They just cried about it because, to paraphrase Previous N, the numerous insecure, cowardly middle-aged men who run Russia madea wanted some attention. Just like the American left, they said that the system both 1) didn’t work and 2) was a threat to Russia. And now they are going to consider that the possibility of sanctions against Iran possibly in some future universe conceivably might not necessarily the worst idea since sandpaper condoms. Dividends galore!
September 24th, 2009 at 7:49 pm
Re: within 100 miles of the Russian-Sweden border
Russia and Sweden don’t have a border, Yglesias.
September 24th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
By the way, I’d like to see Yglesias, or someone else, defend Mr. Obama’s decision not to recognize the current leader of Madagascar, Rajoelina. This is an act of blatant imperialism worthy of the unlamented George W. Bush. Mr. Obama needs to devote his attentions to how to solve the health care crisis, not tell other countries whether there governments are legitimate or not.
September 24th, 2009 at 7:53 pm
For the sake of argument, let’s say that missile-defense works so far as it is able to shoot down missiles and warheads in flight.
How does missile warning work? This is more than hardware vs. hardware. The entire warning system and defense posture must change to accommodate the new problems presented by new hardware. Reaction time would be significantly more compressed.
What happens to the warheads? I am so sorry I didn’t buy an article addressing this. I wrongly assumed I could find it in the university library. Since most triggers on nuclear weapons made to be delivered on mirvs have not been tested, how do we know what will happen with the warheads on missiles that have been shot down? Who is responsible for retrieving warheads in the oceans?
Since one missile can only shoot down one missile or warhead, how many anti-missiles would have to be built to counter any given threat? How does this not encourage an entity determined to have an advantage to build and plan to fire more missiles?
How is it advantageous to spend all this money on anti-missile technology when one proven satellite killer can make it all useless?
September 24th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
25: If a system can shoot down 8 out of 13 missiles when the time, origin, and trajectory are known beforehand, I am entirely confident that it can do even better when those variables are all unknown.
September 24th, 2009 at 8:06 pm
This will have a tough time beating out the “Wide Latina” typo for Typo of the Year Award.
September 24th, 2009 at 8:14 pm
His country, my friends, is just months away from the ability to produce its first atomic bomb.
Did John McCain write this?
September 24th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
“By the way, I’d like to see Yglesias, or someone else, defend Mr. Obama’s decision not to recognize the current leader of Madagascar, Rajoelina.”
Umm, Rajoelina is a dictator who came to power in a military coup. We should not be in the business of supporting coups or dictators. But if you think coups are the proper way to form a government, how did feel about those coups attempted against Hugo Chavez? I’m guessing not the same way.
September 24th, 2009 at 8:25 pm
My friend, those technical details are of no importance (the shield was directed towards rogue states, and in the current state of technique dissuasion and MAD remain the rule ; Russians leaders indeed knew that some radar and about ten interceptors was not a threat for their own entire missile system).
So the issue was only political. To please the pride of Russians (Yglesias wrote a strange note about this, inversing the roles : like if those being against this move were only lead by the will to anger Russians).
Here are two interesting comments by guys from the Cato Institute writing on leftist websites : Leon T. Hadar and Ivan Eland
They praises the foreign policy of Hussein Obama, and wants even more isolationism.
As in Iraq, Obama needs to be more radical; he should tell the Europeans to build their own missile defense
This is the logic of both isolationism and “découplement” (i don’t know the translation : division ?).
François Mitterrand warned us about the dangers of découplement in our collective security in his great speach of January 1983 at the Bundestag.
By the was, the so-called substitute (a network of anti-missile missile by naval means) is a very interesting choice and a system in the logic of isolationism (plus everyone knows that the Navy has a strong tradition of isolationism).
Some AEGIS warships in Mediteranea Sea (or the Baltic, if it can make Polishs happy) are a demonstration of force and a mesure of security, but not a foreign commitment. There will be absolutely no political and geopolitical implications in this way.
September 24th, 2009 at 8:26 pm
Fostert, I lived for several years in Madagascar, and I know what I’m talking about here. That long-suffering country badly needed a coup this year. Ravalomanana was a creature of the American Embassy who served the interest of his ethnic group, of the rich, of the oligarchy, and of himself, and who cared nothing for the poor. The coup was greeted with elation in the streets of the capital. Trust me- in siding with the ‘elected’ government, the US is simply doing what it does best, which is to side with decadent oligarchies instead of the people.
Scr*w Ravalomanana with a rusty nail.
September 24th, 2009 at 8:27 pm
It’s remarkable how Fleur’s post is simultaneously quite a bit more readable than the TimeCube website but a lot less coherent.
Just remember, all of this is just kabuki to keep our attention away from the 2012 survival operation.
September 24th, 2009 at 8:33 pm
Re Marshall at 26 (and Hector at 28): “Hopefully Matt will opine on the epistemological status of “within 100 miles of the Russian-Sweden border.”
————-
You guys weren’t around during the Cold War were you?
The Russian Fleet in the Baltic Sea considers the Swedish border to be about 3 feet up the Swedish beach at high tide.
For the moment.
http://compunews.com/s139/sp2.htm
September 24th, 2009 at 8:38 pm
PS See http://atlas.mapzones.com/sweden/sweden.jpg
Does “Leningrad” ..er.. I mean “St Petersburg” ring a bell?
September 24th, 2009 at 8:45 pm
Re #29: Madagascar is a minor enough nation, with no current, pressing effect on geopolitics, that the Administration can take its sweet time on addressing the coup d’jour. At least, that’s what I learned from playing Balance Of Power, back in the day.
Re #30: one really doesn’t care too much about a warhead after a successful intercept. In the case of a kinetic interceptor, the warhead(s) would be rendered into debris by the impact. Even if the rear of the bus the warhead(s) were mounted on was nicked, the assembly would at least tumble out of control, eventually exposing the works to heating in places not designed for… which renders everything into debris.
A successful intercept with an explosive warhead results in the warheads and bus showered with shrapnel at high velocity. At the very least, pitting the ablative surfaces of the warheads, wrecking the bus and its guidance system, and sending the entire assembly tumbling… eventually leading to debris.
At the very least, an impact of any sort would certainly screw up the terminal guidance, and damage the warhead fuse.
If there’s a miss, there’s a miss. If there’s a hit, then no worries.
September 24th, 2009 at 8:50 pm
O.K., Fleur. “Rogue states”. If Iran was our concern, then why didn’t we take the Russians up on the offer to put our missile defense system in one of the Stans, so that rogue missiles (so unlike other missiles) from Iran could be shot down early, and land in the ocean? And what if other countries label their missiles “for defense purposes only”? They’re missiles, for crying-out-fucking-loud, not the embodiment of safety.
September 24th, 2009 at 8:53 pm
MY “If every foreign leader had Adolf Hitler’s approach to international politics, then it would make sense to treat every foreign leader like Adolf Hitler.”
Too funny, and exactly correct.
September 24th, 2009 at 8:56 pm
Could Cmholm tell me how an Anti-missile defense system defends ITSELF from being taken out by a stealth-coated cruise missile carrying a nuclear warhead?
From NY Times, 1999:
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/europe/032899kosovo-rdp.html
” Besides the loss of the plane in Serbia, the United States faces a loss of the secret technology that allows the F-117 to evade detection. That technology includes the composite materials used for the outer surface of the plane, which absorbs radar instead of reflecting it back to defensive missile sites.
Any secrets lost to the Serbs could find their way to the Russians, who have been supporting Serbia. “
September 24th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
Right, just like every time parents tell a child “maybe” for a toy purchase, it’s a win for the child. Do you pay any attention at all?
September 24th, 2009 at 9:07 pm
So the issue was only political. To please the pride of Russians
If you’re looking to Russia for a deal on Iran, and Russia’s main demand is that you give up a (nonfunctional hugely expensive boondogle) weapons system deployment that offends their pride, then the price is cheap.
September 24th, 2009 at 9:10 pm
“Fostert, I lived for several years in Madagascar, and I know what I’m talking about here. That long-suffering country badly needed a coup this year.”
I’d agree the country has long suffered. But the coup is going to make it a lot worse. Tourism is down 70%, economic output is down 15%. Explain to me how starving the people is going to help them. Back in 1971, Uganda really needed a coup as well. And they got Idi Amin, who was hailed as a savior, especially for the poor. How’d that turn out? The problem with dictators is they can be even worse than incompetent democratically elected leaders. And they usually are. Rajoelina has already gone back on his word regarding power sharing, is already in violation of the constitution, and he directly lies about it. He’s already turning into another Idi Amin. Given his already abhorrent behavior, he needs to hold new elections before he regains any credibility that he may have had. And we should not support him until new elections are held. I might change my opinion before that if he agrees to some power sharing. But as long as he insists on being a dictator, I won’t support him.
September 24th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
…while announcing the rollout of a missile defense system that does. (That is, the sea-based theater defenses that, unlike the land-based vaporware defenses, can actually protect Poland and the Czech Republic).
September 24th, 2009 at 9:13 pm
The Russians have appeased us! Time to annex Belarus!
September 24th, 2009 at 9:18 pm
It’s as silly to think of every foreign leader as Hitler as it is to think that one has wrung a concession from a foreign leader when the foreign leader says they will take a proposal under consideration.
The irony here rarely ceases.
September 24th, 2009 at 9:19 pm
Um, no.
September 24th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
Re: Given his already abhorrent behavior, he needs to hold new elections before he regains any credibility that he may have had.
No, he isn’t. Rajoelina needs to say “Go F*ck a Goat” to America and to every other nation that presumes to tell Madagascar how to run its own affairs. Ravalomana was a sleazebag and a pawn of the oligarchs who did nada, zip, zilch, for the poor of Madagascar. And if you think Ravalomanana was a democrat, I have a bridge to sell you. I was there during the 2006 election, and it was a joke. The leading opposition candidate’s campaign funds, which came largely from Iran, were frozen until just before the election.
The only way the deposed ‘president’ should be allowed back into Madagascar is in chains, and Rajoelina has absolutely no need to hold an election just because Washington warmongers and Brussels bureaucrats think he should. Rajoelina is the protector and friend of the people, as opposed to the oligarchy, and those foreign leaders who don’t like it are cordially invited to go bl*w a sheep.
September 24th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
@ 37
The timecube website was mentioned by Drew in a Married to the Sea comic this week. I had no idea that was a real thing! Its amazing!
September 24th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
There is a difference between being rivals and being enemies. Treating every little move like a zero-sum game in which one side is being castrated if it doesn’t come out on top isn’t really necessary.
Nuclear weapons are the ultimate weapons of mass destruction.
I see it as imperative that the U.S. and Russia work together on non-proliferation and monitoring fissile material. This will be more effective if every little thing does not bring out an emotional response.
The arguments I’ve seen for missile defense appear to me to be based on an emotional need to have hardware to make oneself feel safe from nuclear attacks, and an overly simplistic view of the dynamics of nuclear forces.
There are other ways to deliver bombs, the possibility wouldn’t disappear if missile defense worked perfectly, in the case that some entity was absolutely determined to attack with a nuclear weapon.
September 24th, 2009 at 9:50 pm
The former missile shield didn’t work and was inferior to the new proposal. Just because the new proposal doesn’t piss Russia off doesn’t mean that it was aimed at getting Russian cooperation on Iran.
Even if it was aimed at that, why be so vocal about it? The Medvedev/Putin regime is entirely unreliable, even though they don’t come close to being Nazis. We shouldn’t act like Obama gambled our alliances with Europe on Medvedev’s word.
September 24th, 2009 at 10:11 pm
Here’s an idea, how about we stop pretending that neo-cons are anything other than incompetent, venal wanna-be Pinochets, and let adults set foreign policy?
September 24th, 2009 at 10:26 pm
You know, Hector, for someone who likes to rail against the moral decline of the West, you sure have an interesting proclivity towards violent and/or bestial sexual imagery.
I mean, I’m not offended by it, but it is noticeable.
September 24th, 2009 at 10:32 pm
Re: Don Williams (#43): “Could Cmholm tell me how an Anti-missile defense system defends ITSELF from being taken out by a stealth-coated cruise missile carrying a nuclear warhead?”
It doesn’t. You’d need a somewhat mobile system, and the one Bush was proposing to site in Central Europe is anything but mobile.
I was only addressing Wiley’s (#30) concern over what happens after a successful ABM intercept.
September 24th, 2009 at 10:32 pm
I’m probably a bad subconscious influence on Hector.
I’m hoping he will someday absentmindedly refer to “that motherfucking Bishop” while talking with his Pastor.
September 24th, 2009 at 10:33 pm
Re cmholm at 57:
Concur.
September 24th, 2009 at 10:47 pm
The missile defense deployment was meant to defend against Iranian’s we were told. Russia had nothing to do with it we were told. Cross our hearts hope to die swear on a stack of bibles that’s what it was meant for, we were told. Wink, wink, nod, nod, as it turns out now. It was about Russia all the time and everyone always knew it. Whatever. Good for some votes and some assorted billions to those who deserve it. It’s a beautiful thing.
As long as we are talking about the past you know the real problem was Ike. Talk about appeasers. McCarthy was right.
September 24th, 2009 at 11:27 pm
So Will “let’s kill all those brown people currently wasting my oil by ‘owning’ it” Allen, what’s your preferred solution here? That we piss on their boots and tell them it is raining? Because that was the solution your Party wanted (don’t bother moron, you voted for Bush, twice, you’ve cheered every aggressive act possible – you are a confirmed member of the All War, All the Time Party).
A solution that doesn’t work for people who don’t want it to annoy people who aren’t supposed to be our enemies.
And stupid fuckers like James and Will think they are “serious” about national security.
September 25th, 2009 at 12:12 am
This whole thing is FUCKING RIDICULOUS! We were putting some crappy technology in Poland, to go operational around 2017, that would have the capacity to intercept 3 or 4 scud type missiles that could only be launched by a weak nation hellbent on suicide -Iran. And the Russians, for prides sake, SUPPOSEDLY, got upset about it. Then the neo-cons PRETENDED that we were not only appeasing the Russians but leaving Europe, and America, defenseless by removing this worthless crap. And everybody is either buying it or being suckered into arguing about it.
Now, back in reality, at the very same time all this horseshit is going down, the United States BOLDLY ANNOUNCES TO THE WORLD that is right this very minute building a what they consider to be a viable, mobile, extensive missile defense network in the Eurasian theater that will soon, by as early as 2011, have the capacity to knock out Russian ICBM’s shortly after they lift off from their launch sites.
Can anybody say smokescreen? Who is putting up the smoke and who is getting smoke blown up their ass is beyond me, but, meanwhile, the real question is being ignored by pundits, bloggers and commentators alike: why is the United States abandoning the Mutual Assured Destruction doctrine tacitly accepted, by both sides, for the last 50 years, in favor of brashly seeking a first strike capability? Why has the United States decided to dispense with this time honored dynamic that has theoretically kept the peace for so long?
September 25th, 2009 at 12:20 am
Have a link for that Matt? I feel like getting pissed off.
September 25th, 2009 at 12:36 am
You’re really not doing your own argument any favors by suggesting that the only difference between appeasement of Hitler and international cooperation is the presence/absence of Hitler.
The problem with 1930’s appeasement wasn’t just who they were trying to appease, but what they were willing to sanction in order to appease him. Let’s remove Hitler-the-person from the situation. Let’s call the leader of Germany Bob. Bob doesn’t use terror to establish a dictatorship. Bob doesn’t have a desire to exterminate Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, etc. But the following happens:
Bob refuses to allow a plebiscite of any kind on Austrian independence. He demands that Austria turn over all power to the Austrian Bob Party. When they refuse, he invades and annexes them.
Would simply acquiescing to this, all other things being equal, be considered a rational, or morally defensible, act of “international cooperation”?
How about when Bob does it again to the Sudetenland?
Neither case could even rationally be called “cooperation.” It’s one side caving to the other side’s unilateral military aggression and contempt for international law.
At least when A.J.P. Taylor said that appeasement had been the rational policy for Britain at that stage, he explained that this was because of Britain and France’s military weakness… and he criticized Britain and France for not using the time they’d bought to rearm.
You’ve now said twice that the actual appeasement of the 1930’s was a correct act of international cooperation on principle, and the only problem was the supposed historical fluke that Hitler– having had each of his land-grabs, including his seizure of non-German Bohemia, retroactively okayed –tried it again with Poland.
I agree with JFK that “we should never negotiate out of fear, but… never fear to negotiate.” But to claim that the 1930’s appeasement– responding to Hitler’s military unilateralism and breaking of previous agreements with acquiescence and new agreements –is “international cooperation” in any meaningful sense of the phrase is simply grotesque.
September 25th, 2009 at 12:39 am
Correction: Britain and France did not, of course, okay the invasion of Bohemia.
September 25th, 2009 at 2:16 am
I would tend to think that the lesson with Russia is not that “hey, sometimes appeasement is OK”. Rather, it’s “you nimrods don’t know what the word ‘appeasement’ means”.
If a foreign country tells the US that they don’t want an American weapon system deployed in their neighborhood, and the US complies, that’s not appeasement!
Accepting a condition in diplomatic negotiations with a potentially hostile country is not necessarily appeasement! Unless it’s done so out of fear that the hostile country will attack, and said country has already attacked other targets, indicating its willingness and capability to attack.
Basically, it’s impossible for any negotiation between the US and any other country to be classified as “appeasement” today. The reality is that other countries take steps to appease us, because we are the mighty military power, and our foreign policy (at least in the past fifteen years) is hyper-aggressive.
September 25th, 2009 at 2:33 am
Maybe they should just bring Queen Ranavalona back to the throne. I’d bet she would sort out the oligarchy real fast. To bad she’s dead.
September 25th, 2009 at 5:02 am
Rather thin beer Matty.
Putting aside the question of “appeasement”
(and the truth is that Obama and the Left are playing ButtBoy for Putin)
your praise for Obama’s UN bullshit about “curbing nuclear weapons” and Russia and China’s agreement to “consider” new sanctions on Iran is just the sort of ObaFellatio that is making Progs the laughing stock they are.
Funny how you failed to mention that China immediately announced that they would not consider new economic sanctions against Iran.
Or were you so busy tonguing the ObaAss that you missed that tasty bit?
September 25th, 2009 at 6:15 am
@RichinPA
Suppose he does. Then fuck you for bringing it up. Suppose he doesn’t. Then fuck you again. Asshole.
September 25th, 2009 at 6:19 am
@Don Williams 39
I was in Stockhollm in 2008, and I kept looking around for Putin’s reared head.
September 25th, 2009 at 7:41 am
. . . and the truth is that Obama and the Left are playing ButtBoy for Putin.
Hmmm. Colorful references, indeed. So what do we call what the Bush administration and the right did with Putin vis-a-vis encouraging the Georgian leader to piss on Russian boots, precipitating (surprise, surprise, surprise) actual military conflict? Pimping? Whoring? Procuring little children for a pedophile?
I just wonder what role Russia has in ChooChoo!’s world, i.e. is Russia worthy of having a peer-to-peer relationship with the US? Is anyone? If not, then there’s most of the answer regarding any substance in ChooChoo!’s worldview.
To put it another way, how did the US react when missiles were placed on a US neighbor’s territory about a Gilligan’s tour from our border? (Yeah, yeah. Difference in degree. Offensive missiles versus defensive missiles. Blah, blah. I haven’t seen any Russian naval blockades in the Baltic recently.)
Bottom line – simply more right-wing blather, this time from Chaboogy.
September 25th, 2009 at 7:54 am
Re: I’m probably a bad subconscious influence on Hector.
No, Don Williams. If anything, my linguistic choices are influenced by SLC, not by you. I disagree with most of what SLC says, but he certainly does have a gift for creative terms of abuse.
September 25th, 2009 at 8:07 am
“It shouldn’t be this hard to remember, but international conflict tends to hurt both sides (certainly Germany wound up much worse off as a result of starting WWII) and cooperation hurts both sides.”
Oh, man. This is possibly even more unfortunate than the puppy I saw slip and fall into a puddle this morning.
September 25th, 2009 at 8:13 am
Appeasement here means returning the US to the anti-ABM treaty obligations it signed with the Soviets.
September 25th, 2009 at 8:24 am
Somebody summed it up for me. Just substitute missile defense for PGS for this thread.
What we have to put up with because someone was asleep at the wheel in ‘01, sheesh.
September 25th, 2009 at 8:38 am
Bottom line – simply more right-wing blather, this time from Chaboogy.
It’s not even right-wing blather. That thing just bitches and comes up with permutations of Oba(capital letter)* to pepper his theme Obama is History’s Greatest Monster. There isn’t any coherent ideology to it’s bleating. I think it might be a deranged PUMA holdout.
September 25th, 2009 at 8:55 am
I had to look. Damned morbid curiosity. This is all about P.U.M.A. That’s all of it. Their whole explanation for themselves.
All I can say, is shit they found us.
September 25th, 2009 at 10:39 am
You seem not to realize that AEGIS Warships are not a new thing.
The Ticonderoga-class cruisers have existed since 1983 ; and the Arleigh Burke class since 1991. They are now the universel defense system of the american, and their equipments have always been improved with the time (on the paper at least, because their only “feat” until now was to destroy an Airbus from Iran Air in 1988, incorrectly taken for a F-14 jet fighter). They even have ballastic capacities known for years. You can read it on MissileThreat.com :
So… Nothing new.
We can even guess that there are probably already AEGIS-equipped Warships in Mediterranean Sea, assuring some kind of limited protection.
So, once again, Barack Hussein Obama is lying to us, as usual, by presenting as a novelty something which was already there. He took, with all his conscience, the geostrategical decision to abandon a long-term project which could have helped to make obsolete russian and china arsenal in the time of one or two generations, and to give the USA back the ability to act first in nuclear preemptive strike without strong retaliation. We can also imagine that it would have lead to make allies more dependant (see what’s happening with Israel for instance).
So in my humble opinion, my friends, I consider the decision of Obama as some kind of shift from the agressive Bush policies. This is the acceptation that the USA has no ambition for being a superpower and for world preponderance, a disengagement from Europe (a ship can always be moved, this is not the same thing as permanent bases in allied countries – and, as I said, the US Navy has a long history of isolationism, cf. WWII for instance), and a first step in the path towards more isolationism, the isolationism sor passionately wanted by Obama foreign policy cheerleaders (see the interviews on Huffington Post and Antiwar that I linked in my previous post).
September 25th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
What the hell are you talking about, Fleur. My God, but you do carry on.
http://cdi.org/program/document.cfm?DocumentID=4549&from_page=../index.cfm
It’s all being coordinated with NATO, and new sensor technology is HUGE and, well—NEW.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but it seems that missiles are too often dicks. HINT— the missiles are the easy part.
September 26th, 2009 at 12:44 am
@78 Fleur Delacour: “You seem not to realize that AEGIS Warships are not a new thing.”
AEGIS Warships are just a platform for rapidly advancing missile technology, nothing more, and the AEGIS platform is just one minor component of the plan that is underway to ring the Asian continent with hunter/killer anti-ballistic missiles.
What has changed is the United States is boldly announcing not only its intentions but its capabilities. The Obama administration believes the new version of the SM-3 ICBM interceptor will have close to a 100% kill rate. We are not talking future Star Wars attack satellites or another embarrassing report of a failed ABM missile test from the Pacific Fleet. The US is going on line with actual, not theoretical, missile defense in 2011, and the United States will have a first strike capability shortly thereafter.
Our announcement has put the Russians up against the wall. They can longer sit back, somewhat uneasily, holding to the theory that they have enough nuclear warheads to overcome any defensive shield we put against them in the future. Quite the opposite, we are telling them, to their face, that by as early as 2015, and no later than 2020, we will have the ability to swamp their entire nuclear missile attack force with the extremely cheap ($14 million/per) SM-3.
We have the Russians by the nuts. If they don’t cooperate (check Iran related announcements today) they will soon be staring at a closing American noose consisting of 20,000 SM-3’s. And the Russians know, from past experience, when it comes down to it, the United States is fully capable of completing the noose, because Americans are psychos fully prepared to go broke spending wildly on all things military.
September 26th, 2009 at 1:22 am
Ouch.
BUT
The Chinese have already demonstrated that their satellite killers work, and they’ve been doing joint military exercises with the Russians for a few years. It doesn’t stop anywhere but with all, or most of us dead, if we can’t reign it in.
The game board can expand. The next level is in space and cyber-space. Currently, we are hitching rides to the space station. Our space weapons would, it appears rely on the institutions that brought us two shuttle disasters and Microsoft operating systems.
Fire sale! Poked your infrared eyes out! Who turned out the lights!? They could run us through with sharp sticks after that. (o.k. maybe I exaggerate a little bit, but don’t underestimate the power of going manual.)
September 26th, 2009 at 3:52 am
I agree Wiley. The Nuclear Age had always been a tad crazy, moving inexorably forward, the “game board expanding,” to paraphrase. But somehow I think we are about to enter a period of insanity increasing at levels unknown to us heretofore.
Having the Russians by the nuts, even if it is only for a temporary period, is not necessarily a good thing. The theory of Mutual Assured Destruction certainly had elements of madness to it but at least there was a semblance of balance. MAD made both the Russians and the Americans, if not reasonable, then at least careful.
It is quite possible, understandable even, for the Russians to feel the need to break their own bank building an array of 21st century weapons systems in order to deal with this new existential threat. In some ways, it would be shocking if they did not do so. And the always lurking Communists or Russia’s own burgeoning brand of neo-Fascists might find easy opportunities in an already broken State that must, once again, clamp down on its citizens in order to perpetually remain on a war footing.
Personally, I have always feared missile defense. It is one of the reasons, amongst many, that I despised Ronald Reagan. Missile defense means never ending escalation. Obama speaks eloquently of ridding the world of nuclear weapons, but at the same time he is advancing and promoting a first strike capability. The two simply do not correlate. He is either not aware of the contradiction or is employing some long range double deep strategy, for good or for ill. I guess only time will tell.
September 26th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
I find it heartening that President Obama is talking about disarmament. This system preceded him, and I believe Congressional approval is necessary for these systems.
The Bush administration and potential McCain administration terrified me. Neocons terrify me.
I don’t like the missile defense game either. I have yet to hear what happens to the warheads on missiles that are shot down. I wonder if anyone actually knows.
I’ve been thinking about MAD a lot lately. I don’t think it was ever really policy. Maybe presidents were convinced it was, but elements in nuclear forces have always dedicated themselves to figuring out how to win a nuclear war. The neocons definitely wanted to strike first and “win”.
The MAD doctrine seems to me to be a mechanism to foster disbelief in the prospect of nuclear war. It would be too crazy. Not the most sound logic, but it did have some effect.
We’re here by the skin of our teeth. We’ve had some close calls. Thus far, the majority of people with decision making ability on both sides have not had the will to launch a nuclear attack, perhaps because they did not have the will to attack at all. Perhaps the MAD doctrine doesn’t dominate anymore because it isn’t being peddled. I don’t believe that people go to war over ideology. They go to war over resources. Ideology is a vehicle to control the people, to control the resources.
MAD was public relations and needed to be repeated to be believed, even to exist. Other nuclear states and the prospect of nuclear terrorism just make it obvious that nuclear weapons are a terrible threat and not a deterrent.
September 26th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
American presidents have always searched alternatives for moral and obvious reasons (do we annihilate korean people or iranian people if a missile is launched on our direction ? and what if some crazy general there or in Russia takes his own initiative ? and what about isolate terrorist groups ?).
I had that the apparent stability of the Cold War had a lot to do with 1/ the psychology of the actors involved, 2/ the acceptation of status quo.
All the leaders of this time have indeed fought during WWII. Some were even there in WWI. Nikita Khrouchtchev saw the horrors of Stalingrad. An hypothetical WWIII was feared by all sides.
Especially because they accepted the status quo. Russia was agressive in some other regions of the world, but they knew that there was a line which they could not cross (West Europa and Japan).
But even in classic perspective, we can have reasonable doubts about regimes like the Iranian ones. Just look at what they dare to undertake without the bomb, directly, through Syria or Hezbollah proxy, with asymetrical means (terrorism) and by considering suicide/chahid as a supreme value. The conditions of stability through nuclear dissuasion are not met.
Today, for instance, it is known that if Israel retaliates beyond Lebanon by attacking Syria, Iran won’t defend Syria (despite their defense agreement). But what about tomorrow ? Let’s remember that in 1999 Pakistan attacked India, just one year after they reached nuclear age. Secondly, we can forsee that other countries in the region (Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Egypt, Turkey) will try to get their own nuclear arsenal.
When coutries like Pakistan or Iran do not accept the present status quo, their nuclear capacities are no more a mean of dissuasion but a mean for new agressive policies.
To transpose old concepts in 21th century seems me a very acrobatical exercice.