Geopolitics
- Thread starter Mciahel Goodman
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He’s not a guest columnist though. He’s on the payroll. He’s at it again today. The paper surely needs to consider cutting ties. I’m very close to stopping reading it.
I'm wondering if this is a cultural difference between the UK and the US. Generally speaking in the UK, regular columnists employed by a paper, even when writing in their own name, are seen as representative of the paper.
Quite possibly. Over here if something is written in the Opinion or Editorial sections, it’s under the understanding that it represents the author. Makes me wonder though why the heck even bother with an Opinion section of your paper / website if it isn’t viewed as just that
I take it a step further. Any opinion piece published on a newspaper is passing editorial check. Which means the opinions expressed in the piece are deemed at least acceptable and maybe even enjoy some support among the editorial team or the readership. Hence they are getting published. That's regardless of whether the writer is on the payroll or not.
Like you wouldn't ever find opinion pieces blaming poor people or immigrants on the Guardian, like you would on the Telegraph. But you will find opinion pieces blaming the West/NATO for everything and whitewashing criminal/genocidal behaviour of ex-Socialist countries. The latter behaviour is de rigeur among some on the left.
The guardian used to have a kgb agent on their staff Richard Gott.
i think jenkins is basically correct. what's he really saying? that russia and china are revisionist powers that are redrawing their historical borders through war. that's obviously true of russia in ukraine. would be true of china in taiwan. the counterpoint he makes is that we have intervened globally in areas we have no ties to. the idea of remaking the world in the western liberalist image which has clearly failed. i don't think he's saying russia was or is right to do what it's doing or that china would be right to invade taiwan. seems more like he's saying there's a difference between sending military aid and economic aid to ukraine so it can defend itself, which he seems to support, and declaring war against russia or china which i don't think anyone supports.
in the old article he's talking about the cost of living crisis fueled as he sees it by the russian ukrainian invasion and how you might send arms to ukraine without sanctioning russian energy if sanctioning russian energy means crippling your own economies. it isn't a thought-crime to make that argument even if you can make valid counter-arguments as to why you should sanction russia. takeaway from those articles for me is he says russia has criminally invaded ukraine to redraw its boundaries and we should support ukraine with military and economic assistance but should be cautious about sanctioning them when it leads to internal problems that could easily prove counterproductive. and that you can do the military and economic aid without walking into unintentional redlines that trigger much larger wars. i think that's a reasonable argument that most would agree with even if you think it's the wrong way of putting it or that he's framing it in such a way as to be provocative which is possible.
the one flaw in the latest article is where he says that the us/uk or general military of the west has not engaged in protective warfare. the arming of ukraine could be classified as exactly that. i've never thought russia had ambitions beyond ukraine because it would lead to direct nato conflict but if you take a different view then you can make the argument that arming ukraine says to russia "revision is not the way forward". basically that it's a counter measure designed for eu security. which is an argument he misses. other than that i'd say he has it about right.
in the old article he's talking about the cost of living crisis fueled as he sees it by the russian ukrainian invasion and how you might send arms to ukraine without sanctioning russian energy if sanctioning russian energy means crippling your own economies. it isn't a thought-crime to make that argument even if you can make valid counter-arguments as to why you should sanction russia. takeaway from those articles for me is he says russia has criminally invaded ukraine to redraw its boundaries and we should support ukraine with military and economic assistance but should be cautious about sanctioning them when it leads to internal problems that could easily prove counterproductive. and that you can do the military and economic aid without walking into unintentional redlines that trigger much larger wars. i think that's a reasonable argument that most would agree with even if you think it's the wrong way of putting it or that he's framing it in such a way as to be provocative which is possible.
the one flaw in the latest article is where he says that the us/uk or general military of the west has not engaged in protective warfare. the arming of ukraine could be classified as exactly that. i've never thought russia had ambitions beyond ukraine because it would lead to direct nato conflict but if you take a different view then you can make the argument that arming ukraine says to russia "revision is not the way forward". basically that it's a counter measure designed for eu security. which is an argument he misses. other than that i'd say he has it about right.
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I think the West has overstretched and certainly will think twice about imposing a western style idealist democracy on another Middle Eastern country for example. But to say it has ‘clearly failed’ is selective reasoning. Look back to Eastern Europe within the last 35 years and you’ll see tens, possibly hundreds of millions of people living under democratic governments (despite their obvious flaws). Europe has one dictator today, when I was born it probably had 10. That’s progress. I’d add to that Japan after their defeat in 1945.
yeah but the collapse of the soviet union was as much due to internal risings as anything else. the us didn't install those regimes. it gave them economic trading status along the way but that's not the same as invading the middle east to bring "freedom" or "democracy". yugoslavia is one example which is highly controversial but might fit your description. other than that all military interventions since 91 have basically been disasters and that's what jenkins means. the liberal new world order that took shape after the soviet union fell and the us went around acting unilaterally as sole superpower.
I will pop this thread here in case anyone wants to continue the discussion
When you read the full thread...it doesn't seem that bad? I thought it was gonna be worse based on the first tweet. The rest of the thread acknowledges the difficulties of Amnesty's work and doesn't imply a more malicious agenda behind releasing the report.
I was wondering...what do you guys predict the EU's role will be in a multi-polar order?
The EU has a population of about 450M and a GDP of almost 18 trillion.
When you have numbers like that, one would expect the EU to be a serious geopolitical player next to the US and China. But are they?
The EU has a population of about 450M and a GDP of almost 18 trillion.
When you have numbers like that, one would expect the EU to be a serious geopolitical player next to the US and China. But are they?
depends on two things imo. russia and turkey. those two are the borders between europe and asia. erdogan is playing it smart. member of nato but trading with russia and trying to stay neutral. and because of its position there's nothing you can do about it. the west needs turkey more than the other way around at this point. the future will be land corridors in eurasia. trade doesn't flow freely into europe that way unless russia or turkey facilitate the corridors. on paper the eurasian land mass is far and away the world's greatest centre of trade leaving only the american island disconnected. that will only increase with china's bri which russia and turkey and some european states have already signed up to. the interesting thing to watch here is the increasingly less potent role the suez canal will have as shipping gives way to mega rail highways which cut right through the entire eurasian mass. the us is trying to counter that with its own initiative in africa and the middle east but remains to be seen. i doubt they can compete for the reason that they're remote in real terms.
the non western world's biggest complaint about europe has been that it has the population, the economy, but no real geopolitical autonomy. the iranians got tired of hearing europe say the right things but basically follow american directions on the nuclear deal. germany is increasing its military budget as are other eu states. in the short term you'd say that looks good for transatlantic cooperation but in the longterm you have to wonder how content newly militarized german and french led europe will be to take orders. the other thing is that europe doesn't have much in the way of raw commodities. russia has a lot as does africa and some other states like the kazakh region. before the war happened people said the natural alliance is for russian commodities to fuel european finance and technology. i'd say that's still true but only if or when they can bring an end to the war in the ukraine. so up in the air.
full article https://thecradle.co/Article/Columns/13087
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small price to pay for joining the official league of civilisation
https://sparkchronicles.com/sweden-...-zinar-bozkurt-will-be-handed-over-to-turkey/
https://sparkchronicles.com/sweden-...-zinar-bozkurt-will-be-handed-over-to-turkey/
Yeah, a gay man member of the pkk accused of terrorism. I'm glad sweden say there's no chance he'll be jailed and tortured.
Why are they bolding 'homosexuality'? Homosexuality is legal in Turkey, he isn't going to be persecuted because of that. Not saying Turkey isn't going to do bad things to him though given he is part of the Kurdish movement, but yea bolding homosexuality is just a stupid stereotype that because Turkey is a Muslim majority country homosexuality is illegal.
International organizations have highlighted Turkey's poor treatment of the LGBTQI+ community for years. Just a month ago there were mass arrests at a gay pride parade in Istanbul, including reporters covering the event. The country regularly ranks in the bottom positions in reports about LGBTQI+ rights in european countries. Government officials, including ministers, regularly demonize this community. It's hardly a stretch to suggest his sexuality will play a part on how he will be treated.
One would imagine there's a huge difference between it being legal and it being tolerated by the public and social norms.
While sadly Turkey is losing it's secular values slowly under Erdogan, I don't think the person being sent to Turkey would have anything to do with him being gay. The people who were arrested during the parade is because technically the gay parade has been banned, unfortunately.
e - answered with some actual knowledge above
It won't have much of a role because its not a country. The main players in the EU (Germany etc) will have a bigger role than the EU itself.
I don't have time for the Modi government but Dr. Jaishankar was spot on his opinion on Europe.
it's an anglo-american thing and european, too, but the europeans are typically better educated on the world beyond the anglo-sphere. we generally don't pay attention to countries beyond the "west" and when we do it's usually through very propagandized eyes. not that other countries don't have the same problem in reverse but there has been a western exceptionalism which has predominated for centuries if we're being honest. after european hegemony came american hegemony. the rules of the game are changing. the rest of the world is not what it was. it cannot just be dismissed as land with people to be exploited for cheap labour and cheap resources. the loose brics formation has a higher gdp in ppp terms than the g7. in fact, purely in ppp terms, china and india alone are equal to europe and north america combined. this isn't the only metric that counts as wealth disparities and developmental inequalities, especially within india compared with china, also matter. but overall we're in an era of multipolarity and it's only really getting going. that's one enormous issue which the west has not faced in centuries. there was no "west" the last time this kind of thing was in the offing, not as we know it today anyway. the rise of the ottoman empire and toward its end the rise of japan and the emergence of china. that still doesn't come close to where we are now, though. vast amounts of land and people remained to be exploted even then. not true today.
added to that is the economic transition from fossil fuels to renewable sources. this is the new mode of production which is being born as we speak and the teething problems of which can be seen everywhere. the new system does not typically come about unproblematically.
but yes, europe in particular is and has been a kind of running joke. it has the economic might but it is subservient to american dominance which it sees as protecting its own interests in various aspects. that is true, too, in limited cases. the problem with an overreliance on america to do the military lifting is that you cannot then stand as a properly independent bloc in negotiations. and that is where the joke comes in. it's why iran lost all patience with europe, though there seems to be better news coming out of that story recently and why, whatever you think of putin, monster or whatever, russia doesn't direct its negotiating positions and counter demands to europe but directly to washington. it knows europe has no real say in this when it comes to military matters. europe knows it, too. the alternative is kind of what we're seeing already. if the germans and the rest really do go ahead and start spending tens of billions on military budgets, it's only a matter of time thereafter until europe, as bloc, has less need of nato. it will remain within it, but less content to take orders unilaterally which it has had to up until now because it relies on america for its military deficit.
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"in fact, purely in ppp terms, china and india alone are equal to europe and north america combined"
I really doubt that. Source?
GDP (PPP, US$ million) by country or territory
| Country (or territory) | Region | IMF[1] | World Bank[5] | CIA[6] | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Estimate | Year | Estimate | Year | Estimate | Year | ||
| China | Asia | 30,177,926 | 2022 | 24,273,360 | 2020 | 23,009,780 | 2020 |
| United States | Americas | 25,346,805 | 2022 | 20,936,600 | 2020 | 19,846,720 | 2020 |
| European Union | Europe | 23,730,275 | 2022 | 20,046,175 | 2020 | 19,885,625 | 2019 |
| India | Asia | 11,745,260 | 2022 | 9,907,028 | 2020 | 8,443,360 | 2020 |
not exactly equal but $48tn to $41tn with projected rise in the latter figure over the coming decades is close.
Right. So not equal as of now.
no, but will surpass within a few years.
He's completely lost it.
Pretty sure he’d be saying the same thing 40 years ago.
he said it was akin to hitler and stalin invading poland. i'd be interested to read or listen to the actual clip for context as i highly doubt it is exactly as reported seeing as it runs entirely against everything else he's said on the topic.
benefit of the doubt? i think you should give chomsky the benefit of the doubt here as that tweet seems likely to have entirely misrepresented his position.
it's a much more reasonable position than isolated text tells you. it's his default position about russia and nato and all the rest which he hasn't moved from since the start. he's saying put the ball back in russia's court and see if they're sincere about the nato concerns and security. if not, then you've lost nothing by trying to negotiate an end to war. that's not giving putin the benefit of the doubt. he states clearly that the war is an act of aggression on the same level of hitler and stalin in poland and america in iraq. there's no ambiguity there.
taylor is a diehard unionist who otherwise wouldn't bother framing it this way. irked that chomsky supports scottish independence.
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Here’s the videos, posted by the same Twitter handle
i don't see any inconsistency. he's talking about the same thing he's been talking about for decades. he was saying that this could lead to a war if the two sides couldn't reach an agreement over mutual security concerns back when many people in the west couldn't find ukraine on a map. he also doesn't justify russia's response or give putin "the benefit of the doubt", which the tweet represents him as saying directly. so the tweet seems misleading to me, or a kind of unionist misinformation, if you like. it's not that i expect people to agree with his position, but it has been intentionally distorted for secondary effects by a unionist who dislikes chomsky more for his support of scottish nationalism than his decades' long position on nato, russia, and ukraine.
There were almost two internets. Then, the CIA destroyed one.
While America made the network that would become the internet, programmers in Chile were building a vision of their own.
In Mashable’s new three-part episode of our series on the digital age's dark side, Kernel Panic, we explore a startlingly advanced computer network developed in Salvador Allende's Chile of the 1970s. Called Project Cybersyn, the network was a centerpiece of Allende's effort to modernize the Chilean economy. It was developed in parallel with the American networks that would become the internet, at a moment in time in which President Nixon was trying to undermine the Chilean economy and overthrow Allende, the first democratically elected Marxist leader in Latin America.
Cybersyn, designed by a farthinking British theorist named Stafford Beer and run by a cadre of young revolutionary programmers, was an astonishing success. Using little more than old telephone wires and mothballed pre-war machinery, the Chilean program managed to build out a real-time data stream very much like the social media newsfeed of today, watching and monitoring the country's industry from a retro-futuristic control room in the capital.
For two years, the programmers used Cybersyn to battle strikes and attempted coups until finally, in September of 1973, Allende was overthrown by a military junta led by Augusto Pinochet. The dream of a stable, modernized Chile died with Allende, and so did the potential for a second internet, built in parallel and evolved under a totally different system of information sharing.
Mashable speaks to Fernando Flores who served under Allende as finance minister before spending three years in prison under Pinochet, as well as Raul Espejo, operational director of Project Cybersyn, and the family of Stafford Beer to take you inside the dream and disappointment of Project Cybersyn.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
https://mashable.com/article/project-cybersyn-chile-kernel-panic
While America made the network that would become the internet, programmers in Chile were building a vision of their own.
In Mashable’s new three-part episode of our series on the digital age's dark side, Kernel Panic, we explore a startlingly advanced computer network developed in Salvador Allende's Chile of the 1970s. Called Project Cybersyn, the network was a centerpiece of Allende's effort to modernize the Chilean economy. It was developed in parallel with the American networks that would become the internet, at a moment in time in which President Nixon was trying to undermine the Chilean economy and overthrow Allende, the first democratically elected Marxist leader in Latin America.
Cybersyn, designed by a farthinking British theorist named Stafford Beer and run by a cadre of young revolutionary programmers, was an astonishing success. Using little more than old telephone wires and mothballed pre-war machinery, the Chilean program managed to build out a real-time data stream very much like the social media newsfeed of today, watching and monitoring the country's industry from a retro-futuristic control room in the capital.
For two years, the programmers used Cybersyn to battle strikes and attempted coups until finally, in September of 1973, Allende was overthrown by a military junta led by Augusto Pinochet. The dream of a stable, modernized Chile died with Allende, and so did the potential for a second internet, built in parallel and evolved under a totally different system of information sharing.
Mashable speaks to Fernando Flores who served under Allende as finance minister before spending three years in prison under Pinochet, as well as Raul Espejo, operational director of Project Cybersyn, and the family of Stafford Beer to take you inside the dream and disappointment of Project Cybersyn.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
https://mashable.com/article/project-cybersyn-chile-kernel-panic
There were almost two internets. Then, the CIA destroyed one.
While America made the network that would become the internet, programmers in Chile were building a vision of their own.
In Mashable’s new three-part episode of our series on the digital age's dark side, Kernel Panic, we explore a startlingly advanced computer network developed in Salvador Allende's Chile of the 1970s. Called Project Cybersyn, the network was a centerpiece of Allende's effort to modernize the Chilean economy. It was developed in parallel with the American networks that would become the internet, at a moment in time in which President Nixon was trying to undermine the Chilean economy and overthrow Allende, the first democratically elected Marxist leader in Latin America.
Cybersyn, designed by a farthinking British theorist named Stafford Beer and run by a cadre of young revolutionary programmers, was an astonishing success. Using little more than old telephone wires and mothballed pre-war machinery, the Chilean program managed to build out a real-time data stream very much like the social media newsfeed of today, watching and monitoring the country's industry from a retro-futuristic control room in the capital.
For two years, the programmers used Cybersyn to battle strikes and attempted coups until finally, in September of 1973, Allende was overthrown by a military junta led by Augusto Pinochet. The dream of a stable, modernized Chile died with Allende, and so did the potential for a second internet, built in parallel and evolved under a totally different system of information sharing.
Mashable speaks to Fernando Flores who served under Allende as finance minister before spending three years in prison under Pinochet, as well as Raul Espejo, operational director of Project Cybersyn, and the family of Stafford Beer to take you inside the dream and disappointment of Project Cybersyn.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
https://mashable.com/article/project-cybersyn-chile-kernel-panic
I read the Wiki about this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn
It's interesting - but I'm not sure why it's in this thread? Sounds like it would rather be something for the Economy thread (given the system served to develop a national economy; it was also abandoned because Chile went in the complete opposite direction economically under Pinochet) or the Cool Science and Tech thread.
that's pretty basic stuff. hedging and balancing. look to the historical build up to world war one. russia and france sought an alliance because each was a border power of the german state in the middle. a de facto border for the russians. germany could only do so much because britain had one goal, to prevent any one power from achieving complete control in europe. to this end, the british continuously supported the french even though they were technically in competition because the french acted as a buffer against the germans.
that's how this stuff has always been done. states make alliances and maintain strategic ambiguity even within those alliances. they hedge and balance against each other to protect their own interests. iran hedges against chinese influence by opening its markets to the west via the nuclear deal. it hedges against american influence by opening its markets to the chinese bri. add support for russian military operations and other regional issues, like lebanon and paramilitaries as hedges against israel, which is america to iran.
when a state is isolated, then it is in trouble because it has no means of playing another state off whichever state would seek to exploit it. and despite whatever people have been told, russia is far from isolated, at least in the non-western world.
also read the turkish activity during this whole thing. they've been playing states off each other at a faster rate than anyone else from what i can tell. they were given a massive strategic boost because of europe's self-isolation from russia which makes turkey the only proper route into asia. what does it benefit turkey for russia to return to the status quo? it doesn't. so they cooperate with russia on all kinds of issues despite selling drones to ukraine. they normalize relations with israel despite also seeking to normalize relations with syria. basically, erdogan's government is normalzing relations with two client states, each opposed to each other in the grand scheme, one being american backed and the other backed by russia. and he can do that because of the historical moment he finds himself in.
so i'd be cautious about turkish "peace-talks". peace doesn't benefit turkey.
that's how this stuff has always been done. states make alliances and maintain strategic ambiguity even within those alliances. they hedge and balance against each other to protect their own interests. iran hedges against chinese influence by opening its markets to the west via the nuclear deal. it hedges against american influence by opening its markets to the chinese bri. add support for russian military operations and other regional issues, like lebanon and paramilitaries as hedges against israel, which is america to iran.
when a state is isolated, then it is in trouble because it has no means of playing another state off whichever state would seek to exploit it. and despite whatever people have been told, russia is far from isolated, at least in the non-western world.
also read the turkish activity during this whole thing. they've been playing states off each other at a faster rate than anyone else from what i can tell. they were given a massive strategic boost because of europe's self-isolation from russia which makes turkey the only proper route into asia. what does it benefit turkey for russia to return to the status quo? it doesn't. so they cooperate with russia on all kinds of issues despite selling drones to ukraine. they normalize relations with israel despite also seeking to normalize relations with syria. basically, erdogan's government is normalzing relations with two client states, each opposed to each other in the grand scheme, one being american backed and the other backed by russia. and he can do that because of the historical moment he finds himself in.
so i'd be cautious about turkish "peace-talks". peace doesn't benefit turkey.