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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   11409 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 3, 2025

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I think it has a non-negligible chance of happening. Trump is the new face of America that does not pretend to play by normal countries' rules. The United States is a super-hegemon, a nation not facing even any plausible threat of competent adversary. They can take what they want, the way China/Russia/Iran/etc would very much like to be able to do but can't on account of the United States existing. In front of this face, sovereignty of almost every other country is a bluff that's easy to call. Nobody can militarily oppose the US, and most people on the globe buy into American culture and vision more than into their own regimes and bureaucracies. Certainly that's true of Egypt.

The actual shape of the deal will be about cleansing Gazans and providing security to settlers, though. Securing Israeli interests is one of the foundational, terminal values of the US.

I think the chance is nonzero because Trump's sometimes unpredictable, but it's quite unlikely. The US has the technical ability to do it, sure, nobody outside can stop us. But it's a terrible idea politically. Just the deaths from Afghanistan withdrawal - which was a popular campaign promise - seriously hurt Biden, sending American troops to die to develop waterfront Gaza property will stop appealing to voters when Americans start dying. It cuts strongly against the 'no foreign wars' wing of the new GOP. It sounds like yet another Iraq or Afghanistan. Nearby Arab countries hate the idea, rightly recognizing it taking in millions of Gazans as a serious threat to their security and even sovereignty. And I don't think anyone other than Trump or Kushner in American politics really want it.

And all of that's a pity, because, if implemented competently, it's a great idea, and one of the only things that could properly resolve the conflict, and lead to a good outcome under liberal values. Move almost all of Gaza's population to a new area where we've built a bunch of buildings and control security and the flow of goods in and out makes suicide bombing and terrorist resistance a lot harder. And then, without a civilian population, you can obliterate whatever of Hamas remains underground with less collateral damage. Israel's Arab population proves that, whatever their average IQ, Palestinians aren't destined to be economically net-negative, so if the culture of the new settlement was managed well enough it could become self-sustaining economically reasonably quickly. This would all, of course, involve truly massive expenditures of money and manpower, and also something existing America would fail badly at if they tried, but if one really, really cares about the plight of suffering Gazans or Israeli victims of terrorism, it's the best solution. It's very unfortunate to be forced out of your ancestral homeland, but it's less bad than just dying or perpetual conflict. This is also plan moldbug.

Last time out, Trump surrendered to the Taliban. He should probably have hired the French to give his successor surrendering lessons, because Biden badly botched the implementation of the surrender agreement.

I am going to withhold judgement on whether this makes the United States a super-hegemon.

Would you contest the British Empire's might in 1842 because the Afghans beat them also? Or the power of the Cold War United States when they failed to prop up South Vietnam?

Or is this a side effect of the sort of American ignorance that has them insult French military might over the only war they seem to be taught about? We did try telling you about Dien Bien Phu last time, that didn't seem to help much.

I'm British - when I insult the French military record I am strictly trolling. I know you've been holding us to a roughly even record over the last 1000 years, you snail-eating sexual deviants.

We do have a better record against Afghanistan than the USA or the USSR, given that we did beat them at least once. But an honest appraisal of the military leadership of the British Empire is that we were off our game in the mid-19th century due to the lack of serious competition - the first Anglo-Afghan War was an embarassing defeat and the Crimean War and Indian Mutiny were unimpressive victories against weak opposition.

Seriously, I think the point about both Vietnam and the more recent Afghan War is that the US can lose a war despite overwhelming military force if they don't know what victory looks like it. The Powell doctrine (and the general state of opinion in the US armed forces which it reflects) is anti-Clausewitzian, in the sense that Clausewitz says that "War is the continuation of politics by other means" whereas Powell says that once you have started a war you should forget about politics and single-mindedly pursue victory, defined as defeating the enemy. The failure in Vietnam was that the US's political goals weren't to defeat the North Vietnamese in South Vietnam (which they did, repeatedly) - or to defeat the North Vietnamese in North Vietnam (which they didn't want to do given the wider political situation viz-a-viz the USSR) - it was to build a South Vietnam that could defend itself. The failure in Afghanistan appears to be that the US never had the foggiest idea what its political goals were beyond punishing the Taliban for supporting OBL. So having an overwhelming military advantage and beating your chest and saying "I am the hegemon" doesn't actually mean that you can get what you want.

I'm British - when I insult the French military record I am strictly trolling.

I'll allow it then, our ancient rivalry is dear and precious. And by the way I think your government renaming the HMS Agincourt is a disgrace and an insult to everyone that died there.

an honest appraisal of the military leadership of the British Empire is that we were off our game in the mid-19th century due to the lack of serious competition

I feel like the parallel is even more pertinent. The US decayed a bit from the time of Schwartzkopf from precisely this lack of serious competition.

Time will tell if the Americans can actually produce some pragmatic diplomatic policy and not just spectacular coups. Most of what we saw of Trump seems to have been for an audience of Americans primarily.

America did not, technically, have a military defeat in Vietnam. America withdrew leaving south Vietnam to its own defense, which it proved incapable of(although it held on for three years, unlike the afghan government’s three months).

I guess America also didn't lose in Afghanistan technically. But as we all know, the art of war isn't that of winning battles, but that of making your enemy do what you want him to.

Sure, the political goal of ‘stop the spread of communism but don’t roll it back’ was dumb, and poorly implemented because of factors in south Vietnam. But the limited goal of ‘achieve a south Vietnam that can defend its sovereignty with no U.S. boots on the ground’ was achieved. The withdrawal of US air support- and political factors in the south Vietnamese army- led to the ‘75 invasion succeeding where previous ones had failed.

The U.S. goal of ‘capitalist, essentially secular, American aligned dictatorship in south Vietnam which doesn’t require American army presence’ was a success. The decision not to provide air support following a leadership reshuffle in their army led to them getting overrun by north Vietnamese tanks. To be clear this goal wasn’t a stable equilibrium- south Vietnamese security would have required a comprehensive defeat of the north. But this wasn’t an afghan government, where it can’t hold together for three months without the marines propping it up.

Troop movements, fighting techniques, long supply chains by ship and overland before planes and railroads (in that part of the world) coupled with the nature of Afghan society and the Pashtun tribal structure made extending full control over Afghanistan in 1842 impossible absent the settling of large numbers of Britons in that territory, which is a pretty tough part of the world to live in when there were many other parts of the British Empire better suited to colonization.

France falling to Germany in a few weeks in WW2, on the other hand, was not an inevitability of history in, say, 1931.

It sure wasn't, Guderian made a risky move and got lucky. History remembers his success as the inevitable downfall of a disorganized mess of a French State, but I always have in the back of my mind the potential of a world where Gamelin doesn't panic, keeps his reserves and doesn't switch to the Breda variant.

There's a world where Italy may not even enter the war this early or honor the pact of steel if Germans stall in northern France.

But I'm not defending the incompetence of the 1939 French high command here, just the honor of my people's demonstrated ability at war throughout centuries.

Last time out, Trump surrendered to the Taliban.

I've seen people here say that we should credit Biden with the Afghanistan pull-out, nice that we're on the same page that's it's Trump who should be thanked for that.

The US is swimming in debt, is deeply divided and is being overtaken by China. The US is far less ahead than it was 50 years ago. Most of the countries in the region trade more with China than the US. The US portion of global GDP, population and military might is in decline. This is an awful time to get involved in forever wars containing direct ethnic cleansing over a tiny strip of desert.

Creating a giant refugee crisis on the border of Europe while impacting a bunch of countries in the middle east by engaging in mass ethnic cleansing is the worst PR imaginable.

Debt can be piled on infinitely, and a good war will write it off again. China is militarily a non-competitor (globally) and the US has too much of an edge in AI progress (that seems like a consensus Hail Mary at this point, along with space technology).

In any case the US must advance and legitimate Israeli objectives.

In any case the US must advance and legitimate Israeli objectives.

Why? what exactly does forever wars in the middle east and refugee crises deliver to the US? What is legitimate about an Israeli claim to Gaza?

Israeli interests define legitimacy.

Why?

Definitionally, that's the terminal value. Might have something to do with God, I don't know. In any case, asking such questions is unwise in my opinion. One should front-run the shifting consensus.

The consensus being redefined nowadays by people appointed by this guy:

https://x.com/RyanRozbiani/status/1886771208886096132

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