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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   32279 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023

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The view, bluntly stated, is that expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era. Such a decision may be expected to inflame the nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion; to have an adverse effect on the development of Russian democracy; to restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations, and to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking.

He was right that it would turn Russia against the West; he was wrong that it would be "the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era". He was expecting a new Cold War that might possibly escalate into WW3, while the US has barely been affected by the current war. Kennan, having spent most of his career with Russia as a peer of the US, could not conceive how much Russia would degenerate and how little of a threat it would pose.

If Russia's nuclear arsenal isn't a threat, what is?

The US has very much been affected by this war (Europe far more so). Aside from inflation, stocks of munitions have been greatly depleted. It turns out that GDP is not sufficient for producing artillery shells, Stingers or Javelins in sufficient numbers to supply a medium-high intensity war. Factories and machine tools are what the US needed, what they're scrambling to put together.

Otherwise we wouldn't be seeing the US digging out dregs from fifty years ago - Hawk missiles were pretty good in 1970 but are somewhat desultory now: https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4944652

Nor would the US MIC be outperformed by Russia in shell production: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/long-war-in-ukraine-highlights-need-for-u-s-army-to-modernize-ammo-production

“So we’re doing five times less than they do and trying to keep it up. But if we don’t start the production lines, if you don’t warm it up, it is going to be a huge problem,” Ustinova said.

Furthermore, a new Cold War that might escalate into WW3 is precisely what we have. That's the China-US conflict in the Pacific. Pushing Russia towards China was possibly the biggest and most braindead mistake the US has made.

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