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There's a model of Biden foreign policy that's very simple and predictive. I will present it in full.
"The foreign policy of the Biden administration is whatever will make the price of gasoline go down before the election."
It's super effective!
For example, what is Biden's policy towards Venezuela, a brutal dictatorship which is responsible for a large chunk of the U.S. border crisis, and which has threatened to seize the territory of neighboring Guyana? Why, ease the sanctions, of course.
What about Biden's position on Iran, a country which funds terror throughout the world, supports the Houthis in Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and is rapidly progressing on its goal to build nuclear weapons? Why, ease the sanctions, of course.
But surely Russia, the Greatest Threat to Democracy Since Hitler, will feel the wrath of U.S. sanctions. We have spent hundreds of billions of dollars fighting them in Ukraine. We help send hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian men into the meat grinder to die. Because it's worth it. With stakes this high, there's no way that Biden would let his lust for cheap gasoline affect the conflict. Right, Anakin, right?
Today, Biden has urged Ukraine to stop its strikes on Russian oil infrastructure. It was causing gasoline futures to increase.
That's it boys. We've found the red line that Ukraine musn't cross. Biden is not very bright, and he's certainly lost a step. But an old dog still knows some tricks and he knows one. If you want to get re-elected you need cheap gas. As usual, the U.S. will support pretty much any tinpot dictator as long as they have oil. Sometimes, it really is that stupid.
Feels like a rather isolated demand for rigor, no?
I’m thinking along the same lines as @Walterodim here. We attribute anything that remotely involves the executive branch to Biden’s personal action. In reality, the branch is a nebulous blob, one under pressure from every friendly and hostile interest. Sometimes you get a compromise—Bush Sr. did end up signing a tax increase. The ACA is a mess, but it still hasn’t been repealed. That border wall is still looking pretty rough. We can’t always get what we want.
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Biden is not in charge of Biden's foreign policy. Biden is not in charge of much of anything anymore.
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When Ukraine is everything but democratic because they are in a state of war it is excused. Yet, those under threat from the US are supposed to be completely democratic despite America's long history of sponoring terrorist groups, assassinating leaders and trying to colour revolution countries. If Venezuela didn't hold a tight ship they would have ended up like Iraq, Syria, or Libya. Putting countries in a state of perpetual state of semi war in order to destabilize them increases migration. The US has sanctioned Venezuela, funded an armed coup attempt and continuously worked to undermine the country. As with most of America's foreign policy misadventures it ends up with a massive flood of migrants. The best way to stop the migrant flow is to stop the aggressive posturing. Stealing Venezuelan assets makes the situation in Venezuela worse which encourages emigration.
When Ukraine gets invaded we all have to help them. When Iraq gets invaded, Iran is supposedly supposed to just quietly accept it. Why would they? It is a neighbouring country with deep cultural ties to Iran. Of course they are going to help them defend themselves. Iran has given support to groups under direct military threat. Destablizing Iran would mean another giant refugee crisis. Iranians are the most similar people to westerners in that part of the world and if anything they should be our natural allies. Stealing their assets is not only immoral and absurd, it is directly damaging to Europe. When Hillary Clinton was sponsoring Jihadists in Syria which flooded Europe with migrants Iran was helping Syria stay together. We should thank Iran for their support against ISIS.
American policy has been aggressively attacking countries that aren't subservient to the United States and causing continuous blowback.
"Funding terrorist networks to destabilize the government" is a funny way to phrase "help them defend themselves."
@Dean's takedown of your understanding of Venezuelan history is pretty thorough, but this is a truly impressive howler. Iran hates Iraq. It's not just Sunni vs. Shia (though that is a huge source of animosity.) The Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s began with Iraq's invasion of Iran.
... Yeah, Iran used to be a Western ally. We propped up the Shah for that reason, and you may recall, there was a revolution. Which is where we are now, with an implacably hostile religious theocracy in charge as a result of our earlier "alliance" with them.
You seem to have a thesis ("American imperialism is the root of all evil") to which you are attempting to fit every conflict in the world. Believe it or not, other countries are quite capable of starting armed conflicts, suffering coups and instability, and turning themselves into economic basket cases, without America being behind it.
Iran has good relations with Iraq's shia population and has offered Iraq both help with rebuilding and military aid. Iranians definitely don't get along with Baathist and the Sunnis, but there are strong ties to groups living near Iran. Parts of Iraq are ethnically similar to Iran and the current Iraqi government enjoys good relations with Iran. Regardless, when Iran's neighbour is attacked by an aggressive power that could very well invade Iran it makes sense for Iran to offer support.
I wonder why the Iranians revolted against a corrupt foreign puppet who siphoned off natural resources to British petroleum. British petroleum was the most profitable British company in the beginning of the 1900s. Iran had been invaded in 1941 and then had a dictator installed in 1953. There was good reason for supporting revolution. Despite sanctions and despite living in a continuous state of semi war Iran has managed to create a stable state that produces few refugees.
Americans have an exceptional ability to get involved in every corner of the planet. If there is a village in Afghanistan that isn't ruled by them, they will bomb it for 20+ years. The US is in a league of its own when it comes to starting wars and meddling in other countries. Not all problems are caused by the US but the US is a driving force behind instability.
Actually quite a large percentage of illegals migrants to the UK crossing on small boats are Iranians. They certainly do produce refugees.
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This is the motte, and yet not the same as an implicit claim that the Americans are exceptionally involved in every corner of the planet, let alone in every administrative decision of the planet, let alone vis-a-vis the ability of local actors.
That the Americans have more ability to project power to distant corners than others is quite different than that Americans have more ability to be involved than local powers who may not be able to project far, but are actually local.
Given that the exceptional US ability to get involved in every corner of the planet is dependent on having allies and partners in every corner of the planet able or willing to facilitate their involvement, the ability of the US to effectively influence needs to be compared to places where it lacks critical enablers- and thus who they are.
Interesting claim. Identify the villages, please, and why the bombings were on grounds of not being ruled by the Americans, as opposed to other reasons that other non-US powers wouldn't emulate if placed in equivalent contexts.
Are we conflating wars and meddling as the same category, and are we comparing to historical trends?
If it's just in terms of starting wars, the US is unexceptional in historical terms. The only interesting point in relative terms is its relative ability in the Pax Americana, which is notable for being one of the most peaceful periods in human history precisely because the US had- and exercised- unique ability to pick conflicts.
If the argument is simply in ability to meddle in non-war-instigating forms, this is a reflection of evolving technology and economic growth over time, which the American system coincided with and encouraged, but which is not a uniquely American pathology in nature. The Americans certainly conduct more cyber-espionage than the colonial empires of old ever did- this is because the colonial empires lacked computer networks to spy on, not the willingness.
If the argument is simply about the size and capability of the US, because it's big, that's neither an argument of moral inclination nor an argument that the size and capability actually have been disproportionate in starting wars and meddling relative to the size and capability of other actors.
'Driving force' is a meaningless term bar a relative comparison of forces, which you have not and consistently do not provide comparisons to.
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I feel like this is often just a footnote for Americans, particularly those of us that are millennial or younger, but it's worth noting that this wasn't some mild skirmish or even a moderately large war, it is one of the largest, deadliest wars of the past 75 years. While other civil and intrastate conflicts rival or exceed it, Iran-Iraq is probably the most deadly post-WW2 interstate conflict. The use of chemical weapons and prolonged exchanges give it a WW1 vibe, but with the addition of cruise missiles and attacks on nuclear facilities.
The post-Saddam era has thawed those old hatreds, but referring to these nations as having "deep cultural ties" is quite the turn of phrase to use.
It's also the origin point of suicide bombing as an accepted technique of islamic terrorism according to some. Curtis makes this point in Hypernormalization.
Iran's culture of martyrdom combined with war propaganda and mechanized warfare created an islamic equivalent to the kamikaze phenomenon (complete with pilots crashing their planes into targets), and its exportation to sunni radical groups has unfortunately shaped much of the XXIst century.
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Depends on the parts you are talking about. The shia in Iraq hated Saddam and didn't want a war with Iran. Iraq is a highly diverse country, and Iran's ties to the different groups aren't uniform. There are groups that Iran has strong ties to and there are groups that Iran has strong hatred for.
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It's a pretty common thesis, but one mostly associated with the left and Noam Chomsky in particular. It's weird seeing it coming from the right.
What is weird is to see an attempt to go back to the neocon consensus when part of Trump's appeal was to criticize their failures, including their over the top hostility towards other great powers.
I don't think being a fanboy of Russia, China, Iran is the way to go, but it is healthy in general, including for the right wing in particular to be skeptical of American imperialism. Especially since modern American militarism is of a woke empire that is increasingly hostile to right wingers.
If some people on the right have a more mature take after decades of neocon failures that they have experienced, and also due to that hostility then that is a good thing.
And of course, from the time of George Washington to today, it is a legitimate and correct agenda to not want your country subordinate to foreign lobbies. This is an aspect of American involvement in foreign conflicts. Imperial overreach and war with Iran is not in the interest of the American people.
From a broader perspective than just American interest, I prefer the time Russians and other Europeans traded with each other, over the current situation and while sane protectionism, or reacting to harmful trading and other practices against you is fine, I am skeptical of what I see as the sentiment of cutting off other powers. Or plans that lead us into war.
It is better for the world to try to work with them, than escalate things into conflict and topple heir countries. This isn't just a right wing take, but it is certainly the case that right wingers in western countries should not let themselves be sacrificed for a global empire that is against them both ideologically and even as ethnic groups. Plus, pragmatically there isn't an existential threat from Russia, nor China, and certainly not from Iran and warmongering raises risks.
Deescalation and an attempt of a modus vivendi between different power blocks is the better idea. Especially in the current circumstances. Part of that does include having a capable military incidentally. Being strong while choosing a good deal over both one sided appeasement nor trying to topple other countries and their leadership is the better alternative than what American elites did, especially when looking at China. Which is to be pro China as China was growing in power, and turn against it when it had already exceeded USA in productive capacity and became the richest country when accounting for purchasing power parity.
Would you agree that Russia invading other countries is, in a vacuum, bad?
And that an invasion is less likely to happen if the invader expects an economic and human bloodbath?
Because it sounds like you’re arguing against continued U.S. support. But that’s an incredibly perverse incentive for Russia. To any would-be invader, really.
Yes for the first question.
To see things only from the perspective of dissuading Russian aggression and not American aggression against other countries is flawed and usually comes from bias.
It doesn't sound like I am arguing about either more or less US support actually. What I am arguing is that American foreign policy is not about dissuading aggression but machiavelian and willing to both invade countries, commit coups, and also instigate proxy wars.
I do believe that supporting a negotiated peace is the better alternative than the continued meat grinder. American influence over Ukraine is such to be able to push things in that direction and in fact it seems that it was the UK (likely acting with USA support) that stopped the real possibility of a peace between Ukraine and Russia.
It is in fact a perverse incentive to focus only on Russian aggression and excuse American aggression. American behavior is going to affect the behavior of countries like Russia too.
In general, I don't see only dangers from American imperialism but also from China and Russia becoming more beligerent. My preference and advice for trying to deescalate is therefore not only directed towards the USA. Although certainly I am going to focus more about where there is more pushback and what is more relevant to the audience I am talking to. There aren't here any sizable number of Chinese imperialists arguing that China should invade Taiwan because of getting revenge over century of humiliation or by promoting only America bad narrative while pretending that Chinese imperialism would be no problem. Or arguing for China to invade multiple of its neighbors because they are in an American led coalition to destroy China. The bad behavior of each power also affect each other, just like a willingness to not push past certain red lines and having trade which is consistent with some protectionism and showing some willingness to compromise which can also incentivize more pro cooperation behavior.
Ultimately, the faction of American imperialists are not out to dissuade imperialism but themselves are a threat to world peace, and additionally to the rights of peoples under their rule. To only focus on Russia, and not acknowledge the problem of American foreign policy in terms of destructive coups, color revolutions, including what resulted in aggressive moves including shelling of more Russian areas in Ukraine and in theaters such as Iraq, Syria, Lybia, Israel, with promises of further escalation in places like Iran, is not how you avoid moral hazard but how you ensure it remains there. Both in terms of American bad behavior, and encouraging other countries. Especially when the rhetoric of escalation building towards a situation closer to WW3 is there. This isn't Iraq where the destructive incompetence of belligerent tunnel vision is important but still lower stakes. The stakes, especially when one also considers nukes, couldn't be higher.
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And this is all fine rhetoric if you believe in the Chomskyite "everything is the USs fault" point of view. But looking at how things actually happened instead, we note that it was not the US or the West that tried to topple Russia, but Russia which tried to topple Ukraine.
I don't believe everything is the US fault, but I do believe neocon agenda USA is a bad actor that holds zero respect for international law and doesn't even respect its own people. That the neocon faction acts in an obviously machiavelian manner and even promotes such arguments from a might is right perspective then plays a motte and bailey with moralism.
Whether in Iraq, Syria, Libya, or wanting to bomb Iran, Israel, or yes Ukraine as well, the American foreign policy has been a destructive one that shows little respect to international law.
It isn't the only bad actor. Actually one of the problem with being maximally beligerent is that is infectious, and gives others the excuse to act likewise. In my ideal world great powers would try to constrain each other bad behavior and also due to their own interest oppose each others imperialistic tyrannical behavior against other countries. While cooperating in win win ways.
You are forgetting the color revolution in Ukraine with American participation, and Ukrainian shelling of Russian areas and laws against Russian language. While the USA has been training Ukrainians and Ukraine have been having their Azov regiments. There is also American support for removing Assad, and toppling Gaddafi, Saddam, talking of bombing Iran and a big history of warmongering and regime change worldwide. And the rhetoric about removing Putin and supporting opposition. Then there are the coups of the CIA worldwide, of which Putin is especially aware of.
People are not going to be gullible and not take this in mind just because it would be in the interest of neocons to do so.
Also, the extreme far leftist agendas promoted by the USA that relate to their hatred of Putin for not going along, and to an extend to his opposition to them. Not to mention the fact that some of the oligarchs that looted Russia that left from Putin, fled to the USA and have been advocating for regime change.
Of course Russia and China have their own belligerence and imperialistic agendas. Russians are responsible for their invasion and previously supporting rebels. If China invades Taiwan they would be responsible for that as they have their responsibility for the bullying of their neighbors in terms of fishing rights and more.
This still doesn't make American imperialists any less bad. Nor does it make sense to support them under the guise of pro west sentiment.
Importantly, in addition to their other sins, neocon elites are people who aren't at all respecting national self determination and dislike the people they rule. They don't respect freedoms neither and are supportive of cancel culture and authoritarianism at home while pretending to be bringing liberation abroad when they bomb other countries or try to escalate conflicts. They don't value the interests of the people they rule as a group and try to enforce national self hatred and prioritization of foreign immigrants, and are following tyrannical policies that lead to the destruction of european ethnic groups.
The neocon agenda sharers are fundamentally anti west. In that they and Dugin, or Chomsky are all in the same side. They only differ on the type of tyrant they want the west to be ruled by, and maybe in regards to some of the details about which groups should be on top. But neither are for the west as a civilization and western peoples. Nor do they respect their rights.
They are further from being the west, than the Communists were Russia/Ukraine and all other countries under their rule.
I see a lot of rhetoric here, but nothing about the facts on the ground that no Western country invaded Russia, but Russia invaded Ukraine.
Often times, "nuance" is a way to attempt to use small second, third, and fourth order effects as an excuse to ignore enormous first-order effects.
Unlike you who want an one sided perspective, I am not going to defend the Russian invasion. I am just going to condemn American imperialists for invading multiple countries and trying to engineer proxy war and overstep deliberately on the red line of countries like Russia, knowing this would cause war. And even justifying it after the fact as a worthy investment since they see the meat grinder as good if Russians are dying.
Also the rhetoric about toppling Putin and dismantling Russia, which when it comes from GAE that has done this throughout the world, it has teeth.
Although Russia has become more militarily capable and built further its industry and their alliance with China and economic ties grew, and moreover multiple other countries have started increasingly trading without using the dollar.
It is anti-neocon not Pro China invading Taiwan or Russia invading Ukraine. In fact i would rather that China avoids invading Taiwan in the future and would consider that a world destabilizing move. One that should be dissuaded.
It is your perspective that tries to create a simplistic Russia bad, GAE good here.
You have been consistently ignoring American invasions of various countries, color revolutions, and American attempts to engineer the conflict that happened.
The reality is that neocon USA is not the defender of world peace against the evil Chinese and Russians but a menace in its own right. One that had been a bigger menace after fall of soviet union than the other two, although that is also because of the weaker position of Russia and China. And that also also encourages the elites of such countries to act in a similar manner, bringing things closer to WW3. One could also argue that further imperialism by China or Russia, also encourages more bad American behavior.
The correct take is to favor elites that see their interest in undermining each others warmongering and also see some value in cooperation. Things were closer in that direction in regards to Russian, American and Chinese relationship at one point. And it wasn't the Russian invasion that started changing this. This came after the color revolution in Ukraine and after the destruction of various countries and after rise of rhetoric about bringing the same recipe to China and Russia. Of course the rise of China has played its role too.
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If Chomsky emerged into the public sphere now with the set of views that he holds, chances are good that he would quickly be branded right-wing.
Isn't he still around?
Yeah, but he's barely active anymore and really seemed to be at death's door in his most recent appearances. I imagine he gets a pass because of that and because how much of a childhood idol he was for many elites.
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I believe in the milder claim that sometimes American adventure abroad is negative sum leading to bad results in local countries but not all bad things come from American adventure (and sometimes American adventure does good things though less often).
That's a MUCH milder claim than the kind of analysis which looks at a problem, finds a way America (or some other Western power) affected one of the parties in the past, and places the blame there.
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There are good reasons for leftists and rightists to share the belief that third-worlders don't have moral agency.
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Venezuelans are fleeing because 25 years of catastrophic socialist policies have completely destroyed the economy. Leaving the current government in power is the single biggest cause of migrant outflows, and they will continue as long as the Chavistas are in control.
And how do you think running Venezuela into the ground by sanctioning them will impact migrant flows? Migrants flee Venezuela because it is bad, so making it worse should lead to more migrants. Clearly, the US hasn't been able to topple Venezuela's government, and the US has made it worse in Venezuela. In other words, foreign meddling once again lead to a migrant crisis.
The US has a long history of backing coups in Latin America, funding militias and creating banana republics. This has made the region less stable and created more incentives for people to leave.
I would agree that the current US approach to Venezuela isn't working, and sanctions rarely do work (see Cuba, Spain, Iran, Russia, so on). But the US is entitled to refuse to trade with anyone it feels like. Maybe if Venezuelans were actually starving and dying in large numbers, there might be an obligation to send food, but AFAIK things aren't that bad in VZ.
Maybe it is, but it shouldn't be.
Why you think so?
There is an argument that, as the de facto economic hegemon, the US should let as many people as possible come to the table to deal, but at the same time, as expressed elsewhere, there are fairly valid reasons for why the US has done the economic-warfare things it has done.
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American involvement also helped produce the two most stable, productive South American countries in Chile and Uruguay. I have plenty of negative things to say about the CIA, but backing the guys that throw communists out of helicopters is actually a good solution to communist rule. Not good for the communists, of course, but it's in everyone's long-run interest to remove communists from governance.
The most stable and productive Latin American country is Costa Rica, which has a nice business allowing upper-middle class boomers to retire in luxury. Anti-communist but not due to US coups.
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Defining "stable" and "productive" is a headache all by itself, but even if I assume you mean "political stability" and "economic prosperity", I think that thanking the USA for those in the two countries you mentioned makes little sense.
What happened in Chile was a series of quasi-fortunate events. Unlike leftists would like you to believe, Pinochet began his regime being just as much socialist as Allende; the CIA trusted him merely because he hated commies, but that's about it; he had no economic ideas for the country at all, so basically continued doing the same as his predecesor but with an CIA stamp of approval (he even met with Fidel Castro! Seriously!). The only reason why things took a free market turn was due to Milton Friedman (who at that time was advising Xiaoping's China to end communism there) meeting with Pinochet once and writing him a letter explaining what he should to turn things around. That's it. Never did the CIA or the Pentagon had anything to do with the so-called "Chilean Miracle". If it wasn't for that visit and the involvement of the Chicago Boys (José Piñera, Hernán Büchi, etc.) in Pinochet's rule, the CIA would've merrily go along with whatever crap Pinochet would've thought that made things better as long as he continued throwning tankies off helicopters.
While I myself consider the Chilean model to be a very good example of how to achieve economic well-being, there's no doubt it that caused signifcant social unrest that climaxed in the 2019 protests, and even if you consider to be the protests to be unworthy of merit (just because people dislike economic policies doesn't necesarily mean they're bad, even if legitimitate concerns like the massive unemployement in the just-out-of-college-with-student-debt demographic and the privileges the goverment continued to hand over to the military elite where there), it shows there are consequences that go beyond economics to take into consideration when a country formulates policies.
I can't comment much on the country's political stability, and it's true that there wasn't any dictatorship after Pinochet, but social unrest, justified or not, is never a sign of it, and even if we assume stopping communism justifies a strongman with an iron fist, I don't think the 3000 people killed during his regime were all a threat to the country.
Regarding Uruguay, as someone who was born and lives there...please. First of all, lumping those two countries together makes it sound that the CIA was also involved in the country's military junta rule, and it wasn't at all. It's true that they collaborated with the democratically elected National Party goverment of the sixties and the following presidency of Jorge Pacheco Areco's as part of the Condor Plan by training our military and police forces in counter-subversion techniques including torture (one of the most famous murders carried out by left-wing guerillas in that turmoil of an period was of a CIA operative named Dan Mitrone, who had also worked in Brazil with the military junta that was there at the time), but by the time the tanks rolled in 1973 and the dictatorship started, the buck had already ended for the US; the left wing guerrillas were completely defeated, and the military junta began its rule with no foreign involvement of any kind (why it happened deserves a post of it's own).
So why is Uruguay so politically stable? We...just sort of are that way, I guess? Democracy and the rule of law is in our DNA: the military junta was an anomaly, and in 200 years there were only two other dictatorships in the country, which were resolved as peacefully as the last one and which shed little blood. Our parties institutional resilience is both a cause and proof of this: of the four major political parties in the country, just one (CA) started recently; Broad Front, the main left-wing coalition, started over 50 years ago, while both the aforementioned National Party and Colorado Party have been around ever since the country's beginnings. There are cracks which are starting to show however; ever since the end of the pandemic, the tripartite coaltion led by the NP, which won in no small part due to several corruption scandals by the Broad Front, has been mired on scandals of its own which are arguably worse, one of which involves a very important Senator who has been prosectued for a long history of sexual assault of minors, while the Colorado Party, which once was pretty much the country's dominant party, has become a shell of its former self and lives off its memories, has plenty of candidates for their next primary but no leadership (their leader shockingly resigned and left politics during the pandemic due to disagremeents with the goverment, which considering the guy's reputation I suppose had much to do with its lack of care for accountability and transparency). Add the fact that we have become more polarized, and yeah, we got problems.
As for "productive", we're like the third world that everyone would like to live in if they had to live anywhere in the third word, but that's it; our economy isn't doing horribly but it isn't doing that great either. The fact that we're considered both one of the most "stable" and "productive" countries in Latin America speaks little of us and volumes of how fucked up the region is.
Thanks for this, I appreciate the corrective effort, particularly regarding Uruguay. Duly noted and internalized.
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Venezuela’s situation is due to it being run by socialists, not due to to American sanctions. While Venezuela may not be literally communist in the sense of Eastern block collective farms and shit, they’re making the kind of constant macroeconomic mistakes you would associate with having leaders who studied Marxist economics and ruined their own economy that way, combined with a healthy dose of short-sighted populism.
The counter factual to ‘Venezuela, but competently governed’ is Iran, which is also an oppressive petrostate heavily sanctioned by the USA, and it’s in much better shape than Venezuela even if it’s not quite as nice a country to live in as the US or Western Europe(notably few Iranians decide to try to walk to the EU the way Venezuelans walk to America, after all).
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Venezuela’s collapse since 2014 has very little to do with US sanctions. At high oil prices, the socialist system implemented by Maduro could just about function due to oil exports. After prices crashed in 2014, Venezuela’s shitty, hard to refine oil became much less valuable (much like Canada’s tar sands).
Again, US policy had very little to do with it. Refugee outflows from Venezuela will continue until the socialist system is dismantled. That is not necessarily an argument for forced regime change, only an observation as to the reality of migrant dynamics.
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Why should anyone believe that US sanctions are 'running Venezuela into the ground' relative to the effect of the Venezuelan governance?
The Venezuelan government even 20 years ago was led by a clique who struggled with basic concepts like 'if you dictate that private businesses sell items at or below cost of procurement, private businesses will stop stocking items' or 'if you send people with guns to take over specialized businesses, the business people with specialized knowledge will leave.' It instituted a deliberate system of personality cult, attacks (literal and legal) on opposition actors and political opponents, and cultivating gangs as a national security strategy who then went on create a domestic security climate on par with Iraq. It routinely picked diplomatic and economic fights with its biggest trading partners while willfully and eagerly trying to align with countries less known for their quality of governance and far more known for their police states and party-empowering corruption. These were all chosen through the agency of Venezuela's own governmental leaders, for two arguably three political generations now. The same general clique of incompetents is still in power, and has been for long enough for an entire demographic cohort to have grown up under their management.
By contrast, you believe the relative impact of the US sanctions is...?
(This is a direct question, by the way.)
For all that you regularly like to cite US malfeasance as the cause of whatever cause of whatever blowback of the hour, I don't believe I've ever seen you actually provide a position of relative blame of US actions vis-a-vis other actors. Without any sense of relative allocation of input to output, this is just the cliche hyperagency/hypoagency paradigm that leaves agency with the US while everyone else is a passive recipient of their will, where even their own policy decisions are forced upon them by the US rather than, well, chosen both in response to and to shape US policy themselves.
While this is certainly flattering to US prowess in the same way that anti-semetic propaganda is empowering for the mythical Jew, it's not particularly well informed, and rather patronizing to the many invested and career anti-american politicians around the world who work hard to make their own policy disasters with hefty externalities but do so without American direction or demands. Give them their credit!
The sanction argument often comes up with Cuba (ie Cuba’s communism would be successful but for the sanctions). I always find this argument funny because it is saying “if communism could participate in the capitalist system it would be better proving communism works!”
It’s a valid critique. Protestantism didn’t do so well in 1700s France, either, but not because Protestantism isn’t a viable culture; but because the surrounding system intentionally prevented it from functioning.
If capitalists don’t care to distinguish between “we actively sabotaged your system” and “your system doesn’t work”, perhaps by a tacit appeal to social Darwinism, then sure, I’ll accept that; but by the same token, I’ll point to the birth rates and say “just wait.”
African subsistence farmers have the superior system?
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I don’t think the appeal to Protestantism is the same. It is like saying “Protestantism would’ve succeed in France if the Protestants agreed to recognize the supremacy of the Pope”
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There are three general sets of US sanctions / trade restrictions on Cuba, which for political convenience/tradition are often grouped together under the misnomer of 'blockade.'
Group one, and the longest and the original source of the blockade moniker, is the Embargo. The Embargo restricts US citizens, companies, and foreign subsidiaries of US companies from doing trade with Cuba outside of specific Humanitarian niches (i.e. food). The Embargo doesn't legally stop others from doing so, and while there have been arguments to the effect that it was a soft-ban- mainly because of past US threats to stop giving foreign aid to countries that did non-food business to Cuba- this is neither a blockade nor an obstacle to those who saw greater value from business with Cuba than in aid from the US. Foreign companies, including European ones integrated with (and thus at risk to) the US economy can and have done trade with Cuba without sanctions retaliation, especially in the last 3 decades since the Cold War. Rather, the reason the Europeans and Chinese and others don't invest much in the Cuban is that Cuba is notoriously bad at paying back its loans, and has been since the cold war when it was a regular frustration of the Soviets, and the early-2000s belief that foreign companies could get into the Cuban market before the American companies did but reap the American money flowing into Cuba weren't worth the steady losses. The countries continuing to offer Cuba loans or sell things in exchange things for IOUs are typically doing so for ideological interests / strategic concessions (Venezuela, Russia, China), rather than economic.
Group two, and sometimes cited but rarely carried further on inspection, are the more targeted sanctions, typically on senior leaders and for humanitarian abuses. These are not massive impacts on the broader economy, but do limit the ability of Cuban party elites and security officials to establish themselves as Russian-style oligarchs in the international system, as they become non-viable business interests even as they monopolize business opportunities at scale, but few people seriously argue that a Venezuela or Russian oligarchic model is some moral imperative as a step forward and that non-sanctioning these people would create some significant material change for the population.
Group three, and the one that modern Cuba actually would have the most grounds on saying impacts them but which is the furthest from the traditional Embargo rhetoric, is Cuba's status as a state sponsor of terrorism under post-9-11 counter-terrorism-finance legislation. For those unaware, that's the actual and wide-reaching legislation which unlike the Embargo isn't just for US-actors, but very much an international 'if you want to do business with or through the US, you won't with the countries on this list' dynamic. No one actually denies that Cuba's Cold War history of waging revolution would qualify, or that Cuba hosts people or groups that qualify for the list, there's just irregular (and usually weak) pressure that it just shouldn't matter that much / that Cuba is really hosting them to facilitate peace. Cuba was on the list pretty much from the start of the post-9-11 changes, but since the state list is as much a political tool as anything else, Obama dropped Cuba in 2015 when it was pursuing normalization with the expectation of a Hillary hand-off (which, implicitly, would have meant an election win where the Cuban vote in Florida didn't derail the Democrats), but Trump won and... didn't actually re-apply it until 2021, right before leaving office, and the Biden administration has maintained the same core assessment for upholding it that Cuba wasn't cooperating to general expectations. So not actually a partisan wedge issue, and not a 'anything but the predecessor' American policy decision.
Overall, the US Embargo had an effect but was mostly a propaganda deflection for the Communist system, general sanctions aren't particularly relevant, but the state sponsor of terrorism restrictions have real teeth... but, of course, have to compete with the point that Cuba is still run by the same sort of people who believe state control of the economy is a moral as well as strategic security for the party-state.
For those who don't know- Cuba doesn't just host the odd American criminal who can mouth far left ideology(Asata Shakur). It literally hosts a Hezbollah base, among other features in a collection of not really caring about the past history of people who show up making anti-American noises.
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What is US supposed to do to get Maduro out of power that would work better than what it hasn't done already and wouldn't leave to a huge amount of migrants? Because to me all it seems there's left would be either an invasion or endless Cuba-style "well, if we keep the sanctions on a bit longer then surely they'll work this time".
Coup the country and replace him with a friendly dictator with a lighter hand?
Not that I support more adventurism. But keep in mind, this is Venezuela we're talking about, having less people try to escape the country than at present isn't as high a bar as in many places.
That’s already been tried, and it didn’t work.
I don't remember them trying. Unless that one dude and his handful of mercenaries were actually CIA, but it seemed far fetched. Did I miss a larger effort?
They briefly tried soon after Chavez was first elected but it failed pretty quickly.
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If Biden wanted to reduce petrol prices, he wouldn't have banned keystone XL on day 1. January 20th, the first thing he did was block a pipeline. Then he put a moratorium on exploration in public lands. Just recently he froze export permits for natural gas (imagine being European at this point, trusting in an 'ally' that behaves like this).
Trump was genuinely pro-oil and gas, thus US oil production reached record highs under Biden due to delayed-action investment. But Biden has been relatively anti-fossil fuel.
That's not at all evident in the data. It looks like we need to thank Obama for the upward trend in US oil production. That or people are overcrediting their favorite president for trends that are mostly driven by things other than US executive policy.
Hmm, on balance it looks like a rather complicated story of leases v permits by each president. There are of course non-executive factors involved, the fracking boom for one.
However, I maintain that Trump was more pro-fossil fuel than Biden. Oil companies voted with their pockets:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/09/big-oil-trump-campaign-donations-fossil-fuel-industry
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Biden's environmental and foreign policy goals are entirely subservient to the price of gasoline.
For example, in 2022, when oil was over $100/barrel the Biden administration was chiding U.S. producers for not drilling more. That's when the administration decided to sell about 50% of the strategic petroleum reserve to lower prices before the midterms.
On the other hand, it's unclear if Keystone would lower U.S. pump prices at all. It was mostly designed to connect Canadian production with U.S. Gulf Coast ports.
This is a great example that demonstrates my model. Freezing exports lowers U.S. natural gas prices, prioritizing cheap energy for U.S. voters at the cost of foreign relations with allies. U.S. natural gas is the cheapest it has ever been.
Note that none of this makes Biden "pro oil and gas". He doesn't want energy producers making money. He just wants cheap gas before the election, whether it comes from Russia, Venezuela, Iran, or the Permian.
Use my model and U.S. foreign policy makes a lot more sense.
To be fair to Biden, this was actually a good use of reserves as he sold high and then refilled it at a lower priceAt the very least, this is a case of a stopped clock being right onceEDIT: I accept the correction below.
That's fake news unfortunately.
The SPR has NOT been refilled. There were some trivial purchases but you can barely seem them on the graph: https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=mcsstus1&f=m
The major sales came to a conclusion after the midterms, but they were still draining the SPR until May of 2023, with prices below $80/barrel.
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It’s also possible that supporting a small increase in the price of gas is political digestible but having gas prices get back to 4 dollars a gallon is it
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Note that blocking Keystone was explicitly about getting Americans to stop using oil:
More recently, he celebrated blocking Russian oil as part of an overarching strategy to force people to stop using oil:
The administration has been very clear that it is important to get Americans to stop using so much oil and one of the ways to do that is to constrict the supply. You probably won't hear this rhetoric much during the election, but it's not exactly been some secret plot.
Yes, I agree that his rhetoric and actions don't match up. That's kind of my point.
Keep in mind that Russian oil isn't blocked, nor is the U.S. trying to block it. They are trying to "price cap" Russian oil - allowing Russia to sell it but hopefully make less money. Success has been mixed at best. Oil and gasoline are fungible and globally traded. So even if we don't buy Russian oil directly it keeps prices low.
And how would you explain Biden telling Ukraine to stop bombing refineries?
There are certain actions, like massive subsidies for EV's, can achieve Biden's decarbonization goal while ALSO lowering gas prices. This is fully compatible with my model. I believe that Biden does care somewhat about the environment and foreign relations.
But when the administration must choose, they choose lower gas prices every time.
They choose lower gas prices in proximity to elections, sure. It's a cynical strategy, but a common one.
Note that both of us are using "they" in a fashion that isn't actually how these things work. When we talk about "the Biden Administration", this shorthand misses that there are actors with conflicting interests in the administration. Without even being overly cynical about Biden's current mental capacity, there's just no way for a President to be personally invested in the details of every policy that they're signing off on. Adding this internal conflict into the picture explains why there are policies that are clearly intended (and even stated!) to be kneecapping American energy production while other policies try to create short-run stopgaps that avoid Americans getting too wound up about $5/gallon gas.
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The export permits for natural gas thing was retaliation for Texas’s defiance at the border, and the rest of it was before the rise in oil prices.
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When Biden entered office in January 2021, oil prices were like $50/bbl, historically cheap and well below the point at which you might lose an election because of expensive oil. Dems don’t - as you note wrt the change under Trump - always prioritize oil price, and will push through environmentalist policies where they can. But if oil is at $90/bbl after having been low for a while, for the politically capable ones (and Biden is or was such an operator), cheaper oil temporarily overtakes global warming in priority since it might prevent an actual election defeat.
And to steelman Biden here, there's an argument that goes something like this:
"I want to help the environment, but I can't do that if I lose the election, therefore I have to hurt the environment temporarily to win the election".
Taken to its logical conclusion, this argument is a fully generalizable superweapon to anything you want. But in this case, it's probably fair enough.
Sure which is pretty shitty. Pretend to be for A to trick the voters so you can do B.
I do not think it is particularly shitty. If Biden was making campaign promises of keeping the price of gas low, with no intend to keep them, that would be shitty. Instead, this is just an election gift targeting that part of the population which is still undecided. My model of the world says "At least 90% of the US voters are aware of the fact that Trump is more pro oil than Biden". But most voters are not perfectly rational beings who carefully consider the terms of slowing climate change with having to pay more for gas in their utility and then vote for whomever is more likely to satisfy their preferences over the next term.
It is common knowledge that advertisements use hot people because they make ads work better than ads with median people in them. In a perfectly rational world, everyone would adjust for that whenever they see an ad with a hot person in it and there would be no advantage left to such ads. This is not the world we live in because most people don't work that way.
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Yes. Environmental goals come with serious tradeoffs. The path to decarbonization will be difficult and make us poorer. The climate activists understand that and are fine with that. But most voters are not.
There is a propaganda effort to make it seem that there are no tradeoffs, that EV's and solar panels will make use richer and Create Jobs. It's simply not true.
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Ah yes, as opposed to the neocon rallying cry of "kick their ass and take their gas" or those stupid stickers that rednecks were putting on gas pumps when gas got to 5 dollars a gallon with biden saying "I did this!"
Speak plainly. What is the point of this post? Is it just to point out some realpolitik? Because America always watches out for some oil interests. Regardless of which party is in power.
This is also the classic... our enemies are stupid and weak and ugly but also smart, tricky and strong.
Those were pretty funny, you have to admit.
This is what my boomer relatives used to say to me when I pointed out fake news or forwards they used to post and send me. "I don't care, it is funny anyway", "I agree with what they are trying to say even if this is a lie (boo outgroup)".
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It's a classic, but it's also wrong, and I'm tired of seeing it repeated as an aphorism.
Take Einstein, who is good at physics but bad at designing refrigerators and being President of Israel. If you care about keeping your food cold and being an effective advocate for Israeli interests, he'd seem pretty stupid to you. If you judged a doctor on his handwriting or a parapalegic on his ability to run, they'd seem stupid, too.
Outside of partisan politics, it is indeed possible for someone to be incredibly stupid in something and incredibly smart in another. Linus Pauling recommending superdoses of vitamin C. Noam Chomsky in anything that has to do with politics. Ben Carson in literally every category but neurosurgery. We know that these contradictions exist in real life, that these nuances do happen, not just with people, but with groups.
But then the quippy liberal says 'fascists blah blah, weak and strong', as if it means anything, if it isn't just them quoting something trite and banal and passing it off as wisdom if you don't think about it for more than a minute.
Why is it a "quippy liberal"? Do conservatives care not about doublethink? I hold quite a few beliefs that would be marked conservative. Conservatives will point out the same kind of thing is happening when liberals trot out narratives that trump is too stupid to run a casino yet also somehow the greatest threat to democracy the world has ever seen.
It isn't a trite and banal one off. It is a pretty effective test to notice when a piece of media is propagandizing for one side or another.
I wouldn't say mentioning it is inherently pointing to fascism, although reductio ad hitlerum has clearly linked it in many people's minds. That and being on Umberto Eco's list, but basically all political discourse is on that list. So I would discount that entirely.
I'm also confused as to your conflation of this particular bon mot with domain specific expertise. That is not what it is trying to point out at all.
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