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Rob Long is off this week, Law Talk’s John Yoo is sitting in. We’ve got Henry Olsen (he of The Horse Race podcast right here on this network) to chat about Super Duper Tuesday, Joementum!, and whether we’ve seen the last of the Socialist. Then, our friend and advisor Dr. George Savage stops by the tell us all about the Corona Virus — who’s got it, who doesn’t, what we can do about it and what we can’t. Yes, we’re sick of this topic too. Also, Chuck Schumer says something dumb, why are so many old white guys running for higher office, are some people are too damn sensitive, and another edition of What Are You Watching?
Music from this week’s show: My Sharona by The Knack
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Thank you for this – I’m still inclined to say we’ve accomplished our mission and come home, but will be more accepting of alternative positions with this information.
Although no one is probably following this discussion anymore, let me make a comment about your second point. Through my 30-year career with the Navy, all but 5 years of it spent overseas, at no point was I simply working to keep some nostalgic past alive. Everything that I was involved with was intended to pursue current American interests. We conducted planning and training with allied and friendly nations to improve their military preparedness, while demonstrating continued American resolve to support the alliances. America cannot simply sign an agreement with a foreign nation to support each other and expect it to be effective. Just like sports teams before and during a season, military units have to train and practice regularly to be effective. To this end, my former units carried out many types of training events with foreign militaries to ensure they could operate with us and perform more challenging missions. This isn’t just an American thing, foreign militaries, such as the British, French and Australians, also conduct bilateral and multilateral training events with allies for the same purpose. Those nations with which we operate regularly tend to be our strongest allies and friends, and it is through these periodic engagements that we have proof that they are still on our side. Conversely, nations like China and Russia, which now interfere in our naval and air operations (such as in the South China Sea) and send intelligence assets to monitor operations and exercises, prove that they aren’t true friends.
To put it in terms every successful married couple would understand, overseas military training events with allies and friends are equivalent to regularly showing your spouse that you love them, even if you have periodic disagreements. Overseas bases foster these engagements and provide valuable logistics bases. It’s not about empire, it’s about maintaining and expanding our friendships, which helps our economy and reputation worldwide. Our current overseas bases cost much less than the transportation assets that would be needed to replace them.
I may not convince you of anything I’m asserting. However, I hope you’ll keep some of what I’m saying in mind.
@pettyboozswha — “let the Chinese police the sea lanes from the Mideast and the Russians try to civilize Syria and Turkey for a generation.”
The Chinese idea of policing, and the Russian idea of civilizing, are not the same as those of the Western world.
The word you’re probably looking for is “dominate” or “subjugate”.
The new isolationism is somewhat similar to the old isolationism, which argued that we should let Hitler keep the peace in Europe. In hindsight, that was probably not such a good idea!
China is a menace.
There are very few things as aggravating as to spend a lot of time and effort to reply to thoughtful responses like those above and have software glitches lose your efforts. Where the hell did my entry go?????????
I think this issue will come up again so I will hold my response until then – sorry Tedley and Taras, but I’m too frustrated to repeat it now.
Somewhat similar is not identical. I am in a small minority with my isolationism, but I think Hitler was a special guy, and that after Hitler was defeated we should have followed Sen. Robert Taft’s advise and stayed out of NATO. We could have had a separate alliance with Great Britain and allowed continental Europe spend three generations under the Russian boot – it might have taught them some humility.
You may find that a UPS would help. Even “invisible” power glitches – your lights don’t flicker, etc – can mess you up. (That means a GOOD UPS. If it costs less than at least $150, it’s not GOOD. A really good APC Smart UPS – not Back-UPS which isn’t as good – might run $300 or more. But it doesn’t just save your posts, it also protects your computer and other equipment from damage. “Surge protectors” are actually useless.)
Also, when on rare occasions I’m working on some kind of long post or something, I occasionally save a copy to notepad or something. And you must remember to save the file, because just having it in the notepad “frame” doesn’t actually save it, if your computer crashes/freezes/whatever.
I feel @pettyboozswha‘s pain. If I think something may become a long post or take a while to put together, I draft them in my email program and save them as draft or send them to myself, to minimize the risk that I’ll lose what I’ve written.
Yes, just the other day I messed up a keyboard shortcut or something, and demolished a rather small post that I was putting together, but which I thought was worded just perfectly. But that was totally on me, nothing to do with a Ricochet site glitch or anything else.
Hitler was also lucky at each step along the path to WWII, as well as being very careful about which fights he sought to pursue and when to do so. But either way, isolationism wasn’t feasible before the USA became a nation, and it’s even less feasible today. The only way that nations in the world today can succeed is to entice allies and counter antagonists.
NATO wouldn’t have happened if the US hadn’t been part of it. For all of the arguments and diplomatic challenges over the last 7 decades, I think NATO is the preferred situation versus not having it. Had there been no NATO, it’s likely that the USSR would have taken Western Europe, either due to creeping communist influence or outright invasion. And under this scenario, there’s no guarantee that that the USSR would have fallen as it did, since it likely would have received an intellectual bump from bringing the Western European nations under its sway. For all of its imperfections and frustrations and concerns about ecological disaster, I think the current world is better than many other possibilities. There’s my 2 cents worth.
Is that like how the US has the worst form of government, except for all the others?
This is the worst of all possible worlds, except if things had gone differently.
@pettyboozswha — “We could have had a separate alliance with Great Britain and allowed continental Europe spend three generations under the Russian boot”. As @tedley points out, there’s no reason to suppose it would be only three generations.
Consider the economic and military benefits to the USSR of owning Western Europe. And would an isolated UK even have been economically viable?
With a Soviet Union that extended from the Pacific to the Atlantic, would anyone have ever even considered Reagan’s scheme to break the USSR economically? For that matter, would he have even come up with it?
Is Rob going to start asking people to “patron” Ricochet? In reference to Occasional Cortex complaining about the racists who are not “patroning” Chinese restaurants.
I wonder if she somehow meant Patreon? It seems like something a millennial might screw up. But how would that work for Chinese restaurants?
The intended word was probably “patronizing”.
Of course. But she probably relies on Patreon a lot more than patronizing. (Except when it comes to patronizing her voters…)
Just happened to me.
Very interesting, a guy basically solves his son’s murder, and then busts a pill mill doctor.
Never mind. It is there now.