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So apparently Syria is collapsing. Jihadists are near the capital and Assad is nowhere to be found. It looks to be so over for the Assad region.
Since this is the culture war thread, here's what Donald Trump had to say on X.
Cicero he ain't but I'm glad that this viewpoint represents the new foreign policy thinking. The U.S. doesn't need to have a finger in every pie. The international reputation of the United States was never higher than before WWII when we were mostly an isolationist country. In the decades since, we've spent trillions on our foreign misadventures and have only enmity to show for it. The Middle East is not "strategically important" anymore either, and we don't need to "contain" Russia or Iran in that area. Most countries are neither our friends nor our enemies so we should just stay out of their affairs.
I have traveled to a lot of places across the globe and the overwhelming sentiment I've received is "America fuck yeah". Whatever enmity there is seems largely restricted to either cultural/political (relative-)elites and some parts of the Arab world over Israel.
Moreover, the meme of widespread animosity against America is the indirect product of anti-American cultural project. The US remains one of the most sought after places to immigrate.
I do actually want to agree that from a practical perspective many of these misadventures were totally useless! But that's just on a geopolitical plane. We spent trillions (and our own soldier's blood) for nothing. But don't get sucked into the "America bad hurf" meme on the side.
US is prosperous, prosperity is desirable, hardly a reason to pat yourself on the back. If you blur the distinction between the country and the empire, of course the enmity will be diluted.
Prosperity is downstream of what I'm talking about here.
Could you elaborate on what you are talking about?
US prosperity is downstream from the cultural and social mores that much of the world widely admires.
That’s one hypothesis. The other, less flattering hypothesis, is that US prosperity is downstream of your ancestors conquering a massive continent full of natural resources, plus being the one left standing when your rivals annihilated each other in two world wars.
Either is possible, but it seems wise to beware the flattering option precisely because it’s more seductive.
In particular, it leads to the conclusion that foreigners and immigrants admire you for your culture and wish to uphold it. Europe fell for the same trap - people don’t come to Britain because they admire British Values, they come because they want a share of Britain’s prosperity relative to the third world.
Or perhaps you should beware the option that flatters your ideological commitments. It's equally as convenient/inconvenient to admit that America really does do things well, it just depends where you're standing.
It's very convenient for Americans to pretend that we're successful because of our unique national ideals and character. And it's very convenient for Europeans to pretend that it's all just a historical accident.
Fair, but at least I have been an economic liberal. My current ideological commitments come in large part from observing that economic liberalism != prosperity. At best, it’s a prerequisite.
And going back to the original point, it’s important to realise that most pro-Americans don’t believe it. I’ve known some immigrants who were very pro free market but most are not. They want American power and prosperity not American values. Nobody gave a damn about British values once we lost the empire. Likewise people only started treating China and Japan with respect when they became rich.
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It’s kinda both though. Just being the owner of land with resources doesn’t make you a rich country. And being on land that doesn’t have those resources doesn’t make you poor. Russia has a lot of oil and mineral wealth. Nobody wants to live there. Hong Kong and Taiwan are both pretty small countries, but they’re wealthy. Thus I submit to you that America is not successful just because of our land. A good bit of our success is due to our people and the values they hold. Things like productivity and meritocracy, traditional morality, innovation and adoption of technology, freedom from government interference.
It also probably doesn't help that Russia is really fucking cold.
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Wrong, I'd like to live in both Moscow or Sankt Petersburg, and probably wouldn't mind many other places.
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Natural resources are not a primary or even secondary predictor of national production. This is a silly leftist meme.
Per OEC, the US's largest commodity export sector is "mineral resources", almost entirely in energy (oil, coal, etc.). The US is underperforming as a primary producer for regulatory reasons, but there isn't much under the ground that can't be found in North America.
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I don't see how natural resources can be as unimportant as you're claiming. You need something to work with in order for your nation to produce shit. That means either you need the materials yourself, or some other resource you can trade to those who do have the materials. Of course natural resources can't be the only factor, history shows that sometimes people with more resources wind up losing. But to say it isn't an important factor at all ("not a primary or even secondary predictor") seems like it's going too far in the other direction.
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National resources aren't the most important thing but they're certainly important. It doesn't hurt that Saudi Arabia has a gazillion barrels of crude. Back in the 1930s they were almost totally irrelevant, oil put them on the map. Nor is the US disadvantaged by having enormous reserves of oil, coal, iron and fertile soil.
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That’s clearly part of it but America also has an entrepreneurial spirit that Europe does not. By 1990, Europe had almost caught up to the United States. But since then the US has grown and grown while Europe has stagnated. That has nothing to do with WWII and everything to do with Europe’s self destructive socialist tendencies.
I'm perfectly willing to blame at least half of that stagnation on US foreign policy specifically. Not just because the American defense umbrella allows for shambolic spending on social concerns instead of industrial and research concerns, but primarily because they engaged in very specific direct and indirect actions to prevent European economic activity outpacing that of the USA. And they did so in conjunction with the USSR, ironically enough.
I don't blame the Americans for wanting to stay on top, nor am I deluded enough to think that Europeans are blameless, but the idea that Europe's incapable of embracing entrepreneurship is silly given that it was the literal birthplace of the industrial revolution.
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Wholly willing to believe that culture has an effect, or that culture and prosperity can interact in positive or negative loops.
But I think the point still stands that people are willing to imitate American culture for precisely as long as they think it will make them rich, and that the ‘liberalism reliably causes prosperity’ thesis is not as strong as people sometimes make it out to be.
On a separate point, Britain still has a pretty entrepreneurial culture - we make lots of startups. But almost all of them go to the USA. Partly because of regulation, but also because that’s where all the investor funding is. Prosperity begets prosperity. Poverty begets cautiousness.
On a separate, separate note I think Europe’s 1990s prosperity was a dead cat bounce, caused by opening the country up to wild financialism and selling off everything to wealthy foreign buyers. Not all of it - beating socialism and the unions clearly had an effect. But not nearly enough to become America.
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Canada and Mexico have many of those same advantages but are still less prosperous than the US.
Maybe. My impression is that Canada is colder, more impassable and has less resources than its more prosperous cousin, but is still reasonably ok. And that Mexico is largely arid and not over blessed with natural resources. Someone with more geographic knowledge is welcome to jump in.
But look at Britain or Western Europe. You can say that they fell into disrepair as they became less liberal, or you could say that people were less willing to tolerate a liberal culture as they became less prosperous.
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