This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Do American on The Motte feel that the country is generally in favour of breaking from its old European alliances? I am not sure I have got that sense when visiting but I've visited only fairly D-leaning areas in recent years.
From the British/European point of view, one has the sense from current reporting that a significant rebalancing is happening, one that I would characterise as going beyond wanting to reduce American spending on e.g. Ukraine, and towards decisively breaking with European countries out of gut dislike, and beginning instead to form either a US-Russian alliance of sympathies, or if not that, then at least a relationship with Russia that is rhetorically much friendlier than that with Europe. I think the fear is starting to take root in Europe that the US would effectively switch sides in return for Russia granting it mineral rights in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine. This heel turn seems unlikely, but things are murky enough that it is worrying people.
I feel that this rebalancing is already working in a way towards achieving stated Trump goals – it certainly is succeeding in restoring Europe's appetite for military spending (underinvestment here is one thing Trump has been consistently right about but European leaders have buried their heads in the sand on, hoping he'd go away). But the current situation re Ukraine is also sending confusing signals, as it had previously seemed as though the US wanted Europe to step up and be part of a solution for Ukraine, whereas currently it seems they actively want to stop Europe from having a role in peace talks. The motive for this appears to be stopping Europe from asking terms of Russia that would delay a solution the US and Russia find jointly satisfactory, though perhaps there is more going on beneath the surface.
I did not have the impression that the American population generally has gone through this kind of Europe->Russia realignment in their hearts, Russians still being a regular foil for the good guys in movies (said movies coming from liberal-leaning Hollywood, sure). I have the impression that moving towards Russia is an aspect of foreign policy that Trump has not built domestic support for. But maybe this is wrong. Maybe the average American now thinks not only "Europe should contribute more to solve their own defence problems", but furthermore, "Europe should get its nose out of international affairs and attempt to help only when it's spoken to. We, Russia and China are in charge now."
I'm writing this without especially detailed knowledge of foreign policy, but I'm more interested here in the emotional calibration of ordinary Americans generally. What outcomes would they accept, what outcomes are they afraid of, who do they feel warm to and who not, and to what extent do they feel entirely insulated from global events, alliances and enmities?
NATO was (since the 70’s) a Disneyland vision of Europe propagated by American thinktanks and intelligence, propped up by US aid and USAID. A place for young PMC progressives to take a summer break, as real as Cabo or Cozumel.
The Ukraine war is the culmination of Europeans believing that fantasyland. A million dead with almost no gains and Nordstream 2 gone. Do not believe my country’s military/industrial decisionmakers. We cannot hold your borders locked in their postwar positions forever.
The more important question, in my eyes, is whether "the Europeans", or the EU, are even a natural geopolitical unit if the US actually draws down its support. Its scale and structure have grown way beyond the initial undertaking of intertwining the three perpetual poles of conflict (France, Germany and the UK) economically and culturally so they would never go to war against each other again, and while I would see the France-Germany axis of that project as essentially successful and stable for the foreseeable future, it's hard to understand any of the eastward expansion as anything other than driven by a mixture of American geopolitical interests (which are now being withdrawn) and the Western European industry's interest in maintaining wage pressure on their own workers (which is increasingly irrelevant as Western European industry itself becomes irrelevant, Eastern European living standards have gone up, and Arabs/Africans have become an alternative source of undercutting labour) and supported by a well-oiled deputised propaganda machine of transatlanticist media and NGOs (which is getting weakened as American soft power is eating itself and the USAID money hose has been shut off, though it has a heavy flywheel).
Without either the US stick of "we can bring you on the brink of civil war" or the US carrot of "we can ensure political stability, pay for your defense and insulate you from responsibility for any hard and unpopular decisions", it's not clear why countries like Germany or France would have any shared interests with countries like Estonia, Lithuania or Poland, which are all mooching off subsidies and still basically behaving like adversaries (between sabotaging infrastructure and demanding ever more reparations). The natural order of things in an America-free Europe may see Western Europe downsizing back to something like a Coal and Steel Plus community, which would maintain cordial relations with the great gas station in the far East, while the Baltics have to figure out for themselves how to shine the boots of the two greater powers on either side well enough that they do not just get partitioned up and invaded again. Interesting things would probably start happening along the Balkans-Greece-Turkey axis, but the rump EU parties might be able to muster enough of a peacekeeping and expeditionary force to keep the minnows down there from each other's throats (though it might be hard to save Greece from a thousand-cut death in the long run, similar to what is happening to Armenia).
The shared interest is an anti-russian alliance. Assuming americans withdraw from europe, why would western europe give up eastern europe to russia? It would be feeding the bear. Germany gave russia the chance to be a gas station, and they threw our generous offer in our face. So cold war it is. Obviously poland et al are very eager for the alliance because only we offer sovereignty. And for us, an excellent meat shield against russian aggression, should it come to that.
I don't understand why this would be a (materialistic) interest for Germany or anyone west of it. There is a spiritual interest, sure, but I contend that it was manufactured by transatlanticists. The Baltics seem to me to be a net negative, and even then Russia wasn't making any real moves against them since they joined NATO. I don't see the Russians having done anything that could be fairly interpreted as rejecting a German offer to be Germany's gas station, unless you understand such an offer to also include Russia admitting the US State Department up its rear (in Ukraine, Georgia, and domestic opposition), in which case Germany was making a bad and certainly not "generous" offer against its own interest. Germany should have considered slapping Ukraine itself after it started stealing gas meant for transit to Germany in the 2000s; instead it demurred as our Baltic "allies" did their utmost to sabotage any project to expand gas export routes that bypass it.
Correct me if I‘m wrong, but I seem to remember either you being part russian, or else you have a chomskyite view of russia as soviet union which you fondly remember as a noble altruistic project that was sadly misunderstood by the ungrateful eastern europeans who didn‘t like it.
I don‘t see how anyone else in europe can look at russia‘s behaviour these past 5 years, nay 20, nay 100, nay 300 years, and not see a threat. The unhelpful behaviour of ukraine and the baltics towards germany you highlight is motivated by one thing only : an extreme fear of russia (shared by finland, and every close neighbour of russia).
Germany, being too far away and too strong, has for now avoided russia‘s threats, but it still has eyes and ears, and it has no desire to become russia‘s neighbour and feel what those countries feel.
I was expecting russia to stop warring against its neighbours. It‘s not some obscure demand russia inadvertently missed. Russia keeps acting against Germany‘s expressed will. No argument can be construed where those wars are in line with germany‘s interests. Even a 19th century diplomat would have threatened war in retaliation: ‚you want abkhazia/donbas. What do we get for staying neutral?‘.
My most pro-Russia friend is also a Chomskyite former-Leftist who has found himself realigned as a Trumpist right winger, and I've always found the consistent position on Russia informative even if he denies it's relevant. This faction was anti-US Imperialism (pro-communist) in the 1980s and are anti-US Imperalism (anti-WEF/neoliberal Communism) now, with Russia as the noble bulwark against The West. I have to say that Putin's narrative building in this regard has been very shrewd. He's known which buttons to push.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link