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You know, it's funny, while I recognize that I'm being unreasonable and likely biased when I say that this shit pisses me off. It does piss me off. I'm not sure if I would classify it as an "Eastern" or "Marxist" perspective but it does seem to me that both Orban and Dehrer seem to have failed to grasp certain fundamental tenets of western philosophy and thus the stakes being fought over.
Dhrer seems to be complaining about how the Ukrainians and various former SSRs have reacted to Russia's actions as though they were an existentiantial threat, Meanwhile I would suggest that they are quite right to do so. It's not as though Putin and his supporters have been shy about their intentions.
I find it Ironic given Dehrer's professed beliefs. He (if anyone) should appreciate stubborn resistance in the face of overwhelming odds, but he won't because he's more afraid of consequences than he is of evil. I would expect the people who accuse the Ukrainians of "making things worse" by refusing to bend the knee to their rightful Tzar, and who accuse NATO of risking nuclear war by assisting them to take an equally dim view of the residents of the Warsaw Ghetto for defying the will of their rightful Fuher. My reply to whom can be summed up in two words "fuck that".
And it exactly these sorts of sentiments that leave me feeling like a lot of people have failed to grasp certain basic tenants of western philosophy. Tenants like; how one reaps what they sow, government by consent of the governed. Simply put it's not the US that's risking escalation here, the escalation has already happened. It's not the US or even the Ukrainians who chose the sword here the Russians did, and if the If Putin decides that he'd prefer nuclear war to a world where Ukrainians participate in Eurovision the culpability for that war will lie entirely with him.
If anything, I feel like this only highlights how wrong-headed Dreher's take is, as for all his work on "resisting authoritarianism" he's ultimately taking the side of the authoritarians. What his (and your) argument essentially boils down to is that might makes right. Russians should be allowed to do as they please (up to and including invade/bomb their neighbors) because Russia is a big important country that has nukes. Anyone who objects to this position is stupid and evil for risking unnecessary war.
Where I break with Dreher and the rest of the "realpolitik" crowd is on the question of whether such a war is in fact "unnecessary". From where I'm citting, the great tragedy of WWII was not that the UK and France were willing to risk destroying Europe over a silly made-up country like Poland, the tragedy is that Patton was ordered to halt at the Rhine instead of at the Volga. If Stalin had been made to shared his ally Hitler's fate maybe it wouldn't be necessary to be having this conversation now.
Any true threat to US interests in the current geopolitical environment is always going to involve Russia, either directly or indirectly through supporting China. Taking an easy opportunity to weaken the Russian military is not just wise, it's a no-brainer on a silver platter.
It's absurd on the face of it to argue that being the top dog is somehow "not beneficial" to you.
Yes, being powerful is good. Being weak is bad.
To get into some specifics, even if the US were entirely self-sufficient (it isn't), the amount of inflation the US exports to the rest of the world through the dollar's status as the global reserve currency is hard to overstate. That's one of many things.
This era pulled most of the British population out of the rural subsistence poverty that the rest of the world was mired in, so yes.
What typically didn't happen in Rome is their population being killed and enslaved on a massive scale by a stronger neighbor, because there was none. Although later on I'm sure there were complacent Romans talking about how they should just ignore the rest of the world while Attila the Hun was ravaging their borderlands again because there wasn't enough gold in the treasury to bribe him away for the seventh time.
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