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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Territorial annexation went out after WW 2, and for everyone not just the US, it was the decline of empires that killed it.
As for Sander, his problem is he's not looking like he's after a re-ballencing to address the rise of new powers, he seems to be after a full withdraw and ignore system.
edited 27th May '16 9:04:49 AM by Silasw
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranWhich, interestingly enough, puts him in line with classic libertarian belief, since military isolationism is part of what they preach. (If someone calls themselves a libertarian and doesn't advocate this, they're the modern version.)
Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)The Russian occupation of Crimea was such a clusterfuck that it's hard to imagine them succeeding at any kind of large-scale territorial conquest, and even if they tried, we've got thousands of tanks and shit sitting in mothballs just waiting to be hurled at them, plus a pile of nukes.
No, Russia is not a threat to anyone other than themselves and their very close neighbors. Russia could start a global war if it wanted, but it would be a suicidal one. At best it could accomplish a Taking You with Me style of victory.
edited 27th May '16 8:16:45 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"One theory I've seen more often recently is that one of the top candidates for being an economic superpower is India, as long as they can get their education system up to snuff and big enough to cover everyone. They're already beginning to pull ahead of China when it comes to the technology sector, possibly because Chinese tech companies appear to default to copying everyone else, while the Indian companies seem more interested in making new things.
X4 No but it is why Russia didn't take all of Ukraine, you need special cases these days. Russia and Crimea, China and Taiwan, Cuba and Guantanamo Bay.
You can shift a border a bit as a regional power or annex an unrecognised state, but you can't just anex a recognised country even if you are a world power, Saddam tried it as a region power and it didn't go well for him.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranEven Russia signed of on Kuwait, the vested interest for many in kicking Saddam out was maintaining the "you can't just anex a recognised country" rule. It wasn't just about kicking Saddam, getting oil and protecting allies, it was about enforcing Da Rules, because Da Rules are useful.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranIf anything, the example of Kuwait proves that you cannot just decide to annex your neighboring countries in today's world, because everyone will come down on you like a fleet of trucks. Based on that precedent, our invasion of Iraq can only be seen as an outlier, permitted because we were the biggest kid on the block and could make it stick because we said so.
edited 27th May '16 9:40:45 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Yeah Iraq isn't even an outlier, it's proof of concept, even the biggest kid around (the US) still had to play by the rules and not annex, instead you set up a new goverment that you liked, you also had to come up with a (fake) legitimate legal reason for war.
Even Bush wasn't willing to strait up say to the world "We want Iraq's stuff and none of you can stop us".
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranMost of the GOP are spineless hypocrites who put party over country.
If one of them had the balls to say outright "I may not agree with Hillary Clinton on many fundamental things, but she won't destroy the country." I'd have tremendous TREMENDOUS respect for them.
But none of them won't.
New Survey coming this weekend!Not at all, puppet governments have a tendency to eventually start having their own ideas and doing their own things, they're their own power structure and they'll often just be managed as bes tone can instead of directly controlled. The fact that the Iraqi goverment had the nominal power to not sign a status of forces agreement with the US kinda mattered, because in the end it didn't and the US left, an annexed territory doesn't get to tell the national goverment to leave.
Other examples are abundant, North Korea is a Chienase puppet and it keeps doing shit the Chinese don't want, shit it couldn't do as a directly controlled bit of China, Assad in Syria keeps fucking up and doing shit the Russian don't want.
The difference between a puppet and annexed territory is huge, it's the difference between Syria and Crimea.
Clinton doesn't need public trust to win, she just needs public hatred of Trump.
edited 27th May '16 11:16:09 AM by Silasw
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranI'm one of those guys who honestly doesn't care about having a "beer" with the President or any representatives, as I want them to get shit done.
I'll take a ruthlessly pragmatic progressive Frank Underwood, over a weak, timid, cowardly, demagogue any day of the week.
New Survey coming this weekend!There's a difference between getting things done, and getting things done that benefit the populace. In the latter category, I expert very little from Trump, and a token effort by Clinton which comes at the cost of policies and supreme court appointees that further entrench the oligarchic arrangement of American politics. Which would probably end up happening under Trump as well, though perhaps in a slightly different manner.
edited 27th May '16 11:25:20 AM by CaptainCapsase

What's wrong with a multipolar future?
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"