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ORIGINAL: vincentML

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If you and your spokesman Kaplan wish to justify the past present and future colonialism and imperialism with the completely transparent expedia of pretending that it is some sort of new improved "white man's burden" of keeping the world peace; and while pretending while it's necessary colonialist and imperialistic components and consequences are somehow magically divorced magicly under the new improved plan; then you are certainly clutching at straws.

You continue to mischaracterize the thesis of Kaplan's article by straw maning it to all the past and present evil that has attended imperialism. Either you can come up with examples where equality among nations has not reduced international relations to anarchy or you cannot. Otherwise, your ranting has become senseless and boring and will be ignored by me hereafter.

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ORIGINAL: thompsonx

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ORIGINAL: Politesub53

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ORIGINAL: YN

As Realone noted, the role of the United States has been as the English goon squad since the 1950's, a role the United States is relinquishing.

More than a few of us were laughing at that WASP idiot Kerry's statements as to how Latin America is the United State's back yard, those days are long over as well. The English inspired Middle Eastern adventures has cost the Anglo-Americans more then most of them know, and the end is nowhere in sight yet.

Laughable assertions made up and repeated by laughable people. The notion England started either WW1 or WW2 is not worthy of any comment other than to point out the idiocy of such an idea.

Par for the course for some though.

Churchill takes credit for his part in the instigation of ww2 in his book ww2 in six volums.

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By what moronic streach of the imagination do you equate russia with brazil,india and china? Wht moronic streach of imagination causes population to be the only criteria for measuring industrial growth? Has it occured to you to compar like things to like things?
If you wish to obstruct this discussion with cold war rhetoric knock your self out...I for my part will be content to point out your ignorance.

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quit projecting yr own shit on others, i was speaking up for tha ussr being a powerful nation when others said it wasnt.

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yr own moronic shit is in not seeing tha obvious. india china & brazil have become big economic powers since & have tha same population scale for similar size economies/workforces.

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back in 1990 they werent in tha same position. russia was tha biggest industrialised nation back then, many times bigger in pop & size than tha nearest rival cept tha US of A.

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I have read this clowns book and also done a little research on him...perhaps you should also.
It seems to be his,and your, opinion that only russia/ussr are the only govt capable of making bad decissions and loosing money on any given project. Then of course there is his footnoting...of course those kinds of mistakes would never happen in the u.s. or europe or china now could it cuz?

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yr strawmanning, never said there wasnt waste in other parts of tha world. point is tha scale of waste was massive in the ussr.

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until ya stop obstructing tha discussion wit yr moronic unverified shit bout sources ya dont agree wit, tha time for any sorta discussion is not anytime soon.

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I asked you to tell us what other possible purpose a democracy serves, it is not to prevent anarchy and it is in fact recognized even in the historical records.

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Your premise is that even though your thinking did not work in the past (Pax Romana, Pax Britanica etc.) and was tried by many powerful nations; clearly doesn't work at the present time, it will certainly work tomorrow if the United States does it.

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That is what I said...stalin sacrificed a consumer economy in order to win a war. After the war he turned down the mp and made his country a success. Being one of the largest world economies is hardly the definition of a looser,which seems to be where you are going with this.

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ORIGINAL: vincentML

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That is what I said...stalin sacrificed a consumer economy in order to win a war. After the war he turned down the mp and made his country a success. Being one of the largest world economies is hardly the definition of a looser,which seems to be where you are going with this.

According to Wiki, the German invasion in 1942 caused a 34% drop in Soviet GDP.

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It took ten years to get the GDP back to 1940 levels. That would be 1952 . . .

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one year prior to Stalin's death. Again, only to 1940 levels. Furthermore, much of the post war growth of the Soviet economy was based on a mercantilist filching of resources from the East Euro satellites in exchange for cheap-shit Soviet manufactured consumer goods.

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The Soviet GDP did make advances after Stalin died but never grew beyond 60% of the American GDP. So, not so wonderful and awesome as you would have us believe.

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If one compares pre bolshivic russia to post revolutionary russia one gets meaningful comparisons. When one compares the u.s. 1789-1940 to russia/ussr 1917-1940 one gets what one wants.
A link to that particular wiki article would be usefull.

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ORIGINAL: WantsOfTheFlesh

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ORIGINAL: egern
Nato was established to meet the communist 'threat', only there never was one, Russia was down and counting with 20 million dead and everything in ruins.

yeah tha ussr was hurt by ww2 but became a true superpower after that wit a massive military & industrial complex plus pretty much a financial monopoly on tha eastern bloc.

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ORIGINAL: thompsonx

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By what moronic streach of the imagination do you equate russia with brazil,india and china? Wht moronic streach of imagination causes population to be the only criteria for measuring industrial growth? Has it occured to you to compar like things to like things?
If you wish to obstruct this discussion with cold war rhetoric knock your self out...I for my part will be content to point out your ignorance.

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quit projecting yr own shit on others, i was speaking up for tha ussr being a powerful nation when others said it wasnt.

I have projected nothing. I have only pointed out the ignorance of your post.

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yr own moronic shit is in not seeing tha obvious. india china & brazil have become big economic powers since & have tha same population scale for similar size economies/workforces.

Without similar cultural and historic backgrounds your comparison fails at the most basic level.

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back in 1990 they werent in tha same position. russia was tha biggest industrialised nation back then, many times bigger in pop & size than tha nearest rival cept tha US of A.

Were you going to make a point cuz?

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ORIGINAL: thompsonx

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ORIGINAL: vincentML

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That is what I said...stalin sacrificed a consumer economy in order to win a war. After the war he turned down the mp and made his country a success. Being one of the largest world economies is hardly the definition of a looser,which seems to be where you are going with this.

According to Wiki, the German invasion in 1942 caused a 34% drop in Soviet GDP.

According to the history books germany attacked russia in june of 41 not 42, by 42 the russians had proved to everyone that thay had taken the measure of the germans and were in the process of escorting those punk ass motherfuckers home in 42.

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It seem based on the idea that humans cannot live without having some sort of tough rule over them, if not, they will - what?? Tear each other to pieces? And that only violence from one quarter can stop the inter violence that would otherwise arise.

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Not violence necessarily but the threat of force.

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It is an extention to realpolitik on a geopolitical scale from Thomas Hobbes mind experiment in Leviathan in which he imagined that without a central authority man lived in a "state of nature." In that state all would be engaged in a war against all.

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Hobbes decried the absence of sovereignty this way:

"In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain, and consequently, not culture of the earth, no navigation, nor the use of commodities that may be imported by sea, no commodious building, no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force, no knowledge of the face of the earth, no account of time, no arts, no letters, no society, and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."

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I do not believe that empires are a good idea, all it means it strife on a bigger scale.

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It says nothing about good or bad. Only what is practical for stability as against anarchy.

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I do not believe that people cannot rule themselves, I think we started as tribes and still can rule ourselves in smaller units, decentralization is better than centralization.

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Modern communications and transportations that spread cultural memes around the world in a flash have placed the tribal system on the endangered species list.

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ORIGINAL: thompsonx

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I have read this clowns book and also done a little research on him...perhaps you should also.
It seems to be his,and your, opinion that only russia/ussr are the only govt capable of making bad decissions and loosing money on any given project. Then of course there is his footnoting...of course those kinds of mistakes would never happen in the u.s. or europe or china now could it cuz?

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yr strawmanning, never said there wasnt waste in other parts of tha world. point is tha scale of waste was massive in the ussr.

No strawman here...please acquaint yourself with the meaning of debate terminology.

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That you never mentioned waste in countries not the ussr was my point. Neither you nor your pimp has shown any evidence that the scale was different.

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until ya stop obstructing tha discussion wit yr moronic unverified shit bout sources ya dont agree wit, tha time for any sorta discussion is not anytime soon.

So far cuz, it is you who has posted up claims that are unsubstaniated and failed to engage a discussion.

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ORIGINAL: vincentML

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When you say if you are truly 'hegemon' why aren't your decisions final, meaning, I think, that you are somehow elected. But you are not. So there is no reason for others to take orders from the US.

The Leader always looks back to see if he has followers.

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ORIGINAL: vincentML

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I asked you to tell us what other possible purpose a democracy serves, it is not to prevent anarchy and it is in fact recognized even in the historical records.

Kaplan was not writing about democracy. That is your interjection.

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ORIGINAL: vincentML

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That to me is a quite unusual definition of the word. I think most people use it in the sense of one country ruling, like the British empire in its days.

The times they are achanging. It is a question of what is practical.

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ORIGINAL: vincentML

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If one compares pre bolshivic russia to post revolutionary russia one gets meaningful comparisons. When one compares the u.s. 1789-1940 to russia/ussr 1917-1940 one gets what one wants.
A link to that particular wiki article would be usefull.

The German invasion of World War II inflicted punishing blows to the economy of the USSR, with Soviet GDP falling 34% between 1940 and 1942.[31] Industrial output did not recover to its 1940 level for almost a decade

AND . . . . .

Throughout its history, USSR GDP (Gross Domestic Product) has been considerably lower compared to US GDP. At its highest, Soviet GDP reached around 60% of US GDP, but by 1989 it had shrunk to around half the size of US GDP

AND . . . . .

Thereafter, the Soviet Union physically transported and relocated east European industrial assets to the Soviet Union.[54]
This was especially pronounced in eastern European Axis countries, such as Romania and Hungary, where such a policy was considered as punitive reparations (a principle accepted by Western powers).[55] In some cases, Red Army officers viewed cities, villages and farms as being open to looting.[56] Other Eastern Bloc states were required to provide coal, industrial equipment, technology, rolling stock and other resources to reconstruct the Soviet Union.[57] Between 1945 and 1953, the Soviets received a net transfer of resources from the rest of the Eastern Bloc under this policy roughly comparable to the net transfer from the United States to western Europe in the Marshall Plan.[57]

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ORIGINAL: vincentML

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The article is about avoiding world anarchy through hegemony.



Yes. So who thinks we had world anarchy before US got interested, and who thinks we would have had world anarchy not without it?

In fact, what is meant by that expression?

Errrmmm . . . WW2

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ORIGINAL: thompsonx

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Nato was established to meet the communist 'threat', only there never was one, Russia was down and counting with 20 million dead and everything in ruins.

25 million dead and the most powerful military in the world and the most productive industrial process on the planet.