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DSL, I hope, from the link at the top of this page, you can get to the entire NYT's Opinion Piece. It illuminates the basis of your strong negative reaction to the post I made calling for the US and NATO to present a unified front to dissuade Putin from moving forward with his grand strategy. You called it boomer neocon bull-shit or some such characterization. At face, it correctly identifies roadblocks to reform within the R party and probably represents your views. Yes, the Republican Party needs a remake. So does US FP and grand strategy. I don't support the idea that Republican Party conservatism be defined by neoconservatives and the hawkish FPs they advocate for.
My conservatism involves understanding that the rest of the world does affect how we exist and it is in our national interest to shape that. I'm no supporter of the Neocons. Bush/Cheney's forays into the ME and SWA to do that were monumental failures. That approach involved pushing for war or regime changes. In the end, it produced vast regions of the ME that are ungovernable and ripe for take-over by extremists. If these extremists do manage to govern in a 12th century sort of way, that will likely do nothing more than cause the collapse of economic activity aggravating an already restless governed.
Bush Cheney Neoconservationism also brought about long lasting strategic disadvantages for the US. One of it's major drawbacks involved the idea of giving countries like Libya, Iraq and others that rose up during the Arab Spring "back to the people." Those "people" had no ambition to run their "liberated" nations. As such, the ME now contains millions of impoverished refugees without food or work. That FP has precipited a dramatic shift away from America's ability to shape global outcomes in it's favor and towards China.
In the aftermath of the gulf wars and collapse of Libya the US and it's allies in these "liberations" should have made it easy for companies to expand there and start producing things which would have improved the standard of living and lifted the quality of life for the people living their. Same for Afghanistan. Instead, we left it to the "liberated" who didn't give a shit or had other priorities for the people they governed. China rushed in to do that building. That country has done the same thing with the Panama Canal, Africa, and multiple countries in South America by creating mega port cities for them. They aren't fighting wars and killing people off. China is spending money to create access and control of strategic resources for them, denying access to the West.
China is setting themselves up to dominate the world's shipping and markets while the US stands by watching and doing nothing. We had 20 years of war, trillions spent, and we got absolutely nothing from it. Strategic bases, strategic cities, and strategic ports would have been nice to have for that price. You might ask, what dopes this have to do with my perceived need for the US and NATO to resist Putin's Grand strategy by defending Ukraine? To deal effectively with China, the US needs to first demonstrate to the rest of the world's nations that the US is capable of defending democratic principals. Defending Ukraine against the expansion of Soviet Style governance in Eastern Europe is key to doing that.
My conservatism involves understanding that the rest of the world does affect how we exist and it is in our national interest to shape that. I'm no supporter of the Neocons. Bush/Cheney's forays into the ME and SWA to do that were monumental failures. That approach involved pushing for war or regime changes. In the end, it produced vast regions of the ME that are ungovernable and ripe for take-over by extremists. If these extremists do manage to govern in a 12th century sort of way, that will likely do nothing more than cause the collapse of economic activity aggravating an already restless governed.
Bush Cheney Neoconservationism also brought about long lasting strategic disadvantages for the US. One of it's major drawbacks involved the idea of giving countries like Libya, Iraq and others that rose up during the Arab Spring "back to the people." Those "people" had no ambition to run their "liberated" nations. As such, the ME now contains millions of impoverished refugees without food or work. That FP has precipited a dramatic shift away from America's ability to shape global outcomes in it's favor and towards China.
In the aftermath of the gulf wars and collapse of Libya the US and it's allies in these "liberations" should have made it easy for companies to expand there and start producing things which would have improved the standard of living and lifted the quality of life for the people living their. Same for Afghanistan. Instead, we left it to the "liberated" who didn't give a shit or had other priorities for the people they governed. China rushed in to do that building. That country has done the same thing with the Panama Canal, Africa, and multiple countries in South America by creating mega port cities for them. They aren't fighting wars and killing people off. China is spending money to create access and control of strategic resources for them, denying access to the West.
China is setting themselves up to dominate the world's shipping and markets while the US stands by watching and doing nothing. We had 20 years of war, trillions spent, and we got absolutely nothing from it. Strategic bases, strategic cities, and strategic ports would have been nice to have for that price. You might ask, what dopes this have to do with my perceived need for the US and NATO to resist Putin's Grand strategy by defending Ukraine? To deal effectively with China, the US needs to first demonstrate to the rest of the world's nations that the US is capable of defending democratic principals. Defending Ukraine against the expansion of Soviet Style governance in Eastern Europe is key to doing that.
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