Neither of which will give you a clue about defense spending since that's not the job of a governor of CEO.
Also, does that mean that I should assume he won't try to repeal PPACA? ;)
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Neither of which will give you a clue about defense spending since that's not the job of a governor of CEO.
Also, does that mean that I should assume he won't try to repeal PPACA? ;)
Obama has at least lived the last four years entrenched in the reality of foreign policy and IR, with a real record.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Romney's previous positions don't matter much, beyond his own ambitions. He's flipped on practically every issue since his run for governorship, then in the (R) primaries, and again for general election.
This third debate should be very interesting.
Plenty of governors dabble in foreign policy. He did not.Quote:
Originally Posted by wiggin
His base would kill him if he didn't try, just like Obama had to try to close Guantanamo. Remind me what happened to the latter.
And yet you viewed Obama's lack of foreign policy experience as a positive in '08...Quote:
Originally Posted by GGT
I did not. I just didn't agree with McCain's foreign policy and hawkish military approach. Don't revise my opinions to fit yours, thank you very much. :mad:Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
I'm pretty sure you said his lack of experience was a good thing.
Of course. Defense is one of the key parts of government I actually support. The whole idea of government is to keep us safe from internal and external threats. Wasteful spending on public transportation is pork. While defense can be pork at least it fulfills one of the core purposes of the government.Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Glint
That being said... I'm actually in favor of some defense cuts. If we weren't in such a horrific debt crisis I might have a different opinion but right now we just can't afford to keep going like we are. Everything needs to be cut at least a little bit.
From the diary of Urho Kekkonen, translated by yours truly:Quote:
Originally Posted by EyeKhan
The public opinion in particular is I think poignant 50 years later. Lewkowski feels good (note: feels) about his country partly because he knows there are so many nuclear arms, so many ships, so many carriers, ready to answer his call. Noises have to be made to placate these feelings and desires. America is too big a nation to ever have learned the lessons of Paasikivi, and this is what you're left with. Hope you didn't want freeways or health care, bombs are what your fellow Americans are willing to pay for, nothing more.Quote:
K(ennedy) seems like a very sensible and rational lad, knows what ought be done but cannot. The historical legacies (Berlin, Laos, etc.) are overwhelming for him, as are the general and press opinions of the USA. USA made her military pacts at a time when she had a strangle-hold on military issues, but now the tables are different and USA has advanced too far eg Laos and S-Vietnam. Cannot hold her positions, should get out, cannot, the whole system comes crashing down if backs down anywhere, and the national opinion won't stand for it either. Only here does one see the difficulty USA is in.
The "lesson" won't be a permanent one, but it's highly unlikely the US will occupy another country for the foreseeable future. There's too much resistance to the idea, even from the hawks. Remember that even Reagan didn't try to occupy anyone due to the legacy of Vietnam. It took nearly three decades from the end of Vietnam for the US to try to seriously occupy someone.
Doesn't mean there won't be another Kosovo style action in Iran or elsewhere.
We could face whatever you want; there won't be any public support for an occupation.
Kosovo wasn't an occupation.
It was, just not by the US. :noob:
A question: does Romney have to take a very different position from Obama's in the matter of defense spending? I'd have thought the "do more with less but better tech" spin would sit well with most republicans as well as the undecided.
Well, he's getting attacked now for having a defense/foreign policy too similar to Obama's...
Yeah but I thought that was only because some people imagine it's a bad thing to be seen as being similar to your opponent on any issue and that it may thus jeopardise his chances of winning; he could thumb his nose at the pundits and spin it in a more positive way.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
What would he gain from doing that?
I guess that makes sense if you accept you have to spend every dollar you possibly can on defense. Do you know how much of GDP is spent on British military?Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
I think this hinges on how you define need, right? I think most Americans really like having a military that can spank any country we tangle with in the world, so we're happy to fund that with our tax dollars. But is that really what we are buying or do we have much more than that right now - like weapons systems we're never likely to use or intended for a style of warfare that just won't happen ever again? I recall a decade or so ago the idea of sizing our military to fight two smallish wars simultaneously, though I'm not sure that was intended to cover occupation/ nation building too. But do we need to be able to do that for defense?Quote:
Defence needs are almost infinite since you're not just fighting today's battles but preparing for (and trying to avoid) tomorrows.
Sure but capable of finding a way to spend it isn't the same as needing it. Certainly the US military isn't just for defense, we use it to project power around the world to protect our national interests. And here we have another uncertain term - what are our national interests? Are the interests we protect really in the interests of our nation? That's a huge discussion all by itself I guess.Quote:
The US could double its defence budget tomorrow and the Pentagon would find a way of spending it - and there'd probably be less soldier deaths in the next conflict as a result.
Yeah, its like saying Obama's doing a good job.... Differentiation is the key to election - what do we get by electing Romney that we don't currently get with Obama already? Romney should have come up with more ways to differentiate his policy from Obama's rather than agreeing so much.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Is there anyone in this country that's going to vote against Obama because of Obama's foreign policy?
The Reagan administration appears to have been vastly more competant than the Bush Administration (not a difficult achievement, I know). I'm not sure you can fairly chalk it up to Vietnam syndrome. Not sure who the US might have occupied back then, but Reagan would not have gone out looking to make an example of a country the way the neocons thought they could with Iraq. The war of choice thing in Iraq was such a bad idea it boggles the mind - probably Afghanistan too though we'll never really know how that could have gone if it was handled better in the beginning. On the other hand both those wars went/ have gone much better than Vietnam did in every respect, excepting for the internal politics. If there is Vietnam syndrome, we've kicked it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Not me. You?Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Nicaragua and Grenada (both of which we attacked, directly or indirectly) come to mind.Quote:
Originally Posted by EyeKhan
That's my point. There's no reason for Romney to push at foreign policy; it won't get him any votes.Quote:
Originally Posted by EyeKhan
I'm curious as to why the dodge by Obama and Romney about "getting the call that Israeli bombers are on the way to Iran..." Its a hypothetical (never fun) but what's the problem? Just say "We support Israel and if they feel like this is the only way to stop a nuclear Iran we will back them diplomatically and politically." Not seeing the big deal here.
What does it cost America to green light military activity by our allies against Iran?
Except your current military is like twice what you'd need if you only wanted to defend American soil.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lewkowski
Defending American soil in an era of aviation requires more then just sitting on American soil.Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Glint
In any event I think we likely agree that America should cut some defense spending, though you probably think it should be far more drastic. My point was that it makes absolute sense for someone to value government spending on military but dislike government spending on public transportation.
All you really need is enough nukes to make anyone who attacks you seriously miserable and maybe enough of a fleet, army and air force to retake any American overseas holdings that someone might try their luck with but aren't really worth using nukes over. And a few surface ships and destroyers to protect sea lanes.Quote:
Defending American soil in an era of aviation requires more then just sitting on American soil.
Not necessarily, I'm just pointing out that if you think defending America is one of the few things government should be doing, what you actually have is a military that is designed to do far, far more than that.Quote:
In any event I think we likely agree that America should cut some defense spending, though you probably think it should be far more drastic.
It also makes absolutely no sense to say they dislike government spending, but being perfectly OK with a military machine capable of taking on everyone else in the world three times over.Quote:
My point was that it makes absolute sense for someone to value government spending on military but dislike government spending on public transportation.
We did occupy Grenada, didn't we? It's a teeny tiny place, though. Nicaragua would have been a much bigger deal. I think supporting the contras was a much better way to throw a wrench in the Sandinista state than invading. Was that Vietnam syndrome or was that good sense by the Reagan administration?Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Probably more than twice.Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Glint
Reagan wasn't known for his pragmatism or willingness to negotiate. He knew Congress wouldn't allow him to do anything more (in fact, Congress didn't let him do what he did, i.e. Iran-Contra). We "occupied" Grenada for 2 months. We also didn't invade Lebanon after hundreds of our troops were killed there. Reagan didn't do much when Libyan intelligence took down the plane over Lockerbie. And we obviously didn't invade Iran after the hostage crisis.Quote:
Originally Posted by EyeKhan
Noted on all this stuff. Here's an interesting thought experiment - what do you think the first term GW Bush Administration would have done in response to all of these cases?Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Bush was profoundly changed by 9/11. Before then, he was a borderline isolationist. The only one of those situations he might have acted differently on would be Lebanon due to the loss of American lives. And the president, regardless of his own beliefs, must still take into account the views of the Congress and the public. There was absolutely no appetite for a long-term military conflict in the '80s. Reagan was attacked for being a war-mongerer and he didn't even really do anything.Quote:
Originally Posted by EyeKhan
Wow, you're saying you know (or remember) my POV better than I do? :donkey:Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
2008 meant McCain vs Obama. On foreign policy, "experience" included their senate voting history on invading Iraq, and whether they embraced the Bush Doctrine. It also meant Palin vs Biden, and their "experience" with global military events.
That's because Obama's policies were, in many ways, Bush Lite. Both the liberal left and the libertarian right were displeased. But that's what happens when our electorate is so polarized, and governing from the center can be made to look bad.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
US military spending in 2010 represented 46% of world's military spending. Second place belong to China with 6%. Why is that a nation needs to spend 7 times more than it's potential rival? Does it say something about spending efficiency? This spending is so high that it would take only a cut of 5% in US military spending to fund a trip to Mars.
Ironically with all the US debt, government would be paying interests that are very similar to US spending before 2020. It has been told that it is not a problem, that US has no debt problem as US owes money to itself, that the FED can print as much money as US government needs. According to UBS, US and UK are the nations with higher risk of hyperinflation. If we see yearly QE less than 20% of the government expenditures or less than $720 billion for a period of one year that would still be not hyper-inflationary.
Japan's deficit will be about 41% of it's expenditures in 2012 according to the Budget for FY2012 by the Ministry of Finance. It seems that most of the deficit will be funded by the QE that BOJ runs at $374 billion. Hyperinflation could happen in Japan at any time. But US debt is sensitive to Japanese economy. It could easily take the U.S. financial system and U.S. dollar down with it. That's because the U.S. depends on Japan to fund its own debt binge. Japan is slowly edging toward its own version of a “fiscal cliff” as legislation needed to sell bonds for this fiscal year’s budget languishes in a split Diet, suggesting the government could run out of money by the end of October. What will they do?
From a macroeconomic point of view, government spending is a valve of liquidity. But it is funded with debt, not taxes. Argentina already tried expanding its economy with debt on Falkland's war in 1982 and it ended up with a hyperinflation in 1989, where people starved in a country that produces meat and fruits.
Military spending efficiency is hard to measure as it can only be put to the test in a war. Instead if money was spent on healthcare, the efficiency of spending would be very visible. So military spending has the inconvenience of being out of public scrutinity, and therefore very likely to be subject to corruption.
Triggering a war to increase spending even more is easy. Japanese did it in the 1930s where they planned a self-inflicted attack in Manchuria, that was uncovered later. The intention was to make population to support war by victimizing itself, a victimization trick the nazis used too in their propaganda.
Wars are a cock fight where the poor put the casualties, the middle class puts the money, and a few people become richer. It is a cock fight, a sport, were hooligans can easily be brought to the lines with propaganda. But in the end, national economy will suffer the impact of the game.
You get no argument from me on any of this....Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Conversely, Carter was criticized for not being "tough enough" during the Iranian hostage crisis, and being too "Green" on energy. Reagan won election on the heels of the oil embargo, newly constructed EPA standards, and the fight between domestic and foreign auto manufacturing. Economic Malaise of that era was directly tied to an expanding -- and unstoppable globalization. Carter's administration bore the brunt of all that, politically.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
I reckon twice in terms of numbers, more than twice in terms of budget.Quote:
Originally Posted by EyeKhan
Does anyone actually believe we'd need 700k troops to defend the US? :noob: Let's be honest here, no major power, especially a naval power, has troops just to defend itself.Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Glint
Of course not. But what's at the root of that little exchange is Lewkowski reconciling his belief in small government with his support for defense spending by saying one of the government's roles is to defend the nation. I'm just pointing out the the military the US has is far, far bigger and more capable than it needs to be do that, so if he really wanted to be consistent he would support cutting the DoD budget by half or more.
Some info you may consider relevant:Quote:
Originally Posted by GGT
Source: George Soros. http://www.georgesoros.com/interview...economic_theo/Quote:
I have formulated a specific hypothesis for the crash of 2008 which holds that it was the result of a “super-bubble” that started forming in 1980 when Ronald Reagan became President of the United States and Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. The prevailing trend in the super-bubble was also the ever-increasing use of credit and leverage; but the misconception was different. It was the belief that markets correct their own excesses. Reagan called it the “magic of the marketplace”; I call it market fundamentalism. Since it was a misconception, it gave rise to bubbles. So the super-bubble was composed of a number of smaller bubbles -- and punctuated by a series of financial crises. Each time the authorities intervened and saved the system by taking care of the failing institutions and injecting more credit when necessary. So the smaller bubbles served as successful tests of a false belief, helping the super-bubble to grow bigger by reinforcing both credit creation and market fundamentalism.
You sure it didn't start in 1776 with the popularization of capitalism? :noob: