I diasgree with both those
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Originally Posted by
Bob's World
Have you considered in the alternative how we would have treated these same countries if they did not have Nukes?
Would we have invaded Iraq if we knew they had a nuclear device? I somehow doubt we would have.
Would we have held at the Pakistan border for several years like we did if they did not have Nukes? Again, I suspect not.
What's happened has happened so there si no way to prove either of us right or wrong but I pretty strongly believe that Iraq would have been a target regardless and I suspect that the size, population and location (thus its resupply routes) of Pakistan has far more to do with the 'holding at the border' -- everything but the UAVs holding, that is...
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Right now I believe we create the perception that if you are not willing to get on board "team USA", you better have a nuke or prepare to be boarded.
Nor do I agree with that; while I do not question there are paranoids who believe that, I doubt most nations do
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...They did not do this, I suspect to French vessels. So we went out and built a Navy so that we could have some respect on the high seas.
Actually, we built that Navy because New England shipowners were screaming about losses to Pirates in the Caribbean and off the US coast and because the French were having a tiff with the British and the French, not the British were capturing -- not stopping and impressing from -- US ships. The British were not at that time a problem -- that came later in the British / French war and after we had finished the Quasi-War, or the Naval War With France.
Need to keep your history straight or your future may go off on a tangent... ;)
won't argue on the 1800 Navy stuff
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Originally Posted by
Ken White
What's happened has happened so there si no way to prove either of us right or wrong but I pretty strongly believe that Iraq would have been a target regardless and I suspect that the size, population and location (thus its resupply routes) of Pakistan has far more to do with the 'holding at the border' -- everything but the UAVs holding, that is...Nor do I agree with that; while I do not question there are paranoids who believe that, I doubt most nations doActually, we built that Navy because New England shipowners were screaming about losses to Pirates in the Caribbean and off the US coast and because the French were having a tiff with the British and the French, not the British were capturing -- not stopping and impressing from -- US ships. The British were not at that time a problem -- that came later in the British / French war and after we had finished the Quasi-War, or the Naval War With France.
Need to keep your history straight or your future may go off on a tangent... ;)
Since you were there, and I wasn't ;)
However, as to the others, I stand by my assessment; and suspect many around the globe have the same perception. Certainly the leadership of NK and Iran had that take-away.
Your prerogative, Mi Coronel
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Originally Posted by
Bob's World
Since you were there, and I wasn't ;)
Indeed -- you shoulda been in the Old Corps. :D
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However, as to the others, I stand by my assessment; and suspect many around the globe have the same perception. Certainly the leadership of NK and Iran had that take-away.
I'm not at all sure of that but I am quite sure they knew what would rattle western cages. :wry:
India and Pakistan are self fulfilling prophecies. I'm still unconvinced that North Korea really has an operational nuke and the open source evidence is mixed at best. Iran is Iran and the Persian Empire cannot be restored unless they have at least the potential for a nuke. Lotta gray out there... :cool:
What is the end state you are seeking?
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Originally Posted by
marct
In Weberian, ideal typical terms, you can innovate in an adaptive market place or you can domesticate your market population.
I guess what I was in-artfully arguing for was a clean edge for where Deterrence as a foreign policy tool ends and either internal regulation and laws or external purely humanitarian concerns begin. If the point to the exercise was to define what activities we want to deter then we have to define what the objective of the deterrence was. To me, that objective was deterring externally based threats to the political and economic stability of the United States. If you are looking to rid the world of all its evils then you probably need to start a new religion since good and evil are normally their purview.
At the corporate level, where the aim is profit, if they work to manipulate the population for profit, as in the American preference for “Branded” products like McDonalds rather than the local mom and pop hamburger joint or diner (if you can even find one anymore) then I think you are stretching the concept a bit. Where corporations involve themselves in the internal matters of other countries we arguably have a greater interest.
Taking the “why should I care” argument to the extreme we have the Nuclear power. Taking the example of Pakistan the question is, why should I care if Pakistan has nuclear weapons UNLESS they have a delivery method that threatens the US. If they are just a regional threat, what are the United States’ regional interests? If my concern is the weapons falling in the wrong hands, then I offer assistance in securing them or I keep my ISR assets on them prepared to destroy them should they move (Yeah, I know, tall order). But again, it has to come down to “why should I care – what is the threat to me?” I understand that there are always second and third order effects, many of them unforeseeable, but you have to have a focus. Otherwise we really do become Team America – World Police. And we cannot afford that. The weight of it on our budget will destroy us.
Good post. Inattentiveness is its own punishment...
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Originally Posted by
marct
...the net result has been to seriously damage the US economy; if these actions had been taken at the instigation of a foreign government, it would have been a causus belli
True. It really is. Sad, too...
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This is the type of thing I mean by "domestication of the market". It reduces competition, innovation and, ultimately, the ability to produce new products.
Again true and sad -- the really sad thing about it is more than adequate historical record of this basic fact -- and still we continue. :mad:
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Been there, done that and all you get is the same silliness as ever :D.
Yes -- and the US as religion is no better than the others, as this aptly illustrates:
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How about when corporations use other nations as a testing ground for new drugs or sources of raw material with no concern for the people living there? ... it's...the simple observation that if your family is hurt by a US company, you will be anti-US.
Magazine worth purchasing but pricy... ~17USD
From this month's HBR (this is the executive summary) by Gary P. Pisano and Willy C. Shih: Restoring American Competitiveness:
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• Thanks to destructive outsourcing and faltering investment in research, the U.S. has lost or is on the verge of losing its ability to develop and manufacture a slew of high-tech products.
• To address this crisis, government and business must work together to rebuild the country’s industrial commons —the collective R&D, engineering, and manufacturing capabilities that sustain innovation. Both must step up their funding of research and encourage collaborative R&D initiatives to tackle society’s big problems. And companies must overhaul the management practices and governance structures that have caused them to make destructive outsourcing decisions.
• Only by rejuvenating its high-tech sector can the U.S. hope to return to the path of sustained growth needed to pay down its huge deficits and raise its citizens’ standard of living.
From page 117:
The section heading is
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The World is Not Flat
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More often than not, a particular industrial commons will be geographically rooted. For instance, northern Italy is home to a design commons that feeds, and is fed by several design-intensive businesses, including automobiles, furniture, apparel, and household products. The mechanical engineering commons in Germany is tightly coupled to the country's automobile and machine tool industries. The geographic character of industrial commons helps to explain why companions in certain industries tend to cluster in particular regions-a phenomenon noted by Michael Porter and other scholars. Being geographically close to the commons is a source of competitive advantage.