Outlaw,
1. I completely agree that the Financial Crisis and Great Recession laid bare the increasing inequality of American society as well as the impacts of globalization, as lower-skilled and lower-earning Americans had relied upon real estate speculation to achieve the “American Dream”. As Thomas Friedman observed: “If you were born in Minnesota in the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s, you needed a plan to fail…today, you need a plan to succeed.”
2. The Russian Federation became the successor state of the Soviet Union, and it would not make sense to either apportion the UNSC permanent seat among the former SSRs nor to transfer the seat to say Ukraine or Belarus. Without Russia on the UNSC, the UN will resemble the LON and start breaking down.
3. The UPR has never been used by the GA to override a SC veto, nor can I see it compelling military action. The UN is a forum for diplomatic resolution of conflicts and a coordinator of international aid; it has no ability to coerce the great powers either diplomatically or militarily. I could write over 10,000 characters on its “failures” in the 20th Century…
4. The fact that the United States deplores the mass murder and other crimes in Africa, the Balkans and the Middle East, does not mean that it is responsible for intervening. Was the United States also responsible for mass murder in China under Mao or in Afghanistan by the Soviet Union or in Chechnya by Russia? If the United States is to be the “world’s policeman” then it should receive compensation for this burden and the Chinese and Russians should disarm, no? Many feared ethnic and sectarian violence would break out as the Eastern Bloc crumbled, although the Soviet republics received more attention because of the reasonable possibility of nuclear-armed warlords springing up throughout Central Asia. As for Yugoslavia, you were dealing with a unitary authoritarian state imposed on a variety of ethno-religious groups that had been warring for centuries, and which had “unfinished business” left over from World War II.
I find it difficult to reconcile your service during the Cold War with your naiveté with respect to American foreign policy. I am not trying to offend you, but you seem blind to shades of gray.
- In World War I, the United States allied with four empires, including one that had committed genocide (Belgium)
- In World War II, the United States allied with an aggressive and genocidal empire (Soviet Union)
- During the Cold War, the United States supported or cooperated with many non-democratic anti-communist states, including ones that committed genocide (Pakistan, Indonesia) and ones that used WMDs on civilians (Iraq)
During all three periods above, the United States was avowedly acting in its own national interests, on behalf of liberal democracy and against non-democratic aggression.
Yet the United States government compromised its liberal and democratic principles in order to achieve its main objectives, and of course, no state policy can be pursued without a degree of corruption and selfishness by those tasked with executing it.
After all, was Great Britain's World War II legacy the defense of liberal democracy against the worst barbarian to conquer Europe? Or was it heroic self-defense and ruthlessly preserving its Empire at the expense of its allies and those peoples it swore to protect (e.g. the Poles and Czechoslovaks)?
Germany today is an instance where the American national interest and commitment to promoting liberal democracy have come together. Yet for Western Europe, Japan and to a lesser extent Taiwan and South Korea (initially authoritarian) to be priorities, other seemingly less important countries were sacrificed.
5. Germany’s balance of trade surplus is not merely a product of its model of industrial relations, culture of consensus and embrace of automation; it is also derived from Germany having adopted the Euro, which is far lower compared to other major curries than the Deutsche Mark would be.
Adversarial industrial relations in the United States and resistance on the part of workers to accept automation, were headwinds that were thoroughly documented in the 1970s and 1980s during the rise of West Germany and Japan, when the latter seemed poised to occupy a more powerful position in the world than in 1941.
No American presidential candidate or sitting president can tell the people the truth about industrial or manufacturing jobs in the United States, nor do the term limits allow a lengthy and costly strategy of retraining and education to be implemented.
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