Trump cynically floats pardoning Snowden, Dems split on considering it

[Silvanus]

I would argue that as a general rule, the top consideration is self-continuation; I would classify that separately from self-interest, although there is significant overlap. If we assume as axiomatic that countries will have enemies, then any country has a duty to maintain sufficient strength to ensure that its enemy(-ies) cannot overwhelm it. This then sets us a notional boundary between maintaining sufficient power to be secure, and needless self-aggrandisement. Coercion of other states may be justifiable for the former but not the latter.

But where exactly is that boundary, in the endless unknowables of the future?

I appreciate all of this in principle. But when we're currently looking at the United States, a country whose military spending dwarfs the rest of the planet combined, I find this justification rings hollow. Sufficient strength is not under serious threat. Perhaps, in centuries to come, a geopolitical situation may arise in which the US is closer to parity with other major powers, and it'd be safer for them to have a few proxies around.... is this distant, speculative situation enough to justify the enormous human cost here and now? I'd say definitely not.

Besides, if we create these situations by destabilising other countries, they don't tend to be reliable. In general, through these actions the US achieves fleeting economic and military gain, not security for centuries to come.

Would our descendants really thank our moral decency if in 50 years it meant their way of life and sovereignty were in mortal peril - and likely also the values we intended to uphold?

Well, we have something of a case study (or the closest we're likely to get) in... Imperialism. The same justifications floated around for the European monarchies to keep their Imperial outposts all around the world, economically exploiting the native populations, conscripting them, selling them into slavery etc. This too was justified on the basis of the European countries' continued prosperity and security in centuries to come.

I don't thank my ancestors for being a part of that, no. The values we intend to uphold aren't really "values" so much as naked selfishness if we deny them to others in order to horde them for ourselves.

And I'm entirely in your corner when it comes to a purely moral or ethical deliberation and that the current way leads to some truly terrible acts that often causes harm or death to lots of innocent people.

My dilemma in this discussion is a bit like the discussion around Pacifism. On a strictly ethical level I'm all for non-violence and refusal to use violence as a tool, but on a practical level I can also see that it is not a feasible ideology to hold onto as all it takes is for someone to decide to use violence and everyone else will either have to break their own ideology or be forced to submit. This is pretty much the same: intervention via covert action, military or economic means into non-hostile states is terrible and it'd be better if no one did it. But I'd rather that western democracies (even barely functional ones like the USA) do these things further themselves and thwart the ambitions of nations like China or Russia who are much, much worse and wouldn't hesitate to fuck Western nations up if they got the chance.

I can see that justification, but I think it's been inflated into a false binary, and used to justify some terribly unnecessary stuff. There are other (diplomatic) approaches for checking the aggression of Russia and China that have a greater track record than trying to install a sympathetic government by force.

The latter can even backfire so spectacularly that it strengthens our geopolitical enemies. Look at Iran, or Cuba.

 

[Eacaraxe]

Don't get me wrong, the last thing I want to do is convince you to change your opinion. People like you are absolutely vital to form a counterweight to the ruthless arseholes who'd burn their way through any number of other people for a few dollars, and that important social role should be cherished. I'm just really saying I kind of think we also need some ruthless arseholes prepared to burn their way through other people, otherwise we stand the risk of becoming the mostly inoffensive people who get overrun.

Condescension aside, again, you still fail to address my whole-ass point: we manufactured our own enemies through the very mechanisms you describe as necessary to fight them. This is the broken window fallacy in action.

The Middle East was never stable. Except perhaps when the Ottomans ran it...Even had the Americans, British and French sat out the Middle East...

...and what happened at the end of World War I that has been the root cause of almost all ethno-national and sectarian violence since? Might it be the result of the Allied powers partitioning the Ottoman empire along geographic mandates and protectorates with arbitrarily-chosen monarchies, regardless of tribal, ethnic, or sectarian identity, rather than allowing the Arabs to self-determine at war's end as was agreed upon?

 

[Agema]

I appreciate all of this in principle. But when we're currently looking at the United States, a country whose military spending dwarfs the rest of the planet combined, I find this justification rings hollow. Sufficient strength is not under serious threat. Perhaps, in centuries to come, a geopolitical situation may arise in which the US is closer to parity with other major powers...

The USA is already looking at parity with another major power, rapidly rushing in. Assuming I make it to an average age, I will have witnessed the entire period of US supremacy within my lifespan.

The USA will certainly be "safe" for long after. But nor can it sit back and let itself be supplanted to the point it can be threatened, either. Secondly, assuming its enemies continue to employ utterly ruthless tactics, I'm not sure there's much benefit for countries to be exposed to their unkind methods either.

Well, we have something of a case study (or the closest we're likely to get) in... Imperialism. The same justifications floated around for the European monarchies to keep their Imperial outposts all around the world, economically exploiting the native populations, conscripting them, selling them into slavery etc. This too was justified on the basis of the European countries' continued prosperity and security in centuries to come.

I don't thank my ancestors for being a part of that, no. The values we intend to uphold aren't really "values" so much as naked selfishness if we deny them to others in order to horde them for ourselves.

Yes, let's consider that case study. When the biggest crunch point came, your ancestors won. They survived to eventually win precisely because they had a huge global empire to tap for manpower, resources, and the vast merchant fleet that kept their home islands supplied when all else around had fallen. You and hundreds of millions more Europeans potentially have the values to rue imperialism only because of that victory, as defeat would almost certainly have set Europe under either fascism or Communism (depending on who won the Eastern front), both of which despised and suppressed liberalism.

 

[Agema]

Condescension aside, again, you still fail to address my whole-ass point: we manufactured our own enemies through the very mechanisms you describe as necessary to fight them. This is the broken window fallacy in action.

No, we manufactured new enemies in the process of fighting old ones.

...and what happened at the end of World War I that has been the root cause of almost all ethno-national and sectarian violence since? Might it be the result of the Allied powers partitioning the Ottoman empire along geographic mandates and protectorates with arbitrarily-chosen monarchies, regardless of tribal, ethnic, or sectarian identity, rather than allowing the Arabs to self-determine at war's end as was agreed upon?

Sure. Probably the worst error in terms of conflict was installing a brand new European colony on the eastern Mediterranean coast without the assent of the locals.

But there's no particular reason to assume they'd have all got on fine, either. Regional powers like Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia (I'm assuming SA would still have ended up a thing) would still have vied for dominance. The Sunni/Shia schism would still have existed. Countries may still have fallen to autocrats like Saddam who behaved like medieval monarchs looking to expand their fiefdoms. There could have been huge conflicts over nationalism versus pan-Arabism, and so on. Maybe they'd have used their dominance of oil to bleed us dry. Who knows?

 

[deleted20220709]

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[xmbts]

In this case it's more like a random number generator than a broken clock.

I dunno, I think broken clock is more apt, for even when it appears to be correct it's just a second long guise of correctness in the face of it's complete uselessness.

 

[Agema]

This also explains why the region was seen as a backwater by the Ottomans (and was so underdeveloped), because they never bothered building up infrastructure in a province full of seditious rebels.

To be fair, the Ottomans were by that stage hopelessly behind in general development anyway, and I suspect another major reason to ignore Palestine is there was nothing there much worth economically exploiting to justify development.

Still is nothing there really worth exploiting, unless you count the basic human capital of lots of educated immigrants, and even still that was heavily reliant on the disproportionately stupendous amount of foreign investment pumped into it by Holocaust reparations, US and Jewish aid.

 

[Silvanus]

Yes, let's consider that case study. When the biggest crunch point came, your ancestors won. They survived to eventually win precisely because they had a huge global empire to tap for manpower, resources, and the vast merchant fleet that kept their home islands supplied when all else around had fallen. You and hundreds of millions more Europeans potentially have the values to rue imperialism only because of that victory, as defeat would almost certainly have set Europe under either fascism or Communism (depending on who won the Eastern front), both of which despised and suppressed liberalism.

Firstly, let's remember that the conflict you're talking about has its ultimate roots in the violence and chauvinism of imperialism to begin with. It was competing imperialist land-grabbing and brinkmanship that made the First World War possible, which led to the second. It was nationalist myth-making (very much rooted in Imperial nostalgia) that turned Germans and Italians towards fascism in the inter-war period. And the extreme racism which characterised European fascism was rooted, partly, in imperialism.

The Second World War is not an exoneration of imperialism. The Second World War could not have occurred without it in the first place. The extended implication being that if we continue the endless exploitation of other countries for our own economic gain today, sure we might gain a strategic advantage in any future conflicts, but we also make those conflicts more likely.

We should always question the proportionality and necessity of any action, that much holds true for interference in foreign countries as well. The hard part, I think, is that we can never really tell what is proportional and in many cases destabilizing is very much an either-or prospect. You can't go lukewarm, because either you manage to topple the current government or you don't. So do you sit it out and hope someone else doesn't get to that country first? Or do you go all in and hope that the crazy colonel you are giving millions of dollars in cash and top secret military intelligence remains loyal and doesn't commit too many human rights violations? I mean, that's not an easy question to answer if the country in question has a high strategic value.

Nowhere here is the actual country in question or what its people may want given consideration. Self-determination isn't being counted for a lot here at all. It's being paid lip-service, then entirely disregarded in favour of our strategic advantage.

To answer the embedded question: you don't sit it out and hope someone else doesn't exploit it; you build international defensive treaties to prevent that happening.

 

[Agema]

Firstly, let's remember that the conflict you're talking about has its ultimate roots in the violence and chauvinism of imperialism to begin with. It was competing imperialist land-grabbing and brinkmanship that made the First World War possible, which led to the second. It was nationalist myth-making (very much rooted in Imperial nostalgia) that turned Germans and Italians towards fascism in the inter-war period. And the extreme racism which characterised European fascism was rooted, partly, in imperialism.

European countries weren't waging war against each other and forming complex patterns of alliances before the colonial era?

Obviously the second world war of our history is the product of the specific pattern of events in European (/global) development. The question that needs to be asked is a more general one, of whether comparable wars of national survival, or large, continent-wide wars, or illiberal ideologies would not have developed if Europeans had never sailed away and taken over chunks of the rest of the world. I would suggest such an argument is plainly implausible.

The Second World War is not an exoneration of imperialism.

No, it is not an exoneration of imperialism. It is an illustration of why maintaining strength can matter.

 

[Revnak]

No, it is not an exoneration of imperialism. It is an illustration of why maintaining strength can matter.

You say potato I quote Lenin.
(Sorry to butt in I don’t particularly care but I saw an opening)

 

[Silvanus]

European countries weren't waging war against each other and forming complex patterns of alliances before the colonial era?

Of course they were. But to imagine pre-colonial wars exploding into the world-consuming World War without the background of imperialism? That's a stretch. This could only have happened the way it did with multiple powerful Empires jostling for control over other (mostly unwilling) smaller countries and tracts of land-- and the way it happened is important, given the extraordinary pain of the twentieth century.

Obviously the second world war of our history is the product of the specific pattern of events in European (/global) development. The question that needs to be asked is a more general one, of whether comparable wars of national survival, or large, continent-wide wars, or illiberal ideologies would not have developed if Europeans had never sailed away and taken over chunks of the rest of the world. I would suggest such an argument is plainly implausible.

We're into the realm of speculation here (and I suppose necessarily so).

But if we're to assume that some enormous global war could easily have happened without a background of imperialism (which is far from certain, given how tremendously rare conflicts on that scale are in our own history), then we can at least say that Imperialism has not delivered us much safety and security in this timeline. It has played a part in beginning the largest conflicts in our history. That it also played a part in saving us from the problem it created is not much of a defence.

If we identify a causal factor, then the sensible thing isn't to assume that the outcome may well have been just as bad without it, and to leave that causal factor where it is.

No, it is not an exoneration of imperialism. It is an illustration of why maintaining strength can matter.

The importance of strength I don't dispute. The necessity of overriding sovereignty, denying rights, toppling democratic regimes, and invasion in maintaining that strength I dispute.

 

[Eacaraxe]

European countries weren't waging war against each other and forming complex patterns of alliances before the colonial era?

Hacking each other to itty-bitty pieces with swords and axes because two or more inbred lunatics who chug mercury and eat off lead dinnerware think God wants them to have the same bit of land, and using an argument whether or not people owe God taxes as an excuse for naked land-grabbing, isn't imperialism?

 

[Seanchaidh]

The importance of strength I don't dispute. The necessity of overriding sovereignty, denying rights, toppling democratic regimes, and invasion in maintaining that strength I dispute.

It might be good to clarify whether you two are talking about the idea of national security in its most popularly understood form or if you're also including the maintenance of power by the current ruling class(es). Because it seems to me that the question of necessity might turn on precisely that.

 

[Agema]

Hacking each other to itty-bitty pieces with swords and axes because two or more inbred lunatics who chug mercury and eat off lead dinnerware think God wants them to have the same bit of land, and using an argument whether or not people owe God taxes as an excuse for naked land-grabbing, isn't imperialism?

It is. But that's sort of the point I'm making. What advanced countries do to vulnerable ones is much like they do to other advanced ones, except that primitive ones are much easier to exploit. But if there are no vulnerable ones, they'll go for other advanced ones anyway.

Of course they were. But to imagine pre-colonial wars exploding into the world-consuming World War without the background of imperialism?

The issue at point is not that the second world war covered the globe, just that it was a point of existential crisis for a lot of countries in the context of national survival we've been discussing.

Even then, WW2 was really two parallel, simulataneous wars. The European theatre was almost entirely fought in Europe and the sea lanes: it's highly plausible a war of similar extent and devastation would have occurred in Europe had there not been colonial expansion.

 

[Agema]

It might be good to clarify whether you two are talking about the idea of national security in its most popularly understood form or if you're also including the maintenance of power by the current ruling class(es). Because it seems to me that the question of necessity might turn on precisely that.

Seems to me that the working and middle classes of a lot of nations are happy to benefit off the oppression of the working and middle classes of other nations. Even if that benefit is no more than an abstract feeling of superiority, similar to when their football team beats their rivals.

 

[Silvanus]

The issue at point is not that the second world war covered the globe, just that it was a point of existential crisis for a lot of countries in the context of national survival we've been discussing.

Even then, WW2 was really two parallel, simulataneous wars. The European theatre was almost entirely fought in Europe and the sea lanes: it's highly plausible a war of similar extent and devastation would have occurred in Europe had there not been colonial expansion.

Plausible, though entirely speculative. But as I said above, If we accept this, we're still left with the fact that in our timeline, imperialism acted as a causal factor for enormous conflict. If it acted as a causal factor in actuality, then chances are it made conflict likelier in principle. Besides, I can just as easily imagine a timeline in which Britain was able to stand against Germany due to defence treaties and strong mutual relationships it had built with Canada, India, etc.

This line of argument, though, is approaching the issue entirely from a strategic perspective, which doesn't quite get to the main moral issue of the dispute (for me, at least). Both imperialism and the interventionism of the modern US (in toppling democratic regimes, installing puppets, fomenting coups etc) represent a complete disregard for the right to self-determination for the countries in question, and an enormous human cost, which is forcibly paid by the other countries.

Do you believe speculative future strategic benefit to be of greater importance than self-determination? And how would you feel about it were the US to interfere in the UK election or have our democratically elected government ousted in order to force us into future compliance?