>I do not carry water for any candidate for president.
Sure.
> I served as an officer in the United States Army for 34 years and was studiously nonpartisan:
These cowards hide behind their military service and use it as a shield to be able to claim impartiality while they spend all their time going after Dems like they’re a NYT writer.
>But no matter what they thought of Trump, America’s allies and our enemies did not view the 45th president as weak.
Fuck off jackass. The man literally will do whatever the last person who talked to him says, and almost always goes with what dictators and strongmen want. That’s textbook weakness.
>Meanwhile, the president’s tragic but undeniable cognitive decline means that America’s enemies are especially emboldened in the coming months.
Well last I checked he’s not the candidate now. Also if you’re worried about cognitive decline…
>The combination of the White House’s obsession with de-escalation and the president’s mental state means that our enemies and adversaries are emboldened in their common mission:
First off, de-escalation is literally one of the major goals of foreign relations, trade, anything cooperative. Also, again, I’ll take predictable over someone who eggs people on, it’s like these people think the US is completely untouchable to attack, as if 9/11 didn’t happen.
>Tear down the existing U.S.-led international order.
Literally what conservatives want under Trump, see NATO.,
>We have a sense of how Trump will respond to Iranian aggression. He frequently told me “everywhere I see problems [in the Middle East] there is Iran.” He knows what the return address is for the violence not only against Israel but also in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. He is certain to ramp up sanctions enforcement against Tehran to limit the resources available for Iran’s proxy militias and terrorist organizations.
Man if only there was some deal that at least somewhat hampered Iran.
>His potential response to Russia is less clear.
“Whatever Putin wants.” There, I solved your riddle.
>To counter Chinese economic aggression, he is certain to expand the use of tariffs and tools of economic statecraft
You mean dumbshit approaches and the guy who tore up any possible Trans Pacific Partnership involvement from the US?
…
In short, fuck off former Trump lackey.
IHateTrains123 on
The perception of weakness comes, in part, from Biden’s bias toward “containment,” “de-escalation” and the wrongheaded assumption that war and violence is based on “miscalculation” rather than aggression.
Early in his administration, the president and senior officials were at pains to define America’s “redlines” in their meetings with the leaders of Russia and China. After a summit with Putin in June 2021, President Biden reported that “the tone of the entire meeting was good, positive” as he laid out “some basic rules of the road that we can all abide.” But the reported “redlines” communicated in that Geneva meeting—such as a Russian attack on major U.S. infrastructure—seem to have been interpreted by Putin as a green light for everything else, including the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Last month, U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met outside Beijing to “maintain channels of communication and responsibly manage the relationship between the United States and the People’s Republic of China.” The White House’s readout emphasized America’s “commitment to defending its Indo-Pacific allies” and its “concern about the PRC’s destabilizing actions against lawful Philippine maritime operations in the South China Sea.” Three days later Chinese forces surrounded and rammed the flagship of the Philippine Coast Guard in what was the seventh act of Chinese aggression against the U.S. treaty ally in the month of August alone. The Biden administration responded with a sternly worded statement from a State Department spokesman.
Even worse, the theocratic dictatorship in Iran has viewed the Biden administration attempts to resurrect the Obama policy of conciliation (through the release of frozen assets and the failure to enforce sanctions) as a way to fill its coffers, intensify its proxy wars in the Middle East, and make headway toward its twin goals of expelling the United States from the region and annihilating Israel. The calls from Washington for de-escalation of the conflicts Tehran is fomenting sound to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei like license to escalate on his own terms.
[…]
We also need to ask, of course, what will President Kamala Harris do? How would she handle things?
Harris has given a single interview and has no policy page on her website, but for a window into the policies of a potential Harris administration we can look to those who advise her on foreign affairs and national security. As Jay Solomon has written in these pages, Phil Gordon—one of the architects of the 2015 Iran deal—is one of her key advisers. That, among other rumored potential hires, indicates a likely continuation of the Obama-era Democratic disposition to conciliate dictators in the Middle East such as Ayatollah Khamenei and be tough on U.S. allies such as Israel.
As far as her record as vice president, Harris has said that she was the “last one in the room” with President Biden as they executed their botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, which claimed the lives of 13 U.S. service members and 170 Afghans, and handed Bagram Airfield over to the Taliban. It was nothing short of a disaster.
But because Harris has said so little about her policy positions, she has an opportunity to acknowledge the growing danger from the axis of aggressors, recognize that the perception of weakness is provocative, and break with the Biden administration approaches of escalation management and conciliatory approach to adversaries. But it is hard to imagine that Harris will outline an approach to foreign policy substantially different from the Democratic-establishment consensus.
[…]
Regardless of the outcome of the election, the period of maximum danger may be the days between November 5, 2024 and January 20, 2025. Our enemies will see a President Biden who lacks the mental sharpness and energy to confront aggression. President Harris or Trump will confront a world in crisis.
Alas, I also suspect that crises will extend to the homefront. It’s not hard to imagine one candidate winning a narrow victory and the loser claiming that the result was fraudulent or skewed by foreign interference.
So what can we do? Support whoever is elected. Urge him or her to strengthen our nation, abandon the obsession with de-escalation, and convince the axis of aggressors that they can no longer pursue their objectives with impunity.
Never have I been more concerned about the fate of my nation—and of the free world.
!ping Foreign-policy
unoredtwo on
How am I supposed to take any of the seriously when half of it twists itself into knots redefining words in order to try to claim that adversaries don’t view Trump as weak
3 Comments
>I do not carry water for any candidate for president.
Sure.
> I served as an officer in the United States Army for 34 years and was studiously nonpartisan:
These cowards hide behind their military service and use it as a shield to be able to claim impartiality while they spend all their time going after Dems like they’re a NYT writer.
>But no matter what they thought of Trump, America’s allies and our enemies did not view the 45th president as weak.
Fuck off jackass. The man literally will do whatever the last person who talked to him says, and almost always goes with what dictators and strongmen want. That’s textbook weakness.
>Meanwhile, the president’s tragic but undeniable cognitive decline means that America’s enemies are especially emboldened in the coming months.
Well last I checked he’s not the candidate now. Also if you’re worried about cognitive decline…
>The combination of the White House’s obsession with de-escalation and the president’s mental state means that our enemies and adversaries are emboldened in their common mission:
First off, de-escalation is literally one of the major goals of foreign relations, trade, anything cooperative. Also, again, I’ll take predictable over someone who eggs people on, it’s like these people think the US is completely untouchable to attack, as if 9/11 didn’t happen.
>Tear down the existing U.S.-led international order.
Literally what conservatives want under Trump, see NATO.,
>We have a sense of how Trump will respond to Iranian aggression. He frequently told me “everywhere I see problems [in the Middle East] there is Iran.” He knows what the return address is for the violence not only against Israel but also in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. He is certain to ramp up sanctions enforcement against Tehran to limit the resources available for Iran’s proxy militias and terrorist organizations.
Man if only there was some deal that at least somewhat hampered Iran.
>His potential response to Russia is less clear.
“Whatever Putin wants.” There, I solved your riddle.
>To counter Chinese economic aggression, he is certain to expand the use of tariffs and tools of economic statecraft
You mean dumbshit approaches and the guy who tore up any possible Trans Pacific Partnership involvement from the US?
…
In short, fuck off former Trump lackey.
The perception of weakness comes, in part, from Biden’s bias toward “containment,” “de-escalation” and the wrongheaded assumption that war and violence is based on “miscalculation” rather than aggression.
Early in his administration, the president and senior officials were at pains to define America’s “redlines” in their meetings with the leaders of Russia and China. After a summit with Putin in June 2021, President Biden reported that “the tone of the entire meeting was good, positive” as he laid out “some basic rules of the road that we can all abide.” But the reported “redlines” communicated in that Geneva meeting—such as a Russian attack on major U.S. infrastructure—seem to have been interpreted by Putin as a green light for everything else, including the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Last month, U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met outside Beijing to “maintain channels of communication and responsibly manage the relationship between the United States and the People’s Republic of China.” The White House’s readout emphasized America’s “commitment to defending its Indo-Pacific allies” and its “concern about the PRC’s destabilizing actions against lawful Philippine maritime operations in the South China Sea.” Three days later Chinese forces surrounded and rammed the flagship of the Philippine Coast Guard in what was the seventh act of Chinese aggression against the U.S. treaty ally in the month of August alone. The Biden administration responded with a sternly worded statement from a State Department spokesman.
Even worse, the theocratic dictatorship in Iran has viewed the Biden administration attempts to resurrect the Obama policy of conciliation (through the release of frozen assets and the failure to enforce sanctions) as a way to fill its coffers, intensify its proxy wars in the Middle East, and make headway toward its twin goals of expelling the United States from the region and annihilating Israel. The calls from Washington for de-escalation of the conflicts Tehran is fomenting sound to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei like license to escalate on his own terms.
[…]
We also need to ask, of course, what will President Kamala Harris do? How would she handle things?
Harris has given a single interview and has no policy page on her website, but for a window into the policies of a potential Harris administration we can look to those who advise her on foreign affairs and national security. As Jay Solomon has written in these pages, Phil Gordon—one of the architects of the 2015 Iran deal—is one of her key advisers. That, among other rumored potential hires, indicates a likely continuation of the Obama-era Democratic disposition to conciliate dictators in the Middle East such as Ayatollah Khamenei and be tough on U.S. allies such as Israel.
As far as her record as vice president, Harris has said that she was the “last one in the room” with President Biden as they executed their botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, which claimed the lives of 13 U.S. service members and 170 Afghans, and handed Bagram Airfield over to the Taliban. It was nothing short of a disaster.
But because Harris has said so little about her policy positions, she has an opportunity to acknowledge the growing danger from the axis of aggressors, recognize that the perception of weakness is provocative, and break with the Biden administration approaches of escalation management and conciliatory approach to adversaries. But it is hard to imagine that Harris will outline an approach to foreign policy substantially different from the Democratic-establishment consensus.
[…]
Regardless of the outcome of the election, the period of maximum danger may be the days between November 5, 2024 and January 20, 2025. Our enemies will see a President Biden who lacks the mental sharpness and energy to confront aggression. President Harris or Trump will confront a world in crisis.
Alas, I also suspect that crises will extend to the homefront. It’s not hard to imagine one candidate winning a narrow victory and the loser claiming that the result was fraudulent or skewed by foreign interference.
So what can we do? Support whoever is elected. Urge him or her to strengthen our nation, abandon the obsession with de-escalation, and convince the axis of aggressors that they can no longer pursue their objectives with impunity.
Never have I been more concerned about the fate of my nation—and of the free world.
!ping Foreign-policy
How am I supposed to take any of the seriously when half of it twists itself into knots redefining words in order to try to claim that adversaries don’t view Trump as weak