tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1903235483068862940.post8513806059335932877..comments2024-03-19T15:24:48.864-07:00Comments on Green Eagle: The Ultimate Putin Payoff?Green Eaglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13477132834757467690noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1903235483068862940.post-12858516783099437252017-01-31T00:41:46.364-08:002017-01-31T00:41:46.364-08:00I do not reckon that is the intent - Trump betrays...I do not reckon that is the intent - Trump betrays everyone for his own interests and that would include Putin - but I do think it could loosely describe the outcome.<br /><br />The issue re NATO and other alliances has received plenty of attention outside America. I'll be repeating previous remarks in part here but that's fine because this shit is important. TO AMERICA.<br /> <br />Trump doesn’t know history, he doesn’t understand the world, and he thinks the biggest gun wins, in common with his other obsessions about size. To him global alliances are like mob shakedowns 'what have done for me lately?’<br /> <br />He shares the idea common among the ill-informed that America goes around having military assets spread all over the globe out of the kindness of its heart, rather than in co-operation with allies in pursuit of America's own interests. <br />In common with much of the buffoonish American Right he does not understand multilateralism and he does not understand that permanent victory requires a permanent co-operative peace. <br /><br />The cost of American pre-eminence and thus security is those alliances and the muscle to hold them up.<br />It's not a favour to the rest of us.<br />Yes we could go spend more on military ourselves, but that would dilute US influence and give rise to more competing technology.<br /><br />The long term hazard to the US is forcing the rest of the free world to count America out in long term planning.<br />What does he imagine, that we’ll all just wring our hands? No no... we love our kids too - even if don’t imagine dating them. <br />Other arrangements will be made.<br />And in a world where a whisper shared could prevent the next 9-11 that will have immediate consequences.<br /> <br />The spending gap between the US and everyone else is huge but Russia and China are both rapidly closing the technology gap and future wars won’t look the same as past wars. Lots of guns alone isn’t going to do it, like lots of bombs didn’t do it in Vietnam. <br /><br />Throwing insane proportions of GDP at it won’t do it either, and on that: for the 500 odd billion dollars a year that goes on the military budget only 10 of that goes on overseas bases and 7 of that is in Japan, South Korea and Germany and if the troops weren't there they'd be costing the same or more on US soil because tens of thousands of personnel don't just turn sideways and disappear when not abroad, they have to be stationed somewhere.Magpiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02423673258718941141noreply@blogger.com