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Comment by fowlerpower | Hacker News Reader

This is somewhat overblown, there was a lot of talk about this as it became clear Trump was about to be elected.

Yes Trump is stirring the pot a bit maybe to play Russia against China. Maybe it's to get Europe to spend a little more on NATO so the US doesn't fund the vast majority of that alliance and he can cut some spending there. Whatever the mind set is, not much has changed.

The US and all of its allies are still allies.

Does anyone really think that if some "real" US interests are messed with that the United States won't fuck somebody up? I mean it's just a few years ago we went to war, why all of a sudden are we weak?

Edit: just to clarify "real" interests e.g. a NATO ally is hit, Israel is hit, Japan is hit, South Korea is hit... any US base or military vehicles, etc...

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> The US and all of its allies are still allies.

This may be true but the actions of the Trump administration have many allies questioning how reliable the US is. That's not "stirring the pot" - it's potentially a significant shift in the world order and a decrease in how effective our foreign relations are.

The public allegations and concern expressed by our allies and own intelligence agencies should give everyone some concern regardless of one's political leanings.

>This may be true but the actions of the Trump administration have many allies questioning how reliable the US is.

As compared to the actions of the previous administrations, like bombing in eastern Europe, invading several countries, and royally fucking up Middle East etc, while constantly pushing Russia in the corner in cold war like rhetoric (for doing 1/10 of what they did, and in its actual bordering countries after) all in the span of 20 years?

I'm not sure how this relates to US allies questioning the reliability of the US? Our allies (as a country not necessarily it's population) are usually involved in the same conflict and support the same worldview towards Russia.

It's been widely reported that allies are increasingly military spending and reassessing defense strategies after comments/actions by Trump.

>Our allies (as a country not necessarily it's population) are usually involved in the same conflict and support the same worldview towards Russia.

That's because they have been in bed with US interests (as countries, not necessarily as populations) since the Cold War.

Not sure why you are grayed out. From what i can tell you are absolutely right. Before that america was usually discussed as some "crazy big brother" kind of position, especially since they started bombing and droning civils it went more to "evil big brother" but still a big brother. From what i can tell the public view changed since the election and the U.S. is seen as some kind of possible threat for our society and economy.

Big Brother indeed.

>the actions of the Trump administration have many allies questioning how reliable the US is.

Thankfully the real decision makers aren't going to toss away decades of political good-will and foreign relations because of 3 weeks of blowhard political posturing.

s/3 weeks/1.5 years/

Trump has been making it clear for a long time that he doesn't care about following the rules. He may not have a firm grip on reality, but he's consistently prioritized short-term interests of his view of America over long-term global stability.

If things go wrong, I think the establishment would reassert itself. But there would be a few weeks of chaos. That interval represents a new strategic opening.

It's not enough for a land war in Europe. But a lighting grab for territory? Like Mongolia? Or Taiwan? Or the Baltics or Balkans or a contiguous stretch of the Middle East? If you can secure enough resources to hold strong against non-military retaliations, e.g. sanctions, it might--for the first time in decades--be worth it.

You really think a NATO ally can be hit? With a land war?

You think the Republican Party would need to reassert, the same party that dragged us into two wars in the last 12 years? I have to respectfully disagree.

A "traditional" war? No. A destabilisation? Absolutely. Why bother to send in your own forces when you can get people to fight their neighbours? To be effective, it must be deniable, like the MH17 shootdown.

This is more or less what's happened in eastern Ukraine (not part of NATO, but supposedly recieving some safety guarantees when it gave up its nuclear weapons).

When the intelligence agencies are openly briefing that the President is compromised to the Russians, things are going to get very strange. http://www.politicususa.com/2017/02/12/senior-pentagon-offic...

> This is more or less what's happened in eastern Ukraine

Here's what objectively happened:

"Encircling Russia has never been just a neocon thing. The policy has bi-partisan and trans-Atlantic support, including the backing of America’s old-school nationalists, Cold War liberals, Hillary hawks, and much of Obama’s national security team."

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/03/steve-weissman/the-feds-...

Also, Soros on CNN in 2014:

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1405/25/fzgps.01.html

"ZAKARIA: First on Ukraine, one of the things that many people recognized about you was that you during the revolutions of 1989 funded a lot of dissident activities, civil society groups in eastern Europe and Poland, the Czech Republic. Are you doing similar things in Ukraine?

SOROS: Well, I set up a foundation in Ukraine before Ukraine became independent of Russia. And the foundation has been functioning ever since and played an important part in events now."

It's already past, but at some moment the foreign organizers of the "colored" revolutions gladly took credit for their activity.

That's a real respectable and credible source you have there.

> You really think a NATO ally can be hit

No, but the odds don't look as daunting as they used to. It's certainly more bargainable than it ever was. In any case, only the Baltics in my last comment are NATO allies. Lots of American interests aren't covered by Article 5.

> I have to respectfully disagree

My point isn't that confrontation is likely. It's that disrespectful disagreement of the status quo is more likely today than before, in part because of what happened in Crimea and Syria, and in part because we have such an unstable domestic situation with clearly-signaled foreign indeterminism.

Your worst-case for an overreaching autocrat today looks less like Saddam Hussein and more like Assad. That encourages dice rolling.

What happened in Crimea? What about a referendum? How is it worse than US annexation of Hawai? As a matter of fact, Crimea was part of Russia since it was taken from Crimean Khanate in the 18th century. I also don't have any emphaty for the treatment of Tatar Culture because it was a culture of pillaging their neigbours and economy based on slaves. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_Tatars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean%E2%80%93Nogai_raids_in...

I also think that the sanctions also brought Russia some good in the long run: instead of buying stuff in europe they now have to make it themselves. The one who really lost were european countries:

https://www.euractiv.com/section/agriculture-food/opinion/wh...

I also think even if Putin may be not ideal leader, he handled the situation in the best interests of his country. I also think the fact, that he is an autocratic leader should not be discriminated against. I think Democracy is not for everybody (as US found out in Iraq and Afganistan) and people in Russia still support him, allthough I think Alexei Navalny would a better Candidate.

> What happened in Crimea? What about a referendum?

Referendum was held _after_ invasion and with numerous violations of international laws.

> How is it worse than US annexation of Hawai?

How's your whataboutism?

> As a matter of fact, Crimea was part of Russia since it was taken from Crimean Khanate in the 18th century.

Russia (as per se) exists only since 1991.

> Referendum was held _after_ invasion and with numerous violations of international laws.

Because they weren't allowed a referendum as part of the Ukraine.

Does this justify a Russian invasion?

> That encourages dice rolling.

I wish more people saw it this way. Many seem to equate the actions of Trump with "shaking things up" and don't realize the potential implications or increased likelihood of conflict due to the ambiguity of the Trump foreign policy.

It's unlikely to impact most Americans or Europeans that are not in the military but good luck if you live in a potential flashpoint.

A political party that dragged the US into two wars with minor countries with insignificant military resources, both of which could be totally dominated with an air war. And the US still had terrible trouble trying to keeping those wars "won".

Not exactly the same sort of conflicts and anyone who thinks they are comparable is a menace.

The US had problems "keeping those wars 'won'" because the US had to attempt to minimize civilian deaths. If there ever is an event where this isnt the case, you can bet it would be wrapped up in a few weeks.

Yeesh, minimize civilian deaths?

"The Iraq Body Count project (IBC) figure of Documented civilian deaths from violence is 155,923 – 174,355 as of March 2016. This includes reported civilian deaths due to Coalition and insurgent military action, sectarian violence and increased criminal violence.[19] The IBC site states: "it should be noted that many deaths will probably go unreported or unrecorded by officials and media."[20] The IBC website currently states that, "Further analysis of the WikiLeaks' Iraq War Logs may add 12,000 civilian deaths.""

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War#Ira...

150,000 CIVILIAN deaths, by just one count alone!

'minimize' not 'eliminate'

I think it's a safe bet that if the strategy in Iraq had been 'Use airborne ordinance to turn the country in to glass' the war would have been 'won' much sooner with far higher civilian casualties.

You can't win against an insurgency by turning the country into glass. Saddam's army was defeated in the first few weeks.

150,000? Wow, that might even be more than the Al-Anfal campaign.

Yeah, remember Vietnam war? Was over in two weeks. Remember Soviet Afghan war? That one was over even quicker!

I largely agree with what you've said. Statements from the article such as "U.S. ineffectiveness as a pillar of security" causes me to question the author's understanding of modern American foreign policy. It does not seek to make the entire world stable (See Africa), it simply seeks to make resources of American interest stable.

To your point regarding Russian and Chinese relations, I don't see how in the current frame this is possible. Russia will become more heavily reliant to China in the future, as western Europe modernizes its energy sources. Energy is a major driver in the Russian economy [1].

To your last paragraph, the same logic could have been used after the Russian excursions into Afghanistan, which I believe indicates it is a historically weak argument by itself.

[1] http://www.ibtimes.com/vladimir-putin-meet-russian-oil-chief...

Is there a clear sharp line where e.g. Estonia is a "real" US interest and Crimea isn't? I mean NATO membership is a line, but it's not feeling as solid as it used to.

A next field of conflict is Belarus, which tries to distance itself from Russia. It's not NATO, it's not a country with a security guarantee like the Ukraine ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...) , it's not trying to connect itself to the EU (like the Ukraine), but still it could be a next conflict.

Then there are European countries not in NATO, but cooperating with NATO, like Sweden and Finland. Both have a border with Russia.

Sweden doesn't have a border with Russia. Also, as a Finn, I highly doubt Russia would attack Finland. We have a relatively good relationship with them, and such a war would be very costly with nothing to be gained. If there was a larger conflict in Europe, Russia might try to invade Åland or Gotland, but that also sounds unlikely to happen.

> Sweden doesn't have a border with Russia.

Right. Not direct, but Kaliningrad is just 300km across the baltic sea. Stockholm to Kaliningrad is 500km across the baltic sea.

> We have a relatively good relationship with them, and such a war would be very costly with nothing to be gained.

There are many ways to influence a country.

https://sputniknews.com/europe/201702101050541682-finland-ru...

Belarus, really!?! They look like a fragment of the USSR that simply hasn't gotten the message yet. Where's the burgeoning democratic movement, where's the economic modernization?

http://observer.com/2017/02/belarus-national-security-nato-v...

NATO is held together with the unquestioning belief that all countries will strike together if one of them is hit. If there is some reasonable doubt as to whether it will happen or not, will the US really go to war with Russia over Latvia, which I doubt most of Trumps voters can find on a map?

Well what if Putin thinks no, goes in and Trump then says yes?

Judging by how Trump is behaving, there are two more possibilities:

(1) no strategy is involved at all, populists being known to do that, either because of incompetence or because stirring the pot gives the illusion of progress (it's after all why he was voted), or

(2) his strategy is aligned with his businesses, which is not that far fetched, given how he hasn't banned immigrants from Muslim countries in which he has business interests.

The countries he banned also all happen to have had historically antipathetic relations with the US. It's hard to tease out one thing from the other; it would have been illegal for Trump to pursue business in Iran.

I think ultimately Trump's foreign policy is going to end up extremely military-directed and won't be that much of a radical departure from what we've seen recently (not that that is necessarily good).

A large part of the established world order, for better or worse, is based on the predictability of US foreign policy.

Until it's clear that Trump is going to honor our existing agreements, continue to push for freedom of the seas, etc, that world order is going to start evolving into something different.

I constantly hear this argument in favor of the US intervening this or that place and I remain a bit skeptical. I don't think anyone really believes the US is going to neglect its obligations to countries it has actual defense agreements with, no matter what foolish thing Donald Trump is saying this week.

#2 is one the more ridiculous talking points floating around, for a number of different reasons that I'm sure you are already aware of.

> [if] any US base or military vehicles, etc...

This is precisely why the US stations so many troops in Eastern Europe, South Korea, Japan etc. It's to act as a multiplier on the deterrence value of US alliance with said country. If Russia were to invade just Estonia, with only Estonians killed, it's harder for the US internally to justify military aid, as opposed to if hundreds of US troops are killed.

"Yes Trump is stirring the pot a bit maybe to play Russia against China. Maybe it's to get Europe to spend a little more on NATO"

I don't know in what world do you live, but you are just giving him too much credibility. It's as if you can't fathom him doing something bad in him.

That seems a bit harsh. One could just as easily claim that Trump's opponents can't fathom him doing anything well and give him even less credibility than he deserves. While both assertions give that nice truthiness rush, neither is mature or productive.

Like any other human being, Trump is allowed to be right about some things, wrong about some things, and somewhere in the middle on the rest. People can support specific actions or areas of action without implicitly supporting all actions. The GP didn't even come across as all that Trump-apologist or even -supportive to me, just stating that the status quo has not crumbled despite the doomsayers claiming otherwise.

Let's all try and dial back on the polarization, please?

It sounds like your falling into the trap of thinking Trump is an idiot.

> why all of a sudden are we weak?

$Trillions of War Debt, owed to world banks outside of Americas' reach, thats why.

If a Russian-backed Syrian regime gets frisky against Israel again....

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