America and the Second Cold War

Once upon a time, Rome and Carthage were fierce rivals competing for supremacy over the Western Mediterranean Sea. Though Carthage was endowed with a brilliant general, Hannibal Barca, they were eventually defeated due to Rome's grand strategy. Now, why is this important? Because Carthage, though defeated, was not crushed. A few years later, another (the last) Punic War was fought.

Fast forward 2200 years later, and America is in an eerily resemblance to Rome. After "fighting" a long, drawn out war against the USSR the US eventually won or rather "won." 30 years later the war is still far from over. Wars in Afghanistan, the Middle East, Africa, and cartel conflicts in Latin America, much of which are "spillover" from the Cold War. Now, the "war on terrorism" has become a new Cold War. One without states, only shadow organizations that appear and fade from their respective populations. Now, America is engaged in a second Cold War yet we are repeating many of the flaws that we experienced (I don't say learned) from Vietnam, Korea, etc.

We wait until the fighting begins before we get involved, and then, oftentimes only when "our side" has lost. In Vietnam, Communists dispersed their message (liberation and statehood) while the US stood behind first the French, then the corrupt "Democratic" regime. In Korea, the same thing happened only the Russians armed the PRK with weapons as well as propaganda. Korea was only a "victory" because the overwhelming power of atomic bombs kept China and USSR from pressing their invasion. By the time Russia developed its own nuclear bomb, the Korean War had receded into a stalemate that USSR and the US were only too happy to keep. In Latin America and Africa, we ignored the populations entirely and now, Marxist ideology has infected those regions like malaria, as will prove just as difficult to eradicate.

Radical Islamist groups, having lost the "war," in places like Afghanistan have moved to places like Syria, North Africa, Yemen and Egypt (via the Muslim Brotherhood which has long been proved to have strong ties to terrorism). Instead of having pushed for the moderate rebels in Syria, we allowed the Assad-Russian (with Hezbollah affiliates) coalition to crush the moderates. In Egypt, instead of supporting the ousting of Morsi (who was becoming more of a dictator that Mubarak) the US remained in the back allowing the country to go on a road to civil war in which the Muslim Brotherhood will call jihadists from all over the Middle East turning one of the most stable nations in the region into a failed state. Again, and predictably, the US will wait until Egypt is overrun by radicals and Syria goes to war against Turkey, Israel, and/or Cyprus. This backseat strategy developed because of a fear to repeat the failure in Vietnam will lead to a failure in these regions of the world. Unfortunately, unlike the First Cold War the US was largely united against the threat of the USSR. Now, it is the opposite. Large segments of the American population think that there is no threat. That cartels, extremists, and states like Syria or PRK are not dangerous and will leave us alone if we let them alone. There is a serious need for an ideology, movement, and/or leader to unite the nation against these threats to our security and defense.

 

I worry when anyone focuses on fear as a reason for any action.

Fear is the great motivator and in its grip we become easily controlled.

What a sad world in which we only long for security.

 

And the exact same thing can be said for failure to act on account of fear.

 

Do things on a case by case basis, don't say we must go into Syria like we did Iraq because they have chemical weapons. There is a rather stupid Youtube channel TYT which makes things out to be easy in military terms for the US. Oh yes lets just send just do air strike and missile strikes because no civilians would die at all. We don't care about civilians of foreign states, we care about what is in the best interests for the US. If the US doesn't want to go into Syria, then Obama shouldn't have red lines or make idle threats. This makes the US look weak and predictable to it's allies mainly.

I am British I don't want my money being wasted in Syria because some American made an idle threat he is now forced to make good on to save face. I think the UK foreign minister William Hague is very very good, I may even say great. He is doing his job perfectly to help the Obama government save face like this is the Europeans pushing for intervention just like in Libya, I just hope the UK is getting something in return. UK interests in Syria are very different, we have problems with Russian and Iran big problems, however Assad isn't that bad for Britain his wife is British, his children went to school here and he invested billion of pounds here. I would have done nothing, just let Assad win before he was forced to use chemical weapons.

 

More accurately it could be said there is no such thing as not acting. Even doing nothing is an action.

There is a major difference between sizing up your situation and being frozen with fear.

The inexperienced when faced with conflict often rush in to fix a situation and make it much worse.

Habitual caution is dangerous yes, but I have seen more people fail catastrophically because they were afraid not to act than otherwise.

 

*nods*

Like in Somalia, Darfur, Syria, and for the longest time in Iraq, Cambodia, former Yugoslavia...

 

I am by no means propagating fear or preemptive strikes or anything of the sort. Rather, I developed a hypothesis from my observations of history and parallels that can reasonably be drawn (US and Rome, US-1950 and US-2013). Just like in the Cold War when the US promised to combat communism in any corner of the world, when actually presented with the task (Korea, Vietnam, Latin America, etc) we were forced to comply. We made a bold statement and probably never really expected to have to follow through. Yet, Korea and Vietnam saw millions of civilians and combatants killed in rather pointless wars and in Vietnam's case, destroyed much of the rather strong nationalist sentiment in the US. Fast forward to 2012/2013 the US has promised to intervene in Syria if chemical weapons were used. We did it to deter their use. It failed. Now, we can either follow through our promise and get bogged down in fighting in another pointless Middle East war and potentially ending any hope of friendlier relations with Russia OR we can say we were bluffing and discredit ourselves knowing that in the future, rouges will not take the US as seriously (reputation is so hard to come by now a days). My personal belief, judging from history, is that the US will intervene. Chance of "boots on the ground," not very likely. Rather, I think it will become a proxy war. The US/rebels vs Assad/Russia/Hezbollah. Given that the US had problems overthrowing via proxy Gaddafi, I doubt Assad will go especially with the support of a influential nation-state like Russia. Again, just my thoughts.

 

I think your "hypothesis" is wrong. We are going into Syria to stop Assad using chemical weapons again. I think we should put everything we can into the operation for 2 weeks and then put out, we put speical forces on the ground to take, hold or destroy Assad's chemical weapons and mobile air defence systems. The US has all the kit needed, NATO has the bases and special forces. There is always the chance that after this Iran will just send Assad more chemicals and missiles, and hit NATO operations in other parts of the world. But we need to be make it clear that the use of chemical weapons isn't allowed.

Limited TLAM's strikes wouldn't do anything.
A new fly zone would be regime change over about a year.
A full invasion would fail and thousands of our troops would die after being hit by Iranian and Syrian chemical weapons according to the British people I have talked to.

I think this is all Obama's fault and it wouldn't have happened under Bush because the Russians have no respect for Obama, I think because of his skin colour. They see Cameron and before that Sarkozy as much more of a problem than Obama. Hollande is a crap, less good looking version of Sarkozy, the French are really stupid. Only 3 NATO countries matter anymore the US, UK and Turkey. Nobody cares what Markel says or some guy in Italy.

 

Really? We're potentially going to war and going to kill hundreds/thousands of people for a humanitarian cause? While the various economic/strategic interests of Syria/Middle East are debated, I think the "red line" was to bolster the US presence as a defender of civility in war (aka no chemical weapons). Now, there is speculation that in fact the rebels may have used the chemical weapons to trigger an American intervention (clever, but kind of see-through). This has been confirmed by the UN inspector and is available on major news outlets.

 

Well ok that's the rebels being smart. However we aren't going to do what they want, we are going to take care of the chemical weapons Assad has. Making sure the rebels don't get anymore. I agree Obama's red line was a mistake and have said so two times now. We will kill thousands of people to make sure other's take our threats seriously, we make the humanitarian case but we do it to defend our interests. I mean many things are covered under humanitarian, I have problem with Argentina planting unmarked land mines on the Falklands, but the UK government doesn't seem bothered. People want to do the same thing over and over gain and stand by morals and principles, but in real life you can't and those who try are weaker and less effective for it. Case in point Australia with Fiji, they try to hold to there morals and the Chinese come in. As I said we do things on a case by case basis.

 

So we should sit back and morally watch and do nothing as tens of thousands die?

Welcome to Syria, the new Cambodia.

 

How much Iraqis Saddam has killed and how much died after your "salvation"?

It is so cute, when you are attempting imperialist policy with "spreading democracy" and "establishing peace".

 

Actually, you apparently have missed all the conversations where I suggest the best way to handle Syria is a joint NATO-CSTO peacekeeping operation.

 

You have high evasion skills.

Regardless of your personal opinion, Empire of Goodness and it's minions are about to invade another country, covering interest with these nice speeches of poor Syrian kids' tears and evil regime.

Besides, we have a special organisation, which has full autority for peacekeeping operations. You might have heard about it. Called UN.

 

Oh yes, the UN. So effective in the last 40 years. Cambodia, Vietnam, Lebanon, Palestine, Darfur, Uganda, Somalia, Iran-Iraq, former Yugoslavia, the list simply goes on and on of how effective the UN has been.



Do I even need to list all the failures and cases of the UN ignoring situations like what is going on in Syria at this time? Heck, where is the UN now? This has been going on for over a year and they have yet to do anything.

You may claim that the UN has "full authority", but authority unused is no authority at all.

 

Vietnam, Iran, Iraq, Palestine - whose fault it was, i forgot?


I guess I don't need to bring up the result of your effectiveness in spreading peace and democracy (sic!). The body count is pretty impressive.

 

Really though it's all the fault of the British Empire, the US is just unable to deal with the system the British left behind. Also didn't the Soviet Union have something to do with Iran invading it with the British in WW2. Or supporting America's enemies in Korea and Vietnam, which the US did the right thing trying to stop you from taking over. Just because Russia is weak now and unable to project power doesn't mean you can be absolved of your part in history. For the problems we have today can't be blamed on one country but main the British, French, Russians and Americans. In that order.

 

You didn't get it. It was the US, who supported Iranian shah, when he was opressing his own people. Then, when revolution happened, they let him to live in the US and that is the true reason of hostility between the US and Iran. But it seems it wasn't enough for shining beacon of democracy, so they used trade sanctions and did their best supporting Saddam against Iran and even helped Saddam as he gassed Iran.

Even for us that is cold.

Logical f ck up over here. They originally became US enemies because we suppoted them. In fact USSR, like it or not, was the good guy in your colonies and helped a lot of nations rise against their opressors. The only bad outcome was North Korea, while a lot of other nations were set a free.

Not as weak as you, I fear.

Pffff, just like somebody actually tried.

 

The British also support the shah and took part in the operation to put him back in power. I always thought the problem was the US keeps supporting other powers in the region as a stop on the power of Iran. This is the system the British setup after WW1. The British did very bad things to Iran or Persia aswell, but they are all forgetten about and the US is blamed. It's like the British empire is removed from history sometimes the way people talk, they forget that just 100 years ago Britain was the greatest power the world had ever seen, infact everybody in Britain forgets it.

Free from what? The British, I don't think that's a good thing, mainly because it happened to quickly. They didn't have time to put in real democratic systems with the rule of law. Look at Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, they left the British empire over decades and had time to build up state institutions, this takes 30-50 years. This is what Churchill wanted, not the decolonisation Attlee did which caused millions of people to die. Also the British did a rather good job defeating the Soviet Unions rebels, just like Britain did with the French rebels in Ireland.

Well Britain is a small island of the north west coast of Europe with limited natural resources, it's rather shocking that it was able to build the largest empire in history don't you think. It is a fair point you make the Russian Navy is now without doubt the most power in the North sea, Batlic sea, Arctic sea, Black sea and maybe even the Mediterranean sea out of the European powers. Historically the British have controlled the North Sea and Mediterranean, I would like us to do so again.

 

That is a ... one brave thing to claim. What is a measure of a greatness?

Oh, wait, and i thought that is because the autohonic population was largely extermianted and replaced with anglo-saxon migrants.

Being an island is an advantage. And a big one. Tho, yes, British empire was the biggest for a while.

Definitelly not in the meditarenean.

 

Well, let's see.

Vietnam, invasion by North Vietnam.

Iran, was invaded by Iraq.

Iraq, invaded Iran and Kuwait, killed hundreds of thousands of it's own citizens, repeatedly ignored UN sanctions.

Palestine, now that I entirely blame on the UN and the Arab nations in the Middle East. When the UN mandated the creation of Israel and Palestine, Israel was strong enough to create it's portion. But the Arab nations (Egypt and TransJordan) held onto their portions of what was to be "Palestine", and treated the Palestinians as second class citizens in theor own lands.

And you will never hear me as a preacher for Democracy. I could not care less what form a government takes, as long as it listens to it's people and does not mistreat them.

 

Economic, Military, Political and Cultural power. The only other power that is on the same level is Rome. I have had arguments about who was the greater power Rome or Britain, however I lost the argument. Then people started say Spain was a greater power than Britain, then I won the argument. Who do you think was the greatest power in history?

South Africa and New Zealand weren't Anglo-Saxon, they had huge populations of Boer's and Maori's, the British fought wars and basically lost. Canada had a large French speaking population. Australia was a dumping ground for convicts. The country where your comment holds up is the 13 colonies, so well played.

Yes second is the Russian empire, you must being so gutted about being second. In some ways being 2 medium sized islands was an advantage, but something changed under the Henry the 8th we had a navy and was free of the Catholic church based in Rome. So saying Britain only became the power it did because it was any island or two is wrong as it works both way.

Which European country could defeat the Russian Navy in the Med without American help? Italy, Spain, France, UK. They are all rather weak compared to the Russian navy. Mainly in air defense. I mean Spain has the best destroyers with American missiles, but they are nothing on Russian cruisers. Your submarines are very good, the French, Italian and Spanish submarines are no match for yours. Only the British submarines pose a challenge. Mainly the Russians shouldn't be the main power in the North sea, it should be Britain. Our navy is rubbish, Type 45 is a waste of money, we aren't building enough Astutes to keep unit costs down, our helicopter carrier is to slow to hunt your submarines. Our Type 23 frigates are very good by all accounts, but we only have at most 4 of them at sea. There are other problems. We would struggle to beat Norway and Denmark in a war.

 

Yeah, let's see when Vietnam made it into one of your states, so you need to "defend" it.

It didn't look like you were against it. In fact you were Saddam's 2-nd best friend after Allah.

Did he? May I have a link for that?
Besides, that doesn't explain why you have invaded Iraq two times.

It is sooo cute you've decided to give poor Juice some land in Palestine, so teh Juice would be surrounded by 200 000 000 of cultarally hostile muslims. Why you havn't tried Seattle suburbs or Iowa or Newfoundland?

Surely that decision was not going to create any problems in the future.
Israel havn't commited a single war crime, like killing 2000+ people for some hand-made rockets launched to the middle of nowhere and is not threatening it's own Arab citizens as 2-nd class. Zero problems created. Gut.

That is weird. Your gov. obviously thinks othervise. Or, to be more correct, claims that it thinks.
because in real life if "bad dictatorship" doesn't posess huge oil reserves or located close to Axis of Evilz nobody cares.

 

And with this obvious racism and antisemitism, this discussion is now over.

You see, I do not even try to debate with bigots, they only argue from their prejudices and not on facts themselves.

Have a good day.

 

You were not the greatest economic power 100 years ago. I am pretty sure USA and Germany were ahead.

You didn't have the strongest military. Only one branch of it - navy.

Just one of the others.

Doubtful again.

Rome was only one of great ancient powers. Among of China and India. Nothing outstanding.

There were none, which could be reffered as greatest. There always were a pair or two equals.

Don't know about New Zeland, but South Africa is a bad example of "rule of law".

So? Culturally much more closer, than indignious population.

3-rd after Mongols, tho they didn't last long. Probably even the fourth after Spain, but depends who and how do the math.

Ughhh....you probably missed some geography lessons. We are the 1-st right now. About 70 times the size of Britain. And about twice the size of the US. So..why would I?

None. But US 6-th fleet is over there. So...that is why Med is not the case.

You should build more of them.

Failed to see both. Higly developed fantasy or smth?
Have a good day too.