First, I want to follow up on this: “I am due to have a conversation with a friend that lives in Denmark tomorrow and I’m going to ask him about energy prices.”
His reply, and I paraphrase as I did not record it or take notes: “if we still had to make our house payment, we would be totally screwed. The amount of money that we pay for energy now is about equal to what our house payment used to be. It’s about five times higher than it normally is, but what’s even worse is the high cost of energy filters out into everything in the Danish economy. A simple item like bread is three times higher than it used to be. Specialty items are three or four times higher than they used to be. Fish from fisherman that we go to the docks to buy from because we live on an island is four times more expensive because they’re paying four times more for the energy they’re using to go out and fish. It’s brutal and it’s all because the United States or somebody allied with it blew up the Nord stream pipeline. I try to keep my mouth shut about this because most people have drank the Kool-Aid, but I really hope Russia wins because I’m sick of all this global elite bullshit.”
These words were spoken by a well educated American married to a Dane with two teen-aged Danish children. If the Danish economy is suffering like this Germany must be fucked.
Where does Europe get its energy now? From the US, now exporting LNG (liquid natural gas) to Europe for 4x the price of Russian and Turkmen natural gas. Here is my question as a Texan: why haven’t natural gas prices risen in tandem with the export of the commodity? People I have asked who recieve natural gas royalties are pissed because there is no price increase pass through. So, owners of the wells are getting screwed and so are the buyers of the product. Welcome to Oligarchical America.
Next I want to address a handful of commenters in my post, best reprersented by Mark Level. He writes, in a very gracious and polite comment that he takes issue with my outline of American Grand Strategy. He notes, “This insane hobby-horse (or idee fixe, choose your metaphor) dates back far more than 120 years, probably 3x that long, and originates in British Colonial phobias about Russia and “the East” generally. Halford John Mackinder developed this lunacy & published it almost exactly 120 years ago, but it had a long pre-natal development among arrogant Imperial gits in Asia. (Gits and twits, upper-class British twits, like the Monty Python sketch.) See here, and the delightful childish fantasy of being Alexander Magnus from this Mackinder thought bubble . . . .”
Please note, first and foremost, I used the word hostile power or hostile coalition. Hostile being the primary variable.
I’ve read Mackinder’s works. Anyone who has traveled across the Silk Road pretty much has to read them. His idea is not necessarily original. It’s more a fusion of ideas that came out of the late 18th century and 19th century Western European dominance of the world that began, as I previously mentioned, with the defeat of Venice in 1509, Portugal’s conquest of a Spice Empire, and its desrtuction of the Ottoman Navy in the Indian Ocean, thus having no rivals, and of course Spain’s rapacious theft of New World gold and silver.
During the 17th and 18th century, a new idea developed with the growth of the British Navy, who outstripped the Dutch and pretty much took over their empire. New York City was, after all, New Amsterdam. What these developments presaged was an idea that centered around the ascendancy of the Littoral powers over the Continental Empires that had ruled Eurasia for millenia. Gunpowder, boats, better firearms, better steel and in the New World, devastating disease leading to genocide in many cases up and down North and South America. The Littoral is defined by strategists “as those land areas (and their adjacent areas and associated air space) that are susceptible to engagement and influence from the sea.” Thus the emphasis on a strong navy by Alfred Thayer Mahan who proved just how dominant Littoral Powers could be. For a time, that is, only for a time, as I see it.
Add to this ascendancy the wars of the Western European powers of the United Kingdom, Spain, France, and the Holy Roman Empire primarily fought during the 18th century for two strategic reasons, primarily by two very different nations with very different vital national interests at stake.
One, was the United Kingdom’s insistence that no power could dominate the Low Lands of the Netherlands and later Belgium because if they could, it would threaten an invasion of the British Isles, plus their massive exports of wool textiles, fueling the nascent industrial revolution. Smart, if ruthless policy.
Second, we must understand France‘s main goal during the wars of this time (and for several centruies prior) was to ensure a divided Germany. So long as the German states were littered into 100 different little principalities France had nothing to worry about. Thus France could go on dominating the continent. The first seismic change to this was the War of the Sixth Coalition which saw for the first time Russia flex its true potential when Russian troops occupied Paris. France’s cataclysm occured not in 1941 but in 1870 with her defeat in the Franco-Prussian war. The result of which was Prussia unifying all of Germany into one empire, adding insult to injury by having the Kaiser crowned in Versailles and taking Alsace Lorraine away as its prize.
Fuse those two strategies together and it is not too far an intellectual leap, considering the Great Game going on at the time between the UK and the Russian Empire, for Mackinder to conjure up his ideas. Were his ideas taken up by the United Kingdom? You bet, but by 1917 when it was clear that the United Kingdom could no longer maintain the balance of power in Europe and the United States had to intervene, (everyone should read AJP Taylor’s magnum opus, The Struggle For Mastery in Europe, to understand the balance of power and its collapse in 1917) US foreign policy intellectuals adopted it. And rightly so.
I think it’s the correct idea. But my reasons for thinking it’s the correct idea are not gonna make many of you happy. You might have to face some hard truths. Oh yeah, I did tell you I was a Realist in the old school manner of the word? In fact there have been a few times when Ian has chastened me pretty seriously for my realism. With that admisssion I will make another one: I don’t mind the criticism from Ian or from others. Ian is probably the smartest person I’ve ever met in my life and I listen to what he has to say. And when I say listen to him, I mean, I consider his words deeply. A man who cannot change his mind will never change anything. Nevertheless, I digress.
Here are my reasons for why I believe the prevention of a single hostile power or coalition of hostile powers from dominating the Eurasian landmass is smart policy. Please, if you take anything away from this sentence, take the meaning hostile.
Number one: the Monroe Doctrine. Oh, I hear you screaming already. But the fact is that if this were not “our” hemisphere, not a one of us would have the standard of living we do today. Our hegemony of the Western Hemisphere is the primary foundation of our wealth and our power. You might not like it. I grimace frequently at the crimes we comitt to protect it. But, the Westphalian System is not built on justice. It is built on the acceptance of international anarchy. Each nation to its own. There is no single sovereign power governing planet Earth. Thus, violence is the supreme authority from which all other authority is derived. Is this a grim Hobbesian outlook? Yes. I don’t like it and I’m pretty sure you don’t either. But as a realist, I take the world as it is, not as I desire it to be. A hostile power or coalition of hostile powers that dominate Eurasia can take that hegemony away. You might not like it but trust me when I say you don’t want that to happen.
Second, a hostile power or coalition of hostile powers that dominate Eurasia can take more than our hegemony away, it/they can invade us. We don’t want that either. Thus we have a powerful navy that projects power to keep Eurasia divided–for the time being, because I think if we get into a war with China, their indirect way of war–read your Sun Tzu–will probably outwit us on the high seas. I’ve spent a great deal of time in China and have a healthy fear of their capabilities. However, my greatest fear is that in our arrogance we will engender the very hostility we must prevent and by our own devices bring about the doom we should seek to avoid. We have lost our edge, our generosity of spirit and our understanding of power. We have become a mean spirited, two-bit, cheap and vulgar people. And sadly, because so many of us are beaten down economically by rich elites who are delusional, we’re going to lose a big war in a painful way. A war that could be avoided, but probably won’t be. I hope I’m wrong, but don’t think I am.
That said, these very wise words, written by Robert D. Kaplan recently, convey the gravity of our present predicament, “There is no prediction. It is only through coming to terms with the past and vividly, realizing the present that we can have premonitions about the future.” Moreover, as a wise woman wrote about history, “the more I study history, the more I learn the art of prophecy.” Deeply contradictory statements, yet both true in their essence.
Are we any more perceptive now about what awaits our planet than were the Russians of 1917, or all of Europe in 1914, and, for that matter, the Germans of the 1920s and the early 30s?
Do we honestly think we know better than they did? With all of our gadgets and our technological triumphalism I bet you there are a handful of you out there that think we do know better than they did. I hate to disappoint you, but we don’t. History is the story of contingency and human agency, not inevtiablity.
So, there it is. Rip me to shreds if you wish. I’ve suffered enough Shakespearean arrows of outrageous fortune in my 54 years to handle it. In fact, I welcome your ideas and if you got this far I’m grateful for your time.
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Poul
As a Dane I can say that those prices are totally false. 300% on Bread. What a load of BS.
Just look at the statistics.
This graph shows the price increase of bread compared to the same month one year ago.
http://www.statistikbanken.dk/statbank5a/Graphics/MakeGraph.asp?interactive=true&menu=y&maintable=PRIS111&pxfile=2025910141924567418874PRIS111.px&gr_type=1&PLanguage=0
This shows the price of electricity. Yes a spike in 2022 due to the EU sanctions on Russian gas but then a big drop the next year back to normal levels.
http://www.statistikbanken.dk/statbank5a/Graphics/MakeGraph.asp?interactive=true&menu=y&maintable=PRIS111&pxfile=2025910142626567418874PRIS111.px&gr_type=1&PLanguage=0
From the official Danmarks Statistik page where you can find prices for a lot of other consumer goods.
https://www.statistikbanken.dk/PRIS111
Eclair
“It is only through coming to terms with the past and vividly, realizing the present that we can have premonitions about the future.”
Nice. It made me realize that it is these occasional “premonitions about the future,” the sudden flashes of the future, images that pop up in my mind after reading my twitter feed on Gaza, or hearing a discussion of the legality of a great power Navy blasting a motor boat and its eleven human passages into oblivion …. well, I could go on and on and on ….. that are roiling my unquiet mind. At such times, I think of 1930’s Germany and how the Great Powers finally united against it and we had WW2 and Dresden and Hiroshima and the Atomic Age. And I wonder just when will the ‘rest of the world’ turn on the US.
I don’t think it is just me. I learned a few days ago, during a casual conversation, that five members of my family (at least,) ranging in age from recent college grad to 85 year old grand parents, are all taking the same anti-anxiety med. I am wondering if it would still my ‘premonitions.’
Jan Wiklund
As for example Charles Kindleberger, George Modelski and Bas van Bavel think, hegemony is where the most advanced production processes are. 8th century in Iraq-Iran, 10th century in China, 14th century in Northern Italy, 17th century in Holland, 19th century in England, 20th century in US, and 21th century in China. This is nothing you can change with guns.
Also, such hegemonies are apt to be self-destructive, because capitalists tire of complicated production processes and tend to invest in land, money or other static wealth instead and leave the cumbersome production chains to somebody else. Like Americans and Europeans have done the last 40 years to China and other Asians. So guns are hardly necessary.
So I think we shouldn’t bother too much with the political level. It is just there to fix compromises between real forces.
And, by the way, it seems like India prefers to have two doors open, like a fox, see https://www.indianpunchline.com/india-disavows-tianjin-spirit-turns-to-eu/.
Ian Welsh
Poul, I did find 300% unlikely but I do know from my own personal experience that my grocery bills, for the same basket of goods, has gone up over 50% in Canada since 2020. The official stats say that didn’t happen. I believe my own grocery store receipts and memory + old bank records, however.
People who have examined actual rent for low end rentals have found similar numbers in Toronto and Vancouver (not sure about Montreal.) Since I rent and don’t directly pay energy bills, I don’t know about that, but Canada produces plenty of its own energy so I wouldn’t expect serious increases.
So I wonder. The simplest check would be to find simple staples (bread, vegetables, meat, fish) and energy bills and see if one can find a grocery receipt from 2020 or pre-pipeline energy bills, then compare.
Official stats don’t impress me all that much, especially not inflation stats. They are extremely manipulated, at least in the US and Canada. (I’ve never done a deep dive on Euro inflation stats, but I’d be awfully surprised if most of them weren’t manipulated. Perhaps they are manipulated less.)
Mark Level
I want to thank Sean Paul for responding to my objection, and please note that I feel no need to reply to a sensible response by getting enraged or “screaming”, trying to rip an argument I disagree with to shreds (unless it is garbage, a straw man, etc.) or anything of that sort. I chose the handle Mark “Level” for a reason. I have an emotionally disturbed sibling who, like my dad, thinks about politics in black and white. 5 years ago I said something negative about NATO over the phone to him, & he began screaming incoherently “You love Putin!!” “You love Trump!” and other absurdities. He continued screaming incoherently and would not allow me to respond, soon his speech did not even contain recognizable human words, so I simply hung up. Our relationship has never fully recovered since, likely never will. Emotion might be allowed a small place in political argument, it should never dominate.
I’ll try to respond in a logical, fact-based and even “gracious” manner, there’s no reason to go to demonizing or attacking arguments.
Okay, so you emphasize the central world “hostile.” Fair enough. What constitutes hostile? Well, doesn’t the current US Empire (not just under Trump but for the most part under Biden, Obama etc.) openly define itself as the hegemonic world-ruler, “hostile” not just to “enemies” (seen everywhere, often entirely imaginary like when Our Guy Saddam got off the leash and suddenly he had “Weapons of Mass Destruction” everywhere, and per Condi Rice we were “40 minutes away” from Nuclear annihilation?) As the rightful Hegemon, having replaced the British by 1946, doesn’t it treat not just those “enemies” but openly Europe’s dumb vassals with hostility and violence? Trump is the monster, ugly face of Empire, he speaks the contempt openly for all to see (Bush Jr. often went there too.) But when Biden ordered the bombing of the Nordstream pipeline, 49% owned by our “ally” Germany, creating the greatest release of methane seen in human history, and creating the kind of mass inflation and deindustrialization seen in Europe first, the deed was certainly hostile not just to “enemies” (Russia) but to allies who needed its cheap oil and now pay the price? As you cover in your opening. Not that I cry a single tear for the Germans, Neofascists even since WW II ended, who install Neofascist nutcases like Blackrock’s Friedrich Merz and Globalist looter (& massively incompetent) Ursula Fond der Lying into power. Who offloaded their war guilt onto the Palestinian people by exporting the Jews they hated so much to kill and despoil from poorer, browner-skinned Muslim & Christian people, let them pay the price, right? The Germans could change, any culture or group is capable of doing so. Until and unless that happens, they get no sympathy from me.
Ian has referenced the “Are We the Baddies?” video from time to time on this site. Well, obviously “we” are– ask a Native American, a Cuban, a Puerto Rican, an Iranian, Lebanese person or countless more. We are open about it. In the last election cycle Kop Kamala bragged that were she installed in power the US would have “the most lethal military” ever seen in human history. Nearly 2 years into an open genocide (paid for with our tax dollars) which has now escalated to open starvation. Now Trump followed her with the same promise of course, the nominal “differences” between the Bad Cop and Good Cop parties at this point do not extend to “our role” in the world as Bully of All.
There were a few genuine anti-Imperialists in the Dem Party 4 or 5 decades ago, alongside the “Scoop” Jackson types; there are none now. Oh, except when Russia defends itself from Neo-Nazi Banderists installed by a US color revolution. Suddenly “they” are Imperialists, not allowed, that is the White Man’s Burden, per Kipling, a great exponent of the Great Game, Anglo-Saxons and their US Offshoot should dominate, that is not a role for Slavs.
I appreciate your explication of the connection I referenced between Mackinder (late to the party) and both earlier and later iterations of the World Island thesis (lunacy) in paragraphs 7-12. I’m aware of much of this, know of the work of people like Thayer and Taylor who you reference. I have never claimed to be a Military Historian however, to me the whole obsession with war and killing is a bit morbid, it’s like the dudes who collect Nazi memorabilia, not a club I would want to belong to. My go-to book on Eurasia is from the 1980s Peter Hopkirk, The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia. He’s pretty comprehensive in only about 800 pp. and doesn’t seem to have an axe to grind viz preferring any of the Imperial Powers.
Now in paragraph 13, you state you are “a Realist”. This doesn’t in itself make me “unhappy.” I have great respect for probably the most highly-respected Realist on the pundit scene currently, John Mearsheimer. He sees things objectively and is reasonable in his thought and opinions, as far as I can see. When he sees the NeoCon insane violence and ridiculous adventurism, he calls it out as unproductive and certain to fail in the long term. I think that is correct. “Sic Semper Tyrannis” is fine with me, Tyrants and tyrannical leaders should meet the end that Mussolini did. They can sure dish it out, some day they need to take it in return, imho.
Okay, a couple paragraphs later you lose (& even disgust) me with a leaky defense of the Monroe Doctrine. You don’t seem stupid, so you must be aware of the white supremacist basis of the M.D., do you want to take the next step and explicitly defend that? I’ve praised Eisenhower on this site for a certain level of sanity and humanity, seen in stopping the UK/Franco/Zionist assault on the Egyptian Sinai. But what about replacing a progressive, socialist government in Guatemala that was raising peasants’ wages to the point that more than half their children could have lived to beyond age 10 or so and not died to malnutrition? You’ve been to China, great, I’ve been to Guatemala (twice) and I have seen malnourished children there and child soldiers as well (in 1983-84). How can you justify the US domination of Latin America when we always installed vicious, corrupt and looting dictators? And all under the fig-leaf of “democracy”, LoL. Or 6 decades of attacking and trying to starve Cuba because they dared to expel a clown like Batista. Do you ally with Marco Rubio and think that installing a Neoliberal Austerity Dictatorship on Cuba will bring “freedumb” and prosperity? I certainly hope not.
Every country and every people deserve sovereignty. I’ll agree with Malcolm X, violence is ethical and even righteous in self-defense. In stealing from or dominating others, it is never ethical or right. Many have made the point that after the so-called Dark Ages, Europe was always the most warlike region of the planet, with endless wars of domination and oppression of minority groups (the Irish, the Basques, small Eastern European groups, etc.) I don’t support this and I’m never going to support War for War’s (& looting & oppression) sake. I hope “Realist” doesn’t mean that humanity can never live in democratic sovereignty without some Warrior Caste shitheads running things. (Kudos however for Trump and the drunkard Hegseth trying to rename the Dept. of War what it is. Better an Ugly Truth than a pretty lie.)
I commended your essay sincerely, but you lose me completely in a “defense” like this one– “I take the world as it is, not as I desire it to be. A hostile power or coalition of hostile powers that dominate Eurasia can take that hegemony away. You might not like it but trust me when I say you don’t want that to happen.” What you say here simply defies Common Sense (a concept I don’t often revert to except when needed.) Why wouldn’t the Eurasian Superpowncer you fear take regional control, why would it expend immeasurable “Blood & Treasure” crossing an entire Ocean to attack a country that is already shitty, de-industrialized, and falling apart? This defies any claim to “Realism” or rationality, and frankly it seems to closely match the insane beliefs of the John Birch Society in the 1950s of Commies lurking everywhere ready to take US over and drain our vital essences (see Dr. Strangelove).
I have no need to try to “Rip you to shreds” because in many places we agree, e.g. when you note, “We have lost our edge, our generosity of spirit and our understanding of power. We have become a mean spirited, two-bit, cheap and vulgar people. And sadly, because so many of us are beaten down economically by rich elites who are delusional, we’re going to lose a big war in a painful way. A war that could be avoided, but probably won’t be. I hope I’m wrong, but don’t think I am.” Bingo, friend!! Your notes on technological triumphalism are 100% correct in my view, also. I understand why (per the Great Game) the Afghans, e.g. would rush down into the Indian capital to steal The Peacock Throne back in the day, that’s glory and riches to a martial caste that is real. The hollowed out, under-educated people who for the most part make up the USMIC are hardly on an equal level with these people, either physically or even mentally for that matter.
The US doesn’t need more wars, more deaths of despair and poverty and economic inequality and more hegemony over the rest of the world. That has been proven to the RoW and both you and Ian have covered where things are headed viz the SCO, BRICS, etc. The Sun has set on the Empire of Lies for some lengthy time, it is just a matter of accepting that.
There are things I can rationally fear, like since I live in a majority Hispanic City and have a Hispanic name being harassed by ICE or the Fascist entities which Trump is pushing into minority-majority cities (Chicago, NYC etc.) I refuse to fear the Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians, the Palestinians or whomever is on the official State Dept. List for the weekly mandatory 10 minutes of Hate that are coming. (See 1984). I’ll take Malcolm’s advice and hate the bastard whose got his boot on my neck long before I hate and fear some foreign bugaboo. Or as Walt Kelly (any relation?) reminded us thru Pogo’s words, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
Feral Finster
I think it was Annalena Baerbock who said on the record in a public forum in germany that Ukraine was her priority, she did not care if germans froze or starved.
The european leadership have no priority other than the War On Russia. They have already jettisoned the welfare state, freedom of speech and assembly, and the vestiges of electoral democracy to get that war that they so crave.
They do not care about your friend.
The only thing left is for the europeans to get the Americans to fight that war for them. Again.
Sean Paul Kelley
I’m always happy to be disproven.
Sean Paul Kelley
@Mark Level: It’s hard for me to disagree with anything you have written. I too have seen the horrors left in Guatemala and I despise how we treat our neighbors. I should have conveyed that more forcefully in my reply.
As for my final comments: their tone was simply way off. It was mostly meant as self-deprecation, which clearly fell flat. I’m certainly fallible.
You’ve given me some good stuff to chew over for the rest of the day. Thank you.
Mark Level
Thank you as well, Sean Paul K. I think the point of a site like this is to have a discussion that makes one question preconceptions and become wiser. That’s why I support it, and have for many years.
What’s that old Bible saying, “Iron sharpens Iron”? If it’s not a martial thing but rather intellectual, I think it holds and should be done. And of course in a Tarot Deck and Western Hermeticism generally, swords represent the intellect. I accept that the intellect somewhat (in the best case) raises humans to a high level among all the world’s fauna, okay it’s true porpoises, dolphins, Orcas & Killer Whales may for all we know have great intellects too (& don’t forget octopoids, incredibly intelligent) it is only really opposable thumbs + brains that have made us the homicidal, ecocidal agents we sadly are by this point in history.
I feel despair over what’s happening in the world now. Meaningful discourse is one thing that mitigates that a bit, it’s good to know not everyone are Darwinian monsters. So thanks for your time and thoughts. When we call out absurdities, per Voltaire, hopefully we can prevent future Atrocities.
Purple Library Guy
It seems to me that being a “realist” (which has always struck me as a rather unfair name for a hypothesis) and then saying because of that, I conclude that the United States SHOULD do X is something of a confusion. At a minimum it raises some questions. The point being, international relations “realism” is a model of how states are thought to actually work. It has no relationship to morality. But if I say a state SHOULD do some action, there is moral content there. There may be cases in which a state can gain the most material advantage by committing genocide; it SHOULD NOT do so. So in the classic formulation, you seem to be turning an “is” to an “ought”.
So perhaps when you say the United States SHOULD pursue some “realist” strategy, you should untangle a bit the extent to which you mean it’s the optimum strategy in some way like, “The US population will benefit most from this course of action”, “US elites will benefit most from this course of action”, “The US as an abstract entity will benefit most in terms of prestige and international dominance from this course of action” . . . versus the extent to which you mean it’s the right, or at least a reasonable and defensible, ethical thing to do. And you might want to specify whether there are cases where you would not support the right strategic move if it’s the wrong ethical move, and how bad things would have to be before the ethical issues dissuaded you.
I personally could be a realist in terms of believing that it was true as a descriptor of how nations generally behave, and still very often claim that a nation SHOULD NOT do what realism predicted they would do.
I’m not really a realist. As far as I can tell, countries do often do roughly what realism predicts, but in some important circumstances they don’t. For instance, realism predicts that countries will band together to oppose a hegemon. That is sort of happening now, but for a long time it totally wasn’t, and a good deal of it wouldn’t be happening now if the US hadn’t insisted on terrible foreign policy. So for instance, Russia under Putin did not want to join a resistance to the hegemon; back in the early 2000s Putin wanted to join NATO, maybe join the EU in some way, be neoliberal, trade with everyone under US-dominated international rules; all he wanted in return was for Russia to have security, which in practice meant a little buffer zone of countries around Russia that Russia had influence over or were at least neutral. That was not good enough for the US, they decided, mostly based on a continuation of Cold War thinking, that they wanted Russia prostrate and broken up, or at least surrounded by NATO, even though this was obviously not a very plausible or even useful outcome. So they pushed until in 2014 the coup in Ukraine made Putin fairly definitively abandon rapprochement with the West in favour of trying to join/form a bloc with China, which is a Realist kind of thing to happen, but it wasn’t inevitable. Similar things can be said for China, which has been driven to “Realist” style balancing against the US largely by US actions.
Realism is an odd duck as a theory. It’s too deterministic for my taste. It actually reminds me a lot of the free market hypothesis, both in terms of what it does as a theory and of how people use it prescriptively even though at base it isn’t prescriptive. And I’m not even talking about morality here, I’m talking about strategy.
Realism at its core isn’t technically a claim about optimum strategy . . . or rather it is, but it’s a claim that states always do it, much the way efficient market ideas claim that market actors always behave optimally. And I don’t believe they do. Exhibit A: Trump, who has certain objectives, and who, in international terms, is fairly consistently using means to achieve those objectives which will mostly backfire. And sure, most countries’ leadership are not as obviously idiotic as Trump, but they’re not perfect maximizers either, and just as in market theory, that makes a difference, you can’t just say “well, we can act AS IF it were true, it’ll be close enough”. It won’t.
But I find it strange that both in market discussions and in discussions of international relations, people regularly talk about what SHOULD be done, when if their ideological framework was correct there could really be no discussion–the “right” thing would by definition already be getting done.
Another problem I have with realism is down at the base somewhere. Realism presumes that states always act rationally, much the way efficient market hypothesis assumes individuals do. And in order to be able to assume that, you have to have a model of what is rational–doing THIS is rational, doing THAT is not (or wouldn’t be, if anyone ever did it, which they won’t ’cause they’re all rational). To the extent that states are acting to satisfy some preference, again as in free market theory this implies that everyone has the same preferences and they can be consistently ranked and any deviation from those preferences represents irrationality. As in free market theory, this causes some significant problems both in terms of reality (people’s, and even nations’, preferences are not like that) and in terms of theory (on what basis do we define what preferences can be considered rational or optimum, and in the case of Realism, has it even really gotten serious about defining what it considers those preferences to be and why, or does it just vaguely assume that we all know what a rational preference looks like when we see it?)
I also have a problem with Realism because I don’t think countries behave quite like unitary abstract entities with overall interests . . . and in fact I think different countries diverge from this model to different extents and in different ways and directions. The US is diverging a LOT right now, because its elites are both really stupid and irrational AND no longer identify much with the US project as a whole. And, I think most countries do not behave quite the way they would under strict international anarchy with complete amorality . . . somewhat like, but not completely. There are international standards of behaviour to some extent, which powerful countries can depart from the most, but there’s a reason people talk about “soft power” and why the US has spent so much effort over the years on propaganda: It makes some difference whether other countries see your country as a good guy or a bad guy, whether they think you can be trusted to keep your deals, whether your claims about other countries are considered plausible and so on. I don’t think Realism has much to say about this kind of thing.
The other possibility for Realism would be to admit that countries don’t act entirely like Realism predicts they will, BUT to claim that acting like Realism claims they do will be the optimum policy (leaving aside the problem I raised earlier about what “optimum” even means). But that’s far from clear, in a number of ways. At the world level, the thing is that Realism is a model that implies pretty bad overall world outcomes. If it’s possible to depart from it and some countries do, then advocating Realist policies is very likely to make the world overall a worse place. But even at the country level, Realist behaviour being optimum is based on the idea that all countries are also behaving that way. But if other countries are NOT behaving that way, some other strategy might be better. You play differently in a Prisoner’s Dilemma if you expect the other player to default than if you expect them to co-operate.
So, I’m not a “realist”. That said, as a rule of thumb of what to expect it’s not that bad, most of the time. If you don’t know what’s actually going on, and you had to gamble on an expectation, realism would get you an expectation significantly better than chance even with fairly bare-bones knowledge of a situation. But that doesn’t make it an accurate theory.
Carborundum
I don’t know what the official assessment of total grocery price change is, but there are a lot of components that have booked some pretty significant nominal increases (beyond 50% in some cases): https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/cv.action?pid=1810024501 This data is gathered directly from point of sale scanning, so it should be reasonably accurate.
Beyond that, the amount of substitution going on is clearly huge – for the little bit of shopping that I do in chain stores, I shop at a discount grocer and the shift from pork roasts (cheap) to chops (expensive) cut from same pieces of carcass is nearly 100%. Beef, particularly steaks, has pretty much become unobtanium.
Ian Welsh
Yeah, I buy way less beef, even ground beef. When I do, it’s 50% off (last day), and usually roasts that I’ll cut up myself. Pork is more affordable. Chicken, when there are specials. Pre 2000, with about the same income, I ate a lot more beef, even some cheap steaks.
JohnnyGL
“Oh, I hear you screaming already. But the fact is that if this were not “our” hemisphere, not a one of us would have the standard of living we do today. Our hegemony of the Western Hemisphere is the primary foundation of our wealth and our power.”
No way!!! This is a lie imperialists tell their people so they’ll shut up and acquiesce to empire. Most of the American population has no wealth to speak of. Taking away the empire isn’t going to hurt them a bit.
cc
Appreciated the read and Mark’s level comments.
The article emphasized that the key word is “hostile” yet the meaning and scope of the word was never defined. As Mark asked, “What constitutes hostile?”
And when it’s not defined, doesn’t it basically mean whatever the US/UK and the West want it to mean to justify their relentless divide-and-conquer machinations? Does it fall under what the US foreign policy elite like to call “strategic ambiguity”, a weasel term used to both officially recognize One China while also promoting and arming the separation of a province of that One China? It’s basically a euphemism for blatant dishonesty and lack of integrity.
If a Eurasian country puts in place measures of self-defense in response to the US surrounding them with military bases and missiles, does that qualify as “hostile”?
If a Eurasian country puts in place measures of self-defense in response to foreign interference and subversion – for example, by adopting laws requiring foreign NGO’s to register, like Nepal just tried to do before getting violently regime-changed – is that “hostile”?
If a Eurasian country doesn’t want to be at the mercy of US dollar manipulations, sanctions, confiscations, theft, does that make them “hostile”?
If a Eurasian country wants to have democracy, sovereignty, media, organizations, and development free of US/Western hegemony and subversion, does that make them “hostile”?
If a Eurasian country does anything other than place themselves fully at the mercy of the US/West, does that make them “hostile”?
Not answering those questions and not properly defining “hostile” serves as carte-blanche for constant US/Western foreign interference, subversion, and machinations in Eurasia (and basically anywhere in the world).
“Smart, if ruthless policy.” It certainly is ruthless, and self-enriching at the expense of others. Perhaps this perfidiosity has been “smart” till now, in terms of having taken Anglos from just a small island in the north Atlantic to a massive Anglo hegemonic empire that has plundered and looted much of the world – but will that last much longer? Ian and many readers seem not to think so.
“I take the world as it is, not as I desire it to be. A hostile power or coalition of hostile powers that dominate Eurasia can take that hegemony away. You might not like it but trust me when I say you don’t want that to happen.”
But aren’t you saying that you desire a world in which the US and the West continues to maintain our hegemony over the rest of the world, even if we must commit grimace-inducing crimes against others to do so, just so that we can maintain our wealth, our power, and our standard of living at the expense of others?
And the next paragraph seems to imply that if we don’t keep doing it to them, they might eventually do it to us. That premise sounds like self-justification for crimes we commit against others, supposedly pre-emptively. How do these working premise not engender “hostility” or self-defensive measures?
Not trying to “rip to shreds”, just trying to parse things.
cc
The terms “realist” and “realism” came up in the article and in some comments, and Mark Level mentioned Mearsheimer who I do also try to catch occasionally in YouTube clips.
In this piece by Oliver Hua, he suggests that Mearsheimer’s view is still that “might is right and thinks the world should be subject to Pax Americana,” but that this is no longer such as realistic view.
https://huabinoliver.substack.com/p/john-mearsheimer-is-a-crackpot-realist
different clue
A thinker-writer named C. Wright Mills once coined the word ” crackpot realism”.
https://www.independent.org/article/2003/02/18/on-crackpot-realism-an-homage-to-c-wright-mills/
Mearshimer and Kissinger and the rest of the self-called Realists have long seemed like crackpot realists to me.
And I am still left to wonder, by what specific mechanism does a “hostile” Eurasia threaten American sovereignty here on Turtle Island?
Purple Library Guy
cc, the term “realism” is a term of art in political science. I believe that’s how Mr. Kelley is using the word here. It refers to a particular theory of international relations, which managed to grab itself a really choice piece of lexical real estate. Scholars of international relations have a couple of competing theories, like . . . does a bit of quick googling . . . “liberal institutionalism” and “constructivism”.
“Realism” is the oldest of the major theories. It treats states as unitary entities which pursue a readily defined “national interest”; this national interest is selfish (that second part, frankly, is reasonable enough). As I understand it, it concludes among other things that based on this, international relations will remain essentially anarchic, that the only stable configuration is one with a dominant hegemon, but also that states will band together to counterbalance a hegemon (rather than mostly toadying to it). I don’t really buy it; I think it’s overly simplistic and neglects that state actions are mostly based on the interests of the bosses of that state, which are often noticeably different from the interests of the state as a whole no matter how defined, and that while state actions are generally going to be SOME kind of selfish, just what states WANT can be quite different between different states.
And many things just don’t fit into realism. Take South Africa. So, for a long time many countries cynically backed South African apartheid, even when their populations were against it. But it’s not like most countries got much AS COUNTRIES from South African apartheid that they couldn’t get from South Africa without apartheid, so although this was a cynical response it wasn’t a response really explained by realism. Rather, these countries were acting to help certain narrow elites in their countries, that profited from Apartheid in ways that didn’t really pass through to the countries’ populations or power or anything. And then at a certain point, many countries STOPPED cynically backing apartheid, because it had just gotten too embarrassing and their populations were too upset. And that isn’t even REMOTELY explained by realism. And then, to help those same elites, and to avoid anything that might look socialist happening, these countries busily put the fix in on post-apartheid South Africa. And once again, this doesn’t have much to do with realism, it has to do with a class struggle that is international in character. Realism isn’t even equipped to talk about that kind of issue.
different clue
breaking news: Charley Kirk just got shot and Black America doesn’t seem to care very much, if this thin little post as piece-of-evidence indicates broader sentiment . . .
It is from BlackPeopleTwitter and is titled: ” Breaking News: Caramel apple empanadas are back at Taco Bell “. Here is the link.
https://www.reddit.com/r/BlackPeopleTwitter/comments/1ndnksx/breaking_news_caramel_apple_empanadas_are_back_at/
different clue
With your report of a Danish friend’s report of rising prices in Denmark in mind, here is a little video about the ongoing Trumpinflation here, titled: ” You can thank Trump for this 🙂 ”
It is a little grocery store tour with video footage and running commentary on the prices seen. Here is the link.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ShareMarketupdates/comments/1ndbdzk/you_can_thank_trump_for_this/
Hiero
“if we don’t keep doing it to them, they might eventually do it to us” I’ve had game theory nerds articulate this to me, but they usually sub out might for will
Sean Paul Kelley
@CC: you ask serious sincere questions deserving of a response you will soon get. I Need some time, however, as I have written 5,000 words for Ian in the last four days and 4,500 words for my book. I’m a little brain dead and I am going to watch the conclusion to season three of Star Trek, Strange New Worlds.
somecomputerguy
Hope I am not piling on.
In the context of nation-states and international politics. What is an Interest?
How do we recognize one when we see it? See, I think the supreme strategic national vital interest of the United States, is that the people who compose it prosper in common, and continue to enjoy and expand the prerogatives of morally equal members of a polity.
We don’t necessarily need whatever the current governing body is, to do that. I would welcome the iron snow shoe of our neighbors to the north for one.
Without morality, how do you choose between policy goals?
somecomputerguy
Just one more please, this has been bothering me for decades.
In Hans Morganthau’s “Politics Among Nations”, Moranthau contrasts the wimpy sentimental starry-eyed idealist Neville Chamberlain, with the hard-nosed pragmatist Winston Churchill.
France had a giant well-financed military. Great Britain was a globe-spanning empire. Their combined forces outnumbered the Germans.
I think Neville Chamberlain cynically gave away someone else’s country to avoid a war he had to believe he would win.
Winston Churchill persevered in a war that Britain had already decisively lost. That doesn’t seem very pragmatic to me. Given Britain’s grim military and diplomatic environment in the wake of Dunkirk, continuing the war seems pretty starry-eyed to me.
Who has it right, me or Morganthau?