CarmineCatboy2 [he/him]

next you’ll tell me there’s a galicia in both spain and eastern europe

the most unrealistic thing about o’brien is that he’s somehow turned off by japanese food. he’s dozens of generations removed from sushi becoming a fad. i fully expected him to complain to keiko that proper japanese food is deep fried like in his homeland of michigan, ireland.

but in all seriousness, a major subplot in that episode of TNG was about o’brien confronting the racial hatred instilled in him by the war. its not surprising that people on twitter are trying to find degrees of racism with the slurs he uses, but its still weird.

yeah but what about the MIDTERM ELECTIONS IT NEVER ENDS

every day is christmas

I’m inclined to believe that as well. I don’t doubt reports that the Lula people are not actually super cozy with the Maduro people, in the same sense that North Korea is neither a vassal nor even very friendly towards the PRC. There’s just a lot of right wing propaganda that needs to be criticized on that front. At the very least Brazil and Venezuela are sovereign nations with ideological differences between them, they are bound to butt heads all the time. But Venezuela is a cornerstone of South America and the Caribbean. All of Itamaraty’s historical ambitions for Brazil go through Venezuela, Argentina and Peru. Those are the three countries without which Brazil cannot be considered a ‘Big Nation’ or a ‘Regional Leader’. It’s not just about the oil, it’s about geography as well.

well yes, but actually yes

Same media outlet just reported on the main foreign policy guy for Brazil, Celso Amorim, who was talking about the strategic importance and cost of certain countries joining BRICS or not. Seems he was clear cut on the value of Turkey, while being opposed to Nicaragua’s entry (due to the whole Vatican thing a while back).

However, while the headline claims that ‘Celso Amorim says he’s against Venezuela’s entry’, the actual article reads: ‘the former chancellor did not clarify if, in that specific moment, he meant it [a comment on some countries being worth less to the bloc] towards Venezuela specifically’.

Brazil as a country exports crude oil and imports refined petroleum. That trade relationship is specific to BrazilxUSA trade and is the reason why we are in a trade deficit with the americans. Considering that getting Venezuela in is more of a Russia/China ideal, I can’t imagine that opposing their entry is anything more than optics at this point.

Brazilian Liberal Media has made some claims that the Lula Government will be against the inclusion of Venezuela into BRICS. Considering that all joinings require a consensus on the part of member countries, this would be a spanner in the works. I don’t know if this is true or not, but it doesn’t actually strike me as surprising. The Brazilian Government has a difficult relationship with Venezuela since Cháves.

On the one hand, there’s the electoral issue. We are marching towards the second round of the municipal elections and any support for Venezuela galvanizes the right and the far right which are the majority of the country.

But on the other we do have the leaked CIA cables from way back when that claimed Lula had a difficult personal relationship with Hugo Cháves. Behind closed doors, the Venezuelan Government was considered difficult to influence or pin down, and a difficult partner to be had. What some might claim is a sign of sovereignty, others in the Brazilian side would say is a difficulty in cooperating in a time of american hegemony. As such, Brazil’s government feels a bit miffed with the way their brokered deals during the electoral crisis in Venezuela were more or less discarded.

I guess we’ll see the truth of things when during the next couple of days.

interestingly, it seems that the referendum was polarized between every border region and chisinau. young people hoping they’ll work for a few more pennies if they unify with romania?

you severely overestimate his price point

it was at this moment

that donald trump became presidential

The Biden team told Kamala’s team that the ‘weird thing’ is too negative and they had to drop it. So they did. Now only positive things are allowed, like the ‘brat thing’ and not talking about price gouging. The Kamala team better listen to Biden’s because, you know, Biden is still president and megalomaniacal people who go into politics are in fact petty as fuck and have real power.

“John is wrong about China, a place he knows too little about”

what

has been making policy recommendations regarding russia and Israel this whole time

I’m sorry but, everything in this and the following paragraph was factored into every post of mine in this comment thread and I’m not about to repeat myself for a third or fourth time.

This is as simple as it gets: if you apply John’s China logic to Israel, then John is wrong about Israel. If you apply John’s China logic to Russia, then John is wrong about Russia.

Israel is not going against US interests. It’s fulfilling Mearsheimer Doctrine and destroying all possibility for regional hegemons.

Making war against Russia is not against US interests. It is also fulfilling Mearsheimer Doctrine because Russia is already a regional hegemon and those are Not Good.

i don’t think they are even real at this point. the poster says something about naughty dog not liking dominant males. every single response claims thats insane but they have +200 upvotes anyways.

He says

Again: I know the specific things you’ve quoted. I’ve even read books of his in college during in my IR courses. What you’re ignoring is the things I’m quoting. The other halves of his interviews. Which is John’s undying belief in american exceptionalism, and the policy prescriptions he considers necessary to maintain it. Simply put, you are latching onto part of John’s canon of beliefs and failing to see his contradictions. Which is important because any interesting thinker is contradictory.

If Mearsheimer tells you that Russia should be treated as a legitimate Great Power with legitimate security concerns, you can then ask him: should the US do everything in its power to dislodge Russia’s status as the regional hegemon in Central Asia? He’ll either say yes - because that’s what he also believes when it comes to China in East Asia - or equivocate the issue by claiming that, actually, China is the ascendant hegemon in Central Asia. Which would untrue. Russia and China have complementary spheres of influence, the chinese have no real desire to guarantee security in the 'stans and the russians have no heft to guarantee economic growth on their own.

When John writes an entire book about AIPAC and how Israel is causing the US to make choices against its strategic interests, John is actually going against his own theory of international relations. Israel is an american outpost in the middle east. It’s purpose is to leave chaos in its wake and prevent the ascension of any potential regional hegemon. Israel exists for the exact same reasons the US supports Taiwan: and there’s no equivocation there on John’s part. The US should go to war over Taiwan in order to ensure China never becomes a regional hegemon. That is what John believes when it comes to China. The only thing he hasn’t realized (or, rather, pretends not to) is that policy makers also believe that the US should go to war to prevent any other potential regional hegemons. Be they Russia, or the EU, or Turkey, or Iran, or Brazil, or India.

The only disagreement there is a matter of chronology. John thinks China is the most pressing threat, and must be dealt with now before the empire is overstretched. That is a mistake on his part, and a failure of his in advocating for the american power that he believes must be preserved. Had Russia joined the EU and NATO, the US would have lost two continents. Should India reach China’s level of development, it too will have to be contained - just like the EU was. John’s world view is the exact same as the realists in the American State. The only difference is that John is in charge of writing books while policy-makers are in charge of killing whoever and however many need to be killed in order to maintain empire. Both sides share the same fundamental mistake of fighting against the times.

Had John been in any way different from the rest of the american realists, he’d make policy recommendations fed by his theory. Where the US would seek to balance out the ascending powers of Asia, rather than gearing up towards war for their destruction. No, even when Mearsheimer recognizes that the unipolar moment is gone what he recommends is to prolong american primacy as much as possible as to destroy contenders in detail. His desire for the US to continue to rule the world is what motivates him, not his theory.

I think John would disagree that they are as realist as him

Of course he would. And my whole point is that he’s wrong. Moreover, his own arguments prove that he’s wrong.

John constantly says that American Primacy can only be maintained by preventing the appearance of regional hegemons. He also claims that had he been in charge in China or elsewhere, his first priority would be to see to it that these countries become regional hegemons as quickly as possible. Ergo, from the point of view of american security, the United States is, at best, in a Cold War against every potential regional hegemon. This means every member of the BRICS, as well as the EU.

It doesn’t matter that John claims Russia should have been integrated into the american alliance. His disagreement there is not about the fundamental nature of international relations. But one of chronology. Let’s destroy China first and foremost. That’s it.

It also doesn’t matter that John claims Russia should be treated as a legitimate power with its own legitimate interests. His fundamentally realist worldview is defined by how that cannot, ever, be the case. The moment Russia, Brazil, China, India, Iran, Turkey and so on are treated as legitimate powers with their own legitimate interests is the moment the US is at war with not one potential regional hegemon but 5 or 6.

Many analysts have pointed out that Ukraine aside the greatest loser of the war is the EU. The larger picture only confirms this fact. American foreign policy has successfully contained the EU. Every regional partnership weaved by EU politicians has either gone nowhere or ended up in an American War of Aggression against the european’s partners. Iraq, Iran, Libya and so on. That is another area where John is just coping. In but 20 years a continental union larger than the US was reduced from an alternative to a basketcase. This is success from John’s own perspective and wouldn’t have happened if Russia was an EU and NATO member.

To nail that coffin, John also claims that Israel’s actions are not in America’s interests. Which is absurd. Israel’s actions are against the american people’s will, but they are most certainly in the US’s interests. As defined by John, it being preventive action against all regional hegemons. In this case the EU, Turkey, Iran and even Russia.

That’s the problem with John. He presents himself a just a rational and reasonable realist. In reality he’s an american supremacist. His belief in american exceptionalism is the primary driver of his policy recommendations, not his theory.

I’ve said it before, but as much as Mearsheimer claims that realism doesn’t really have a voice in the halls of power what he means is realism like his. He approaches that truth when he claims that america’s actions during the unipolar moment was merely enshrouded in a mist of liberalism. But the truth of the matter is that Biden, Nuland, et al are as realist as John when they feel the need to take on Russia and China at the same time. And it is John who’s the naive fool who thinks that you can ally Russia against China. Especially at this juncture.

American primacy can only be maintained by a war against all. I doubt that John is really in denial about this. But as a true believer, he has to at least pretend.

This reads like an australian farming statements to create an alternate reality. Of course there’s an academic in China who’s predicting a Russian loss in Ukraine. How many academics are there in China? Some of them are bound to be insanely ill informed. That to me is emblematic of how useful the article is.

‘Chinese officials clarified that Beijing does not seek a formal military alliance with Russia’ means much less than it seems given that context. Russia is China’s source of materiel. Russia is China’s access to the north sea routes. It won’t be discarded in any way, shape or form because it is an imperative to China’s export oriented model.

Neither must Russia compete with the west as a consumer market. First because it can’t, its a small population. Second because the west is closing itself off. Not the other way around. China’s bet there is a medium term growth across the entire south.

why is the top of the beer bottle its own beer compartment

the bit is believing that the same 7 european countries + USA and Canada - who spent the last 20 years killing millions upon millions of muslims across the world - are totally concerned about the lives of the few muslims they cannot bomb into submission. ie those in sovereign countries like China.

the punchline is the notion that every muslim country except NATO member Turkey has been bought off by an evil chinese conspiracy to also deny the uyghur genocide.

the PS.: is that those same countries who are totally concerned about Uyghurs are now conducting an actual genocide in Palestine.