Stavros
06-30-2018, 10:25 AM
The US has withdrawn from the Paris Climate Change Agreement, the Iran Nuclear Deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, halted negotiations on the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership; it has threatened to withdraw from the G7, NATO, and now may walk away from the World Trade Organization with the longer term threat to the United Nations -in effect, demolishing an international order of co-operation between states that has been developed and sustained since 1945.
But there is no Plan B. The intention of the US is not to replace one order by another, but to remove international order on the basis that because the US is big enough and strong enough to survive on its own, it doesn't need the G7, or NATO, or the UN -so why bother paying for it? And if the smaller states complain, let them complain, it is 'America First'. And when the UK after Brexit enters the negotiating room on its hands and knees, begging for scraps from the American table, it is the UK that will be screwed, its economy filleted for the benefit of the very corporations the President identified as swamp life, to be drained. We were conned, and will be conned.
Norm Ornstein has been writing acute analyses of US politics for many years now, and in 2016 wrote a devastating critique that traces the descent of American politics into a partisan war similar to what happened in the 1850s and 1860s to the work of Newt Gingrich, Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, yet his domestic critique can now be extended to the international scene, thus:
Consider a world where partisan tribalism—the sense that the other party is a threat to the country, the enemy, not just an adversary—is conjoined with race, one party becoming overwhelmingly white, the other largely non-white. The challenge for national unity will be much sharper than it has been in over a century.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/01/the-eight-causes-of-trumpism/422427/
Since 2017, the US threat to withdraw from the 'global order' has without doubt become a stunning victory for the Russians who have spent years now trying to undermine through political violence and illegality the very same global processes the US is now doing legally as its stated policy. Dictators are in ecstasy as they now see they are free to act with impunity in a world where there is no accountability, but 'kill or be killed' shall be the whole of the law.
In North Korea nuclear development continues even as the President lies to his supporters about the 'de-nuclearization' taking place because of the summit in Singapore. In Syria, Bashar al-Asad and his family, emboldened by the news the US no longer cares what happens, plan a 'final solution' to the rebels in the South on the border with Jordan, and in the west in Idlib province, assisted by the Russians. If the result is another 50,000 dead and 250,000 or even a million more refugees -who cares? And what can be done about it?
If he wants to, Vladimir Putin, without a full invasion, can interfere in the politics of Latvia and Estonia to cause chaos there and weaken the governments, knowing the US will look the other way. Though an outrageous hypothesis, President Erdogan could extend Turkey's illegal occupation of Northern Cyprus over the whole of Cyprus unifying it with Turkey -and who is going to stop him from doing that?
It is a defeat for all those who think global politics is too dangerous to be practiced without rules, and who can point to over a century of co-operation on issues such as global health that have not only worked to combat infectious and contagious disease but in the process proved it is possible for states to collaborate for the good of all. It is a victory for the partisan, the ideological crusaders convinced their view is the only view that matters and the rest of us can go to hell. But we don't want to live in hell on earth, and if the US is not careful, it may find that it has created a monster that hungers for victims, and finds them where they are easier to pluck -at home.
US may withdraw from the WTO-
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/trump-wto-latest-white-house-world-trade-organization-aides-axios-a8423396.html
But there is no Plan B. The intention of the US is not to replace one order by another, but to remove international order on the basis that because the US is big enough and strong enough to survive on its own, it doesn't need the G7, or NATO, or the UN -so why bother paying for it? And if the smaller states complain, let them complain, it is 'America First'. And when the UK after Brexit enters the negotiating room on its hands and knees, begging for scraps from the American table, it is the UK that will be screwed, its economy filleted for the benefit of the very corporations the President identified as swamp life, to be drained. We were conned, and will be conned.
Norm Ornstein has been writing acute analyses of US politics for many years now, and in 2016 wrote a devastating critique that traces the descent of American politics into a partisan war similar to what happened in the 1850s and 1860s to the work of Newt Gingrich, Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, yet his domestic critique can now be extended to the international scene, thus:
Consider a world where partisan tribalism—the sense that the other party is a threat to the country, the enemy, not just an adversary—is conjoined with race, one party becoming overwhelmingly white, the other largely non-white. The challenge for national unity will be much sharper than it has been in over a century.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/01/the-eight-causes-of-trumpism/422427/
Since 2017, the US threat to withdraw from the 'global order' has without doubt become a stunning victory for the Russians who have spent years now trying to undermine through political violence and illegality the very same global processes the US is now doing legally as its stated policy. Dictators are in ecstasy as they now see they are free to act with impunity in a world where there is no accountability, but 'kill or be killed' shall be the whole of the law.
In North Korea nuclear development continues even as the President lies to his supporters about the 'de-nuclearization' taking place because of the summit in Singapore. In Syria, Bashar al-Asad and his family, emboldened by the news the US no longer cares what happens, plan a 'final solution' to the rebels in the South on the border with Jordan, and in the west in Idlib province, assisted by the Russians. If the result is another 50,000 dead and 250,000 or even a million more refugees -who cares? And what can be done about it?
If he wants to, Vladimir Putin, without a full invasion, can interfere in the politics of Latvia and Estonia to cause chaos there and weaken the governments, knowing the US will look the other way. Though an outrageous hypothesis, President Erdogan could extend Turkey's illegal occupation of Northern Cyprus over the whole of Cyprus unifying it with Turkey -and who is going to stop him from doing that?
It is a defeat for all those who think global politics is too dangerous to be practiced without rules, and who can point to over a century of co-operation on issues such as global health that have not only worked to combat infectious and contagious disease but in the process proved it is possible for states to collaborate for the good of all. It is a victory for the partisan, the ideological crusaders convinced their view is the only view that matters and the rest of us can go to hell. But we don't want to live in hell on earth, and if the US is not careful, it may find that it has created a monster that hungers for victims, and finds them where they are easier to pluck -at home.
US may withdraw from the WTO-
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/trump-wto-latest-white-house-world-trade-organization-aides-axios-a8423396.html