Originally Posted by spence
Ok, so now we should reinvest in Cold War tension to inflame a region already dependent on Russian energy? I'm not against using our natural gas surplus to help the EU become more independent, but balancing strategic weapons against home heating will come at quite a cost.
Holy crap, Spence! Those two sentences contain such a wide spectrum of diversely connected thought, fraught with a multiplicity of possible analyses each with divergent solutions, that it would take a War and Peace length book to give them an adequate response. I congratulate you for the genius like capacity to conceptualize and mix such a conglomeration of topics all at once in a brief cocktail of geopolitical dictum.
I'll give it a brief shot. The "we" whom you say should reinvest is an illusive pronoun here, and, dependent on who the "we" is, will have different responses. And that is critical. I take it you mean the U.S. government? Well, you probably know by now that I think the U.S. government is supposed to be very limited into what it can invest. One of the main things within that limitation is the national defense. That is an ongoing responsibility which is not supposed to be turned on only in crisis. It is not a duty to be performed only in time of war, cold or hot. The strength of a nation depends on various things, one of which is the ability to defend itself against whatever dangers or threats that obviously exist, and against those that might and can occur when the guard is down. It is a main responsibility of the central government to be on guard so that the nation can go about those other things that make the nation strong and great. Those who execute the duties of defense must not endanger the nation by bureaucratically weakening defensive capability in order not to "provoke" other nations into a "Cold War Tension." Those who wish you no harm should not take offense at your prudence. If they are competent, they will also maintain a strong defense.
But when the central government cuts defense investment and diverts it to other projects in which it is not empowered by the social compact to participate, it weakens the nation in every respect. It centralizes, thus makes static, the function and regulation of those various things that are intended for the People to create in constantly evolving and competitive ways. It limits the freedom of the People when it seizes their duties and responsibilities to itself to dole out to crony friends, and it diverts away the People's wealth which was meant for their defense, thus weakening its own true responsibility as well as the strength of the nation.
As for inflaming a region, it is more inflamed now than during the Cold War. And if "we" and the EU had invested in powerful military defense, I suspect it might be much less inflamed. But "we" and they, as governments, chose to invest the People's money into various schemes which usually exacerbated that which they were supposed to cure. It was not left for "We" the People to invest the billions and trillions which did not go into the common defense. How much richer, stronger, and freer our nations would be if "We" were allowed to invest our wealth as our social compact intended, and if "we" the central government had stuck only to what "We" had originally granted it!
As far as balancing home heating and strategic weapons goes--the point is that there is no need to balance. Those are meant to be different domains. The strategic weapons for the common defense is the domain of "we" the government, and home heating is the domain of "We" the People. The governments, in order to do that which they are not supposed to do, confiscate WAY more money than is required to fund strategic weapons. All that excess money left in the hands of the People and their entrepreneurs would find more innovative and economical ways to take care of home heating.
I think Russia has over-reached with Crimea. They may succeed in keeping it, but I don't think it's going to gain them much. It's a novelty prize for Putin if anything and will only accelerate Ukraine's status in the EU assuming they can get their crap together.
I think if Russia tries to annex the east and capture most of Ukraine's industrial output you'll see civil war...they don't want that.
The bigger picture is Russian and Chinese influence in the Middle East and Asia.
-spence
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