Day: November 12, 2018

Closing Thought–12Nov18

I have been looking back here on IST to World War One…..and since I have been working and writing about the Middle East I have also been looking at the effect of the war on many countries but it may have impacted the Middle East more so than others…….

Signs of World War I are everywhere and nowhere in the Middle East.

Overlain by subsequent conflicts and decades of bitter contestation, the legacies of the wartime experience continue to reverberate long after the conflict passed into history in Europe. With the Middle East in the throes of renewed political turmoil and having experienced decades of regional and international crises, many deriving from the decisions taken after the World War I, the complicated legacies of the war may not immediately be apparent but are nonetheless highly relevant.

A parallel may be drawn with the divided Europe up until 1989, where the ramifications of the World War II remained highly visible across multiple generations and made it difficult to establish historical distance from events whose legacy continued to resonate decades after.

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/remembering-world-war-middle-east-181109152013898.html

Sadly tomorrow this war will be once again meaningless to most Americans…….

That brings today to an end of posting for me….I must recharge my batteries….see you guys tomorrow……chuq

An European Army?

Closing Thought–12Nov18

WTF?

I shared this info with a loyal reader of IST from the UK, https://beetleypete.wordpress.com/ , I try to get first hand info on stories I read….Pete has a great mind and lets me know what’s what in the UK and EU…..his takes are much appreciated.

The French dude has called for a standing “European Army” to protect the continent from Russia and the US…..really from the US?

Emmanuel Macron is calling for the formation of a “real European army,” and while two of that potential force’s foes, per the French president, are usual suspects, it’s the third that’s raising eyebrows. During a tour of WWI memorials in Verdun on Tuesday, Macron encouraged countries in Europe to establish a unified military effort to shield the continent “with respect to China, Russia, and even the United States of America,” reports AFP, via Time. “When I see President Trump announcing that he’s quitting a major disarmament treaty, who is the main victim? Europe and its security,” Macron noted, apparently referencing Trump’s pulling out of a nuclear weapons pact with Russia last month.

“Peace in Europe is precarious,” he added, with the Guardian noting Macron also warned of rising populism and nationalism there. Macron will be hosting a global “peace conference” in Paris on Sunday that will include Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, among other top leaders, and he’s expected to keep cautioning against what he calls the “leprosy” of nationalism—especially when compared to the past. “I am struck by similarities between the times we live in and those between the two world wars,” he told local media. The BBC, meanwhile, doesn’t know if this idea will ever fly, noting that “there is no evidence that any group of European countries has the political will or economic muscle to spend sufficiently on defense to make up for the United States’ raw power.”

Most of Europe is in the clutches of austerity programs so I do not think the cash is there for another standing army…..and then there is the “will”…don’t think there is much of that either.

“Making America Great Again”–Part 14

This part of the series is where most people pick up their knowledge of the country…the presidency of Andrew Jackson…..maybe I should say this is where most Americans think they know about this country and its early government……

Maj. Sjursen does an excellent job at looking at Jackson and the events around his presidency in Part 14…….

Part 14 of “American History for Truthdiggers.”

“… When the right and capacity to do all is given to any authority, whether it be called people or king, democracy or aristocracy, monarchy or a republic, I say: the germ of tyranny is there. …” —Alexis de Tocqueville, “Tyranny of the Majority”

There are precious few presidents, indeed, who can claim to have an entire era bearing their name. Andrew Jackson is one. Historians have long labeled his presidency and the years that followed it as “Jacksonian” America. This is instructive. Whatever else he was, this man, General—later President—Jackson, was an absolute tour de force. He swept to power on a veritable wave of populism and forever altered the American political scene. One might argue, plausibly, that we live today in the system he wrought.

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/american-history-for-truthdiggers-andrew-jacksons-white-male-world-and-the-start-of-modern-politics/

Many think that the Jacksonian Era was the beginning of America as we know it today…..

This is an excellent look at our history…a history that may not be as it was taught to you in your school days…..

Learn Stuff!

Class Dismissed!

Could It Happen Again?

That question is being asked on the day we Americans celebrate Armistice Day….could the world be plunged into that darkness again?

1914 the world thought that a form of “globalization” could prevent war……..they were wrong and we have been trying that experiment yet again and so it has not prevented any war that I am aware of….but here is Bloomberg’s take on this question……

Last month, I traveled to Vienna, the former seat of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and a fitting place to contemplate the approaching 100th anniversary of the conclusion of World War I.

That conflict began with Austria-Hungary’s declaration of war against Serbia in July 1914, following the assassination of Austro-Hungarian archduke Franz Ferdinand. It ultimately led to more than 15 million deaths, the collapse of four empires, the rise of communism and fascism in some of Europe’s leading states, the emergence and subsequent retreat of America as a global power, and other developments that profoundly altered the course of the 20th century.

World War I was “the deluge … a convulsion of nature,” remarked Britain’s Minister of Munitions David Lloyd George, “an earthquake which is upheaving the very rocks of European life.” Although that conflict ended a century ago, it still offers three crucial lessons that are relevant to our increasingly disordered world today.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-11-11/100-years-after-world-war-i-there-s-reason-to-fear

Then there is the view of 100 years of a grand strategy by the US since the end of WW1…..

On November 11, 1918, World War One, the Great War, ended. Amid the chaos that followed—revolution, the fall of empires, and rise of nations—the United States attempted to build a rules-based world which favored freedom. American power had won the war, and President Woodrow Wilson was trying to shape a peace along the lines of what we now call a rules-based or “liberal” world order. Wilson’s Fourteen Points, presented the previous January, challenged the imperial, balance-of-power system of the European powers (on both sides) which had started the war, and at the same time took on Lenin’s revolutionary alternative. Wilson’s ideas were a rough draft of American Grand Strategy in what has been called the American Century.

http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/one-hundred-years-of-american-grand-strategy

World War One changed the world forever……but now did we actually learn anything from the barbarity and horror of that war?

I await your thoughts.

Rivalries!

AS a grad of international relations and conflict management we study history as well and throughout history there have been international rivalries that have shaped the world we live in today……the following are the ten most important rivalries that brought about the world we know today.

On Aug. 27, 1914, the Japanese navy set up a blockade of Tsingtao, a German-run port on the coast of China, after declaring war on the German state just four days earlier. The Japanese navy then waited for the British navy to arrive at Tsingtao, and the two combined forces attacked and then captured the German-held port. The Japanese went on to seize most of Germany’s overseas colonies in the Pacific and began setting up its own empire, which of course put the country on a collision course with the United States and the United Kingdom.

The German-Japanese rivalry is an odd one to think about, given that the two states were allies in World War II, but it was so short-lived that the term “rivalry” is probably the wrong term to use to describe their fight in World War I. Even today, Germany and Japan are sometimes thought of as rivals in the global economy because both countries specialize in high quality goods, and they oscillate between having the third or fourth largest economy in the world (nominal GDP) behind the United States and China, but rumors of a commercial beef between Germany and Japan today are non-existent.

https://www.realclearhistory.com/articles/2018/08/30/10_rivalries_that_shaped_world_history_353.html

Now that I have shown the rivalries through history there is something else that needs the light of day.

The agreements that ended the Cold War are disintegrating…..

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) Nuclear Planning Group (NPG) was probably the Alliance’s most important and secretive institution during the Cold War. Notably, it worked out NATO members’ joint strategy and tactics for using non-strategic nuclear weapons in a possible all-European war with the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact. Such a confrontation seemed all too possible—and sometimes almost inevitable—during acute crisis situations that brought the Cold War opponents to the brink in 1949, 1956, 1962, 1973 and 1983. In the last of the aforementioned crises, tensions spiked as the United States deployed nuclear-tipped land-based cruise missiles as well as medium-range Pershing II ballistic missiles on the territory of several European NATO allies to counter the threat of the deployment of hundreds of Soviet SS-20 nuclear intermediary missiles known in Russia as Pioneer. The Soviets produced over 800 Pioneer missiles, and each carried a heavier payload than the Pershing IIs; but their U.S. counterparts were stealthier and much more accurate.

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2018/10/10/agreements_that_ended_the_cold_war_are_disintegrating_113882.html

The world is going to crap and look what the “master race” is doing……bitching about a DNA result and insulting a porn star….we are so much better than this.

Geez!  I love history there is so much that the average person knows not that it is fun to help them understand our world.

It is probably just me but I shall do my part.

Turn The Page!

Iran: Your History Lesson

This is my small attempt at FYI on the Iranian situation…..the short videos will make it easier than reading a long dissertation on the US-Iran relations……

Last week I posted on the new Iran policy…….https://lobotero.com/2018/11/08/iran-here-we-go-again/

Some Americans hate Iran……but why?  Is it a religious thing?  Is it a ethnic thing?  Or just because of ignorance?

The later makes more sense.

Most can only think in terms of 1979……there is so much more to be considered……let’s begin with generalities……

Right now with all the situations in the world the one that could be the most dangerous for the US…..there is a Middle East Cold War in the region and the US is a major player…..but let’s look at this situation….

 

The US and Iran have not always been adversaries……

We have all known we have a problem with Iran……but where did ll that begin?  For Americans it began in 1979….for Iranians it began in 1953……

But why do the Saudis hate the Iranians?

History can lead the way out of sticky situations….that is if we choose to walk away from stupid policies.

The US and Iran should return to the days of cooperation…..

Learn Stuff!

Class Dismissed!

Please answer me this……do these videos help in the understanding of the situation?