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Ted Cruz

7 (6.5%)

Rick Santorum

16 (14.8%)

Michelle Bachmann

13 (12%)

Chris Christie

23 (21.3%)

Rand Paul

49 (45.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107

[DWC]

Terrorism is a bit of an annoying word nowadays. It's become the new "Communism", overused to the point of virtual meaninglessness because of its status as the boogieman ideology of the world.

You can come to a lot of interesting historical conclusions with the definition of terrorism; "The use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims." Maybe that's the way it should be, I don't know.

Yeah, I agree. Too many people are lumping in or confusing insurgencies with terrorism as well.

If there is a conspiracy theory, I think the Illuminati or whoever believes there needs to be fear and uncertainty, conflict or some kind of communal struggle to advance progress and vitalize people. The Cold War and the red scare was perfect for this because they were pretty terrifying in their own right and look how society advanced during that period, right?

After the Cold War ended, they had Iraq and Iran for a little while, then when things got quite they started using climate change for fearmongering purposes and when 9/11 happened they had this phantom world wide terrorist jihad to focus their fears on as well.

I think the terrorism thing pretty much played out, the wars are winding down and people are realizing that terrorism is a grossly overestimated threat. People didn't like Bush and associate the war on terror with him, the media is going back to global warming and hyping extreme weather to create fear instead. Notice all the news right now is about some scary tornado knocking over shoddy wood frame structures in Oklahoma like that doesn't happen every other year since the last 200 years or so.

I don't think that weather is all that terrifying, they'll probably need to find a new boogyman to create fear pretty soon.

[Owlbread]

I can't really see who the next enemy is going to be though. The Chinese know better, though they may turn ugly if political tensions rise within the country. The government and the Chinese establishment may turn to outpourings of nationalism like what we've seen over the Senkaku islands. I think though in terms of "boogieman ideologies" like radical Islamism or Communism or whatever, there isn't anything that can replace them.

One pleasant development I've noticed in the last few years is the complete lack of countries being at each other's throats beyond the usual suspects like Pakistan and India. I can't see where the next big conflict is going to appear, and that gives me hope for future disarmament.

[10ebbor10]

One pleasant development I've noticed in the last few years is the complete lack of countries being at each other's throats beyond the usual suspects like Pakistan and India. I can't see where the next big conflict is going to appear, and that gives me hope for future disarmament.

Water/ Food crisis in Africa.
Overpopulation crisis in India/ China.
Reradicalisation in the Balkan
...

Plenty of places for war to break out.

[Owlbread]

Water/ Food crisis in Africa.
Overpopulation crisis in India/ China.
Reradicalisation in the Balkan
...

Plenty of places for war to break out.

Oh yes there will be lots of wars/conflicts in Africa, Middle East, Caucasus, Central Asia etc, I'm speaking from an unfortunately Euro/Western centric point of view though, though you can't blame me surely given that this is an American politics thread. The point I'm making is that there isn't a "big bad enemy country" for the USA or the UK anymore, or even a big bad international terrorist organisation.

Uzbekistan will probably experience a civil war with Islamists upon the death of their dictator Karimov, Chechnya will experience a third war when Putin steps down and the anti-Chechen opposition takes power and stops sending money. Afghanistan will go down the plughole after the NATO withdrawal. There will always be wars in Burma and Indonesia and the like with separatists. I am certain that North Korea will experience an armed revolution within 20 years, though it is unclear whether that will become a civil war. I am unsure if overpopulation will lead to war.

I wouldn't know about a reradicalisation of the Balkans either, could you explain that?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

North Korea will probably not have any sort of revolution in the sense we think of it, it'll just finally go over the edge and fall apart entirely. Not Somalia-style chaos because of how beaten down the population is, but certainly a failed state.

[DWC]

I can't really see who the next enemy is going to be though. The Chinese know better, though they may turn ugly if political tensions rise within the country. The government and the Chinese establishment may turn to outpourings of nationalism like what we've seen over the Senkaku islands. I think though in terms of "boogieman ideologies" like radical Islamism or Communism or whatever, there isn't anything that can replace them.

One pleasant development I've noticed in the last few years is the complete lack of countries being at each other's throats beyond the usual suspects like Pakistan and India. I can't see where the next big conflict is going to appear, and that gives me hope for future disarmament.

I'd expect wars to start flaring up when resource scarcity starts to become a problem, especially with oil/ energy and thusly, food shortages. Water shortages too, these aquifers as being drained faster then they are being replenished and when the deepest wells start to dry there will be all kinds of problems. This is more worrying then anything else, but it hasn't become a crisis yet or people will be in denial about it until probably decades after it happens. They'll start blaming each other for the impacts of oil shocks and food shortages well before and after that.

Also civil wars are probably the new cool trending thing as societies start to become more stratified and diverse and you know, information is more widely available, if people want to know all about ideologies or religions worth killing each other over it's everywhere on the internet.

[Owlbread]

North Korea will probably not have any sort of revolution in the sense we think of it, it'll just finally go over the edge and fall apart entirely. Not Somalia-style chaos because of how beaten down the population is, but certainly a failed state.

I was actually imagining a Somalia-style situation, though less organised crime and medieval stuff. The country goes over the edge and the people overthrow the government. I honestly expect an overthrow rather than just a simple collapse; the North Koreans are downtrodden but they do have a budding resistance movement currently. Unlike Somalia though I would imagine a provisional government would form quite quickly given the standard of education in the country.

I'd expect wars to start flaring up when resource scarcity starts to become a problem, especially with oil/ energy and thusly, food shortages. Water shortages too, these aquifers as being drained faster then they are being replenished and when the deepest wells start to dry there will be all kinds of problems. This is more worrying then anything else, but it hasn't become a crisis yet or people will be in denial about it until probably decades after it happens. They'll start blaming each other for the impacts of oil shocks and food shortages well before and after that.

Also civil wars are probably the new cool trending thing as societies start to become more stratified and diverse and you know, information is more widely available, if people want to know all about ideologies or religions worth killing each other over it's everywhere on the internet.

You say that, but I struggle to think of any new ideology or religious doctrine that I've seen that could lead to the kind of stuff we've seen over the last 120 years or so.

I also think that because Empires are quite divided now (i.e. most of the countries held illegally/by force by other countries have broken free) we are starting to see far fewer wars of independence beyond the obvious ones (Kurds, Chechens, Moros, Tuaregs etc). Most of the countries that are left in that position are more like countries with people are considering independence because it sounds like a good idea rather than anything else, and they're virtually all non-violent. Wars fought on that sort of "national" basis are starting to die out, but they were once used as the basis for land and resource grabbing, such as in the First and Second World Wars. I think future resource wars may struggle from a lack of excuses.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

North Korea will probably not have any sort of revolution in the sense we think of it, it'll just finally go over the edge and fall apart entirely. Not Somalia-style chaos because of how beaten down the population is, but certainly a failed state.

I was actually imagining a Somalia-style situation, though less organised crime and medieval stuff. The country goes over the edge and the people overthrow the government. I honestly expect an overthrow rather than just a simple collapse; the North Koreans are downtrodden but they do have a budding resistance movement currently. Unlike Somalia though I would imagine a provisional government would form quite quickly given the standard of education in the country.

As we discussed last time this came up, you cannot revolt if you cannot fucking eat.

I also seriously doubt your whole theory about there being a resistance anyway; it is hardly as if we have a great deal of information about what is going on inside North Korea.

[Owlbread]

As we discussed last time this came up, you cannot revolt if you cannot fucking eat.

I also seriously doubt your whole theory about there being a resistance anyway; it is hardly as if we have a great deal of information about what is going on inside North Korea.

Nonsense, you often revolt because you cannot eat. That was a very silly thing to say. Also, not everyone in the DPRK is starving to the point that they cannot pick up a gun.

I know you doubt it, but I can show you if you'd like to see. It is not an organised movement, it's just various groups and individual people (such as Christian activists) working in opposition to the North Korean government. Indeed, most of the information that we actually have about what's going on inside North Korea is obtained through such resistance movements. These groups are effective enough in that they can smuggle people in and out of the country, as well as video cameras to film the horrors that they see. They also smuggle communications devices so that you can have a telephone conversation with someone in the DPRK from the outside.

[DWC]

North Korea will probably not have any sort of revolution in the sense we think of it, it'll just finally go over the edge and fall apart entirely. Not Somalia-style chaos because of how beaten down the population is, but certainly a failed state.

I was actually imagining a Somalia-style situation, though less organised crime and medieval stuff. The country goes over the edge and the people overthrow the government. I honestly expect an overthrow rather than just a simple collapse; the North Koreans are downtrodden but they do have a budding resistance movement currently. Unlike Somalia though I would imagine a provisional government would form quite quickly given the standard of education in the country.

As we discussed last time this came up, you cannot revolt if you cannot fucking eat.

I also seriously doubt your whole theory about there being a resistance anyway; it is hardly as if we have a great deal of information about what is going on inside North Korea.

Probably, although a coup or something by the military or the nomeklatura there could overthrow the government if they were power-hungry enough and they thought it could work. Probably not a popular movement, it's not so much that they are hungry or not, they are just too ignorant to know their own plight and are probably seriously brainwashed. Any malcontents in North Korea flee the country or are sent to the gulags.

Anyways, everybody knows how these things play out with tyrannies and criminal governments. The Glorious Leader never goes out quietly, the ruling family and their cronies will throw the whole country into a bonfire before they relinquish their stranglehold. I can't see the situation with North Korea ending without a war, even if it's a civil war, the rest of the world will be unable to resist meddling in it and it'd get pretty ugly.

You say that, but I struggle to think of any new ideology or religious doctrine that I've seen that could lead to the kind of stuff we've seen over the last 120 years or so.

I also think that because Empires are quite divided now (i.e. most of the countries held illegally/by force by other countries have broken free) we are starting to see far fewer wars of independence beyond the obvious ones (Kurds, Chechens, Moros, Tuaregs etc). Most of the countries that are left in that position are more like countries with people are considering independence because it sounds like a good idea rather than anything else, and they're virtually all non-violent. Wars fought on that sort of "national" basis are starting to die out, but they were once used as the basis for land and resource grabbing, such as in the First and Second World Wars. I think future resource wars may struggle from a lack of excuses.

Maybe you're right, but then this 'Arab Spring' thing flared up for no discernible reason too and the US is barely restraining it'self from launching into another adventure over in the middle east. The US/ NATO/ UN like to intervene whenever possible on dubious or humanitarian grounds, so some stupid civil war or brush war in some shithole or another will end up drawing the west into the conflict to some degree or another. Give the US a decade or so to forget everything that happened with the War on Terror and they'll go forth to find monsters to destroy yet again.

I agree though, that large international conflicts like WWII are probably a thing of the past, barring some dramatic shift in the paradigm. Asides from maybe some conflict with North Korea but I don't think that'd really be as huge a flare up as people think.

[Reelya]

Everything is about proxy-empires now: consider the Warsaw Pact - none of those nations were annexed directly by the Soviet Union, it was more cost effective to install puppet governments. America uses the same tactic: it was much cheaper to use a CIA propaganda campaign to overthrow the democratic Iranian regime in 1954 and put the dictator in power than it would have been to invade the country. One thing about "countries" not occupying others isn't quite true - countries generally turn a blind eye to each other's colonial conquests, and they get assimiliated as part of the host country - e.g. Hawaii was only invaded by America just over a century ago. It ceased to exist as a sovereign nation. But you can't really claim it isn't occupied by force (and outbreeding the natives, importing white settlers).

Considering that situations in which America has overthrown democratic governments (and placed or propped up genocidal maniacs), actually vastly outnumber the times that America intervened to protect democracy in a nation, I'm highly skeptical that humanitarian issues are America's primary concern. I can't really think of any examples that would truly qualify.

It seems like people are drinking the koolaid when they talk about America unilaterally "destroying monsters" around the world - most of the time, the monsters they destroyed were their own creation (who do you think was selling oil to Japan prior to WWII? Texas). I could make a list of genocidal regimes back by the USA since after WWII, but i don't think this forums allows so many words per post.

I'll just point out, that America, materially and politically, backed Pol Pot as the legitimate leader of Cambodia, one of the last century's most genocidal figures.
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/US_PolPot.html

Actually, that's the Reagan Era, in a nutshell - they created or supplied Al Aqaeda Terrorists in Afghanistan, Pol Pot's Terrorists in Cambodia, Contra Terrorists in Nicaragua, etc, etc. Seems to have been a "thing" the Reagan Administration was into, create Terrorists to plague unfriendly nations, create Death Squads to "police" friendly nations (the El Salvadorean death squads and the Colombian UAC being prime examples, their atrocities are literally straight out of the School Of the Americas training manuals).

[Owlbread]

In order to understand the conflicts in Afghanistan, Central Asia and the Middle East as a whole, along with modern Western foreign policy and realpolitik, I would recommend listening to Craig Murray, former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan. He wraps up the whole thing very well. Starts getting really interesting at 0:29:00. A Taliban delegation even went to the USA to discuss protection for the trans-Afghan pipeline with UNICAL. At the time George Bush Sr. was on the UNICAL board, and the guy coordinating the talks with the Taliban was Hamid Karzai. That was all in something like 1997.

Behold

[Scoops Novel]

There's this:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22638533 on Obama defending the drone strikes on BBC, outlining more stringent requirements for drone strikes, as well as lifting a restriction on prisoners of Guantanamo to Yemen. I didn't realize the point had been pushed that hard.

[Owlbread]

   "Near certainty" the target was present and that civilians would not be injured or killed

    Capture would not be feasible

    Authorities of the country in question could not or would not address the threat

    No other reasonable alternatives were available

Bit late for that, Obama. Cry in public for the civilians you've killed and maybe I'll treat you with a modicum of respect.

[Sheb]

Let us not forget the administration "guilty until proven innocent" policy of considering every male of combat age to be a militant until proven otherwise.  There's no collateral damage when you decide everyone is your enemy.