I remember your West German analogy with Biden as Adenauer. Respectfully, I think that didn't work given the economic populist nature of his party's policy agenda, and I don't think the Adenauer era works for Trump's future America either. Don't get me wrong; I would love to read more about Adenauer after his fascinating interview on Zur Person. But it just doesn't make sense? "We'll have West Germany circa 1948 but without the bombed out cities, the fall of an evil authoritarian regime, or the scramble to halt the Iron Curtain's advance." So other than those things, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln?
The right analogy is probably more early 20th century British. You've got a smaller share of global % GDP than your peak, and you're running into more consolidated new industrial powers. Your existing naval power is stretched thin and facing new challenges. No one in the legislature is really agreeing to rapidly boost % GDP military spending. The only option left is to decide which front to get allies into picking up more of the bill. That means East Asia, Middle East, and Eastern Europe, pick one, and pick it yesterday.
No, my Adenauer analogy didn't work out too well, because Biden didn't govern as the bipartisan centrist that I expected him to be. To some extent he did, but to some extent he didn't -- and to some extent he marketed himself as being more left-wing than he was. But Covid and the post-Trump desire for a return to normalcy was an opportunity for a more vigorous centrism to make real and valuable changes. It was an opportunity to "build back better." We just didn't achieve it, except very partially.
As for whether a post-Trump reset offers a similar or better opportunity: you're probably right, as you can tell from my having said that I think the most likely scenario isn't such a reset, but rather just a more corrupt and inefficient regime that either needs to be cleaned up or proves alarmingly durable.
Finally, as to the analogy to Britain: if we're talking about pre-WWI Britain, that's an oft-made analogy with a lot of value to it. In that period, as we do now, Britain faced multiple rising rivals: not only Germany but also Russia and, most prominently, America. What Britain did, though, was stop trying to bottle up America, and focus on holding on to their empire and trying to bottle up Germany, even if it meant allying with powers like Russia and France that were also rivals. That plan led to WWI, which stalemated until America's entry, leaving Britain in massive debt to America after the war and even more over-extended, such that after WWII they were effectively bankrupt. But though they lost their empire, they still could shelter under America's wings and maintain a kind of relevance thereby for many decades after.
So if we're Britain, who is our America? I don't think there is one. And I think that's a rather big difference.
Honestly "populist" is a better term for Democratic policy than "left-wing." A fundamental claim to represent the various peripheries to the Yankee middle class and summon them to reform capitalism is basically the through-line from Jackson to Biden; Michael Kazin's WHAT IT TOOK TO WIN is instructive. It's odd to me how much pundits bounce between "too socially woke" and "too economically leftist" as opposed to just too many interest groups.
And you're right, there is no America in the declining British Empire analogy. There's a glimmer of Franz Joseph Strauss's Grand Design, his United States of Europe. There's a glimmer of a more industrialized India. But neither is what America was then in the early 20th century. It looks like in an unthinking bipartisan way, the US is really betting a lot on post-industrial technology (AI) somehow multiplying industrial throughput to levels we've never seen before. A bold gamble on the futurists, that's arguably what America's national culture since the 90s has drifted towards.
The country that is arguably America to our Britain is, of course, China -- vastly more populous, a vastly larger center of manufacturing, seated an ocean away, and the largest beneficiary of the liberal economic order that we underwrote. The China-America analogy is at least as good as the China-Germany one, just emphasizing different characteristics.
But the British could convince themselves that we were their rich country cousins who would take their side out of family feeling, and try not notice that as we replaced them as head of the family we also divested them of their empire. I don't think we can convince ourselves of anything similar about China.
I'm not in a good position to speculate on AI. But I'm pretty sure China will benefit from it too.
It took Japan a long time post-war to get to anything like how we think of it today. Even as an optimistic scenario, it does not avoid the economic catastrophe. That is a reasonable outcome, though one I dread.
On a different note, I don't think Trump thinks of it in these terms. What does he care for what happens after he is done? He might not even conceive of an America "after" him and how it might revert or not. His court, though? Absolutely. Musk specifically knows the distinction between breaking and reforming.
I mean, the question is not how long it took Japan to get to where it is today, but how long it took Japan to surpass its prewar economic level and where it went from there. The answer: it took about a dozen years for it to pass its prewar economic level, and that was only the beginning of an extraordinary run. The situation in West Germany was similar: by the mid to late 1950s it had surpassed both its own prewar economic level and France and the UK. That's kind of extraordinary when you think about the sheer level of destruction that the war inflicted on both nations.
As for your different note: I don't know what Trump is thinking about the future beyond the next four years. Maybe he thinks he'll be president for life? Maybe he thinks he's immortal? Or maybe, more normally, he does think about his kids. But Elon Musk and JD Vance and Russell Vought are definitely thinking about the future.
And that's an important thing to remember. Trump's court certainly contains more than its share of sycophants, corrupt cronies, greasy-pole-climbers, hangers-on and go-along-to-get-along types. But the people who are making all this radical change happen aren't those people. They're people with ambition, but also people who are trying to accomplish something, however alarming that something is to those of us who don't share their beliefs.
>"The same is true of the destruction of USAID. Could the organization be built back better in some future Democratic administration? In theory, yes, but in practice organizations that previously relied on it will rationally be wary of making significant investments without knowing whether the rug will be pulled out from under them."
I am from a country that has (had) a muscular USAID/NED presence. I know the kinds of people they work with, and I can assure you of two things. First, they aren't "investing" anything, so the grants/sub-contracts are just a sure paycheck for as long as the program is funded. Second, most of these people are unemployable in productive sectors of the economy, so the moment the taps open up again, they will jump back in gladly.
The US-based prime contractors, the East-West Management Institutes, the Zinc Networks and the IREXs, might wither, but I am certain those could be spun up easily if Washington decides to restart the regime change machine. They too rely mainly on cadres of otherwise unemployables.
I don't know which country you are from, but my impression is that this is not true for everything USAID has done, particularly not for its most important health-related work. Sadly, I suspect that the stuff that would be easiest to restart is the stuff that provides the least value of any kind.
I am very familiar with the programs USAID conducted in my country, and I can assure you, it was all always and entirely a political influence operation that brought nothing but civil unrest and division. Perhaps they did humanitarian work elsewhere, but I would say it was incredibly cynical and self-defeating to package that with spycraft, because that only erodes trust in the aid and ultimately harms the people who actually need aid.
Again, I don't know what country you are from, and I don't have an on-the-ground view like you do of USAID's activities in that location. But I totally appreciate your perspective.
I think it's probably unrealistic to expect a major power to completely ignore political-diplomatic considerations when engaging in this kind of work. A big reason why countries do this stuff in the first place is to buy influence. But for sure the more enlightened approach is to buy influence as a byproduct of good will rather than by explicitly corrupting the politics of a country.
Depending on the circumstances, though, countries may not believe they have the room to be enlightened -- they may believe that they need to take a more . . . direct route. And, often enough, they reap what they have sowed thereby.
Concerning the most-recent Democrat administration--its insane emphases, idiotic and unpopular policies, and disastrous results--I cannot imagine how this is a bad thing: "Once you’ve broken something, you can’t ever put it back just the way it was."
I remember your West German analogy with Biden as Adenauer. Respectfully, I think that didn't work given the economic populist nature of his party's policy agenda, and I don't think the Adenauer era works for Trump's future America either. Don't get me wrong; I would love to read more about Adenauer after his fascinating interview on Zur Person. But it just doesn't make sense? "We'll have West Germany circa 1948 but without the bombed out cities, the fall of an evil authoritarian regime, or the scramble to halt the Iron Curtain's advance." So other than those things, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln?
The right analogy is probably more early 20th century British. You've got a smaller share of global % GDP than your peak, and you're running into more consolidated new industrial powers. Your existing naval power is stretched thin and facing new challenges. No one in the legislature is really agreeing to rapidly boost % GDP military spending. The only option left is to decide which front to get allies into picking up more of the bill. That means East Asia, Middle East, and Eastern Europe, pick one, and pick it yesterday.
No, my Adenauer analogy didn't work out too well, because Biden didn't govern as the bipartisan centrist that I expected him to be. To some extent he did, but to some extent he didn't -- and to some extent he marketed himself as being more left-wing than he was. But Covid and the post-Trump desire for a return to normalcy was an opportunity for a more vigorous centrism to make real and valuable changes. It was an opportunity to "build back better." We just didn't achieve it, except very partially.
As for whether a post-Trump reset offers a similar or better opportunity: you're probably right, as you can tell from my having said that I think the most likely scenario isn't such a reset, but rather just a more corrupt and inefficient regime that either needs to be cleaned up or proves alarmingly durable.
Finally, as to the analogy to Britain: if we're talking about pre-WWI Britain, that's an oft-made analogy with a lot of value to it. In that period, as we do now, Britain faced multiple rising rivals: not only Germany but also Russia and, most prominently, America. What Britain did, though, was stop trying to bottle up America, and focus on holding on to their empire and trying to bottle up Germany, even if it meant allying with powers like Russia and France that were also rivals. That plan led to WWI, which stalemated until America's entry, leaving Britain in massive debt to America after the war and even more over-extended, such that after WWII they were effectively bankrupt. But though they lost their empire, they still could shelter under America's wings and maintain a kind of relevance thereby for many decades after.
So if we're Britain, who is our America? I don't think there is one. And I think that's a rather big difference.
Honestly "populist" is a better term for Democratic policy than "left-wing." A fundamental claim to represent the various peripheries to the Yankee middle class and summon them to reform capitalism is basically the through-line from Jackson to Biden; Michael Kazin's WHAT IT TOOK TO WIN is instructive. It's odd to me how much pundits bounce between "too socially woke" and "too economically leftist" as opposed to just too many interest groups.
And you're right, there is no America in the declining British Empire analogy. There's a glimmer of Franz Joseph Strauss's Grand Design, his United States of Europe. There's a glimmer of a more industrialized India. But neither is what America was then in the early 20th century. It looks like in an unthinking bipartisan way, the US is really betting a lot on post-industrial technology (AI) somehow multiplying industrial throughput to levels we've never seen before. A bold gamble on the futurists, that's arguably what America's national culture since the 90s has drifted towards.
The country that is arguably America to our Britain is, of course, China -- vastly more populous, a vastly larger center of manufacturing, seated an ocean away, and the largest beneficiary of the liberal economic order that we underwrote. The China-America analogy is at least as good as the China-Germany one, just emphasizing different characteristics.
But the British could convince themselves that we were their rich country cousins who would take their side out of family feeling, and try not notice that as we replaced them as head of the family we also divested them of their empire. I don't think we can convince ourselves of anything similar about China.
I'm not in a good position to speculate on AI. But I'm pretty sure China will benefit from it too.
It took Japan a long time post-war to get to anything like how we think of it today. Even as an optimistic scenario, it does not avoid the economic catastrophe. That is a reasonable outcome, though one I dread.
On a different note, I don't think Trump thinks of it in these terms. What does he care for what happens after he is done? He might not even conceive of an America "after" him and how it might revert or not. His court, though? Absolutely. Musk specifically knows the distinction between breaking and reforming.
I mean, the question is not how long it took Japan to get to where it is today, but how long it took Japan to surpass its prewar economic level and where it went from there. The answer: it took about a dozen years for it to pass its prewar economic level, and that was only the beginning of an extraordinary run. The situation in West Germany was similar: by the mid to late 1950s it had surpassed both its own prewar economic level and France and the UK. That's kind of extraordinary when you think about the sheer level of destruction that the war inflicted on both nations.
As for your different note: I don't know what Trump is thinking about the future beyond the next four years. Maybe he thinks he'll be president for life? Maybe he thinks he's immortal? Or maybe, more normally, he does think about his kids. But Elon Musk and JD Vance and Russell Vought are definitely thinking about the future.
And that's an important thing to remember. Trump's court certainly contains more than its share of sycophants, corrupt cronies, greasy-pole-climbers, hangers-on and go-along-to-get-along types. But the people who are making all this radical change happen aren't those people. They're people with ambition, but also people who are trying to accomplish something, however alarming that something is to those of us who don't share their beliefs.
That was fucking depressing, however accurate it may be 🫤
The scene with Zelenskyy was planned. Never ascribe to malice or incompetence that which can more easily be explained by he's been compromised.
A month ago I'd roll my eyes. But I'm now struggling to reconcile my usual skepticism with reality.
>"The same is true of the destruction of USAID. Could the organization be built back better in some future Democratic administration? In theory, yes, but in practice organizations that previously relied on it will rationally be wary of making significant investments without knowing whether the rug will be pulled out from under them."
I am from a country that has (had) a muscular USAID/NED presence. I know the kinds of people they work with, and I can assure you of two things. First, they aren't "investing" anything, so the grants/sub-contracts are just a sure paycheck for as long as the program is funded. Second, most of these people are unemployable in productive sectors of the economy, so the moment the taps open up again, they will jump back in gladly.
The US-based prime contractors, the East-West Management Institutes, the Zinc Networks and the IREXs, might wither, but I am certain those could be spun up easily if Washington decides to restart the regime change machine. They too rely mainly on cadres of otherwise unemployables.
I don't know which country you are from, but my impression is that this is not true for everything USAID has done, particularly not for its most important health-related work. Sadly, I suspect that the stuff that would be easiest to restart is the stuff that provides the least value of any kind.
I am very familiar with the programs USAID conducted in my country, and I can assure you, it was all always and entirely a political influence operation that brought nothing but civil unrest and division. Perhaps they did humanitarian work elsewhere, but I would say it was incredibly cynical and self-defeating to package that with spycraft, because that only erodes trust in the aid and ultimately harms the people who actually need aid.
Again, I don't know what country you are from, and I don't have an on-the-ground view like you do of USAID's activities in that location. But I totally appreciate your perspective.
I think it's probably unrealistic to expect a major power to completely ignore political-diplomatic considerations when engaging in this kind of work. A big reason why countries do this stuff in the first place is to buy influence. But for sure the more enlightened approach is to buy influence as a byproduct of good will rather than by explicitly corrupting the politics of a country.
Depending on the circumstances, though, countries may not believe they have the room to be enlightened -- they may believe that they need to take a more . . . direct route. And, often enough, they reap what they have sowed thereby.
I haven’t read it yet (queued it) but as a Viennese I do not like it!
Concerning the most-recent Democrat administration--its insane emphases, idiotic and unpopular policies, and disastrous results--I cannot imagine how this is a bad thing: "Once you’ve broken something, you can’t ever put it back just the way it was."