Ukraine

Julio3000 said:
I'll ask you the same thing I asked Hawk. What, in your opinion, are some specific things that the US could have done to prevent this?
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Do you think an R POTUS would have handled the Poland situation differently?

Do you think that Romney would have had a greater foreign policy focus on Russia than President Obama?

Could the US done something to prevent this? Not sure. I'm not sure though that you can say that there weren't things, realistically, that the Bush and Obama could have done which would have made this less likely.
 
BedellBrave said:
Do you think an R POTUS would have handled the Poland situation differently?

Do you think that Romney would have had a greater foreign policy focus on Russia than President Obama?

Could the US done something to prevent this? Not sure. I'm not sure though that you can say that there weren't things, realistically, that the Bush and Obama could have done which would have made this unlikely.
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I don't think anything Romney would have done to Russia would have deterred them from doing this. Do you think Romney would have Russia shaking in their boots? lol.
 
Russia would've been afraid of Palin. So unintelligent, she'd probably want to bomb North Korea and hit Russia instead.
 
BedellBrave said:
Do you think an R POTUS would have handled the Poland situation differently?

Do you think that Romney would have had a greater foreign policy focus on Russia than President Obama?

Could the US done something to prevent this? Not sure. I'm not sure though that you can say that there weren't things, realistically, that the Bush and Obama could have done which would have made this unlikely.
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That's a fair answer. A good one, too. I would just like to hear some specificity as to what those things are, though.

Romney certainly highlighted Russia during the campaign. Regardless of who won the '12 election, though, we are burning a lot of wick in AfPak and the ME and living in a country whose electorate is currently ruled by kitchen table issues. It would be easy to imagine any president struggling to maintain focus elsewhere.
 
Julio3000 said:
This is true, and further underscores how toxic the invasion of Iraq was to our national interests.

That decision isolated us from our traditional European allies, and the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan have tied up resources in the departments of State and Defense that might otherwise be used elsewhere.

Still, Obama is president and repairing those relationships and deploying those resources are his responsibility. But I do think that that the full context should be considered when we look at how we got to the current situation.
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I don't think that's an untrue thing to say -- but I think you may be overstating the toxicity of our entanglements in Iraq / Afghanistan internationally. There, of course, were the initial knee-jerk responses/protests abroad when the US initially invaded Iraq -- but a great deal of the global animosity subsided within a year (in many cases, much sooner). Why? Because, honestly, most people do not give a **** about the Middle East outside of gas prices.

Where the toxicity has still lingered, over a decade later, is at home -- and that's perfectly exemplified in this thread. Americans have this painfully obtuse worldview (and I'm not saying it's illogical, but it is ignorant) born out of the failures of two administrations to accomplish anything profoundly meaningful in the Middle East, especially when considering the enormously impacting costs involved. And we are afraid of wasting more lives and more resources on unworthy endeavors.

It's perhaps that same worldview which has prevented Obama from engaging the global community with any sort of authority. Take a gander at his trip logs from 2009 to 2013. His first year in office was a tour de force (25 countries) ... that has gradually been reduced to summit meetings and trips to Africa (12 total in 2013, 4 in Africa.) Wasn't Obama supposed to be this great uniter? Didn't he win a Nobel Peace Prize for international diplomacy? Well -- get diplomatic, dammit.
 
Kerry offers the Ukraine a $1B aide package from the USA. Russia's last reported offer was $16B. Kiev says it needs $70B.
 
BedellBrave said:
Sorry. I don't understand. An explanation would be appreciated as well as your opinion on whether a Republican POTUS would have handled Poland's concerns about missile defense differently than President Obama. Thanks in advance.
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I was referring to the significance of Poland's sovereignty to the diplomatic relations of other regional and, ultimately, international powers over the past two-hundred years (or so) subsequent to the dissolution of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth—frequently termed "The Polish Question" by outsiders or "Sprawa Polska" (the "Polish Cause") by Poles.

As to your follow-up: no, I don't think a Republican President "would have handled Poland's concerns about missile defense" in anything more than a marginally different way, at the very least because—as Julio mentioned—foreign-policy issues in Eastern Europe have hardly been at the forefront of either the electorate's or the legislature's collective minds.
 
BedellBrave said:
Do you think an R POTUS would have handled the Poland situation differently?
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By the Poland situation, you mean ticking off Poland by moving the "missile shield" site to Romania? I think a Republican POTUS would have made missile defense a higher priority. If Romney is the cold-eyed bottom-line CEO that he is portrayed as, he'd look at the billions of dollars being spent on missile defense and the return we're getting and decide it ain't worth it.
 
It's worth mentioning that Poland is the NATO country that invoked the 4th article of the treaty (imminent threat) that resulted in yesterday's meeting in Brussels.
 
Hawk said:
I don't think that's an untrue thing to say -- but I think you may be overstating the toxicity of our entanglements in Iraq / Afghanistan internationally. There, of course, were the initial knee-jerk responses/protests abroad when the US initially invaded Iraq -- but a great deal of the global animosity subsided within a year (in many cases, much sooner). Why? Because, honestly, most people do not give a **** about the Middle East outside of gas prices.

Where the toxicity has still lingered, over a decade later, is at home -- and that's perfectly exemplified in this thread. Americans have this painfully obtuse worldview (and I'm not saying it's illogical, but it is ignorant) born out of the failures of two administrations to accomplish anything profoundly meaningful in the Middle East, especially when considering the enormously impacting costs involved. And we are afraid of wasting more lives and more resources on unworthy endeavors.

It's perhaps that same worldview which has prevented Obama from engaging the global community with any sort of authority. Take a gander at his trip logs from 2009 to 2013. His first year in office was a tour de force (25 countries) ... that has gradually been reduced to summit meetings and trips to Africa (12 total in 2013, 4 in Africa.) Wasn't Obama supposed to be this great uniter? Didn't he win a Nobel Peace Prize for international diplomacy? Well -- get diplomatic, dammit.
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I agree. I want action and engagement with the world, always. I think that the US economy is the ultimate reason, corollary being the right's withering criticism every time Obama ventures overseas. How much is this costing us? He's not focused on jobs at home! He wants the Eurotrash and the wogs of the world to like him while he's sticking it to the folks at home! It's constant, wrong-headed, and EFFECTIVE. Diplomacy is about the unsexiest thing imaginable. The President—short of signing a major treaty or something—won't (or can't) invest that time and effort and political capital without some return that's comprehensible to folks at home.
 
For the defenders of President Obama's foreign policy to this point, is there anything in your mind that he has done wrong? Hopefully, your answer is "yes." If so, what?

I am willing to say that I think he has been doing well, post-Crimean invasion.

I am also willing to say that though it took him too long to come to his decision on Syria, I think that decision was correct.

I believe his actions in regard to Somali pirates have been sound as was his taking out of Bin Laden.

I'm sure I could come up with numerous other examples. My point being, can you do the same in the other direction? And if so what would you list?
 
BedellBrave said:
For the defenders of President Obama's foreign policy to this point, is there anything in your mind that he has done wrong? Hopefully, your answer is "yes." If so, what?

I am willing to say that I think he has been doing well, post-Crimean invasion.

I am also willing to say that though it took him too long to come to his decision on Syria, I think that decision was correct.

I believe his actions in regard to Somali pirates have been sound as was his taking out of Bin Laden.

I'm sure I could come up with numerous other examples. My point being, can you do the same in the other direction? And if so what would you list?
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For starters I think he should have been more authoritative on the closing of Gitmo.
The entanglement in Afghanistan is well past functional

On the other hand - with foreign policy - it is very seldom cases of seeing right or wrong from the viewpoint/information available of baseball message board participants. Unless it is something obvious like Iraq or the occupation of Afghanistan after Tora Bora.

His efforts to be inclusive in coalition building , Whether they have been out of necessity or trust , have been praiseworthy .

I have mixed emotions on his use of Drones. My understanding is the machine is taking the place of a human footprint. I dont know if that is BS or true.

Overall, it will be 10-15 years to see what actually happened during his watch
 
From a Slate piece:

"To peer into the conservative media and blogosphere as it covers Russa's invasion of Crimea is to risk a fatal dose of schadenfreude. There are reports about how Sarah Palin totally called that Putin would invade Ukraine (she will be on Fox News tonight to remind us), about how Mitt Romney was unfairly mocked for calling Russia the greatest "geopolitical threat" to the United States, about Hillary Clinton's "reset button" gaffe. Even the Liberal New Republic (tm) has admitted that Mitt Romney was right about the Russians and their ambitions.

And he was. Why did Barack Obama blow it?…"
 
My point is it is easy to be right if you are Sarah Palin or Mitt Romney. Or for that matter Bobby Moynahan

In other news, North Korea is unstable
 
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