Due Process

[waauw]

Germany, by comparison, sits at 50% ... and all of its trade routes can be interrupted with either rock or paper. Every single one.

Actually, 58% of all german trade is within the EU. Anyone would have a hard time interrupting most of those trade routes. And then there's countries like Switzerland(4% of Germany's trade), Russia(2%) and Turkey(2%), with whom all trade passes over land as well.

The only trade routes that are easily interrupted are those passing through oceans and seas, which is only about a third of all german trade. Yet again, saxi fails at basic statistics.

[saxitoxin]

If half of Germany’s economy depends on exports, whose side do you think they’ll take: the country that hates free trade or the country that’s promoting it?

One more ally in the bank!

Huh? Who cares which side Germany is on? If we cared - which we don't - we'd answer that Realism dictates they'd take the side of the country paying the mortgage on the Bundesrat. But even though we could cow Germany we won't, because we don't need to.

Have you actually been listening to what I've been saying? America doesn't need allies - in fact, it specifically shouldn't have allies right now. It needs to withdraw to the sidelines, and allow China to move towards the primary position. For America to suddenly disengage would be the most destabilizing thing that could happen to the world. Our interest is in destabilizing the world system right now. I've explained this like four times now. I've explained that since we don't eat apricots we should cut down the apricot tree, and you keep coming back and saying "then we'll have more apricots to eat!"

You just don't get it, kid.

[saxitoxin]

Germany, by comparison, sits at 50% ... and all of its trade routes can be interrupted with either rock or paper. Every single one.

Actually, 58% of all german trade is within the EU.

I'm a Realist, I don't deal with fantasy kingdoms. Over a course of 48 months 20% of the EU's GDP just evaporated through secession. In any real country that would have caused a complete collapse and implosion. It didn't in the EU because there's nothing to collapse or implode.

The EU isn't a thing; it's a pile of documents and a post office box in Strasbourg. You might as well say half of German trade is with Narnia.

[mrswdk]

Yes yes we’re all very familiar with your Mad Max fantasy of a world in ruins while America somehow survives amongst it all as a citadel of the future. To be honest I don’t know why I’m trying to disabuse you of it. As you were.

[saxitoxin]

Yes yes we’re all very familiar with your Mad Max fantasy of a world in ruins

What fantasy? Hungary, Poland, Brexit, South China Sea, AfD in Germany, People's Party in Austria, Saudi Purges, Mediterranean Migrant Crisis, ICC Withdrawals, TPP collapsed, NAFTA in danger, Zimbabwe Coup, Russian Pressure, etc.

The world is tearing itself apart. Under Clinton the U.S. would be in the thick of it, swinging punches with the best of them and trying to hold it together for the ideological imperative of Idealism. Under Trump we will wisely have a seat on the sideline bleachers, located behind the world's two largest oceans, with half the world's wealth in our vaults and a third of its nukes in our silos, and sit quietly by ourselves.

[Dukasaur]

Yes yes we’re all very familiar with your Mad Max fantasy of a world in ruins

What fantasy? Hungary, Poland, Brexit, South China Sea, AfD in Germany, People's Party in Austria, Saudi Purges, Mediterranean Migrant Crisis, ICC Withdrawals, Zimbabwe Coup, Russian Pressure, etc.

The world is tearing itself apart. Under Clinton the U.S. would be in the thick of it, swinging punches with the best of them and trying to hold it together. Under Trump we will wisely have a seat on the sideline bleachers, located behind the world's two largest oceans and with half the world's wealth in our vaults. Once awhile an angry tweet here, or a bomb dropped there, but disengagement overall.

Your Chicken Little world is just more fake news. Propaganda aside, the world gets more stable and peaceful all the time.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2014/12/the_world_is_not_falling_apart_the_trend_lines_reveal_an_increasingly_peaceful.html

The world is not falling apart. The kinds of violence to which most people are vulnerable—homicide, rape, battering, child abuse—have been in steady decline in most of the world. Autocracy is giving way to democracy. Wars between states—by far the most destructive of all conflicts—are all but obsolete. The increase in the number and deadliness of civil wars since 2010 is circumscribed, puny in comparison with the decline that preceded it, and unlikely to escalate.

[saxitoxin]

Yes yes we’re all very familiar with your Mad Max fantasy of a world in ruins

What fantasy? Hungary, Poland, Brexit, South China Sea, AfD in Germany, People's Party in Austria, Saudi Purges, Mediterranean Migrant Crisis, ICC Withdrawals, Zimbabwe Coup, Russian Pressure, etc.

The world is tearing itself apart. Under Clinton the U.S. would be in the thick of it, swinging punches with the best of them and trying to hold it together. Under Trump we will wisely have a seat on the sideline bleachers, located behind the world's two largest oceans and with half the world's wealth in our vaults. Once awhile an angry tweet here, or a bomb dropped there, but disengagement overall.

Your Chicken Little world is just more fake news. Propaganda aside, the world gets more stable and peaceful all the time.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2014/12/the_world_is_not_falling_apart_the_trend_lines_reveal_an_increasingly_peaceful.html

The world is not falling apart. The kinds of violence to which most people are vulnerable—homicide, rape, battering, child abuse—have been in steady decline in most of the world. Autocracy is giving way to democracy. Wars between states—by far the most destructive of all conflicts—are all but obsolete. The increase in the number and deadliness of civil wars since 2010 is circumscribed, puny in comparison with the decline that preceded it, and unlikely to escalate.

Crime stats from 2014 - rape rates in England? - are pretty irrelevant to this discussion in 2017 about geopolitics. Are you in the right thread?

[waauw]

Crime stats from 2014 - rape rates in England? - are pretty irrelevant to this discussion in 2017 about geopolitics. Are you in the right thread?

Says the person who used GDP/capita numbers from the Obama period to demonstrate Trump's greatness.

Here's where we stand under the TRUMP presidency.

Per Capita GDP US vs EU:
$57,467 vs $35,632

These are 2016 Obama-numbers as provided by the World Bank.

[Dukasaur]

Crime stats from 2014 - rape rates in England? - are pretty irrelevant to this discussion in 2017 about geopolitics. Are you in the right thread?

Yeah. Bottom line is, things are improving based on most indicators, most of the time.

The horror stories that fuel your Chicken Little fantasies are tiny little eddy pools in a giant river of improvement.

[saxitoxin]

Yes yes we’re all very familiar with your Mad Max fantasy of a world in ruins while America somehow survives amongst it all as a citadel of the future. To be honest I don’t know why I’m trying to disabuse you of it. As you were.

Says the guy whose argument was based on a 110% overestimation of U.S. exports a percent of GDP.

[saxitoxin]

Crime stats from 2014 - rape rates in England? - are pretty irrelevant to this discussion in 2017 about geopolitics. Are you in the right thread?

Yeah. Bottom line is, things are improving based on most indicators, most of the time.

The horror stories that fuel your Chicken Little fantasies are tiny little eddy pools in a giant river of improvement.

The World is Less Stable Than It Looks
Chaos is Spreading
Foreign Policy
2017

Global Peace Index 2016: There are now only 10 countries in the world that are actually free from conflict
We are now further away from world peace than at any time in the past 10 years - and it’s creating a global ‘peace inequality’ gap
The Independent
2016

According to the Numbers, It’s Still a Dangerous World
New York Times
2016

Systemic: Why the world has become a more dangerous place
Oxford University Press
2016

The US Is An Island Of Stability In A Destabilizing World
“the entire Eurasian landmass is in a state of failure”
Forbes
2016

[Dukasaur]

[saxitoxin]