Trump and World War III

[The Cadet]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...ght-donald-trump-threatens-world-war-iii.html

Hyperbolic? Maybe. But the fact of the matter is, Trump is, at just about every turn, threatening the postwar order that has been built since the 1940s. He wants to pull us out of the WTO. He wants to start a trade war with China and Mexico. He wants to renege on our commitments to NATO if our allies don't buff up their defense budgets. He's almost universally despised among foreign powers to an almost unheard of degree. He wants other countries like Japan to develop nuclear weapons.

Now, whether any of this is a good idea can be disputed. However, the fact is that this is a drastic shift in the postwar order - an order which has, in the past 70 years, done an excellent job of ensuring that no large wars break out. Indeed, since World War II, the number of deaths in war and the amount of warring overall, particularly between different nations and particularly between large nations, has dropped drastically. As the article puts it:

Roosevelt died the day before he delivered that speech, but the “science of human relationships” he had long envisioned—based on diplomacy (centered on his idea of an institution to be called the “United Nations”), deterrence (continued military strength at home), and a series of alliances to contain aggression—has endured.

FDR called the idea “collective security,” and it matched his idea of social security at home. It has worked magnificently. In the last 70 years, the world has experienced many wars but no big ones between large nations with nuclear weapons. The 12 presidents since FDR have all embraced collective security and understood that the American nuclear umbrella—while expensive—has kept the nuclear club small and thus millions of people alive. Asia experienced the Korean War and the Vietnam War, and Europe the Bosnian War, but those historically warlike regions have remained largely secure, prosperous, and at peace for a remarkably long time by historical standards.
​

This kind of shakeup would be a big deal no matter who was proposing it. If it were a candidate who was an expert on foreign policy and diplomacy, I would recommend we at least hear them out and try to take their ideas on their merit.

But it's not a candidate who is an expert on foreign policy and diplomacy.

It's Donald Trump.

A guy opposed by national security experts on both sides of the aisle. A guy with no experience in statecraft. A guy who clearly has not put much thought into policy of any kind. A guy who has a nasty tendency to react extremely vindictively to percieved slights.

Donald Trump.

That guy is proposing we make major shifts to the diplomatic order of the world.

I think it's pretty important we don't let that happen.

 

[KWCrazy]

There is nobody in America who would make a worse president that Hillary Clinton. Every word that dribbles from her mouth is a lie and in support of her, every major Democrat is a liar. It is a party devoid of truth and awash in ignorance and corruption.
World War III is already going on. Wake up and smell the gunpowder. Islamic extremists are committing murder around the world in the name of their make-believe god and their false prophet. Recognizing that a war is going on is not the same as starting it.

 

[JustOneWay]

There is nobody in America who would make a worse president that Hillary Clinton. Every word that dribbles from her mouth is a lie and in support of her, every major Democrat is a liar. It is a party devoid of truth and awash in ignorance and corruption.
World War III is already going on. Wake up and smell the gunpowder. Islamic extremists are committing murder around the world in the name of their make-believe god and their false prophet. Recognizing that a war is going on is not the same as starting it.

So much opinion., so little facts. This is a side effect from ingesting too much gun powder through the nose.

 

[SkyWriting]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...ght-donald-trump-threatens-world-war-iii.html
Hyperbolic? Maybe. But the fact of the matter is, Trump is, at just about every turn, threatening the postwar order that has been built since the 1940s. He wants to pull us out of the WTO. He wants to start a trade war with China and Mexico. He wants to renege on our commitments to NATO if our allies don't buff up their defense budgets. He's almost universally despised among foreign powers to an almost unheard of degree. He wants other countries like Japan to develop nuclear weapons.Now, whether any of this is a good idea can be disputed. However, the fact is that this is a drastic shift in the postwar order - an order which has, in the past 70 years, done an excellent job of ensuring that no large wars break out. Indeed, since World War II <snip> policy and diplomacy.It's Donald Trump.A guy opposed by national security experts on both sides of the aisle. A guy with no experience in statecraft. A guy who clearly has not put much thought into policy of any kind. A guy who has a nasty tendency to react extremely vindictively to perceived slights.Donald Trump.That guy is proposing we make major shifts to the diplomatic order of the world.

I think it's pretty important we don't let that happen.

The Donald has been in consideration for president for over 20 years.
His supporters didn't make their decision last week like Hillary and all
her followers want to believe.

Point #2.
A huge plank in his platform is changing how things are now.

For his supporters, you just restated the Donalds case for change.
You may be correct, but "Give peace a chance" doesn't feel like
it's working, even if it actually is.

You can blame global media if you like, but the ability to broadcast
a single violent act to the entire world in real time has got people
concerned that they will be next.

 

[The Cadet]

I'm not touching the big vat o' crazy that is the first paragraph; I think anyone who isn't, well, you can tell that that's nuts. But this?

World War III is already going on. Wake up and smell the gunpowder. Islamic extremists are committing murder around the world in the name of their make-believe god and their false prophet. Recognizing that a war is going on is not the same as starting it.

Man, World War III sure has a much lower death toll than I expected! Like, six years into the second world war, we had a death toll of tens of millions. Meanwhile, here we are in year... let's be generous and say 23 of your "World War III" (let's go ahead and start it at the 1993 WTO truck bombing). Have islamic terrorist groups even killed a million? If we strip the deaths of the Syrian civil war, have they broken 500,000?

Look, pal, when people talk about "World War III", they don't just mean any puny war. They aren't talking about random terrorist attacks. They mean a full-on prolonged armed conflict between at least two major nations with the kind of arsenal capable of really doing damage. Not a handful of nutjobs with guns shooting up the local DMV or a nightclub. You think ISIS is bad? What do you think a shooting war with China or Russia would look like? Yeah, it's really unlikely, nobody's stupid enough to attack the USA. But tearing apart the postwar order piece by piece is a great way to make things like that more possible, and far more likely for our allies. NATO, the WTO, the USA's "nuclear umbrella"... All of these things help keep the world cohesive and peaceful. They help prevent war by ensuring that they're so prohibitively expensive in both blood and treasure that nobody would be foolhardy enough to start one.

Terrorism sucks. Our NATO allies do quite a bit to help fight it, by the way. But it's not what this thread is about. ISIS doesn't care about NATO. ISIS doesn't care about the WTO. But China does. Russia does. Iran does. They have to. And an actual military attack from any of those nations would be a thousand times worse than anything ISIS or Al-Qaeda has thrown at us thus far.

Point #2.
A huge plank in his platform is changing how things are now.
For his supporters, you just restated the Donalds case for change.

It's a change that needs to be carefully thought out. Not vomited onto paper by a serial liar and narcissist who knows next to nothing about foreign policy or trade. We need change. Hey, dropping nukes on the ten largest cities in America would be a "change"! Let's do that!

 

[The Cadet]

So much opinion., so little facts. This is a side effect from ingesting too much gun powder through the nose.

Seriously, even for his standards, that post was fact-free.

 

[SkyWriting]

It's a change that needs to be carefully thought out. Not vomited onto paper by a serial liar and narcissist who knows next to nothing about foreign policy or trade. We need change. Hey, dropping nukes on the ten largest cities in America would be a "change"! Let's do that!

We've been talking about nuking Iraq or Iran on the streets for decades.
Historically, no war has ever been won without significant numbers
of civilian deaths. Estimates are 50-90% of deaths are civilian.

 

[SkyWriting]

I think it's pretty important we don't let that happen.

You've not said one good thing about Hillary yet.

 

[The Cadet]

You've not said one good thing about Hillary yet.

Talking explicitly about foreign policy? She has a ton of foreign policy experience as first lady, senator, and secretary of state. The non-partisan Brookings Institute gave her an A- overall in her run as secretary of state, a position primarily reliant upon understanding foreign policy. It may not all have been good, but she holds more knowledge about international policy in her little finger than Trump has in his entire entourage. And beyond that, she can be relied upon to listen in a conflict and try to understand the issue clearly and thoroughly, as she's done in the past. After all, what's the number one thing you hear about Clinton from people she's worked with? She listens. Not just in a "I hear you" way...

“Many of your colleagues in the press would call me and say, ‘This whole listening thing is a joke. She’s surrounded by the Secret Service. How will anyone get close to her?’” says Melanne Verveer, who served as chief of staff to Hillary Clinton in the White House. “What they missed was she was actually listening! By the time she finished those listening sessions around New York, she really knew more about New York, about the issues there, about what was on people’s minds.”
​

Put bluntly, the very least you can expect from Clinton in terms of foreign policy is basic competence. Realistically, she's probably gonna be pretty decent. Not a glowing endorsement, don't get me wrong, but it's something. What's the very nicest realistic thing you can say about Donald Trump's foreign policy experience and record? You can't even say there are no negatives (on account of him not having a record), because just his actions in the last year since he started his campaign have led to a drop in the international opinion of the USA.

 

[AirPo]

There is nobody in America who would make a worse president that Hillary Clinton. Every word that dribbles from her mouth is a lie and in support of her, every major Democrat is a liar. It is a party devoid of truth and awash in ignorance and corruption.
World War III is already going on. Wake up and smell the gunpowder. Islamic extremists are committing murder around the world in the name of their make-believe god and their false prophet. Recognizing that a war is going on is not the same as starting it.

Looks like derangement syndrom has mutated into a much more aggressive form. Hillary isn't even President yet!

 

[KWCrazy]

Man, World War III sure has a much lower death toll than I expected! Like, six years into the second world war, we had a death toll of tens of millions. Meanwhile, here we are in year... let's be generous and say 23 of your "World War III" (let's go ahead and start it at the 1993 WTO truck bombing). Have islamic terrorist groups even killed a million? If we strip the deaths of the Syrian civil war, have they broken 500,000?

The definition of a world war is a war that is fought on multiple continents involving multiple countries around the world. The driving force for much of the conflict in the last 50 years has been Islamic extremism. Mostly, it's been Muslims killing other Muslims. Need a body count?
1972-2014: Philippines vs Muslim separatists (Moro Islamic Liberation Front, etc) (150,000)
1972-79: Rhodesia/Zimbabwe's civil war (30,000)
1974-91: Ethiopian civil war (1,000,000)
1975-78: Menghitsu, Ethiopia (1.5 million)
1975-87: civil war in Lebanon (130,000)
1980-88: Iraq-Iran war (435,000)
1984-: Kurds vs Turkey (35,000)
1982-90: Hissene Habre, Chad (40,000)
1983-: Sri Lanka's civil war (70,000)
1983-2002: Sudanese civil war (2 million)
1987-: Palestinian Intifada (4,500)
1988-2001: Afghanistan civil war (400,000)
1988-2004: Somalia's civil war (550,000)
1989-: Liberian civil war (220,000)
1989-: Uganda vs Lord's Resistance Army (30,000)
1991: Gulf War - large coalition against Iraq to liberate Kuwait (85,000)
1991-97: Congo's civil war (800,000)
1991-2009: Russia-Chechnya civil war (200,000)
1991-94: Armenia-Azerbaijan war (35,000)
1992-96: Tajikstan's civil war war (50,000)
1992-96: Yugoslavian wars (260,000)
1992-99: Algerian civil war (150,000)
1993-97: Congo Brazzaville's civil war (100,000)
1993-2005: Burundi's civil war (200,000)
1994: Rwanda's civil war (900,000)
1995-: Pakistani Sunnis vs Shiites (1,300)
1995-: Maoist rebellion in Nepal (12,000)
1998-: Congo/Zaire's war - Rwanda and Uganda vs Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia (3.8 million)
1998-2000: Ethiopia-Eritrea war (75,000)
1999: Kosovo's liberation war - NATO vs Serbia (2,000)
2001-: Afghanistan's liberation war - USA & UK vs Taliban (40,000)
2001-: Nigeria vs Boko Haram (20,000)
2003-11: Second Iraq-USA war - USA, UK and Australia vs Saddam Hussein's regime and Shiite squads and Sunni extremists (160,000)
2003-09: Sudan vs JEM/Darfur (300,000)
2004-: Thailand vs Muslim separatists (3,700)
2007-: Pakistan vs PAkistani Taliban (38,000)
2011-: Iraq's civil war after the withdrawal of the USA (150,000)
2012-: Syria's civil war (320,000)
2013-15: South Sudan vs rebels (10,000)
source
Is that a high enough body count for you? That's just the wars. Need a list of murders by terrorists?
You can find a partial list here.

Here's more evidence.

The Islamic conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history. -- Will Durant, as quoted on Daniel Pipes site.
Conservative estimates place the number at 80 million dead Indians.

A minimum of 28 Million African were enslaved in the Muslim Middle East. Since, at least, 80 percent of those captured by Muslim slave traders were calculated to have died before reaching the slave market, it is believed that the death toll from 1400 years of Arab and Muslim slave raids into Africa could have been as high as 112 Millions. When added to the number of those sold in the slave markets, the total number of African victims of the trans-Saharan and East African slave trade could be significantly higher than 140 Million people.

Though the numbers are not clear, what is obvious is that Islam is the greatest murder machine in history bar none, possibly exceeding 250 million dead. Possibly one-third to one-half or more of all those killed by war or slavery in history can be traced to Islam; and this is just a cursory examination.

Now consider the over 125 Million women today who have been genitally mutilated for Islamic honor's sake. In spite of what apologists tell you, the practice is almost totally confined to Islamic areas.
source

Still don't think that radical Islam is at war with the rest of the world??

 

[KWCrazy]

You've not said one good thing about Hillary yet.

The only good thing that can be said about Hillary is that there's only one of her.
I wish the same could be said for the otherwise decent people who support this corrupt and evil person.

 

[cow451]

There is nobody in America who would make a worse president that Hillary Clinton. Every word that dribbles from her mouth is a lie and in support of her, every major Democrat is a liar. It is a party devoid of truth and awash in ignorance and corruption.
World War III is already going on. Wake up and smell the gunpowder. Islamic extremists are committing murder around the world in the name of their make-believe god and their false prophet. Recognizing that a war is going on is not the same as starting it.

There is nobody in America who would make a worse president that Donald Trump. Every word that dribbles from his mouth is a lie and in support of him, every major Republican endorsing him is a liar. It is a party devoid of truth and awash in ignorance and corruption.


See how much alike the two major candidates are?

 

[The Cadet]

Still don't think that radical Islam is at war with the rest of the world??

Of the countries and wars you mentioned, none are in NATO. None are protected by the USA. None are financially advanced enough to gain much from the WTO. Additionally, the list contains many items where any side of the conflict was Muslim - never mind whether the Muslims involved were the aggressors, the victims, or whether their religion played into it at all. There's also the issue that this is a whole bunch of disparate conflicts with nothing shared between them except for one extremely broad ideology that appeals to many people in different ways; you could just as easily make a list of the wars started by capitalism or something like that and call that a world war.

But even if we take your premises at face value, it has virtually nothing to do with the topic of this thread. The issue is war against the west, particularly members of NATO and wealthy, dangerous countries, and the way Trump is attacking the underlying order that has in large part led to such a steep decline in wartime deaths over the past half-century. Care to connect the dots for us, or write anything even remotely relevant about that?

 

[KWCrazy]

See how much alike the two major candidates are?

Which of the two candidates testified under oath to things which were untrue?
Need a hint?

 

[KWCrazy]

The issue is war against the west, particularly members of NATO and wealthy, dangerous countries,

No, the issue is whether we are in a world war. Clearly, we are.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

No, the issue is whether we are in a world war. Clearly, we are.

With modern travel those living in the marginal parts of the earth have seen the 'promised land' of the West, and they want it. Their goal is to move from the deserts to the 'fairest portions of the earth' now inhabited mostly by Christians. We will be subjugated or destroyed if this happens. The ostensible 'spread' of the great religions is always accompanied by grabbing the land and subjugating, enslaving, or killing, the inhabitants. We did it, they'll do it.

 

[The Cadet]

No, the issue is whether we are in a world war.

That is not the point of the first post of this thread, its title, or the like. Kindly address the topic and stop trying to hijack my thread with:
A) Your increasingly unhinged rants about how evil Clinton is, and
B) Your bizarre and baseless insistence that world war three has been raging for the last 50-odd years and nobody has been paying attention

In case you didn't figure it out, the topic is Trump's consistent attempts to withdraw the US from treaties and political and trade unions - things that help form the postwar world order, and without which we and our allies will likely be far less safe.

 

[brinny]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...ght-donald-trump-threatens-world-war-iii.html

Hyperbolic? Maybe. But the fact of the matter is, Trump is, at just about every turn, threatening the postwar order that has been built since the 1940s. He wants to pull us out of the WTO. He wants to start a trade war with China and Mexico. He wants to renege on our commitments to NATO if our allies don't buff up their defense budgets. He's almost universally despised among foreign powers to an almost unheard of degree. He wants other countries like Japan to develop nuclear weapons.

Now, whether any of this is a good idea can be disputed. However, the fact is that this is a drastic shift in the postwar order - an order which has, in the past 70 years, done an excellent job of ensuring that no large wars break out. Indeed, since World War II, the number of deaths in war and the amount of warring overall, particularly between different nations and particularly between large nations, has dropped drastically. As the article puts it:

Roosevelt died the day before he delivered that speech, but the “science of human relationships” he had long envisioned—based on diplomacy (centered on his idea of an institution to be called the “United Nations”), deterrence (continued military strength at home), and a series of alliances to contain aggression—has endured.

FDR called the idea “collective security,” and it matched his idea of social security at home. It has worked magnificently. In the last 70 years, the world has experienced many wars but no big ones between large nations with nuclear weapons. The 12 presidents since FDR have all embraced collective security and understood that the American nuclear umbrella—while expensive—has kept the nuclear club small and thus millions of people alive. Asia experienced the Korean War and the Vietnam War, and Europe the Bosnian War, but those historically warlike regions have remained largely secure, prosperous, and at peace for a remarkably long time by historical standards.
​

This kind of shakeup would be a big deal no matter who was proposing it. If it were a candidate who was an expert on foreign policy and diplomacy, I would recommend we at least hear them out and try to take their ideas on their merit.

But it's not a candidate who is an expert on foreign policy and diplomacy.

It's Donald Trump.

A guy opposed by national security experts on both sides of the aisle. A guy with no experience in statecraft. A guy who clearly has not put much thought into policy of any kind. A guy who has a nasty tendency to react extremely vindictively to percieved slights.

Donald Trump.

That guy is proposing we make major shifts to the diplomatic order of the world.

I think it's pretty important we don't let that happen.

Ummmm.....didn't ISIS declare war on us? Aren't they at war with not only us, but other nations as well?

 

[brinny]

There is nobody in America who would make a worse president that Hillary Clinton. Every word that dribbles from her mouth is a lie and in support of her, every major Democrat is a liar. It is a party devoid of truth and awash in ignorance and corruption.
World War III is already going on. Wake up and smell the gunpowder. Islamic extremists are committing murder around the world in the name of their make-believe god and their false prophet. Recognizing that a war is going on is not the same as starting it.

Indeed.