Stephen Fuld <sfuld@alumni.cmu.edu.invalid> wrote:
> On 10/8/2021 6:16 PM, antispam@math.uni.wroc.pl wrote:
> > Stephen Fuld <sfuld@alumni.cmu.edu.invalid> wrote:
> >> On 10/8/2021 1:56 AM, David Brown wrote:
> >>> On 08/10/2021 03:31, Branimir Maksimovic wrote:
> >>>> On 2021-10-08, MitchAlsup <MitchAlsup@aol.com> wrote:
> >>>>> <
> >>>>> Greed is what got all those industries into China !
> >>>>> What motivation will get us out ?
> >>>>
> >>>> Not needed. As greed drives China as well, there would
> >>>> be no interrest conflict except that China firms as
> >>>> China firms are not welocome in the west :P
> >>>
> >>> Don't mix up "the west" and "the USA". Most of the west is happy to
> >>> work with China, albeit carefully and with quiet mumblings about "human
> >>> rights" as long as the complaints won't affect business too much.
> >>>
> >>> The USA likes to define itself as "the good guy" in the world, and that
> >>> means that they always need a "bad guy" - an enemy worthy of them. The
> >>> real threat - military, economic, diplomatic, etc., is less important
> >>> than the image of threat they can conjure in people's minds.
> >>
> >> Or, to look at it the other way, Europe tends to ignore real threats
> >> until they get really bad, then rely on the USA to "bail them out". See
> >> Nazi Germany, or ask the many former communist block countries if the
> >> Soviet Union threat was real or only an image.
> >
> > If you look at actions threat was USA. In period of 1950-1990 USA
> > conducted several military interventions:
> >
> > Korean War
> > Gwatemala 1954 intervention
> > Bay of Pig invasion
> > Dominican 1965 intervention
> > Wietnam War (with bombing of neigbours)
> > Grenada 1983
> > Panama 1990
> >
> > In that period I know of 4 soviet intervention:
> >
> > Soviet air force in Korean War
> > intervention in Hungary 1956
> > intervention in Czechoslovakia 1968
> > Afganistan War
>
> If you want to say that the US is far from perfect; that we sometimes
> don't act in ways consistent with the image we have of ourselves and try
> to project to others, and that we make mistakes, then I certainly agree.
>
>
> > And while USA happlily threatens and attacks other countries to this
> > day,
>
> I disagree with the characterization of "happily". And I don't think we
> have attacked any country in the last say 15 years (Since Iraq, which
> was a bad blunder for us). And I think we really aren't threatening
> anyone today who isn't threatening us or our allies.

Hmm, bombing of Kadafy army in Libia, and rockects fired at Assad
does not count as attack? (One can argue that those were right,
but this does not affect if it was an attack or not). And killing
of Suleimani? Commesurate answer would be Iraninans killing
Mike Pompeo. I think that USA would consider such killing as
attack on USA. So by USian logic killing of Suleimani was attack
on Iran.

And now there is beauty of modern technology: drones. AFAIK US
drones regularly kill people in Yemen and several other countries.

> > soviet system collapsed after (and partially due to) Afganistan
> > War: important part of "soviet package" was preserving peace.
> > With Afganistan war this was broken and caused significant drop
> > in popular support for sovoer regime.
>
> Agreed.
>
>
> > Of couse, soviet block had plans to attack "west". But realistically,
> > west and USA in particular always had much stronger forces.
> > And reality of modern war is that army which refuses to attack
> > looses. Soviet block could hope that in case of war western
> > losses would be high enough to deter attack and that apparently
> > worked, we had peace in Europe for long time.
>
> I'm sorry, I don't understand what point you are making here. Clearly
> the deterrence of NATO prevented the Soviet Union from expanding their
> dominance in eastern Europe to western Europe.

You are procjeting USA attitude here. Soviet Union was not in business
of conquering other countris and turning them to communism. They
supported communist movements around the world, but that was for
local people to "build communism". And if any western Europe
country would turn to comminism, I do not think that this would
be Soviet Union dominance. Rather, such a county would be
important independent member of communist block, the same as China
had completely independent policy.

> > In Poland, where I live we do not have much sentiment for Soviet
> > Union, it was percevied as foreign force exploiting Poland and
> > forcing Soviet interest on Poland.
>
> OK.
>
>
> > But now we replaced this
> > by USA forcing their interest on Poland.
>
> In what way is the US forcing its interests on Poland? I confess to not
> a lot of knowledge about the subject. My impression, drawn mostly for
> western media, is that Poland, after a period of growth of democracy and
> its economy, is experiencing a period of more populist, anti democratic
> positions, and that both the US and western Europe are "concerned".
>
> You are obviously much closer and more knowledgeable about the
> situation, so please tell us what we should know.

If you look at politics, Poland had no reason to go to Iraq, except
for pleasing USA. More recently ruling coalition made a bad law,
penalizing critique of Poland. There were many voices against the
law, but ruling coalition presed forward. They made U-turn only
after intervention of US ambassador...

Concerning elections, ATM we seem to be in better position than
US. Nobody questions validity of elections, voting went smoothly
(without queues, etc). During voting everbody has to present
photo ID and this is not a problem because everybody has photo ID.
Prisoners have voting right and there are arrangements to that
they can vote. So no problem that somebody was illegally
allowed or rejected vote: all have voting rights.

We have legal mess: government tries to control courts.
That was partially blocked by EU, but where they can
government nominates judges on party line. And after
they packed constitutional court with their people we
have juggements like one which says that essentally all
abortions are unconstitutional, another one which says
that state law take precedence over EU law (this could
block appeals to EU courts and is intended to block
EU legal directives).

> > Of couse, dependence
> > on USA has some advantages compared to dependence on Soviet
> > Union.
>
> How is Poland dependent on the US?
1) Like large part of world: USA can put sanctions on given
entity. AFAICS ususaly this is applied transitvely: US
companies are not allowed to trade with banned entity,
US companies are not allowed to trade with companies trading
with banned entity etc. In interconnected world it means
that either (normal case) victim is left without help and
hit as hard as US wishes or (did not happen up to now)
the rest of world unites against US.
2) Poland has position in the middle of Europe, deemed
strategic by Russians. Due to Russian pressure we
either agree to Russian dominance or need strong
support. ATM US promises such support, but clearly
there is price: agreeing to US dominance.
3) During communist time most weapons for Polish army
was manufactured in Poland (some where original Polish
designs, majority was Russian constructions manufactured
under licence). When Poland left soviet block, we
were able to cover most needs of army by local production.
This is no longer the case. AFAIK we lost technical
ability to make old constructions and new one mostly
are imports (mainly from US).

> > but USA policy is not so nice as USA propaganda tries
> > to claim.
>
> I wouldn't doubt that, but I don't have much knowledge. What are we
> doing that isn't "nice"?
A lot. Simple example involving Poland is Stare Kiejkuty. CIA
had secret prison there and tortured prisoners there.
> >>> Currently,
> >>> China is the favourite enemy of the USA. I don't mean that China does
> >>> /not/ pose a threat, economic, diplomatic and military, to the USA or
> >>> other countries - merely that the USA exaggerates it for its own purposes.
> >>
> >> Or, conversely, Europe downplays it for its own purposes. It's a matter
> >> of perspective.
> >
> > I read recent article about increase of China naval forces. According
> > to ariticle China is a threat because now US Navy no longer is stronger
> > in sees surrounding China. In other words, USA can no longer
> > realistically threaten China with naval intervention on China shores,
> > so China is a threat to USA.
>
> I don't think anyone in the US is worried about naval intervention on
> China's shores, unless they attack Taiwan. On the other hand, there is
> evidence that Australia is worried about China's navy. Clearly China is
> building up its Navy. The question is why and what are they planning?

Great Britain and later US have tradition on navel blockades:
they send navy to block or limit trade they do no like. Clearly
China has legitimate interest in protecting its trade (which is
mostly via see). Concerning Taiwan, it is clearly artificially
(by extrnal force) separated from China. Regardless of political
system on Taiwan China has legitimate interest in ensuring
that Taiwan is not used as military base against China.

Concerning Australia, I do not know what their worry is.

> BTW, I am aware that this is all very OT for comp.arch. I am willing to
> pursue it further, (I enjoy learning other's perspectives.) but if
> others object, I understand and will stop.

The same here. Normaly I avoid political topics, but this
time I gave up to temptation. Let me say that running joke
in communist Poland was "In America they are beating Negros"
(sorry for non-PC word, but I am trying to be faithfull to
original wording). Meaning was that communist propaganda
was taking about western problems, but was silent about
problems that affected people in Poland. However, from
distance I can see that a lot of that propaganda were
true. And some problems that seemed abstract/impossible
came or are coming to Poland after fall of communism.
US propaganda and many folks from US say "we are right".
Some people outside find a lot of wrong in US actions.
I could write more, but enough for today.

--
Waldek Hebisch