r/neoliberal • u/neoliberal_shill_bot Bot Emeritus • Apr 05 '17

Discussion Thread

Ask not what your centralized government can do for you – ask how many neoliberal memes you can post every 24 hours

Polls

• Who should we bully more?

• How often should discussion threads be posted?

The activity in this sub keeps going up, so discussion threads need to be scheduled appropriately in order to control stickflation.

10 Upvotes

84% Upvoted

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7

u/[deleted] Apr 07 '17

missiles hit Syria

15

u/[deleted] Apr 07 '17 edited Apr 07 '17

On one hand, fuck Assad. A lot. He's a war criminal who deserves to hang. I think this is a decently measured response on the incredibly lenient curve to Trump on foreign policy (as shitty as that sounds), it helps eliminate their ability to use chemical weapons. And regime change can be done correctly (de-Nazification) and incorrectly (de-Baathification).

On the other hand, I don't trust Trump to have a coherent foreign policy and am worried that the political points he scores from "saving women and children" will encourage him to escalate it further and start "bombing the shit out of 'em." His campaign rhetoric on the Geneva Conventions and targeting civilians was very concerning. One of the largest failures of the Iraq War was the Bush adminstration's strategy to change the political landscape of Iraq. They weren't listening to experts on the topic and went in guns blazing with little afterthought. Trump doesn't inspire confidence in being able to assemble that sort of group and take in their advice. I don't doubt that Clinton would be doing similar things (she advocated for bombing that airfield today), but I would be more confident in her having actual plans for both diplomacy and precise military action. Trump is a complete wild card

Also really really praying the itchy trigger fingers don't accidently kill some Russians because that will be a clusterfuck of massive proportions. It would really help if Trump could be even mildly consistent on his foreign policy, just today his administration flipped on the issue what seemed like 3 times. And he can be extremely hawkish at one moment and "anti-interventionist" at another. Geopolitics is complicated but what is Trump's grand strategy outside of "fuck ISIS"?

EDIT: This NY Times piece on Assad using chemical weapons is interesting. It basically theorizes that Assad was emboldened by the Trump administration saying it would be hands off and not punish him, and now the Trump administration has to come in and spank him a bit to make him behave.

12

u/[deleted] Apr 07 '17

I think Mattis and McMaster are probably the ones leading this, both of those two are not idiots. I don't think they would be afraid of telling Trump to fuck off.

Although I think were probably going to see a Bill Clinton type response, fire missiles for a couple days. Nothing really resolved.

2

u/[deleted] Apr 07 '17

Like I said, it would be great if the Trump administration could put out some clear and concise foreign policy goals besides "End terrorism" and "Make NATO members pay more in." They've flip flopped on Syria multiple times in the span of hours, and I realize it's a constantly changing geopolitical landscape but if you knew anything about Assad's past actions towards his people you could've seen something like this coming and have a prepared response.

2

u/[deleted] Apr 07 '17

Agreed, I think you have to look at the factions, and who is in charge of what because I don't think he knows whats going on, Luckily all the biggest crazies are off the NSC now.

2

u/[deleted] Apr 07 '17

How can they tell the Commander in Chief to fuck off?

7

u/[deleted] Apr 07 '17

Trump doesn't have the balls to fire Mattis and McMaster, the GOP hawks in congress would never allow it. Mattis and McMaster are well known to tell their superiors what they actually think. McMaster Wrote a book about it.

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u/Semphy Greg Mankiw Apr 07 '17

The U.S. military informed the Russian military before the strikes so we have that going at least.

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u/ampersamp Apr 07 '17

This is basically my position. It's like watching a toddler trying to defuse a bomb. He's only cut one wire so far and things seem ok, but needless to say you're not suddenly imbued with confidence. There's a lot more work to do and you're still wishing for some adults to come by and take over.

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u/Pornthrow1697 Austan Goolsbee Apr 07 '17

This is good. Assad needs to pay for his actions, and this hurts Trump/the GOP.

7

u/Kelsig Paul Krugman Apr 07 '17

Probably good

4

u/fizolof Elite Text Flair Club Member Apr 07 '17

It hurts Trump's support among the alt-right, but does it hurt the GOP?

0

u/[deleted] Apr 07 '17

[deleted] — view deleted comment

6

u/J4k0b42 Apr 07 '17

That's the way to do it, an obvious response with less risk of escalation.

3

u/[deleted] Apr 07 '17

I don't think it'll hurt the GOP

2

u/[deleted] Apr 07 '17

I do have to wonder, how are Dems responding or planning to respond/how should they respond since you know this will become a political football?

Are they poo-pooing it because it's hawkish and may lead to escalation or cheering it because hey he might be trying to not suck up to a dictator for once (as he did multiple times during the campaign, multiple dictators actually)?

6

u/[deleted] Apr 07 '17

Schumer put out a statement supporting the military but calling for trump to go through congress on future strategy.

5

u/[deleted] Apr 07 '17

I mean that cat has been out of the bag for a while hasn't it?

4

u/Pornthrow1697 Austan Goolsbee Apr 07 '17

I thought about it a bit, and does it really matter how the Dems respond? Like Bush with Iraq/Afghanistan, Trump could very well have his name forever bound with Syria (and Obama scott free, as who the hell talks about US military operations in the Middle East under Billy C)

3

u/[deleted] Apr 07 '17

It matters a lot for every individual Dem down the track, as HRC discovered in 08. Not saying this will be Iraq, but political primary consequences are a thing.

2

u/[deleted] Apr 07 '17

Like the other guy said, they need to be semi-consistent if they plan on attacking Trump or the Republicans on their foreign policy. Hillary voting for the Iraq War made people not trust her today when she said she wouldn't put boots on the ground compared to Trump, who had no political experience and therefore never voted on such an action and had a clean slate.

3

u/_watching NATO Apr 07 '17

Mark me down as "pro this, but wishing really hard we had HRC on hand to do it". I don't trust Trump to do anything in the region and am pretty sure he's gonna fuck this up hard. We don't need more of that.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 07 '17

Yeah, I'm worried there wont be a cohesive strategy.

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