
United States then, Europe now (2012) [pdf] - dataker
https://files.nyu.edu/ts43/public/research/Sargent_Sweden_final.pdf
======
carsongross
And who among us would have guessed that the answer to problems caused by the
EU and a single currency is concentrating yet more power in the central
government?

It is instructive to go back and read the arguments the anti-federalists made
during the constitutional debate. As near as I can tell, they were correct
across the board. And yet, in the state school I attended, I never read them.

Strange, that.

Here are some:

[http://teachingamericanhistory.org/ratification/timeline-
fed...](http://teachingamericanhistory.org/ratification/timeline-
federalfarmer/)

~~~
lisa_henderson
"they were correct across the board"

That's impossible. The "Anti-Federalists" were a diverse set of groups with no
unifying themes other than opposition to the newly proposed Constitution.
Southern racists and Northern working class movements made anti-federalist
arguments for wildly different reasons. It's impossible for anti-federalists
to be "correct across the board" because some of the arguments they made were
contradictory.

More so, it is trivially easy to find anti-federaist arguments that turned out
to be wrong. Several people who identified as anti-federalist predicted that
the new constitution would lead to tyranny, and yet, 227 years later, the
government retains most of the nominal forms of a liberal polity: a mostly
independent judiciary, freedom of media, public criticism, habeus corpus in
all but the most extreme cases, etc.

------
xnull6guest
This is quite precisely what Brussels would like to see - federated power over
a loose union of nations with the ultimate goal of emerging as a sort of
United States of Europe.

As NATO is being challenged and Pax Americana not working out the way we
thought, this seems smart. I wish the best to our historical allies.

~~~
adventured
NATO is basically the US, France, Germany, and the UK. I don't see there being
many changes to that group in the near future, in terms of its counter to
Russia (which is of course the primary reason for NATO's existence). They
drive NATO, and will continue to stick together in various terms for all the
overwhelmingly obvious self-interest reasons. Russia is no challenge to NATO,
they're weaker than they've been in terms of being a real threat since maybe
before WW2; in terms of scale and capabilities, they're being left behind.
Most of the easy gains have already been had by Putin when it comes to re-
boosting oil production, ie the party is over, which is why he is shifting to
external aggression; the US economy is now nine times the size of Russia's,
and that gap will only continue to expand - there's only so much military
threat a country can pose when it has an economy that is going to eventually
be ~8% your size.

I'm not sure what the expectations were on PAX Americana, but the US is in a
stronger position today than it has been in nearly 20 years. The dollar and
its share of reserves around the globe are higher than they have been in a
long time, with the Euro losing vast amounts of purchasing power rapidly, and
losing a lot of share of reserves as people seek to dump it (and QE will push
its value much lower yet). The Yen is a disaster, as Japan is aggressively
debasing it to prevent bankruptcy. The Yuan is a distant second tier currency
that still doesn't matter, and won't for a long time yet. Today the dollar
reserve reigns supreme in a way few expected it to after the financial crisis.

When it comes to China challenging the US - and they are the sole challenger -
it's no worse than the USSR from 1950-1980. The US holds vast sway over nearly
the entire planet, both financially and militarily; outside of Russia and
China it is able to operate almost anywhere and at any time. Able to twist any
country's arm financially, including the Swiss. The global surveillance system
the US built, is going almost entirely unchallenged (and I'm not saying I
support that fact); nothing is being rolled back or stopped, rather it is
advancing. And when it comes to Europe, the US has gained about $3 trillion on
the European economy since 2008, as Europe has seen net zero growth during
that time; that's a vast amount of GDP pick-up, and that spread is likely to
get worse in the next decade. Pax Americana is stronger today than it has been
in decades, the sole set-back I can think of is the AIIB and that shouldn't be
a set-back, the US should have joined it as a founding member to its own
benefit.

~~~
fit2rule
>Russia is no challenge to NATO, they're weaker than they've been in terms of
being a real threat since maybe before WW2; in terms of scale and
capabilities, they're being left behind.

I really don't think this is correct. Russia has fielded technologies recently
that represent a serious threat to NATO, and they appear to be getting more
and more aggressive as a result of the confidence gained from these
technological programs. Russia has real experience with War in Europe -
something that NATO can only simulate at this point - and it has proven its
ability to dominate in the battlefield on the ground in countless events
recently.

Whereas NATO is continually attempting to encroach on territories previously
dominated by Russian military power, it is still not quite in complete control
over the Eastern-Europe regions which represent the future stage for conflict
between the two entities.

I'd really like to understand your argument better - can you explain how you
think that NATO has the upper hand over Russia at the moment? Because I don't
feel that is the case at all - to me, living in middle-Europe, it seems like
NATO is playing a cats game with the tiger.

~~~
emodendroket
Going to a war with the world's major powers is not exactly like running
roughshod over South Ossetia or Ukraine. By this metric NATO members have
proved their mettle by destroying government's like Libya's at very little
cost to themselves (disastrous consequences of that action aside).

~~~
fit2rule
Do you really think that a war in middle-/eastern- Europe would be comparable
to the actions taken in Libya? Because I seriously do not think so. Libya has
suffered decades of incursions - the recent events did not just happen
overnight, it took a lot of effort to degrade Libyan military prowess to the
point it could just be rolled over - this is not going to happen in any of the
states in Europe that NATO vs. Russia may involve.

I think there is myopic thinking here, on the part of the West, and I'd really
truly like to understand it. Why do you think that NATO has the upper hand in
the European theatre at the moment? From the perspective of someone on the
ground, it sure seems like Russia is getting what it wants.

~~~
x0x0
Damaging economic sanctions in trade for the right to support Crimea (which
has no land route to Russia) during a time of general budgetary problems
caused by low oil prices?

It looks to me like an expensive reactionary measure provoked by the US'
idiotic interference in Ukrainian politics...

What am I missing? Is there some reason Russia desperately wanted Crimea, or
turmoil and devastation in Ukraine?

~~~
xnull6guest
Yes, Crimea and Eastern Ukraine shares a border with Russia, NATO exercises
had been going on in Crimea under the purview of a Western CSO propelled Kiev,
Ukraine and under it the republic of Crimea was slotted for entry into the EU
(and eventually NATO, like other former Warsaw states) at a time international
financial-political sabotage was being orchestrated in the EU to thwart
attempt to have Russia's pipelines through Crimea and the Baltics to the
Balkins, and because the "Independent" Republic of Crimea serves as a critical
water base and military nexus for Russia and because historically, politically
and by nationality Russia and Crimea are much closer to one another than even
Russia and Kiev; because the EU's energy trade legislation would make Kiev and
Crimea distributers of Russian oil like Poland/Czech; because NATO actions in
Serbia/Kosovo broke Cold War treaties when Russia could not defend itself;
because missile batteries and THAAD systems in the Baltics deployed by the US
and EU ruin Russia's deterents and intercept capabilities and similarly break
longstanding nuclear treaties; because the treaties being negotiated in Keiv
(the non-violent option was not working) and because the West-backed coup was
working according to orchestration despite disruption; because the Bush
administration refused to extend age old nuclear disarmament treaties; because
the EU is building up to a United States of Europe on Russia's border; and
because prior actions taken by NATO in the support on non-NATO allied
countries in the past decade have shown that the EU intends a regional
hegemony.

Russia had many incentives to want Crimea. Certainly the West is making Russia
pay for Crimea. But the Putin administrations actions radically stunned the
NATO allied powers. Cat in a Tiger game.

I don't think it will continue this way, as contigency and response planning
is by now surely narrowed down - maybe we'll get to see it if Mariupol is
captured. In the long term under the faltering of the Eurasian Union Russia
risks becoming a satellite state to China - so it will be interesting to see
how the dynamics play out (for the sake of EU/US, we might hope that the
'balance of powers' is a century dead.)

