RE: President Bush The Smarter Has Passed Away
December 1, 2018 at 1:37 pm
(This post was last modified: December 1, 2018 at 1:45 pm by Anomalocaris.)
George Bush senior did all the right things to establish the US at the head of an international regime in which most nations believed United States was a largely benign and largely impartial hegemon. Therefore most nations, even the collapsing USSR facing the loss of her world geopolitical empire, and China in the Aftermath of tiannanmen and facing harsh sanctions from the US, believe they have much more to gain working with the US and conceding the senior position in setting international rules and regulations to the US.
Bush senior made the US Supreme in the entire post cold war world by making American hegemony synonymous with everyone being more secure, and having more potential for economic growth. It also made the US Supreme as guarantor of collabrative multilateral rule making in which everyone has a say, and everyone has a stake. This is the acme of enlightened statecraft never before achieved in the history of human civilization. Bush didn’t set of process in motion. He wasn’t the main driver for it. But he was smart enough to see it, and grasp it, and accrue its benefits to the United States, and in the process almost the whole world. That may not seem like active bombastic alpha male leadership, but it is real leadership achievement unprecedented in all human civilization. He was vastly underrated.
Clinton took advantage of the vast good will the US built under Bush senior in but 4 years. He was astute enough to realize once a nation has accumulate such good Will, it could do a lot of questionable and self-serving things without losing the good will from the majority. So the essence of Clintonian foreign policy was to show enough bonhomme and consideration to keep up the good will and acceptance of American supremacy amongst most major players, while selectively targeting the geopolitical interests of Russia, to undermine with an eye of breaking Russia up, so Russia can never again parley its central location in euroasia into the geopolitical strength to rival the US again. This was explicitly against the deal made by Bush Senior with collapsing USSR to cause the USSR and later Russia to embrace US hegemony in the early 1990, when bush promised NATO would respect Soviet Union’s sphere of influence even if the Cold War rivalry ends with soviet pull out from Eastern Europe. But the single unifying theme of clintonian foreign policy was to screw Russia in evey way in every part of traditional Russia sphere of influence, at time Russia’s historic weakness, while smiling indulgently at Boris Yelsin.
It is not at all surprising Russia and Putin really, really, hates the clintons.
So Russia welcomed the election of bush junior, since Bush senior in their opinion dealt with the USSR fairly in the dying days of the USSR. But unlike Clinton, bush junior, or rather his neoconservative cabal, was too stupid to realize the hegemony of even a hegemon as strong as the United States still was in early 2000s, still dependeded mostly on the consent of the everyone else, and therefore relied on perpetuating the belief the American hegemony provides more security and room for common growth than any alternative. Bush junior knocked the first main prop out from under the american hegemony bush senior built and Clinton maintained by invading Iraq in defiance of international opposition and making it clear the United States, rather than being the guarantor of security of most countries, can be the main threat to security of major players in the world, and would not be talked out of it even by a coalition of just about everyone. Fate the knocked out the second prop from under american hegemony with the economy tsunami of 2008. That made it clear that rather than a source of economic potential and economic growth for much of the world, american hegemony was also the source of economic instability, imbalance and mismanagement. So two out the three props for american global hegemony, arguably what made America great, was knocked out during bush junior’s watch. But there remain the third prop, that American is the guarantor of collabrative, multilateral rule making in which everyone has a voice and a stake. That prop will survive until trump.
As part of bush junior’s America does what it wants, he continued Clinton’s policy of screwing Russia wherever he can, much to putin’s Vast anger, annoyance and disappointment.
You can see how this is leading to the world we live in.
Bush senior made the US Supreme in the entire post cold war world by making American hegemony synonymous with everyone being more secure, and having more potential for economic growth. It also made the US Supreme as guarantor of collabrative multilateral rule making in which everyone has a say, and everyone has a stake. This is the acme of enlightened statecraft never before achieved in the history of human civilization. Bush didn’t set of process in motion. He wasn’t the main driver for it. But he was smart enough to see it, and grasp it, and accrue its benefits to the United States, and in the process almost the whole world. That may not seem like active bombastic alpha male leadership, but it is real leadership achievement unprecedented in all human civilization. He was vastly underrated.
Clinton took advantage of the vast good will the US built under Bush senior in but 4 years. He was astute enough to realize once a nation has accumulate such good Will, it could do a lot of questionable and self-serving things without losing the good will from the majority. So the essence of Clintonian foreign policy was to show enough bonhomme and consideration to keep up the good will and acceptance of American supremacy amongst most major players, while selectively targeting the geopolitical interests of Russia, to undermine with an eye of breaking Russia up, so Russia can never again parley its central location in euroasia into the geopolitical strength to rival the US again. This was explicitly against the deal made by Bush Senior with collapsing USSR to cause the USSR and later Russia to embrace US hegemony in the early 1990, when bush promised NATO would respect Soviet Union’s sphere of influence even if the Cold War rivalry ends with soviet pull out from Eastern Europe. But the single unifying theme of clintonian foreign policy was to screw Russia in evey way in every part of traditional Russia sphere of influence, at time Russia’s historic weakness, while smiling indulgently at Boris Yelsin.
It is not at all surprising Russia and Putin really, really, hates the clintons.
So Russia welcomed the election of bush junior, since Bush senior in their opinion dealt with the USSR fairly in the dying days of the USSR. But unlike Clinton, bush junior, or rather his neoconservative cabal, was too stupid to realize the hegemony of even a hegemon as strong as the United States still was in early 2000s, still dependeded mostly on the consent of the everyone else, and therefore relied on perpetuating the belief the American hegemony provides more security and room for common growth than any alternative. Bush junior knocked the first main prop out from under the american hegemony bush senior built and Clinton maintained by invading Iraq in defiance of international opposition and making it clear the United States, rather than being the guarantor of security of most countries, can be the main threat to security of major players in the world, and would not be talked out of it even by a coalition of just about everyone. Fate the knocked out the second prop from under american hegemony with the economy tsunami of 2008. That made it clear that rather than a source of economic potential and economic growth for much of the world, american hegemony was also the source of economic instability, imbalance and mismanagement. So two out the three props for american global hegemony, arguably what made America great, was knocked out during bush junior’s watch. But there remain the third prop, that American is the guarantor of collabrative, multilateral rule making in which everyone has a voice and a stake. That prop will survive until trump.
As part of bush junior’s America does what it wants, he continued Clinton’s policy of screwing Russia wherever he can, much to putin’s Vast anger, annoyance and disappointment.
You can see how this is leading to the world we live in.
