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You need a little more realpolitik in your life. Nations are absolutely competing with each other because we live in a world of limited resources. Recognizing
by lobotryas 6y ago
You need a little more realpolitik in your life. Nations are absolutely competing with each other because we live in a world of limited resources. Recognizing this fact and wanting your nation to come out on top are very normal.
- count 6y agoNormal and necessary are different.
- tehjoker 6y agoI am quite familiar with realpolitik, the American post-war perspective and how the idea of international cooperation was undercut and destroyed by our national bourgeoisie. The UN system was put in place for America to exert its post-war dominance. China is a complicated nation. It is constructing a parallel system to the IMF/World Bank that under-girds US hegemony. It also controls a huge fraction of world manufacturing due to the laziness and greed of the business community. However, because it is not a pure capitalist country, it doesn't have the same imperial market imperatives that western countries certainly have. If we don't try to build a better future, we will realpolitik ourselves into a dystopian one. Also, nations are fake creations of the elites. The working class is international in scope and we have no quarrel with one another.
- Der_Einzige 6y agoRealpolitik means that we acknowledge that great power wars aren't an option while MAD exists - and that MAD isn't going anywhere for 100 years or more. That means that soft/economic power is far more important than hard power. Anti-ICBM tech sucks balls and it only gets worse with new weapons like nuclear cruise missiles.
- tehjoker 6y agoI don't understand why we are lusting for great power wars in the first place beyond the fact that they are so damaging as to be nearly (but not quite) unthinkable.