President Joe Biden

[Deamonbane]

The funniest (in a sad way) part was McConnell's speech on ending the filibuster, where he says that it would be like a 100-car pileup, nothing movies. He failed to address the fact that nothing moving is exactly where we are right now, and have been ever since was elected minority leader in 2006, so he's threatening to... do exactly what he's been doing with the filibuster intact, not only as minority leader, but also as majority leader when the democrats controlled the House of Representatives.

[Callie Del Noire]

The funniest (in a sad way) part was McConnell's speech on ending the filibuster, where he says that it would be like a 100-car pileup, nothing movies. He failed to address the fact that nothing moving is exactly where we are right now, and have been ever since was elected minority leader in 2006, so he's threatening to... do exactly what he's been doing with the filibuster intact, not only as minority leader, but also as majority leader when the democrats controlled the House of Representatives.

He’s been very very good at obstruction.  Actually making laws? Not so much. He’s been very much part of some of the least productive senate sessions.

[Haibane]

I am reviving an old thread, but I wanted to sound out people in the USA who may have views on this. For me in the UK and as a European I am extremely thankful that we have a President Biden now and not a President Trump, second term. The whole concept of 4 more years of Trump and Trumpism was just too sickening to contemplate.

So we are grateful for now that we have a "not Trump" President. He may be vanilla, he may be not enough, but for now lets say that he will do.

A lot of what Biden has done thus far is to redact, cancel, roll back and generally undo some of the rubbish and terrible decisions Trump made. I won't list them, I am sure you all can and our lists would compare closely.

My reason for posting now and here is about Putin. While Biden was in Europe for the G7 he appended a meeting with Putin onto his trip (or his trip was extended specifically to meet Putin). My thoughts are ... why? Why sit face to face with Putin? What does Biden hope to achieve given that Russia sees this already as US weakness and a political gain for Putin?

Putin's track record is well known... and simply vile. Annexing states... murdering and imprisoning opponents and critics... he's down there close to Stalin in his contempt for decency. Outside of N Korea or a tinpot African dictatorship he must rank as the world's most untrustworthy and evil state leader. So why would Biden see any benefit in sitting down and talking to such a person?

[TheGlyphstone]

Because as unpleasant as it is to admit sometimes, power earns respect even without ethics to support it. Putin remains the dictator in all but name of a large and powerful country and thus geopolitical norms necessitate at least the appearance of respect. So in other words, its for show simply to avoid the problems not doing it would cause.

[Andol]

I am reviving an old thread, but I wanted to sound out people in the USA who may have views on this. For me in the UK and as a European I am extremely thankful that we have a President Biden now and not a President Trump, second term. The whole concept of 4 more years of Trump and Trumpism was just too sickening to contemplate.

So we are grateful for now that we have a "not Trump" President. He may be vanilla, he may be not enough, but for now lets say that he will do.

A lot of what Biden has done thus far is to redact, cancel, roll back and generally undo some of the rubbish and terrible decisions Trump made. I won't list them, I am sure you all can and our lists would compare closely.

My reason for posting now and here is about Putin. While Biden was in Europe for the G7 he appended a meeting with Putin onto his trip (or his trip was extended specifically to meet Putin). My thoughts are ... why? Why sit face to face with Putin? What does Biden hope to achieve given that Russia sees this already as US weakness and a political gain for Putin?

Putin's track record is well known... and simply vile. Annexing states... murdering and imprisoning opponents and critics... he's down there close to Stalin in his contempt for decency. Outside of N Korea or a tinpot African dictatorship he must rank as the world's most untrustworthy and evil state leader. So why would Biden see any benefit in sitting down and talking to such a person?

Would much rather see him sit down and have a talk with Putin, especially on matters on how to counter China, than not have that talk which needs to happen. I mean yeah Putin is bad, but unlike Xi... he isn't committing the level of human rights atrocities going on over there. Better to have two large superpowers like that take a stand against that kind of stuff, but yeah... Biden sadly has a problem with focusing on a Cold War boogie man at this stage and not the largest threat to US at this stage.

In terms of the problem with this meeting... Putin has seen the gaffs people criticize Biden for. So the danger here is how is Putin going to take advantage of that for a propaganda win? Biden's handlers need to be on point to make sure there are zero screw ups... and have the president stick to the scrip and by the book.   

[Fox Lokison]

Because as unpleasant as it is to admit sometimes, power earns respect even without ethics to support it. Putin remains the dictator in all but name of a large and powerful country and thus geopolitical norms necessitate at least the appearance of respect. So in other words, its for show simply to avoid the problems not doing it would cause.

This. For the same reason he's played ball with Israel, for the same reason he hasn't been as critical of other major powers as Trump was, and for the same reason the US specifically funds coups and takeovers in nations. Because that balance of power necessitates it.

There's an additional interesting thing to note - it's very unusual to have a megapower like the US. Superpowers are common, and a few of them usually exist to balance one another out. Formerly empires and kingdoms, now states and nations. The US has positioned itself above all others since the World Wars, and now it's hitting a decline. Slow at points, fast at others, but overall, the US's rising star is coming down. Whether it'll even out and just be a superpower, or come crashing down entirely... well, that's on politics. But it's not likely we're gonna be the biggest kid on the block for much longer, and it's not wise to make enemies at this stage.

[TheGlyphstone]

I've said before that the US can either follow the example of Britain, or the example of Spain. The former was once a de facto ruler of the world, but managed a soft landing as their empire crumbled. The latter refused to acknowledge their fading power until it was too late and are mostly forgotten by everyone except historians.

[Saria]

I've said before that the US can either follow the example of Britain, or the example of Spain.

I’d say they’ve already made their choice. Trumpism is just a sad echo of Francoism.

[Kathadon]

I've said before that the US can either follow the example of Britain, or the example of Spain. The former was once a de facto ruler of the world, but managed a soft landing as their empire crumbled. The latter refused to acknowledge their fading power until it was too late and are mostly forgotten by everyone except historians.

There are a number of social and political parallels, but really in the age of nuclear armed powers the idea of the American "empire" fading away? The British at their peak of power could field maybe 250,000 men and the Royal Navy had 332 warships.(I do not count the total war of World War II, when they had 4 million soldiers, in this) America's Navy alone has 251 warships and 1.4 million active duty soldiers. For this to happen it would require a massive leap forward in military technology similar to that of the industrial revolution from the age of sail. And guess who is at the forefront of military technology.

Also it would require a significant balkanization of the U.S. Not just the coasts and Jesus-land split either. Because even in those hypothetical scenarios the two or three new nations would immediately eclipse the GDP of most countries. Which would make them highly desirable markets for trade. I mean Texas would be the 10th largest economy in the world by itself right now. Hell the state of Georgia's GDP is higher than Poland's and Missouri is right below Denmark.

The only way America's place in the world will fade is from some localized catastrophic environmental or economic disaster. The ramifications on the world from which a new power might arise, or more likely some version of the U.S. would re-emerge after rebuilding.

[TheGlyphstone]

There are a number of social and political parallels, but really in the age of nuclear armed powers the idea of the American "empire" fading away? The British at their peak of power could field maybe 250,000 men and the Royal Navy had 332 warships.(I do not count the total war of World War II, when they had 4 million soldiers, in this) America's Navy alone has 251 warships and 1.4 million active duty soldiers. For this to happen it would require a massive leap forward in military technology similar to that of the industrial revolution from the age of sail. And guess who is at the forefront of military technology.

Also it would require a significant balkanization of the U.S. Not just the coasts and Jesus-land split either. Because even in those hypothetical scenarios the two or three new nations would immediately eclipse the GDP of most countries. Which would make them highly desirable markets for trade. I mean Texas would be the 10th largest economy in the world by itself right now. Hell the state of Georgia's GDP is higher than Poland's and Missouri is right below Denmark.

The only way America's place in the world will fade is from some localized catastrophic environmental or economic disaster. The ramifications on the world from which a new power might arise, or more likely some version of the U.S. would re-emerge after rebuilding.

Okay, time for a truncated and heavily simplified history lesson from Professor* Glyphstone.

At the height of its power in the 17th century, the Spanish Empire had somewhere north of 330,000 men under arms, in a world with 580 million people. The world's population today is 7.8 billion - to be proportionate in power, the US army would need to be 3.5 times larger than it already is. And in their time, the Spaniards were also the world's best-trained and most well-equipped troops, alongside the largest and strongest navy. And they needed that power, because their empire was built by conquistadors; it was brutal and oppressive in the most violent way, focused on looting its colonial conquests to enrich Spain. But that didn't last forever, and when they ran out of blood and treasure to bully people with, the Spanish found they had no allies or friends. In comparison, the British built their empire largely on mercantile trade, and while they had plenty of blood on their own hands, they were also much smarter about letting go. To the point where today, their most openly rebellious colony - the US - is also their strongest ally and protector.

Will the US's power fade in the next 10 years? No. In the next 50? Probably not. In the next 100? Maybe, who knows. But like the Mesopotamians, Persians, Romans, Mughals, Ottomans, Spanish, French, Zulu, and British in their times...eventually the star of the United States will fade. And it's up to us whether we do it gracefully, or stubbornly. Assuming we don't, as in your third scenario, balkanize, because if that happens it will be incredibly violent and destructive and might involve nuclear bombs. Our ideological and demographic divides are too geographically intermingled for anything else to happen - we would not have two or three nations with immense GDPs, but two or three broken and bleeding ruins that all claimed to be the true heir of the American crown.

Anyone who believes an empire can stand forever should consult with Ozymandius, king of kings. Look upon his works, ye mighty, and despair.

[TheGlyphstone]

*I'm not actually a professor, I just play one in RP.

[Oniya]

Yesterday, Biden signed a bill declaring Juneteenth a federal holiday.

[Haibane]

Looking back over the Biden-Putin summit I am getting a distinct feeling that Putin came out of it better. Its very easy for him to deny any claims Biden makes about hackers and repressive internal activity and very hard for an accuser to show evidence of this. Likewise its easy for Putin to point at Jan 6th and say critical things about democracy. Biden requested the meeting and that always makes the other party appear stronger.

Generally speaking the west, NATO and the UN are powerless to do anything about Putin's regime. Even extremely explicit evidence of murder such as MH-17 can simply be hand-waved aside as "a political attack" or "photoshopped lies" or some such cover up. Putin's regime are extremely proficient at throwing up smokescreens of conflicting stories to obfuscate and confuse and it takes the west a lot of effort to break these down at which point it makes no difference. To what end? Putin will never admit to attempted murder of the Skripals or Navalny, nor the numerous killings of exiled Chechens in Turkey. He doesn't care about our reaction to the Crimea and Donbass and his support of Belarus. And that I feel is the crux here. He really can get away with murder - mass murder - and there is nothing the west can do about it. And he knows this. By stamping out dissent in his own country he is guaranteeing himself presidency for life and we almost have another Stalin.

For Biden to make approaches to such a tyrant is an act of weakness and I think the Geneva meeting did Biden no favours.

The USA needs to gird its loins and simply get much, much better at anti-cyber warfare; it needs to design systems that are much harder to hack. In light of this Trump's attitude towards Putin was outrageous. Trump also critically weakened America by sowing domestic problems over voting. For a resolution, I have no answers... the situation makes me feel depressed and hopeless.

[TheGlyphstone]

As mentioned above, snubbing Putin would have caused way more issues. Biden didn't just meet with him, he made a point of getting 1v1 meetings with every G7 leader at the summit. The rest of them are actual allies and needed that attention to reassure them we were still friends after Trump. And having done that, if Putin was the only one he refused a meeting with it would have been an insult and international diplomatic incident. If he must, better he look momentarily weak than slap Putin in the face in front of the entire world, because that would hurt us far worse in the end.

[TheGlyphstone]

...okay, so on further investigation it was separate, Putin was not at the G7 summit directly. So back to the first point, in diplomacy power demands the appearance of cordiality even when everyone knows its false.

[Haibane]

Yes, Russia is not a member of the G7. It's actually the G8 now as the EU has an official representative there.

Setting aside the G7 meeting of which this was not a part, it was a separate event and I am still concerned why Biden and his team thought it was wise to offer Putin a face to face meeting. Perhaps Biden thought the Trump-Putin meeting was such a terrible farce for America he simply wanted to have a face to face and have it function normally, whether for bad or worse.

[TheGlyphstone]

Thats the most plausible idea yet, really. Biden Year One is really dedicated to convincing the rest of the world that our 4-year epidemic of batshit lunacy is over, and we're "back to normal". So going out of his way to project that sort of business-as-usual-once-again might be the specific goal.