"Without commenting on ongoing cases, he called on European authorities to activate a mechanism that could limit the impact of US restrictions."
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ICC member states should take steps to ensure the sanctioned judges and prosecutors do not suffer as a result of U.S. sanctions. The goal should be to ensure that they feel no repercussions that might bias them one way or the other in future cases and thus maintain impartiality. If this is not done, it could create an apparent feedback loop, if only in the public's imagination. i.e. After some future ICC ruling goes against them (or Israel/Russia), the U.S. may claim that ICC judges and prosecutors are prejudiced against them and are seeking revenge. Protecting ICC personnel now could blunt such claims. Sadly, I fear that the U.S. may have need of defence from ICC rulings relatively soon.
> Sadly, I fear that the U.S. may have need of such a defence relatively soon.
When it really comes down to it, usa is a super power. Might makes right in international politics. The ICC has had quite a lot of successes when it comes to small and even medium sized countries, but at some point pragmatism has to win out. Nobody is going to war with the USA on behalf of the ICC. I highly doubt the ICC is going to push any issue with america unless the evidence against them is extreme. Its simply not powerful enough.
Europe isn't a superpower but it's a giant entity with 450 million people and 15% of the world's gdp. It has the means to oppose the US and retaliate against its sanctions, if it doesn't it's because of the cowardice of its politicians and the weakness of its institutions.
More importantly, the bilateral relationship between the US and Europe represents 30% of global trade, and 40% of the global GDP. Both economies complement each other naturally (at least right now), and neither partners don't want it to end, so even with the relationship becoming more fragile as the US tries to close itself off from the world, I think both will still try to remain collaborative with each other, regardless of this posturing that is going on.
It will take a lot to shift that trade dynamic, but the current US administration seems quite energetic about rapidly tearing down Chesterton's Fences that it doesn't understand nor want to spend the time to understand, so I'd not bet on this remaining so even for the next 3 years.
And yes, I do understand how utterly bonkers it is to suggest something this big changing over just 3 years.
That trade dynamic isn’t going to shift unless the EU becomes a lot more insular.
The War in Ukraine is dampening trade with Russia. The EU is struggling in their trade relations with the PRC even more than with America right now, and fears them more than they fear us. A trade deal (“Mercosur”) with South America is in the process of potentially blowing up, and if it’s not passed in its current state, Brazil is looking to walk for the remainder of their President’s term in office.
The EU certainly has limited options, I agree about that.
The problem I see is the risks are not under the EU's control. We may face becoming much more insular regardless of what any of us ourselves actually want.
Trump is behaving in a manner not consistent with EU nations retaining indepdendence and sovreignty. And also betting the future of USA on economic development plans (and military plans) that do not seem realistic.
The insular part was a very small, maybe too subtle of, joke.
That’s also not a viable option for the EU, or more specifically: the constituent nations of the EU. They’re as dependent on trade as we are, maybe even more so, and so we are stuck in this relationship where we constantly piss each other off in various ways, and believe me when I say it goes both ways.
Fortunately for the UK, the photos of Boris Johnson holding a pint during covid lockdowns he'd ordered, mean that Boris Johnson is no longer a threat to the UK.
I think your main point is valid, but it would be more compelling if you'd taken a few seconds to read it before submitting, to catch this double-negative.
Not really. We have the most money, the most guns, and world economies depend on us. Europe won't even fight Russia when they literally invaded a country in their backyard, and Russia is much weaker than the US.
Fighting Russia or the US is basically the same; you're just going to get nuked. Ukraine doesn't get nuked because Russia isn't in a real risk of losing it's own territory and doesn't want to annex irradiated lands.
But also Europe (besides Ukraine) doesn't have much to gain from fighting Russia. They're happy to assist in air raids in North Africa / Middle East for energy reasons (see Libya) but it's fighting for practical purposes.
The table can also be turned against the US. Despite the endless complaints about Mexico sending drugs & drug dealers into the US it's not like we are doing effective (or drastic).
Your most money won't buy you much resources in a decade. most of the natural resources exporting countries feel a bit cheated with 20 year contracts and two "quantitative easing" in the same period
The only resource suppliers to EU other than the United States is Norway (natural gas pipeline, crude oil 14%) and Australia (coal 36%). The US supplies a a huge minority in those as well as a majority in LNG. (https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/interactive-publications/e...)
If the EU ally’s with Australia, pics up an enemy of an enemy - China, they can withstand a US embargo.
We can’t extract our way out of this. We’ll have nothing left. We need space minerals and more rocks that aren’t home. We’re fighting over less and less sand in the sandbox.
We were never debating if Europe could survive an American embargo.
You said “most money won't buy you much resources in a decade.” This was about America surviving a European freeze-out. The simple truth is, there are more resources in America and within its military’s undisputed reach than there are in Europe.
Your UNEP report doesn’t show why America alone couldn’t extract its way out of an embargo. (While it puts its military to use.)
You must have me mistaken with someone else. I didn't say that. I said that it wouldn't matter as resource exhaustion is faster than it was previously and we will run out of resources, money or not. So if one side decides to horde or exploit the other hemisphere, it's like kids fighting over the last bit of sand in the sandbox.
> it wouldn't matter as resource exhaustion is faster than it was previously and we will run out of resources, money or not
Oh. Sure. Fair. But not relevant in our lifetimes, at least not from the position of the United States. If push came to shove, we'd take those last bits of sand. That's one of the problems with might makes right: it lets those in power put off hard choices.
I hope that the USA will maintain strong relations with the EU. But the EU is structurally incapable of taking any coordinated action more significant than mandating USB-C chargers for cell phones.
France has nukes, so those aren't a plausible threat. Any kind of land invasion is doomed to fail - the US didn't even manage to beat a bunch of goat herders in one of the poorest countries of the world. A naval blockade is the most likely to succeed - except for the whole "land bridge to Asia/Africa" part. And if the blockade does succeed and the continent starts to starve, there's the whole "France has nukes" part again...
Besides, do you really think China/India won't get involved? And do you really think the US public is going to accept their friends and family dying because some power-hungry politician got the braindead idea to send them against Europe? The reception will be worse than Vietnam!
We have accepted that for a long time, and there are no plans to change it.
Why do you think there is zero movement to disentangle from any important US dependencies? Such as software. There is nothing whatsoever happening to be any less dependent on the US, part from defense, and that only after repeated urging and finally some real force-pressure to get the EU moving (even after Trump's first term little to nothing actually happened).
European countries are perfectly fine with where they are, if any less dependency on the US is to happen, it will only be after huge pressure from the US.
That is deliberate, they just don't see value in e.g. trying to recreate the Microsoft and other software ecosystems. After all, it already exists, so why compete at that point? It does not make economic sense. Also, it is not Europe's strength: Every country would, in practice, (have to) develop their own version, while in the US a company can easily scale across the entire nation. For Software, it makes no (economic) sense for Europe to compete in an area where this kind of scale is important.
And that strength argument, only some minor politicians, and some journalists, keep bringing up headlines such as "Can Germany save Europe?", or celebrating "Germany back on the world stage" when there is some minor meeting hosted by Germany (seen recently). The vast majority of people could not care less about being "number one" and "leading (anything, politically)".
Not trying to reinvent the wheel, or many wheels actually, out of some "pride" moment seems pretty foolish to me. If the US is good producing this or that, we get it from there, so what? Everybody, including the US, made even more far-reaching similar decisions with industry moved to China. Compared to that, European reliance on the US is not much, and pretty much unavoidable, unless one gives up lots of wealth.
Another potential goal of the war may have been to demonstrate that the USSR couldn't hope to win a conventional war against the US (the 1973 Easter offensive fielded 700-1200 tanks of various kinds, and the US destroyed 400-700 of them with trivial losses to US forces). The Soviets were using 15-20% of their economy to produce, among other military items, 4000 tanks a year, so a demonstration that the US could destroy so much without significant losses or any particular economic strain could have been shocking. If that was a real goal, though, it probably couldn't be openly discussed at the time, which would have contributed to the "why are we even there?" mood of the American people.
In the event that someone is directly attacking Americans in America, I think you'll find that Americans are more united than it appears.
Americans culturally have seen ourselves as the "Good Guys" for the last century or so, and Good Guys imply Bad Guys. If there aren't any credible Bad Guys external to the US, Americans start thinking the Bad Guys are the rich, or the coastal elites, or flyover country, or liberals, or whatever. That's just 'cause there's no one else to be against, though; it'll pass.
Hence Trump's continual (and false) claims that the cities he's targeting are lawless and dangerous places.
The above applies to federal US military forces. The laws specifically exclude the US Coast Guard. Non-military federal forces (FBI, ICE, etc) are also excluded.
It also, in the more complicated quirk, excludes state military forces (i.e. "National Guard" units). These forces can be activated under a variety of different legal frameworks (see https://www.nationalguard.mil/Portals/31/Resources/Fact%20Sh... ), some of which allow their use for domestic police functions (Title 32 and SAD), because they're still under the command of the state governor (who can use military forces to perform domestic policing functions inside their state or a neighboring state).
There's also a special exclusion for Washington, DC, as technically the president is sort of its governor for many purposes.
Given that background, what actually happened...
- Trump activated National Guard units under Title 10 (aka federal active duty service), because this doesn't require the consent of a state's governor
- Trump then deployed these units to several cities, some with the support of Republican governors and some without the support of Democratic governors
- The administration's legal team realized performing policing functions with the above forces was on extremely shaky ground
- Therefore, they mostly claimed (loudly) that they were deploying "the military", but in actuality used them for extremely limited, non-policing purposes (picking up trash, talking to tourists, guarding federal buildings, guarding other federal agents performing law enforcement functions)
The US was barely treading water militarily, at enormous cost in both lives and cash. It was not progressing towards its military and political goals. That's why the US public pulled the plug.
The US could have continued to tread water for another 5 years, or another 10 years, or another 15 years, and would have lost even more men and spent even more money, and it would still have faced the same problem: there was no way to win the war. Every day that the war continued just meant more deaths and more money wasted.
That's not what I said. I said that it doesn't matter.
Military might has plenty to do with bluffing. That's what politics is all about.
But when the music stops and the ball drops, US and EU aren't going to war with each other any time soon. So measuring military might doesn't really matter.
And you can't be that naive to believe is gonna make any difference. The US that had to get out of Korea, Vietnam, all the way to Afghanistan, will take on Europe? Lol...
It’s not what the US might do, it’s what they might not do.
If Putin decides Poland is propping up Ukraine he might expand the war into Poland because right now it isn’t clear that the US would honor their NATO commitments.
Ukraine was not a NATO country, never mind a EU country. I’m all for speaking truth to the weakness of the eu and its indecisive pussyfooting on the military front but let’s not start getting high on our own supply: Russia absolutely does not have the military nor industrial power to invade Poland and take on the actual EU in a hot war. NATO or no NATO it wouldn’t even be close.
Or it could just end with mutual total nuclear annihilation of course.
Edit: now if they were to attack the eu over a decades long interference campaign with its member state democracies, funding anti eu parties, stoking separatist sentiments, and covertly subverting the fundamental pillars of its liberal democracies, on the other hand…
If we're accepting as a given that somehow Putin launches nukes into Europe to invade Poland, and the EU doesn't retaliate in kind, then the USA definitely wouldn't--NATO or no NATO--so I'm not sure how it's relevant to the original comment.
Russia is has tried and failed for a couple of years now to push particularly far into Ukraine, and you think Europe would have a problem stopping a Russian attack on Poland?
Poland alone has a population comparable to Ukraine, and a significantly larger economy.
Labor shortages abound in the US military. It is slowly approaching paper tiger status, unless we're talking about delivering long range ordinance. The US can engage in a small handful of conflicts at the same time; it cannot take on the world. The Coast Guard didn't have enough staff to commandeer an oil tanker near Venezuela recently [1] [2]. The US Navy has mothballed seventeen supply ships due to labor shortages [3]. Total global US military headcount is ~2.6M as of this comment, ~1.14M on US soil [4] [5] [6] [7]. There are also military sourcing single points of failure, like L3 [8] and the US Air Force.
China can already detect and track stealth aircraft using a combination of ground based passive radar and StarLink signal, as well as satellite reconnaissance. Europe could have this capability whenever they're ready to spend and, in the case of a satellite, lift to orbit. Use hypersonic vehicles for anti air defense and carrier busting [9].
That doesn't matter. One or two atomic boms from France and say goodbye to a good GDP from the US coasts. Everyone losses, but the US it's set back to 1940.
There's no difference between suicide and an invasion from the US with total control of the neocons against a social-democratic state.
That being a puppet state a la Vichy, I mean; not something being bribed upon with corruption and money.
What the US needs is to invest right now in fusion technology and learn the damn Math right. Hint: hypercubes and physics.
They don't need a war to feed the industry, they need the balls to evolve themselves as the Chinese did. First from pure Maoism to Deng Xiaoping, and next from coal to clean energy. It's a decades bound plan, but if Beijing becames clean it would be one of the greatest things for China (and the world) ever.
This would mean acknowledging that some sectors are best stated supported, such as healthcare; while others are best company supported/evolved, such as telecos and R+D, but with proper
regulations, so net neutrality stays as is and patents get open over few decades so everyone can play the game.
And, no, you don't need to put social credit, social surveillance or any other bullshit such as Chat Control.
No, but China and Australia do if they were to, you know, alliance themselves against the tyranny of the US. Much like we did against the tyranny of the Nazi regime.
Nobody needs to go to war with America on behalf of the ICC. We merely need member nations to declare they won't enforce any American sanctions against ICC judges or other personnel. The US might cry and stamp their feet, maybe even threaten to invade France, but this is all impotent rage if the EU decides to wake up and call America's stupid bluffs.
If French banks with US presence start banking sanctioned individuals the US would start confiscating their American assets. It’s just not worth it for them. The military is irrelevant as long as usd is the reserve currency most countries use.
Why does it need to be all French banks? The French government could establish a special class of bank for domestic business, that isn't subject to international pressure except pressure applied to the French government itself. They should be able to find a way that a judge in Europe, living in Europe, paying European taxes to European governments, paying rent to a European landlord, doesn't have to give a shit about what America thinks.
This is a tractable problem, except for the lack of political willpower to create a solution.
Sure, France could in theory create such a domestic bank. But it wouldn't be allowed to connect to any US based financial institutions or transfer funds through networks controlled by those institutions. This would be so limiting as to make it hardly worth the effort. Ultimately I expect that France will just try to wait out the current US administration.
Yes, and Europe will start confiscating European assets of American companies. Your point being?
> The military is irrelevant as long as usd is the reserve currency most countries use.
The USD is rapidly losing this status, though. The current president's policies has turned the US into an extremely unreliable trade partner, so more and more trades are being done in EUR.
> Yes, and Europe will start confiscating European assets of American companies.
At this point, they should do so. With America weakened and behaving erratically, this is a good time for Europe to assert itself and put America in our place.
If it's a French bank the country of France can tell said bank they must service said customer regardless of the loss of their US assets.
Every country that works at an international level assumes said risks.
I for one am tired of internal national companies playing pick and choose on the best options and ignoring everything else. If the world wants to go multipolar again it's time for corporations to get kicked in the sack.
They might, but if they did they would presumably be prepared to retaliate against US seizures with their own. The only reason the US is able to credibly threaten to seize EU bank assets is because the EU governments are implicitly on board with the entire arrangement. As soon as it's no longer viewed as mutually beneficial it will crumble overnight.
Which is why the way to deal with this is by sanctioning US companies in retaliation. Europe can't shield its own companies from the US, but it can inflict equal pain on US companies.
I don't think that's accurate. Which sanctions, specifically, would become ineffective if Emmanuel Macron stood up and said "Our government won't enforce this sanction against ICC judges or other personnel"?
Would it? The source article doesn't say that he's unable to find a French bank account. The practical "debanking" problems it describes - some non-American banks won't do business with a person under American sanctions, all payment card systems popular in Europe are American - aren't subject to the French government's enforcement or lack thereof.
>all payment card systems popular in Europe are American - aren't subject to the French government's enforcement or lack thereof.
I disagree. Tomorrow France can tell Visa/MC/Banks they must service ICC judges or lose the ability to bank in their country and suddenly said providers will be concerned about the predicament they are in.
The EU better pull its head out of its ass about following everything the US does at this point. It's obvious over here in the states things have gone off the rails, and they'll go down with us if they want to remain so tightly coupled.
> Tomorrow France can tell Visa/MC/Banks they must service ICC judges or lose the ability to bank in their country and suddenly said providers will be concerned about the predicament they are in.
Absolutely. You get the Visa executives lobbying the American government to stop this madness and it will stop.
I'm not sure how you can look at the current political situation in the US and conclude that business executives get veto power over government decisions. Trump just this month summoned the CEOs of every major pharma company in the US for a ritual humiliation, and commanded them to give him steep discounts for a new self-branded website he's setting up.
But the whole point of Nuremberg was to prevent this, the whole idea of international law was meant to prevent this. The judges of Nuremberg warned us about this outcome.
In a world where human rights are not respected, why would we think that the Jewish people are anything but disadvantaged? Have we forgotten the important parts of history, in our urgency to prevent it repeating?
If might makes right, you've already accepted that the world belongs to China.
Yes, imagine the ICC existed in 1945 and ... let's say ... Bolivia ... petitioned for the arrest of Winston Churchill and Dwight Eisenhower over the Dresden bombing and whatever else.
Better, imagine the ICC ordered the arrest in 1943 of Franklin D. Roosevelt over ... let's say ... the forced relocation of Unangax̂ (Aleut) villagers in the Alaska Aleutian Islands.
The result wouldn't have been better for the ICC than the Gaza warrants.
You were there? No? You watched the taped proceedings then?
I don't think you appreciate the way justice becomes irrelevant in fascist and tyrannical countries.
The 'show' of fair justice, dispensed with care and deliberation, is something you seem to take for granted.
In most countries you get put up against a wall, and shot, for saying the wrong things about the right people.
I find your argument uniquely cowardly: Power without justice is a recipe for tyranny. And the position that tyranny should be the norm is something an evil or cowardly person espouses.
Yes, there is plenty of atrocity. Pretending the allied behavior is as atrocious as Stalin, Mao, Mussolini, or Hitler, is pretentious relativism.
I kind of feel like if one of the superpowers always been against international law although trying to enforce it on others, and not really wanting to participate in ICC in any shape of form, already made the whole idea dead in the water.
Lots of people realize the importance of this, but if the country who plays world police doesn't want to collaborate on making it reality and they literally still perform violent actions against other sovereign states without repercussions, what is the purpose?
>While it will not control the murderer, it can and will influence it (violence going 10% down is better than 0%)
Idealists create worse outcomes than realists and pragmatists.
Violence going down 10% can be worse than it going down 0%, if the difference comes from reducing counter-violence done by the oppressed - and reducing based on the agenda and whims of the big time abusers responsible for a big chunk of the other 90%.
You may be mixing up the ICJ, which “settles legal disputes submitted to it by states” and is 80 years old [1] and the ICC, which was created in 2002 [2].
International Law predates Nuremberg by at least 300 years (see the School of Salamanca). I am not trying to nitpick, honestly, it is that the rights of other nations and peoples were recognized well before the US even was an idea.
There was already a world court before Nuremberg: the Permanent Court of International Justice, established after WWI, as part of the League of Nations. It didn't stop WW2 and the holocaust. After WWII, they form the exact same thing with new names: the International Court of Justice, as part of the United Nations.
You know why the League of Nations didn't work (supposedly)? Because the US wasn't involved. So with the United Nations, the US is involved. What do you think happens when the US decides to not abide by the United Nations' decisions? Nothing.
The US has vetoed UN resolutions 89 times, and ignored resolutions dozens of times. It voted against Palestinian rights, and its Iraq war and ongoing foreign drone strikes go against the UN charter. Basically, whatever the US wants, goes. If they don't want you to have rights, you won't have them. If they want you to control some piece of land and anyone who lives on it, it's yours. If they don't like your government, they'll take it away and install their own, or call it terrorist and sanction it.
The whole thing is a sham and everybody knows it. There is no justice, there's just the powerful and the powerless.
> US has vetoed UN resolutions 89 times, and ignored resolutions dozens of times
So have China and Russia. The rules-based international order has been explicitly rejected by the world’s great powers.
> whole thing is a sham and everybody knows it
There was a legitimate attempt. It had flaws. But so does any system of justice. It was ultimately done in by a combination of Russian and Chinese revanchism, American neoconservatism and global nihilism.
The sovereign legal authority of any government derives from its monopoly on violence. If, at the end of the day, men with guns will not come to your home and force your compliance, then the "law" is nothing but paper.
The ICC could never be anything but what it is -- powerless against those with bigger guns. This is the fundamental nature of law and power. Barring the subjugation of all states to a supranational sovereign capable of universal enforcement, there is, ultimately, no such thing as international law.
It should be renamed to currently accepted “international traditions and customs” (ITAC)
Queue’s/line’s in shop are not formally enforced by some authority to my knowledge, but most participants adhere to such order. (I would call it tradition)
> But the whole point of Nuremberg was to prevent this, the whole idea of international law was meant to prevent this.
That seems a little silly on the face of it when you realize most people complicit during the war in what we would now call war crimes weren't even charged to begin with. Many on the losing side found lucrative jobs with the side that won, and the side that won wasn't even considered for charges.
> In a world where human rights are not respected, why would we think that the Jewish people are anything but disadvantaged?
That also seems a little farcical any way you twist it
> If might makes right, you've already accepted that the world belongs to China.
Actually, I think we're moving towards a world that is more earnestly determined by market forces. Or, these were always the same concepts; we just can't force the world to take our "deals" anymore.
Considering the relations between the US and the Netherlands it is inconceivable that the Dutch government would allow US military personel to be detained that way on its soil, and if that did happen I think a call from the White House would "clear any misunderstandings"...
Nothing has changed. The Netherlands are staying on the straight and narrow even if they might blow hot air under the guise of "EU solidarity", and that gets them cushty NATO jobs, too ;)
Trump's threatening the sovreignty of two NATO members while also being skeptical of the value of keeping the US itself in NATO and suggesting the US won't defend any NATO member that gets attacked.
He has already done things that a reasonable outsider would expect to be mere bluffs. And also TACO'ed backwards, turning things he's done into, effectively, theatrics.
Maybe so but that does not change a thing to the bilateral relation between US and Netherlands... which is as tight as can be, shall we say, we've seen it as recently as October with Nexperia.
Invade The Hague, and the next you see it's the whole US bases' set kicked out from Europe and potential Russian/Chinese missiles in Cuba pointing to Silicon Valley.
And OFC Wall Street heading down faster than in 1929. Fucking up your main client would yield a disaster so huge to the US economy than no war would save them. If any, they would be fucked, because the EU might even temporally ally with Russia. Then the shit would hit the fan in Alaska.
Your army it's the best in the world? Say hello to a coallition between Europe-China-Russia. No one would dare to throw any single atomic bomb because the outcome would be MAD for everyone.
The US would attempt then to invade Mexico/Canada. But that would yield to its own people siding up with Canada and Mexico against an obvious corrupt US war-machine-corporate state, up to the point to getting former Mexican territory back to Mexico.
Texas and California might have declared indepent countries themselves to avoid any war. The smart move, you know.
A deer was walking through the forest when she suddenly noticed a hungry-looking bear stalking her. Quickening her pace, she ran headlong into her old friend the wolf devouring a rabbit. "How dare you!" Ms. Deer bellowed, "That poor rabbit! I'll have you put in prison for that!" The wolf growled. She continued, "You'd better be careful, Mr. Wolf; there's a bear chasing me. If you try to bite me I'll just team up with him and then you'll be fucked!"
I've seen far right regimes in Europe -Spain- siding up with the Communist Cuba because of the common backgrounds over politics.
And the Cuban regime itself under Castro mourning over Franco's death. As crazy as it sounds.
Under an US-invaded European Union Spain would team up with Cuba and Venezuela the first day no matter which party would be ruling, left or even neocon-close right. The Spaniard state's survival would be the top priority.
No state, no economy, no Ibex 35. And shit would hit the fan from Latin America too.
Oh, and expect hell with guerrillas spawning here and there from Latin America backed up from Europeans and maybe the Moccromafia and the former Italian Mafia themselves. Spain, France and Italy have contacts over all the Mediterranean and you knows what Mediterranean means. I wouldn't be there if I were an American trying to invade Europe... because once you kick the wasp nest of the Islamic regimes being generously supported from Mafias, you would have both the Jihad and the Narcoguerrillas at home with European army support.
Try to stop that. Because something the Southern Europeans know well it's learning to have friends even in Hell "just in case".
Spain has the Hispano-spehere, they know how to put a whole political spectra on its side with ease, and the French have the Francophonie.
And for sure they have contacts in the Arabic world as I said.
If they don't have a badass archive of ETA contacts with Islamic camps beforehand, and they own the triumph card of Marbella too. You would be nuts trying to invade some sickos there; they know who to call in case of emergencies. The Spanish state already did that against terrorists themselves.
That what happen because, ahem, rudely said, eveyone it's grabbed from the balls from everyone's else. Economically, I mean. We are tangled and dependant of each other.
The US has the most advanced software and CPU's, the EU has sofisticated and pretty complex industrial hardware not even seen in the US. China, well, it's China, the factory of the world.
Sure. But if someone is fantasizing about Europe kicking American troops out with Russian help, they’re fantasizing about nuclear war on European soil. (Admittedly, a short one given Russia’s a paper tiger in conventional terms.)
You severely underestimate the level of animosity between half the EU and Russia. They would revolt if the other half tried to openly ally with Russia.
The example you gave isn't too surprising if one believes authoritarians attract authoritarians.
This is cute, like a little boy charging you with a cardboard sword. Better take him seriously or you're gonna get "attacked" by his model airplane collection next!
pats head That's nice, Billy, it sure is fun to play pretend. Now you run along and play with your marbles.
Im sorry the latter part of the 20th century was all about trying to avoid the whole might makes right mindset and in international politics it still should be. Wasn’t the whole justification for the west supporting Ukraine that might shouldn’t make right? The fact that people have just swallowed the might make right narrative just shows what kind of a dire situation we are in when it comes to international politics and how far standards have fallen since 2001.
Where ICC could win against someone in the US is if the opposition comes to power in the US and does nothing to protect that person. "Oh gosh, bounty hunters grabbed them and smuggled them out of the country? What a shame."
One of the things that made America a superpower is "soft power". Continuing to piss off their allies will eventually blow back if the US ever needs something from the UN.
Or worse they may need that French aircraft carrier if war breaks out with China.
>When it really comes down to it, usa is a super power.
It was a superpower, until Trump got back in office. He's been taking an axe to US soft power, and our institutions in general. We're on the edge of losing Global reserve currency status. That's what's driving the re-monetization of Silver and Gold.
They don’t have to go to war. The ICC can just try these people in absentia and then once they’re found guilty put bounties out on them like Osama Bin Laden.
It's a show of power that, for the US, is lessening that power.
Most of the US's power is from being a land of opportunity and of high ideals, with military power being secondary backup. As the US lessens opportunity and openly betrays its ideals, that power disappears. The Greenland and Canada threats alone probably require $500B-$1T/year in additional military spending to try to gain through force wha was previously given freely to the US. Add in the huge cost to the US from the tariff idiocy and cutting things like USAID and we could never spend enough militarily to make up for it.
Look at Putin's weakness in Ukraine. He tried to take by force what was not his, and ended up costing himself far more in lost trust than he could ever have gained with the war, and he has gained so little in the war. Putin had a better chance by continuing to try to divide Ukrainian society internally and have the majority of society side with Russia. Much like what is happening in the US right now.... but attack with bombs and the charade disappears. The US is going to discover the same loss of power through its attempts and threat of force.
The USA's might is highly dependent on the world order it fostered after WW2, and especially after the Cold War.
Erode that, and the USA as we've known the past 70 years starts to crumble. If in a couple decades the rest of the world works to decouple from the dollar as the main reserve currency; decouple from the dependency to sell to the USA; and decouple the dependency on American tech you still have a rich country but definitely not the superpower with the might as it exists today.
It's not possible for the USA to be funded with the astronomical deficits it runs to keep its war machine, it's not possible for the US, culturally and politically, to majorly increase taxes to cover this deficit. Slowly there would be cuts to its defence spending, diminishing its might.
Not sure why Americans decided this was a good path, didn't expect to see the era of Pax Americana to be so abruptly shaken during my lifetime but here we are.
So while the US might look like a really juicy market, I start to wonder how much juice is in the lemon?
Why the dependency to sell to the US if 90% of the US population doesn't have the free cash to buy things?
Yes, I know I'm stupid, and look at all the cheap stuff americans buy; I've seen the miles of warehouses from companies like 5 Below. My concern is how long this lasts?
I am not American so perhaps I am curious but I don't think that any Americans got a real say in it?
I was discussing this with my cousin today and about how here in my country, we have multi party system. Sure, there is still two major parties but there are definitely small parties as well and we were discussing that even India should move towards more decentralization akin to switzerland.
I really hope we have a more decentralized option and where people from all around the world feel that their vote, in fact, does matter.
The US seems mostly healthy except for corruption skyrocketing. I don't even need to see the stats. If the president is this bad, and Americans overall think that's fine, then a lot of lower offices will soon be filled with corrupt officials. Attitudes shape incentives, and incentives shape behavior. Otherwise, both in terms of labor laws and capital markets, the US looks very healthy. But corruption in itself might create huge problems in the long term.
In many ways electing Trump was a reaction to the corruption, but of course instead of getting less of it voters got more of it. That’s why it’s so hard to turn the ship around, profits from corruption are reinvested into more corruption.
> profits from corruption are reinvested into more corruption.
Beautifully explained.
And I want to ask is there anything we can do bottom line about it?
I think like stricter rules against corruption should be in check, but that requires the govt. to do something and I feel like govt.'s themselves are being corrupt
It's this cyclical loop and I don't know if there is rather anything that we can do to break out of it.
We have the rights to vote, but those end up being squandered in most/all countries with corrupt politicians, those right to vote aren't really used mostly to bring real change, maybe a different name perhaps
At the end of the deal, its more so an faith in overall humanity that we can figure out what's right for all of us but we just fight over petty differences sometimes.
Do you guys have faith in overall humanity in aggregate? At times I feel like some instances restore my faith whereas others reduce it so its all just feelings for me perhaps.
An internal reform would look like the catholic reformation. There was hope that having an external adversary like China would spur the US into self reform to save itself but it appears that our leaders have now figured out that despite recent attempts at puffery we would not win such a war and have instead chosen a managed decline. It also means we’re in the looting phase of collapse. It can last a long time as there is a lot of wealth to loot. I personally gave up hope and left the US 10 years ago. I wish those who remain all the best with it.
I am not really familiar with the catholic reformation sorry.
Regarding your comment, its very interesting, where have you shifted now if I may ask or more details about it?
I am not really American but I still hear that its startup culture is well although with all of the other downsides we have mentioned, it does become moot.
A lot of people feel like the system is unfair but they want to be on the other side of unfairness rather than making the system fair from what I've observed. And this observation kind of fits globally sometimes imo
Somewhere cheaper, I expect the downturn to present as things generally becoming too expensive to afford so I got a jump on reducing expenses.
If you want to be in startup culture SV is still the place to be. I didn’t like it because of all the trend following, if you want to succeed there it’s best to jump on a trend. I’m more of an applied researcher and had my own ideas I wanted to explore.
As inequality continues to get worse those who initially benefited from it will generally find themselves on the other side of the transition and losing out.
AI is going to increase inequality far more than economic policy, I’m 5x more
productive with AI and am able to compete with much larger orgs. What happens when they lose their job, what happens when someone does the same to me. The Pareto distribution of productivity is about to get a hell of a lot steeper.
Hm Interesting, I already live in India and its already really cheap and still has a really good startup ecosystem. When I wrote that comment, I didn't mean that I wanted to go to startup, I am a little annoyed by some of the things happening there too
So I guess India's the best option considering all factors I guess.
but one of the problems especially in India is the saturation of the market for software engineers and the competition to get into college is so cut throat that I can't even start to tell smh
I think perhaps remote jobs from india might make more sense but I clearly am not the only one with this idea so might be hard to differentiate I suppose
> AI is going to increase inequality far more than economic policy, I’m 5x more productive with AI and am able to compete with much larger orgs. What happens when they lose their job, what happens when someone does the same to me. The Pareto distribution of productivity is about to get a hell of a lot steeper.
That's great but I think I have nuanced discussion on AI, I think that we are gonna have much bigger financial issues all around the world because of the AI bubble itself
I surely hope you don't really think "might makes right" and only cynically say that to express your thoughts about international politics. Between humans might does not make you right.
Of course parent's comment is weird anyway. US is a superpower and that's a fact.
As a European, if it wasn't for Russia's might, why wouldn't we defend Ukraine's borders?
It is easy to express opinions about how things should be, but only with power can you make them so. There's of course the fractal complexity of who gets to decide how to spend the power budget of a nation, but that is besides the point. We may decry the human rights abuses of Saudi Arabia, China and the United States, but what good are our cries if we have no power to improve the lives of those affected? Am I saying this to whine about how powerless are we? No, I believe this should be the motivation, the call for greater economic development so that we can attain the power we feel like we need to make a positive change in the world. If not, we will be subjects of those who wield more power - and this isn't even advice exclusively for Europeans. You either build power in groups that are inclusive, or you steal power and form exclusive groups. The quality of life that most of the free world has been enjoying stemmed from the former, and it is the latter groups that will put us back into the dark ages.
Is this cynical? If so, I can confidently say I am a cynic.
Might does not make right. Might just means you’re holding the biggest stick, not that you have the faintest clue how to use it responsibly. Power sustained purely by bullshit, as it is these days in USA, eventually drowns in it. I'm not looking forward to it happening, but when it does, I'm sure to at least get some satisfaction out of watching the scum drowning.
Yes and no, there is a bit more to it. When dealing with democracies hypocrisy tends to actually harm the people practising it to some extent. If a polity insists on living in a fantasy rather than reality the political process will start optimising for outcomes in that fantasy world rather than reality. It is quite funny watching US politics where the voter base are unprincipled and opportunistic in how they vote then get hoist on their own petard when they get leadership that reflects their voting patterns. It is also interesting to think how effective a country could be if the voter base tended to be honest and forthright.
With enough power people would rather accept bad in-practice results rather than have to confront the fact that they screwed up. So in practice the people in power don't usually care about hypocrisy. But they would be materially better off if they had actually cared about it. It is a bit like the oligarchs in some traditional communist country. Living the lie got them lifestyles of unbelievable wealth and luxury - but the oligarchs in the capitalist countries got lifestyles of even more unbelievable wealth and luxury, and passed on a much more impressive legacy. Not to say they weren't still hypocritical, but the degree of the disconnect from reality matters.
If you keep your eye on the places where hyper-competent people gather and accumulate power they tend to actually be quite honest. Organised groups of talented people tend to have the easiest time securing a social advantage when honesty and straightfowardness are abundant. The people who would naturally be socially weak are the ones who rely on saying one thing and doing the opposite.
For individuals, there's often a strong incentive to display certain beliefs, and the easiest way to do that consistently is to internalise them. The cost of voting for a bad party to you personally is zero. In other words, the government is a commons, and anyone can abuse it without consequence, but when we all do it...
> If you keep your eye on the places where hyper-competent people gather and accumulate power they tend to actually be quite honest. Organised groups of talented people tend to have the easiest time securing a social advantage when honesty and straightfowardness are abundant. The people who would naturally be socially weak are the ones who rely on saying one thing and doing the opposite.
I think its also about the moral ambiguity itself and perhaps even the meaning of life in my opinion.
Because like, I really think that world has its flaws but at the end of the day, this is perhaps still the most rarest moments in the whole universe when we think about it
So I'd much rather do work which benefits other humans that I enjoy (although I sometimes think of it from, I would probably want to do something after retirement, maybe I get retire early or not suppose, but if I can already make the thing I want to do as retirement as job [computer related] and they pay really nicely, why not just do them right now)
It's a shame to me that tech right now feels so inhumane. I don't want really a billion trillion dollars. I just want "enough" and I want to perhaps help people once I get that "enough" not this hyper growth-focused almost will sell you snake-oil kind of tech
Perhaps most people don't have that definition of "enough" or they have materialistic desires or fame desires which one wants to get through money but I don't have many of such desires but I don't really know why people want to be so materialistic.
Like take Elon Musk, richest man in the world, Man, his ego is really fragile. Donald Trump feels like having a really fragile ego to me as well.
I really don't understand what's the point of having all these billions of dollars? Yes nobody is offering me a billion dollars but I'd rather just take "enough" and then give others to some projects I want to help smh
Also logically, it doesn't make sense to lie to me that much. To me trust seems the most valuable resource and the easiest way of generating and securing trust for a long time is being honest. And this helps me grow into a better person (who has his flaws) but still honesty mostly helps I guess idk.
I think we all just want our lives to have meaning in one way or another but it would be so much better if the sources of generation of meaning were human and not inhumane stuff as I was saying
Yes but the thing about power is the more you use it the more the other party learns to live without it. US has such a giant leverage over Europe because Europe believed US would never actually use its power against it. Imagine US sanctioning Chinese officials - they would shrug at best because China has its own everything because they always knew US would bully them.
The consequence is that Europe will slowly move its financial and IT systems away from US solutions. It's a very, very slow process because it was believed for almost a century that US wouldn't actually bully Europe. But for example, there will be more pressure to roll out Wero and have the systems completely European. Before Trump, there was decent chance the whole thing would be just Visa/MasterCard with extra steps. Now it's clear that EU needs its own independent payment system.
> ICC member states should take steps to ensure the sanctioned judges and prosecutors do not suffer as a result of U.S. sanctions
This would be lovely. It’s not going to happen, and it would be stupid for Europe to pursue alone.
The ICC was born out of the optimism of the 1990s. When China was accepted into the WTO because trade was equated with democracy. When the world powers at least pretended to heed an international rules-based order.
That order is dead. The EU is—nobly—trying to resurrect it. But the great powers, together with most regional powers, have explicitly rejected it in favor of spheres-of-influence realpolitik.
Upholding the Rome Statute would mean picking simultaneous fights with America and Russia, and probably Israel, Iran, India and China, too. It’s simply not a tenable situation in a world where the rules are being re-written in multiple theatres.
The US is not a signatory of the Rome statute. The ICC has no jurisdiction over the US, and any scenario where it claims it does would be an abuse of power.
2. The ICC recognizes the Gaza Strip and the West Bank to be Palestinian territories
3. The ICC Article 12(2)(a): “The Court may exercise its jurisdiction if the crime in question is committed on the territory of a State Party to this Statute.”
4. Therefore, ICC argues it does have jurisdiction
So, according to the ICC, you don't need to be apart of the Rome Statute for the ICC to have jurisdiction
at least thats the argument for ICC's jurisdiction over Israeli nationals. IDK if the ICC ever tried that with the USA
I think the argument is subtley different (sorry if this is nitpicky)
1. Palestine is a state, whose territorial extent includes the gaza strip (the most controversial proposition)
2. Under international law, a soveriegn state has the right to prosecute any crime that takes place on their territory. In many ways this is kind of the definition of soveriegnty - the ability to control and make decisions in your territory (in the caee of war, subject to the restrictions imposed by the geneva convention)
3. Soverign states can delegate this power to anyone they chose
4. Palestine delegated this power to the ICC, subject to the provisions of the Rome statue.
> So, according to the ICC, you don't need to be apart of the Rome Statute for the ICC to have jurisdiction
The idea that courts have juridsiction over foreign nationals who commit crimes in their territory is very standard and is generally true for all courts.
E.g. if you are a tourist visiting another country and murder someone, you still get arrested by local authorities. There is no get out of jail free card because you are a foreigner. What is relavent is where the crime took place not who comitted it.
In the case of the ICC, the ICC is acting on behalf of Palestine. So its juridsiction would be the same as whatever Palestine's would be minus any additional restrictions imposed by the rome statue.
The fact that the Palestinian Authority has made no attempt at arresting the Hamas members also charged by the ICC, shows they do not have sovereignty in Gaza - they don’t have the ability to control and make decisions there.
I actually generally agree with this. How can the PA have sovereignty over an area they basically have never controlled? It seems pretty unprecedented to have a "state" that does not have control of its territory at time of recognition.
That said, it should be noted that the Hamas members publicly charged are all dead now and you can't arrest a dead person (the icc can also make warrants in secret so its possible there are secret warrants). But even if they weren't, it is clear they don't have the ability to enforce justice (or anything else) in Gaza, nor did they have that ability in the past.
IIRC, the prosecutor on the ICC responded to the sanctions by suggesting that they could charge individuals interfering with the court with obstruction. Which, as far as US sanctions are concerned, they definitely don't have the jurisdiction to do. I don't think anything legal came of it, but that is exactly the sort of threat that, from a prosecutor, sounds like abuse.
Why do you say they don't have jurisdiction in that case?
Article 70:
“It shall be a crime for any person to commit any of the following acts:
(a) giving false testimony;
(b) presenting false or forged evidence;
(c) corruptly influencing a witness, expert, or court official;
(d) interfering with or intimidating a witness, expert, or court official;
(e) committing any other act which perverts the course of justice in relation to proceedings before the Court.”
Article 70's jurisdiction is not tied to member states. It applies to anyone, anywhere that may affect the court's functioning.
edit: maybe you're saying the ICC cannot have jurisdiction over people/nations that never agreed to be apart of their jurisdiction, regardless of what the Rome Statue says?
Yes, just because the Rome statute claims jurisdiction doesn't make it true, if the jurisdiction in question didn't agree.
In the US, this has all the legal power of Joe Sixpack declaring legal power, or a Russian court. If the ICC tried, the US would tell them to pound sand (or more likely, increase sanctions).
Since the US is not a signatory, as far as they are concerned, the ICC is just a random organization claiming to hold powers it doesn't have.
If a foreign national threatened or tried to improperly influence a US judge, you better belueve the US courts would claim juridsiction.
Generally speaking courts usually claim juridsiction over actions that take affect in their territory even if comitted outside of it (e.g. someone running a scam call center specificly targeting americans would likely get in trouble with us courts even if they never step foot there. Someone hiring an assain to kill an american will still get charged even if they never step foot in america). The ICC is not unique in this regard. The limiting factors here are politics and power not traditional views of how juridsiction works.
There is a difference between juridsiction and actual ability to execute judgements/orders.
That's really not legally correct. Unless the case is specifically tied to terrorism, US federal courts don't claim jurisdiction over murders of private US citizens abroad.
In the giants legal overreach death match of USA vs ICC, I am betting on the USA as a force that can actually enforce out-of-jurisdiction law against the other
The only way we would ever answer to the ICC is if anyone could force us, by military threat. That's the only way people are put in front of that court.
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ICC member states should take steps to ensure the sanctioned judges and prosecutors do not suffer as a result of U.S. sanctions. The goal should be to ensure that they feel no repercussions that might bias them one way or the other in future cases and thus maintain impartiality. If this is not done, it could create an apparent feedback loop, if only in the public's imagination. i.e. After some future ICC ruling goes against them (or Israel/Russia), the U.S. may claim that ICC judges and prosecutors are prejudiced against them and are seeking revenge. Protecting ICC personnel now could blunt such claims. Sadly, I fear that the U.S. may have need of defence from ICC rulings relatively soon.