Science, engineering, and technology overall are subjects that fascinate me. At heart, I am an engineer. Profession-wise, I am intending to obtain some engineering degrees at a future date (right now I am in a bit of a predicament life situation-wise). Anyhow, one thing I find that I have tended to have a great deal of interest in is artwork that deals with communicating information. I don't know why this is, but I do find such things very beautiful. For example:
Maps
Globes
Clocks
Old-world navigational instruments
Technical drawings
Schematics and blueprints
Drafting (such as architectural drafting)
Graphical User Interfaces
Calligraphy
Fine books
These are all things I love. These are usually not considered as "art" but to me they are very much art, as they are often very beautiful and often require great skill to produce. That they serve a function doesn't take away from their being art (a lot of art that we think was done solely for purposes of beauty in the past actually served some very functional purposes too, for example much of ancient Greek sculpture, which served religious, political, etc...purposes).
Being that I love old-world technology such as steam engines, mechanical clocks and watches, maps, old-world navigation instruments, etc...I also am an admirer of the subculture known as Steampunk.
Thursday, September 19, 2013
Foreign Policy
So it seems that President Obama's foreign policy has finally blown up on him. One major misconception I have always felt that many people had during the 2012 election was how it was said that usually, the Republican candidate is seen as being much stronger on foreign policy than the Democrat, but how in this case, the Democrat was seen as just as strong. The problem is, Obama was not really very strong on foreign policy, he just seemed that way because the limit of most Americans' knowledge on his foreign policy was that he used drones to gun down terrorists and he gave the order to have Osama bin Laden killed.
What all of this ignored was two-fold:
1) Neither one of those is per se really foreign policy
2) It ignored his weakness with regards to countries like Russia and Iran. For example, how he initially, upon first becoming President, tried appeasing Russia by giving up the missile defense shield and, at least as they themselves saw it, betraying our allies Poland and the Czech Republic.
It turned out that Mitt Romney was right on two things for which he was mocked, one on his claim that terrorists could cause a problem in Mali (which happened a few months later) and two, his claim that Russia is our number one geopolitical foe. I think this appearance of weakness from the United States is going to have some major longer-term repercussions for American, and global, security, as our allies are not going to be as willing to stick with us under the fear that we will not protect them, and at the same time, we are likely also going to see further aggression and challenges to our power.
I also think that the cultural attitude many Americans seem to have about the U.S. playing a smaller role in world affairs, due to their being sick of Iraq and Afghanistan, is a dangerous line of thinking. Like it or not, the United States underwrites global trade and global security. It is because of the United States that the European nations have been able to get away with spending so little on national defense since the end of World War 2 (and thus why they have been able to spend so much money on their bloated social welfare states). If the United States withdraws from the global stage, it will create a power vacuum, one which will be replaced by something far worse (Russia-Iran-China).
And talk about energy independence will not free the U.S. security-wise from global affairs either. Even if the U.S. made itself 100% independent of Middle Eastern oil, the problem is that plenty of the other major economies in the world get a sizeable amount of their oil from the Middle East. What this means is that if a blow-up ever occurs in the Middle East, and their economies thus tank big-time, it will tank the U.S. economy, which is interlinked with them, as well, and thus force us into the conflict. Also our support of Israel (which I fully support 100%) will keep us involved in the Middle East.
I do wonder why President Obama has seemed so naïve and amateur on a few issues regarding foreign policy. For example, I am not any foreign policy expert, but thus far, he has said/done the following:
1) In the third presidential debate, one of the arguments that he made is that we spend more on defense than all the other major countries combined. Is he unaware that that is because they spend virtually nothing? It isn't that they all spend a reasonable amount and the U.S. way overspends. Trust me, the U.S. military budget is not excessive. If anything, it is severely underfunded right now and should have its budget increased significantly, but the money isn't there. The vehicles of the Army and Marine Corps have been driven way beyond what their original intended service life was supposed to be because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and because the soldiers had to bolt armor onto those vehicles that they were not made to handle, it added a lot of additional wear-and-tear on the vehicles. So the vehicles have been driven way beyond what they were supposed to be and with a whole lot of extra wear-and-tear to boot. The Marine Corps is especially hit hard by this as they have always made due with older equipment.
The military should always be in a state where it can fight a sizeable conflict if necessary. Not being in such a state only invites aggression. Some may say, "Well even in its current state, the U.S. military is still plenty capable of bombing any other country to the Moon if required." The problem is that bombing capability means nothing if the military lacks the ability to send in a sizeable contingent of ground troops. This is because if bombing the country creates a power vacuum whereby utter chaos breaks out and you have the problem of things like WMDs falling into the hands of terrorists, then use of ground troops is going to be required.
Yet one of the major concerns of the military with regards to possibly bombing Syria is that if we do so, and the situation unravels where ground troops are needed, the military is in no position right now to be getting into such a conflict. The military should always be in a position where it can fight such a conflict if need be. To be in the current state it is in is a very precarious position for the United States to be in and can only invite aggression from our enemies.
2) His establishing a red line regarding Syria and use of chemical weapons. Did it not occur to him that if the red line was crossed, that he would have to do something? It is like he was caught completely off-guard or something. I mean it shouldn't take an expert or even a highly-intelligent person to know not to create any ultimatum unless you are willing and/or able to take action about it. One would think he would have at least consulted with his advisors, asking them the question, "IS there anything we can really do if Syria uses chemical weapons?" I have read some theorize that he has surrounded himself with yes-men is the problem.
3) He has said that "the tide of war" is receding. How is he so sure of that? If history is any lesson, wars can have a nasty habit of popping up when people least expect them. No one saw World War I when Europe was on the cusp of it, and then when it was clear that a conflict was going to occur, most thought that it would be very short. This reminds me of how he has said that wind and solar power are the energy sources of the future. Again, how can he know that for sure? (but that is a different topic).
Anyways, just wanted to get all that off my chest.
What all of this ignored was two-fold:
1) Neither one of those is per se really foreign policy
2) It ignored his weakness with regards to countries like Russia and Iran. For example, how he initially, upon first becoming President, tried appeasing Russia by giving up the missile defense shield and, at least as they themselves saw it, betraying our allies Poland and the Czech Republic.
It turned out that Mitt Romney was right on two things for which he was mocked, one on his claim that terrorists could cause a problem in Mali (which happened a few months later) and two, his claim that Russia is our number one geopolitical foe. I think this appearance of weakness from the United States is going to have some major longer-term repercussions for American, and global, security, as our allies are not going to be as willing to stick with us under the fear that we will not protect them, and at the same time, we are likely also going to see further aggression and challenges to our power.
I also think that the cultural attitude many Americans seem to have about the U.S. playing a smaller role in world affairs, due to their being sick of Iraq and Afghanistan, is a dangerous line of thinking. Like it or not, the United States underwrites global trade and global security. It is because of the United States that the European nations have been able to get away with spending so little on national defense since the end of World War 2 (and thus why they have been able to spend so much money on their bloated social welfare states). If the United States withdraws from the global stage, it will create a power vacuum, one which will be replaced by something far worse (Russia-Iran-China).
And talk about energy independence will not free the U.S. security-wise from global affairs either. Even if the U.S. made itself 100% independent of Middle Eastern oil, the problem is that plenty of the other major economies in the world get a sizeable amount of their oil from the Middle East. What this means is that if a blow-up ever occurs in the Middle East, and their economies thus tank big-time, it will tank the U.S. economy, which is interlinked with them, as well, and thus force us into the conflict. Also our support of Israel (which I fully support 100%) will keep us involved in the Middle East.
I do wonder why President Obama has seemed so naïve and amateur on a few issues regarding foreign policy. For example, I am not any foreign policy expert, but thus far, he has said/done the following:
1) In the third presidential debate, one of the arguments that he made is that we spend more on defense than all the other major countries combined. Is he unaware that that is because they spend virtually nothing? It isn't that they all spend a reasonable amount and the U.S. way overspends. Trust me, the U.S. military budget is not excessive. If anything, it is severely underfunded right now and should have its budget increased significantly, but the money isn't there. The vehicles of the Army and Marine Corps have been driven way beyond what their original intended service life was supposed to be because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and because the soldiers had to bolt armor onto those vehicles that they were not made to handle, it added a lot of additional wear-and-tear on the vehicles. So the vehicles have been driven way beyond what they were supposed to be and with a whole lot of extra wear-and-tear to boot. The Marine Corps is especially hit hard by this as they have always made due with older equipment.
The military should always be in a state where it can fight a sizeable conflict if necessary. Not being in such a state only invites aggression. Some may say, "Well even in its current state, the U.S. military is still plenty capable of bombing any other country to the Moon if required." The problem is that bombing capability means nothing if the military lacks the ability to send in a sizeable contingent of ground troops. This is because if bombing the country creates a power vacuum whereby utter chaos breaks out and you have the problem of things like WMDs falling into the hands of terrorists, then use of ground troops is going to be required.
Yet one of the major concerns of the military with regards to possibly bombing Syria is that if we do so, and the situation unravels where ground troops are needed, the military is in no position right now to be getting into such a conflict. The military should always be in a position where it can fight such a conflict if need be. To be in the current state it is in is a very precarious position for the United States to be in and can only invite aggression from our enemies.
2) His establishing a red line regarding Syria and use of chemical weapons. Did it not occur to him that if the red line was crossed, that he would have to do something? It is like he was caught completely off-guard or something. I mean it shouldn't take an expert or even a highly-intelligent person to know not to create any ultimatum unless you are willing and/or able to take action about it. One would think he would have at least consulted with his advisors, asking them the question, "IS there anything we can really do if Syria uses chemical weapons?" I have read some theorize that he has surrounded himself with yes-men is the problem.
3) He has said that "the tide of war" is receding. How is he so sure of that? If history is any lesson, wars can have a nasty habit of popping up when people least expect them. No one saw World War I when Europe was on the cusp of it, and then when it was clear that a conflict was going to occur, most thought that it would be very short. This reminds me of how he has said that wind and solar power are the energy sources of the future. Again, how can he know that for sure? (but that is a different topic).
Anyways, just wanted to get all that off my chest.
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