The event in Libya will probably bring down the government there, especially since the US government managed to implicate the Libyan government in having cooperated with the abduction. A Pyrrhic victory if there ever was one.

I wasn't commenting on whether it was good, just that it served as a good counterpoint to the idea of an impotent America. US did that shit and no one batted an eye, or else no one could

@Putin, if you don't mind my gross gloss of your position, you seem to be asserting that all nations SHOULD have equal sovereignty regardless of whether we are talking about Somalia or China. Insofar as this is an accurate simplification of your views expressed here, I would say that you have a very idealistic take on this that is based on your ideas of abstract justice needing to be equal across all circumstances.

My counter point is that "countries" like Somalia have so little control over activities within their own border they can not be handled in the same fashion as a nation-state like China. Perhaps you are aware of Al Shabaab's activities inside and outside Somalia? Did you know the US consulate was attacked in Libya and the US ambassador was killed? Did that occur with or without the approval of the Libyan sovereign government? Do you know? Did they have the power to stop it?

Let's not pretend these are nation states in which we can have normal extradition. Please don't pretend these are nation states that, even if they want to, have the ability to stop terrorists from acting on their soil and murdering innocent people around the globe.

Putin, your abstract concepts of sovereignty, while idealistic, are when applied with so little consideration for the facts on the ground, dangerous, and, I'm sorry, but just plain stupid.

@ Dirge,

My position is that emphasis should be placed on state-building, and all policies should have this goal in mind. If the issue is that states do not have the capacity to enforce or implement laws or curb terrorism, then all decisions should be taken that would facilitate the greater strengthening of those states, not the weakening. That's why our policy on Syria and Libya has been so damn foolish. Well, that's one of the many reasons.

Your calls for interventions do nothing to strengthen either Somalia or Libya, especially Libya. They do nothing to strengthen Pakistan or Yemen. In all cases they weaken the country targeted. Much better to have a stronger state, no matter the regime type, but our foreign policy is obsessed with imposing liberal democracy around the world and using deviations from liberalism as an excuse for intervention.

Somalia was better off under Siyad Barre, but we pulled the rug from underneath him and instead we got two decades of civil war. Somalia was then better off under the Islamic Courts Union, but we intervened to get rid of them and now we're al Shabaab. These movements do not come into existence out of thin air. Shabaab was an entirely domestic movement until the Ethiopian/Kenyan intervention changed that. Now they want Kenya and Ethiopia to pay.

Anyway, now that southern Somalia finally has a functioning government care needs to be done to ensure it continues to survive. I don't think our foreign policy leaders take this into consideration, especially with the Libya raid which could bring down an already weak government. Then our intervention leads to more problems than we began with.

You cannot ignore sovereignty in weak states which are allied to you and expect no bad consequences. Because like it or not, the domestic enemies of these weak governments are going to pounce on the fact that their sovereignty was violated and use that to undermine the governments there. This is not idealism, this is pragmatism.

Incidentally, as a sidebar, my dissertation is entirely on why the concept of sovereignty has produced weak states, since it is only a legal concept and does not reflect real capabilities. The point being that a lot of countries were awarded independence without having the capacity for statehood. So I'm not a utopian idealist on this front. .

And if you read past threads in which I debate the rationale behind awarding Iceland statehood, for example, you'll see what I mean.

Going right off what Putin said:

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/10/10/20892723-libyan-pm-ali-zeidan-kidnapped-by-gunmen-government-says?lite

*Sigh*

Its almost as if you were predicting the future lol

So perhaps supporting al Qaeda in Lybia would have been a better option for the US? Perhaps, if Putin is correct we should be sending aid in the form of millions of dollars to al Qaeda, that way the US wouldn't be making people angry in the middle east. Putin do you think you might consider shooting yourself though your temple in order to appease the islamist?

The sacrifice of your dumb ass life might be enough to turn the tide do you think?

goldfinger, please don't encourage him. It actually doesn't take a genius to figure out that the Libyan government is sketchy at best.

Kinda proves my point about Libya not being a nation state. But whatever.

It proves that we should never listen to you about what to do with foreign policy.

You never listen to anyone else Putin.

I listen to adults, not children.

No Putin, you listen to no one.

M. Putin, Libya, Somalia, and to some degree, Pakistan lack either the will or the ability or both to apprehend or otherwise stop terrorists acting on their own soil. You promote sovereignty above all else. Warring factions can cross borders, attack US interests in their host countries and project murder of US civilians internationally.

Your stance is we tie our hands behind our backs and nurture foreign governments that have no real governance to begin with and allow terrorism to flourish.

Luckily the Obama administration does not listen to your impotent advice. They very rationally decided to take action against terrorist elements, regardless of the impact on weak duplicitous "governments." Sometimes Putin, you have to crack an egg.

Your namesake would understand that concept.

I need to drink less. Looking back at my posts, I sometimes say the stupidest things.

"Luckily the Obama administration does not listen to your impotent advice."

How is that working out for them?

"Pakistan lack either the will or the ability or both to apprehend or otherwise stop terrorists acting on their own soil."

50,000 dead Pakistani soldiers say otherwise. But keyboard commandos love to trivialize the blood sacrifice of other countries.

"Your stance is we tie our hands behind our backs and nurture foreign governments that have no real governance to begin with and allow terrorism to flourish."

Provide a single example of a military intervention leading to a stronger government and greater ability/willingness to apprehend terrorists.

Putin, you say that Pakistan lost 50,000 soldiers. Where do you get that number from except out of your ass? No source?

You don't provide a single source to back up that number and then you demand that Dirge provide an example to support his position.

Do you even realize what a transparent hypocrite you are Putin?

"Provide a single example of a military intervention leading to a stronger government and greater ability/willingness to apprehend terrorists"

It depends on what time scale you're analyzing this at, though, right? We all can agree that Iraq is a mess today, but what if by 2020 its stable and prosperous? That would be ~17 years of turmoil until a steady state has come about.

Now, Iraq is more violent than the counter I'm going to put up - Iran - but bear with me. If we're talking solely about the strength of government, I would say that 17 years of what Iraq is going through is preferable to what Iran has - 30+ years of theocratic rule backed up by religiously motivated armed forces. As we saw a few years back there is clearly a large portion of the population that is upset with the lack of democracy in the country, so there is always this underlying tension when we consider Iran.

Its just a thought, that perhaps in the short term democracies are messy and violent at birth - unable to provide even the most basic security against rebellion. America wasn't all too different from that. But in the long run, are democracies more stable than autocrats? I would venture to guess yes (but against a hereditary aristocracy? I'm not too sure)

"17 years of what Iraq is going through is preferable to what Iran has - 30+ years of theocratic rule backed up by religiously motivated armed forces"

Why? Why is war preferable to dictatorial peace?

I am thinking extremely long term, SYnapse. The first 15 or so years after the War of American Independence ended were pretty brutal, but its been remarkably stable since then (except for one brief four year period).

Can others say the same? China, for example, has always been ruled by autocrats. But as soon as one fell, there was mass revolts and millions died. Millions. During the time of the American Civil War there was a civil war going on in China as well. Deaths in the American Civil War? Several hundred thousand, if my memory serves me correct. Deaths in the Taiping Rebellion? 20 million, conservatively.

So yeah, of course dictatorial peace is preferable to war. But, if this war leads to a stable democracy, my question is - is it worth it?

I can't answer that. The American Civil War could have degenerated into a bloodbath pretty easily

What you're asking is whether the end justify the means but what if they are unrelated? Does the means justify the means, that's the question you need to ask.

It was a bloodbath. More Americans were killed in it than any war since. Nearly more than all other American wars combined. (I looked it up now....not the most reputable source though)

American Civil War: 620,000

American War of Independence: 4,500
War of 1812: 2,300
Mexican War: 13,300
Indian Wars:1,000
Spanish-American War: 2,500 (This seems a bit low to me. Probably doesn't count the pacification of the Philippines)
World War 1: 116,500
World War 2: 405,400
Korean War: 54,200
Vietnam War: 90,200
Gulf War: 2,000
War on Terror: 6,500
Total: 698,400

Getting back to the point, the American Civil War killed 620,000/31,000,000 people, or about 2% of the population. Taiping Rebellion killed 20,000,000/420,000,000 people, or about 4.7% of the population. But over the course of the history of the American Republic, China has had *4-5* such wars or massive population losses, only counting internal conflict. We can look at England pre-Parliament and post-Parliament and see, or any other country. The point I'm trying to get at is that democratic government is more stable long term, and perhaps it's worth having a messy decade or two if that goal is achieved. I stress *if*

Sorry, it took me a really long time to write that post. So you're asking if there's a better way than military intervention to achieve a democracy. Right now I look at Egypt, Libya, and Syria and say that question cannot be answered at the moment.

Have you read From Dictatorship to Democracy by Gene Sharp? He suggests nonviolent resistance and cites various examples from across the world

It was also a key document distributed throughout the Arab Spring revolutions, incidentally.