I'm not really inclined to spend time on a detailed analysis at the moment, but given what the US wastes (imo) on military spending and healthcare (relative to other similar nations, e.g. Canada), you could get a good portion of the way to a UBI just by cuts to those and similar programs. A previous back-of-envelope estimate put it at around $6,800/person just for halving the total military budget (not just DoD) and switching to single-payer.
Canada isn't responsible for keeping the peace and keeping trading routes open in Europe, the South China Sea, the Persian Gulf, etc. Nor is it responsible for defending Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan. Nor will it be be able to make any decisive contributions to the defense of the easternmost NATO countries. The West's military might rests almost entirely in the United States. You don't want to see a world where we don't inspire fear in the halls of power of China and Russia. Never have the good been so much more powerful than the bad. Let's keep it that way.
That's a good point. I've heard the argument that the US's defense of Europe has infantilized Europeans into thinking that they don't need military might, that institutions like the ICC and the UN can actually keep them safe. Much like a child doesn't understand the value of money because he's never had to work for it. I think there's a little more to it than that; the horrors of the two world wars are surely part of Europeans' distaste for military power. Unfortunately, if the US just withdrew its defense of Europe, I have no doubt that Russia would conquer the rest of Ukraine and the Baltics. Japan has been trying to become more responsible for its own defense under Prime Minister Abe, but look at the vicious opposition he's gotten for it.
Maybe one day the political tides will shift in Europe and elsewhere and the US can responsibly hand over some of its current military obligations. For now, I reckon it's a price worth paying for a world of peace and commerce. And in which America does exceedingly well.
Similarly to what the other reply said, if the claim is that these countries can only afford to provide healthcare for their citizens because the US subsidizes their defense, then the implication is that the US is paying for both their defense and healthcare at the expense of its own people.
But the US military budget is enormous, and has largely failed to achieve any of the major foreign policy goals it's been applied towards. After 15 years of wars in the Middle East things are as bad as ever. Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria are hardly on the road to stable democratic governments such much as bogged down (to one degree or another) in internal conflicts and civil wars. Russia and China are already kept in check by NATO, around 2/3rds of whose ~3.5 million active military personnel are not US based, aside from other non-conventional military deterrents (e.g. nukes and economic sanctions). Framing US foreign policy as "good vs bad" with the military as being the only thing keeping the evil foreign hordes at bay is borderline agitprop.
That aside, my point was that the money is there for UBI, it's just a question of what other programs to take it from. Military spending and healthcare are two of the largest portions of the budget (along with social security, which would also be partially replaced by a UBI), so while people might debate the merits and dangers of cutting those programs, the money could certainly be found without significantly increasing taxes on the rich.
> Never have the good been so much more powerful than the bad.
How incredibly clueless.
Really, what prompts you to post these things? The US could not even hold down a bunch of insurgents in a country that a tin-pot dictator managed to stabilize, gave us - directly or indirectly - Al Quada, IS and a whole bunch of other instability besides.
Ask the Swiss how much they need American defenses. Russia would - and could - wipe out Poland, the Ukraine and a large chunk of Romania in a couple of days if they set their mind to it, fortunately even Putin realizes the economic backlash from that will be the end of his reign.
In case you didn't get the message: the world balance of power is held through ever stronger economic ties, not by weapons or dumb saber rattling. What hurts the party that you'd name your enemy hurts you too.
There is a good reason why NK and Iran are just the way they are in spite of being the subject of much rhetoric: a war would not end well for either side, economically those countries are not the most important (though, arguably, Iran has some resources the US covets) but from the point of view of manpower and gear they would do a lot of damage to anybody stupid enough to invade. Think Iraq but much much worse.
The annexation of Ukraine into the EU/Nato is what drove Russia to take action.
If it had been left to sit the way it had for the last 20 years or so everything would be unchanged because it was not a threat.
Cowboy politics and games don't go well with the role of a country that 'keeps the peace and keeps the trade routes open' (as far as that's correct anyway, most times it's not the peace that's being kept).
Greetings from one of those infantilized Europeans.
>The annexation of Ukraine into the EU/Nato is what drove Russia to take action. If it had been left to sit the way it had for the last 20 years or so everything would be unchanged because it was not a threat.
So the West should have refused to engage with Ukraine for fear of upsetting Russia? What ever happened to self-determination? Peace for our time?
No, the West should have properly analyzed the situation and should have realized the time isn't ripe - yet, rather than setting us back a decade or more.
The way it went down, the (hollow) promises that were made to Ukraine were a sure indication that Ukraine was used as a pawn in a much larger game and that the outcome of that game was anything but certain.
Yes, let's start WWIII over Russia's access to their only sea port that is available all year around. Compare to say the blocking of the Panama Canal or parking a submarine outside of one the US's main ports and imagine the response.
Really, cowardice had nothing to do with it. All this dumb gun-slinging isn't going to get us anywhere but further down the hole. What do you propose he should have done instead, nuke Moscow? Go in guns blazing? Gunfight at the ok corral at noon?
Of course it all doesn't matter if it isn't happening in your backyard.
There was plenty of time to maneuver and make clear that we would defend Ukraine. People were criticizing Obama for inaction in Ukraine before the Russians took Crimea. One of the nice things about red lines is that people don't cross them if they think you're serious about it. The Russians smelled weakness and took advantage, knowing that they'd probably never again be contending with such an impotent American regime.
The only thing keeping the Russians out of the Baltics is that they know that we'd (probably) defend NATO countries, and are well-positioned to do so. Had we indicated that we considered the disarmament-for-integrity deal with Ukraine with the same seriousness, and backed that by deploying forces to the area on alert, Russia would probably not have invaded. And we do have a playbook for denying Russia new territory without nuking Moscow or starting WW3. We did it under much less favorable circumstances in Afghanistan in the 80s. Today, we won't even arm the Ukrainians fighting for their freedom.
Your arguments could have come right from Neville Chamberlain's mouth. Peace for our time! And for those people whose freedom we negotiate away, too bad. The Russians need their Lebensraum. And Anschluss for the Russian-speaking people. Right?
> There was plenty of time to maneuver and make clear that we would defend Ukraine.
But, they never were going to. Because nobody really cared about Ukraine other than as a means to take something away from the Russians. And that spectacularly backfired. You see, the problem is if you underestimate your opponent when you're bluffing you will lose. And it was a bluff, and a transparent one to boot.
> People were criticizing Obama for inaction in Ukraine before the Russians took Crimea.
So, there's a good signal that nothing would come of it, that was interpreted as a 'go ahead and do what you want' by Putin and that's just what happened afterwards. Don't make threats you are not willing to make good on.
> One of the nice things about red lines is that people don't cross them if they think you're serious about it. The Russians smelled weakness and took advantage, knowing that they'd probably never again be contending with such an impotent American regime.
It's not America that's impotent, it's that the Russians had de-facto control over Crimea all along because they could take it if they wanted to and all NATO achieved is to force their hand. The situation we had before was the better one.
> The only thing keeping the Russians out of the Baltics is that they know that we'd (probably) defend NATO countries, and are well-positioned to do so.
That 'probably' in there is exactly the problem. Would NATO do that? I honestly don't know and if it ever becomes a significant possibility that we would not - which it very well might be - then only trouble can come from showing that. So NATO did a really dumb thing here, they made people wonder if it would act at all, and such moves are not made without consequences.
> Had we indicated that we considered the disarmament-for-integrity deal with Ukraine with the same seriousness, and backed that by deploying forces to the area on alert, Russia would probably not have invaded.
Another probably. But probably doesn't cut it.
> And we do have a playbook for denying Russia new territory without nuking Moscow or starting WW3.
Only madmen would consider that.
> We did it under much less favorable circumstances in Afghanistan in the 80s. Today, we won't even arm the Ukrainians fighting for their freedom.
Yes, and how did that play out? Or have you forgotten about the outcome there?
> Your arguments could have come right from Neville Chamberlain's mouth.
> Peace for our time! And for those people whose freedom we negotiate away, too bad. The Russians need their Lebensraum. And Anschluss for the Russian-speaking people. Right?
Yes, if you're not for us you're against us and more such crap.
Look, I've lived in Poland and I've seen major change up close. This isn't the way to achieve that and your whole attitude on this shows that you haven't a clue about geopolitics and what actually makes it possible to have major change on the globe without having set-backs like these.
For all your talk of war and confrontation you use a lot of qualifiers - weasel words, if you like - and the outcome of those actions is absolutely unsure.
Ukraine would have become a full NATO member, the Crimea need not be under de-facto Russian control if everybody had kept their heads cool. The losers are the Ukrainian people and to some extent the Russian populace now dealing with all kinds of sanctions. Don't think for one second that the Russian fat cats have given in even a 10th of a mm on their life-style, if anything this played right into their hands by giving them a good reason to re-ignite a bunch of nationalism.
It's like playing chess on a very large board, and Chamberlain has fuck all to do with it. If you really want to win you have to plan, and going off half-cocked isn't going to help anybody but your enemy.
So your arguments for aggression are not going to find a willing ear here, not unless you personally are going to end up paying the price if it goes wrong. The Russians will - sooner or later - collapse inward another step if we don't give them enough fertile ground to sow another batch of nationalism in, all is not well in Russia and that discontent is what should be fed, not the threat of NATO slowly encroaching on what some of them still think is 'their' territory.
For perspective, imagine the Russians annexing Mexico and then pretend the US would not act in response.
>Ukraine would have become a full NATO member, the Crimea need not be under de-facto Russian control if everybody had kept their heads cool. The losers are the Ukrainian people and to some extent the Russian populace now dealing with all kinds of sanctions.
What are you talking about? The West did show the very restraint that you're advocating, and the result is the situation now. Or are you suggesting that the Ukrainian people should just have accepted their lot to be ruled by Russian puppets? Just put their heads down and obey. There are those of us in this world who would rather die than surrender to such tyranny.
No, the West did what they could to make Ukraine a NATO member / EU member without the intention to actually move forward with this because of the situation with Russia if Russia would object in any meaningful way. And they did (surprise!). (The EU was never fully united on getting Ukraine to join anyway, it was just power politics and division being sown, see also: Turkey.)
The time for restraint was before making promises that would not be kept. It's not as if we haven't seen this kind of behavior before either.
There was a time when Ukraine could have been made a memberstate of the EU and a full NATO member, but since then the times have changed and that window has closed. Part of this was the EU wasting time they didn't have and part of it was Ukraine internal politics. If Yanukovich would have played ball in 2010 it might have gone off without a hitch but all the delays and the new nationalism wave in Russia (and the Russian destabilization of the Crimea in response to that very bid) made this a plan that was bound to fail.
Note that that was a democratic and (eventually) uncontested election and that 'the people of Ukraine' did not exactly sat there and held their hands in joint misery. They simply decided that at the time.
Which is a pity because it would have been a good thing to get this behind us but you can't make a move like that on half-baked plans and promises, it would have taken some considerable risk taking and contingency planning to do in the first place and with the Russians - belatedly - figuring out what was at stake it was a little late to do this half-assed.
If we really wanted to do this we're in fact well over a decade late, back when Russia was internally very much in turmoil this would have been a much bigger possibility.
So no, the 'very restraint' that I'm advocating has nothing to do with making empty promises in the hope that it would all go without any backlash from Russia. Dumb.
You'd think, if these countries also benefited economically (presumably more so than the US does, even) from being defended, then the cost of doing so could be made part of their budgets. Nobody's suggesting taking the US military off of these tasks; it's a question of where to send the bill.
