tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post529483928875319924..comments2024-03-28T19:49:43.203-04:00Comments on The Philosopher's Stone: SOME RESPONSESRobert Paul Wolffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-91873904996159287252019-04-09T13:09:38.801-04:002019-04-09T13:09:38.801-04:00LFC,
The U.S. has a military base in Guantanamo. ...LFC,<br /><br />The U.S. has a military base in Guantanamo. Will they leave if the Cubans ask for the territory back? Good luck.<br /><br />In any case, throughout the world the U.S. has interfered in elections, bribed governments, backed military coups and invaded/overthrown "unfriendly" regimes to assure that their military bases are everywhere welcome. s. wallersteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17448905469871566228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-83892403622850478402019-04-09T12:42:06.955-04:002019-04-09T12:42:06.955-04:00There are a lot of rules that most governments hav...There are a lot of rules that most governments have decided it's in their interest to abide by most of the time. That's why a Hobbesian picture of the world is incomplete, at best. <br /><br />In the disciplinary lingo of International Relations, the word "anarchy" is used to refer to the absence of a world government. As Hedley Bull argued in his 1977 book <i>The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics</i>, relations among countries take place against a background of fairly wide agreement on certain rules (or norms). The world is not, or not only, a Hobbesian "anarchy" but, Bull argued, also a kind of society. Not, to be sure, anything approaching a <i>just</i> society, but a society of a kind nonetheless. Bull is, I think, right on this point (and the Hobbesians wrong). <br /><br />Note that the network of U.S. military bases across the world, a key feature of the American "empire," rests on the agreement of the host state to have a base on its territory. When the host govt (assuming it's a functioning regime) decides it wants the U.S. to leave and tells it to go, the U.S. leaves. That's happened several times in recent years. I'm not defending the U.S. military base network, just pointing out that it's not a matter of a Hobbesian "we are powerful, you're not, therefore we are putting a military base on your soil whether you like it or not." That's not how it works.<br /><br />Of course differences in power matter, and perhaps Bull's book could equally well have been called <i>The Hierarchical Society</i>. But that's a somewhat different point.LFCnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-34381008928577108812019-04-09T12:31:05.625-04:002019-04-09T12:31:05.625-04:00I didn't realize you were on a 3rd name basis ...I didn't realize you were on a 3rd name basis with Dean Rostow.<br /><br />On a more serious note, I haven't figured out the relative merits of a navy vs. an army. It appears to me that the USN has actually done some useful work in recent years combatting piracy off east Africa and deterring it in and around Indonesia. Not entirely or even mostly on its own, but to some extent in coordination with other navies. I cannot think of anything useful that the army (or AF or USMC) has done abroad in my lifetime (i.e., past 60+ years).marcel proustnoreply@blogger.com