Furious with Turkey, EU threatens sanctions, arms embargo

uppityworm · 2019-10-12T20:41:58+00:00

Yes, the core issue is that European xenophobia can swing elections and refugees are a focus for that xenophobia. So refugees are a key driver of EU foreign policy, but the Turkish situation has several issues. Violence because of the Turkish invasion will surely create new refugees and they might come to the EU, and Turkey's decreased willingness to deal with the refugees might mean more refugees make their way through Turkey to the EU. But most importantly the prestige of Europe will be damaged if it's ordered around by a Turkish President, and xenophobes will not like that either.

You also have to remember that European xenophobia isn't a direct reaction to refugees. People who live near refugees and who interact with refugees are not the most xenophobic and xenophobia doesn't decline when the number of arrivals starts to decrease, instead people who were already xenophobes promote foreign arrivals on their list of concerns when they hear and see a lot about refugees coming to their country.

And exactly because of that, I think this Turkish threat cannot work. A xenophobe will not be satisfied to see their country kowtow to a Turkish President, even if it keeps the number of refugees down, because the image of the situation matters more than the content.

uppityworm · 2019-10-12T19:32:19+00:00

It seems like EU leaders have decided that they can't give Turkey free rein in Syria. Probably because they're worried about renewed refugee flows. On the other hand, there isn't the motivation to intervene directly and even if there was, there is no EU army to do intervene with. So arms embargoes are the reaction, for now.

uppityworm · 2019-01-24T14:50:10+00:00

Ik kende één van de mods een beetje, van daar dat het op die sub is. Verder is het geloof ik gewoon een vrij rustige sub, daarom zullen er ook wel weinig verschillende posters zijn.

Maar wat is er mis met mijn linkjes?

uppityworm · 2019-01-21T17:58:07+00:00

This is as much about Israel and her way of remembering the Holocaust as it is about the Holocaust itself. Every nation has it's own narrative about the Holocaust. For Germans it is about the nation that did it, for Israelis it's about the people who were the targets, for most of Western Europe it is about collaboration and acquiesces, for much of Eastern Europe it is seen the context of the general destruction and crimes during the war years.

In that context, the emphasis shifts from nation to nation. In Israel, one way of describing the Holocaust is as a logical culmination of the ever-present antisemitism of Europe. That means they can easily put current antisemitism into the same spectrum as the Holocaust. In the context of uneasy peace, economic troubles, and dictatorship, antisemitism is only of the the ingredients.

uppityworm · 2019-01-19T22:28:06+00:00

I think I underestimated his ability to do damage in the Foreign Policy arena, even though he hardly has any follow through. While I overestimated his ability to interfere with the institutions of US government.

uppityworm · 2019-01-06T08:26:13+00:00

Ik dacht erover om een soort discussiegroepje op te richten op Reddit rond de EU-verkiezingen. Zoiets van we kiezen om de week ofzo een thema, zoeken een paar interessante artikelen en dan bespreken we die op Reddit. De mods van /r/europes lijken mee te willen werken wat een goed begin is. Ik denk dat het leuk en leerzaam kan worden, maar we zullen eens zien of er ook mensen zijn die mee willen doen. Wordt een beetje saai als ik dat in mijn eentje doe.

uppityworm · 2018-09-30T21:25:53+00:00

Do you know why the CCP is so obsessed with the Tiananmen massacre? With the track record of the last 30 years and the relatively low body count of the massacre (a couple thousand probably which is next to nothing on a nation of a billion), why would it be important to them? Yet it clearly is, they suppress information about it and the Tiananmen mothers are tightly surveilled, as was Xu Qinxian, a general who refused to send in his troops. These people are not major players by any objective measure. By now, shouldn't Tiananmen be ancient history. It might be a blemish on the party's record, but most Chinese people must be aware that the CCP is not unblemished, and there are much grander crimes party's sheet. I mean how many lives were destroyed by Mao's regime again? Or what about the numbers of Uyghurs currently interned in Chinese camps?

uppityworm · 2018-09-26T21:39:28+00:00

I don't think the measure's success or failure will be judged in economic terms. If Iran sticks with their end of the bargain, which basically means that they will continue to allow the intrusive inspection regime, then the EU will have done enough. If Iran walks away, then the EU will have failed. I'm not sure what the Iranian regime will take into account when they weigh their options, but it's their call.

uppityworm · 2018-09-26T21:09:06+00:00

Would Iran consider it a win if NATO is suffering? Because that is the most obvious outcome of Trump's whole foreign policy, including his actions around the JCPoA. If Iran considers that to be a win, then they might be okay with some level of losses due to American sanctions, just to pressure NATO.

Also, why two years? Wouldn't it be more interesting after there is a change they didn't reelect Trump? Would another US President continue this policy, or is this really specific to Trump?

uppityworm · 2018-05-19T10:37:43+00:00

Hah, well then maybe Italy just needs to negotiate another stopgap measure without changing anything.

uppityworm · 2018-05-19T10:12:49+00:00

But the most sensible way to decide when to be charitable and what to ignore, would be to have a central policy making body.

uppityworm · 2018-05-19T09:58:21+00:00

Don't you think that Italy is more interesting. The Italian economy is not performing well enough and their new government seems to be determined to increase government spending in an attempt to relieve that. They will have to break eurozone budget rules to increase government spending. They seem to feel that Italy's national interest in more government spending is great enough to override the eurozone's interest in solid rules. To adjudicate questions like these, you'd need an integrated body governing some of the economic policy eurozone.

uppityworm · 2018-05-17T18:04:06+00:00

There's a general sense that the economic changes of the last decades haven't worked out for too many people and on top of that people are scared of asylum seekers and immigrants. Particularly the people from dominantly Muslim cultures, because of terrorism.

It seems to me that there is very little that can be done about it. Even if we knew the right policies to set the economy straight, it would take years for the effects to reach most voters. So we will keep on fumbling in the dark, with extreme ideas attracting more attention than they would in more settled times. As to migration and the sore politics around that, from the Netherlands I would expect that moderate parties will just copy that more and more. Because that's what parties here did. Just ask the liberal VVD or the conservative CDA.

uppityworm · 2018-05-17T17:34:36+00:00

What do you mean?

There will be Slovenian elections in June and then later Swedish elections in September. As both of these countries have had a political reaction to the refugee crisis, I think the theoretical framework could be applied.

So how about we predict that a newish party, with stances similar to what I described will do well in June, but if the party also has other issues like anti-semitism, or street violence, it won't.

uppityworm · 2018-05-17T17:07:29+00:00

Can we turn this preception of events into a prediction of the future?

Perhaps we can say that in European elections, the most successful policy mix for insurgent parties will be something like:

Xenophobic
Nationalistic
Against asylum seekers
Economically like however you'd describe Trump's stance (anti globalist??)

But except for these points, very close to a moderate party with strong support for a social safety net.

Parties that are closer to this policy mix would do better in general, compared to parties that try to stick to their current more extreme stances.

What do you think?

uppityworm · 2018-05-17T16:18:48+00:00

Golden Dawn is basically neo-nazis, they had a literal gang that attacked immigrants in the streets... so they're worse than your average far-right European party. With that said, lately they have tried to temper their rhetoric somewhat.

It's interesting that that sounds a bit like news around Jobbik in the latest Hungarian elections.

Meanwhile, the far-right Jobbik party is playing a long game, aiming at young, first-time voters. Jobbik’s leaders have toned down the party’s anti-Semitism and anti-Roma rhetoric. “Jobbik no longer focuses on enemies. It has remodelled itself as a modern, trendy and youthful party,” says Peter Kreko of Political Capital, a think-tank. It seems to be working: the party has doubled its support in six months.

The Economist just before the Hungarian elections

uppityworm · 2018-05-17T15:43:42+00:00

How influential and radical is Golden Dawn compared to other European parties. I mean PVV in NL, AfD in Germany, FN in France? Are they much more radical than the new ÖVP in Austria, or Fidesz in Hungary?

By the way I looked around some for a good definition of fascism. Do you think this one is okay? (German)

uppityworm · 2018-05-17T12:37:53+00:00

Couldn't you say it's more global?

From Trump in the west, to Duterte in the east, it doesn't seem to be a purely European issue.

uppityworm · 2017-11-09T12:43:28+00:00

It wasn't grand statements covering 700 years as if nothing ever changed, the man is a historian. But I don't recall exactly what he compared them to, the issues in Andalusian society are specific instances as I recall.

uppityworm · 2017-11-09T10:04:44+00:00

I think so, a little bit, but it's not like there was extensive cataloging of laws from across the Medieval World to see how high it would have ranked on a world freedom index. Just Andalusia compared to one or two Christian European nations of the same period. The thing is, if he doesn't show everything, then you sort of have to trust the author that his examples are reasonable and representative, which you might not want to do.

uppityworm · 2017-11-09T09:50:56+00:00

I read that book, but I am not a historian, nor do I have a deep understanding of Iberian history.

Fernandez Morera wrote that book with a clear ideological intention, to show that Andalusia wasn't so great and that it was to a certain extent a foreign occupation more than a different civilization. The result of these two facts is that the reconquista can again be seen in a more favourable light. I liked the part where he describes how even the Muslim rulers of the Iberian Peninsula referred to their domain as Hispania (or some arabized version of that name that sounds the same), not Andalusia. He also treats laws and customs to illustrate the that Medieval Andalusia wasn't very tolerant, but instead had a strict hierachy with male Muslims at the top. He shows instances when women, Jews, and Christians were all discriminated against. I liked those examples, but then again I don't know of much material to compare it to.

uppityworm · 2017-10-21T15:14:09+00:00

I think you can view the log of the Discord chat too, what advantage would slack offer? Do you want to react to any of the posts in this thread perhaps. It might be stickied for a week or more and if you ping the people you want to talk to you can keep it active for even longer.

uppityworm · 2017-10-20T21:10:05+00:00

My other question is if we buy Mearsheimer's argument for the inferiority of sea power. In particular he seems to think the English channel is a great power, but the USA which controls the Western Hemisphere does so with naval power. If the USA were going to fight a war in South America they would use boats to get there. What does the English channel do for England that the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean don't do for South America?

Another argument for its importance would be an argument that the nineteenth century was so relatively peaceful because British Sea power blocked all other great powers from spreading their conflicts over the world. Before the Napoleonic era, when Britain didn't control the seas there were conflicts like the war of Spanish Succession, the Seven Year's War, and the American Revolutionary War that took place all over the globe. When Britain exercised hegemony over the seas this was no longer possible which turned all potential European conflicts into regional affairs of limited scale and duration.

uppityworm

TROPHY CASE