I have Ian Svenonious little pink book, the Psychic Soviet, where he argues just what Putin says there, that the end of the Soviet Union was a disaster of physical and psychic proportions, globally, because it meant the end of a workable alternative to the modern capitalist mode of production. And honestly, the shift to a capitalist economy was quite traumatic (see also Naomi Klein in Shock Doctrine).
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Thatâs not necessarily Realpolitik. Thereâs votes at stake, so itâs domestic politics.
Realpolitik is great for absolute, unblemished cynicism admixed with a pinkie-smash of Machiavelli, and Iâm certainly drawn to the utilitarian fashion of it, but holy hell it doesnât much allow for testing the limits of the old chestnut that politics is the art of the possible (w/HT to Otto). That is, realpolitik never struck me as being overly concerned with mercy or compassion.
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iâve heard Israel described as âAmericaâs colony in the Middle East.â insulting? Of course. But that doesnât matter. The real question is whether it can be ovcassionally exploited like a colonial posession to serve Americaâs interests.
I think someone else beat me to it, but one (of many) paras stood out to me:
By June 1974, Treasury Secretary George Shultz was already suggesting that rising oil prices could result in a âhighly advantageous mutual bargainâ between the U.S. and petroleum-producing countries in the Middle East. Such a âbargain,â as others then began to argue, might solve a number of problems, creating demand for the U.S. dollar, injecting needed money into a flagging defense industry hard hit by the Vietnam wind-down, and using petrodollars to cover mounting trade deficits.
Oh, the poor, poor military/industrial complex! Maybe retune your factories to make more ploughshares istead of missiles?
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