I was talking and thinking about much larger picture than the two of you. I just don't see the point of culture wars in the mix of current circumstances. Especially since both sides are doing some sorts of the culture war. The democrats are also doing culture war stuff so that they don't have to talk about real problems. From blue Texas to SJW stuff, sexual stuff ... etc. While Republicans fight for the saving of the country and it's culture. However I just don't see the point of all this in the current situation since the real pressure is coming from the outside in the form of authoritarian governments and radical groups.
Human mind usually prefers "problems" that are close by and that are easier to solve. But in the end this is just a distraction made for restoring the sense of control.
We spent how many years on the GWOT fighting and killing the bad guys (something I agree with in so far as we got Bin Laden and fundamentally crippled AQ) but then got it in our heads that a part of the world not culturally amenable to western democracy would jump at the chance for it if we just stayed there long enough. You can't defeat a non sate actor ideology that will always hate you and produce more martyrs for its cause while hiding among a global population of 1.9 billion muslims. Its just not going to happen. They'll keep blowing up our $500,000 MRAPS with $2000 VBIED's. And they can afford to spend that kind of money and kill their own people doing it forever. So fuck em. I don't care. Clipping Bin Laden would have been a good time to cut our losses.
The only plus side to the whole thing is that our military technology, and doctrinal ability to handle 4th generation warfare increased dramatically. We also have a hugely experienced number of personnel when it comes to killing people now and that's not a bad thing for the worlds strongest military to have. If we need em anytime soon we've got a lot of pipe hitting door kickers willing to handle it.
The oil thing didn't even matter as much once we discovered we were sitting globally substantial reserves of nat gas here at home and developed the tech to frack it. That is until green energy became more important than energy independence, and we resigned ourself to giving billions to countries that will do terrible things with it because utilizing our natural resources makes us feel icky. Don't even get me started on nuclear power. If you care about sustainable energy and don't support nuclear power you are a fundamentally unserious person.
So now after all the blood and treasure we spent over 20 years doing that with no real US interests abroad involved (besides killing Bin Laden and AQ), we are supposed to spin up the war machine figure out how to give 7 billion dollars a month (
Ukraine Needs $7 Billion Per Month For Economic Recovery, Says Zelensky) to Ukraine in order to combat a power that defeated itself in 1991. I get it Putin sucks and what he's doing to Ukraine sucks, but there are only marginal US interests in Ukr and those mostly revolve around seeing Russia spend itself to death tilting at this particular windmill. We've already sent a THIRD of our Javelin stock to Ukr, a fucking third of it.
Will the United States Run Out of Javelins Before Russia Runs Out of Tanks?
This is a Javelin and it costs $175,000 a pop.
Aside from the US interest of seeing RUS humiliated, there are a couple of other less important reasons to do anything. The first is that Russia shouldn't be invading a foreign country and the humanitarian atrocities being committed there are terrible. The the Ukrainians are no doubt willing and able to commit some of their own. Second which is more important for global stability is that Ukraine accounts for 11.5% of the global wheat market and them not producing any is likely to send shocks through the global system. This only matters to us in a humanitarian sense and in how much we benefit from a globally stable order. We can produce enough food here for our own people.
These marginal interests don't rise to the level of needing to commit boots on the ground or even the amount of money we are currently sending. Sorry, let Europe deal with it and then get laughed at when everything doesn't work out like it did for US in the GWOT. The problem with that is that Germany in its infinite wisdom decided to shutter its nuclear power plants and now relies hugely on Russian gas so that they have no interest in pissing RUS off. They probably wouldn't do anything anyway since they are so culturally averse to developing anything approximating a functional military these days. WWII guilt and all. And besides its way more fun complaining about other countries getting their hands dirty militarily while you sit under the protected umbrella of Ramstein air base, our largest foreign military instillation in terms of personnel.
But let Europe deal with the problem on their door step, I thought everyone was tired of Team America World Police. The best hope for that is probably Poland given their shared border with Ukr and general based nature.
The other global issue, one I'm much more inclined to give a shit about is Taiwan. China is a real growing power and will be our true antagonist for the 21st century. More importantly Taiwan is home to TSMC the largest most important semi conductor company on the planet. Meaning all those chips for you're state of the art chips for the CPU's and GPU's in your gaming rig come from TSMC. They also produce vitally important chips for the US car market as we've seen in the last years where their inability to get chips over here greatly slowed domestic vehicle production for a while. Most importantly they produce chips for the US military. Avionics packages for those shiny new F-35s, chips to go into cruise missiles. Everything has a chip in it and they produce the most technologically advanced chips on the planet. Strategically they are probably the most important single business on Earth. This is the most important reason why keeping China off of Taiwan is so important. Luckily TSMC is building a chip fab plant in Arizona that is slated to come only in '24 which will greatly alleviate our problems should China get froggy with Taiwan. That being said, there is a huge knowledge base in chip making in Taiwan that we still can't really afford to let fall in China's hands. For this reason and the fact that China is our only real rival, I give way more of shit about Taiwan and China's designs on it than I do Ukr.
If China was going to go after Taiwan the smart thing to do would be to have done so the instant Rus attacks Ukr. The US would have had to split its attention between the two situations and would have been hampered in dealing with either. Luckily China seems to be taking the cautious approach and waiting. Hopefully watching Rus get its shit pushed in in Ukr will give it second thoughts about going after Taiwan.
Now with ALLLLLLL that said I am far more concerned with domestic issues than either of these international situations. Its not our job to be the globes nurse maid anymore, we can't afford it and the international community will bitch at us about it. Grow up and deal with your own issues. We CLEARLY need to worry about getting our house in order here at home more.
Why do culture wars matter? Because they determine who we allow to control the conception America has of itself. And right now that conception is fucked. For decades every one watched the same news, read the same papers and consumed the same media. With the advent of the modern entertainment apparatus and the internet those days are done. One of our biggest issues right now is if people don't start marrying each other and having kids we could start to be looking down the barrel of demographic collapse. And that issue plagues most of the modern world right now. And culture is vitally important in shaping our conceptions of the family and how important/desirable it is to have one. Beyond family we need to be developing durable local communities that people can be apart of to give their lives meaning (churches, little league, bowling clubs whatever). While a globalized economy has done wonders for lifting the 3rd world out of poverty it has trashed our domestic jobs market leaving good paying jobs and the hope of owning a home out of reach for many. US border patrol has had a million encounters with illegal immigrants in the first 6 months of Fiscal Year 2022.
Fiscal Year 2022 Border Encounters Will Hit 1 Million Right Before Peak Migration Season. We can't handle this many people. If you've looked at the trends in Hispanic political polling, the Democrats cant afford to keep doing it either.
Democrats' problem with Hispanic voters isn't going away as GOP gains seem to be solidifying. Determining the outcome of these issues is vitally important to the health of and belief in the nation.
So yea, long story short we care more about domestic culture issues than international issues. And after 20 years of war I think we've earned the right to.
