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Author Topic: AmeriPol thread  (Read 3534083 times)

Reelya

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Re: AmeriPol: new thread subtitle pending
« Reply #19785 on: May 13, 2018, 09:17:05 pm »

You're talking about short-term dips and rises as if a 1-2 year dip disproves an arms-race in general. But an arms-race is about trends in spending, since weapons are multi-year investments.

The point is that both Israel and Saudi Arabia have trended together on increasing arms-spending over the years, and Iran really hasn't, they've always lagged behind, not lead the pack. Also there are in fact tons of Israeli articles talking about the arms race, and all of them mention the importance of maintaining Israel's dominance relative to Saudi Arabia.

The point is, Israel are spending more, they're concerned about both Saudi Arabia and Iran, and Saudi Arabia are by far the #1 nation who have increased spending. Israel is following suit, and not only because of Iran. Because of Saudi Arabia makes more sense, since those are the guys who are aggressively stockpiling.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/242749
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/uploads/Documents/pubs/PP_4_IsraelsStrategicReality.pdf
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-israel-still-has-military-edge-following-u-s-saudi-arms-deal-for-now-1.5477024
https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/Israeli-minister-US-Saudi-arms-deal-should-trouble-us-492423
https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Avigdor-Liberman-Arms-race-in-the-Middle-East-concerning-493747
Quote
> Israeli minister: US-Saudi arms deal 'should trouble us'
> Ministers concerned Saudi arms deal might blunt Israel's military edge

etc etc

The point I original made is that there is an arms-race, and given that, it makes sense that the two largest spenders are in fact the ones driving the arms-race.
« Last Edit: May 13, 2018, 09:20:25 pm by Reelya »
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Reelya

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Re: AmeriPol: new thread subtitle pending
« Reply #19786 on: May 13, 2018, 09:21:41 pm »

> Also, really? A book from 1985 to support your position?

So, one of my links is old, so you're going to focus on that and ignore all the other evidence and sources? I guess I'm lucky I didn't write a typo because you could use that as disproof of an entire post.

If you're going to debate at least debate in a reasonable manner.

> Qatar

Not even sure what that's related to, but it certainly isn't related to the current world, where the overwhelming evidence is that Saudi Arabia has developed into a colossal military juggernaut. Maybe I wouldn't ridicule the specific points you bring up if the specific points you bring up weren't so ridiculous.
« Last Edit: May 13, 2018, 09:24:17 pm by Reelya »
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smjjames

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Re: AmeriPol: new thread subtitle pending
« Reply #19787 on: May 13, 2018, 09:33:28 pm »

(40% defense budget increase thanks to the sanctions being lifted
From the figures I've seen, nothing like that, while some sanctions were eased off, but a distinct uptick (and now moreso in future forecasts) upon expectations of Trump reneging.

Quote
and literal pallets of cash being flown in from the US)
From Europe. Even with the Iranian's own cash (money they were legitimately owed, by an internationally-recognised legal ruling about debts not honoured by the US and the interest upon those debts) there was still a restriction upon using US currency in payments to Iran.

But it sounds better to say that it was all a ransom being paid, or something, if you want to believe in a certain world-view.

Even if the money had absolutely nothing to do with the deal itself and wasn't even US money, the optics of it were still terrible due to the timing.
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Reelya

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Re: AmeriPol: new thread subtitle pending
« Reply #19788 on: May 13, 2018, 09:44:58 pm »

> Qatar

Not even sure what that's related to, but it certainly isn't related to the current world, where the overwhelming evidence is that Saudi Arabia has developed into a colossal military juggernaut. Maybe I wouldn't ridicule the specific points you bring up if the specific points you bring up weren't so ridiculous.

Says it right here, in the article that you posted.


Oh right, where it say:

Quote
Saudi Arabia was the world’s second largest arms importer with an increase of 212% compared to the previous five year period and imports by Qatar going up by 245%.

Quote
And the biggest spender according to those articles was Qatar, not Saudi Arabia.

Basic reading comprehension issue. Qatar is not the biggest arms-importer in the world.
« Last Edit: May 13, 2018, 09:47:28 pm by Reelya »
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Reelya

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Re: AmeriPol: new thread subtitle pending
« Reply #19789 on: May 13, 2018, 09:49:11 pm »

I think the point they were making there is that Saudi Arabia and Qatar are both increasing their imports, mentioned together because they're close together. And it was also mentioned that Saudi Arabia is the worlds #2 arms importer.

But that doesn't mean that Qatar is the "biggest arms importer in the world" because frankly, that's transparently not a true fact.

Also, while Saudi Arabia "only" increased arms imports by 212% and Qatar by a "larger" 245%, go look up figures for military expenditure for both nations. Saudi Arabia's military spending is > 35 times larger, so the "smaller" increase of 212% is in fact a much, much larger increase than the "larger" increase of 245% than Qatar.
« Last Edit: May 13, 2018, 09:52:55 pm by Reelya »
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Reelya

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Re: AmeriPol: new thread subtitle pending
« Reply #19790 on: May 13, 2018, 10:25:03 pm »

Let me boil down everything I was claiming:

- details about Iranian vs Egypt vs Israel defense spending: It was current year data, but the fact is, it's not a pattern that's changed in e.g. 10 years ago. e.g. I read about it in ~2009 via Noam Chomsky, and while there have been fluctuations, the general pattern is the same. Note that even with the 40% rise from 2014-2017 in Iranian spending, it's not actually much more than it was in 2008. 2008-2017 Iranian military spending grew by a total of 7.5%, which is less than an average of 1% compound growth per year. e.g. it's just gone back to pre-sanctions levels. Certainly no justification for long-term ramp-ups in spending by other nations far above what they used to spend.

^ Sure, it might be wrong: Perhaps Iran is in fact out-spending Israel. But IDK, find a source making that specific claim or some specific data contradicting that. e.g a yearly point rise or dip in Israel's military spending is not a refutation of the fact that Israel spends more on military than Iran: e.g. here are two graphs of 10 years of military spending of Israel and Iran. Note that the lowest amount spent for Israel in any year exceeds the highest amount spent for Iran in any year. So while both numbers went up and down over the years, there's no actual overlap at all.

https://tradingeconomics.com/iran/military-expenditure
https://tradingeconomics.com/israel/military-expenditure

- widespread claims of an arms race and that's it's Iran's fault (what Shazbot wrote in his post): my argument is that if there is an arms-race, and 2/3 nations are up-spending arms over the period, then it's most likely those 2/3 nations who are responsible. e.g. there's very little correlation between Iranian arm's spending and Israeli arm's spending in the above graphs, however if you look at egyptian arm's spending you see similar rise/fall points to Israel's
https://tradingeconomics.com/saudi-arabia/military-expenditure

Except that Saudi Arabia is leading the pack, so nations like Israel are playing catch-up to try and maintain regional military dominance. This is why Israel is trying to pressure the USA not to sell F35's to Saudi Arabia. Note that the two nations do not have diplomatic relations and Saudi Arabia bans Israel-bound flights from traveling through their airspace. They don't really get along that well. Israel always saw themselves as the pre-eminent regional military power, but now Saudi Arabia is seeking the crown.

Also note, Iranian military spending was heavily depressed from 2013-2015, but those were the years that Saudia Arabia and Israel were ramping up spending the most (e.g. 2015 was the peak). Then, the oil price drops, Saudi Arabia cuts their spending, and Israel follows suit. It just seems much more like they're reacting to each other than they are reacting to Iran. e.g. Israel is not an oil-producing nation: when Saudi Arabia slashed defense spending in 2016, there would be no reason for Israel to also do that. Especially if both nations were responding to a rise in "Iranian threat" level. e.g. If that was the case, then you might thing that since Saudi Arabia was cutting back on military then that would give Iran more breathing space, putting more pressure on Israel to increase their share of defense spending, but that's not what happened.
« Last Edit: May 13, 2018, 10:47:43 pm by Reelya »
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Reelya

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Re: AmeriPol: new thread subtitle pending
« Reply #19791 on: May 13, 2018, 10:50:05 pm »

that doesn't line up, since the Yemeni civil war started in 2015. and if you look at the graph provided
https://tradingeconomics.com/saudi-arabia/military-expenditure

Saudi arms spending increased every year from 2008-2015. And 2014-2015 growth wasn't all that strong compared with the growth which preceded it, so almost all the substantive growth precedes the conflict itself. Then, there's a sharp decline in 2016 (which is almost certainly oil price shock, since the oil price started to dip in 2015 and tanked in 2016).

However, fitting in with what you're talking about, it's possible that instead of low-oil-price cutbacks, some of 2015's $90 billion arms budget was diverted to Yemen from 2016 onwards, e.g. the graph shows a sudden drop of $30 billion in spending in 2016, the first new financial year to occur after the war started, so it's theoretically possible that some of the $30 billion "missing" money is accounted for by spending on allied forces in Yemen. But the problem here is that in 2013 they spent > $70 billion on their own military, well before the war started, so the idea that out of $90 billion they're exporting $72 billion leaving only $18 billion to maintain their own forces seems far-fetched.
« Last Edit: May 13, 2018, 11:06:42 pm by Reelya »
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Reelya

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Re: AmeriPol: new thread subtitle pending
« Reply #19792 on: May 13, 2018, 11:24:21 pm »

Yup, that's why I said the Saudis are the main driving force here. If you take 1995-2015, Iran went up from $5 billion to $15 billion in spending (e.g, from pitiful to just ok), Israel has risen a bit since the mid-1990s, ~12.5B to about ~17.5B in the period. But remember Israel is a tiny place, so the per-capita spending was always really high, and they have much better infrastructure than Iran.

However, Saudi Arabia went up from $20 billion to ~$80 billion or so - which puts them in the world superpower bracket. They're now the third-largest world military spender after China and the USA. So just think logically here, is Saudi Arabia going to spend $80 billion a year to prop-up some regional government in Yemen, really? Or are they investing that amount of money to turn themselves into the #1 regional superpower? Which would you use the money for?
« Last Edit: May 13, 2018, 11:29:18 pm by Reelya »
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Culise

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Re: AmeriPol: new thread subtitle pending
« Reply #19793 on: May 14, 2018, 12:00:44 am »

Yup, that's why I said the Saudis are the main driving force here. If you take 1995-2015, Iran went up from $5 billion to $15 billion in spending (e.g, from pitiful to just ok), Israel has risen a bit since the mid-1990s, ~12.5B to about ~17.5B in the period. But remember Israel is a tiny place, so the per-capita spending was always really high, and they have much better infrastructure than Iran.

However, Saudi Arabia went up from $20 billion to ~$80 billion or so - which puts them in the world superpower bracket. They're now the third-largest world military spender after China and the USA. So just think logically here, is Saudi Arabia going to spend $80 billion a year to prop-up some regional government in Yemen, really? Or are they investing that amount of money to turn themselves into the #1 regional superpower? Which would you use the money for?
The former comes about as a consequence of the latter, I'd say.  They dump money into the military and use it - the military, as well as the money - to support "friendly" governments in the region to avert fears of encirclement from Iranian influence through Shi'a proxies.  Now, it might be argued based on a look at the raw numbers that these fears may not be reasonable, setting aside whether or not the number tell the entire story, but those fears do exist.  It also doesn't help that Saudi Arabia has several military branches that operate in parallel, in particular the National Guard Forces and the Royal Saudi Land Forces, all of which demand their own slice of the pie in order to assuage internal politics around various tribes and power-brokers.  Basically, having purchased themselves a very expensive set of hammers, they thus set about finding a few nails in a neighborhood with more than a few already: Qatar, Bahrain, Syria, and Yemen, for starters. 

Also, take note of the timing on that chart: there's a plateau after the 2010 Houthi conflict ends, but the really big spike doesn't happen until 2012, after the Arab Spring of the previous year puts some serious fear into the Saudi government.  Instability in Yemen such as that even before the civil war really broke out threatens Jizan again, and Shi'a sentiment also exists in the Eastern Province that also happens to contain the majority of Saudi oil.  They don't necessarily just want to be a superpower; they want to secure themselves against their own people, and having money to throw at the problem, they do precisely that.  Elsewhere, they also expanded salaries for civil and military employees and pushed even more money into the social benefits programs to serve as a carrot.  That's not to say they don't want to be a regional player, but simply that it's a matter of internal security as well as external adventurism.  I certainly won't call them a superpower of any sort until they start looking at expanding the navy beyond a littoral force, but at present, the closest they've come is some talk of maybe picking up an Arleigh Burke; "superpower" kind of requires pretensions beyond the regional level.  Even China, much less Saudi Arabia, still has some issues with that.

((All that said, the cynic in me says that in the Saudi military, what they'll do with $80 million is embezzle the daylights out of it.  When you need to import everything from the hardware to the maintenance supplies to the munitions to the technicians themselves, there's a lot of money passing through a lot of hands with a lot of potential for sticky fingers.  That may just be my low opinion of most Gulf militaries in particular and the arms industry in general, though.))
« Last Edit: May 14, 2018, 12:10:19 am by Culise »
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smjjames

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Re: AmeriPol: new thread subtitle pending
« Reply #19794 on: May 14, 2018, 12:18:42 am »

I suppose the argument over who spends how much on military in the MidEast could be taken over to the MidEast thread?
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martinuzz

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Re: AmeriPol: new thread subtitle pending
« Reply #19795 on: May 14, 2018, 12:54:11 am »

Holy shit get a room
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wobbly

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Re: AmeriPol: new thread subtitle pending
« Reply #19796 on: May 14, 2018, 03:16:12 am »

Kinda amusing, I count a full page and a half of arguing after Ipsil declares he's out of the argument.
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Starver

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Re: AmeriPol: new thread subtitle pending
« Reply #19797 on: May 14, 2018, 05:37:03 am »

Even if the money had absolutely nothing to do with the deal itself and wasn't even US money, the optics of it were still terrible due to the timing.
As the common complaint was that it wasn't to do with the Deal, but with the release of US people from Iran, this isn't actually as bad, and in line with the slightly reduced set of sanctions being a "you play ball, we play ball" thing.

If people want to complain that it was part of the Nuclear Deal, that's a distinct improvement in worldview, but they still ought to know more (it was a much lower amount than had been claimed as rightfully theirs by Iran, by a magnitude or so).

Either way, being a disconnected thing, would "I'm sorry, we can't pay you this money that we owe you right now that has nothing to do with the very restrictive Deal that you've just signed up to, because it would look like we'd paid you for this. In order not to be seen to reward you for taking this deal, we're going to have to further punish you for taking this deal by delaying payment until a time it doesn't look like a reward" (at which time, if choosing a perfect nadir of future relations, far away from any past or approaching good relations of note that might have 'bad optics', now the optics show that the dog is being given its juicy bone for bad behaviour). You just can't get it right ever, in this relatively honourable endeavour, even with perfect hindsight!


I get a bit annoyed by the Trump Gets It Wrong Again autotweets/etc that use this appoach (there's a a huge bunch of Trump Can't Stop Winning For Winning ones too, though, so balance...), although he doesn't help things by declaring the creation of Chinese jobs in a Chinese firm in China (whose products have incidentally been barred by the US military as a data-security threat, and more) a 'win' for MAGA. Must be really desperate to obscure something else in the news to try to promote that talking point, based on his proven track record. I might go and find out what.
« Last Edit: May 14, 2018, 05:44:26 am by Starver »
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Kagus

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Re: AmeriPol: new thread subtitle pending
« Reply #19798 on: May 14, 2018, 09:12:12 am »

I had an epiphany today that maybe "consistent" and "inconsistent" are to be treated like "flammable" and "inflammable".

MorleyDev

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Re: AmeriPol: new thread subtitle pending
« Reply #19799 on: May 14, 2018, 11:09:17 am »

Well inflammable means "can be inflamed", whilst inconsistent doesn't fit since "can be inconsisted" doesn't really work in the English language.

Speaking of Donald Trump and inflamming things...

(Though as a Brit, I probably should just stay out of that even looking at that hot mess since the British Empire basically caused the whole shit show in the first place).
« Last Edit: May 14, 2018, 11:11:30 am by MorleyDev »
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