Geopolitics/Diplomacy/War Thread

[Anonymous No.19172509]

Thread to recommend (nonfiction) books on geopolitics, diplomacy, war, etc. A recommendation to start if off:

The Afghanistan Papers by Craig Whitlock. Built from the foundation of a number of oral history interviews with high-ranking military officials. Whitlock went to court to get the documents, and it's easy to see why they were so guarded. The chapters on the poppy trade in Afghanistan were particularly interesting to me, and the book does a good job detailing just how out of touch the UN was in dealing with the trade. The book starts with Bush 43 and ends with the Biden administration starting to pull out.

[Anonymous No.19172519]

>>19172509
Whitlock does a good job keeping a narrative to it, and it's a lot easier to get a grip on how certain figures in the Afghan government (particularly Karzai) were often at odds with each administration. Changes in government led to inconsistency, and there wasn't much of a plan to begin with.

[Anonymous No.19172998]

>>19172509
More and more disappointed in this board with every passing moment

[Anonymous No.19173008]

Not sure if this is something you'd be into but War In Human Civilization is a good book on the role of war in human society

[Anonymous No.19173012]

>>19172998
Why

[Anonymous No.19173020]

>>19173012
I'm OP. Same books are discussed over and over again. A couple years ago you could get reccs across a pretty wide range. Not sure why I still browse here in all honesty.

[Anonymous No.19173021]

>>19172509

On China by Henry Kissinger. Regardless of what you think of the man, it's a first hand source regarding the US-China rapprochement of the Nixon administration and a lot of subsequent diplomatic interactions the US has had with China, as Kissinger played a large part in those as well. It also gives you a handle on why China is the way that it is and why it does certain things, like why they engage in preemptive strikes

[Anonymous No.19173025]

>>19173021
Also War of the Flea is a really good read for understanding the GWOT from the perspective of the insurgent

[Anonymous No.19173029]

>>19173021
I almost bought this the other day after finishing World Order. I decided against it to get the aforementioned book on Afghanistan. What does he say about China's "peaceful rise"? How seriously does he gauge it as a threat to US hegemony, and does he put any kind of a timeline on a serious competition between the two?

[Anonymous No.19173050]

>>19173029
The book was completed in 2011 I believe, so he doesn't see China as that much of a threat to the US. This was the pre-Xi period, and China wasn't as militant. He sees China as being essentially a rival to the US, but not like the Soviet Union was. He envisions a world where the US and China can both exist in harmony, and he says their peaceful rise was really due to the policies of Deng Xiaoping after the death of Mao and the gradual (later rapid) liberalization of the country.

The most interesting thing about to the book to me (besides the history of Dynastic-era China and the early years of Maoist China) was how different American diplomats viewed China just 10 years ago. Really astounding how quickly things have changed.

[Anonymous No.19173085]

>>19173050
I don't want to overstep, but I think if Clinton had won in 2016, a lot of the tension would have at least stayed under the surface. The worst part of the trade war probably wouldn't have happened, or it at least wouldn't have become such a spectacle, and Xi's nationalism might not have come out in such force. But the trade war and Covid have probably done enough damage that we can't go back. Best timeline is the US helps China adopt more of a liberal (political) structure, China becomes a respected partner, and it doesn't feel the need to compete with US power so quickly. We could have at least delayed it a bit longer.

[Anonymous No.19173133]

>>19172509
Not sure how much these meet your criteria. I mostly read about modern wars that are a bit lesser known.
>Dancing in the Glory of Monsters
An overview of the recent civil wars in the DRC, from 1996 to 2003.
>Katanga: 1960 - 63
An overview of the Katanga secession in the post-colonial DRC, which influenced the later civil wars in the 90's. As a bonus, it's got a lot of fun stories about WW2 vets turned mercs doing merc shit.
>The Iran-Iraq War: A Military and Strategic History (by Murray and Woods)
An overview of that conflict, mostly from Saddam's perspective. In particular, it really stresses how batshit crazy both sides of that war were and how much US intelligence played them against each other.
>Aftermath: the Remnants of War (by Webster)
Not focused on geopolitics or war itself, but more on the humanitarian disasters that persist years after wars end. Things like UXO, mines, chemical and radioactive contamination, or in the case of Russia, thousands of German skeletons, rendering areas uninhabitable for decades after the shooting stops.
>Frozen Hell (by William Trotter)
An overview of the Soviet-Finnish Winter war. I'm not done reading it yet, but so far it's been a decent introduction to the conflict if you know nothing about Finnish history.
Let me know if you want me to elaborate on any of these.

[Anonymous No.19173143]

>>19173133
Thanks, these all sound great. Adding them to my list.

>The Iran-Iraq War: A Military and Strategic History (by Murray and Woods)
>Aftermath: the Remnants of War (by Webster)

No specific questions, but would love to hear some takeaways, anecdotes, or general other things you learned from them.

[Anonymous No.19173186]

>>19173085
The political conflict, and perhaps eventual war, between China and the US is decades, maybe centuries in the making.
Consider that the primary struggles China has suffered with in the last 200 years have been mainly against the West as it is. That is, how does this decrepit behemoth deal with this new and vital culture? Almost all of China's wars in this context (with one clear exception) have been oriented westward, either directly, in spirit, or dividing China itself in ethos. First, it was against the colonial powers, then Japan, and then Marxism and republican government forms themselves.
A book comes to mind. "The War in the East," you can find it on Gutenberg for free. If you skim the beginning, you'll find some interesting bits. Namely, Japan's invasion was a kind of western intervention. Japan stands alone in history as a colonial power outside of Europe. It was an ambitious war of industrialization in which China was actually losing, even towards the end (Operation Ichi Go). In fact, earlier in the war, the western allied nations were sympathetic to the Japanese.
Another piece I think of is the Hour of Decision, by Oswald Spengler. Perhaps outdated, but a titanic clash between a nonwhite power embracing European technics is perhaps inevitable.
The US inherited this conflict. Not as America but as the political chief of western civilization. Not one man or party in either country can change this reality, and this is why it's so disturbing to see our leaders have such an ahistoric perspective. That no one leading geopolitics understands geopolitics. As if their 4-8 years in power, often even shorter grip ls thereof given control of Congress, is magically distinct. Even under Biden over Trump, the situation heats. Now this may not guarantee guns, but as Carl Schmitt observed, our civilization in our time, compared to others, contains the pressure of conflict quite dramatically before it explodes. Hence, WW1.

[Anonymous No.19173239]

>>19173143
>The Iran-Iraq War
Both sides had purged a lot of their conventional forces pre-war, making the conflict a clusterfuck with paramilitary units picking up the slack. The only part of the war that wasn't an incompetent disaster was the naval combat, mostly because both Khomeini and Saddam had forgotten they had navies pre-war and so the naval leadership never got purged.
Also, Saddam used unrestricted chemical warfare during the last half of the war, including the only time I know of in history where modern chemical weapons were used on civilians by a conventional force.
>Aftermath
There are parts of Russia where there are so many German bodies in the ground that farming is more-or-less impossible. You can walk the fields and just pick up Lugers, pieces of uniforms, awards, or femur and skull fragments. Selling this stuff to tourists/collectors is an industry there.
France still digs up a ton of ordinance from the first world war. They try to downplay it because if civilians knew how often they move tons of unstable ordiance through suburban/urban areas, they'd be horrified.
Overall, the main takeaway I got was that UXO/mine removal is a major industry worldwide. If you don't mind the high risk of death, it's a fantastically well-paid job for the uneducated in most of central Europe, Africa and parts of Asia.

[Anonymous No.19174849]

>>19173021
>Henry Kissinger. Regardless of what you think of the man
Traitor to America. He and his kids should be forcibly relocated to Xinjiang.

[Anonymous No.19174913]

The Tragedy of Great Power Politics
>The updated edition of this classic treatise on the behavior of great powers takes a penetrating look at the question likely to dominate international relations in the twenty-first century: Can China rise peacefully? In clear, eloquent prose, John Mearsheimer explains why the answer is no: a rising China will seek to dominate Asia, while the United States, determined to remain the world's sole regional hegemon, will go to great lengths to prevent that from happening. The tragedy of great power politics is inescapable.
Looks at the history of great power competition from the 7 Years War to the end of the Cold War, with an updated appendix on the growing U.S.-China competition. He's a realist, so if you're against that school of though the book might no be for you, but personally I agreed with just about everything in the book.

[Anonymous No.19175220]

>>19174913
>the worlds sole regional hegemon
>worlds
>regional
These terms are contradictory.

[Anonymous No.19175362]

>>19174849
Why not relocate him to his homeland and then nuke the entire middle east?

[Anonymous No.19175404]

Does any books on this spell out the basic WHY of geopolitical conflict? Why do nations go to war with each other? There seems to be this assumption that there will be conflict with China this century, but why?

[Anonymous No.19176298]

>>19175220
No, the idea is that the U.S. is the last regional hegemon left in the world after the collapse of the USSR. ie the "sole" regional hegemon in the entire "world" of possible hegemons. You can argue that the U.S. is/was a global hegemon, rather than the only regional hegemon, but the structural logic of the idea is still sound.

[Anonymous No.19176323]

>>19175404
Yeah, its right above your post.
>>19174913

[Anonymous No.19176547]

The age of superpowers is over.
America will lose that status but neither China nor India will attain it.
And this is for the better, this means big countries won’t be able to bully small countries anymore.
Fuck geopolitics.

[Anonymous No.19176583]

>>19176547
>t. thirdworld shitposter

[Anonymous No.19176945]

Peter Zeihan's "The Accidental Superpower" and "The Absent Superpower" are pretty good starting points for contemporary geopolitics. He used to work at Stratfor, George Friedman's outfit, before spinning out his own firm, so his thinking shares some of the pros and cons of Stratfor-type analysis.

He gets a mixed reception, because he needs to push his big thesis ("shale will lead to US isolation and the breakdown of the international order") to sell books. He's not the most deep or original thinker, but he's well-informed on many topics, so he's a good starting point if you want to know how the contemporary world works, beyond shallow TV/newspaper analysis.

If you haven't yet read his works, George Friedman ("The Next Ten Years", "The Next One Hundred Years") is probably the biggest name in geopolitics, and so worth reading for that reason alone.

Like Zeihan, he also has a mixed reception, partly because he's been around for so long that he's made some humorously wrong predictions. In the 80s he published "The Coming War with Japan", which rather illustrates some of the flaws of Stratfor-style "hedgehog" predictions.
Still: he's a brilliant, original thinker, so if you read his books as giving you a framework to understand how political actors make decisions (rather than as a set of concrete predictions), you should find him pretty insightful. He has a more logical, analytical style than Zeihan, something I've seen amongst other Eastern European writers.

If Zeihan is a once-blue-pilled college liberal turned purple-pilled "centrist" analyst, Friedman is more like what you'd get if you found all the smart Republicans in the Pentagon or CIA and had them write a book. Imagine someone smart enough not to fall for neocon fairy tails, but still plugged into the US military/intelligence community mindset.

Heading down into deeper and more original thinking, "War, Peace and International Relations; an Introduction to Strategic History" by Colin S. Gray is an amazing book that covers in detail the key strategic decision-making in every major Western war from Napoleon to the "War on Terror". Unlike the two guys above, Gray is an actual historian so he can weave together all the relevant factors (geography, technology, politics, culture, etc) into a coherent picture, rather than constantly assuming "geography uber alles".

Edward Luttwak is also amazing and original -- he's a bit of a contrarian troll (see his essay "Give War a Chance") -- he's like a slightly more playful Nassim Taleb in that regard.

John Robb ("Brave New War") is another very interesting guy -- he's a former fighter pilot, turned tech entrepreneur, turned geopolitical analyst. He writes a lot about how al Qaeda and similar groups actually operate, and made the case years ago that the US had no chance of actually holding Afghanistan long term. Fascinating material.

[Anonymous No.19176950]

cUckSA is neither a "superpower" nor a "hegemon"

[Anonymous No.19177242]

>>19175404
Try "the Concept of the Political," by Carl Schmitt first. It's important to understand what the political is. At least, help define what you mean by the concept.
An important feature of politics is that it's innately distinct from economics, religion, and even personal adversarial opinions. The economic competitor is an entirely different thing from a political enemy. Hence, China's most important economic partners are also great rivals.
Another important piece: politics, ad the friend/enemy distinction, is not necessarily war. China has taken great pains to employ its own scholarship of Schmitt in recent years. Despite its many shortfalls, it's playing a keen game which the US isn't. The US is more innately powerful, but led by people with no concept of the politically international. To the left, politics are purely a party affair. Internal. This creates a massive threat of civil war, because politics, despite not being necessarily equivalent to war, is always done with its potential. And it also weakens the political power internationally. The right's disdain for China is seen as shortsighted by the left, but in reality the left is simply incapable of recognizing the political situation due to the recent ideology they've wholly imbibed.

[Anonymous No.19177617]

>>19176950
I get that you're a retard who happens to be from Europe and enjoys Amerimutts memes, but don't shit up an otherwise good thread by being a retard. You don't know what a hegemon is and /pol/ would better suit you. Read more and then come back.

[Anonymous No.19177635]

>>19177617
>>19176950
Oh, and the idea that USA isn't a superpower... Yeah, just kill yourself while you're at it.

[Anonymous No.19177709]

Tao
Art of War
/thread

[Anonymous No.19178062]

>>19173029
sorry your chudness we are not worthy of thee

[Anonymous No.19178086]

>>19173021
>Kissinger
He’s great - whenever he’s not talking about America.
I’ve read On China, World Order, and Diplomacy; oh boy, does that motherfucker gets weirdly idealist when talking about the good US of A. His entire shtick is cold pragmatism and realpolitik but he cannot shut up about merica numba one.

[Anonymous No.19178173]

>>19173186
How do you think that works with the mass amount of chinese coming to america and the west in general for education than moving back to china?

[Anonymous No.19178185]

>>19178086
why do you think this is? If someone is so good at soberly talking about other stuff, you would assume he would at least acknowledge that on a conscious level in reference to America, Or do you believe he sees something specific in the general American ethos of greater body (not unreasable).

In particualr ways it has been extremely successful I supose.

[Anonymous No.19178356]

>>19178185
I have no idea why he flips on his own style like that. You can clearly see it happening in all three books: he first lays the foundation of a book (in a sober tone) and then centers it all on America (turning into a cheerleader dressed in red, white, and blue).
Take On China. The man explains Chinese politics and its genesis through a cultural and historic lens in a great way; later on, he’s but a few keystrokes away from metaphorically sucking Nixon’s dick. He goes back to his sober self when he talks about Sino-Soviet relationships. I found it hilariously annoying at times.
Maybe he truly feels that way (lord knows he has done terrible shit to ensure America’s position, I wouldn’t rule out such passion). It may be an act, though; he’s a cold and calculating man, so it may be part of a calculated act.
All in all, I have no clue.

[Anonymous No.19178422]

>war is hugely destructive to both life and materiale
>people still do it

why

[Anonymous No.19178436]

>>19178422
If that is your mental process, maybe you should go back and try to understand why conflict happens rather than befuddling yourself with two particular point.

[Anonymous No.19178461]

>>19178422
Resources, women, and pride. War always follows a (sometimes fucked up) logic. Playing dumb doesn’t help at all.

[Anonymous No.19178479]

>>19173239
>Overall, the main takeaway I got was that UXO/mine removal is a major industry worldwide. If you don't mind the high risk of death, it's a fantastically well-paid job for the uneducated in most of central Europe, Africa and parts of Asia.
My dad actually knew a guy who did this in Europe. Professional UXO guy. Apparently one time a mine exploded in his face while disarming it and blew his jaw off. He had to get reconstructive surgery. I think he might've lost a hand, too. It was apparently some kind of booby trap within the bomb, but I can't remember.

>>19176547
>And this is for the better, this means big countries won’t be able to bully small countries anymore. Fuck geopolitics.
I think China's leaders see what they're doing it returning the world to a kind of Westphalian form of geopolitics which traces back to the Peace of Westphalia set up after the end of the Thirty Years War, which then saw a modern reboot with the United Nations (the culmination of Westphalian logic set up after World War II; it's literally enshrined in the U.N. charter). From the Chinese perspective, it's the United States which abrogated that system after the Cold War for what American leaders call a "rules-based international order" but the catch is that the U.S. sets the rules -- and that is sometimes called "unipolar hegemony" or "the U.S.-led international order" and so on. This is why both neoconservatives and liberal internationalists or "liberal hawks" like Hillary Clinton probably have more in common with each other than they do Henry Kissinger, a realist and a Westphalian thinker.

So it's ironic that the strongest defenders of Westphalianism today are non-western countries.

This is where the American nationalists and ultranationalists get mixed up. The MAGA types who dread ChiCom troops in blue helmets springing out of underground tunnels dug underneath Walmarts are wrong, but they're somewhat closer to the truth than the far-right white nationalist types who envision China (for some strange reason) as like a Chinese version of their own politics -- i.e. opposed to an international system. I saw this neo-Nazi clown Andrew Anglin the other day talk about how China is resisting the United Nations! It's the opposite. It's the United States which has done more to undermine the U.N. than any country. This is also why the MAGA types are at their core ultra-imperialists, because they don't believe that the U.S. should be subject to international law or subordinate to international institutions whatsoever, which is what would be the consequence of the United States degrading from a global empire into a national state accountable to those institutions.

Also my book recommendation is "Beware of Small States" by David Hirst, which is about the Lebanese Civil War and Middle Eastern politics more broadly since everyone had their hand in it.

[Anonymous No.19178550]

>>19178479
There's another fun catch: the U.S. military. Did you read the story about Gen. Milley corresponding with the Chinese military behind Trump's back? Then he basically froze Trump out of command authority for nuclear weapons?

See, here, the U.S. military is behaving in a more "realist" fashion than politicians. If you go back to after WWII, the U.S. developed a military-industrial complex, which is the guarantor of U.S. primacy in the world, and political leaders would check the power of generals (as Truman did to MacArthur after his reckless actions in Korea). The "Weinberger Doctrine" -- named after Reagan's defense sec Casper Weinberger -- in the 80s is probably the peak of this, articulated as the "Powell Doctrine" around the Gulf War: the U.S. will only go to war on strict conditions (vital national interests, certainty of victory, public and Congressional support). This was fashioned after the Vietnam War which was a debacle. The Gulf War was a successful implementation of that doctrine.

But in the post-Cold War era, it has been the political leaders who have grown more hawkish and reckless than the military.

It's not just Trump, but successive U.S. presidents which interfered in the military's prerogatives and imposed political agendas -- like the neoconservatives during W. Bush sending the military to occupy Iraq without a clear mission or enough troops and with poor equipment such as Humvees (light transport / recon vehicles) which were easily blown up by IEDs. Then Obama talked a good game, but in reality his administration were staffed by liberal interventionists such as Hillary Clinton who spread more chaos in the world like pushing for the Libya intervention among other things which has precedent in "humanitarian interventions" in the 1990s such as Somalia and Bosnia.

Trump ran against these liberal interventionists, but filled his cabinet with generals, and increased the Pentagon budget. So the military's influence grew. Yet, these generals were at odds with Trump's recklessness, and went behind his back to coordinate with China. Milley seemed to do this to attempt to stabilize the situation. Even though China and the U.S. military are technically "enemies," they have a common interest here in delaying / avoiding war (I think). So the irony of the U.S. at this moment is that political leaders have become more and more "militarized" while the military leaders have become more and more "politicized," i.e. taking more of a role in managing diplomatic affairs between the U.S. and China to contain the "militaristic" political leaders.

Polls suggest the military is one of the most trusted institutions in America, certainly more than politicians, and that distrust created the conditions for an irrational and destabilizing populist uprising to elect a giant baby president that forced the military to intervene in "political" matters! And right wingers are outraged! Because the world is not chaotic enough for them...

[Anonymous No.19179626]

>>19178550
>>19178479
stupid faggot

[Anonymous No.19179677]

>>19172509
I'm not a lefties, But I tend to just refer to chomsky if I ever want to read about geo-politics.