US Unilateralism & extra-territorial law: A sign of weakness?

[The Vagabond]

Originally posted by el freako
Could it be that the desire of the US to act outside of binding international treaties and for it's domestic laws to carry weight outside it's borders is the same manifestation of the need for political control now that economic control is diminished?

Back in the 1960's only the USSR came anywhere close to challenging the USA economically - and even then the best it managed was a paltry third of the USA's GDP - today the EU has nearly the same level of GDP as the USA, China's GDP is over half the size of the US's, Japan's is a little under a third and India has over a quarter.

It is also extremely unlikely that the US could manage the 4-6% growth rates needed to keep the gap with China and India, the EU does grow slower but is continually adding countries (indeed in 1990 the then 12 countries of the EU had 91% of the US's GDP in 2000 the 15 current members had 94%) only against Japan has it done well over the last 20 years.

The thing is that nowadays the economic dominance of the US is not merely determined by its share of the world's GDP. The share as such is not that important, provided that the GDP per capita remains at the highest level. What is more important is the share in the high-tech/intellectual sphere, where one includes research, development and creation, but not necessarily manufacturing of high-tech products, which can be relegated to the 3rd world countries.

And here the US position seems to be as strong as never. Practically all innovations come from the US, most high-tech products originate in the US. The cultural expansion is impressive. The EU (especially if Britain is excluded) lags far behind the US, despite its GDP approaches the USA's level. China' GDP may grow at a high rate, but this growth is largely determined by the manufacturing plants being moved from the West.

Therefore, as long as the USA's share in the high-tech/intellectual sphere does not diminish, its economic dominance will not suffer.
And this is despite the USA's decreasing share in the world's GDP.

[Ming]

A good way to look at it

Tech leadership is what we have hung our hat on for a long time... now, as long as we don't screw it up

[Roland]

Originally posted by The Vagabond
Practically all innovations come from the US, most high-tech products originate in the US. The cultural expansion is impressive. The EU (especially if Britain is excluded) lags far behind the US, despite its GDP approaches the USA's level.

Cultural expansion ? LOL.

More seriously though - what are "high-tech products" ? What is the US share ? What is innovation ? How do you measure the US share ? Please not by blahing CEOs on CNBC. Because the "The EU (especially if Britain is excluded)" definately sounds like Anglosaxon-dominance-bullcrap. Or what exactly is the UK share on those items in the EU ?

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Serb

Any guaranty?

Yes, I guarantee that I will be unhappy to see any U.S. forces in the Balkans.

Originally posted by Serb

All of them. Well, they may be not critical, but important. Russia as the successor of SU has much better relations with those countries then USA. Of course I can’t say that we are allies (like it was with Yugoslavia), but I also can’t say that our relations are hostile. But this is not what I want to say. I want to say that if USA will start to use “War over terrorism” as cover for achieving it’s self-interests, that will be unacceptable for us. USA was hostile to N. Korea, Iran and Iraq long ago before Sept. 11. And now your president wants to convince whole world that those countries support terrorism.

Well all of those states have supported terrorism. North Korea has kidnapped people (civilians) from South Korea and Japan, and regularly attempts military infiltration of SK and occasionally Japan. They also violate the armistace regularly, and fire at both military and civilians in SK across the DMZ, or in International waters.

Iran has poured tons of money into it's proxy wars in Lebanon and elsewhere, and very often these forces use terrorism by bombing civilians, assassinations of political military or civilian figures, kidnapping, and shelling of civilians in both Israel and Lebanon.

Iraq has a long history of supporting terrorists, and still has active training facilities. The most famous action fairly recently was the attempt to murder George Bush sr. in Kuwait, but there are numerous instances of murders of dissidents, politicians etc. in other countries.

Originally posted by Serb

What is it a joke? We want to see the evidences that those countries support terrorism. We support your actions in Afghanistan because we have proofs that the Taliban is supporting terrorism, furthermore our president tried to convince US government to make common measures against the Taliban since times when president Clinton was in charge. We have proofs, we were absolutely sure that Taliban is the major sponsor for Chechen terrorists. But we do not have any proof that for example N. Korea’s government is connected to Al-Qeda or any other terrorist’s organization. If any actions against those countries will be made without UN permission, then it will means that tomorrow any country of the world may be bombed if USA find it’s government hostile. This thing is unacceptable for us, and not for us only.

Intersting that you should mention the U.N., as both NK and Iraq have fought wars against the U.N. and are regularly in violation of the agreements reached at the end of their conflicts. Both NK and Iraq have murderous regimes which regularly violate international law and human rights conventions on a massive scale. Both regimes have launched wars of aggression which cost millions of casualties.

Iran is not as bad a regime as the other two, though their support for terrorists and hostility to any peace in the middle east involving Israel are a constant threat to the whole region.

It is the government itself in all of these countries which is the problem, not their links to al Quaida. All of these countries have been waging a low intensity conflict against the U.S. and / or U.S. allies and interests for many years. One risk of fighting a low intensity war with someone is the hightened chance that there will be a high intensity war. We put these countries on notice that they are taking that risk. We do not want to sit idly by as three states which have been at war with us for a long time arm themselves with nuclear missles.

Originally posted by Serb

Well, may be, except Koreans. As for me, they are ready to fight for the death for their Dear Leader. Don’t you think that there is a possibility that N. Korea might become a second Vietnam for USA in case of intervention? (Actually I don’t think that USA may choose this way, but only theoretically?)
Btw, did you hear that speechwriter who created this “Axis of evil” line, was fired from White House staff?

I think a future war in North Korea will look a lot more like the Gulf War than Vietnam. The NK regime is a lot weaker politically than the North Vietnamese regime was, and the South Koreans are as tough as the Northerners, and more numerous and better equipped. The Dear Leader's regime is ready to collapse, and it will do so fairly quickly under a combined assault from the U.S. and SK and a persisting strategy (ie The South will absorb The North and there will be one Korea).

As for the author of 'Axis of Evil', they had better have had a long and distinguished career of service to escape being fired after that stinker.

[Serb]

Originally posted by Sikander
Yes, I guarantee that I will be unhappy to see any U.S. forces in the Balkans.

Excuse me, are US forces already leave Balkanes?

Both NK and Iraq have murderous regimes which regularly violate international law and human rights conventions on a massive scale. Both regimes have launched wars of aggression which cost millions of casualties.

Yes, I don't want to defend those regimes, but look closely at your allies. Many of them are not better, Turkey have problems with Curds, Saudi Arabia is not a democracy at all.

Intersting that you should mention the U.N., as both NK and Iraq have fought wars against the U.N. and are regularly in violation of the agreements reached at the end of their conflicts.

Then take U.N. mandate and act legetimaly. If you'll do so, you will recive absolutely different attitude. I wanted to said that USA must act in accordance with international laws, otherwise USA actions are illegal and count as agression.

I think a future war in North Korea will look a lot more like the Gulf War than Vietnam. The NK regime is a lot weaker politically than the North Vietnamese regime was, and the South Koreans are as tough as the Northerners, and more numerous and better equipped. The Dear Leader's regime is ready to collapse, and it will do so fairly quickly under a combined assault from the U.S. and SK and a persisting strategy (ie The South will absorb The North and there will be one Korea).

How do you think, there are no diplomatic means left to solve this problem? As for me, South and North showed a slight progess in atempts to reunion. I am not sure that South ready to support USA in war against North, as I see it they prefer to find peacefull solution. May be I'm mistaken, but I'm not sure that Dear Leader's regime is one foot in the grave. And also not sure about Gulf War scenario, the climate in N.Korea more close to Vietnam then to deserts of Iraq.

It is the government itself in all of these countries which is the problem, not their links to al Quaida. All of these countries have been waging a low intensity conflict against the U.S. and / or U.S. allies and interests for many years. One risk of fighting a low intensity war with someone is the hightened chance that there will be a high intensity war. We put these countries on notice that they are taking that risk. We do not want to sit idly by as three states which have been at war with us for a long time arm themselves with nuclear missles.

Was the roots of this conflicts in pure evilness of those countries?
I do not mean Gulf War, what if to dig a litter deeper.
This leads to hegemony of USA in the world, in other words it means- accept us or be destroyed. What is the functions of U.N. then? This institute must be dismiss then.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Serb

Excuse me, are US forces already leave Balkanes?

Not entirely, and I'm not happy about it.

Originally posted by Serb
Yes, I don't want to defend those regimes, but look closely at your allies. Many of them are not better, Turkey have problems with Curds, Saudi Arabia is not a democracy at all.

Turkey and Saudi Arabia differ in one very important area. They haven't launched massive wars against their neighbors. They also are not embarking on WMD programs, nor have they been fighting a low intensity conflict against the U.S. (Well not Turkey anyway).

Originally posted by Serb

Then take U.N. mandate and act legetimaly. If you'll do so, you will recive absolutely different attitude. I wanted to said that USA must act in accordance with international laws, otherwise USA actions are illegal and count as agression.

That assumes that we can get one. With Russia, China and France on the security council it's not easy. Another problem with a U.N. mandate is that it has led to the present situation in Iraq. The dictators who make up a majority of the U.N. are not keen on seeing precedents being set for the removal of regimes (because of human rights especially) under U.N. auspices because they could be next. Many people in the U.S. as well as Bush sr.'s administration wanted to take Saddam out in '91. Bush felt that some operation was better than no operation and went ahead.

Originally posted by Serb
How do you think, there are no diplomatic means left to solve this problem? As for me, South and North showed a slight progess in atempts to reunion. I am not sure that South ready to support USA in war against North, as I see it they prefer to find peacefull solution. May be I'm mistaken, but I'm not sure that Dear Leader's regime is one foot in the grave. And also not sure about Gulf War scenario, the climate in N.Korea more close to Vietnam then to deserts of Iraq.

It seems fairly obvious to me that NK has broken their word on their agreements with the Clinton administration. This was an issue of some controversy even during the apologist Clinton administration, and Clinton finally decided to not go to NK personally at the last moment. Bush has taken a tougher line immediately upon taking office. It is his belief (and mine) that you have to be absolutely ruthless with NK or they will rob you blind. The same opinion is held by the main opposition parties in SK.

I can tell you have never been to Korea, it is nothing like Vietnam. It is very mountainous, with hot summers and cold winters.

Gotta go.

[MattHiggs]

Economically speaking ....

[Lefty Scaevola]

Originally posted by Serb
Excuse me, are US forces already leave Balkanes?

And a lot of USAians are not happy with that. Tens of millions of us strongly wanted to leave taking care of the various Serbian genocide attempt, Albanian nationalism, and related conflicts to the Euro weenies. We have very little strategic interest in the regions, we are much farther away and have a greater appearence of being "busybodies" in that region, and many of us would be happy for a situation to show how useless and impotent the Euro weenies are when dealing with such problems. If I had been making decisions, I can guaran-damn-tee that there was nothing that could have motivated me to decide to intervene in the Kosovo part of thoses debacles. The Bosnian/Croatain/Serbian horros are a somewhat different matter, but I would have strongly resisted direct involment in combat operations, and all in country ground operations.

[Roland]

Originally posted by Lefty Scaevola

Tens of millions of us strongly wanted to leave taking care of the various Serbian genocide attempt, Albanian nationalism, and related conflicts to the Euro weenies.

Funny thing is, the EU did not want you nutjobs in this. But you had to get in, of course, for... uhm, well, as discussed above, nobody actually knows why.

[GeneralTacticus]

But we do not have any proof that for example N. Korea’s government is connected to Al-Qeda or any other terrorist’s organization.

As a matter of fact, the NK Govt IS a terrorist organization (or at least it controls one). In 1988, they sent spies to bomb an airline from Saudi Arabia to SK, and killed over 100 people. In 1984 or so, they bombed a shrine in Burms where the SK President Chun Doo Hwan was going for a ceremony. 16 ppl were killed. As has been said, they've commited other acts of terrorism and breaches of the cease-fire too, but these are probably the worst examples.

Well, may be, except Koreans. As for me, they are ready to fight for the death for their Dear Leader.

I assume you must mean the North Koreans. I'm sure the South Koreans would be very happy to see North Korea fall and be incorporated into the South. The North Koreans aren't allowed to learn anything about anything except what the commie propagandists want them to. I think that North Korea should have been eliminated long ago. And I agree that if the US went to war with NK, there would be no way the North could hold out for even a month (and that's being very generous). Their economy is going to pot, their people are starving, and they have no significant allies at all.

[Fidel]

well for once i kinda know something about the topic (wrote a dissertation on extraterritorial application of laws).
you have to be careful when attacking us for perceived extraterritoriality. first, it might be the case that a situation is unregulated and that it is not economically viable to regulate it, but rather to leave it to the states to battle out their 'muddy entitlements'. secondly, virtually every western state now emulates us extraterritorial approach to some extent. the scope of that varies in accordance with economic and political might, and self-restraint is a result of historical heritage (japan) or taking a stupid high moral ground (UK).

i can bet you anything that in 10 years EU will be as unilateral and stubborn as us is now. e.g. witness monti's initiatives and dealing with boeing and microsoft. and it will go on...

[DanS]

"What is innovation ? How do you measure the US share ?"

At least a couple of ways to measure it. One is the share of technology patents issued in the US. The total numbers have gone up quite quickly since '87 (15 years ago). However, the US share of these patents has been steady, 52% in '87 versus 54% in '00. Japan's share has stayed steady, even while their economy has faltered, 20% in both instances. Germany's share has plummeted. 9.5% to 6.5%. It appears that Europe's share is down pretty much across the board, with some small exceptions like Finland, which is kicking some major ass.

http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ido/oeip/taf/all_tech.pdf

Another way of looking at it.



China's share is about one-tenth of one percent, as is India's.

You can insert the normal blah about internet patents here.

[DanS]

Another way of looking at is by the # of peer-reviewed articles per 100K pop.



Sweden does particularly well in this metric. The US # went down, but that might be due in part to population growth. Also, these are across-the-board numbers, so the US is pretty muscular because of population.

[Roland]

IT patents... like the "link" ? Ok, "patents filed" - maybe everyone should "file" a few to make the stats look better (and get the patent attorneys some fees).

Peer-reviewed articles - where is the definition ? You can do funny things with that. I know, I'm active in uni research evalutaion... : puke :

And bloody hightech yankees. The pdf file crashes my browser. Oh wait, that's microcrap internet exploder....

LOL. And netscape too. Is the file that huge ?

[Bereta_Eder]

Well at least in the EU in order to get a patent for example in software you must prove that you have invented something new... (and no in the US it is not like that. You just have to prove that you have made even a minor imrpovement/change to get the patent )