Why would China rivalry be required for the present imperialism vis-a-vie Venezuela?
Venezuelan refugees, ill-defined drug war justifications, combined with Rubio's anti-communist hawkery seem to be the proximate excuses for the attempted resource grab. For those, the power differential could be enough and at times has been enough. It is also a terrible idea by every criteria, but that's neither here nor there.
The literal madness with Greenland probably does require China rivalry. The intent seems largely to be to break NATO and arrange a Russia pivot against China, so i will concede that point. But while China will be included on the motivations for nearly every US policy choice, it is pretty low down the priority list for Venezuela justifications.
The imperialism didn’t start with Trump 2.0, it started with inter-imperial rivalry. The re-activation of the Monroe Doctrine has benefits (oil extraction, regime overthrow, etc) but what justified it to the MAGA intellectuals was the need to assert US domination over the Hemisphere IN RELATION TO China--an imperative that makes no sense as a random proposition but is the logical conclusion of an already-existing inter-imperial rivalry. Also the focus on natural resources extraction and supply chains has only ever mattered in relation to Sino-US rivalry
Copy, but the MAGA intellectuals work for the Czar. If he trades Taiwan for some other thing he cares about, they would gin up a rationale for that too. Maybe rivalry with the EU to be sure, but the causal relationship is not driven by any particular rivalry.
You're correct about the buzzwords chosen for the Western Hemisphere section of the NSS. But the President has been explicit that he thinks we should have kept the oil in Iraq. A neo-royalist mindset explains many of these moves parsimoniously. Alternately, per Galston, the domination is the point.
If we somehow ever got papers on the decision making process, I would eat my hat if fears about China were more prominent in arguments swaying the President than fears about immigration. Likewise, I bet a textual analysis of his statements would find the same (albeit with drugs appearing first).
Fair points (the neo-royalist thing is at once not wrong and problematic, but I owe a separate analysis on that). But it sounds like you’re thinking in terms of a hierarchy of motivations for the imperialist choices. I’m trying to suggest that approaching it that way misses the larger point about the structural force driving whatever motivations we might assign to Trump. Where does empire come from? Not from the random whims of a king or a royalist mindset; it comes as an answer to a structural problem--impulse meets opportunity. Mindsets must shift in order to respond to that problem with imperialism, but the root isn’t in a man’s mind.
Why would China rivalry be required for the present imperialism vis-a-vie Venezuela?
Venezuelan refugees, ill-defined drug war justifications, combined with Rubio's anti-communist hawkery seem to be the proximate excuses for the attempted resource grab. For those, the power differential could be enough and at times has been enough. It is also a terrible idea by every criteria, but that's neither here nor there.
The literal madness with Greenland probably does require China rivalry. The intent seems largely to be to break NATO and arrange a Russia pivot against China, so i will concede that point. But while China will be included on the motivations for nearly every US policy choice, it is pretty low down the priority list for Venezuela justifications.
The imperialism didn’t start with Trump 2.0, it started with inter-imperial rivalry. The re-activation of the Monroe Doctrine has benefits (oil extraction, regime overthrow, etc) but what justified it to the MAGA intellectuals was the need to assert US domination over the Hemisphere IN RELATION TO China--an imperative that makes no sense as a random proposition but is the logical conclusion of an already-existing inter-imperial rivalry. Also the focus on natural resources extraction and supply chains has only ever mattered in relation to Sino-US rivalry
Copy, but the MAGA intellectuals work for the Czar. If he trades Taiwan for some other thing he cares about, they would gin up a rationale for that too. Maybe rivalry with the EU to be sure, but the causal relationship is not driven by any particular rivalry.
You're correct about the buzzwords chosen for the Western Hemisphere section of the NSS. But the President has been explicit that he thinks we should have kept the oil in Iraq. A neo-royalist mindset explains many of these moves parsimoniously. Alternately, per Galston, the domination is the point.
If we somehow ever got papers on the decision making process, I would eat my hat if fears about China were more prominent in arguments swaying the President than fears about immigration. Likewise, I bet a textual analysis of his statements would find the same (albeit with drugs appearing first).
Fair points (the neo-royalist thing is at once not wrong and problematic, but I owe a separate analysis on that). But it sounds like you’re thinking in terms of a hierarchy of motivations for the imperialist choices. I’m trying to suggest that approaching it that way misses the larger point about the structural force driving whatever motivations we might assign to Trump. Where does empire come from? Not from the random whims of a king or a royalist mindset; it comes as an answer to a structural problem--impulse meets opportunity. Mindsets must shift in order to respond to that problem with imperialism, but the root isn’t in a man’s mind.