That might be the only thing Nixon did right. Diplomatic relations with the PRC were long overdue, no matter how wretched the folks in Beijing might be.
That would require going through China, and China being the ones to threaten the stick as well. Which means you’d have to make China want a united Korea over the continuation of the Kim regime. I’d assume that would require rock solid guarantees on US forces not crossing the current border(except maybe for that initial huge aid distribution campaign) with a schedule for drawdown or even total withdraw of US forces from the peninsula. Would that be enough for China? Would the South Koreans go along with that?
I mean, it’s not a serious proposal ready for Geneva talks, or anything. Just a general half-assed idea.
The fact that we’ve lived with what amounts to a gun pointed at South Korea’s head for three-quarters of a century or so seems mind boggling, but it does go to show how difficult solving this sort of problem can be.
I wasn’t trying to be critical of your idea, it lines up with my thinking on the only realistic non-violent way that situation ever resolves! Was just expanding a bit on what kinds of things it might take to get China on board, which would assuredly require making them comfortable that a united Korea on their borders would not mean the US on their borders. And frankly, I think that’s an entirely justifiable position for China to take.
Absolutely. Think what we may of Beijing’s foreign policies, it makes sense for them to oppose US bases on their border. If South Korea was to absorb the North–an undertaking that I suspect would make the reunion of the Germanies look like an elementary-school project–it would have to be with caveats like no US bases north of the current DMZ, or even a removal of most US forces/bases period.
North Korea is almost as hard a problem to solve as peace in the Middle East.
But Venezuela shouldn’t be, it is in our hemisphere so still part of the Monroe doctrine. (Which of course is imperialistic throwback and therefore shouldn’t mentioned in polite company.)
There is pretty obvious solution get rid of Maduro and replace his government with a the democratic elected one. I’m guessing that almost all Latin American countries governments would be happy if this happened. I suspect probably a majority of the people in Latin America would agree. I don’t have to guess what the people Venezuela think they’ve voted and are protesting.
Yet I don’t hear anybody talking about how to make this happen why not?
What you say is probably true–and certainly, the Maduro government is pretty bad. But effecting the sort of changes you talk about is far from easy.
For one thing, the track record of externally-imposed regime changes, so to speak, even when in theory the local populace would benefit and even wants such a change, has not been good. I suspect that the only way to do something like this is to offer relatively low-key (that is, not ham-handed) support to indigenous opposition groups. But that, too, is problematic, as the groups most likely to be effective in overthrowing a government are usually the exact ones we don’t want running the country afterwards.
tl;dr, the Venezuelans have to do it themselves. Can we help? Probably, but not in the “send in the Marines” sort of way for sure.
They would not trust us to do it, given our history.
Also this would be more difficult than getting rid of Noriega. We’d probably get four digits of casualties.
Is this worth 1,000 American lives and one Trillion dollars?
Fair enough. I guess I’d like to see the OAS step up and do more, some type of peace-keeping force, or armed election observers.
I suppose another possibility is we help the opposition in the armed forces, get rid of Maduro. An activity which would almost certainly be highly classified. This is just one of those times that single bullet hitting the right target could save a lot of lives.
It sometimes seems that way. Sometimes, maybe, it even is that way. The number of times that it goes sour though makes me hesitant to go that route though. But in theory, sure.
Sure… if we had a history of making countries stable. We have in fact done an immense job of making the countries around us unstable, or making their instability worse.
If we want to ‘fix’ Venezuela, let’s try and help Central America and Mexico ‘fix’ the drug trade as a test run. If that’s totally beyond us (spoiler: it appears to be), how could we possibly figure out what to do to help Venezuela (or Chile, or Bolivia, or Argentina, ect).
Actually, less crazy than you think. I don’t know if you were aware of it (you probably were!), but your proposal is not too far off from the Ibrahim Prize, given to African leaders who respect democratic norms and leave power.
Word is Putin has shipped in Wagner brigades to bolster the dictatorship. Nothing says a free election like not releasing the vote tallies and foreign troop deployments. Maduro had to puppet himself to keep breathing years ago and looks like Putin is protecting his investment the usual way. Venezuela is becoming another example about how Putin is really adept at waging asymmetric war.
It seems like Wagner Group have had people in Venezuela since 2019. It’s not clear to me that the people ‘spotted’ now are newly deployed, or the same trainers / bodyguards that have been there all along.
Not to worry, we have this fucking dingbat.
I think it’s more of a symbolic thing than anything else. If Maduro loses the army, a few Wagnerites won’t make a difference.
Much like Kim Jong Un, he should be able to keep paying the army. The question is whether it’ll be enough to keep him in power.
Right now it looks like the generals are falling in line, but it’s hard to tell in these kinds of situations, because if they’re planning on executing him on Monday, they’re probably not gonna put that on social media today.
I guess it comes down to whether Wagner is there to keep the “people” in line or the Generals. They’ll say the former while they protect Maduro and keep the Generals at bay. We’ll see.
They’re there to make sure the spice—er, oil flows.
Actually, I was not aware of that, so thank you for the info! That is fascinating!
Now, I wonder, can I convince someone I am a deranged dictator who needs to be bought off? I promise, for a Porsche, a small mansion on Washington or Oregon coast, and a lifetime supply of Costco salted mixed nuts, I will give up my reign of terror!
Ooh, I never would have thought of that framing, I would have totally gone with Venezuelans. Thanks!
Heh, I can’t count the number of times my English-trained ass was corrected on stuff like this by Ecuatorianos. It’s a bit stuck in my head now, I admit it.