Egypt’s parliament votes in support of expelling Israel’s ambassador

[Tamas]

"geopolitical and security reasons"

What if I say: the UK or Germany is not needed to be invaded for those reasons because you can work together with them without direct steering of their government - due to being in the same culture group in a world which is largely defined by those grand cultural borders.

[The Minsky Moment]

What if I say: the UK or Germany is not needed to be invaded for those reasons because you can work together with them without direct steering of their government - due to being in the same culture group in a world which is largely defined by those grand cultural borders.

The problem is that being in the same "cultural group" for than 1000 years didn't prevent those nations and others in that group from bloodletting each other on a horrific scale for almost that entire period.  That they do not anymore is testament only to the fact that the experience of the two world wars, plus the experience in Germany of the benefits to a peaceful, open democractic regime after one was forced upon them, led all relevant participants to conclude that the gains from peaceful cooperation far exceed any benefits to defection.  Cultural affinities may help reach that position, but they are neither a pre-requisite nor an assurance - just one of many potentially applicable factors.  The cultural affinities between English/Scots and Irish are and were at least as great as between say English and Bavarians, yet violence in Northern Ireland continued long after conflict between the latter seemed unimaginable.

From the POV of America invasion of the UK or Germany at present is inconceivable; the same would be true of invasion of Poland, Finland, India, Japan, or the Phillipines, to take a few random examples.  Cultural borders have little to with it. 

[Zanza]

Schengen is part of the acquis communitaire. France can't unilaterally withdraw in a legal way except by leaving the EU.

I thought you disagreed when I made this argument about EMU.  But I imagine Sarko would negotiate an opt-out over the year and, being France, I wouldn't put it past them to do something unilaterally and then require the rest of Europe to catch up.  Which Europe would because no-one would really want to lose France.

I disagreed on the de facto, not the de jure argument. De facto, if France wants to end Schengen, that would be done without them leaving the EU because the rest of the EU has major benefits to everybody regardless of Schengen or not. But legally, there is currently no such provision, so it would need something new.

[Razgovory]

You guys have a real weird thing going with the EU.  So much ambiguity.

[Zanza]

Could be that I am completely wrong, but the situation in the EU is a bit like what your "states rights" Americans want for your country too.

[Razgovory]

Could be that I am completely wrong, but the situation in the EU is a bit like what your "states rights" Americans want for your country too.

I don't think many go that far.  Your EU is somewhat similar to the Articles of Confederation, the government structure we had before our current one.  Turned out not work, and was scrapped.  The current system had it's flaws and a certain amount of ambiguity that led to a Civil War.

[DGuller]

Could be that I am completely wrong, but the situation in the EU is a bit like what your "states rights" Americans want for your country too.

Slavery?

[Malthus]

Could be that I am completely wrong, but the situation in the EU is a bit like what your "states rights" Americans want for your country too.

Slavery?

Well, mass enslavement *would* be a possible answer to the Greek financial problems. 

[Sheilbh]

I don't think many go that far.  Your EU is somewhat similar to the Articles of Confederation, the government structure we had before our current one.  Turned out not work, and was scrapped.  The current system had it's flaws and a certain amount of ambiguity that led to a Civil War.

I know very little about Schengen, the UK's not in it so it doesn't bother us. 

The basic principle is that EU law is supreme and even if a national constitution is in breach of EU law then the constitution gives way.  But EU law only involves certain areas, mainly to do with the four fundamental freedoms (goods, people, capital and services) but not much outside of those and I think all EU states have reaffirmed that the state is sovereign.  So in UK terms EU law is supreme and has effect because the British Parliament has said so, I think the French Conseil d'Etat and German Constitutional Court have said similar things.

So I suppose there is some ambiguity in that the EU isn't sovereign.  It's got an autonomous legal order that is observed by EU states, but ultimately it derives its power from the membership and acquiescence of sovereign member states.

But I think part of that is part of the inevitable tension of different visions of Europe.  The French like inter-governmental deals, the Germans like independent institutions and a legal system, the British want to tear the whole thing down

[grumbler]

I don't agree as "tribal competition for power/avoidance of domination" is just a traditional political power struggle.  Conflicts between self-identified tribes in these areas do not have any cognizable cultural basis I can discern, much less a conflict stemming from a "cultural fault line"

You cannot have my point.  These conflicts are of long-standing duration, and Huntington does not propose that, at the moment of the collapse of the USSR and the ideologically-based-conflict-regime, all conflicts came to a halt and everyone sang Kumbaya together.

Huntington argues, IMO, that cultural differences have replaced ideological differences as the source of new conflicts in the world.  Unless you are arguing that the tribal competitions for power in Africa were ideological, then they are not related to Huntington's thesis.

Under what definition of "cutlure" are these cultural conflicts?  I can't think of one that has any useful limiting content to it that would encompass these conflicts.

Culture is the prism through which one views the world, as established by one's upbringing.  The whole "Army of the Lord" thing is cultural, not economic.

The US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan were done primarily for geopolitical and security reasons, although economics did play a role in Iraq.  They can very easily be fit within traditional frameworks of traditional national interest power politics along the lines of the kinds of similar interventions conducted throughout the 19th and 20th centurie, without having to postulate a "conflict of civilizations."   

I am not sure what your point is, here.  All international conflicts are engaged in "primarily for geopolitical and security reasons."  Governments deal with international economic issues "primarily for geopolitical and security reasons."

Huntington argues that the conflicts that will shape the future will occur for cultural reasons, not ideological ones. He is essentially arguing that, with the end of the Cold War (which was neither cold, nor a war), ideology has passed as the source of new conflicts, and has been replaced. 

You are not addressing Huntington's thesis, as I understand it. I don't think he is arguing that existing conflicts have been transmuted.

Note that culturally speaking, Taliban-ruled Afghanistan and Baathist Iraq could scarely be more dissimilar.  I don't see how cultural differences are an explanation why the US invaded those countries, but at the same time, did not invade Iran or Syria, and allied to Saudi Arabia and Egypt. 

I don't see how this applies to Huntington's thesis.

I don't think you and I have anything like the same takeaway from Huntington's book.  I have stated what i think his thesis is.  What do you think his thesis is?

[Zanza]

The basic principle is that EU law is supreme and even if a national constitution is in breach of EU law then the constitution gives way.

But EU law only involves certain areas, mainly to do with the four fundamental freedoms (goods, people, capital and services) but not much outside of those and I think all EU states have reaffirmed that the state is sovereign.  So in UK terms EU law is supreme and has effect because the British Parliament has said so, I think the French Conseil d'Etat and German Constitutional Court have said similar things.

EU law can not infringe on the basic human rights of our constitution. And as most EU law is only implemented via a normal law, not via international treaty, it has a lower rank than the constitution anyway.

[The Minsky Moment]

These conflicts are of long-standing duration, and Huntington does not propose that, at the moment of the collapse of the USSR and the ideologically-based-conflict-regime, all conflicts came to a halt and everyone sang Kumbaya together.
Huntington argues, IMO, that cultural differences have replaced ideological differences as the source of new conflicts in the world.  Unless you are arguing that the tribal competitions for power in Africa were ideological, then they are not related to Huntington's thesis.

Huntington's argument is that "civilizational" cleavages are to be the critical source of new conflicts in the world.  That is a pretty silly argument, especially when civilizations are defined the way that he does in his Foreign Affairs article.  Your variant argument has the benefit of being more sophisticated, albeit at the cost of being even more vague (culture can be a pretty broad grab bag).

The fact that neither neither can explain most of the conflicts on the African continent is a problem because Africa has been the most single most conflict prone area of the world since Huntington first set forth his thesis in 1992.  To the extent that Huntington purported to be setting forth a theory about clashes of civlizations replacing other causes as a source of conflict, the fact that most conflicts in the 20 years since don't fit the theory is not a ringing endorsement for its viability.

Culture is the prism through which one views the world, as established by one's upbringing.  The whole "Army of the Lord" thing is cultural, not economic.

As I suspected, this is hopelessly broad and vague.  An individual's view of the world, even if limited to viewpoints that arise in the course of one's upgbringing, is shaped by many factors, including nationality, ideology, confession, class identification and material interest, among other.  Just about anything can be fit into that concept, including just about any conflict in history.  Both the American and French Revolutions, for example, could easily qualify as cultural under this definition. 

It's also not clear to me in what sense the LRA is asserted to be a "cultural" phenomenon.  It appears at first glance to be constructed out of a varied pastiche of different ideas and influences.  If one defines "culture" in terms of being an organic set of outlooks, beliefs and behaviors ascribed to a identifiable sub-group of people, I don't see how the LRA can be qualified as a cultural phenomenon other than tautologically - ie by asserting that the LRA is "cultural" because those who make it up have defined a separate culture by virtue of adhering to it and identifying with the movement.

All international conflicts are engaged in "primarily for geopolitical and security reasons."  Governments deal with international economic issues "primarily for geopolitical and security reasons."

Huntington argues that the conflicts that will shape the future will occur for cultural reasons, not ideological ones. He is essentially arguing that, with the end of the Cold War (which was neither cold, nor a war), ideology has passed as the source of new conflicts, and has been replaced. 

You are not addressing Huntington's thesis, as I understand it. I don't think he is arguing that existing conflicts have been transmuted.

I don't think you and I have anything like the same takeaway from Huntington's book.  I have stated what i think his thesis is.  What do you think his thesis is?

All this gets to the same point.
My understanding of Huntington's thesis come from his 1993 Foreign Affairs article.  I never read the book and it is possible the thesis was altered significantly.

However, in the FA article he sets out clearly in the very first paragraph that he is rejecting, among other notions, "the return of traditional rivalries between nation states," and "the decline of the nation state from the conflicting pulls of tribalism and globalism."  He then goes on to argue that although he believes the nation state will remain the principal actor in world affairs, that in the future "intra-civilizational" conflicts between nation states will be replaced by "inter-civilizational" conflicts between nation states or groups of states belong to different civilizations.

As a theoretically matter, the thesis is fatally flawed because Huntington's very concept of a "civilization" is hopelessly confused and reduces to a massive exercise in question begging.  Empirically, it has been devastated by the fact that no matter how one defines "civilization," most of the conflicts in the last 20 years don't appear to be civilizational in nature, but the same kinds of traditional conflicts that have been going on between nation states since they were invented, with the same kinds of motivations.  Most have been intra-civilizational, and those that have not been, have been cross-civilizational in Huntington's terms.

So the theory makes little sense and the facts don't bear it out.  What else need be said.

[Razgovory]

Could be that I am completely wrong, but the situation in the EU is a bit like what your "states rights" Americans want for your country too.

Slavery?

Well, mass enslavement *would* be a possible answer to the Greek financial problems. 

I doubt many Europeans would pay to have a Greek come and live with them.

[grumbler]

To the extent that Huntington purported to be setting forth a theory about clashes of civlizations replacing other causes as a source of conflict, the fact that most conflicts in the 20 years since don't fit the theory is not a ringing endorsement for its viability.

I think this is where we differ.  I don't think Huntington is claiming that clashes of civilizations replace all other causes of conflict, just that it replaces the clashes of ideology we saw fueling so many Cold War crises.

If, indeed, Huntington is claiming that his clash of civilizations is replacing all other sources of conflict, then I agree with your assessment.  In fact, i would go further and say that, if that is what Huntington is claiming, then his theory is a silly theory that should never have made it into print.

[Malthus]

Could be that I am completely wrong, but the situation in the EU is a bit like what your "states rights" Americans want for your country too.

Slavery?

Well, mass enslavement *would* be a possible answer to the Greek financial problems. 

I doubt many Europeans would pay to have a Greek come and live with them.

I guess "rent-a-Greek" isn't going to be as popular as: http://www.rentageekinc.com/