What alternative would you prefer? Maybe another foreign conflict, which benefits fucking no one and is a massive drain on a country with so many internal problems anyway?
How about...neither? It's not an either/or proposition. We haven't had a war with North Korea or Russia yet, so why do we have to think that's suddenly on the table now?
Then again, what would the alternative you prefer be, and how would that impact the global situation? I do want to know how you think things would play out if the US didn't have even diplomatic relations with these countries.
Ugh. Putin, Kim, and to a lesser extent Xi aren't communists, they are dictators. The real idea of communism has never been practiced, as it's physically incapable of being practiced. It makes for a nice guise.
If you really truly want to discuss the epistemological semantics of the term and philosophy of communism I can. In a practical sense, they are communists, and all but one (Putin), is a member of a formal Communist Party, and Putin was once head of the KGB, which is really about as communist as one can get. Sure, theres a wide gulf between late-Soviet, Maoist, Korean, Cuban, Titoist, utopian, etc etc, communism, but that really is just splitting hairs.
They all have one thing that separates them from actual communism and always has: communism has no governing body, as a governing body forms classes, which is the antithesis to the entire fuckin' thing.
A hippie commune is FAR closer to communism <_<
The governing body of utopian Marxism (which is really what you're describing) is the proletariat; everybody is the governing body. Each communist government, from the early Bolsheviks to the Cubans now, knew they could never really hope to achieve that, so they created the Soviet, or council, system in it's stead, with the idea being that representatives of smaller Soviets would meet in a larger council. It worked exceedingly well in Russia until about 1930 or so.
No, not really. I think you're focusing too narrowly on the original definition instead of looking at the practical application. Marx never really left a roadmap to or communism; that was mostly thought up by Engels and Lenin, who adapted it from earlier socialist thinkers. What I'm trying to say is: it was the interpretations and adaptations of his work that make it important.
But every interpretation violates one very clear intent that was made, literally a pillar of the ideology: a classless system. That's like nationalizing food production and claiming you have a free-market. Just because you call it a free-market doesn't make it one. North Korea claims they are a Democratic People's Republic.... Anyone with a brain knows that's a bunch of bullshit.
We would have had to pay interest on those frozen assets, and we would have gotten nothing in return.
It may piss you off, but it was a good deal for everyone involved, had it been adhered. Btw, they didn't break the deal, we did.
A hippie commune is FAR closer to communism <_<
It may piss you off, but it was a good deal for everyone involved, had it been adhered. Btw, they didn't break the deal, we did.