Military might depends either on domestic retention of a skilled machine tools workforce (as Iran has) or the mass import of a skilled foreign machine tools workforce (as Russia did before 2022, their munitions industry was the Siemens corporation's single biggest customer).

Look at the example of the failed munitions plant in Texas in the last two years for what happens without either of the above.

▲

FloorEgg 17 hours ago | parent [-]

Do you think it's reasonable to say that since at least around the 1970s, on net, the people running the United States have been consistently trading power for greed?

▲

OgsyedIE 16 hours ago | parent | next [-]

No, I think that's a hopelessly reductive interpretation that mistakes stupidity for malice.

Since arguably the 1940s the people running the United States have been consistently trading power over the domains they consider illegible and confusing for power over the domains they consider tractable and familiar, under elite job market conditions where they are incentivised to know as much as possible about abstract court politics and the manipulation of language and as little as possible about the real world.

Even right now, you see the Trump family, the various oligarch families in the cabinet, fiddling the figures, stealing and enabling mass disasters, they are doing what they believe is right and good while having horrific delusions.

Two excellent primers on this, albeit with more of a focus on the parallel problem in the EU establishment than the US, are below:

https://aurelien2022.substack.com/p/not-getting-it-together

https://aurelien2022.substack.com/p/starting-from-zero

	▲	FloorEgg 15 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> Since arguably the 1940s the people running the United States have been consistently trading power over the domains they consider illegible and confusing for power over the domains they consider tractable and familiar, under elite job market conditions where they are incentivised to know as much as possible about abstract court politics and the manipulation of language and as little as possible about the real world. My question was grounded in ignorance and curiosity. Appreciate the response, gives me a lot to think about. Cheers
	▲	grebc 16 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I’d take the re-election of Trump to mean the US isn’t a serious society/people anymore. I don’t say that lightly, and it’s certainly not just the US that has that problem either. Australia, where I live, is infected with it.

▲

Zigurd 16 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Another really weird take. While George HW Bush was hardly a great president, he did manage to not fumble the liberation of Eastern Europe at the end of the Cold War. I think he's underappreciated.

	▲	FloorEgg 10 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		He and his son appointed three of the supreme Court justices who ruled in favor of citizens United, which seems like a massive tradeoff of us hegemonic power for corporate greed to me... When I said leadership, I didn't mean just the president, but all those with the most power and influence leading the country. Presidents, senators, Congress, supreme Court justices, Federal department heads, etc. It seems like the things that made america powerful have been chipped away at over decades. Maybe it's just a lifecycle playing out and inevitable?
	▲	ahartmetz 13 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Obama were OK, too. Clinton probably overrated, but not bad.
	▲	15 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		[deleted]