You factored them in in an incoherent way. “John is wrong about China, a place he knows too little about, so he thinks the opposite of what he says about Israel/Russia, which happens to be correct, but he cannot mean the correct things he says, because he is wrong about China.”
But go ahead. Have the last word:
I think you are taking past me and, in doing so, arguing with a point I’m not trying to make. I’m not denying that John comes from a Reganaught chud worldview in the capitol of chud economics and foreign policy taking the chud-jingoist side of America needing to be in charge of everywhere. In many ways I find listening to him sort of like listening to say Chas Freeman. They are both on team America and have major blind spots. But they analyze American problems through a framework that no longer exists within the regime. It’s why they depart so vehemently from the government’s approach to Ukraine and Israel. And understanding how a realist approaches questions from within the US framework rather than the Liberal Crusaders who actually run the country has value in better understanding why the US is failing in all of its stated goals and risking nuclear war and how US institutional logic transformed following the end of the Cold War.
And this is where I think you are incorrect about John’s take about Israel. While the US uses israel as you describe, John’s criticism is that this is the wrong horse to back if the desire is to accomplish the goal. While he still speaks from a place of wanting US domination (which I am not defending) the realist framework he employs leads him to conclude that this strategy is wrong and a different one would be right. And he has been fairly consistent in everything I’ve seen on that subject for the past year.
he’d make policy recommendations fed by his theory
I don’t know if you’ve actually heard anything he’s been saying for the past 2 decades but he has been making policy recommendations regarding russia and Israel this whole time and they are pretty straight forward: when Russian says that eastward expansion of nato will be seen as an existential threat that they will respond to accordingly, you should take them seriously and negotiate a deal rather than continuing to expand nato eastward; that by refusing to do so the US undermines its entire network of alliances in Europe who, as has happened, are not suited to use the military solution on Russia and will suffer collapse as a result. And with that collapse and insistence on military solutions to the exclusion of all others, the US destroys the strategic strength it built up through its network of alliances for 75 years (which he is particularly invested in).
Similarly with Israel, he was basically right that by doubling down on supporting Israel no matter what would result in the total collapse of any possibility of creating a stable situation in west Asia the US could control.
I don’t necessarily agree with most of his China analysis - I don’t think he has a good base of understanding of China the way he does with the former Soviet Union and Palestine - so he basically stars from the premise that what US leaders say about China is true, that it is a threat to the US. From that assumption, he says the US is misallocating its resources and strategic alliances.
In any case, what makes his analysis at least worth understanding is not that he has a great vision for what is best for the world. Instead he is one of the few establishment people from team America that actually tries to apply old-school rational analysis to US strategy.
So again, I’m not defending his America-first positions. But I am saying that saying that he is just the same as the liberal-hegemonic establishment is not correct. And saying he has made no policy proposals that would materially differ from the establishment is just not accurrate seeing as there is ample documentation of exactly what he has been proposing, particularly vis-a-vis Russia and Israel for at least 20 years and it has been to do the opposite of what the US has done.
I haven’t been following him too closely recently and maybe something has changed but I don’t think his analysis of either Russia or Israel tracks with that. He says supporting Israel and Ukraine in this way is against US interests because the US loses its ability to have overwhelming control in these places and destroys the strategic positions the US has accumulated for decades. He straight up said that from a US realist perspective, supporting Israel in this way is destroying americas control over west Asia and the oil and trade resources it provides.
I agree the his perspective is always that of the US state department because he sees himself as a continuation of the intellectual circles that support a country’s strategic policy and his team is the US (there is a reason the map in his office still has the USSR on it - he is nostalgic for a time when us strategic planners actually acknowledged that their opponents were powerful and sophisticated and it took sophisticated planning to counter them).
But to argue that the man who wrote the book on how AIPAC has systematically pulled the US into making choice after choice that is against its strategic interest up to and including the point at which the US loses the strangle hold it has had on the west Asian petroleum complex is the same as the US administrations who continue to do the things he says is destructive does not really hold water.
I think John would disagree that they are as realist as him, at least when it comes to Russia (and Palestine) since they are doing the opposite of what he’s been saying to do on Russia for at least 20-35 years and he is one of the most vocal critics of the US role in Israel. Realism isn’t just “attack everyone”. It also includes looking at the situation from the other sides perspective from a realist analysis and trying to most effectively play one’s cards to systematically advantage the larger strategic picture. And his major criticism of us policy with respect to Russia is that they refuse to treat Russia as a legitimate power with its own legitimate interests. Instead, he would say, that the US are just crusaders who feel like they have a right to possess everything and destroy everyone and will pursue that goal even though it leads to their own self destruction, which is what’s happening in Russia and in Palestine which is why, despite his faults and frustrating takes, John has been saying US policy in both of those spheres has been completely wrong.
It’s basically a fucking crusade at this point.
The Russians shit my pants!
You recall correctly. And he specifically identified his close relationship with Zionists and getting them Palestine as evidence.
You don't think the hostages should be returned when all Palestinian hostages are returned and the genocide is ended? If you read that entire statement and your takeaway was “anti-resistance liberal Zionism” on the same day they shut down the New York stock exchange you either need to take a deep breath or you are just in here to be a wrecker.
If you hear the plane you are already in the clear (for that plane)