Base and Superstructure

Alienation, autonomy, and ideology

Category: Foreign Policy (Page 3 of 3)

These are posts on foreign policy from the blog Base and Superstructure. Unfortunately left-wing foreign policy is largely locked out of the mainstream press and culture. These posts are mostly overviews of foreign policy issues in specific parts of the world.

Israeli-Palestinian Conflict 101

April 8, 2019 /

The Gaza-Israel conflict is heating up as the Israeli elections approach. And Netanyahu is threatening to annex the West Bank. I’ve been following the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict pretty closely for about a decade and a half, but I rarely post about it.

Why?

There’s no point in beating around the bush. Most writing on the topic is terrible. Politics, religion, and/or ideology lead authors to ignore background conditions, distort historical facts, and misstate even the most basic aspects of the conflict. As a result, writing about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict is often pointless.

This is all rather polite. What I’m saying is that commentary on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict is full of some of the most untruthful, disingenuous, asinine nonsense imaginable. Many people are simply talking out of their ass.

Not that this wasn’t a fun intro to write.

My aims here are pretty modest. I’ll give a very basic orientation to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Sort of like what I did with North Korea. Who’s involved? What’s it about? I’m not going to do much in the way of offering solutions. That said, I think getting clear about what’s going on is a great start. And it’ll leave most people better off than where they started.

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North Korea Policy 101

March 25, 2019 /
North Korea arirang

Source: Roman Harak (https://www.flickr.com/photos/roman-harak/5015832858)

We know Trump eats up most of the news cycle these days. Not much foreign policy gets through unless it’s about Russia. But there have been a lot of developments in relations between the US and Asian countries, particularly North Korea.

It’s all over the map. No pun intended.

I also think much of the US left still needs basic orientation around foreign policy issues. A few well known analysts (e.g., Noam Chomsky) talk a good game, but even Noam focuses on details that might not be helpful for beginners.

I’m writing about North Korea in this post. But at a broader level, I’m going to write a series of 101 level posts on foreign policy in the coming months. I’ll write in a way that doesn’t require the reader to have much prior background.

In these posts, I won’t hash out every minor detail. Nor will I solve every problem. It’s more about getting down the basics about what’s happening and how to reason through issues regarding the US’s relationship with the world.

My leading questions are: what are these conflicts really about? What are the underlying issues and interests at stake?

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