Shocked by the Biden administration's (lack of) response towards the #COVID19 crisis in ๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡ณ? Stunned that export constraints are taking priority over humanitarian assistance?

Don't be. ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ has a long history of being an a**hole in foreign policy.

[THREAD]
I'm not going to recount every instance in history.

But suffice it to say, they are not all from the Trump era
bloomberg.com/news/articles/โ€ฆ
Instead, let's recount instances where the US refused economic assistance (via exporting a good or providing financial relief) to an ally (formal or nominal) in a crisis.

Those are cases most similar to ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡ณ relations at the moment: ๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡ณ is a nominal ally (via the Quad).
Indeed, since folks seem fond of using US economic and foreign policy efforts during World War I and World War II to describe US #COVID19 response, let's draw mostly on those: after all, they were pretty big crises.
So here are the "Top 5 A***hole moments of ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ Foreign Policy" during World Wars I and II.
#5: While the US ultimately continued to supply wheat to the allies during World War I, there was a BIG push for a wheat export embargo. The argument was, "how can you feed starving Europeans when prices are rising at home"
jstor.org/stable/3741259โ€ฆ
#4: The Marshall Plan was great, but in the immediate aftermath of World War II, the Truman administration's response to the dire economic conditions in Europe was ๐Ÿคทโ€โ™‚๏ธ: abruptly cut off lend-lease, force ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡งto negotiate a new loan.
tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108โ€ฆ
#3: During World War II, ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ compelled ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง, who was in the midst of desperately holding off Nazi Germany, to grant full control of bases as payment for destroyers...but then gave ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง decrepit destroyers the ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ was going to decommission anyhow.
cfr.org/blog/twe-rememโ€ฆ
#2: Refusing to forgive inter-allied loans following World War I. ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ didn't need the money and there was concern that insisting on repayment could destabilize Europe. The Wilson administration even refused to discuss them during the Paris Conference.
online.ucpress.edu/phr/article-abโ€ฆ
#1: Not relaxing immigration controls to allow thousands of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution to enter the US.
smithsonianmag.com/history/us-govโ€ฆ
Returning the issue of ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ #COVID19 assistance to ๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡ณ, it now appears (๐Ÿคž) that action will be taken
So while the US government can be an a***hole, it's also the case that, as Churchill allegedly said, "Americans can always be trusted to do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted.โ€

[END]

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More from @ProfPaulPoast

24 Apr
This is precisely why we (as in ๐ŸŒ) can't *just* "tech" our way out of #COVID19
twitter.com/i/events/13856โ€ฆ
We feared "Vaccine Nationalism" a year ago.

Vaccine nationalism is precisely why efforts like ๐Ÿ‘‡ are liable to fail.
Read 6 tweets
22 Apr
@Noahpinion's latest substack illustrates an important general lesson for how ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ approaches "Great Power Competition" w/ ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ณ: don't ignore "small states"

[THREAD]
noahpinion.substack.com/p/ally-with-viโ€ฆ
Noah's article focuses on ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ-๐Ÿ‡ป๐Ÿ‡ณ relations, directly comparing ๐Ÿ‡ป๐Ÿ‡ณ to the major regional powers in the "Quad": ๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡ณ๐Ÿ‡ฏ๐Ÿ‡ต๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ‡บ (+๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ)
cnn.com/2021/03/11/asiโ€ฆ
Sure the Quad is important, but ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ณ is also already in rivalry (๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ‡บ), a simmering territorial dispute (๐Ÿ‡ฏ๐Ÿ‡ต), or full-on conflict (๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡ณ) with each of those members.
Read 18 tweets
18 Apr
With the `clashy' phrase "Anglo-Saxon" trending the past few days, I decided to take a look at the American First Caucus policy platform.

Wow, this group has indeed read way too much Huntington.

[THREAD]
punchbowl.news/wp-content/uplโ€ฆ
Just to clarify, by "clashy" I'm referring to Samuel Huntington's definitely not-not-racist tome "Clash of Civilization"
amazon.com/Clash-Civilizaโ€ฆ
When I teach about Clash, I don't shy away from the racism underpinning it
Read 15 tweets
16 Apr
Both Biden & Trump announced Afghanistan troop withdrawals. Biden this week and Trump back in February 2020.

Is the media coverage of the two announcements similar or different?

If different, how and why?

[THREAD]
...and my flippant remark about that thread
Read 31 tweets
10 Apr
Is the "Democratic Peace" a stronger scientific finding than the link b/w smoking & lung cancer?

That's the claim made in this new @IntOrgJournal paper. Let's unpack it.

[THREAD]
cambridge.org/core/journals/โ€ฆ
Before diving into the paper's specific claim, a few prefacing points.
First, to make sure we're all on the same page, the democratic peace is the claim that democracies rarely fight one another. The below thread covers the history of this "empirical law", reviewing work that I cover in my "Quantitative Security" course

Read 55 tweets
7 Apr
Have questions about the new "Jan 6 Capitol Attacks" study by my @CPOST_UChicago colleagues? Please see their slide deck laying out the methodology and analysis:

d3qi0qp55mx5f5.cloudfront.net/cpost/i/docs/aโ€ฆ Image
My methodological take?

Seems like a useful initial set of results. Image
In case you are wondering, they don't appear to "select on the DV" (they considered counties and states that did AND did not produce insurgents) ImageImage
Read 5 tweets

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