For a lot of the questions I felt like none of the available options are how I believe things should be handled, since B was largely about self-interest, and C was a bit too aggressive and...
For a lot of the questions I felt like none of the available options are how I believe things should be handled, since B was largely about self-interest, and C was a bit too aggressive and hawkish. For question 6, "Engage where it matters, not everywhere”, was most in line with my own feelings on how things should be handled overall... but only if what "matters" isn't purely self-interest, it's upholding human life, rights, and dignity, and "engage" was not the military kind (unless it's to help defend against an aggressor, a la Ukraine). So something between B and C was what I wanted to answer for most of them, but that wasn't an option.
Yeah, I agree. It felt like there wasn't a progressive strategy available. I ended up with 7/8 as Liberal Hegemony but disagreed with the language and framing of nearly all of them.
Yeah, I agree. It felt like there wasn't a progressive strategy available. I ended up with 7/8 as Liberal Hegemony but disagreed with the language and framing of nearly all of them.
What would a progressive grand strategy look like to you? IR is generally kind of a conservative (not in the US politics way, mostly) field, so I’m curious to hear about other alternatives
What would a progressive grand strategy look like to you? IR is generally kind of a conservative (not in the US politics way, mostly) field, so I’m curious to hear about other alternatives
I guess I'm thinking of a "rising tide buoys all boats" type strategy. Like... has the most progressive answer of But my take is that they matter to address issues that require international...
I guess I'm thinking of a "rising tide buoys all boats" type strategy. Like...
How do you see IGOs, international institutions, and norms?
has the most progressive answer of
They matter because they socialize states, support cooperation, and help spread democratic norms.
But my take is that they matter to address issues that require international cooperation or support states that don't have the resources to support the initiatives themselves.
I think most of the answers are focused on guiding, or sometimes undermining, states across the globe. I think there could be a progressive focus that looks at how to support states that consistently struggle with manageable issues - i.e. water quality, transportation infrastructure, education, etc - while disincentivizing or preventing predatory behavior either by states or corporate entities.
Many of the "stabilizing" behaviors conducted by the US are destabilizing for the country we apply them to. Imagine a world in which our domestic policies are illicit behaviors - drugs, prostitution, etc - were managed so that cartels didn't have the capital to run the campaigns of terror that they do. So working in tandem with foreign entities to address core issues (i.e. use of drugs domestically) vs symptoms (dealers) then we'd see benefit both to the US and to the other countries we'd develop those policies with. The question off the back of it becomes "then where do you get your cheap labor" and to that I say we need to pay the actual value of goods.
I think in this version the US probably couldn't maintain as lavish of lifestyle because right now we're subsidized by the poverty of the rest of the globe. But I think the outcome would be better for most folks in the US and globally, but probably not the top 20%ish.
Came here to say the same thing. There's an underlying bias in the questions about the use of power that I disagree with. Maybe that is naive, but that is why I'm a software engineer and not a...
Came here to say the same thing. There's an underlying bias in the questions about the use of power that I disagree with. Maybe that is naive, but that is why I'm a software engineer and not a foreign policy wonk.
I'm American, so I'm kinda used to being the "Arsenal of Democracy," even if we haven't always and sometimes still aren't always spreading and maintaining democracy (sigh). Even at home (double...
Liberal Hegemony
You believe a major power should lead in upholding a liberal international order, promoting democracy, and strengthening institutions and alliances. Activism abroad is necessary to prevent instability and support liberal norms.
A (Isolationism / Restraint): 0 B (Selective / Deep Engagement): 2 C (Liberal Hegemony): 5 D (Conservative Primacy): 2
I'm American, so I'm kinda used to being the "Arsenal of Democracy," even if we haven't always and sometimes still aren't always spreading and maintaining democracy (sigh). Even at home (double sigh).
Some of these were tough to answer, because I believed in multiple answers.
I think this would be a more interesting quiz if it wasn't so black or white. If you could rank the answers and then get scored that way, with some other categories of strategies. That said, I don't know much about IR grand strategies, so maybe these are the only strats.
Definitely not the only strats, and you're right that it would be better if it wasn't so black and white (though to be fair, this quiz was designed as a fun introduction to a lecture)....
I think this would be a more interesting quiz if it wasn't so black or white. If you could rank the answers and then get scored that way, with some other categories of strategies. That said, I don't know much about IR grand strategies, so maybe these are the only strats.
Definitely not the only strats, and you're right that it would be better if it wasn't so black and white (though to be fair, this quiz was designed as a fun introduction to a lecture). Practically, the only people who strictly adhere to just one of the categories are likely going to be academics or single-issue debaters, not many policymakers are that ideologically principled. For instance, I got 5 selective engagement 4 liberal hegemony; much less adherent to selective engagement principles than my test result suggests.
A personality quiz made by my international security TA for fun. Placed this in ~misc since the grand strategy branch of IR is pretty academic and theoretical, but maybe belongs in ~society. I got...
A personality quiz made by my international security TA for fun. Placed this in ~misc since the grand strategy branch of IR is pretty academic and theoretical, but maybe belongs in ~society.
Selective deep engagement but like others lots of “doesn’t exactly map to my views”. To over summarize my main thoughts are: If your country cannot defend itself it exists at the permission of its...
Selective deep engagement but like others lots of “doesn’t exactly map to my views”.
To over summarize my main thoughts are:
If your country cannot defend itself it exists at the permission of its rivals. Magically whipping up a massive military to defend CAN’T be done so some amount of preventative spending/work must be done to maintain agency.
Natural borders and strategic alliances help, but at the end of the day if you can’t defend yourself you are at the whim of an aggressor. Hong Kong is an easy recent example.
Nukes ensure safety (various examples of either side Ukraine/NK/Iraq/Iran/Pakistan/Israel), but projection of force becomes something to think about because of things like Taiwan (be it morally or pragmatically) and globalism and allies and other stuffs.
Ideally force is a method of last resort still and conflicts RARELY map easily to moral vs immoral .
Just because some people don’t want to just invade everyone and expand forever doesn’t leaders don’t feel that way. Most of human history was rampant expansion and it’s always been checked by military force up until nukes, and again even still.
More so we like to map values and ideals on cultures and issues most don’t even really understand. Swooping in with your massive military or destabilization plans just leads you to down the line problems. All nations have horrible bloody histories and even theirs were often influenced by the larger powers of the time, but pragmatism has always played a bigger role than morals (sooooorta).
Point being that you are probably better served staring at raw pragmatism on your decision making because “oh these are the good guys” is rarely an option.
Double so when it’s “these are the good guys so we’ll send OUR citizens to die for them and spend OUR resources”.
Despite all this I do hope for humanity to first principles its way to something better. There’s a lot of cynical “but did you know actually this country does bad thing’s” in the popular discourse but the a very objective truth is things ARE better for humanity.
That doesn’t mean it’s perfect or that it’s good but it does mean that there’s been progress, which is huge given that statistical issues you run into. Let’s be clear in that if living sacrifices to a God actually produced results we’d have factories for it, so the fact that society has sorta shifted towards “well if everyone isn’t in hell all the time things get better for everyone” is kinda amazing in itself.
And yes I realize that some of those gains are on the backs of others and it’s not ok but also not that simple either. There are gains simply from societies with better standards of living being able to improve and innovate productively and spread.
The hope is this is not a historical bubble and we don’t just devolve back into even worse states of global standards, and as such I think some level of military is a must. I’m not going to say that ANY country has the right idea or is perfect but I also think the “oh fuck a war would be horrific for us and our mutual enemies and allies would loot everything once the dust settles” stalemate has helped things in the long run.
I am of the opinion that when two irresponsible people start fighting to the point of bleeding, others should step in, prevent further violence and help them resolve their differences more...
I am of the opinion that when two irresponsible people start fighting to the point of bleeding, others should step in, prevent further violence and help them resolve their differences more productively.
There is absolutely no reason to treat nations differently.
It is disgusting on multiple levels to start cheering for one and hand it a bigger stick, especially when you are already making plans for next week with the other one.
The issue here is that individualist liberalism has become so ingrained most people now believe everyone should resolve their issues on their own, asking for help is weakness someone will exploit and that exploiting others is just, because they are simply not competent enough and thus deserve it.
I used to have hope for United Nations peacekeeping until I scratched my head and realized that not only does every permanent member of the U.N. Security Council have nuclear weapons, they all...
I used to have hope for United Nations peacekeeping until I scratched my head and realized that not only does every permanent member of the U.N. Security Council have nuclear weapons, they all profit from international arms trading. The U.S. has repeatedly failed to meet its funding commitments, as have most other wealthy nations. In any case, the U.N. is far too underfunded and factional to provide effective coordination of peacemaking and peacekeeping.
Globalist capitalism doesn't help either. You'd think that globalism works best when the business environment is stable and predictable. Too bad that isolated conflicts in low-consumption nations with weak trade ties are considered inconsequential losses. States of hot or cold war with nations that don't trade extensively are just a cost of doing business, as long as weapons can cross borders relatively unimpeded.
Like you I am very skeptical of UN peacekeeping, but for different reasons. Arms sales in the sorts of countries that receive UN peacekeeping missions are really insignificant on a global scale -...
Like you I am very skeptical of UN peacekeeping, but for different reasons.
Arms sales in the sorts of countries that receive UN peacekeeping missions are really insignificant on a global scale - I don't think it incentivises UNSC members to not try. There's a really good book called Merchant of Death about Russian arms trafficker Victor Bout that describes how Bout was able to arm both sides of multiple African conflicts, basically by himself. We're talking about tens to hundreds of millions in arms for a conflict, which sounds like a lot until you consider that one S400 battery costs half a billion dollars.
I think it has more to do with the near-impossibility of stopping these conflicts. What is the UN really supposed to do, you know? They have no offensive mandate (or ability) and can't make belligerent parties do anything.
The circumstances when UN peacekeepers are useful seem kind of limited. They don't create peace, but might help avoid conflict breaking out again if both sides agree. They're probably good to...
The circumstances when UN peacekeepers are useful seem kind of limited. They don't create peace, but might help avoid conflict breaking out again if both sides agree. They're probably good to have?
Please ignore this comment I've just fallen into a well known trap! Grumpy old non-US anarchist commentator This was upsetting in so many ways! I'm not going to tear it apart because I understand...
Please ignore this comment I've just fallen into a well known trap!
Grumpy old non-US anarchist commentator
This was upsetting in so many ways!
I'm not going to tear it apart because I understand it was made in a very specific context for specific reasons.
Even though I understand the above paragraph it is fantastically upsetting how narrow minded the quiz is especially since it obviously is made in some kind of introductory teaching context.
I deleted my first comment (that I wrote after just reading the first question), because I realised it was out of context and wouldn't contribute meaningfully to the conversation. But then I read the rest of them and my blood boiled, so here we are:
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrggggggghhhhhh! I hate this quiz and the world that made this quiz possible!!! There, I said it!!!
I may or may not be over correcting on behalf of the US. I certainly wouldn't describe myself as Isolationist though. Just stay the fuck out of other people's business until it's clear that it...
I may or may not be over correcting on behalf of the US. I certainly wouldn't describe myself as Isolationist though. Just stay the fuck out of other people's business until it's clear that it poses a direct or global threat. But like...participate in the global stage like a sane nation.
Also I feel like an idiot for expecting this to give me an answer like "You're Crusader Kings 3, if the politics aren't in your border, who gives a shit and what can you do?". Definitely took "Grand Strategy" as "Grand Strategy Game" :)
Isolationism / Restraint
You prefer focusing on domestic priorities and avoiding deep entanglements abroad. You’re wary of costly foreign wars and skeptical that international institutions or liberal projects reliably serve the national interest.
Your answer breakdown:
A (Isolationism / Restraint): 5 B (Selective / Deep Engagement): 1 C (Liberal Hegemony): 3 D (Conservative Primacy): 0
For a lot of the questions I felt like none of the available options are how I believe things should be handled, since B was largely about self-interest, and C was a bit too aggressive and hawkish. For question 6, "Engage where it matters, not everywhere”, was most in line with my own feelings on how things should be handled overall... but only if what "matters" isn't purely self-interest, it's upholding human life, rights, and dignity, and "engage" was not the military kind (unless it's to help defend against an aggressor, a la Ukraine). So something between B and C was what I wanted to answer for most of them, but that wasn't an option.
Yeah, I agree. It felt like there wasn't a progressive strategy available. I ended up with 7/8 as Liberal Hegemony but disagreed with the language and framing of nearly all of them.
The options are absolute and have no accounting for any complexity. These would be too simple for a game of Age of Empires, let alone the real world.
What would a progressive grand strategy look like to you? IR is generally kind of a conservative (not in the US politics way, mostly) field, so I’m curious to hear about other alternatives
I guess I'm thinking of a "rising tide buoys all boats" type strategy. Like...
has the most progressive answer of
But my take is that they matter to address issues that require international cooperation or support states that don't have the resources to support the initiatives themselves.
I think most of the answers are focused on guiding, or sometimes undermining, states across the globe. I think there could be a progressive focus that looks at how to support states that consistently struggle with manageable issues - i.e. water quality, transportation infrastructure, education, etc - while disincentivizing or preventing predatory behavior either by states or corporate entities.
Many of the "stabilizing" behaviors conducted by the US are destabilizing for the country we apply them to. Imagine a world in which our domestic policies are illicit behaviors - drugs, prostitution, etc - were managed so that cartels didn't have the capital to run the campaigns of terror that they do. So working in tandem with foreign entities to address core issues (i.e. use of drugs domestically) vs symptoms (dealers) then we'd see benefit both to the US and to the other countries we'd develop those policies with. The question off the back of it becomes "then where do you get your cheap labor" and to that I say we need to pay the actual value of goods.
I think in this version the US probably couldn't maintain as lavish of lifestyle because right now we're subsidized by the poverty of the rest of the globe. But I think the outcome would be better for most folks in the US and globally, but probably not the top 20%ish.
Came here to say the same thing. There's an underlying bias in the questions about the use of power that I disagree with. Maybe that is naive, but that is why I'm a software engineer and not a foreign policy wonk.
I'm American, so I'm kinda used to being the "Arsenal of Democracy," even if we haven't always and sometimes still aren't always spreading and maintaining democracy (sigh). Even at home (double sigh).
Some of these were tough to answer, because I believed in multiple answers.
I think this would be a more interesting quiz if it wasn't so black or white. If you could rank the answers and then get scored that way, with some other categories of strategies. That said, I don't know much about IR grand strategies, so maybe these are the only strats.
Definitely not the only strats, and you're right that it would be better if it wasn't so black and white (though to be fair, this quiz was designed as a fun introduction to a lecture). Practically, the only people who strictly adhere to just one of the categories are likely going to be academics or single-issue debaters, not many policymakers are that ideologically principled. For instance, I got 5 selective engagement 4 liberal hegemony; much less adherent to selective engagement principles than my test result suggests.
A personality quiz made by my international security TA for fun. Placed this in ~misc since the grand strategy branch of IR is pretty academic and theoretical, but maybe belongs in ~society.
I got selective/deep engagement
Selective deep engagement but like others lots of “doesn’t exactly map to my views”.
To over summarize my main thoughts are:
Natural borders and strategic alliances help, but at the end of the day if you can’t defend yourself you are at the whim of an aggressor. Hong Kong is an easy recent example.
Nukes ensure safety (various examples of either side Ukraine/NK/Iraq/Iran/Pakistan/Israel), but projection of force becomes something to think about because of things like Taiwan (be it morally or pragmatically) and globalism and allies and other stuffs.
Just because some people don’t want to just invade everyone and expand forever doesn’t leaders don’t feel that way. Most of human history was rampant expansion and it’s always been checked by military force up until nukes, and again even still.
More so we like to map values and ideals on cultures and issues most don’t even really understand. Swooping in with your massive military or destabilization plans just leads you to down the line problems. All nations have horrible bloody histories and even theirs were often influenced by the larger powers of the time, but pragmatism has always played a bigger role than morals (sooooorta).
Point being that you are probably better served staring at raw pragmatism on your decision making because “oh these are the good guys” is rarely an option.
Double so when it’s “these are the good guys so we’ll send OUR citizens to die for them and spend OUR resources”.
Despite all this I do hope for humanity to first principles its way to something better. There’s a lot of cynical “but did you know actually this country does bad thing’s” in the popular discourse but the a very objective truth is things ARE better for humanity.
That doesn’t mean it’s perfect or that it’s good but it does mean that there’s been progress, which is huge given that statistical issues you run into. Let’s be clear in that if living sacrifices to a God actually produced results we’d have factories for it, so the fact that society has sorta shifted towards “well if everyone isn’t in hell all the time things get better for everyone” is kinda amazing in itself.
And yes I realize that some of those gains are on the backs of others and it’s not ok but also not that simple either. There are gains simply from societies with better standards of living being able to improve and innovate productively and spread.
The hope is this is not a historical bubble and we don’t just devolve back into even worse states of global standards, and as such I think some level of military is a must. I’m not going to say that ANY country has the right idea or is perfect but I also think the “oh fuck a war would be horrific for us and our mutual enemies and allies would loot everything once the dust settles” stalemate has helped things in the long run.
I am of the opinion that when two irresponsible people start fighting to the point of bleeding, others should step in, prevent further violence and help them resolve their differences more productively.
There is absolutely no reason to treat nations differently.
It is disgusting on multiple levels to start cheering for one and hand it a bigger stick, especially when you are already making plans for next week with the other one.
The issue here is that individualist liberalism has become so ingrained most people now believe everyone should resolve their issues on their own, asking for help is weakness someone will exploit and that exploiting others is just, because they are simply not competent enough and thus deserve it.
To hell with this kind of liberal world order.
I used to have hope for United Nations peacekeeping until I scratched my head and realized that not only does every permanent member of the U.N. Security Council have nuclear weapons, they all profit from international arms trading. The U.S. has repeatedly failed to meet its funding commitments, as have most other wealthy nations. In any case, the U.N. is far too underfunded and factional to provide effective coordination of peacemaking and peacekeeping.
Globalist capitalism doesn't help either. You'd think that globalism works best when the business environment is stable and predictable. Too bad that isolated conflicts in low-consumption nations with weak trade ties are considered inconsequential losses. States of hot or cold war with nations that don't trade extensively are just a cost of doing business, as long as weapons can cross borders relatively unimpeded.
Ferengi Rule of Acquisition 34: War is good for business.
Ferengi Rule of Acquisition 35: Peace is good for business.
Like you I am very skeptical of UN peacekeeping, but for different reasons.
Arms sales in the sorts of countries that receive UN peacekeeping missions are really insignificant on a global scale - I don't think it incentivises UNSC members to not try. There's a really good book called Merchant of Death about Russian arms trafficker Victor Bout that describes how Bout was able to arm both sides of multiple African conflicts, basically by himself. We're talking about tens to hundreds of millions in arms for a conflict, which sounds like a lot until you consider that one S400 battery costs half a billion dollars.
I think it has more to do with the near-impossibility of stopping these conflicts. What is the UN really supposed to do, you know? They have no offensive mandate (or ability) and can't make belligerent parties do anything.
The circumstances when UN peacekeepers are useful seem kind of limited. They don't create peace, but might help avoid conflict breaking out again if both sides agree. They're probably good to have?
(Not an expert in this, obviously.)
Please ignore this comment I've just fallen into a well known trap!
Grumpy old non-US anarchist commentator
This was upsetting in so many ways!I'm not going to tear it apart because I understand it was made in a very specific context for specific reasons.
Even though I understand the above paragraph it is fantastically upsetting how narrow minded the quiz is especially since it obviously is made in some kind of introductory teaching context.
I deleted my first comment (that I wrote after just reading the first question), because I realised it was out of context and wouldn't contribute meaningfully to the conversation. But then I read the rest of them and my blood boiled, so here we are:
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrggggggghhhhhh! I hate this quiz and the world that made this quiz possible!!! There, I said it!!!
Probably true, but not super helpful
I may or may not be over correcting on behalf of the US. I certainly wouldn't describe myself as Isolationist though. Just stay the fuck out of other people's business until it's clear that it poses a direct or global threat. But like...participate in the global stage like a sane nation.
Also I feel like an idiot for expecting this to give me an answer like "You're Crusader Kings 3, if the politics aren't in your border, who gives a shit and what can you do?". Definitely took "Grand Strategy" as "Grand Strategy Game" :)