Quite possibly.
This is one pretty basic example.
This is one basic example, referring, among other things, to maintaining the status quo of international norms that the USA generally supports and considers beneficial to its interests, norms which Russia's actions violate, and if left to be violated with impunity, would encourage others to violate them.
US national interests are best served by stopping Vladimir Putin in Ukraine
As Ukraine defends itself against a full-scale Russian invasion, continued American support is not only the morally correct position but also in the national interests of the United States, writes Steven Pifer.www.atlanticcouncil.org
Other refer to simple fact of Russia and USA being rival, if not hostile powers, a state of affairs that is really hard to question and is unlikely to change anytime soon, and as such, Russia failing in its actions, as described here, before the war, is in America's interest.
U.S. Strategic Competition with Russia Is Here to Stay
Competition between the United States and Russia occurs at many levels, from the military arena to the economic, political, and social realms. A review of 58 RAND reports on this topic highlights major findings and explores key aspects of the deteriorating U.S.-Russia relationship.www.rand.org
And yet others mention that as Russia loses its military power, credibility and economic influence in Ukraine, US position in any future geopolitical rivalry with China gets better, as the ability of Russia to mount an effective distraction in Europe or provide meaningful support to China in other ways gets ground away, allowing USA to focus more effort and attention on China, without needing to consider as many possible alternative scenarios under the title "but what will Russia do in the meantime?", if Russia loses ability to do much at all.
The Realist Case for Arming Ukraine - The American Interest
Realist arguments against arming the Ukrainians may seem unassailable. But that is only because they are incomplete.www.the-american-interest.com
As i would sum it up in most concise terms, Russia's attempt to rebuild a great power status by hook or by crook successfully would in no way be a good thing from US perspective, as it is no secret how would Russia wield such influence (we can see things like vote records in UNSC), and it definitely would not be in support of US global policy.
On the other hand Russia failing in this means loss of influence, the harder, the bigger such loss, which again, is more often than not at odds with US global policy.
Is it in USA's interest for its rival powers to have more, or less global influence?
And the circumstances in Ukraine are such that USA and its allies can inflict significant loss of power and influence on Russia at an exceptionally efficient cost-effect ratio.
Wasting such an excellent opportunity to harm a rival power would be unforgivable.
Sure, the moral argument support material interests.
Hm, it seems to be a plausible enough statement. We currently buy into such a general claim: If I sold China into slavery to aliens, I think everyone on this board would agree to that as some sort of betrayal to the human race, even if it didn't negatively impact my country. Or if someone paid me a $100 dollars per Russian orphan shot, that carries more moral weight than shooting cows. There's a general sense of humans having a fair degree of moral weight.
Plus we still have some lingering concepts of Hostis Humani generis. And outlawry in general.
"Since classical antiquity, pirates have been held to be individuals waging private warfare, a private campaign of sack and pillage, against not only their victims, but against all nations, and thus, pirates hold the peculiar status of being regarded as hostis humani generis, the enemies of humanity. Since piracy anywhere is a peril to every mariner and ship everywhere, it is held to be the universal right and the universal duty of all nations, regardless of whether their ships have been beset by the particular band of pirates in question, to capture, try by a regularly constituted court-martial or admiralty court (in extreme circumstances, by means of a drumhead court-martial convened by the officers of the capturing ship), and, if found guilty, to execute the pirate via means of hanging from the yard-arm of the capturing ship, an authoritative custom of the sea.[2] "
So, we already have some concepts of rights and duties of the international community, its just there's a government in this case laying claim to the representation of Humanity. Piracy in fact is probably one of the few law enforcement functions in primary Federation jurisdiction, and not something the Federation ideally only gets involved in if the 3-4 layers below it fail in some way.
The existence of separatists doesn't really matter to the claim overly, merely its practical legitimacy. You probably do have roughly 4 levels of good standing though. Something like:
1) Civilized: in conformity with civilized standards and fully integrated.
2) Uncivilized: Not in full conformity with civilized standards and thus not fully integrated, but not without rights either.
3) Outlaw: your not defended by the law.
4) Enemies of Humanity: The Federation has a duty to move against you.
For property rights concerns, we would be mostly concerned about Civilized people, and maybe some cases of uncivilized people.
So far so good.
Its more an explanation of the principle, namely local closer governments have more authority than further ones.
Well, yes, and the tax split gives some rough idea of the more general level of responsibility. It also preserves a fair degree of actual representation: the superiority of unaccountable high level bureaucrats over local representatives seems, questionable. Governments are also assumedly quite free to work together, maybe with some limits.
Keep in mind that, assuming the EU aligns with a great power level with a 3% income claim, would be granting it a claim to $480 billion, a 3x increase in funds. So, this represents a centralization over where the EU currently is. The Federation would have claim to about as much revenue as the EU currently does, roughly $160 billion. The States collectively at the 5% rate would collect about $800 billion.
So, EU revenue in the top 3 levels would be:
Federation: $160 billion
EU: $480 billion
EU States: $800 billion
Those are not particularly small pots of money. From there people can negotiate, as you do in representative and federal system. Federation probably has many non-European concerns it needs to spend money on, say famine in a poorer region, but maybe the EU can offer a 40/60 split on costs for EU food aid: EU spends a billion if the Federation spends $1.5. This way, the Federation gets $1 billion more food aid, while the EU keeps $1.5 billion domestically.
Or if the EU wants to upgrade the train system, they may lean on the Federation to get some technology import program to bring in experts on some foreign superior train system to train the locals on, EU can then put $10 billions into the starting capital of the factory to build the new train factory and set up workshops in various universities to train on the new skill, and then pressure/bribe the EU states to collectively cough up $300 billion dollars for the general infrastructure costs.
Who of course can then lean on the collective $1.12 trillion in regional revenue. Maybe do 25/75 splits State/regional (after all, the locals are going to be the most direct beneficiary of the improved rail: they have the most to gain, the most interest in seeing it done well, and the most awareness of it if it done well). Who can then lean on the local governments with their collective $1.44 trillion in revenues to bear some of the costs. Maybe local revenue can pay for upkeep.
And if anyone refuses the deal, well, part of federalism and democratic principles is that locals can say no: Maybe Poland thinks its current train system is fine, and doesn't want to risk messing up a good thing. Maybe the EU government is useless and Poland doesn't believe that cooperation with the EU scheme will yield good results even with the money thrown at it. They'd prefer to get the new tech directly than work through the EU. Maybe the EU is just putting a bad deal on the table, and they won't put up their own money until given a better deal.
The fact that people can say no means value has to be actually provided, and taxation limits means there's limits to how much poor management can be compensated for by just raising taxes.
Lets narrow it to just Polish governments at these tax rates, given an economy of $716 billion
Federation: $7.16 billion (1%)
EU: $21.48 billion (3%)
Poland: $35.8 billion (5%)
Provinces: $50.12 billion (7%)
Municipalities: $64.44 billion (9%)
So, the government itself unambiguously has a right to $35.8 billion as a duty.
The only other free source of money is relying on people's virtue. People can't be coerced to give more money, but they can donate them of their own volition, or maybe saving bonds may be considered virtuous (probably a point of debate). Probably could raise reasonable revenue there, especially in an emergency, but that's especially sensitive to maintaining good public will.
Getting more revenue requires making deals. For example, Polish State train system may make sense. Ideally fees can cover a fair bit, but maybe not, or subsidizing makes some sense. Money can be gained from above: EU and even maybe the Federation have money that can go to trains. Deals can also be made with the provinces: if there is general faith in the rail system, the provinces may simply contribute to the general rail fund as the best use of their money. Or they may be more individual and bilateral agreements. However, these are deals/industry agreements, not duties. They're continuation depends upon results.
If the national Polish Train company turns into a complete disaster, well, obviously all the dues paying customers are likely to start going away, but eventually the Provinces can also rebel and withhold their money unless things are fixed. And of course the EU and Federation have their opportunities to withdraw their support too...
Independence, but to get the most of it, one needs to look above and below too.
I mean, this is just politics, I'm not sure why your adding medieval to it. Do you think the Polish State government never goes around the Provence level governments to the district level? Or the EU never circumvents the Polish State by going directly to more local or less formal routs? Or how the US used England and Poland in its historical disagreements with the EU?
The above sounds more or less as the system working as intended, depending upon how much turmoil were talking about. The Federation's mandate would at least in part be defending the States against the EU: a super national group that some state being tyrannized or abused in some way by the EU can appeal to for relief.
Obviously, a government also has a general obligation to not abuse its subjects, and for the Federation that would include the EU and the EU member States. Federation would thus undermine its mandate if it regularly formented civil war in otherwise peaceful and functional regions for base political advantage.
Hm, this depends a bit though on what's the bigger risk: some great powers forming a power block, or a great power falling into civil war?
Lets use this map for the regions. Well use current global GDP of roughly 100T for ease of use, and to maintain reference.
First, federation with 1% taxing authority is, well, $1 trillion in revenue.
Total great power revenues direct at 3% is $3 trillion. broken down by the 9 regions given we get: (GDP/revenue), Trillions/billions
North America: 28/840
South America: 3.2/96
Africa: 2.7/81
Europe: 25/750
Middle East: 3.8/114
South Asia: 4.1/123
East Asia: 26.5/795
South East Asia: 5.6/168
North Central Asia: 0.9/27
This is obviously very unequal. Big three here represent some 80% of global wealth. The Federation would be in a more secure position if they were broken up a bit more.
Still, not necessarily a death kneel either. First obviously, if the cohesiveness of the population extended up to the Federation level itself, more of that wealth will end up in Federation control anyways. If say $500 billion of that $1 trillion budget is spent on 40/60 spending splits with the big two, then the Federations real spending power is closer to $1.75 trillion, compared to the great power direct revenue of a collective $3 trillion.
Now, if the two largest powers here, the US and EU are in alliance against the Federation, and China is neutral to it, the Federation is obviously in trouble, but that's somewhat a given when, well, 80% of the world wealth is against you or indifferent.
The federation to get to this level though has to have at least some legitimacy to have developed the authority to impose $1 trillion in global taxes, so I'm not so sure its fatal. And of course there's the option as you suggested earlier to go lower.
If the EU is about to do something immensely destructive to the peace, like go off on its own to conquer Africa, well, even in this lopsided situation someone able to direct hundreds of billions of dollars against that action can cripple that (and the US and China seem unlikely to be totally neutral to that). But, the Federation can also go straight to Germany and go "are you really so sure about this whole thing?".
In a Federal system based on consensus, you can be immensely powerful when that trust and consensus exists, but if you do something controversial, that consensus can also collapse. The legwork on stopping Hitler 2.0 is keeping the groundwork that a Great Power doing something stupid just, vanishes when the subsidiary states withdraw their consent. The goal of the federation is in part to limit the freedom to unilaterally act: either against the global consensus, as represented by the Federation, or against the will of the people, as represented by local governments.
When something may be counter Federation and uniformly popular enough in that Great Power's domestic situation, you get more into the realm of simple wise leadership: post 9/11 for example, the Federation doing nothing is simply not an option: the US is too powerful to be ignored, or worse denied. However, US here is morally the most powerful regional power, not the Global policeman. That's the Federation.
The Federation can thus commit to the Afghanistan War, as the leader of the international response: maybe 30% Federal, 30% American, 30% European, 10% the Middle East Great Power, who is also embarrassed by this whole thing. This allows Americans to get their revenge, while also making clear this isn't US Empire building. Federation might even be able to use this to build up a local region that's probably generally a problem as one of the Great Powers made of people who hate each other.
Perhaps this gives cover and justification for the Federation to commit 20-30% of its Budget to the Middle East, 200-300 billion a year, Federation Empire building in a problem area rather than having to re-invest it all in the already richest areas to keep on side. Or one of many other gains.
Mostly to show that even with an immense imbalance, that doesn't necessarily matter: even given immense US power, the Federation can maneuver things to its advantage too in such a situation.
