Its interesting. Some argued that 9/11 and its aftermath ( Patriot Act, Snowden and so on ) took a lot the American innocence with it, because it took the mask off.
This would partially explain low recruiting for various US branches and some of the disregard most citizens seem to have for what their government is doing.
What is equally interesting is the inevitable comparison to Russia and 'special operation' happening in Ukraine ( because it certainly is not war ).
Then again.. these days you do not want to voice unpopular opinions and it makes me sad.
<<What is equally interesting is the inevitable comparison to Russia and 'special operation' happening in Ukraine ( because it certainly is not war ).
I suppose it was awkwardly phrased on my part, which invited that comment. Russia's act of aggression is an act of war against Ukraine, but Russia calls it special operation, while US is engaged in various conflicts, which it deems 'anti-terrorism' activity. This is what intended to mean by that sentence.
What is more interesting is that US is now officially in a proxy war with Russia as well.
The US has been in a proxy war in Ukraine since the war broke out in 2014 - we've had CIA training programs since at least 2015 to train Ukranians to fight Russians in the Donbas. The West did not like Putin backing Assad in Syria...
Ukraine is a proxy war and has been since it broke out in 2014 - plenty of evidence to suggest the US was nation building there too under the Obama admin (Nuland Pyatt tapes). Biden and Kerry were all over Ukraine as senators / VP since shortly after the fall of the USSR, and don't forget Ukraine had an IMF loan up for renewal (which was predatory to say the least) in 2013 right before Euromaidan, and Russia was going to bankroll their loan instead. Wouldn't be the first time a coup follows an IMF loan.
Are there examples of these dark/classified programs, with zero constitutional backing, being reigned in by any branch of government? The DoD scope creep seems without end.
So we have no idea what the reasons behind these operations are, and yet people criticize them? That's foolishness.
Well, the replies and downvotes certainly augment the foolishness. Assuming operations in Africa are for keeping countries repressed rather than promoting freedom and justice for those who can't fight for themselves, etc.
The US is not innocent, but through their actions and 100 years of selflessly policing the world it has more good to boast about than any of you. At least it doesn't just sit behind a keyboard judging others and pretending self-righteousness and moral superiority; it demonstrates it.
I would prefer the US now focuses on homeland issues, but making your assumptions and wrong judgment is not something I will do.
Please, explain to us then what the U.S is doing in these countries under these circumstances, why it is kept out of the public's view, and why the motives are entirely good and altruistic.
Foolish? The fact that military operations are happening with no oversight, particularly without the constitutionally required oversight (congress must declare war) is the basis of the criticism itself.
Does a dozen people with guns acting in combat under government orders count as "war"? They are skating on that ambiguity.
It's not unfair, but it just puts the critizers in an impossible epistemological landscape, where the main differentiator between the critizers and the critizees is that the critizers simply know far less relevant detail than the critizees.
If classified programs hide unpopular foreign policy, how can we say that the US public is going to the polls informed enough to make decisions?
One might reasonably argue this is interference in US elections.
These sly actions may have good intent, but people deserve to know if, for example, a rogue administration has ever used the authority against someone they might have simply disliked.
I recently read the book The Jakarta Method and it was extremely eye-opening. I'd previously heard a very abridged account of what happened in Indonesia in the 60s from Chomsky, but this book goes and examines how the same pattern was intentionally repeated by the US in many countries throughout the world. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say the US successfully inflicted a fourth reich on the global south over the course of the 20th century. Any left-wing or labor movements were threatened or actually put down with shocking fascist violence so that the wealth could keep flowing out of the country to the US. Not even necessarily communist movements, just the same social-democratic policies that all the nordic countries were implementing. Things are very comfortable here in the core; all the really sick shit happens abroad and is never reported until decades later in books by academics. We can be certain it still happens to this day: nobody here ever faced any consequences, and the same faces or schools are still in power. And they benefit greatly.
> It is scarcely an exaggeration to say the US successfully inflicted a fourth reich on the global south over the course of the 20th century. Any left-wing or labor movements were threatened or actually put down with shocking fascist violence so that the wealth could keep flowing out of the country to the US.
I don't know if it's the Chomsky talking but this kind of hyperbole taints your argument. While US involvement in Southeast Asia and South America are _far from_ perfect they're even farther from being like a "fourth reich".
The US funded, trained, armed, and supported with propaganda fascist elements in many countries that came to political power and committed mass murders, all for our benefit. Call it whatever you want. "Far from perfect", just lol.
I didn't deny that. I just said calling it the "fourth reich" is hyperbole. Do you honestly believe, without hyperbole, that these actions are on the same level as those committed by the Nazis while they were in power. You know they were responsible for the genocide of millions at an industrial scale, yes?
Is the term “global south” like the term “black and brown people?” A concept that lumps together huge swaths of the world’s population that have nothing to do with each other, and reduces them to subjects in a moralistic rant against Americans/Europeans/whites?
Broadly refers to countries with a history of being colonized rather than a history of being colonizers. There certainly was a racial aspect to colonialism, yes.
So England is part of the “global south” because it was colonized by the Romans? Is India part of the “global south” because it was colonized by Muslims, or only because it was colonized by the British? Is Thailand part of the “global south?”
You can Socrates this definition or you can recognize that it is a useful term for talking about global power imbalances from the latest wave of colonialism that resulted in the global order we see today. You do recognize and accept that such power relationships exist, yes?
I disagree that it's a useful term. It centers white people and Europeans to suggest commonality between myriad different groups of people who otherwise have nothing in common. Moreover, it falsely assumes that interactions between those countries and European powers "resulted in the global order we see today." That's backwards. Europeans were able to engage in colonialism because they were already ahead of those other countries. Just as the Romans were able to conquer Britain and Gaul for the same reason. Even with respect to European colonization, former colonies were left in vastly different circumstances. African countries colonized by the French are vastly differently situated than, say, Singapore or Hong Kong.
Not least of all, insofar as that view strongly suggests that white people and Europeans were the cause of current global power imbalances, they must be the solution. That is a dangerously counter-productive way to view the world. Even if we accept, for example, the theory that Great Britain transferred trillions of wealth from India to itself through colonization, it is a shadow of its former self and will never be able to meaningfully affect the future prospects of India.
I would posit that India should view British colonization the same way Great Britain views Norman colonization: something that shaped the country's past but something of only historical interest going forward. At least in my experience as a Bangladeshi, I think that's how most folks do view it. We don't think of ourselves as being defined by our colonial history. Indeed, my parents (who were born in what was then the British Dominion of Pakistan) have positive as well as negative things to say about colonialism.
I doubt people using the term global south generally believe that the west must be the solution to global power imbalances. At most they might believe their countries should stop meddling in the affairs of post-colonial countries and let them develop on their own without further wealth being extracted. Reparations would also presumably be on the table but that's really a pipe dream given the current state of the discourse, where your average american has zero understanding of how labor organizers halfway around the world being shot are connected to the wealth they see around them.
> I doubt people using the term global south generally believe that the west must be the solution to global power imbalances.
Then why do they use a term that centers the west in describing the majority of the world?
> At most they might believe their countries should stop meddling in the affairs of post-colonial countries and let them develop on their own without further wealth being extracted.
Is the west continuing to meddle in the affairs of India or Pakistan? If not, then what's the point of this term that encompasses them? If you want to talk about African countries dominated by European mining companies, just talk about them.
> Reparations would also presumably be on the table
That's what I'm talking about. Reparations is an incredibly toxic idea as applied to former colonies. As you observe, they will never happen. But they give political cover to bad leadership in developing countries, enabling them to avoid fixing their own problems.
To hear white people tell history these days it certainly seems to be. Though ironically, in the process of doing that they center themselves in the narrative and reduce everyone else to mere foils to be juxtaposed against the moral failings of white people.
I don't agree with your views, but I do agree with this take.
I often hear people use the phrase: "especially effects under represented minorities", which robs those people of agency, portrays them ALL as being X (which is prejudice by definition).
Worst of all the phrase is trotted out like a weapon to accomplish some goal.
It's a shame because usually the people think they're helping
I don't doubt these folks are well intentioned. I think it's just human nature to have trouble seeing past the end of your own nose. The white people taking about "under represented minorities" probably isn't organically immersed in minority communities, but experience them mainly as subjects of their own political, academic, or charitable efforts. That naturally leads them to essentialize those minorities and lump them together.
Moreover, their limited exposure to minorities is often derivative of their interactions with other white people. E.g. someone who grows up in Wisconsin and has little exposure to Muslim immigrants other than as the subject of antagonism by Trump supporters, probably can't help but view those minorities except through the lens of their own opposition to other white people.
> is never reported until decades later in books by academics.
Is never reported in the West until decades later. It's reported with extreme detail contemporaneously by local sources in an extremely easy to access format.
I remember after 9/11, reading accounts by cross Arab/Western people who were reporting in extreme detail, specific grievances that people across the Middle East had with American foreign policy in an attempt to explain but not justify the actions of OBL and all of it being shut down with an almost aggressive ignorance of "they just hate our freedoms" by virtually the entire intellectual spectrum in the US.
Like, you would expect pro-war hawks to simplify the issue but even anti-war bleeding heart liberals often seemed to have zero interest in engaging with criticisms from actual people who would be impacted vs the imaginary people they construct who are convenient to their argument.
Even to this day, if you ask people what was OBL's self-stated reason for 9/11, 99% of people would get it wrong despite this being a purely factual question for which the primary source is trivially available [1]. I bet you, the person reading this comment have a vague idea of what OBL said and your vague notion is pretty significantly wrong.
End all wars. Bring all troops home. Close all foreign bases. Use the budget to empower the citizens. A well regulated militia of you and I for world peace.
> End all wars. Bring all troops home. Close all foreign bases. Use the budget to empower the citizens. A well regulated militia of you and I for world peace.
I think we forget over time and become complacent to the strong possibility that the US maintaining its economic and defense hegemony has generally resulted in fewer people doing bad things. So you go from a generation who used the military might to stop literal Nazis and effectively save the world, to more of a lull where people forget that and start calling for a removal of all foreign bases and a reduction in might, to being smacked by the reality again that bad people predictably do bad things, such as russias invasion of ukraine, and it’s good overall that we have this military might, even if not everyone appreciates it.
> I think we forget over time and become complacent to the strong possibility that the US maintaining its economic and defense hegemony has generally resulted in fewer non-American people doing bad things.
American hegemony is mostly good for the US. Let's not lie about doing 'good' elsewhere. American actions have destabilized many countries and governments to secure and advance American interests. Have American citizens benefited? Probably.
> So you go from a generation who used the military might to stop literal Nazis and effectively save the world.
Follow that up with generations of overthrowing democratically elected governments and fostering civil wars globally.
> to more of a lull where people forget that and start calling for a removal of all foreign bases and a reduction in might, to being smacked by the reality again that bad people predictably do bad things, such as russias invasion of ukraine.
I don't think people want a removal of all naval bases or military presence, just enough to pay for fucking healthcare, teachers, food, bridges, and housing. You know the usual basic necessities for life. I guess killing and maiming people around the world is just easier to do.
> it’s good overall that we have this military might, even if not everyone appreciates it.
That remains to be seen. Tell me that in a few years when we have more guns than food and water.
As always, unless you're colorblind, the world exists in color, not black and white.
I mean, the comment I was responding to literally said, and I quote, “End all wars. Bring all troops home. Close all foreign bases.” So it does seem to me that at least some people want this.
I'm not an history expert, but my understanding when the US entered the WWII and pushed hard to change the tide of war, you could say the US won the war - it gave the US a place in the world stage (with it's responsibilities, but also, some perks).
Would the US be the country it is nowadays if it didn't join WWII? Probably not, it would be a very different world.
Being worse at it than the rest of the Allies doesn’t make it so that the Soviets won the war.
The war for Europe was arguably won in Africa well before any major advances happened in either of the European fronts.
The North African campaign combined with the supplies the US has sent to the Soviets was pretty much the only reason why the Soviets have won on the eastern front.
The Axis and specifically Germany were over extended in Africa and Africa pretty much took all the fuel and air lift capacity Germany had at the time.
The Italian campaign was the nail in the coffin for the Axis in Europe well before D-Day.
And that is if we can ignore the pacific theater altogether.
Generally, the result of US diplomacy and projection of power over the last 50-75 years has been hugely beneficial and highly cost effective for the US. Why does anyone invest in anything? Because they want to see a return. The US has seen this in spades, as have (in general) its allies.
You can see this right now in Ukraine. The US and its allies are busy donating/selling all of their soon-to-expire weapons, their older model (but still good) jets, their brand new weapons. Who benefits from this? Ukraine, now. But also the weapon manufacturers, who represent a non-trivial proportion of the US economy. If Ukraine wins the war, it will be paying off its debts to the US for a century, with interest.
An economic example might be the sanctions it placed on Russia along with its allies. Russia is currently forecasted to see a 20% drop in its GDP this year, probably the single biggest effect of the war (compare to Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria effects on the US). Lots of the sanctioning can only be done because most of the global economy runs on the US dollar, as opposed to the yuan, yen, pound, euro, because the Russian loans are dollar denominated. If someone's putting the pressure on the US in some way, its various investments let it wield some massive clubs.
> If Ukraine wins the war, it will be paying off its debts to the US for a century, with interest.
Can you provide a source for the claim that the bulk of US military aid to Ukraine is in the form of loans that will have to be repaid? I'm skeptical because tens of billions in government spending has been authorized for that purpose.
Allow women in Afghanistan to live under horrible conditions under an oppressive ultra-Islamic regime. Strange how everyone forgot about that one as soon as the yellow/blue flag became a meme.
I don't think it's forgotten, it's just not mentioned as much in the media. You may claim that "if it's not in the media, it as good as forgotten", but I don't agree with that.
In fact we keep seeing the outcomes of it still in the media.
Do you? Contacts in Afghanistan are sharing videos of people being whipped / beaten in the streets. And it reportedly gets much worse. I haven't seen anything about this mentioned in Western media.
This is reminiscent of how war protests in my liberal city stopped suddenly as soon as Obama was elected, and never restarted though he bolstered troop levels (initiated surges). The war was never the main point.
I dunno. The US propped up a government there for a generation and it still failed to launch. Afghans didn't want it. Sometimes, you just have to accept that the best you have to offer isn't wanted or appreciated.
It's not something they are capable of solving on their own.
"End all wars/get rid of the military" rhetoric sounds great, until you realize it's a lie. It just means there will be different wars, perhaps won by the wrong people.
Religious or ethnic minorities being erased aren't shown on live TV unless it's happening in or being perpetrated by a state that your government wants to topple.
Go watch CNN for an entire day and write down how many times Yemen or Palestine is mentioned compared with Ukraine. Come up with your own hypothesis about why this is. It's more complicated than just "government control", but thankfully people have been thinking about this for a while. You've probably heard of the book Manufacturing Consent which goes into all the structural incentives at play in the media which lead us here.
I both read and watch news heavily, including both US news and international outlets.
No, that comparison doesn't come up literally ever that I've heard from. I do recall several anti-war pieces in NY Times and others encouraging us to not back Ukraine, the usual war hawk pieces suggesting to escalate, and a bunch of poorly written stories that rehashed weeks old tweets.
As the joke goes there are two kinds of people: those who believe in conspiracies and those who have actually interacted with the government.
The closest you might get is something like Journolist which was Ezra Klein trying to convince other news heads to parrot his takes - which is a disgrace, but not some secret conspiracy.
The point of analyzing structural incentives is that you don't need a conspiracy. Everyone involved actually believes they are fully and truthfully discharging their duties and fighting the good fight. None of them are walking around plotting how to pull the wool over the public's eyes. They wouldn't be hired if they believed otherwise; there's a famous clip of Chomsky making this point here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nBx-37c3c8
Do you believe the media has relatively clear political convictions? The treatment of presidents and parties in the US changes drastically depending on who's in power. It's almost like a joke.
Have you looked into who funds the media and their fact-checking services like PolitiFact (Poynter), and the IFCC? You might be surprised to find it's may of the same groups / people - George Soro's open society, Bill & Melinda Gates foundation, Clinton foundation, The Koch foundation (interestingly enough) etc... When the same folks that lobby and buy politicians, own the media and fact-check their own stories, the government doesn't need to "control the media". They're both already being controlled by some people with very deep pockets and substantial political connections.
It's a good thing you didn't relate this to class, because the oligarchs and warhawks really hate when the rabble don't reduce everything to identity tribalism.
What happens next is that history resumes and globalization ends, because it's the US that's been enforcing peaceful globalization since 1945. Borders are no longer sacrosanct, more countries fight each other, a traditional empire or two maybe get started again out of necessity, and countries dependent on imports for oil and food start having major problems.
It works out ok for the US though. We get inflation and all kinds of shortages for a while, but manufacturing moves back. We have no trouble feeding and fueling ourselves, and no worries about invasion. In a decade we dominate the world even more, because most of our peers fall apart. But it won't be much fun for a while, and for a lot of the world it'll be seriously grim.
I'm not necessarily saying it's the moral obligation of the US to police the world forever, just because it was in our strategic interest to do so for a while. Maybe we should do what you suggest. Just saying, be aware of what it really means. It doesn't mean world peace.
But this is already the case, due to the US-backed push for open borders/open societies, at home and abroad. Just yesterday there was a submission on using media manipulation to subvert politicians that want "sacrosanct borders": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31937756
The 127E program from my reading of it seems to involve small US SOF team operating in foreign countries with the logistical/security support of the local government as directed by DOD mission planning. This doesn't sound like proxy warfare, its clandestine direct action warfare. The Tongo Tongo Ambush, appears to be a 127E program with bad outcomes for the US military.
Frankly I'd rather have US service members pulling triggers in pursuit of direct US goals, then another countries government acting on our behalf.
That all being said, and as Ahelwer pointed out the policies and missions that this type of tool are used for are often misguided, imperialistic and short sighted. The oversight chain is not clear to me either.
Thus far the citizenry of the US is happily ignorant of many aspect of US policy and actions.
This sounds like it's overwhelmingly anti-ISIL based on the mission distribution and explanation.
Special forces are often NOT in direct action - it's risky - and instead are training local forces as force multipliers. There are exceptions but frankly you don't send Spec Ops to mag dump a terrorist in a fish market.
its not even that secret - US control over narrative formation / amplification are sufficient for entirely counterfactual stories to be held to be true and beyond scrutiny. This is the US strongest asset - control the stories that are told - and supremacy will be assured
Providing arms, intelligence, and other forms of support is done in the public eye, yes. They’re more likely referring to the possible deployment of SOF personnel to Ukraine.
The US was doing their best to cover up their involvement in the region since 2014, with secret CIA training programs for Ukranian paramilitaries etc... It definitely hasn't been "very public" over the past eight years.
MATTERS RELATING TO FOREIGN NATIONS ITEMS OF SPECIAL INTEREST
Increasing Special Operations Forces Collaboration with Allies and Partners with Irregular Warfare Programs
The committee commends the Department of Defense’s use of the authority for the Support of Special Operations for Irregular Warfare (IW) provided in section 1202 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018 (Public Law 115-91) and recognizes the ability to increase the capabilities of partner countries special operations forces such as Ukraine’s.
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[ 10.7 ms ] story [ 3399 ms ] threadThis would partially explain low recruiting for various US branches and some of the disregard most citizens seem to have for what their government is doing.
What is equally interesting is the inevitable comparison to Russia and 'special operation' happening in Ukraine ( because it certainly is not war ).
Then again.. these days you do not want to voice unpopular opinions and it makes me sad.
End This War, not Endless War it says here
I suppose it was awkwardly phrased on my part, which invited that comment. Russia's act of aggression is an act of war against Ukraine, but Russia calls it special operation, while US is engaged in various conflicts, which it deems 'anti-terrorism' activity. This is what intended to mean by that sentence.
What is more interesting is that US is now officially in a proxy war with Russia as well.
Ukraine is a proxy war and has been since it broke out in 2014 - plenty of evidence to suggest the US was nation building there too under the Obama admin (Nuland Pyatt tapes). Biden and Kerry were all over Ukraine as senators / VP since shortly after the fall of the USSR, and don't forget Ukraine had an IMF loan up for renewal (which was predatory to say the least) in 2013 right before Euromaidan, and Russia was going to bankroll their loan instead. Wouldn't be the first time a coup follows an IMF loan.
Don't take it from me though...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOBntnuYCMA
Well, the replies and downvotes certainly augment the foolishness. Assuming operations in Africa are for keeping countries repressed rather than promoting freedom and justice for those who can't fight for themselves, etc. The US is not innocent, but through their actions and 100 years of selflessly policing the world it has more good to boast about than any of you. At least it doesn't just sit behind a keyboard judging others and pretending self-righteousness and moral superiority; it demonstrates it.
I would prefer the US now focuses on homeland issues, but making your assumptions and wrong judgment is not something I will do.
1. to keep African countries divided to further American policies and agendas
2. to thwart development, own exploitation of natural resources, and the possible rise of Africa as another super-power
> 1. to keep African countries divided to further American policies and agendas
> 2. to thwart development, own exploitation of natural resources, and the possible rise of Africa as another super-power
Those aren't so much reasons as conspiratorial speculation. You might as well include:
3. Harvest Adrenochrome from African Children
China is stepping out of that role and will likely make them take a loss at their own game.
Does a dozen people with guns acting in combat under government orders count as "war"? They are skating on that ambiguity.
It's unfair to criticize secret programs because we don't know enough about them?
One might reasonably argue this is interference in US elections.
These sly actions may have good intent, but people deserve to know if, for example, a rogue administration has ever used the authority against someone they might have simply disliked.
[0] https://youtu.be/C-CG5w4YwOI?t=131
I don't know if it's the Chomsky talking but this kind of hyperbole taints your argument. While US involvement in Southeast Asia and South America are _far from_ perfect they're even farther from being like a "fourth reich".
https://news.yahoo.com/cia-trained-ukrainian-paramilitaries-...
Not least of all, insofar as that view strongly suggests that white people and Europeans were the cause of current global power imbalances, they must be the solution. That is a dangerously counter-productive way to view the world. Even if we accept, for example, the theory that Great Britain transferred trillions of wealth from India to itself through colonization, it is a shadow of its former self and will never be able to meaningfully affect the future prospects of India.
I would posit that India should view British colonization the same way Great Britain views Norman colonization: something that shaped the country's past but something of only historical interest going forward. At least in my experience as a Bangladeshi, I think that's how most folks do view it. We don't think of ourselves as being defined by our colonial history. Indeed, my parents (who were born in what was then the British Dominion of Pakistan) have positive as well as negative things to say about colonialism.
Then why do they use a term that centers the west in describing the majority of the world?
> At most they might believe their countries should stop meddling in the affairs of post-colonial countries and let them develop on their own without further wealth being extracted.
Is the west continuing to meddle in the affairs of India or Pakistan? If not, then what's the point of this term that encompasses them? If you want to talk about African countries dominated by European mining companies, just talk about them.
> Reparations would also presumably be on the table
That's what I'm talking about. Reparations is an incredibly toxic idea as applied to former colonies. As you observe, they will never happen. But they give political cover to bad leadership in developing countries, enabling them to avoid fixing their own problems.
I often hear people use the phrase: "especially effects under represented minorities", which robs those people of agency, portrays them ALL as being X (which is prejudice by definition).
Worst of all the phrase is trotted out like a weapon to accomplish some goal.
It's a shame because usually the people think they're helping
Moreover, their limited exposure to minorities is often derivative of their interactions with other white people. E.g. someone who grows up in Wisconsin and has little exposure to Muslim immigrants other than as the subject of antagonism by Trump supporters, probably can't help but view those minorities except through the lens of their own opposition to other white people.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket
Is never reported in the West until decades later. It's reported with extreme detail contemporaneously by local sources in an extremely easy to access format.
I remember after 9/11, reading accounts by cross Arab/Western people who were reporting in extreme detail, specific grievances that people across the Middle East had with American foreign policy in an attempt to explain but not justify the actions of OBL and all of it being shut down with an almost aggressive ignorance of "they just hate our freedoms" by virtually the entire intellectual spectrum in the US.
Like, you would expect pro-war hawks to simplify the issue but even anti-war bleeding heart liberals often seemed to have zero interest in engaging with criticisms from actual people who would be impacted vs the imaginary people they construct who are convenient to their argument.
Even to this day, if you ask people what was OBL's self-stated reason for 9/11, 99% of people would get it wrong despite this being a purely factual question for which the primary source is trivially available [1]. I bet you, the person reading this comment have a vague idea of what OBL said and your vague notion is pretty significantly wrong.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/nov/24/theobserver
...let the Russian flag fly over the Baltics.
> I think we forget over time and become complacent to the strong possibility that the US maintaining its economic and defense hegemony has generally resulted in fewer non-American people doing bad things.
American hegemony is mostly good for the US. Let's not lie about doing 'good' elsewhere. American actions have destabilized many countries and governments to secure and advance American interests. Have American citizens benefited? Probably.
> So you go from a generation who used the military might to stop literal Nazis and effectively save the world. Follow that up with generations of overthrowing democratically elected governments and fostering civil wars globally.
> to more of a lull where people forget that and start calling for a removal of all foreign bases and a reduction in might, to being smacked by the reality again that bad people predictably do bad things, such as russias invasion of ukraine.
I don't think people want a removal of all naval bases or military presence, just enough to pay for fucking healthcare, teachers, food, bridges, and housing. You know the usual basic necessities for life. I guess killing and maiming people around the world is just easier to do.
> it’s good overall that we have this military might, even if not everyone appreciates it. That remains to be seen. Tell me that in a few years when we have more guns than food and water.
As always, unless you're colorblind, the world exists in color, not black and white.
It's a nice sound bite, but it doesn't work that way does it?
Would the US be the country it is nowadays if it didn't join WWII? Probably not, it would be a very different world.
The war for Europe was arguably won in Africa well before any major advances happened in either of the European fronts.
The North African campaign combined with the supplies the US has sent to the Soviets was pretty much the only reason why the Soviets have won on the eastern front.
The Axis and specifically Germany were over extended in Africa and Africa pretty much took all the fuel and air lift capacity Germany had at the time.
The Italian campaign was the nail in the coffin for the Axis in Europe well before D-Day.
And that is if we can ignore the pacific theater altogether.
You can see this right now in Ukraine. The US and its allies are busy donating/selling all of their soon-to-expire weapons, their older model (but still good) jets, their brand new weapons. Who benefits from this? Ukraine, now. But also the weapon manufacturers, who represent a non-trivial proportion of the US economy. If Ukraine wins the war, it will be paying off its debts to the US for a century, with interest.
An economic example might be the sanctions it placed on Russia along with its allies. Russia is currently forecasted to see a 20% drop in its GDP this year, probably the single biggest effect of the war (compare to Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria effects on the US). Lots of the sanctioning can only be done because most of the global economy runs on the US dollar, as opposed to the yuan, yen, pound, euro, because the Russian loans are dollar denominated. If someone's putting the pressure on the US in some way, its various investments let it wield some massive clubs.
Can you provide a source for the claim that the bulk of US military aid to Ukraine is in the form of loans that will have to be repaid? I'm skeptical because tens of billions in government spending has been authorized for that purpose.
In fact we keep seeing the outcomes of it still in the media.
This is reminiscent of how war protests in my liberal city stopped suddenly as soon as Obama was elected, and never restarted though he bolstered troop levels (initiated surges). The war was never the main point.
"End all wars/get rid of the military" rhetoric sounds great, until you realize it's a lie. It just means there will be different wars, perhaps won by the wrong people.
"Well but it's not our problem!" is not exactly comfort when a religious or ethnic minority is being erased on live tv.
No, that comparison doesn't come up literally ever that I've heard from. I do recall several anti-war pieces in NY Times and others encouraging us to not back Ukraine, the usual war hawk pieces suggesting to escalate, and a bunch of poorly written stories that rehashed weeks old tweets.
As the joke goes there are two kinds of people: those who believe in conspiracies and those who have actually interacted with the government.
The closest you might get is something like Journolist which was Ezra Klein trying to convince other news heads to parrot his takes - which is a disgrace, but not some secret conspiracy.
It works out ok for the US though. We get inflation and all kinds of shortages for a while, but manufacturing moves back. We have no trouble feeding and fueling ourselves, and no worries about invasion. In a decade we dominate the world even more, because most of our peers fall apart. But it won't be much fun for a while, and for a lot of the world it'll be seriously grim.
I'm not necessarily saying it's the moral obligation of the US to police the world forever, just because it was in our strategic interest to do so for a while. Maybe we should do what you suggest. Just saying, be aware of what it really means. It doesn't mean world peace.
But this is already the case, due to the US-backed push for open borders/open societies, at home and abroad. Just yesterday there was a submission on using media manipulation to subvert politicians that want "sacrosanct borders": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31937756
> But this is already the case, due to the US-backed push for open borders/open societies, at home and abroad.
You misunderstand. He was talking about wars of territorial conquest (e.g. moving a border through military means).
Special forces are often NOT in direct action - it's risky - and instead are training local forces as force multipliers. There are exceptions but frankly you don't send Spec Ops to mag dump a terrorist in a fish market.
Nobody is lying here, the wrong questions are being asked
The support on Ukraine war is very public, and it's part of the war effort.