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"no impact on the balance of power, ie.. not a real new threat" The new impact was abandoning the Munroe Doctrine, or more accurately re-defining its limitatio

by VLM 11y ago

"no impact on the balance of power, ie.. not a real new threat" The new impact was abandoning the Munroe Doctrine, or more accurately re-defining its limitations. OK so on paper we should roll the landing craft and tanks in, but you have nukes so you get a free pass, we'll harass the heck out of you but keep the weapons that directly impact us out of sight and we'll not fight back too hard. There is also some face saving going on that sure there are plenty of leftist orgs with weapons that suspiciously happen to be all from your factories but we can kind of plausibly deny based on plenty of western rifles and even local factory production. But it goes too far WRT saving face to take over and four years later emplace Russian missiles and nukes... we can turn a blind eye to generic infantry rifles but the missiles are a step too far. Another way to look at it is confusion about the borders of the Munroe Doctrine. When it was written the US didn't have hundreds of military bases around the world full of troops and we just did two world wars and we're fighting brushfire conflicts all over the planet. Suddenly partitioning the globe by hemisphere into ours and theirs and never the two shall meet doesn't seem so fair or realistic. So newly negotiated result of the post crisis Munroe Doctrine is the Russians can do behind the scene and adviser stuff right up to our borders, but strategic weapons were a step too far at that time (although it would have been more fair to let them do in Cuba what we did in Turkey, that was just too big of a step at that time) Now debating the sanity or wisdom or ethics of the Munroe Doctrine is a whole nother kettle of fish, but given it, there are some interpretations based on it that shouldn't be missed. Pre-crisis, this is our hemisphere, keep out, because we don't get involved in foreign entanglements. Post-crisis, well, yeah, we get into all kinds of foreign entanglements and the new line in the sand is no permanently emplaced strategic weapons in our hemisphere, fair or right or not, its the new line in the sand and the other guys agreed to it.

cstross 11y ago
Ah yes: the Monroe Doctrine which was, in effect, the unilateral declaration of a USAn hemispheric imperial hegemony -- that is, that the USA would respond as an imperial power to attempts by rival imperial powers to encroach on "its" territory (territory including other nations such as Argentina and Canada).
- douche 11y ago
  Ah, the Monroe Doctrine - declared at a time when the United States had no real capacity to enforce it, and less than a decade after barely managing to stave off a not very vigorously pursued war conducted by the third and fourth stringers of the British Empire.
  - Synaesthesia 11y ago
    Yes but in due time the US did achieve greater power and in the 20th century and particularly post WW-2 did achieve the aims of the Monroe doctrine.

by VLM 11y ago

cstross 11y ago

Ah yes: the Monroe Doctrine which was, in effect, the unilateral declaration of a USAn hemispheric imperial hegemony -- that is, that the USA would respond as an imperial power to attempts by rival imperial powers to encroach on "its" territory (territory including other nations such as Argentina and Canada).

douche 11y ago
Ah, the Monroe Doctrine - declared at a time when the United States had no real capacity to enforce it, and less than a decade after barely managing to stave off a not very vigorously pursued war conducted by the third and fourth stringers of the British Empire.
- Synaesthesia 11y ago
  Yes but in due time the US did achieve greater power and in the 20th century and particularly post WW-2 did achieve the aims of the Monroe doctrine.