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So, would you count the civil wars and the war of independance as wars in which USA was the first aggressor? Oh nvm, that won't make a dent to the size of that

by zeusk 10y ago

So, would you count the civil wars and the war of independance as wars in which USA was the first aggressor? Oh nvm, that won't make a dent to the size of that list.

bzbarsky 10y ago
> would you count the civil wars and the war of independance as wars in which USA was the first aggressor? Civil wars are hard to classify in terms of "who is the aggressor", but none of my examples were civil wars. The American Revolution can plausibly be argued to be a US aggression, but it doesn't really match any of my examples either. Of course I would never make the totally daft claim that the US was never the aggressor in a military action, since that claim is quite obviously and demonstrably false.
- zeusk 10y ago
  So, India fighting to regain parts of the remaining colonial territories cannot be matched to the war of Independence? Of course I never claimed you did, I just made a clever remark.
  - bzbarsky 10y ago
    > India fighting to regain parts of the remaining colonial territories cannot be matched to the war of Independence? It's a hard call. For example, is it more of an analogue for the fighting in New York, or more of an analogue for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Quebec_(1775) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Quebec_(1775) ? Would your answer be different if the Continental Army had managed to hold on to Quebec and it had become part of the United States? Or, given the time lags involved in both cases, is it more like the US invasion of Canada in the War of 1812, which I view as a US war of aggression? Again, that invasion failed, but had it succeeded would that make it less a war of aggression? Note that there is a significant difference here in that the US that was invading Canada in 1812 had no reasonable claim along the lines "we are all one polity that was just colonized by different people and should be a single state" to justify its attempt to annex part of Canada. But that same issue applies to the rest of the war of independence too.

by zeusk 10y ago

So, would you count the civil wars and the war of independance as wars in which USA was the first aggressor? Oh nvm, that won't make a dent to the size of that list.

bzbarsky 10y ago

> would you count the civil wars and the war of independance as wars in which USA was the first aggressor? Civil wars are hard to classify in terms of "who is the aggressor", but none of my examples were civil wars. The American Revolution can plausibly be argued to be a US aggression, but it doesn't really match any of my examples either. Of course I would never make the totally daft claim that the US was never the aggressor in a military action, since that claim is quite obviously and demonstrably false.

zeusk 10y ago
So, India fighting to regain parts of the remaining colonial territories cannot be matched to the war of Independence? Of course I never claimed you did, I just made a clever remark.
- bzbarsky 10y ago
  > India fighting to regain parts of the remaining colonial territories cannot be matched to the war of Independence? It's a hard call. For example, is it more of an analogue for the fighting in New York, or more of an analogue for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Quebec_(1775) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Quebec_(1775) ? Would your answer be different if the Continental Army had managed to hold on to Quebec and it had become part of the United States? Or, given the time lags involved in both cases, is it more like the US invasion of Canada in the War of 1812, which I view as a US war of aggression? Again, that invasion failed, but had it succeeded would that make it less a war of aggression? Note that there is a significant difference here in that the US that was invading Canada in 1812 had no reasonable claim along the lines "we are all one polity that was just colonized by different people and should be a single state" to justify its attempt to annex part of Canada. But that same issue applies to the rest of the war of independence too.