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The purpose of the Vietnam War, the Korean War, and the support of the Afghanistan insurgency weren't intended to be net positives for the United States. They w

The purpose of the Vietnam War, the Korean War, and the support of the Afghanistan insurgency weren't intended to be net positives for the United States. They were intended to be net negatives for the Soviet Union. And they were. Now we have instable areas, but the US prevented the Soviet Union from continuing to expand and collapsed it by overwhelming it with military costs to stabilize its periphery. In some circles that counts as a net positive to the US.

nickik 10y ago
A net negative for the Soviets is a positive for the US. That is fair enough but it does not mean that your statement is true. The War in Vietnam was far more costly and destructive then any 'damage' that was done to the Soviets. It was a absolute net lose in every way, money, lives, credibility and so on. It was a major victory for communism and all anti-imperialist colonialist struggles. You are just repeating the same failed and disproven logic that people like J.F. Dulles were advocating. They looked at everything in cold war terms, black and white. The reality however is different. Just because some countries are neutral or maybe communist does not make them automatically Soviet puppets and the countries in the same region do not automatically fall to communism because of that. Had J.F. Dulles just accepted the situation in 1953 the US would have been in a much better position during the cold war. Vietnam would not have been allied with China and Russia against the US. The idea of "world communism" is a fantasy that should not be a guid to policy. > support of the Afghanistan insurgency That was a great policy. Problem is just that even at the time people pointed out that it was unlikely (almost impossible) that the Soviets would attack threw Iran to the Golf. So there were no vital US interests at stack. The Soviet, we now know, had no plans to do so, and not the capability. In order to support the insurgency the US had to massively support Pakistan, they ignored Pakistani spread of extremism, they ignored the Pakistani nuclear program and the money flowed to the kind of insurgence that should not get money, rather then to the moderate afghani nationalists that should have gotten the money. How people defend this policy in still today is insane to me. A nuclear Pakistan and India is one of the greats dangers for nuclear war in the world right now.
- jwtadvice 10y ago
  > You are just repeating the same failed and disproven logic that people like J.F. Dulles were advocating. I'm definitely repeating the logic of the state. To be clear here, this isn't old logic attributable to Dulles or Eisenhower but the rationality behind current US strategy. This military/security logic is consistent over the past 70 years of great power struggle and I add it here not because I buy into all of the conclusions but because the arguments must be understood from the perspective of policy and decision makers in order for there to be a real dialogue between citizens and the state. Namely, citizens have to acknowledge the paranoid and aggressive tendencies of the state and understand reasoning from their perspective to counter the arguments. When this isn't the case (look at Libya and Syria) the state interprets citizens' unhappiness to have to do with the number of soldiers killed (for example) or the financial costs of insurgency and so pursues proxy wars, support of terrorism, economic warfare, information warfare and other types of irregular aggression. Anyway, pretty much fully agreed with your reply here.

nickik 10y ago

A net negative for the Soviets is a positive for the US. That is fair enough but it does not mean that your statement is true. The War in Vietnam was far more costly and destructive then any 'damage' that was done to the Soviets. It was a absolute net lose in every way, money, lives, credibility and so on. It was a major victory for communism and all anti-imperialist colonialist struggles. You are just repeating the same failed and disproven logic that people like J.F. Dulles were advocating. They looked at everything in cold war terms, black and white. The reality however is different. Just because some countries are neutral or maybe communist does not make them automatically Soviet puppets and the countries in the same region do not automatically fall to communism because of that. Had J.F. Dulles just accepted the situation in 1953 the US would have been in a much better position during the cold war. Vietnam would not have been allied with China and Russia against the US. The idea of "world communism" is a fantasy that should not be a guid to policy. > support of the Afghanistan insurgency That was a great policy. Problem is just that even at the time people pointed out that it was unlikely (almost impossible) that the Soviets would attack threw Iran to the Golf. So there were no vital US interests at stack. The Soviet, we now know, had no plans to do so, and not the capability. In order to support the insurgency the US had to massively support Pakistan, they ignored Pakistani spread of extremism, they ignored the Pakistani nuclear program and the money flowed to the kind of insurgence that should not get money, rather then to the moderate afghani nationalists that should have gotten the money. How people defend this policy in still today is insane to me. A nuclear Pakistan and India is one of the greats dangers for nuclear war in the world right now.

jwtadvice 10y ago
> You are just repeating the same failed and disproven logic that people like J.F. Dulles were advocating. I'm definitely repeating the logic of the state. To be clear here, this isn't old logic attributable to Dulles or Eisenhower but the rationality behind current US strategy. This military/security logic is consistent over the past 70 years of great power struggle and I add it here not because I buy into all of the conclusions but because the arguments must be understood from the perspective of policy and decision makers in order for there to be a real dialogue between citizens and the state. Namely, citizens have to acknowledge the paranoid and aggressive tendencies of the state and understand reasoning from their perspective to counter the arguments. When this isn't the case (look at Libya and Syria) the state interprets citizens' unhappiness to have to do with the number of soldiers killed (for example) or the financial costs of insurgency and so pursues proxy wars, support of terrorism, economic warfare, information warfare and other types of irregular aggression. Anyway, pretty much fully agreed with your reply here.