5 ms·

The reason Rome was so influential was its military. Ditto for the US. Are you sure it's a good idea to become less influential on the world stage?

microcolonel 9y ago
> The reason Rome was so influential was its military. Ditto for the US. I think people often have that twisted. A lot of the U.S.'s expansion is cultural, not military. That is to say: people liked what they were doing, and became a fan. Think: music, movies, and to some extent, literature, and now you might add software and consumer electronics to that list. And even when looking at Rome, can you imagine how much harder those repeated annexations would have been if the Roman culture wasn't respected? I'd say that being capable at least of defending oneself, independently, from most individual powers and believable coalitions, creates a certain amount of stability.
- maroonblazer 9y ago
  Who can project force like the U.S. military? No one. For the most part it's used to enable people to have more say in how they're governed, modulo certain constraints. That's not to say we do it perfectly but we shouldn't underestimate how positively influential that military power is.
  - pteredactyl 9y ago
    Agreed. And it's a position that I don't think many people realize.
  - smsm42 9y ago
    In USSR, before it collapsed, young people dreamt of having jeans (not everybody could get or afford them), listened to Western music and watched Western movies. Not because US army has secretly occupied USSR, but because Western culture was more attractive to them. Not everything is done with the military.
    - maroonblazer 9y ago
      >Not everything is done with the military. I'm not claiming it is, nor am I arguing that culture isn't also a factor. I'm saying that military presence shouldn't be discounted, as the parent seemed to be doing.
- pteredactyl 9y ago
  Yea, but how much cultural influence comes back to the military? Internet? Darpa. Hollywood? CIA pitches/vets certain scripts. Modern art? A CIA weapon during the cold war. The list goes on and on.
  - microcolonel 9y ago
    American music and movies, until recently, did not originate in any large part from CIA psy-ops. Popular software products like the ones produced by Microsoft, Apple, Google, etc. don't really have much to do with the defense industry, at least beyond military being the first major customers for computers. Defense spending is a small parasite on an enormous private market for cultural and consumer products, of which the U.S. is and was a major exporter, respectively. Added: Defense agencies drive innovation because they have external constraints which force them to try to procure things which haven't yet been invented. It's similar to the way that automobile races are used to drive auto innovation. Necessity is the mother of invention, and necessity is not unique to defense, but defense necessities tend to produce extreme engineering efforts.
- exelius 9y ago
  I think you actually have the relationships reversed. Military power paves the way for projecting culture, not the other way around. Realpolitik is meaningful; and everyone on the left seems to have forgotten about it (I say this as an unabashed progressive liberal). The US’ prime advantage in the 20th century was the fact that basically the rest of the industrialized world was completely destroyed twice — and then they paid the United States to help them rebuild. It wasn’t until the 70s that the US’ reliance on oil became heavy enough to exploit strategically, but by then we had built an entire post-industrial economy a decade ahead of Europe and two decades ahead of the rest of the world. We helped Japan do the same because they were basically a puppet state and gave us a foothold in Asia to serve as a buffer with Russia. Does that sound like cultural expansion driving the military, or the military goals driving the cultural expansion?
betolink 9y ago
Is having killing machines with no human in the loop a good idea? because that's the way this is going. We don't need Skynet to have a dystopian future.
- ghostcluster 9y ago
  Is it ok to not have them and allow an adversary who does develop them to overwhelm your nation's outdated defenses and less efficient tactics, as Germany did with its tank blitzkriegs and diversion around the Maginot line?
  - fabianhjr 9y ago
    The problem emerges when an actor most become a monster to win, sort of like Mutually Assured Destruction. I think that scifi shorts have the duty and power to show us the paths that certain developments entail. For example: - Slaughterbots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HipTO_7mUOw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HipTO_7mUOw - Last Day of War: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjJmTeBSEzU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjJmTeBSEzU
pteredactyl 9y ago
To me, that's the question. And people don't realize a lot of who we are and where we are is because our military presence. Atomic bomb anyone? What gets me now, is how much the US economy and focus is on death and violence. Offensive death and violence. We're bombing people all over the Middle East. And have been for years. Tangentially, I find 'March for our Lives' ironic given the amount of, to me, unjustified, violence and death the US country exports to children and families around the world. For self-defense only? In an ideal world, yea, invent the meanest things possible. That philosophy still is compatible with a strong military. But then again you have Gulf of Tonkin, etc., so who knows!? Lately I've been telling myself this whole wargame is a game I'll never be privy to what's actually happening.
smsm42 9y ago
The reason US is so influential is its the most powerful world's economy and the issuer of world's reserve currency. Having big military is a consequence of that - if you can afford to have big military, you get it. And, also, if you have a big economy, you may need some ways to defend it from all kinds of threats - before they become so serious that they can hurt your economy.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

microcolonel 9y ago

> The reason Rome was so influential was its military. Ditto for the US. I think people often have that twisted. A lot of the U.S.'s expansion is cultural, not military. That is to say: people liked what they were doing, and became a fan. Think: music, movies, and to some extent, literature, and now you might add software and consumer electronics to that list. And even when looking at Rome, can you imagine how much harder those repeated annexations would have been if the Roman culture wasn't respected? I'd say that being capable at least of defending oneself, independently, from most individual powers and believable coalitions, creates a certain amount of stability.

maroonblazer 9y ago
Who can project force like the U.S. military? No one. For the most part it's used to enable people to have more say in how they're governed, modulo certain constraints. That's not to say we do it perfectly but we shouldn't underestimate how positively influential that military power is.
- pteredactyl 9y ago
  Agreed. And it's a position that I don't think many people realize.
- smsm42 9y ago
  In USSR, before it collapsed, young people dreamt of having jeans (not everybody could get or afford them), listened to Western music and watched Western movies. Not because US army has secretly occupied USSR, but because Western culture was more attractive to them. Not everything is done with the military.
  - maroonblazer 9y ago
    >Not everything is done with the military. I'm not claiming it is, nor am I arguing that culture isn't also a factor. I'm saying that military presence shouldn't be discounted, as the parent seemed to be doing.
pteredactyl 9y ago
Yea, but how much cultural influence comes back to the military? Internet? Darpa. Hollywood? CIA pitches/vets certain scripts. Modern art? A CIA weapon during the cold war. The list goes on and on.
- microcolonel 9y ago
  American music and movies, until recently, did not originate in any large part from CIA psy-ops. Popular software products like the ones produced by Microsoft, Apple, Google, etc. don't really have much to do with the defense industry, at least beyond military being the first major customers for computers. Defense spending is a small parasite on an enormous private market for cultural and consumer products, of which the U.S. is and was a major exporter, respectively. Added: Defense agencies drive innovation because they have external constraints which force them to try to procure things which haven't yet been invented. It's similar to the way that automobile races are used to drive auto innovation. Necessity is the mother of invention, and necessity is not unique to defense, but defense necessities tend to produce extreme engineering efforts.
exelius 9y ago
I think you actually have the relationships reversed. Military power paves the way for projecting culture, not the other way around. Realpolitik is meaningful; and everyone on the left seems to have forgotten about it (I say this as an unabashed progressive liberal). The US’ prime advantage in the 20th century was the fact that basically the rest of the industrialized world was completely destroyed twice — and then they paid the United States to help them rebuild. It wasn’t until the 70s that the US’ reliance on oil became heavy enough to exploit strategically, but by then we had built an entire post-industrial economy a decade ahead of Europe and two decades ahead of the rest of the world. We helped Japan do the same because they were basically a puppet state and gave us a foothold in Asia to serve as a buffer with Russia. Does that sound like cultural expansion driving the military, or the military goals driving the cultural expansion?

betolink 9y ago

Is having killing machines with no human in the loop a good idea? because that's the way this is going. We don't need Skynet to have a dystopian future.

ghostcluster 9y ago
Is it ok to not have them and allow an adversary who does develop them to overwhelm your nation's outdated defenses and less efficient tactics, as Germany did with its tank blitzkriegs and diversion around the Maginot line?
- fabianhjr 9y ago
  The problem emerges when an actor most become a monster to win, sort of like Mutually Assured Destruction. I think that scifi shorts have the duty and power to show us the paths that certain developments entail. For example: - Slaughterbots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HipTO_7mUOw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HipTO_7mUOw - Last Day of War: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjJmTeBSEzU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjJmTeBSEzU

pteredactyl 9y ago

To me, that's the question. And people don't realize a lot of who we are and where we are is because our military presence. Atomic bomb anyone? What gets me now, is how much the US economy and focus is on death and violence. Offensive death and violence. We're bombing people all over the Middle East. And have been for years. Tangentially, I find 'March for our Lives' ironic given the amount of, to me, unjustified, violence and death the US country exports to children and families around the world. For self-defense only? In an ideal world, yea, invent the meanest things possible. That philosophy still is compatible with a strong military. But then again you have Gulf of Tonkin, etc., so who knows!? Lately I've been telling myself this whole wargame is a game I'll never be privy to what's actually happening.

smsm42 9y ago

The reason US is so influential is its the most powerful world's economy and the issuer of world's reserve currency. Having big military is a consequence of that - if you can afford to have big military, you get it. And, also, if you have a big economy, you may need some ways to defend it from all kinds of threats - before they become so serious that they can hurt your economy.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]