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> The result of US society following this advice would be the subjugation of the US, and possibly all western democracies, by other countries. This seems to be

by orf 8y ago

> The result of US society following this advice would be the subjugation of the US, and possibly all western democracies, by other countries. This seems to be a common sentiment in the USA. Perhaps I'm naive, but you're saying that without your grossly overpowered military the USA would be overtaken by... Mexico? Canada? I think it's a bit reductionist to simply say "less army = we die". Things are more complex than that. And perhaps you're missing the other side of the coin: "more army = more death". The military industrial complex is very real and this narrative benefits them a whole lot. There is always a middle ground that doesn't result in the world burning or the USA spending 50% of it's discretionary budget on weapons.

manfredo 8y ago
The US itself is likely safe. Not many militaries are capable of occupying most of a continent across an ocean. But the absence of strong democratic militaries could easily put subjugation of much of Eastern Europe by Russia, or East Asia by China within the realm of possibility. The latter may be more willing to use gunboat diplomacy in Africa if their loans aren't repaid.
- TaylorAlexander 8y ago
  But the US military could be 25% the size and still be “strong”. So discussions of size reduction do not mean advocating a weak military. There obviously must be some point at which additional military spending weakens the US by crippling our ability to grow. And many have reasonably argued we are well past that point. We spend 10x the next closest competitor at 750B a year. We could cut spending by hundreds of billions and leave that money in the pockets of Americans to better choose how to spend it. That could leave us much stronger. One may take a look at China’s incredible ability to build infrastructure as one alternative way to spend our money. We build bombs to protect oil interests while China builds solar panel factories and bullet trains.
  - manfredo 8y ago
    Yes, the US could be "strong" but the US isn't just defending its own soil. It's effectively propping up allies all across the globe. Also, as a percentage of GDP US military spending isn't all that high. It's just over 3% [1]. South Korea is at 2.6%. In most years, Israel outranks the US (they probably could afford to drop their spending because their regional rivals are having very bad domestic problems and are in no condition to attack Israel). In theory, all NATO countries are supposed to spend 2%.
    - lostlogin 8y ago
      If an allied country is mad keen on military spending and demonstrating their power while you aren’t, why would you spend on your military? Could this be a factor in how other countries operate?
      - manfredo 8y ago
        It could be, that's part of why Trump flirted with the idea of making NATO's 2% of GDP military spending target a requirement rather than a general guideline. However, the fact that the US is the main component of NATO gives the US a lot of leverage over those other countries which is valuable in its own right.
      - philwelch 8y ago
        It’s not purely a question of spending. There are qualitative differences as well. No US ally has even an approximation of the US nuclear deterrent or the US Navy. Partially as a consequence of this, no US ally can match the quantity, quality, or versatility of American air power.
    - yason 8y ago
      Yes, the US could be "strong" but the US isn't just defending its own soil. It would seem natural to think your own soil is the only thing you can ever rightfully defend. USA seems to be doing the defending anywhere but on their own soil.
      - manfredo 8y ago
- porpoisely 8y ago
  Following that line of reasoning, is it better that eastern europe and east asia be under our subjugation? Or is it only subjugation when they do it? We are less than 250 years old as a nation. How did eastern europe and east asia manage before we arrived? Pride goeth before a fall. I'm afraid our hubris is going to cost us big one of these days.
  - manfredo 8y ago
    > Following that line of reasoning, is it better that eastern europe and east asia be under our subjugation? Or is it only subjugation when they do it? I'm not sure I follow. Is it your genuine belief that Ukraine, Poland, and the Baltic states would prefer Russian hegemony? Or that South Korea prefers Communist hegemony? The reality is that if the US doesn't maintain a strong presence in these regions, then other powers will exploit that power vacuum. Sure, in an ideal world, every country would turns it's swords into plowshares, it's tanks into tractors, etc. But we live in the real world, not the ideal world. > We are less than 250 years old as a nation. How did eastern europe and east asia manage before we arrived? Eastern Europe spent most of the last 250 years under monarchies and dictatorships. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that most[1] find the 21st century is preferable to domination by the USSR, domination by the Fascists before that, and imperial monarchies before that. East Asia spent most of the last 250 under either feudalism[2] or domination by an imperial power. Again, I'm going to go out on a limb that they prefer their situation in the 21st century to that. 1. Probably all Eastern European countries other than Russia and maybe Belorussia and Moldova. The latter two are pretty pro-Russian. 2. Some point out the Qing dynasty had an extensive central bureacracy and isn't exactly fudalism. It's some form of monarchic rule, though.
    - porpoisely 8y ago
      My belief is that they don't prefer any subjugation. Certainly not subjugation from someone on the other side of the world. Also, you talk of the US maintaining a strong presence in these regions as if we are there to protect or help these regions. We are an invading imperial power in these regions to benefit ourselves, not them. We are no different than russia or china. You could argue we are worse considering the russians and chinese have cultural, geographical and ethnic ties to these regions and we don't. And everyone is going to prefer modernity to the past. North koreans would prefer their modern dictatorship to the dictatorship of the past too. All I'm saying is subjugation is subjugation and empire is empire. Nobody likes being subjugated by an empire in the long run.
a11595 8y ago
overpowered? the US is a huge country, with a very high GDP. In fact, it's about the size of the EU, about the same GDP as the EU, and about the same size military as the EU. And yet, NATO welcomes US troops, since the EU is not fond of Russia nearby. So I'll guess you're from the EU? If you think the US military is "grossly overpowered," and you have the same size military yet ask the US to supplement it, makes you a bit of a hypocrite.
bassman9000 8y ago
Perhaps I'm naive, but you're saying that without your grossly overpowered military the USA would be overtaken by... Mexico? Canada? This is textbook naive. China/Russia, to begin with. Plus: there doesn't need to be a imminent invasion danger. Without the US protection of commercial sea routes, global economy would suffer a serious blow, which would affect Asian and South American countries way more than the US.
- orf 8y ago
  You think Russia or China would launch a ground invasion of a nuclear capable country in a different continent, for no other reason that it looked a bit weak? I wonder why the Russians are not launching invasions of several resource rich African countries as we speak. I agree that currently the US protects strategic sea routes that benefit the US, and as a byproduct other countries. That's fine, and the seas have always needed policing, but it's just a small part of military expenditure, and doesn't counter anything I said.
  - bassman9000 8y ago
    At some point, yes, they would. The whole point of the article is that people with the technical knowledge to maintain and improve the US miltary shouldn't do it. Luckily, reaching a critical mass of scientists and engineers with such attitude, enough for basic defense systems to fail, seems unlikely. But there's such an horizon. I wonder why the Russians are not launching invasions of several resource rich African countries as we speak. Because the US is far stronger. And still they grabbed half Ukraine, at the border of NATO, way more important than most African countries. Same with China, the South China Sea, and expansion via artificial islands. If Russia and China can get away with that, the US being vastly superior from a military standpoint, what world destabilization, or plain open war would happen if the US just a bit weaker? And, BTW, the war has started already, in the information battleground, with US and Western Europe's being ravaged by Russian and Chinese attacks. The naivete point stands. We need more computer scientists defending Western democracy values, because today, more than ever, they're under attack.
    - 8y ago
zdragnar 8y ago
We have recent history to demonstrate: WW2 followed by the cold war. Is there a Nazi Germany today? No. Could there be something similar again? Of course. Hell, there's even a show on Amazon (based on a book) centered around the idea of an alternate history where the Allied forces lost WW2 and the US is occupied territory.
- orf 8y ago
  Things where a little bit different back then, don't you think? Do you believe nothing that's happened in the last 70 years (most notably nuclear weapons) changes this scenario at all? There are also many fictional shows on Amazon, should we use them to guide us?
  - mmirate 8y ago
    > Things where a little bit different back then, don't you think? Do you believe nothing that's happened in the last 70 years (most notably nuclear weapons) changes this scenario at all? The majority of the Cold War happened while both sides' superpowers had nukes. In other words: nukes didn't change this scenario; they helped create it. > Things where a little bit different back then, don't you think? Do you believe nothing that's happened in the last 70 years (most notably nuclear weapons) changes this scenario at all? Guide? No. Inspire and/or remind? Why not. To be fair, however, the PKD book that spawned that show, contained factual errors due to information that was declassified only after the book was written. Turns out, even if the US had been neutral in WW2, it's fairly certain the remaining Allies would have won regardless; and furthermore, in such a case it is possible the Soviets might've been so thoroughly weakened by the Japanese, that the former wouldn't have emerged as a superpower nor as the other side of the Cold War. (And while we're on the topic of conjectures about counterfactual US neutrality: it is possible that US neutrality in WW1 would have averted the creation of the Nazi empire and WW2 with it.)
  - landryraccoon 8y ago
    I don't think philosophically this helps the case that armed forces are unnecessary. All it argues is that a nation needs a nuclear armed force instead of a conventional one to stay independent. If a nation has no nuclear weapons and cannot compete conventionally, it could be bullied. Take Ukraine for example - would they really be worse off if they kept some nukes? Perhaps Russia would be deterred from aggression if they did.
shadofx 8y ago
Academia boycotting the military won't destroy the MIC. It will simply move all military research into military sectors, because if you can train a person to kill, you can train them to do science.
philwelch 8y ago
The US wouldn’t necessarily be overrun, but Syria already almost certainly will, and a unilateral disarmament and withdrawal by the United States would also put Taiwan, South Korea, and every NATO member immediately bordering Russia at risk. Over the ensuing decades, the free world would gradually be eroded away by autocratic regimes until, at best, the US and Canada are isolated between two oceans and surrounded by a world of despotism.
- boomboomsubban 8y ago
  > Taiwan, South Korea, and every NATO member immediately bordering Russia at risk. Over the ensuing decades, the free world would gradually be eroded away by autocratic regimes until, at best, the US and Canada are isolated between two oceans and surrounded by a world of despotism. Right, this is all a fight against despotism. Which is why the US helped Kai-Shek in Taiwan, propped up Rhee for South Korea, and included Turkey and Portugal as founders of NATO.
  - philwelch 8y ago
    All four of those countries became democracies. But yes, admittedly, the United States has supported autocratic regimes due to strategic concerns elsewhere. In many of those cases, it was a calculated tradeoff between allying with a single military regime such as Turkey—which would not have turned democratic had they not been included in NATO—in exchange for gaining a crucial advantage over a despotic superpower with a history of aggressive expansion and a stated ideology of world domination. Of course, the biggest example of this policy going wrong was American support of the Soviet Union during the Second World War, but there are plenty of reasons that doesn't get mentioned. Most people in my position would likely agree it was a mistake for the US to support Stalin as much as we did; if the Soviet Union came out of the Second World War in a much weaker geopolitical position due to a lack of food and industrial aid from the United States, the ensuing half-century would have been considerably better for the rest of the world. The other reason it doesn't get mentioned is because your argument is a very old and worn-out Soviet propaganda talking point, and not only do Soviet apologists not want to admit that US support was vitally important to the Soviets during WWII, but they also don't want to admit that the Soviets themselves are the single worst autocratic regime that the US has ever allied itself with. Such an admission would underline the crucial importance of curbing Soviet domination over the rest of the world and justify exactly those actions that one seeks to criticize.

by orf 8y ago

manfredo 8y ago

The US itself is likely safe. Not many militaries are capable of occupying most of a continent across an ocean. But the absence of strong democratic militaries could easily put subjugation of much of Eastern Europe by Russia, or East Asia by China within the realm of possibility. The latter may be more willing to use gunboat diplomacy in Africa if their loans aren't repaid.

TaylorAlexander 8y ago
But the US military could be 25% the size and still be “strong”. So discussions of size reduction do not mean advocating a weak military. There obviously must be some point at which additional military spending weakens the US by crippling our ability to grow. And many have reasonably argued we are well past that point. We spend 10x the next closest competitor at 750B a year. We could cut spending by hundreds of billions and leave that money in the pockets of Americans to better choose how to spend it. That could leave us much stronger. One may take a look at China’s incredible ability to build infrastructure as one alternative way to spend our money. We build bombs to protect oil interests while China builds solar panel factories and bullet trains.
- manfredo 8y ago
  Yes, the US could be "strong" but the US isn't just defending its own soil. It's effectively propping up allies all across the globe. Also, as a percentage of GDP US military spending isn't all that high. It's just over 3% [1]. South Korea is at 2.6%. In most years, Israel outranks the US (they probably could afford to drop their spending because their regional rivals are having very bad domestic problems and are in no condition to attack Israel). In theory, all NATO countries are supposed to spend 2%.
  - lostlogin 8y ago
    If an allied country is mad keen on military spending and demonstrating their power while you aren’t, why would you spend on your military? Could this be a factor in how other countries operate?
    - manfredo 8y ago
      It could be, that's part of why Trump flirted with the idea of making NATO's 2% of GDP military spending target a requirement rather than a general guideline. However, the fact that the US is the main component of NATO gives the US a lot of leverage over those other countries which is valuable in its own right.
    - philwelch 8y ago
      It’s not purely a question of spending. There are qualitative differences as well. No US ally has even an approximation of the US nuclear deterrent or the US Navy. Partially as a consequence of this, no US ally can match the quantity, quality, or versatility of American air power.
  - yason 8y ago
    Yes, the US could be "strong" but the US isn't just defending its own soil. It would seem natural to think your own soil is the only thing you can ever rightfully defend. USA seems to be doing the defending anywhere but on their own soil.
    - manfredo 8y ago
porpoisely 8y ago
Following that line of reasoning, is it better that eastern europe and east asia be under our subjugation? Or is it only subjugation when they do it? We are less than 250 years old as a nation. How did eastern europe and east asia manage before we arrived? Pride goeth before a fall. I'm afraid our hubris is going to cost us big one of these days.
- manfredo 8y ago
  > Following that line of reasoning, is it better that eastern europe and east asia be under our subjugation? Or is it only subjugation when they do it? I'm not sure I follow. Is it your genuine belief that Ukraine, Poland, and the Baltic states would prefer Russian hegemony? Or that South Korea prefers Communist hegemony? The reality is that if the US doesn't maintain a strong presence in these regions, then other powers will exploit that power vacuum. Sure, in an ideal world, every country would turns it's swords into plowshares, it's tanks into tractors, etc. But we live in the real world, not the ideal world. > We are less than 250 years old as a nation. How did eastern europe and east asia manage before we arrived? Eastern Europe spent most of the last 250 years under monarchies and dictatorships. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that most[1] find the 21st century is preferable to domination by the USSR, domination by the Fascists before that, and imperial monarchies before that. East Asia spent most of the last 250 under either feudalism[2] or domination by an imperial power. Again, I'm going to go out on a limb that they prefer their situation in the 21st century to that. 1. Probably all Eastern European countries other than Russia and maybe Belorussia and Moldova. The latter two are pretty pro-Russian. 2. Some point out the Qing dynasty had an extensive central bureacracy and isn't exactly fudalism. It's some form of monarchic rule, though.
  - porpoisely 8y ago
    My belief is that they don't prefer any subjugation. Certainly not subjugation from someone on the other side of the world. Also, you talk of the US maintaining a strong presence in these regions as if we are there to protect or help these regions. We are an invading imperial power in these regions to benefit ourselves, not them. We are no different than russia or china. You could argue we are worse considering the russians and chinese have cultural, geographical and ethnic ties to these regions and we don't. And everyone is going to prefer modernity to the past. North koreans would prefer their modern dictatorship to the dictatorship of the past too. All I'm saying is subjugation is subjugation and empire is empire. Nobody likes being subjugated by an empire in the long run.

a11595 8y ago

overpowered? the US is a huge country, with a very high GDP. In fact, it's about the size of the EU, about the same GDP as the EU, and about the same size military as the EU. And yet, NATO welcomes US troops, since the EU is not fond of Russia nearby. So I'll guess you're from the EU? If you think the US military is "grossly overpowered," and you have the same size military yet ask the US to supplement it, makes you a bit of a hypocrite.

bassman9000 8y ago

Perhaps I'm naive, but you're saying that without your grossly overpowered military the USA would be overtaken by... Mexico? Canada? This is textbook naive. China/Russia, to begin with. Plus: there doesn't need to be a imminent invasion danger. Without the US protection of commercial sea routes, global economy would suffer a serious blow, which would affect Asian and South American countries way more than the US.

orf 8y ago
You think Russia or China would launch a ground invasion of a nuclear capable country in a different continent, for no other reason that it looked a bit weak? I wonder why the Russians are not launching invasions of several resource rich African countries as we speak. I agree that currently the US protects strategic sea routes that benefit the US, and as a byproduct other countries. That's fine, and the seas have always needed policing, but it's just a small part of military expenditure, and doesn't counter anything I said.
- bassman9000 8y ago
  At some point, yes, they would. The whole point of the article is that people with the technical knowledge to maintain and improve the US miltary shouldn't do it. Luckily, reaching a critical mass of scientists and engineers with such attitude, enough for basic defense systems to fail, seems unlikely. But there's such an horizon. I wonder why the Russians are not launching invasions of several resource rich African countries as we speak. Because the US is far stronger. And still they grabbed half Ukraine, at the border of NATO, way more important than most African countries. Same with China, the South China Sea, and expansion via artificial islands. If Russia and China can get away with that, the US being vastly superior from a military standpoint, what world destabilization, or plain open war would happen if the US just a bit weaker? And, BTW, the war has started already, in the information battleground, with US and Western Europe's being ravaged by Russian and Chinese attacks. The naivete point stands. We need more computer scientists defending Western democracy values, because today, more than ever, they're under attack.
  - 8y ago

zdragnar 8y ago

We have recent history to demonstrate: WW2 followed by the cold war. Is there a Nazi Germany today? No. Could there be something similar again? Of course. Hell, there's even a show on Amazon (based on a book) centered around the idea of an alternate history where the Allied forces lost WW2 and the US is occupied territory.

orf 8y ago
Things where a little bit different back then, don't you think? Do you believe nothing that's happened in the last 70 years (most notably nuclear weapons) changes this scenario at all? There are also many fictional shows on Amazon, should we use them to guide us?
- mmirate 8y ago
  > Things where a little bit different back then, don't you think? Do you believe nothing that's happened in the last 70 years (most notably nuclear weapons) changes this scenario at all? The majority of the Cold War happened while both sides' superpowers had nukes. In other words: nukes didn't change this scenario; they helped create it. > Things where a little bit different back then, don't you think? Do you believe nothing that's happened in the last 70 years (most notably nuclear weapons) changes this scenario at all? Guide? No. Inspire and/or remind? Why not. To be fair, however, the PKD book that spawned that show, contained factual errors due to information that was declassified only after the book was written. Turns out, even if the US had been neutral in WW2, it's fairly certain the remaining Allies would have won regardless; and furthermore, in such a case it is possible the Soviets might've been so thoroughly weakened by the Japanese, that the former wouldn't have emerged as a superpower nor as the other side of the Cold War. (And while we're on the topic of conjectures about counterfactual US neutrality: it is possible that US neutrality in WW1 would have averted the creation of the Nazi empire and WW2 with it.)
- landryraccoon 8y ago
  I don't think philosophically this helps the case that armed forces are unnecessary. All it argues is that a nation needs a nuclear armed force instead of a conventional one to stay independent. If a nation has no nuclear weapons and cannot compete conventionally, it could be bullied. Take Ukraine for example - would they really be worse off if they kept some nukes? Perhaps Russia would be deterred from aggression if they did.

shadofx 8y ago

Academia boycotting the military won't destroy the MIC. It will simply move all military research into military sectors, because if you can train a person to kill, you can train them to do science.

philwelch 8y ago

The US wouldn’t necessarily be overrun, but Syria already almost certainly will, and a unilateral disarmament and withdrawal by the United States would also put Taiwan, South Korea, and every NATO member immediately bordering Russia at risk. Over the ensuing decades, the free world would gradually be eroded away by autocratic regimes until, at best, the US and Canada are isolated between two oceans and surrounded by a world of despotism.

boomboomsubban 8y ago
> Taiwan, South Korea, and every NATO member immediately bordering Russia at risk. Over the ensuing decades, the free world would gradually be eroded away by autocratic regimes until, at best, the US and Canada are isolated between two oceans and surrounded by a world of despotism. Right, this is all a fight against despotism. Which is why the US helped Kai-Shek in Taiwan, propped up Rhee for South Korea, and included Turkey and Portugal as founders of NATO.
- philwelch 8y ago
  All four of those countries became democracies. But yes, admittedly, the United States has supported autocratic regimes due to strategic concerns elsewhere. In many of those cases, it was a calculated tradeoff between allying with a single military regime such as Turkey—which would not have turned democratic had they not been included in NATO—in exchange for gaining a crucial advantage over a despotic superpower with a history of aggressive expansion and a stated ideology of world domination. Of course, the biggest example of this policy going wrong was American support of the Soviet Union during the Second World War, but there are plenty of reasons that doesn't get mentioned. Most people in my position would likely agree it was a mistake for the US to support Stalin as much as we did; if the Soviet Union came out of the Second World War in a much weaker geopolitical position due to a lack of food and industrial aid from the United States, the ensuing half-century would have been considerably better for the rest of the world. The other reason it doesn't get mentioned is because your argument is a very old and worn-out Soviet propaganda talking point, and not only do Soviet apologists not want to admit that US support was vitally important to the Soviets during WWII, but they also don't want to admit that the Soviets themselves are the single worst autocratic regime that the US has ever allied itself with. Such an admission would underline the crucial importance of curbing Soviet domination over the rest of the world and justify exactly those actions that one seeks to criticize.