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> ...is it worth the risk finding out what happens when someone else steps in if the US backs off? How would that look? I think that's right question to ask no

> ...is it worth the risk finding out what happens when someone else steps in if the US backs off? How would that look? I think that's right question to ask nowadays. What can we learn by examining the areas of the world where the US is not so clearly dominant? (e.g. Tibet, Ukraine, South China Sea, Sub Saharan Africa) Can we compare the fate of the people in those places to the fate of people in places where the US is or was clearly dominant? (e.g. Cuba, Vietnam, Iraq, Central America, Okinawa, Philippines) Is the picture really so clear? Does US dominance guarantee a better outcome for the people in those places? Is it kind of a mixed bag? Sometimes there's a tendency to recoil in fear when we think of US acquiescence on the global stage, but, what if the changes would be less significant than we imagine?

lurquer 7y ago
>Does US dominance guarantee a better outcome for the people in those places? That's not the right question. This is the right question: Does US dominance guarantee a better outcome for the people in the US?
- dwd 7y ago
  Pretty sure funnelling some of that money into health and education would be a better deal for the average US family. American multinationals would however argue more needs to be done to protect their overseas investments and access to markets. Just don't expect them to foot the bill. "For globalisation to work, America can't be afraid to act like the almighty superpower that it is. The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist. McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonald-Douglas, the designer of the F-15, and the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technology is called the United States Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps." - Thomas Friedman
  - mariuolo 7y ago
    > McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonald-Douglas, the designer of the F-15 And flying hamburgers?;)
jlawson 7y ago
Rather odd to list Cuba and Vietnam, places where the US directly lost major conflicts, and places where the US is 'clearly' dominant. Kind of odd to group places there the US 'was' dominant with places where it is, in a discussion of what would happen if US dominance went away. You seem to have forgotten to mention Japan, South Korea, West Germany, Israel, Taiwan, Kuwait, and basically the rest of the free world under areas where the US is dominant. What you've really done is point out that places where the US has struggled to maintain dominance are terrible places to live. Which is true. Living under total US dominance as in Canada or Finland or Hawaii is far preferable than any alternative. If you fairly listed and categorized times and places, it becomes extremely clear that American hegemony is vastly preferable to residents than any non-imaginary alternative.
- codesushi42 7y ago
  >Living under total US dominance as in Canada or Finland or Hawaii is far preferable than any alternative. I'd like to see you live in Puerto Rico or Detroit then.
- HillaryBriss 7y ago
  the US was dominant in Cuba, Vietnam and the Philippines too -- for a while. the people in Cuba were so happy with US dominance that they staged a successful revolution. and US dominance ended up killing, directly or indirectly, a couple million people in Vietnam and Cambodia. even today chemicals left behind by US forces on military bases result in thousands of Vietnamese cancer deaths annually. and the Philippines loved our dominance so much that they decided in 1992 not to renew US naval base leases worth hundreds of millions of dollars. as for South Korea, Japan and Germany, how much credit can the US really take for their success today? we did not quite wage a war of 100% total annihilation in the 1940s, but US-led allied forces did bomb Japan and Germany pretty heavily in Nagasaki, Hiroshima and Dresden. Japan didn't exactly love being a US occupied territory. that lasted less than ten years. the people in Japan, Germany and South Korea worked their asses off to get the prosperity they have today. but, ok, sure, the US can take credit for the Marshall plan, and for opening domestic markets to exports from Japan and Germany, and for not stealing West German infrastructure and sending it back to the US (as the Soviets did to East Germany).

lurquer 7y ago

>Does US dominance guarantee a better outcome for the people in those places? That's not the right question. This is the right question: Does US dominance guarantee a better outcome for the people in the US?

dwd 7y ago
Pretty sure funnelling some of that money into health and education would be a better deal for the average US family. American multinationals would however argue more needs to be done to protect their overseas investments and access to markets. Just don't expect them to foot the bill. "For globalisation to work, America can't be afraid to act like the almighty superpower that it is. The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist. McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonald-Douglas, the designer of the F-15, and the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technology is called the United States Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps." - Thomas Friedman
- mariuolo 7y ago
  > McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonald-Douglas, the designer of the F-15 And flying hamburgers?;)

jlawson 7y ago

Rather odd to list Cuba and Vietnam, places where the US directly lost major conflicts, and places where the US is 'clearly' dominant. Kind of odd to group places there the US 'was' dominant with places where it is, in a discussion of what would happen if US dominance went away. You seem to have forgotten to mention Japan, South Korea, West Germany, Israel, Taiwan, Kuwait, and basically the rest of the free world under areas where the US is dominant. What you've really done is point out that places where the US has struggled to maintain dominance are terrible places to live. Which is true. Living under total US dominance as in Canada or Finland or Hawaii is far preferable than any alternative. If you fairly listed and categorized times and places, it becomes extremely clear that American hegemony is vastly preferable to residents than any non-imaginary alternative.

codesushi42 7y ago
>Living under total US dominance as in Canada or Finland or Hawaii is far preferable than any alternative. I'd like to see you live in Puerto Rico or Detroit then.
HillaryBriss 7y ago
the US was dominant in Cuba, Vietnam and the Philippines too -- for a while. the people in Cuba were so happy with US dominance that they staged a successful revolution. and US dominance ended up killing, directly or indirectly, a couple million people in Vietnam and Cambodia. even today chemicals left behind by US forces on military bases result in thousands of Vietnamese cancer deaths annually. and the Philippines loved our dominance so much that they decided in 1992 not to renew US naval base leases worth hundreds of millions of dollars. as for South Korea, Japan and Germany, how much credit can the US really take for their success today? we did not quite wage a war of 100% total annihilation in the 1940s, but US-led allied forces did bomb Japan and Germany pretty heavily in Nagasaki, Hiroshima and Dresden. Japan didn't exactly love being a US occupied territory. that lasted less than ten years. the people in Japan, Germany and South Korea worked their asses off to get the prosperity they have today. but, ok, sure, the US can take credit for the Marshall plan, and for opening domestic markets to exports from Japan and Germany, and for not stealing West German infrastructure and sending it back to the US (as the Soviets did to East Germany).