7 ms·

As someone who very often criticize US's international decisions, I tend to disagree. I think that the US-USSR opposition radicalized USA, fed its nationalism

by Iv 7y ago

As someone who very often criticize US's international decisions, I tend to disagree. I think that the US-USSR opposition radicalized USA, fed its nationalism and its paranoia and led it to develop an empire, something that is simply not in its culture (when you compare to typical colonial empires)

voldacar 7y ago
Wasn't the united states already developing an empire long before the cold war? things like the philippines and hawaii come to mind
- Iv 7y ago
  It was a short period and basically stopped after WWII. They could have occupied Japan and a thousand island if they wanted to and did not (now please just give state status to Puerto Rico) USA is more interested in free trade than in military conquest. Something I dare say, that is totally unlike USSR. Being an "ally" of USSR meant something totally different than being an ally of USA.
  - daseiner1 7y ago
    i’m strongly convinced, but would genuinely love a strong counterargument, that the single clearest US foreign policy priority since WW2 has been the establishment of free markets. My perception is that we are supremely confident that we can outcompete anyone, anywhere. We just want a market where we’re free to go head-to-head
    - ethelward 7y ago
      The US want ‶free″ markets, but with bonus if they are using dollars, have no problem taking bribes from US firms, respect US sanctions and give a few oh-so-subtle advantages to US firms there and there. Note that I don't blame them, any world power would do the same.
      - TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
        The US wants free markets its business class can benefit from. Just as it wants democracy its business class can benefit from. It's almost as if what the US really wants is an old-fashioned hegemonic empire that benefits its ruling class, and rhetoric about democracy and free markets is an expedient wrapper for that.
    - 77544cec 7y ago
      Don't forget the dollar and the fact any transaction made with this currency falls under American law. This is imperialism imposed by rule of law rather than by force, but still imperialism in the end. Example: https://www.scmp.com/tech/policy/article/3012497/heres-why-huawei-ceo-ren-zhengfei-reading-frenchmans-book https://www.scmp.com/tech/policy/article/3012497/heres-why-h... Excerpt: When photos of Huawei Technologies founder Ren Zhengfei showing journalists around his office began to circulate this week, there was a book on his desk that caught the eye of the Chinese internet community. The tome, a Chinese translation of Le Piège Américain, or The American Trap, was written by Frenchman Frederic Pierucci, a former executive with French rail transport company Alstom, about his five-year-long tussle with the US Department of Justice. The book has captured the imagination of Chinese readers because it mirrors in some ways what happened to Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, who was detained in Vancouver on December 1 and is out on bail and facing extradition to the US on allegations of helping defraud banks to circumvent US sanctions on Iran. Pierucci was arrested as he disembarked from a Cathay Pacific flight in New York in 2013. He pleaded guilty to charges of authorising bribes to Indonesian officials to win a boiler plant order, under an anti-corruption law that allowed the US to pursue cases overseas if the transaction was made in US dollars or email had passed through US servers. Pierucci ended up serving two years in prison in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, and was also put on parole for three years. He claims that the anti-corruption investigation was motivated by the US helping General Electric in its acquisition of Alstom’s energy business. Last year, ZTE was brought close to ruin after the US initiated an export ban on the company for breaching the terms of a settlement. On the detention of Meng, Pierucci said the US was using “exactly the same tactic” by getting someone close to the company’s leadership, putting pressure on them to cooperate with the Department of Justice. He also accused the US of using its judicial system to weaken its competitors and gain profits for their own companies. When asked about having been in contact with Huawei, Pierucci said that he has never been contacted by Huawei or received any payment from the company.
    - antod 7y ago
      Definitely not in agriculture though, where protectionism and massive subsidies abound.
    - chillacy 7y ago
      I think this is true only if your definition of a free market is what the US likes. After all there are a lot of restrictive laws needed to set up this "free market", like patents, trademarks, etc. Not to mention subsidies and tariffs affecting things as well. By some measures the US isn't even in the top 10 on market freedom: https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking
  - glandium 7y ago
    Note that the US did, in fact, occupy Japan for 6 years or so after WWII.
    - darawk 7y ago
      That occupation was nothing like typical colonialism, though. The occupation was there simply to ensure their transition to democracy, and then they left.
      - glandium 7y ago
        Nitpick: transition back to democracy.
        Craighead 7y ago
        source on Japan being a democracy before ww2 whole having an emperer
        ptaipale 7y ago
        Serious question: what do you mean with "back" to democracy? I have never thought of either shogunates or the imperial development after Meiji restoration as "democractic". Is there a significant democractic era in Japan somewhere before?
        glandium 7y ago
        Check out search results for "Taishō democracy".
        ptaipale 7y ago
        Well, yes, but was it significant enough to warrant the post-1945 change as "back to democracy"? I feel that is pretty doubtful. As Wikipedia puts it: Overall, during the 1920s, Japan changed its direction toward a democratic system of government. However, parliamentary government was not rooted deeply enough to withstand the economic and political pressures of the 1930s, during which military leaders became increasingly influential.
- _iyig 7y ago
  From Wikipedia: "United States control of the Philippines was never intended to be permanent. From the beginning, the colonial mission was seen as one of paternalistic "tutelage"—of preparing the nation for eventual independence—and aside from a few "retentionists", the question was generally not if, but when, independence would occur." The U.S. fought a brutal war against Filipino independence from 1899-1902, but progress continued towards self-rule via the Jones Act of 1916, the The Tydings–McDuffie Act of 1935, and finally the 1946 Treat of Manila which relinquished all U.S. claims to sovereignty in the Philippines. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Manila_(1946)#Initial_considerations_of_independence_(1899) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Manila_(1946)#Initia... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Philippines_(1898%E2%80%931946)#US_colonization:_the_%22Insular_Government%22_(1901%E2%80%931935) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Philippines_(18... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Philippines_(1898%E2%80%931946)#Independence_(1946) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Philippines_(18...
  - hdrujvw-4579 7y ago
    >United States control of the Philippines was never intended to be permanent. From the beginning, the colonial mission was seen as one of paternalistic "tutelage" That snippet sounds a little self-serving, "we're just a force of good and we want good for all". The situation is more complicated, and the more powerful countries -including the US- around the world at that time were all in pursuit of expanding their territory and power. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Imperialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Imperialism
    - _iyig 7y ago
      Yes, that's why the U.S. also fought a brutal war against Filipino independence. Regardless, they ultimately delivered on the promise of independence, and at the apex of American military and political power.
  - jessaustin 7y ago
    Ah, Wikipedia, that reliable source of political opinion stated as fact. Whose intent? The other option would have been just not to occupy the Philippines for fifty years. Can you see how that would have seemed like a different (better?) policy to most Filipinos? Leaving that aside, actions of USA officials and opportunists over that period was not much along the lines of "tutelage" in the finer points of democracy and very much along the lines of "let's take advantage of this preexisting Spanish feudal arrangement in order to extract as much as we can from these people". Philippines is still dealing with the effects of that.
colechristensen 7y ago
I think you have the cause and effect reversed. US/USSR conflict was used to fire up fear and unity (paranoia and nationalism) in the population for the people in power and that complex became independent when it started to make believers out of the people who created it and their followers. Standalone complexes like that flip around and start controlling the people who created them to control others and take on a life of their own nurtured and directed by people who want to use them to gain power – nurtured but no longer controlled.

by Iv 7y ago

voldacar 7y ago

Wasn't the united states already developing an empire long before the cold war? things like the philippines and hawaii come to mind

Iv 7y ago
It was a short period and basically stopped after WWII. They could have occupied Japan and a thousand island if they wanted to and did not (now please just give state status to Puerto Rico) USA is more interested in free trade than in military conquest. Something I dare say, that is totally unlike USSR. Being an "ally" of USSR meant something totally different than being an ally of USA.
- daseiner1 7y ago
  i’m strongly convinced, but would genuinely love a strong counterargument, that the single clearest US foreign policy priority since WW2 has been the establishment of free markets. My perception is that we are supremely confident that we can outcompete anyone, anywhere. We just want a market where we’re free to go head-to-head
  - ethelward 7y ago
    The US want ‶free″ markets, but with bonus if they are using dollars, have no problem taking bribes from US firms, respect US sanctions and give a few oh-so-subtle advantages to US firms there and there. Note that I don't blame them, any world power would do the same.
    - TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
      The US wants free markets its business class can benefit from. Just as it wants democracy its business class can benefit from. It's almost as if what the US really wants is an old-fashioned hegemonic empire that benefits its ruling class, and rhetoric about democracy and free markets is an expedient wrapper for that.
  - 77544cec 7y ago
    Don't forget the dollar and the fact any transaction made with this currency falls under American law. This is imperialism imposed by rule of law rather than by force, but still imperialism in the end. Example: https://www.scmp.com/tech/policy/article/3012497/heres-why-huawei-ceo-ren-zhengfei-reading-frenchmans-book https://www.scmp.com/tech/policy/article/3012497/heres-why-h... Excerpt: When photos of Huawei Technologies founder Ren Zhengfei showing journalists around his office began to circulate this week, there was a book on his desk that caught the eye of the Chinese internet community. The tome, a Chinese translation of Le Piège Américain, or The American Trap, was written by Frenchman Frederic Pierucci, a former executive with French rail transport company Alstom, about his five-year-long tussle with the US Department of Justice. The book has captured the imagination of Chinese readers because it mirrors in some ways what happened to Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, who was detained in Vancouver on December 1 and is out on bail and facing extradition to the US on allegations of helping defraud banks to circumvent US sanctions on Iran. Pierucci was arrested as he disembarked from a Cathay Pacific flight in New York in 2013. He pleaded guilty to charges of authorising bribes to Indonesian officials to win a boiler plant order, under an anti-corruption law that allowed the US to pursue cases overseas if the transaction was made in US dollars or email had passed through US servers. Pierucci ended up serving two years in prison in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, and was also put on parole for three years. He claims that the anti-corruption investigation was motivated by the US helping General Electric in its acquisition of Alstom’s energy business. Last year, ZTE was brought close to ruin after the US initiated an export ban on the company for breaching the terms of a settlement. On the detention of Meng, Pierucci said the US was using “exactly the same tactic” by getting someone close to the company’s leadership, putting pressure on them to cooperate with the Department of Justice. He also accused the US of using its judicial system to weaken its competitors and gain profits for their own companies. When asked about having been in contact with Huawei, Pierucci said that he has never been contacted by Huawei or received any payment from the company.
  - antod 7y ago
    Definitely not in agriculture though, where protectionism and massive subsidies abound.
  - chillacy 7y ago
    I think this is true only if your definition of a free market is what the US likes. After all there are a lot of restrictive laws needed to set up this "free market", like patents, trademarks, etc. Not to mention subsidies and tariffs affecting things as well. By some measures the US isn't even in the top 10 on market freedom: https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking
- glandium 7y ago
  Note that the US did, in fact, occupy Japan for 6 years or so after WWII.
  - darawk 7y ago
    That occupation was nothing like typical colonialism, though. The occupation was there simply to ensure their transition to democracy, and then they left.
    - glandium 7y ago
      Nitpick: transition back to democracy.
      - Craighead 7y ago
        source on Japan being a democracy before ww2 whole having an emperer
      - ptaipale 7y ago
        Serious question: what do you mean with "back" to democracy? I have never thought of either shogunates or the imperial development after Meiji restoration as "democractic". Is there a significant democractic era in Japan somewhere before?
        glandium 7y ago
        Check out search results for "Taishō democracy".
        ptaipale 7y ago
        Well, yes, but was it significant enough to warrant the post-1945 change as "back to democracy"? I feel that is pretty doubtful. As Wikipedia puts it: Overall, during the 1920s, Japan changed its direction toward a democratic system of government. However, parliamentary government was not rooted deeply enough to withstand the economic and political pressures of the 1930s, during which military leaders became increasingly influential.
_iyig 7y ago
From Wikipedia: "United States control of the Philippines was never intended to be permanent. From the beginning, the colonial mission was seen as one of paternalistic "tutelage"—of preparing the nation for eventual independence—and aside from a few "retentionists", the question was generally not if, but when, independence would occur." The U.S. fought a brutal war against Filipino independence from 1899-1902, but progress continued towards self-rule via the Jones Act of 1916, the The Tydings–McDuffie Act of 1935, and finally the 1946 Treat of Manila which relinquished all U.S. claims to sovereignty in the Philippines. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Manila_(1946)#Initial_considerations_of_independence_(1899) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Manila_(1946)#Initia... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Philippines_(1898%E2%80%931946)#US_colonization:_the_%22Insular_Government%22_(1901%E2%80%931935) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Philippines_(18... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Philippines_(1898%E2%80%931946)#Independence_(1946) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Philippines_(18...
- hdrujvw-4579 7y ago
  >United States control of the Philippines was never intended to be permanent. From the beginning, the colonial mission was seen as one of paternalistic "tutelage" That snippet sounds a little self-serving, "we're just a force of good and we want good for all". The situation is more complicated, and the more powerful countries -including the US- around the world at that time were all in pursuit of expanding their territory and power. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Imperialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Imperialism
  - _iyig 7y ago
    Yes, that's why the U.S. also fought a brutal war against Filipino independence. Regardless, they ultimately delivered on the promise of independence, and at the apex of American military and political power.
- jessaustin 7y ago
  Ah, Wikipedia, that reliable source of political opinion stated as fact. Whose intent? The other option would have been just not to occupy the Philippines for fifty years. Can you see how that would have seemed like a different (better?) policy to most Filipinos? Leaving that aside, actions of USA officials and opportunists over that period was not much along the lines of "tutelage" in the finer points of democracy and very much along the lines of "let's take advantage of this preexisting Spanish feudal arrangement in order to extract as much as we can from these people". Philippines is still dealing with the effects of that.

colechristensen 7y ago

I think you have the cause and effect reversed. US/USSR conflict was used to fire up fear and unity (paranoia and nationalism) in the population for the people in power and that complex became independent when it started to make believers out of the people who created it and their followers. Standalone complexes like that flip around and start controlling the people who created them to control others and take on a life of their own nurtured and directed by people who want to use them to gain power – nurtured but no longer controlled.