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I don't agree with this mentality. If you are helping a dictator or authoritarian regime, sure. I think it is in the wrong side of the story. But helping out

I don't agree with this mentality. If you are helping a dictator or authoritarian regime, sure. I think it is in the wrong side of the story. But helping out the US in developing high-precission weapons does the opposite. 1. It might save lifes, as the alternative is dumb carpet bombing. As we know during WW2, carpet bombing killed mostly civilians and destroyed cities. 2. Most weapons that the US has, are there for deterrence, and not necessary meant to be used, and in the long run hopefully they are never used. 3. The US is the better greater power by a long stretch. I know it gets a lot of flak here, but while it has done many mistakes, the US has done more good that usually gets forgotten. The alternative is China (in the Pacific) or Russian hegemony in half of Europe. I am talking as someone born in a former communist country. And almost all former communist countries in Europe are staunch US supporters/allies as they have lived first hand communism, and experienced its rotten system.

Volundr 6y ago
I don't necessarily disagree with your points, though I might debate most of them. #2 however strikes me as pretty darn optimistic. Recent history suggests that the US doesn't have much hesitation about using their weapons.
- shajznnckfke 6y ago
  Very few of the US’s weapons have been used. They have the capacity to blow up the whole world many times over, and end up attacking a minuscule portion of the population.
  - cycomanic 6y ago
    Compared to all the other recent and present superpowers the US has actually used their weapons the most.
    - shajznnckfke 6y ago
      The US, USSR, China, Japan, and Germany are all the superpowers from the past century, and they all got in some wars with each other, sometimes via client states. In the recent decades after Germany and Japan exited the scene, the wars have been relatively small.
andretti1977 6y ago
In my opinion your defense of US is completely unacceptable and wrong but i don't want to start a discussion about that: i want you to consider that in general, it's better to spend energy, focus, money and any other constructive effort in creating something that helps people instead of something that kills people, even if you consider those people bad ones. It's better to spend efforts in education and culture instead of spending more on police defense. It's better to spend efforts in negotiations and ways to sign peace treaties instead of making wars. It's better to spend efforts in making chirurgical items instead of spending efforts in making weapons.
- gattis 6y ago
  you kinda need some people to be making missiles in order for everyone else to have the luxury of being able to spend their efforts on education and culture. do you know of any countries without missiles? exactly.
  - the-dude 6y ago
    Why is that? Has the US ever been seriously threatened on its terrority? These missiles are there to protect the economic hegemony.
    - hnracer 6y ago
      Yes, during the Pearl Harbor attack. This was 75-80 years ago, on the time scale of civilizations, quite a short time. Not to mention that the US is within range of the ICBMs of various authoritarian regimes.
    - ardit33 6y ago
      oi... WW2 is not that far away.... japan attacked us soil. Also, WW1, the US stayed away as much as it could, the eventually had to intervene as its ships started sinking The point of having lots of weapons, is not to have to use them, but be credible threat to not have the other side dare to use their weapons on you. Russia/Putin and China are developing hypersonic nuclear missiles. What is the US going to do about it? Sing, kumbaya and pray for world peace.... ?
pjc50 6y ago
Does this extend to all countries that the US sells weapons to? Are you happy about the use of US weapons by Saudi Arabia against Yemen, for example?
- heartbeats 6y ago
  The U.S. selling weapons to Saudi Arabia doesn't harm U.S. interests in any way, but it's profitable and benefits the weapons industry, which is good from a self-defense perspective.
  - deleted 6y ago
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  - zentiggr 6y ago
    Oh, I'm fairly sure U.S. support of the Saudi royal family is already biting people in the ass... and the beginnings of the end of that support are already happening.
- adventured 6y ago
  You don't think that's balanced by the US selling weapons to several dozen of the freest nations on the planet, liberal democracies with the best human rights records? Do you know why the US is the world's biggest arms dealer? Mostly because all of those free, liberal democracies buy very expensive weapons from the US and have the most affluent economies (thus they can afford US aircraft that cost tens of millions of dollars). In a typical year, 3/4 or more of all US weapons sales go to human rights protecting liberal democracies. Across five years to 2017, 18% of US weapons sales went to Saudi Arabia (12.4% went to Taiwan and Australia by comparison). Should the US stop selling weapons to Taiwan, so China's annexation is really easy? Should the US stop selling weapons to Australia, so China can be even less worried as they try to intimidate Australia and control Asia? Does it take all of those liberal democracies to offset Saudi Arabia, or is it one to one? How does the subjective moral scale work exactly? Does it accumulate over time, such that the US has a billion year credit for protecting and aiding Europe and Asia before and after WW2? How many credits is keeping democratic Taiwan apart from China for this long worth? Does the US get a trillion moral credits for being the only nation that is willing to stand up to China militarily re Taiwan? How about South Korea, does one South Korea for 70 years off-set one Saudi Arabia? So many fascinating questions and that's just scratching the surface.
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cmrdporcupine 6y ago
It's worth pointing out that carpet bombing in WWII was not some accident of primitive technology and inability to perform precise targeting. It was deliberate strategy from the UK and the USA, with the goal to demoralize and punish German & Japanese civilians. Mass civilian death and the total destruction of whole cities was the result. Napalm, for example was specifically developed to create building fires that would spread quickly and not be easily extinguished. The sheer horror of it is not spoken much of in the west, where the crimes against humanity that Nazi Germany performed are rightly highlighted. But as a person with an ex-pat German father who grew up in the rubble, and a grandfather who helped reconstruct post-WWII Mainz, I was always made acutely aware of it. Frankly, it makes me cringe every rememberance day when I hear my Canadian friends talk about their heroic grandparents, etc. who flew Lancaster bombers during WWII. My Opa did something far more heroic which was to spend the bulk of the war in an American POW camp, not fighting anybody -- and learning English in the process.
- deleted 6y ago
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- iaw 6y ago
  Carpet bombing can be seen as a rational response to the V2 rocket which was indiscriminate of it's targeting of Londoners. War is often a case of responding in kind. If the Germans had had the capability of bombing London they would have (but couldn't thanks to radar). This was not a small conflict but an existential fight for existence between two groups of countries. I have a hard time judging the decision to carpet bomb during WWII harshly given the circumstances. Note that both sides had nerve agents that were not deployed because neither wanted that escalation. There are definitely events, and even wars, where the US has committed atrocities but I don't think carpet bombing during WWII is a good example of it.
  - iso947 6y ago
    Germany did bomb the crap out of London and other cities - the blitz in London, destroyed Coventry, and the “Baedeker blitz” Which had limited military justification
cycomanic 6y ago
I think it's important to remember that history gets written by the winners and that your opinion might have been very different if you would have grown up under Pinochet in Chile or the Somoza family in Nicaragua. Moreover, while I concede that the US entering some wars has been good, that does not guarantee that it will continue like that, so if you are developing missile guiding systems you should always reflect on that they might be used for evil. You could even say that many of the Russian scientists were probably thinking they were working on defending against evil.

Volundr 6y ago

I don't necessarily disagree with your points, though I might debate most of them. #2 however strikes me as pretty darn optimistic. Recent history suggests that the US doesn't have much hesitation about using their weapons.

shajznnckfke 6y ago
Very few of the US’s weapons have been used. They have the capacity to blow up the whole world many times over, and end up attacking a minuscule portion of the population.
- cycomanic 6y ago
  Compared to all the other recent and present superpowers the US has actually used their weapons the most.
  - shajznnckfke 6y ago
    The US, USSR, China, Japan, and Germany are all the superpowers from the past century, and they all got in some wars with each other, sometimes via client states. In the recent decades after Germany and Japan exited the scene, the wars have been relatively small.

andretti1977 6y ago

In my opinion your defense of US is completely unacceptable and wrong but i don't want to start a discussion about that: i want you to consider that in general, it's better to spend energy, focus, money and any other constructive effort in creating something that helps people instead of something that kills people, even if you consider those people bad ones. It's better to spend efforts in education and culture instead of spending more on police defense. It's better to spend efforts in negotiations and ways to sign peace treaties instead of making wars. It's better to spend efforts in making chirurgical items instead of spending efforts in making weapons.

gattis 6y ago
you kinda need some people to be making missiles in order for everyone else to have the luxury of being able to spend their efforts on education and culture. do you know of any countries without missiles? exactly.
- the-dude 6y ago
  Why is that? Has the US ever been seriously threatened on its terrority? These missiles are there to protect the economic hegemony.
  - hnracer 6y ago
    Yes, during the Pearl Harbor attack. This was 75-80 years ago, on the time scale of civilizations, quite a short time. Not to mention that the US is within range of the ICBMs of various authoritarian regimes.
  - ardit33 6y ago
    oi... WW2 is not that far away.... japan attacked us soil. Also, WW1, the US stayed away as much as it could, the eventually had to intervene as its ships started sinking The point of having lots of weapons, is not to have to use them, but be credible threat to not have the other side dare to use their weapons on you. Russia/Putin and China are developing hypersonic nuclear missiles. What is the US going to do about it? Sing, kumbaya and pray for world peace.... ?

pjc50 6y ago

Does this extend to all countries that the US sells weapons to? Are you happy about the use of US weapons by Saudi Arabia against Yemen, for example?

heartbeats 6y ago
The U.S. selling weapons to Saudi Arabia doesn't harm U.S. interests in any way, but it's profitable and benefits the weapons industry, which is good from a self-defense perspective.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- zentiggr 6y ago
  Oh, I'm fairly sure U.S. support of the Saudi royal family is already biting people in the ass... and the beginnings of the end of that support are already happening.
adventured 6y ago
You don't think that's balanced by the US selling weapons to several dozen of the freest nations on the planet, liberal democracies with the best human rights records? Do you know why the US is the world's biggest arms dealer? Mostly because all of those free, liberal democracies buy very expensive weapons from the US and have the most affluent economies (thus they can afford US aircraft that cost tens of millions of dollars). In a typical year, 3/4 or more of all US weapons sales go to human rights protecting liberal democracies. Across five years to 2017, 18% of US weapons sales went to Saudi Arabia (12.4% went to Taiwan and Australia by comparison). Should the US stop selling weapons to Taiwan, so China's annexation is really easy? Should the US stop selling weapons to Australia, so China can be even less worried as they try to intimidate Australia and control Asia? Does it take all of those liberal democracies to offset Saudi Arabia, or is it one to one? How does the subjective moral scale work exactly? Does it accumulate over time, such that the US has a billion year credit for protecting and aiding Europe and Asia before and after WW2? How many credits is keeping democratic Taiwan apart from China for this long worth? Does the US get a trillion moral credits for being the only nation that is willing to stand up to China militarily re Taiwan? How about South Korea, does one South Korea for 70 years off-set one Saudi Arabia? So many fascinating questions and that's just scratching the surface.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

deleted 6y ago

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cmrdporcupine 6y ago

It's worth pointing out that carpet bombing in WWII was not some accident of primitive technology and inability to perform precise targeting. It was deliberate strategy from the UK and the USA, with the goal to demoralize and punish German & Japanese civilians. Mass civilian death and the total destruction of whole cities was the result. Napalm, for example was specifically developed to create building fires that would spread quickly and not be easily extinguished. The sheer horror of it is not spoken much of in the west, where the crimes against humanity that Nazi Germany performed are rightly highlighted. But as a person with an ex-pat German father who grew up in the rubble, and a grandfather who helped reconstruct post-WWII Mainz, I was always made acutely aware of it. Frankly, it makes me cringe every rememberance day when I hear my Canadian friends talk about their heroic grandparents, etc. who flew Lancaster bombers during WWII. My Opa did something far more heroic which was to spend the bulk of the war in an American POW camp, not fighting anybody -- and learning English in the process.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
iaw 6y ago
Carpet bombing can be seen as a rational response to the V2 rocket which was indiscriminate of it's targeting of Londoners. War is often a case of responding in kind. If the Germans had had the capability of bombing London they would have (but couldn't thanks to radar). This was not a small conflict but an existential fight for existence between two groups of countries. I have a hard time judging the decision to carpet bomb during WWII harshly given the circumstances. Note that both sides had nerve agents that were not deployed because neither wanted that escalation. There are definitely events, and even wars, where the US has committed atrocities but I don't think carpet bombing during WWII is a good example of it.
- iso947 6y ago
  Germany did bomb the crap out of London and other cities - the blitz in London, destroyed Coventry, and the “Baedeker blitz” Which had limited military justification

cycomanic 6y ago

I think it's important to remember that history gets written by the winners and that your opinion might have been very different if you would have grown up under Pinochet in Chile or the Somoza family in Nicaragua. Moreover, while I concede that the US entering some wars has been good, that does not guarantee that it will continue like that, so if you are developing missile guiding systems you should always reflect on that they might be used for evil. You could even say that many of the Russian scientists were probably thinking they were working on defending against evil.