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It's really easy to rag on America and it's really easy to forget that basically every other superpower has been way, way worse.
by eggsmediumrare 6y ago
It's really easy to rag on America and it's really easy to forget that basically every other superpower has been way, way worse.
- pessimizer 6y agoBut it's also really silly to rag on empires that have been dead for hundreds of years when there's one right here.
- deburo 6y agoIt's not an empire, it's a superpower, and least you forget, it's not the only superpower in town: China and Russia are still present, with China being quite scary too be honest.
- FpUser 6y agoI thought the US does not consider Russia superpower anymore. They call it regional power.
- rchaud 6y agoJust semantics ultimately. Both have enough warheads to turn the planet into dust, and a large enough intelligence apparatus to conduct espionage and cyber warfare.
- giobox 6y agoCalling it semantics glosses over some realities. Russia’s GDP is roughly 1/10th that of the United States - the size of the US economy and the dominance of the US dollar as a reserve currency have arguably been stronger levers of power. Russia, for all its nuclear and military ability, does not exert anything like the economic power the US does. There’s more to “power” than just guns, rockets and espionage.
- rchaud 6y agoYes, Russia is far less rich. But the superior might and reach of the US (or EU or NATO) tends to be to leveraged to overthrow countries that are much weaker, such as Libya. Meanwhile Russia's expansion into Crimea has only been met with sanctions, and they have carved out a growing sphere of influence in Syria by helping Assad turn the tide in the civil war. That's why I called it semantics. With nuclear weapons and the logistical capability to deploy them, asymmetric economic power doesn't matter as much.
- parsimo2010 6y agoIt's been a while since I took my geopolitics class, but I think most people that study geopolitics would claim that the USA is in fact an empire, and that China and Russia are considered "great powers" and not superpowers. While China is still on the rise, it exerts dominating influence over a very large region and not quite globally.
- YaSamPoSebe 6y agoUS is FAR scarier than China. Just try to ask in Europe who the (educated) people there consider to be the primary threat to the world. I am not talking about european "mainstream media", these are eventually on the US food chain.
- vagrantJin 6y agoI would wager it is an empire judging on how many military bases it has all pver the world, global cultural influence, global trade and monetary influence. If it looks like a duck. If it quacks like a duck.
- freed5666 6y agoIt is indeed an empire. Two good books: [1] How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States by Daniel Immerwahr https://www.amazon.com/How-Hide-Empire-History-Greater/dp/0374172145 https://www.amazon.com/How-Hide-Empire-History-Greater/dp/03... [2] Understanding Power by Noam Chomsky https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Power-Indispensible-Chomsky-Noam/dp/1565847032 https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Power-Indispensible-Cho...
- ameister14 6y agoIf by hundreds of years you mean since the 1960's, sure.
- FpUser 6y agoNice way to avoid responsibility for the things being done. Look ma Genghis Khan was worse. I guess China can do the same. You can always find somebody more bad than you are.
- eggsmediumrare 6y agoOr maybe acknowledging incremental improvement instead of pointing out imperfections will encourage more improvement.
- FpUser 6y agoIt takes two to tango.
- okprod 6y agoI can't see the comment you replied to but I assume it was about the US. If so, I'd recommend the South Park episode about the US's genius innovation of having its cake and eating it, too :)
- b0tzzzzzzman 6y agoShow me an American who really believes our political and government structure is a total value summed to define Freedom. The complicated nature of laws, social issues, selfishness, arrogance, and ignorance, have given way to a different form of slavery. Self censorship was an issue when I was in school. Now it must be at an ATH. If everything can be summarized into the merits of global freedom, we are in trouble.