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Absolutely this. This comment [1] hit me hard when I read it: >I never understood the good effects of American hegemony until they started breaking down. The

Absolutely this. This comment [1] hit me hard when I read it: >I never understood the good effects of American hegemony until they started breaking down. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is a harbinger of what a world without American hegemony looks like. In that world, you're going to have a very bad time. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27565836 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27565836

myshpa 3y ago
Did you heard about americans in humvees running around ukraine-russian border and provoking russians, few years before the conflict ? How would your government react to russians trying to establish military bases in mexico, on your border? Oh, we know ... we can look what you did to Cubans. Are they still in blockade? I don't endorse what Russians are doing. But somebody was helping them to decide to attack. If it was successfull or not, we'll never know.
- anonuser123456 3y ago
  To make your argument symmetric, we need to imagine Mexico inviting Russia after we 1) poison their President with polonium, 2) seize the Baja peninsula and 3) arm and support border incursions from Texas separatists and 4) have those separatists shoot down a civilian airliner. So kinda not the same.
  - myshpa 3y ago
    Your country does immoral things, Russians do immoral things, Chinese too, every big "power" does. That's not the point. Point is, how would you react to the foreign powers on your border ? Would you go south or not?
    - foo-bar-bat 3y ago
      [flagged]
- NAG3LT 3y ago
  Please, stop repeating russian propaganda. They wanted to control and reconquer their former imperial colonies. Their claimed Casus Belli were just lame excuses, not actual reasons.
  - myshpa 3y ago
    I don't have it from russians, I'm not pro-russia, far from it. But those concerns that US (maybe) wants war on european continent were pretty often repeated in all EU media then.
  - cpursley 3y ago
    God forbid we use a little empathy, nuance and historical perspective in our opinions. And I know I'm a bit out there, but perhaps the people in the disputed territories should get a vote?
    - archagon 3y ago
      Perhaps the time to discuss this was before the 2014 invasion. I doubt Ukraine would acquiesce to it now.
    - kibwen 3y ago
      Russia would be happy to put it to a vote, now that they've relocated over a million Ukrainians from the Donbas to "filtration camps". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_filtration_camps_for_Ukrainians https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_filtration_camps_for... God forbid we react to the utterly inhumane invasion of Ukraine with the disgust it deserves. Stop trying to make cover for Putin behind a veil of insincere civility.
    - bombolo 3y ago
      but… What if they vote russia?
    - _kbh_ 3y ago
      > And I know I'm a bit out there, but perhaps the people in the disputed territories should get a vote? You mean just like the vote in Crimea in 2014 right? With a gun pointed at their backs under the supervision of the military?. There’s no way that, any vote like that is in anyway shape or form fair and will result in any outcome other than what the people pointing the guns want.
- RadixDLT 3y ago
  US will react the same way they did to cuba .. the bigger problem is that Russia is a backwards country with caveman ideology modeled on the strong Mongolian empire who wants to oppress everybody around them because they have narcissistic tendencies
- darkerside 3y ago
  Are you implying that the US would react to that situation by annexing parts of Mexico and eventually declaring war on it?
  - herewulf 3y ago
    The US would never declare war on Mexico! Nor annex any part of it!
    - darkerside 3y ago
      Not in 100 years
makeitdouble 3y ago
Russia's power also came from American hegemony and its military was built in direct reaction to it. Or how the middle east is a mess in huge part because of the US. Or Latin America after all the meddling. I really don't see an argument for US influence being better than the status quo, except for the US. It didn't stop wars or ethnic cleansings either when it was at its peak.
jltsiren 3y ago
I'm not so sure about that. From my Finnish perspective, the invasion of Ukraine is much like a repetition of the 90s. The cold war was a very stable period for Europe. When the old order collapsed, wars started in the former Yugoslavia and Caucasus and raged on for years. The 90s was also the decade of American hegemony. The hegemony started breaking down in the aftermath of 9/11, when the US decided that they care more about revenge than soft power.
- philwelch 3y ago
  > The hegemony started breaking down in the aftermath of 9/11, when the US decided that they care more about revenge than soft power. I would diagnose it differently. If all the US looked for was revenge, we could have been in and out of Afghanistan much more quickly and accomplished the mission. The mistake in Afghanistan was to engage in a poorly conceived twenty year experiment in nation building. If anything the problem is that Americans are too isolationist to take the duties of hegemony seriously. There’s really no reason we couldn’t occupy Afghanistan in perpetuity if we actually cared to bother, but it became politically unpopular for some reason. Maybe because we were never honest with ourselves about what we were doing.
  - jltsiren 3y ago
    From my point of view, the US wasted its hegemony on poorly planned unilateral actions in the early 2000s. The invasion of Afghanistan was clearly motivated by revenge, as the US invaded quickly without a proper plan or debate. It wasn't that catastrophic in itself, as the world generally considered the invasion justified. But it made it easier to invade Iraq without a proper plan or debate, which was catastrophic. Among other things, the invasion of Iraq taught the world that invading other countries with false justifications was perfectly fine. Putin certainly learned that. Then the US went on to alienate its traditional European allies that refused to participate in the charade. To many European politicians at that time, Putin didn't look much worse than Bush. When the US tried to warn Europe against tighter economic integration with Russia, those politicians refused to listen. When Putin turned out to be much worse, there were too many vested interests to reverse the course.
runarberg 3y ago
This comment reminds me of people warning about the perils of communism by posting photos of empty store shelves during the pandemic. In other words they used a failure of capitalism to exemplify communism. If American hegemony brings peace, why are you using an example where there this supposed peace effect obviously failed? American hegemony did not prevent the Russian invasion into Ukraine as we all know. It is not an example of a world without American hegemony, it is clearly and example of the world with American hegemony.
- philwelch 3y ago
  Russia invaded Ukraine because the US wasn’t being hegemonic enough. The first invasion in 2014 happened under a dovish, non-interventionist president elected due to public dissatisfaction with his interventionist predecessor. That administration refused to send aid to Ukraine at all, a policy that has been gradually reversed by the two successive administrations, then reversed more dramatically after the second invasion in 2022. Had the US taken the crisis more seriously, it could have likely deterred the 2022 invasion entirely. If you want an example of the world with American hegemony, consider that the longest sustained period of peace in Western European history began when Western Europe was first occupied by American troops in 1945.
  - runarberg 3y ago
    Surely you must realize the fallacy of your argument. I can apply this logic to literally everything. - X means we don’t have Y. - But a Y just happened. - It’s because we didn’t have enough X. But also you are wrong on you historic counts here. Western Europe hasn’t been entirely peaceful since 1945. First of all, Europe had colonies and colonial warfare well into the 1980s, colonial wars include Angola, Algeria, Kenya, the Falkland Islands and many more. Second many countries were dictatorship in Western Europe, including Spain, Portugal and Italy. There was a war in Cyprus, civil war in Northern Ireland, as well as terrorist insurgencies in Germany and Spain well into the 90s and 2000s. Neither did USA have hegemony in Western Europe during this period. USSRs influence spread across the continent. There were actually two Germanies until the late 1980s, there still are two Cypruses (despite both Turkey and Greece being NATO members), Communist and Socialist parties remained popular and quite often as part of coalition governments e.g. in Scandinavia, France, Belgium, etc.
s1artibartfast 3y ago
The invasion of Ukraine was about the breakdown of multipolarity and loss of Russian strength, not the growth of Russian strength. This is obvious if you answer the following questions: 1) Was Russian influence and power in Ukraine increasing or decreasing prior to the invasion? 2) Was Russian economic and military power increasing or decreasing in Europe prior to the war? 3) Is Russia stronger or weaker relative to NATO than the USSR was? I dont see how you can claim US and NATO power is in decline and was challenged more by Russia in 2022 than it was in the 20th century. To the contrary, the war in Ukraine is the result of growing hegemony in Europe, as hegemony expands outward and more Nations fall into the orbit of the US. Russia is fighting to preserve it's sphere of influence and prevent further collapse of its influence. I'm not saying that makes Russia a 'good guy", but I don't think there is any other way to interpret the shifting power balance leading up to the war.
- thx-2718 3y ago
  Question is though did Russia have to choose to be anti-west? Putin has been but Russia could have gone a different route rather than keep Putin in power all these years. Russia really doesn't win keeping itself xenophobic of the West. Japanese, Korean, & German culture are all very popular here in American entertainment today. Russia could have continued to preserve, celebrate, and expand her culture around the world through Western entertainment and alliances. Instead out of fear to preserve it Russia has become isolated from people that otherwise would have happily bought her stuff.
  - s1artibartfast 3y ago
    So that is a completely different question than if Russian global power and influence was rising prior to the war, which I was arguing against. It is possible that Russia could have gone a different way. Japan, Korea, and Germany all gave up significant autonomy by falling into the US alliance, but also reaped significant rewards. I think it is debatable if the west would want Russia in alliance. I think the really interesting question is what a country like Russia or China would have to give up to be on good terms with the US. For one, I think they would have to give up any ability to militarily defend themselves against the US. They would also probably have to give up any allies that the US doesn't approve of. Last, they would probably have to share control over any countries are territories currently in their sphere of influence with the West.

myshpa 3y ago

Did you heard about americans in humvees running around ukraine-russian border and provoking russians, few years before the conflict ? How would your government react to russians trying to establish military bases in mexico, on your border? Oh, we know ... we can look what you did to Cubans. Are they still in blockade? I don't endorse what Russians are doing. But somebody was helping them to decide to attack. If it was successfull or not, we'll never know.

anonuser123456 3y ago
To make your argument symmetric, we need to imagine Mexico inviting Russia after we 1) poison their President with polonium, 2) seize the Baja peninsula and 3) arm and support border incursions from Texas separatists and 4) have those separatists shoot down a civilian airliner. So kinda not the same.
- myshpa 3y ago
  Your country does immoral things, Russians do immoral things, Chinese too, every big "power" does. That's not the point. Point is, how would you react to the foreign powers on your border ? Would you go south or not?
  - foo-bar-bat 3y ago
    [flagged]
NAG3LT 3y ago
Please, stop repeating russian propaganda. They wanted to control and reconquer their former imperial colonies. Their claimed Casus Belli were just lame excuses, not actual reasons.
- myshpa 3y ago
  I don't have it from russians, I'm not pro-russia, far from it. But those concerns that US (maybe) wants war on european continent were pretty often repeated in all EU media then.
- cpursley 3y ago
  God forbid we use a little empathy, nuance and historical perspective in our opinions. And I know I'm a bit out there, but perhaps the people in the disputed territories should get a vote?
  - archagon 3y ago
    Perhaps the time to discuss this was before the 2014 invasion. I doubt Ukraine would acquiesce to it now.
  - kibwen 3y ago
    Russia would be happy to put it to a vote, now that they've relocated over a million Ukrainians from the Donbas to "filtration camps". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_filtration_camps_for_Ukrainians https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_filtration_camps_for... God forbid we react to the utterly inhumane invasion of Ukraine with the disgust it deserves. Stop trying to make cover for Putin behind a veil of insincere civility.
  - bombolo 3y ago
    but… What if they vote russia?
  - _kbh_ 3y ago
    > And I know I'm a bit out there, but perhaps the people in the disputed territories should get a vote? You mean just like the vote in Crimea in 2014 right? With a gun pointed at their backs under the supervision of the military?. There’s no way that, any vote like that is in anyway shape or form fair and will result in any outcome other than what the people pointing the guns want.
RadixDLT 3y ago
US will react the same way they did to cuba .. the bigger problem is that Russia is a backwards country with caveman ideology modeled on the strong Mongolian empire who wants to oppress everybody around them because they have narcissistic tendencies
darkerside 3y ago
Are you implying that the US would react to that situation by annexing parts of Mexico and eventually declaring war on it?
- herewulf 3y ago
  The US would never declare war on Mexico! Nor annex any part of it!
  - darkerside 3y ago
    Not in 100 years

makeitdouble 3y ago

Russia's power also came from American hegemony and its military was built in direct reaction to it. Or how the middle east is a mess in huge part because of the US. Or Latin America after all the meddling. I really don't see an argument for US influence being better than the status quo, except for the US. It didn't stop wars or ethnic cleansings either when it was at its peak.

jltsiren 3y ago

I'm not so sure about that. From my Finnish perspective, the invasion of Ukraine is much like a repetition of the 90s. The cold war was a very stable period for Europe. When the old order collapsed, wars started in the former Yugoslavia and Caucasus and raged on for years. The 90s was also the decade of American hegemony. The hegemony started breaking down in the aftermath of 9/11, when the US decided that they care more about revenge than soft power.

philwelch 3y ago
> The hegemony started breaking down in the aftermath of 9/11, when the US decided that they care more about revenge than soft power. I would diagnose it differently. If all the US looked for was revenge, we could have been in and out of Afghanistan much more quickly and accomplished the mission. The mistake in Afghanistan was to engage in a poorly conceived twenty year experiment in nation building. If anything the problem is that Americans are too isolationist to take the duties of hegemony seriously. There’s really no reason we couldn’t occupy Afghanistan in perpetuity if we actually cared to bother, but it became politically unpopular for some reason. Maybe because we were never honest with ourselves about what we were doing.
- jltsiren 3y ago
  From my point of view, the US wasted its hegemony on poorly planned unilateral actions in the early 2000s. The invasion of Afghanistan was clearly motivated by revenge, as the US invaded quickly without a proper plan or debate. It wasn't that catastrophic in itself, as the world generally considered the invasion justified. But it made it easier to invade Iraq without a proper plan or debate, which was catastrophic. Among other things, the invasion of Iraq taught the world that invading other countries with false justifications was perfectly fine. Putin certainly learned that. Then the US went on to alienate its traditional European allies that refused to participate in the charade. To many European politicians at that time, Putin didn't look much worse than Bush. When the US tried to warn Europe against tighter economic integration with Russia, those politicians refused to listen. When Putin turned out to be much worse, there were too many vested interests to reverse the course.

runarberg 3y ago

This comment reminds me of people warning about the perils of communism by posting photos of empty store shelves during the pandemic. In other words they used a failure of capitalism to exemplify communism. If American hegemony brings peace, why are you using an example where there this supposed peace effect obviously failed? American hegemony did not prevent the Russian invasion into Ukraine as we all know. It is not an example of a world without American hegemony, it is clearly and example of the world with American hegemony.

philwelch 3y ago
Russia invaded Ukraine because the US wasn’t being hegemonic enough. The first invasion in 2014 happened under a dovish, non-interventionist president elected due to public dissatisfaction with his interventionist predecessor. That administration refused to send aid to Ukraine at all, a policy that has been gradually reversed by the two successive administrations, then reversed more dramatically after the second invasion in 2022. Had the US taken the crisis more seriously, it could have likely deterred the 2022 invasion entirely. If you want an example of the world with American hegemony, consider that the longest sustained period of peace in Western European history began when Western Europe was first occupied by American troops in 1945.
- runarberg 3y ago
  Surely you must realize the fallacy of your argument. I can apply this logic to literally everything. - X means we don’t have Y. - But a Y just happened. - It’s because we didn’t have enough X. But also you are wrong on you historic counts here. Western Europe hasn’t been entirely peaceful since 1945. First of all, Europe had colonies and colonial warfare well into the 1980s, colonial wars include Angola, Algeria, Kenya, the Falkland Islands and many more. Second many countries were dictatorship in Western Europe, including Spain, Portugal and Italy. There was a war in Cyprus, civil war in Northern Ireland, as well as terrorist insurgencies in Germany and Spain well into the 90s and 2000s. Neither did USA have hegemony in Western Europe during this period. USSRs influence spread across the continent. There were actually two Germanies until the late 1980s, there still are two Cypruses (despite both Turkey and Greece being NATO members), Communist and Socialist parties remained popular and quite often as part of coalition governments e.g. in Scandinavia, France, Belgium, etc.

s1artibartfast 3y ago

The invasion of Ukraine was about the breakdown of multipolarity and loss of Russian strength, not the growth of Russian strength. This is obvious if you answer the following questions: 1) Was Russian influence and power in Ukraine increasing or decreasing prior to the invasion? 2) Was Russian economic and military power increasing or decreasing in Europe prior to the war? 3) Is Russia stronger or weaker relative to NATO than the USSR was? I dont see how you can claim US and NATO power is in decline and was challenged more by Russia in 2022 than it was in the 20th century. To the contrary, the war in Ukraine is the result of growing hegemony in Europe, as hegemony expands outward and more Nations fall into the orbit of the US. Russia is fighting to preserve it's sphere of influence and prevent further collapse of its influence. I'm not saying that makes Russia a 'good guy", but I don't think there is any other way to interpret the shifting power balance leading up to the war.

thx-2718 3y ago
Question is though did Russia have to choose to be anti-west? Putin has been but Russia could have gone a different route rather than keep Putin in power all these years. Russia really doesn't win keeping itself xenophobic of the West. Japanese, Korean, & German culture are all very popular here in American entertainment today. Russia could have continued to preserve, celebrate, and expand her culture around the world through Western entertainment and alliances. Instead out of fear to preserve it Russia has become isolated from people that otherwise would have happily bought her stuff.
- s1artibartfast 3y ago
  So that is a completely different question than if Russian global power and influence was rising prior to the war, which I was arguing against. It is possible that Russia could have gone a different way. Japan, Korea, and Germany all gave up significant autonomy by falling into the US alliance, but also reaped significant rewards. I think it is debatable if the west would want Russia in alliance. I think the really interesting question is what a country like Russia or China would have to give up to be on good terms with the US. For one, I think they would have to give up any ability to militarily defend themselves against the US. They would also probably have to give up any allies that the US doesn't approve of. Last, they would probably have to share control over any countries are territories currently in their sphere of influence with the West.