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The Wikipedia page on the Pentagon Papers is very informative. It shows the many things it revealed, like the fact that there was an effort to contain China, an

The Wikipedia page on the Pentagon Papers is very informative. It shows the many things it revealed, like the fact that there was an effort to contain China, and the details behind that. The fact that the US overthrew Diem and the South Vietnamese govt in 1963. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers Chomsky wrote a good analysis of them too, well worth reading (1972) https://chomsky.info/1972____/ https://chomsky.info/1972____/

_8j50 3y ago
You know, I gotta say, they make that sound as if it wasn't a public secret anyways at the time. The US fought in the Korean war for the same reason. Admitting publicly that their target was China would mean the war is not really a Cold war, what made the Cold war Cold was the fact that participants did not engage in conflict directly and publicly against each other. 4 administrations knew the war was not winnable, that seems to be the biggest revelation. But it's not like congress also didn't know this right? Regardless, so what? The entire reason they wanted to contain china was to avoid another world war, one which even with west europe united with the US cannot be one if all of asia and russia are the adversaries. Up until at least the 90s, the foreign policy of the west was to do everything possible to avoid a 3rd world war. To learn from the 2nd war the fact that had they learned from the first it could have been avoided. I don't really care to justify their actions but their reasoning and sentiment was in line with the public's at the time. It feels like only the intellectual college educated urban demographic really disagreed, much like with snowden's leaks.
- mixmastamyk 3y ago
  Could you unpack that last sentence?
  - _8j50 3y ago
    Sure. When you look at polling, most people believe the government should be doing "dirty" things like starting wars, spying on its own people or playing espionage/sabotage in foreign countries to protect the national interest and security. I.e.: whatever it takes to keep them, their jobs and their future safe and secure. This sentiment tends to transcend the rule of law itself in my opinion. Look at the snowden leaks for example, a lot of surface level stuff has changed but the NSA is back at it and is exponentially worse because now they know very well what they can get away with. I have had several conversations about this with people old and young who believed NSA spying on them or the whole "my FBI guy watching me" meme is totally fine because they are scared of ISIS or China or just "bad guys" in general. Even those who don't like it usually tend to think it is unavoidable. What I meant about college educated and urban, I guess I didn't want to say liberal because conservatives who distrust the government feel the same way too. But college education seems to be what drives the sentiment as well as living in an urban environment where seeing all kinds of people forces you to be less fearful of them and more fearful of a powerful government that can monitor and control what you do more easily due to how infrasrructure works in cities. Put it differently, there is a reason police reform for example is hard outside of cities and cities with a lot of college educated people. People who look the other way when cops get dirty are plenty so long as they believe their "group" isn't the target/victim.
- Synaesthesia 3y ago
  If you read the Chomsky analysis you'll see that the real threat of China was their successful economic growth. That showed that a different model was possible, one of independence from the western system. China was not really a military threat to the US, particularly not in that era.
  - _8j50 3y ago
    > China was not really a military threat to the US, particularly not in that era. China was capable of forming a communist bloc in Asia, much like russia and the soviet union. They were the backers of the north vietnamese and north korean communists among other communist regimes. Real or not, US leadership believed China had expansionist aspirations. I suppose in their minds Mao was like Stalin or Hitler in his aspirations. Even today, that is largely what drives tensions with China, they are believed to be playing the long game when it comes to world domination. It's hard for me to reason and argue against that because of their belt and road initiative, building foreign military bases and aircraft carriers like US. They are not taking the economic powerhouse route like Japan but their own geopolitical adversarial trajectory.
- somenameforme 3y ago
  If you're interested in US geopolitics, there's one paper that lays everything out in surprisingly plain language. It's Project for the New American Century's (PNAC) "Rebuilding America's Defenses." [1] It was published during the Bush era, but the political establishment is incestuous and perpetual. For instance Victoria Nuland, Undersecretary of State - just under Anthony Blinken, is the wife of the head of PNAC - Robert Kagan. The sole and primary motivation for US geopolitical actions has been to maintain hegemony by preventing the emergence of a new geopolitical superpower. And while that paper lays out the motivation is plain and clear language, the same has certainly been true dating back to at least the Monroe Doctrine [2] in 1948, which basically asserted that the US would not allow the USSR to expand. We're not fighting against China or [insert latest enemy] because they want to rule the world, but because "we" do. --- The one and only president that's really notably gone against this was JFK: "We must face the fact that the United States is neither omnipotent nor omniscient–that we are only six percent of the world’s population–that we cannot impose our will upon the other ninety-four percent of mankind–that we cannot right every wrong or reverse each adversity–and that therefore there cannot be an American solution to every world problem." -JFK, 1961 It's difficult to imagine a US President ever saying such things, and that's in large part because none since him have. --- [1] - https://archive.org/details/RebuildingAmericasDefenses https://archive.org/details/RebuildingAmericasDefenses [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truman_Doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truman_Doctrine
  - _8j50 3y ago
    Thanks for the links and references. > but because "we" do. I'd go even deeper and say because "we" want to trade with others and extract resources (oil in iraq for example) from other countries. But also, it isn't just another world ruler that is the problem. The british empire was in a way "ruling the world" post 1945, but they were allies. The US competing against another power is one thing but competing against another communist power with a completley different and hostile world view is another, because that doesn't just mean economic loss but loss in political influence and an inevitable path toa global conflict between the countries they influence vs the countries the US influences. Japan for example is in Asia and econmically has been a major US competitor. But yes, I don't disagree with what you said. And honestly, whether it is China or Russia, I would much prefer my own government to dominate. The only thing I don't like is how the USGOV arm-twists other countries into accepting its views on human rights and all that, things that are purely an enforcement of the US's values and worldviews on others, but does not benefit US interests one bit. I can't remember if it was an african or east european leader who was saying something on the lines of "the US wants to turn our men homosexual and our women become like men with no respect to our culture and China wants to exploit us..." basically describing how they felt siding with the US meant abandoning their moral, religious and cultural views and siding which China meant taking on a lot of risks such as heavy debt and long term subjuguation to China. But at least China doesn't care about their internal politics at all. All the machetes in the rwandan genoicide were imported from china. In an ironic way, China is more capitalist than the US because they put their capital and economic interests above spreading their communist rhetoric and beliefs. The US just has to export democracy and its view on human rights, even if that has an economic cost or causes wars and conflicts.

_8j50 3y ago

You know, I gotta say, they make that sound as if it wasn't a public secret anyways at the time. The US fought in the Korean war for the same reason. Admitting publicly that their target was China would mean the war is not really a Cold war, what made the Cold war Cold was the fact that participants did not engage in conflict directly and publicly against each other. 4 administrations knew the war was not winnable, that seems to be the biggest revelation. But it's not like congress also didn't know this right? Regardless, so what? The entire reason they wanted to contain china was to avoid another world war, one which even with west europe united with the US cannot be one if all of asia and russia are the adversaries. Up until at least the 90s, the foreign policy of the west was to do everything possible to avoid a 3rd world war. To learn from the 2nd war the fact that had they learned from the first it could have been avoided. I don't really care to justify their actions but their reasoning and sentiment was in line with the public's at the time. It feels like only the intellectual college educated urban demographic really disagreed, much like with snowden's leaks.

mixmastamyk 3y ago
Could you unpack that last sentence?
- _8j50 3y ago
  Sure. When you look at polling, most people believe the government should be doing "dirty" things like starting wars, spying on its own people or playing espionage/sabotage in foreign countries to protect the national interest and security. I.e.: whatever it takes to keep them, their jobs and their future safe and secure. This sentiment tends to transcend the rule of law itself in my opinion. Look at the snowden leaks for example, a lot of surface level stuff has changed but the NSA is back at it and is exponentially worse because now they know very well what they can get away with. I have had several conversations about this with people old and young who believed NSA spying on them or the whole "my FBI guy watching me" meme is totally fine because they are scared of ISIS or China or just "bad guys" in general. Even those who don't like it usually tend to think it is unavoidable. What I meant about college educated and urban, I guess I didn't want to say liberal because conservatives who distrust the government feel the same way too. But college education seems to be what drives the sentiment as well as living in an urban environment where seeing all kinds of people forces you to be less fearful of them and more fearful of a powerful government that can monitor and control what you do more easily due to how infrasrructure works in cities. Put it differently, there is a reason police reform for example is hard outside of cities and cities with a lot of college educated people. People who look the other way when cops get dirty are plenty so long as they believe their "group" isn't the target/victim.
Synaesthesia 3y ago
If you read the Chomsky analysis you'll see that the real threat of China was their successful economic growth. That showed that a different model was possible, one of independence from the western system. China was not really a military threat to the US, particularly not in that era.
- _8j50 3y ago
  > China was not really a military threat to the US, particularly not in that era. China was capable of forming a communist bloc in Asia, much like russia and the soviet union. They were the backers of the north vietnamese and north korean communists among other communist regimes. Real or not, US leadership believed China had expansionist aspirations. I suppose in their minds Mao was like Stalin or Hitler in his aspirations. Even today, that is largely what drives tensions with China, they are believed to be playing the long game when it comes to world domination. It's hard for me to reason and argue against that because of their belt and road initiative, building foreign military bases and aircraft carriers like US. They are not taking the economic powerhouse route like Japan but their own geopolitical adversarial trajectory.
somenameforme 3y ago
If you're interested in US geopolitics, there's one paper that lays everything out in surprisingly plain language. It's Project for the New American Century's (PNAC) "Rebuilding America's Defenses." [1] It was published during the Bush era, but the political establishment is incestuous and perpetual. For instance Victoria Nuland, Undersecretary of State - just under Anthony Blinken, is the wife of the head of PNAC - Robert Kagan. The sole and primary motivation for US geopolitical actions has been to maintain hegemony by preventing the emergence of a new geopolitical superpower. And while that paper lays out the motivation is plain and clear language, the same has certainly been true dating back to at least the Monroe Doctrine [2] in 1948, which basically asserted that the US would not allow the USSR to expand. We're not fighting against China or [insert latest enemy] because they want to rule the world, but because "we" do. --- The one and only president that's really notably gone against this was JFK: "We must face the fact that the United States is neither omnipotent nor omniscient–that we are only six percent of the world’s population–that we cannot impose our will upon the other ninety-four percent of mankind–that we cannot right every wrong or reverse each adversity–and that therefore there cannot be an American solution to every world problem." -JFK, 1961 It's difficult to imagine a US President ever saying such things, and that's in large part because none since him have. --- [1] - https://archive.org/details/RebuildingAmericasDefenses https://archive.org/details/RebuildingAmericasDefenses [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truman_Doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truman_Doctrine
- _8j50 3y ago
  Thanks for the links and references. > but because "we" do. I'd go even deeper and say because "we" want to trade with others and extract resources (oil in iraq for example) from other countries. But also, it isn't just another world ruler that is the problem. The british empire was in a way "ruling the world" post 1945, but they were allies. The US competing against another power is one thing but competing against another communist power with a completley different and hostile world view is another, because that doesn't just mean economic loss but loss in political influence and an inevitable path toa global conflict between the countries they influence vs the countries the US influences. Japan for example is in Asia and econmically has been a major US competitor. But yes, I don't disagree with what you said. And honestly, whether it is China or Russia, I would much prefer my own government to dominate. The only thing I don't like is how the USGOV arm-twists other countries into accepting its views on human rights and all that, things that are purely an enforcement of the US's values and worldviews on others, but does not benefit US interests one bit. I can't remember if it was an african or east european leader who was saying something on the lines of "the US wants to turn our men homosexual and our women become like men with no respect to our culture and China wants to exploit us..." basically describing how they felt siding with the US meant abandoning their moral, religious and cultural views and siding which China meant taking on a lot of risks such as heavy debt and long term subjuguation to China. But at least China doesn't care about their internal politics at all. All the machetes in the rwandan genoicide were imported from china. In an ironic way, China is more capitalist than the US because they put their capital and economic interests above spreading their communist rhetoric and beliefs. The US just has to export democracy and its view on human rights, even if that has an economic cost or causes wars and conflicts.