6 ms·

I'd say the US is a hegemon but not really an Empire except for a few small islands. They've also made some terrible mistakes such as Vietnam and the 2nd Gulf W

by simonh 3y ago

I'd say the US is a hegemon but not really an Empire except for a few small islands. They've also made some terrible mistakes such as Vietnam and the 2nd Gulf War. The way the US prosecuted the Korean war was also inexcusable, although I think that one did need to be fought. Let's add some appalling interventions in South America while we're at it. On the other hand the 1st Gulf War was unavoidable, and overall with the exception of the 2nd Gulf War over the last 40 years they've more or less tried to do the right thing. Today it's widely recognised across parties in the US that 2GW was a mistake. Still, since WW2 they've sunk vast resources into guaranteeing Western European security, and spent Trillions guaranteeing global freedom of navigation that's benefited everybody. They've been aggressive economically, true, but that's a whole massive deal better than being aggressive militarily and overall global trade in the last 70 years has had incredible benefits. Global poverty has collapsed to a tiny fraction of what it was, the middle class has risen from about 5% to about 60% of the world population, life expectancy rates have soared. Death rates from war have collapsed. The stats on that are up on the last decade it's still historically low. The majority of this happened after the collapse of the Soviet Union. What Russia and China want to do is take the world back to a cold war situation of vying spheres of geographic influence. What the US wants to do is get out of the world police business while maintaining a peaceful global order conducive to business. So we have Russia and China flexing their territorial military muscles, while the US builds networks of alliances such as an expanded NATO, AUKUS, the Quad and such to better share the load. I say alliances, but for the latter US strategy to succeed it eventually needs to include nations that are not traditional US allies. India, Brazil, Indonesia, South Africa, even places like Vietnam. These will or may never align with the US and Europe the way the US and Europe do, so such relationships will have to be transactional in nature. Partnerships rather than true alliances, based on common interests around eliminating the scope for military expansionism that favours big regional military hegemons. So sure, a lot of past mistakes for sure, but the question for us now is where does the world go from here?

sand_castles 3y ago
[dead]
kjkjadksj 3y ago
> I'd say the US is a hegemon but not really an Empire except for a few small islands This is the ruse. The US is a global empire. Except, as history has shown, imperialism is somewhat unpopular to local populations. The US modern imperialism playbook is designed so the population really believes they are self governing themselves. The US doesn’t care who runs the day to day domestic government, so long as they have military bases, are the primary trading partner, and effectively direct this countries foreign and economic policies unilaterally. The fact you think the American empire is limited to a few vestigial takings from the pacific theater of wwii shows how effective this modern and silent hegemony really is.
- simonh 3y ago
  The actual desires and interests of actual citizens, even in vibrant democracies with changes of elected government and free speech, don't count. Nice.
  - kjkjadksj 3y ago
    Its by design. Military is a separate entity from domestic elected government the world over. If you know anyone who is in the leadership side of the military or in the state dept, its very interesting having conversations learning about how these agencies view the world and how actual power is manifested.
    - simonh 3y ago
      Frankly it's bullshit. The Putinist narrative that democracy is a sham makes sense for a man isolated from the real world that doesn't use the internet, but it's stunning to me how disconnected some people in the west can be from the society they live in. I have family in the British military at a moderately high level. A friend was a researcher for an MP, and another a government adviser. Sure politics is messy, it's the art of the possible and expedient. Of course it's not ideal, but as the saying goes Democracy is the worst system of government except for all the others. You're never going to get perfect, the best you can get is consensus and the consent of the governed. We have that. I revile Trump, but he did do one thing for us. He proved that US democracy is real. All the Washington consensus clubbyness was pushed aside, corporate capture and bought influence were bulldozed over. None of the establishment wanted him, but he's what we got through a massive grass roots movement. He was an utter disaster, but it was a genuine demonstration of democracy in action.
ethbr0 3y ago
An interesting observation is that China is following the exact same economic/international-relations path the US did. 1. Become a global economic superpower (US 1910s, 20s) 2. ??? (US 1930s, 40s) 3. Military-industrial complex emerges and captures politicians (US 1950s) 4. Political leaders then begin looking at military capabilities and questioning why it isn't being used for military interventionalism (US 1960s) 5. Military interventionalism shows its flaws through failed post-intervention nation-building, and decreases appetite for intervention (US 1970s, 80s, 90s) 6. Reaction to historical interventions triggers occasional knee-jerk interventions (US 00s, 10s) In the US case, step 2 was WWII, which was somewhat unavoidable. In the Chinese case, I think it remains to be seen how steps 2-4 go. Absent an external war they're forced to become involved in, I could see step 2 being a popular consequence of whipping up nationalistic fervor to boost government support... and then that populist tail wagging the CCP dog and compelling military action when a crisis breaks out (e.g. Taiwanese independence declaration or naval incident in the South China sea).
- simonh 3y ago
  >Military-industrial complex emerges and captures politicians (US 1950s) So far China has completely avoided this. The military is very firmly under Party control. >Military interventionalism shows its flaws through failed post-intervention nation-building Germany, Japan and South Korea have been fantastic successes in nation building. Sure there have been failures too, most recently in Afghanistan. For China, their annexation of Tibet is going fine as is their ethnic hegemonisation there and in other regions. North Korea is an embarrassment, but eh. Dictatorships must continuously work to maintain their legitimacy. This means they need to justify denying freedoms and opportunities to their own population enjoyed in other nations. They can do that by painting foreign nations as being horrible failures but with international travel and many citizens having friends or family living in those nations, that's not viable long term. You're quite right. That leaves external threats which require such measures, with the added bonus of painting internal dissatisfaction with the government as disloyalty and betrayal. So for Russia, utter nowheres like Ukraine and Georgia have to be dire threats to Russia's security, so intervention can stop them succeeding where Russia failed. The Taiwan situation has to be escalated, and territorial claims in the South China Sea pushed in order to manufacture tensions that justify internal repression.
simonh 3y ago
It's a shame I can't reply to sand_castles directly. Countries freely choosing to allow allies to put military bases on their territory, generally with wide public support such as in Germany, Japan, and many others, is hardly colonialism. Every country that has joined NATO did so with public support, even massive public enthusiasm. Public support is actually a requirement to join. Do Indians and Chinese somehow not count? Both have benefited staggeringly from the global trade system built and secured by the US and it's allies. On building alliances "and which 2 countries is pushing to bring about that change ?" Russia and China have a tiny number of genuine military allies at most. NK and Myanmar for China, a few 'stans and Belarus for Russia. All of them horrific brutal dictatorships in their own right. Everybody else anywhere near them loathes their guts, even Vietnam in the case of China, but are sometimes so dependent or weak there's not much they can do about it. >You cannot just wash away mistakes made in the past, there will always be blow back. Agreed. America's mistakes will continue to haunt it for decades to come.

by simonh 3y ago

sand_castles 3y ago

[dead]

kjkjadksj 3y ago

> I'd say the US is a hegemon but not really an Empire except for a few small islands This is the ruse. The US is a global empire. Except, as history has shown, imperialism is somewhat unpopular to local populations. The US modern imperialism playbook is designed so the population really believes they are self governing themselves. The US doesn’t care who runs the day to day domestic government, so long as they have military bases, are the primary trading partner, and effectively direct this countries foreign and economic policies unilaterally. The fact you think the American empire is limited to a few vestigial takings from the pacific theater of wwii shows how effective this modern and silent hegemony really is.

simonh 3y ago
The actual desires and interests of actual citizens, even in vibrant democracies with changes of elected government and free speech, don't count. Nice.
- kjkjadksj 3y ago
  Its by design. Military is a separate entity from domestic elected government the world over. If you know anyone who is in the leadership side of the military or in the state dept, its very interesting having conversations learning about how these agencies view the world and how actual power is manifested.
  - simonh 3y ago
    Frankly it's bullshit. The Putinist narrative that democracy is a sham makes sense for a man isolated from the real world that doesn't use the internet, but it's stunning to me how disconnected some people in the west can be from the society they live in. I have family in the British military at a moderately high level. A friend was a researcher for an MP, and another a government adviser. Sure politics is messy, it's the art of the possible and expedient. Of course it's not ideal, but as the saying goes Democracy is the worst system of government except for all the others. You're never going to get perfect, the best you can get is consensus and the consent of the governed. We have that. I revile Trump, but he did do one thing for us. He proved that US democracy is real. All the Washington consensus clubbyness was pushed aside, corporate capture and bought influence were bulldozed over. None of the establishment wanted him, but he's what we got through a massive grass roots movement. He was an utter disaster, but it was a genuine demonstration of democracy in action.

ethbr0 3y ago

An interesting observation is that China is following the exact same economic/international-relations path the US did. 1. Become a global economic superpower (US 1910s, 20s) 2. ??? (US 1930s, 40s) 3. Military-industrial complex emerges and captures politicians (US 1950s) 4. Political leaders then begin looking at military capabilities and questioning why it isn't being used for military interventionalism (US 1960s) 5. Military interventionalism shows its flaws through failed post-intervention nation-building, and decreases appetite for intervention (US 1970s, 80s, 90s) 6. Reaction to historical interventions triggers occasional knee-jerk interventions (US 00s, 10s) In the US case, step 2 was WWII, which was somewhat unavoidable. In the Chinese case, I think it remains to be seen how steps 2-4 go. Absent an external war they're forced to become involved in, I could see step 2 being a popular consequence of whipping up nationalistic fervor to boost government support... and then that populist tail wagging the CCP dog and compelling military action when a crisis breaks out (e.g. Taiwanese independence declaration or naval incident in the South China sea).

simonh 3y ago
>Military-industrial complex emerges and captures politicians (US 1950s) So far China has completely avoided this. The military is very firmly under Party control. >Military interventionalism shows its flaws through failed post-intervention nation-building Germany, Japan and South Korea have been fantastic successes in nation building. Sure there have been failures too, most recently in Afghanistan. For China, their annexation of Tibet is going fine as is their ethnic hegemonisation there and in other regions. North Korea is an embarrassment, but eh. Dictatorships must continuously work to maintain their legitimacy. This means they need to justify denying freedoms and opportunities to their own population enjoyed in other nations. They can do that by painting foreign nations as being horrible failures but with international travel and many citizens having friends or family living in those nations, that's not viable long term. You're quite right. That leaves external threats which require such measures, with the added bonus of painting internal dissatisfaction with the government as disloyalty and betrayal. So for Russia, utter nowheres like Ukraine and Georgia have to be dire threats to Russia's security, so intervention can stop them succeeding where Russia failed. The Taiwan situation has to be escalated, and territorial claims in the South China Sea pushed in order to manufacture tensions that justify internal repression.

simonh 3y ago

It's a shame I can't reply to sand_castles directly. Countries freely choosing to allow allies to put military bases on their territory, generally with wide public support such as in Germany, Japan, and many others, is hardly colonialism. Every country that has joined NATO did so with public support, even massive public enthusiasm. Public support is actually a requirement to join. Do Indians and Chinese somehow not count? Both have benefited staggeringly from the global trade system built and secured by the US and it's allies. On building alliances "and which 2 countries is pushing to bring about that change ?" Russia and China have a tiny number of genuine military allies at most. NK and Myanmar for China, a few 'stans and Belarus for Russia. All of them horrific brutal dictatorships in their own right. Everybody else anywhere near them loathes their guts, even Vietnam in the case of China, but are sometimes so dependent or weak there's not much they can do about it. >You cannot just wash away mistakes made in the past, there will always be blow back. Agreed. America's mistakes will continue to haunt it for decades to come.