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> Do we really need to OWN icebreakers? That would depend on one's strategic goals and priorities. Personally, I do not believe the US should be the world poli

> Do we really need to OWN icebreakers? That would depend on one's strategic goals and priorities. Personally, I do not believe the US should be the world police so I don't think it is necessary.

edrxty 3y ago
I think in this case the US is mostly concerned with securing the increasingly lucrative exclusive economic zone north of Alaska. Anything beyond that we can use air power over sea power, now that we've given up on desert power.
toss1 3y ago
OK, the who would you suggest should be the world's police? The post-WWII world order is predicated on the agreement that the age of imperialism is over and that invasion by force to annex another country is illegitimate. It is obvious that all nations do not agree to this. E.g.: China on Tibet, Taiwan, 9-dashed line, etc., Russia in Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine. Those authoritarian states think it is perfectly fine to use force or threats of force to occupy & annex other territories and peoples. The fact that we also have global shipping and travel at a relatively low cost (cheap enough to make & ship goods petty much anywhere-to-anywhere, and international travel is available to non-elites), is a direct result of US Navy keeping a lid on piracy. Anarchy, or unpoliced random aggression would be a very bad option. So, if the US does not do it, who do you think would do a better job, Putin, Xi, Kim, someone else?
- bigbillheck 3y ago
  > The post-WWII world order is predicated on the agreement that the age of imperialism is over and that invasion by force to annex another country is illegitimate. Why bother with the 'annex' part when you can just overthrow governments you don't like and replace them with ones you do?
  - toss1 3y ago
    Even if that were still being done, it is obvious that the authoritarian states think annexing is very important (again, look at Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine, Tibet, Yuhigurs, etc.). But, nice try with the false equivalency and whataboutism.
    - bigbillheck 3y ago
      > Even if that were still being done Is it not? Afghanistan in 2002, Iraq in 2002, Haiti in 2004, Libya in 2011, the US is taking sides in the civil wars in Somalia, Yemen, and Syria, and there's whatever happened in Bolivia in 2019. If those aren't recent enough for you, then it's mildly surprising you'd bring up Chechnya (under Russian (then Soviet, then Russian) control since the mid-19th century, most recent major operations ended in 2009), Tibet (annexed in 1950, previously under varying levels of Chinese control up thru the mid-Qing), and the Uighurs (Xinjiang / the Tarim Basin was first occupied by China as early as the Han dynasty and has been under Chinese control since 1884 (Qing then RoC then PRC)).
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > OK, the who would you suggest should be the world’s police? > The post-WWII world order is predicated on the agreement that the age of imperialism is over and that invasion by force to annex another country is illegitimate. If that was true, it would be inconsistent with any one nation or narrow relatively fixed set of nations being the world’s police, as that would indicate that the age of imperialism was not over and that the world had a single imperial power or small group of such powers. The central institution in the aspirational design of the order you describe had a solution to the problem: the UN would itself be the world’s policeman, via a centralized military command to which all member nations would subordinate command of designated units of their armed forces for the purpose. This…did not work out in practice, and is one of the very many pieces of information suggesting that your accurate description of the aspirations which people at the end of WWII had for the postwar international order were never realized. > Anarchy, or unpoliced random aggression would be a very bad option. It would be, but its mostly what we have between the major powers, with the major powers (alone or in combination) policing everything else, with…issues where the policing desires of the major powers conflict. Just like in past ages of imperialism. The main difference is that the fact that the major powers are also nuclear powers exerts constraints on the form of their direct conflicts mostly to forms that are at least partially deniable to prevent pressure of uncontrolled escalation which could lead to nuclear annihilation.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > that would indicate that the age of imperialism was not over Wide berth between an imperial power and one that survives on a system of alliances. Balance of powers realism works, but it’s far more brutal than a uni or bipolar world order. > the UN would itself be the world’s policeman, via a centralized military command to which all member nations would subordinate command of designated units of their armed forces for the purpose Many states have tried this. It never works. Either you centralise command. Or you get the Holy Roman Empire.
  - bluGill 3y ago
    The age of imperialism is not over, except where someone enforces it. That someone is mostly the US, but UK and France also do a lot of work that I know of. None of them are perfect, all have a lot of blood on their hands, but overall imperialism is mostly dead despite many who would turn to it if they could. In economic theory there are good reasons to say that every country has better options than imperialism - but imperialism often looks easy.

> Do we really need to OWN icebreakers? That would depend on one's strategic goals and priorities. Personally, I do not believe the US should be the world police so I don't think it is necessary.

edrxty 3y ago

I think in this case the US is mostly concerned with securing the increasingly lucrative exclusive economic zone north of Alaska. Anything beyond that we can use air power over sea power, now that we've given up on desert power.

toss1 3y ago

OK, the who would you suggest should be the world's police? The post-WWII world order is predicated on the agreement that the age of imperialism is over and that invasion by force to annex another country is illegitimate. It is obvious that all nations do not agree to this. E.g.: China on Tibet, Taiwan, 9-dashed line, etc., Russia in Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine. Those authoritarian states think it is perfectly fine to use force or threats of force to occupy & annex other territories and peoples. The fact that we also have global shipping and travel at a relatively low cost (cheap enough to make & ship goods petty much anywhere-to-anywhere, and international travel is available to non-elites), is a direct result of US Navy keeping a lid on piracy. Anarchy, or unpoliced random aggression would be a very bad option. So, if the US does not do it, who do you think would do a better job, Putin, Xi, Kim, someone else?

bigbillheck 3y ago
> The post-WWII world order is predicated on the agreement that the age of imperialism is over and that invasion by force to annex another country is illegitimate. Why bother with the 'annex' part when you can just overthrow governments you don't like and replace them with ones you do?
- toss1 3y ago
  Even if that were still being done, it is obvious that the authoritarian states think annexing is very important (again, look at Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine, Tibet, Yuhigurs, etc.). But, nice try with the false equivalency and whataboutism.
  - bigbillheck 3y ago
    > Even if that were still being done Is it not? Afghanistan in 2002, Iraq in 2002, Haiti in 2004, Libya in 2011, the US is taking sides in the civil wars in Somalia, Yemen, and Syria, and there's whatever happened in Bolivia in 2019. If those aren't recent enough for you, then it's mildly surprising you'd bring up Chechnya (under Russian (then Soviet, then Russian) control since the mid-19th century, most recent major operations ended in 2009), Tibet (annexed in 1950, previously under varying levels of Chinese control up thru the mid-Qing), and the Uighurs (Xinjiang / the Tarim Basin was first occupied by China as early as the Han dynasty and has been under Chinese control since 1884 (Qing then RoC then PRC)).
dragonwriter 3y ago
> OK, the who would you suggest should be the world’s police? > The post-WWII world order is predicated on the agreement that the age of imperialism is over and that invasion by force to annex another country is illegitimate. If that was true, it would be inconsistent with any one nation or narrow relatively fixed set of nations being the world’s police, as that would indicate that the age of imperialism was not over and that the world had a single imperial power or small group of such powers. The central institution in the aspirational design of the order you describe had a solution to the problem: the UN would itself be the world’s policeman, via a centralized military command to which all member nations would subordinate command of designated units of their armed forces for the purpose. This…did not work out in practice, and is one of the very many pieces of information suggesting that your accurate description of the aspirations which people at the end of WWII had for the postwar international order were never realized. > Anarchy, or unpoliced random aggression would be a very bad option. It would be, but its mostly what we have between the major powers, with the major powers (alone or in combination) policing everything else, with…issues where the policing desires of the major powers conflict. Just like in past ages of imperialism. The main difference is that the fact that the major powers are also nuclear powers exerts constraints on the form of their direct conflicts mostly to forms that are at least partially deniable to prevent pressure of uncontrolled escalation which could lead to nuclear annihilation.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > that would indicate that the age of imperialism was not over Wide berth between an imperial power and one that survives on a system of alliances. Balance of powers realism works, but it’s far more brutal than a uni or bipolar world order. > the UN would itself be the world’s policeman, via a centralized military command to which all member nations would subordinate command of designated units of their armed forces for the purpose Many states have tried this. It never works. Either you centralise command. Or you get the Holy Roman Empire.
- bluGill 3y ago
  The age of imperialism is not over, except where someone enforces it. That someone is mostly the US, but UK and France also do a lot of work that I know of. None of them are perfect, all have a lot of blood on their hands, but overall imperialism is mostly dead despite many who would turn to it if they could. In economic theory there are good reasons to say that every country has better options than imperialism - but imperialism often looks easy.