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Yeah, I'm sure Russia and China would be far less aggressive if the US had lower military spending. What you're suggesting is the geopolitical equivalent of "i

Yeah, I'm sure Russia and China would be far less aggressive if the US had lower military spending. What you're suggesting is the geopolitical equivalent of "ignore the bully and they'll get bored and go away". And you call others childish?

amrocha 3y ago
No, we just have a different perspective. USA is the bully, not the rest of the world. Any country that grows powerful enough to get in the eye of the USA needs a strong military, because the USA has a military and a record of interventionism that can't be ignored.
- mopsi 3y ago
  > No, we just have a different perspective. USA is the bully, not the rest of the world. There is no question that the US has acted like a bully in Southern America, but you ignore that other countries have acted the same way in other parts of the world[1], and with far more disastrous results[2]. If you want to dig into records, then the ground under my feet has seen a Russian invasion roughly every 50 years for as long as written records go, that is, every generation has had to resist a Russian attack and suffer the consequences. The war in Ukraine is like a replay of so many wars before, from its artificial justifications to the incredible violence against victims. When kids study history in school, one of the sources they have to analyze and put into context is a letter from a Russian nobleman to the czar after another successful conquest. In the letter, he boasts that when he was travelling from one city to another on the way back to Russia, he didn't see a single living person left. They had successfully burned everything down and killed everyone. Centuries have passed, but nothing has changed. Russians use the same tactic in Ukraine, massive artillery walls slowly crawling forward, reducing entire cities to total rubble as if they had been hit with a nuclear bomb[3]. Pax Americana is currently the only thing preventing me and hundreds of millions of other Europeans from sharing the same fate. Russians do not dare to invade as long as they don't know if Americans would press the nuclear button or not. My freedom to live in peace and unharmed, speak my language and practice my culture, directly depends on the missile silos tucked away somewhere between the cornfields of Iowa. How about that for a perspective? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Russia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Russia [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circassian_genocide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circassian_genocide [3] https://www.rferl.org/a/maryinka-aerial-shattered-landscape/32408454.html https://www.rferl.org/a/maryinka-aerial-shattered-landscape/...
  - lmm 3y ago
    > There is no question that the US has acted like a bully in Southern America, but you ignore that other countries have acted the same way in other parts of the world[1], and with far more disastrous results[2]. No. The argument is not that having some other country as hegemon would be better than the US. The argument is that any single country being overly powerful is a negative, and a more multipolar would would be healthier. "The US should maintain enough military capacity to prevent/repel an invasion of the continental US" is not particularly controversial. But the US "defending" countries halfway around the world is not healthy for either. > Pax Americana is currently the only thing preventing me and hundreds of millions of other Europeans from sharing the same fate. Russians do not dare to invade as long as they don't know if Americans would press the nuclear button or not. My freedom to live in peace and unharmed, speak my language and practice my culture, directly depends on the missile silos tucked away somewhere between the cornfields of Iowa. How about that for a perspective? Russia has spent the past year failing to conquer a country of 40 million, without any involvement from those missile silos. If they tried to invade Poland or Finland they would crumble even quicker. The only countries with a legitimate fear of a Russian invasion are the same countries who have shown zero willingness to protect other people's "freedom to speak their language and practice their culture" when it comes to Russian people living within their (present) borders.
    - Paradigma11 3y ago
      "The argument is that any single country being overly powerful is a negative, and a more multipolar would would be healthier." That would be a first, wouldnt it? We are currently seeing the consequences of the waning of the US unipolar Superpower. Venezuela had a referendum to annex large parts of its neighbor. Iran attacked nuclear Pakistan and has its proxies disrupt international shipping lanes and wage war against Israel. Turkey has its fingers in tons of conflicts and supported its ally Azerbaijan in the ethnic cleansing of Nagorno Karabakh. China asserts its military dominance in the south China and is depriving other nations thousands of km away of their rights and resources. Never mind that it is also preparing to invade and subjugate Taiwan. .... Turns out if given power people are jerks, who would have guessed.

amrocha 3y ago

No, we just have a different perspective. USA is the bully, not the rest of the world. Any country that grows powerful enough to get in the eye of the USA needs a strong military, because the USA has a military and a record of interventionism that can't be ignored.

mopsi 3y ago
> No, we just have a different perspective. USA is the bully, not the rest of the world. There is no question that the US has acted like a bully in Southern America, but you ignore that other countries have acted the same way in other parts of the world[1], and with far more disastrous results[2]. If you want to dig into records, then the ground under my feet has seen a Russian invasion roughly every 50 years for as long as written records go, that is, every generation has had to resist a Russian attack and suffer the consequences. The war in Ukraine is like a replay of so many wars before, from its artificial justifications to the incredible violence against victims. When kids study history in school, one of the sources they have to analyze and put into context is a letter from a Russian nobleman to the czar after another successful conquest. In the letter, he boasts that when he was travelling from one city to another on the way back to Russia, he didn't see a single living person left. They had successfully burned everything down and killed everyone. Centuries have passed, but nothing has changed. Russians use the same tactic in Ukraine, massive artillery walls slowly crawling forward, reducing entire cities to total rubble as if they had been hit with a nuclear bomb[3]. Pax Americana is currently the only thing preventing me and hundreds of millions of other Europeans from sharing the same fate. Russians do not dare to invade as long as they don't know if Americans would press the nuclear button or not. My freedom to live in peace and unharmed, speak my language and practice my culture, directly depends on the missile silos tucked away somewhere between the cornfields of Iowa. How about that for a perspective? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Russia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Russia [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circassian_genocide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circassian_genocide [3] https://www.rferl.org/a/maryinka-aerial-shattered-landscape/32408454.html https://www.rferl.org/a/maryinka-aerial-shattered-landscape/...
- lmm 3y ago
  > There is no question that the US has acted like a bully in Southern America, but you ignore that other countries have acted the same way in other parts of the world[1], and with far more disastrous results[2]. No. The argument is not that having some other country as hegemon would be better than the US. The argument is that any single country being overly powerful is a negative, and a more multipolar would would be healthier. "The US should maintain enough military capacity to prevent/repel an invasion of the continental US" is not particularly controversial. But the US "defending" countries halfway around the world is not healthy for either. > Pax Americana is currently the only thing preventing me and hundreds of millions of other Europeans from sharing the same fate. Russians do not dare to invade as long as they don't know if Americans would press the nuclear button or not. My freedom to live in peace and unharmed, speak my language and practice my culture, directly depends on the missile silos tucked away somewhere between the cornfields of Iowa. How about that for a perspective? Russia has spent the past year failing to conquer a country of 40 million, without any involvement from those missile silos. If they tried to invade Poland or Finland they would crumble even quicker. The only countries with a legitimate fear of a Russian invasion are the same countries who have shown zero willingness to protect other people's "freedom to speak their language and practice their culture" when it comes to Russian people living within their (present) borders.
  - Paradigma11 3y ago
    "The argument is that any single country being overly powerful is a negative, and a more multipolar would would be healthier." That would be a first, wouldnt it? We are currently seeing the consequences of the waning of the US unipolar Superpower. Venezuela had a referendum to annex large parts of its neighbor. Iran attacked nuclear Pakistan and has its proxies disrupt international shipping lanes and wage war against Israel. Turkey has its fingers in tons of conflicts and supported its ally Azerbaijan in the ethnic cleansing of Nagorno Karabakh. China asserts its military dominance in the south China and is depriving other nations thousands of km away of their rights and resources. Never mind that it is also preparing to invade and subjugate Taiwan. .... Turns out if given power people are jerks, who would have guessed.