3 ms·

> If the US got into a war that anyone actually cared about, it would almost certainly snap into action at incredible speed. I'm gonna push back on "nobody car

by SR2Z 2mo ago

> If the US got into a war that anyone actually cared about, it would almost certainly snap into action at incredible speed. I'm gonna push back on "nobody cares." The United States is somewhat unique in that our doctrine calls for wars to be fought on distant shores, and that the main role of our military is to ensure that our ideology (liberal democracy) is protected across the world. That's why we entered WWII, it's why we keep carrier groups around the world, and it's why Iran/Ukraine/Taiwan are so critical. The threat of an American response and the visible follow-through is a significant factor in deterring anyone who's even considering a war. Yes, Trump is unspeakably stupid, he's managed to make the worst possible decision at every step of this nightmare, but the truth is that a conflict like this has only been getting more likely since the GOP killed the nuclear deal. We need weapons for Ukraine. We need weapons for Iran. And, God forbid, but we need weapons for Taiwan.

sarchertech 2mo ago
> That's why we entered WWII The US entered World War II in the pacific after Pearl Harbor and in Europe after Germany declared war. Before those 2 events, there was still a strong isolationist contingent in the US.
- SR2Z 2mo ago
  For years leading up to that point Congress was passing "neutral" bills that allowed the country to sell weapons to the Allies but not the Axis. Since we're discussing weapons production, yes, the US joined the war effort on the side of the Allies well before formally declaring war. Yes, there were isolationists, but there weren't enough to change the fact that fascist/communist victories in Europe would be bad for America. The neoliberal thing where we support liberal democracies is an evolution of the Monroe doctrine, because we've recognized for a long time that the best path forward for America is free trade and interdependency with other like-minded countries.
  - sarchertech 2mo ago
    That wasn’t the US supporting liberal democracies. A full 20% of Lend-Lease went to the Soviet Union, and the US provided plenty of support to Nationalist (and very authoritarian) China. We had friendly relations and supported many counties that weren’t liberal democracies before the war. We were friendly with Japan before they started expanding and threatening free trade/access to Asia.
estearum 2mo ago
Nobody cares about the war in Iran.
- SR2Z 2mo ago
  They sure care about rising gas prices, though.
  - bijowo1676 2mo ago
    can you tell us, why are gas prices rising ??? the strait has been open for oil trade just a few months ago, what happened and whose fault is it ???
bijowo1676 2mo ago
>our ideology (liberal democracy) is protected across the world this is pure propaganda and is completely false statement, not grounded in reality. US has no problem protecting despotic autocracies like the Pinochet's junta in Chile or Saudi Arabian theocratic monarchy (a birthplace of islamic wahhabism). The actual goal of military is to protect the status of USD as a global reserve currency and ensure all important nations are its vassals, fully subordinate to the US government. The underlying reason is America is printing trillions of dollars out of thin air, not backed by anything, other than the threat from US military, so vassal states keep recycling their earned surplus currency into USD bonds and treasuries
- SR2Z 2mo ago
  > this is pure propaganda and is completely false statement, not grounded in reality. US has no problem protecting despotic autocracies like the Pinochet's junta in Chile or Saudi Arabian theocratic monarchy (a birthplace of islamic wahhabism). No, it is not false. Geopolitics is about lesser evils and raw needs, not perfect ideological consistency. Any country stupid enough to care about that would not last very long, and so none of them do. The US has spent an extraordinary amount of money protecting freedom of navigation, discouraging conquests, and in many cases halting genocide. I'm not providing citations, if you're confident enough in your opinions to call what I said "pure propaganda" surely you can name them. > The actual goal of military is to protect the status of USD as a global reserve currency and ensure all important nations are its vassals, fully subordinate to the US government. The goal of the military is to achieve American objectives by force, like every other military. > The underlying reason is America is printing trillions of dollars out of thin air, not backed by anything, other than the threat from US military, so vassal states keep recycling their earned surplus currency into USD bonds and treasuries ...you know, good luck with that, I'm done here.
  - jbxntuehineoh 2mo ago
    Yes you're completely correct, our goal is to protect liberal democracy (unless it happens that protecting liberal democracy is in conflict with our economic or security interests, at which point we immediately stop giving a fuck about it)
swat535 2mo ago
> the main role of our military is to ensure that our ideology (liberal democracy) is protected across the world. How is US defending liberal democracy? So far they've killed 3,000+ Iranians. 110k+ causalities in IRAQ and Afghanistan.. don't even get me started on Vietnam.
- SR2Z 2mo ago
  A generation of Afghan women got to learn to read because of the US intervention. I don't think you'd find very many Afghans who prefer life pre- or post-US occupation to even the very shitty, corrupt government the US set up. Iran was funding terror attacks on Israel (and has been for decades) which for all its many faults is a liberal democracy which grants citizenship to millions of Palestinians who get to vote. Trump is a moron who picked a fight he could not possibly win, but fundamentally this was not a war that got declared out of the blue. Iraq II was an unjustifiable experiment in nation-building, but Iraq I was a military intervention to protect Kuwait (a constitutional monarchy) from an invading dictatorship. The US also intervened in Kosovo, Grenada, Panama, and Korea. You look those up and tell me how they went. It is very, very trendy to pretend like the US is an evil empire. It is not. I'm not in the mood to have lots of people reply to me going "but what about!" because it's not productive and I don't feel like it's constructive conversation. Believe whatever you want. If you care about actually being right, please go and at least read the Wikipedia pages about these conflicts. In war, armies go to KILL people. There are rarely good or bad guys, just evils of greater or lesser degree.
  - Hikikomori 2mo ago
    >Iran was funding terror attacks on Israel (and has been for decades) which for all its many faults is a liberal democracy which grants citizenship to millions of Palestinians who get to vote. Trump is a moron who picked a fight he could not possibly win, but fundamentally this was not a war that got declared out of the blue. Iran had a democratically elected government that the US helped overthrow and that is why the current regime is in power. Before Iraq 1 it was the most modern middle eastern state, US deliberately destroyed civilian infrastructure. This was after propping up Saddam as a dictator for two decades as they fought Iran, also selling chemical weapons precursors to Iraq while knowing they would create those weapons. Iraq 2 was a lot more than that. Prime example of blowback as it led to ISIS. US carpet bombed north korea and killed 20% of its population, looked the other way as south Korea executed civilians. Then it turned into a military dictatorship for decades. This is not the win you think it is even if turned out okay decades later. While the US, or more correctly the UN, has done some peace keeping missions with decent results it pales in comparison to the chaos the US has created. From overthrowing democracies, installing and supporting dictators and terrorist groups, ignoring and fueling genocides, etc. Americas superpower is its ability to ignore its own hypocrisy, and you certainly embody that with a hefty sprinkle of willful ignorance.
pibaker 2mo ago
> and that the main role of our military is to ensure that our ideology (liberal democracy) is protected across the world. This is why the US military is partnered with all the Middle East democracies, like the one in Bahrain, or the one in UAE, or the one in Qatar…
- SR2Z 2mo ago
  There are not that many democracies in the Middle East. The US is allied with almost all of them. Would you prefer democracy be delivered to those countries by force? If not, then accept the lesser evil.
  - pibaker 2mo ago
    It's fine if you either stick to your principles or play a game of shameless realpolitik. Just don't pretend you can convince us that you are actually doing the former when all we see is you doing the later. We are not retarded. You are the retard for thinking we will fall for your rhetorics.
    - deleted 2mo ago
      [deleted]
    - SR2Z 2mo ago
      Realpolitik is shameless, that's kind of the whole deal. It's still how this stuff works. The US doesn't care about democracy because it's good for people in other countries, the US cares because it's good for the US.
Hikikomori 2mo ago
Thus better be advanced trolling. How could anyone be so ignorant of Americas history. Embarrassing.

by SR2Z 2mo ago

sarchertech 2mo ago

> That's why we entered WWII The US entered World War II in the pacific after Pearl Harbor and in Europe after Germany declared war. Before those 2 events, there was still a strong isolationist contingent in the US.

SR2Z 2mo ago
For years leading up to that point Congress was passing "neutral" bills that allowed the country to sell weapons to the Allies but not the Axis. Since we're discussing weapons production, yes, the US joined the war effort on the side of the Allies well before formally declaring war. Yes, there were isolationists, but there weren't enough to change the fact that fascist/communist victories in Europe would be bad for America. The neoliberal thing where we support liberal democracies is an evolution of the Monroe doctrine, because we've recognized for a long time that the best path forward for America is free trade and interdependency with other like-minded countries.
- sarchertech 2mo ago
  That wasn’t the US supporting liberal democracies. A full 20% of Lend-Lease went to the Soviet Union, and the US provided plenty of support to Nationalist (and very authoritarian) China. We had friendly relations and supported many counties that weren’t liberal democracies before the war. We were friendly with Japan before they started expanding and threatening free trade/access to Asia.

estearum 2mo ago

Nobody cares about the war in Iran.

SR2Z 2mo ago
They sure care about rising gas prices, though.
- bijowo1676 2mo ago
  can you tell us, why are gas prices rising ??? the strait has been open for oil trade just a few months ago, what happened and whose fault is it ???

bijowo1676 2mo ago

>our ideology (liberal democracy) is protected across the world this is pure propaganda and is completely false statement, not grounded in reality. US has no problem protecting despotic autocracies like the Pinochet's junta in Chile or Saudi Arabian theocratic monarchy (a birthplace of islamic wahhabism). The actual goal of military is to protect the status of USD as a global reserve currency and ensure all important nations are its vassals, fully subordinate to the US government. The underlying reason is America is printing trillions of dollars out of thin air, not backed by anything, other than the threat from US military, so vassal states keep recycling their earned surplus currency into USD bonds and treasuries

SR2Z 2mo ago
> this is pure propaganda and is completely false statement, not grounded in reality. US has no problem protecting despotic autocracies like the Pinochet's junta in Chile or Saudi Arabian theocratic monarchy (a birthplace of islamic wahhabism). No, it is not false. Geopolitics is about lesser evils and raw needs, not perfect ideological consistency. Any country stupid enough to care about that would not last very long, and so none of them do. The US has spent an extraordinary amount of money protecting freedom of navigation, discouraging conquests, and in many cases halting genocide. I'm not providing citations, if you're confident enough in your opinions to call what I said "pure propaganda" surely you can name them. > The actual goal of military is to protect the status of USD as a global reserve currency and ensure all important nations are its vassals, fully subordinate to the US government. The goal of the military is to achieve American objectives by force, like every other military. > The underlying reason is America is printing trillions of dollars out of thin air, not backed by anything, other than the threat from US military, so vassal states keep recycling their earned surplus currency into USD bonds and treasuries ...you know, good luck with that, I'm done here.
- jbxntuehineoh 2mo ago
  Yes you're completely correct, our goal is to protect liberal democracy (unless it happens that protecting liberal democracy is in conflict with our economic or security interests, at which point we immediately stop giving a fuck about it)

swat535 2mo ago

> the main role of our military is to ensure that our ideology (liberal democracy) is protected across the world. How is US defending liberal democracy? So far they've killed 3,000+ Iranians. 110k+ causalities in IRAQ and Afghanistan.. don't even get me started on Vietnam.

SR2Z 2mo ago
A generation of Afghan women got to learn to read because of the US intervention. I don't think you'd find very many Afghans who prefer life pre- or post-US occupation to even the very shitty, corrupt government the US set up. Iran was funding terror attacks on Israel (and has been for decades) which for all its many faults is a liberal democracy which grants citizenship to millions of Palestinians who get to vote. Trump is a moron who picked a fight he could not possibly win, but fundamentally this was not a war that got declared out of the blue. Iraq II was an unjustifiable experiment in nation-building, but Iraq I was a military intervention to protect Kuwait (a constitutional monarchy) from an invading dictatorship. The US also intervened in Kosovo, Grenada, Panama, and Korea. You look those up and tell me how they went. It is very, very trendy to pretend like the US is an evil empire. It is not. I'm not in the mood to have lots of people reply to me going "but what about!" because it's not productive and I don't feel like it's constructive conversation. Believe whatever you want. If you care about actually being right, please go and at least read the Wikipedia pages about these conflicts. In war, armies go to KILL people. There are rarely good or bad guys, just evils of greater or lesser degree.
- Hikikomori 2mo ago
  >Iran was funding terror attacks on Israel (and has been for decades) which for all its many faults is a liberal democracy which grants citizenship to millions of Palestinians who get to vote. Trump is a moron who picked a fight he could not possibly win, but fundamentally this was not a war that got declared out of the blue. Iran had a democratically elected government that the US helped overthrow and that is why the current regime is in power. Before Iraq 1 it was the most modern middle eastern state, US deliberately destroyed civilian infrastructure. This was after propping up Saddam as a dictator for two decades as they fought Iran, also selling chemical weapons precursors to Iraq while knowing they would create those weapons. Iraq 2 was a lot more than that. Prime example of blowback as it led to ISIS. US carpet bombed north korea and killed 20% of its population, looked the other way as south Korea executed civilians. Then it turned into a military dictatorship for decades. This is not the win you think it is even if turned out okay decades later. While the US, or more correctly the UN, has done some peace keeping missions with decent results it pales in comparison to the chaos the US has created. From overthrowing democracies, installing and supporting dictators and terrorist groups, ignoring and fueling genocides, etc. Americas superpower is its ability to ignore its own hypocrisy, and you certainly embody that with a hefty sprinkle of willful ignorance.

pibaker 2mo ago

> and that the main role of our military is to ensure that our ideology (liberal democracy) is protected across the world. This is why the US military is partnered with all the Middle East democracies, like the one in Bahrain, or the one in UAE, or the one in Qatar…

SR2Z 2mo ago
There are not that many democracies in the Middle East. The US is allied with almost all of them. Would you prefer democracy be delivered to those countries by force? If not, then accept the lesser evil.
- pibaker 2mo ago
  It's fine if you either stick to your principles or play a game of shameless realpolitik. Just don't pretend you can convince us that you are actually doing the former when all we see is you doing the later. We are not retarded. You are the retard for thinking we will fall for your rhetorics.
  - deleted 2mo ago
    [deleted]
  - SR2Z 2mo ago
    Realpolitik is shameless, that's kind of the whole deal. It's still how this stuff works. The US doesn't care about democracy because it's good for people in other countries, the US cares because it's good for the US.

Hikikomori 2mo ago

Thus better be advanced trolling. How could anyone be so ignorant of Americas history. Embarrassing.