The dominance of the US military, for all its faults (and there are plenty), is the reason there's a mostly peaceful world. Deterrence has been an absurdly powerful force towards that goal, and we have the military-industrial companies in the US to thank for that. Yes, they're also profiting from it. That's a win-win, in my opinion.
In my 20+ years in software engineering, I've yet to meet a Chinese or Russian colleague who thinks it would be better if China or Russia had more military/political power. I've even argued in favor of that position in the past (that the world would be better off if there was more multipolarity), and they fervently opposed my position. They are keenly aware of the kind of crimes their ex-governments engage in.
US military dominance is hegemonic, yes, but it would be far worse to have it any other way currently.
That doesn’t excuse the crimes committed, nor does it negate the need to control the MIC. The Vietnam and Iraq wars should never have happened, among many other things. We shouldn’t have PMCs running about committing crimes, either.
Edit: nor does any of what you’ve said negate the sentiment Eisenhower was advocating, which relates directly back to the Vietnam and Iraq wars. Having power and wielding it responsibly are not the same.
One important difference is that the Korean war was a resolution of the United Nations Security Council, conducted under the flag of the United Nations.
As far as I know the US backed the French and took over immediately as soon as they were kicked out. Though Korea and Japan were analogous, even though the US didn't actually support the Japanese occupation, it continued it.
I imagine the Koreans welcomed the US, that would be an important factor.
Because that would be false on its face. I'm sorry that you have no idea what you're talking about? The Korean war began when the communists invaded from the north, equipped and trained by the Soviets. It continued until the communists by then actually from China not North Korea, stopped trying.
At no point during the entire Korean War was there a Japanese colony anywhere on the Korean peninsula. Or, for that matter, anywhere on earth.
If you're arguing the South Korean government whose sovereignty the UN went to war to defend, was somehow "aligned" with their former occupier Japan which was itself then occupied by the US after its unconditional surrender to end WW2... sorry, you're just woefully ill informed.
Interesting, so what you're saying is after the Japanese lost their Korean colony, the country was split into two, then communist aggression from the North invaded the South which resulted in foreign powers stepping into defend the Southern half of the country.
Sounds pretty similar to France losing their Vietnamese colony, and the country being split into two, and then a foreign power coming in to defend the southern half of the country.
A unipolar world order is a local optimum by its very nature. Regardless of who's in charge, conflict arises from parties thinking they have a chance to secure leverage against another power via violence. If there's a sole power with an overwhelming military advantage against their next-largest competitor, people aren't going to go off and die in hopeless wars. Russia and China's actions can't be separated from the fact that their existence in anything like their present form is a challenge to the US and its sphere of influence.
Even then, the US government and economy is organized in ways that make it disturb the trivial-to-maintain peace its position as hegemon affords it(see Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and various covert operations that succeeded before escalating to direct intervention) to secure itself minor advantages or even for entirely domestic reasons.
If you account at all for the inherent advantages of a unipolar world, the US's record is shockingly poor. I'm fine with rolling the dice on multipolarity in hopes of a less irrational hegemon emerging.
I agree that the power the US can exercise should be checked by other powers (the desired "benefit" of multi polarity), but I also think the idea of promoting "rule of law" needs to be the frame of conversation.
"What pole of power do you belong to" is a very different question than "what is justice?"
> If you account at all for the inherent advantages of a unipolar world, the US's record is shockingly poor.
I think this statement isn't very well thought out or at least not well founded or self evident.
It's also important to understand that peace is not the absence of physical violence, but the presence of justice. Justice sometimes cannot be achieved without a fight.
> disturb the trivial-to-maintain peace
The "peace" between African slaves and American plantation owners was probably fairly easy to maintain. That doesn't make it a good "peace".
China is exercising coercive power over Taiwan. Are they at peace?
> If you account at all for the inherent advantages of a unipolar world, the US's record is shockingly poor. I'm fine with rolling the dice on multipolarity in hopes of a less irrational hegemon emerging.
Who?
If you look at past hegemons—Rome, the Mongols, Britain—the US has the best record of them all. And, incidentally, if you look at past periods of multipolarity, you get a series of progressively more deadly and destructive wars.
At no point in history was Rome, the Mongols, or Britain a global hegemon or even extant in a unipolar world.
The entire existence of the Roman republic and empire was bookended by China, for example, and Rome was almost continuously at war with almost all of its neighbors. Some of whom repeatedly beat them and eventually definitely outlasted Rome.
The Mongols defeated the vast majority of entities they went to war with, but not all. This is the closest you'll come to your thesis, as it is probably true that no army or civilization existed from the Pacific to Atlantic oceans capable of defeating the Mongol empire at peak. It is alt history to debate what might have happened had they pushed to Paris etc. They didn't bother. They easily could have, in my opinion, but had other priorities in Asia.
However, the Mongols were definitively repulsed in the Middle East and generally speaking were not going to conquer Egypt or Africa. They didn't even try to hold Jerusalem (though interesting quirk of history they took it, once). The Mongols were also arguably repulsed by India, though that's complicated by their own factionalism (they arguably defeated themselves in a civil war at the border of India).
It is probably true that the Mongols occupied any territory they chose to, at the peak of their power. However, they often chose not to, either because they acknowledged the impossibility of doing so, or the complex multipolar reality within and surrounding their empire required their presence elsewhere to maintain power. So that is also not a hegemon, but is probably the most terrifying and powerful empire in history. Certainly the only one to execute all civilians in conquered cities, with knives, in one day. Repeatedly. For sure the Mongols out-murdered anybody ever until Stalin and Mao. But this is not so much unipolar as systemic genocide. The Mongols literally used genocide not as an end but a means, and killed millions to cause their next enemy to surrender without fighting. They called this "division" where all surrending civilian populations were divided by the number of Mongol executioners present that one day. And they did this routinely. Nothing like this ever happened before in recorded history, or ever since. Not at that scale and for that duration (centuries). For perspective, the Mongols leased Russia to the conquered Russians for longer than the US has existed.
Britain, at no point in its entire history from Roman withdrawal to today, has ever been a global hegemon. They were never even dominant or unipolar. Rather continuously struggling with France, Germany, Spain, and at times the Dutch; nevermind England struggling to first conquer and then rule their own immediate neighbors in the British Isles (Ireland, Wales, Scotland etc). Looking globally, it is true that at times Britain had economic superiority but these eras are measured in decades or at best generations and never approach hegemony or unipolarity on any one continent nevermind all. At or near the zenith of their power, they lose repeatedly. Sometimes to mere colonial farmers. If you pick any random decade for the last 500 years, we can find a significant military struggle for Britain ongoing. Many victories yes. But many loses too, and constant struggle. That is not hegemony.
The fact is the species has been at war with itself continuously for millennia. That was surely happening before we had kingdoms and nation states, too, when the violence had other names. But it was still war.
There is no oversimplifiable theory of war. It persists.
Even the USA and other nuclear powers are obviously still today in a persistent state of mutual deterrence. While the many wars since 1945 have been horrible by any definition, the fact is they pale in comparison to the mass lethality of WW1 and WW2 and we should all be thankful for the relative peace dividend created by nuclear deterrence.
We experienced COVID as ghastly and it was, killing perhaps 1% of all humans infected? WW2 killed 6%. That could have kept happening every generation since. The reason it didn't is #1 the US prevented that from happening, globally, at considerable expenses; and #2 restrained itself, generally speaking, from occupying other countries. Fighting, yes. Conquering and keeping, no.
In this regard, agree with you the US has the best record. For all its struggles and imperfections and systemic issues, nobody has ever done better.
But for the US, we would all be slaves of somebody right now. Either the "Third Reich" or Imperial Japan, or Russian and/or Chinese autocracy pretending to be communism. Even the patriots born there were, slaves to obviously wrong ideas and obviously evil governments. This is easily proven by trying to count the tens of millions of corpses they created. Try. The numbers get over 100M just in the last century, and the unknowable "rounding" errors and margin of error of the estimates is itself horrific and evil. When we're not sure whether Russia or China killed 45 million or 62 million of its own citizens by policy, this is when you should just stop and rethink saying nonsense like the "US's record is shockingly poor." Compared to what?
> At no point in history was Rome, the Mongols, or Britain a global hegemon or even extant in a unipolar world.
I think I actually agree with you. Of course, according to the standards you’re setting, neither is the US. The British were fighting some sort of war every decade of the height of their empire, but so has the US. The Mongols never managed to dominate Africa; neither did we (not even to the point of preventing the bloody Congo Wars of the 1990’s).
The reason I brought up the other hegemons is that they managed to significantly reduce the amount of war inside their own empires. That’s the closest analogy to what the US has done.
> The reason it didn't is #1 the US prevented that from happening, globally, at considerable expenses; and #2 restrained itself, generally speaking, from occupying other countries. Fighting, yes. Conquering and keeping, no.
We do still have troops in Germany, Italy, Japan, and South Korea, of course. And we have promised to help defend these countries from attack. If you wanted to be melodramatic about it, you could call it a sort of empire. But I think we might agree that it’s not quite fair to say that.
> For sure the Mongols out-murdered anybody ever until Stalin and Mao
> When we're not sure whether Russia or China killed 45 million or 62 million of its own citizens by policy
It is funny how these numbers keep inflating, and also how these historical counts always omit King Leopold’s II massacre in Congo (as well as the dozens of millions killed in other horrors of European colonialism). In fact stating that “But for the US, we would all be slaves of somebody right now” is a gross omittance of the millions of humans born as slaves to European colonialism well into the 1960s (and arguably persisting today if you count neo-liberalism and neo-colonies).
> There is no oversimplifiable theory of war. It persists.
> We should all be thankful for the relative peace dividend created by nuclear deterrence.
If there is no oversimplifiable theory of war, why is there an oversimplifiable theory of peace? There is no historical consensus around nuclear deterrence, and there are plenty of alternative theories. Those include rise in democracy, global trade, proliferation of human rights, the United Nations and other global institutes and agreements, and yes, decolonization.
We even have examples of nuclear deterrence failing to prevent conflict. Both India and Pakistan are nuclear powers, yet constantly at conflict with each other. Israel’s nuclear armament hasn’t prevented Palestinian resistance, and many former colonies of Britain and France fought wars for their liberation despite them being nuclear powers. Argentina even invaded Britain’s territory at one point. In fact looking at history, it seems having nuclear weapons only empowers countries to start conflicts outside of their own territory. Case in point, South Africa became a lot more peaceful country after their nuclear disarmament (although there are probably many more reasons for this).
Absolutely this. This comment [1] hit me hard when I read it:
>I never understood the good effects of American hegemony until they started breaking down.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine is a harbinger of what a world without American hegemony looks like. In that world, you're going to have a very bad time.
I'm not so sure about that. From my Finnish perspective, the invasion of Ukraine is much like a repetition of the 90s. The cold war was a very stable period for Europe. When the old order collapsed, wars started in the former Yugoslavia and Caucasus and raged on for years.
The 90s was also the decade of American hegemony. The hegemony started breaking down in the aftermath of 9/11, when the US decided that they care more about revenge than soft power.
> The hegemony started breaking down in the aftermath of 9/11, when the US decided that they care more about revenge than soft power.
I would diagnose it differently. If all the US looked for was revenge, we could have been in and out of Afghanistan much more quickly and accomplished the mission. The mistake in Afghanistan was to engage in a poorly conceived twenty year experiment in nation building.
If anything the problem is that Americans are too isolationist to take the duties of hegemony seriously. There’s really no reason we couldn’t occupy Afghanistan in perpetuity if we actually cared to bother, but it became politically unpopular for some reason. Maybe because we were never honest with ourselves about what we were doing.
From my point of view, the US wasted its hegemony on poorly planned unilateral actions in the early 2000s.
The invasion of Afghanistan was clearly motivated by revenge, as the US invaded quickly without a proper plan or debate. It wasn't that catastrophic in itself, as the world generally considered the invasion justified. But it made it easier to invade Iraq without a proper plan or debate, which was catastrophic.
Among other things, the invasion of Iraq taught the world that invading other countries with false justifications was perfectly fine. Putin certainly learned that. Then the US went on to alienate its traditional European allies that refused to participate in the charade. To many European politicians at that time, Putin didn't look much worse than Bush. When the US tried to warn Europe against tighter economic integration with Russia, those politicians refused to listen. When Putin turned out to be much worse, there were too many vested interests to reverse the course.
Iraq is a hard case to break down for me. In one sense, Iraq was ultimately successful: the goal of the war was to replace the Saddam regime with a democracy. 20 years later, Iraq is a democracy. I do have a problem with the WMD thing being used as a pretext though.
Also, I don’t necessarily think it’s fair to blame the Iraq War for some European countries being all squishy towards Russia; they’d been doing that off and on since the Cold War.
European countries were not squishy towards Russia. They acted according to their own interests in a world where no major power could be trusted.
The norms that govern international politics are similar to the ones that young kids develop when left to their own devices. Without shared values and without an authority that can impose theirs, you can't evaluate justifications. The norms that emerge deal with the actions themselves. You can do X for your reasons if I can do X for mine, and so on. The ways the US used their global hegemony taught Putin what he can do for his own reasons.
It's easy to forget how immensely unpopular the Bush administration was among the West European elite. Obama got a Nobel Peace Prize for not being Bush, while Biden didn't get one for not being Trump. When the Bush administration tried to tell Europe not to deal with Russia, they had barely more credibility than the Iraqi propaganda guy.
That loss of soft power was the beginning of the end for the American hegemony.
Russia's power also came from American hegemony and its military was built in direct reaction to it. Or how the middle east is a mess in huge part because of the US. Or Latin America after all the meddling.
I really don't see an argument for US influence being better than the status quo, except for the US. It didn't stop wars or ethnic cleansings either when it was at its peak.
The invasion of Ukraine was about the breakdown of multipolarity and loss of Russian strength, not the growth of Russian strength.
This is obvious if you answer the following questions:
1) Was Russian influence and power in Ukraine increasing or decreasing prior to the invasion?
2) Was Russian economic and military power increasing or decreasing in Europe prior to the war?
3) Is Russia stronger or weaker relative to NATO than the USSR was?
I dont see how you can claim US and NATO power is in decline and was challenged more by Russia in 2022 than it was in the 20th century.
To the contrary, the war in Ukraine is the result of growing hegemony in Europe, as hegemony expands outward and more Nations fall into the orbit of the US. Russia is fighting to preserve it's sphere of influence and prevent further collapse of its influence.
I'm not saying that makes Russia a 'good guy", but I don't think there is any other way to interpret the shifting power balance leading up to the war.
So that is a completely different question than if Russian global power and influence was rising prior to the war, which I was arguing against.
It is possible that Russia could have gone a different way.
Japan, Korea, and Germany all gave up significant autonomy by falling into the US alliance, but also reaped significant rewards.
I think it is debatable if the west would want Russia in alliance.
I think the really interesting question is what a country like Russia or China would have to give up to be on good terms with the US.
For one, I think they would have to give up any ability to militarily defend themselves against the US. They would also probably have to give up any allies that the US doesn't approve of. Last, they would probably have to share control over any countries are territories currently in their sphere of influence with the West.
Did you heard about americans in humvees running around ukraine-russian border and provoking russians, few years before the conflict ?
How would your government react to russians trying to establish military bases in mexico, on your border? Oh, we know ... we can look what you did to Cubans. Are they still in blockade?
I don't endorse what Russians are doing. But somebody was helping them to decide to attack. If it was successfull or not, we'll never know.
To make your argument symmetric, we need to imagine Mexico inviting Russia after we 1) poison their President with polonium, 2) seize the Baja peninsula and 3) arm and support border incursions from Texas separatists and 4) have those separatists shoot down a civilian airliner.
Your country does immoral things, Russians do immoral things, Chinese too, every big "power" does. That's not the point. Point is, how would you react to the foreign powers on your border ?
Please, stop repeating russian propaganda. They wanted to control and reconquer their former imperial colonies. Their claimed Casus Belli were just lame excuses, not actual reasons.
> And I know I'm a bit out there, but perhaps the people in the disputed territories should get a vote?
You mean just like the vote in Crimea in 2014 right? With a gun pointed at their backs under the supervision of the military?.
There’s no way that, any vote like that is in anyway shape or form fair and will result in any outcome other than what the people pointing the guns want.
God forbid we react to the utterly inhumane invasion of Ukraine with the disgust it deserves. Stop trying to make cover for Putin behind a veil of insincere civility.
I don't have it from russians, I'm not pro-russia, far from it. But those concerns that US (maybe) wants war on european continent were pretty often repeated in all EU media then.
the bigger problem is that Russia is a backwards country with caveman ideology modeled on the strong Mongolian empire who wants to oppress everybody around them because they have narcissistic tendencies
This comment reminds me of people warning about the perils of communism by posting photos of empty store shelves during the pandemic. In other words they used a failure of capitalism to exemplify communism.
If American hegemony brings peace, why are you using an example where there this supposed peace effect obviously failed?
American hegemony did not prevent the Russian invasion into Ukraine as we all know. It is not an example of a world without American hegemony, it is clearly and example of the world with American hegemony.
Russia invaded Ukraine because the US wasn’t being hegemonic enough. The first invasion in 2014 happened under a dovish, non-interventionist president elected due to public dissatisfaction with his interventionist predecessor. That administration refused to send aid to Ukraine at all, a policy that has been gradually reversed by the two successive administrations, then reversed more dramatically after the second invasion in 2022. Had the US taken the crisis more seriously, it could have likely deterred the 2022 invasion entirely.
If you want an example of the world with American hegemony, consider that the longest sustained period of peace in Western European history began when Western Europe was first occupied by American troops in 1945.
Surely you must realize the fallacy of your argument. I can apply this logic to literally everything.
- X means we don’t have Y.
- But a Y just happened.
- It’s because we didn’t have enough X.
But also you are wrong on you historic counts here. Western Europe hasn’t been entirely peaceful since 1945. First of all, Europe had colonies and colonial warfare well into the 1980s, colonial wars include Angola, Algeria, Kenya, the Falkland Islands and many more. Second many countries were dictatorship in Western Europe, including Spain, Portugal and Italy. There was a war in Cyprus, civil war in Northern Ireland, as well as terrorist insurgencies in Germany and Spain well into the 90s and 2000s.
Neither did USA have hegemony in Western Europe during this period. USSRs influence spread across the continent. There were actually two Germanies until the late 1980s, there still are two Cypruses (despite both Turkey and Greece being NATO members), Communist and Socialist parties remained popular and quite often as part of coalition governments e.g. in Scandinavia, France, Belgium, etc.
> Surely you must realize the fallacy of your argument. I can apply this logic to literally everything.
Well, you would need to analyze the specific facts of the situation to see if it backed up the argument first, which I did.
> Western Europe hasn’t been entirely peaceful since 1945. First of all, Europe had colonies and colonial warfare well into the 1980s, in places like Angola and Algeria.
Angola and Algeria aren’t in Europe.
> Second many countries were dictatorship in Western Europe, including Spain, Portugal and Italy.
They still didn’t go to war with each other.
> There were civil wars in Northern Ireland as well as terrorist insurgencies in Germany and Spain well into the 90s and 2000s.
I never claimed the US was able to eradicate domestic terrorism, only wars between countries. Western Europe hadn’t had a war between countries since 1945, which is the longest stretch since probably the fall of Rome.
> There were actually two Germanies until the late 1980s
Yes, that’s why I specified “Western Europe”; Eastern Europe was under Soviet hegemony.
What do you call the War in Cyprus and the Civil War in Northern Ireland? Turkey and Greece are two separate countries involved in territorial war of Cyprus (sometimes considered Western Europe). UK and Ireland are also two separate countries definitely inside Western Europe. Algeria and Angola were an integral part of France and Portugal respectively, just like Lyon and Lisbon. To the European powers, these were wars inside western European countries.
I find your specification of "War" and "Western Europe" awfully convenient. For example USA had hegemony over both the UK and Argentina, yet the latter invaded a territory of the former, but you are still correct because the Falkland Island aren’t in Europe.
If history doesn’t fit your narrative, you can simply narrow the scope until it fits. This is the problem with grand historic theories, they always just fit, but only after being hammered to the "correct" shape.
> Turkey and Greece are two separate countries involved in territorial war of Cyprus (sometimes considered Western Europe).
If you want to consider Turkey part of Western Europe that’s up to you.
> UK and Ireland are also two separate countries
The UK was not at war with the Republic of Ireland; it was at war with domestic terrorists inside Northern Ireland.
> I find your specification of "War" and "Western Europe" awfully convenient.
If that’s true, I’m sure it’ll be just as easy for you to find another 78 year period of history in which no two sovereign Western European polities went to war with one another. In fact, the whole reason I pointed it out is because the western half of Europe had been interminably war-torn for centuries. You’re talking about colonial wars in Angola and IRA terrorists; I’m talking about breaking the centuries-long cycle of Anglo-German-French wars that stretches into medieval times.
> For example USA had hegemony over both the UK and Argentina
You were the one that stated that USA had hegemony in Western Europe post 1945, so that should include the UK. The Argentinian dictatorship had strong USA backing, the dictator who initiated the invasion Leopoldo Galtieri was a graduate from the US Army School of the Americas, in fact Argentina was working with the CIA in their backing of the Contras militia in Nicaragua. USAs influence over the Argentinian dictatorship just before the invasion is no secret.
As we see, USA hegemony is not sufficient for peace (even your very convenient definition of peace). However it is still not established that USA hegemony is even a necessary conditions.
First, you can mark any large cross-national territory over any arbitrary decade and find peace. Even territories with a history of war. For example, there hasn’t been large South American countries going to war with each other since 1947 either (see I can conveniently omit the Falklands War too if it fits my narrative). Heck, even the African great lakes has seen peace according to your definition since Tanzania invaded Uganda and disposed of Idi Amin in 1979. I guess Tanzanian hegemony is a thing for good.
Second there are multiple alternative hypothesis you haven’t explored. Don’t you think the UN deceleration of human rights helped with minimizing conflicts, the rise of democracy, the end of imperialism, decolonization, demilitarization, buildup of infrastructure, the European Union, etc. I find these together way more plausible then your supposed USA hegemony.
> USAs influence over the Argentinian dictatorship just before the invasion is no secret.
That doesn't imply that the US had any hegemony or control over Argentina.
> Don’t you think the UN deceleration of human rights helped with minimizing conflicts, the rise of democracy, the end of imperialism, decolonization, demilitarization, buildup of infrastructure, the European Union, etc.
Why did all of these things happen in the first place? American hegemony. You can tell because Europe tried half of the things on that list after WWI but they didn't work.
> Why did all of these things happen in the first place? American hegemony.
This is a theory, not a really good one, but lets take it at face value, starting with the end of imperialism. Given that USA continued it’s imperialism after WWII while WWI is the beginning of the end of imperialism for Europe. The British empire stopped existing in 1998, but I’d say the end of British rule over India in 1947 was the peak for the end of European imperialism. This had nothing to do with USA.
Decolonization: This didn’t happen until the 60s and only after fierce resistance from indigenous people withing the colonies. While the USA held a powerful seat the UN that called for decolonization, the fact that USA held its colonies (e.g. Guam and American Samoa), and that it took fierce colonial wars before liberation, I say indigenous resistance had way more weight than any USA influence of the matter. Portugal didn’t actually relinquish their colonies until their dictatorship fell in a socialist revolution in 1974.
Rise of democracies: Again did not follow USA occupations. Staying within Portugal, The Carnation Revolution would certainly be the first time the USA backed left leaning armed forces against a right wing dictator. And we know they didn’t, USA stayed out of that one. Greece on the other hand didn’t became a dictatorship until after it had joined NATO. Now this dictatorship was no friend of the USA, but that only further proves how little USA hegemony had in preventing these dictatorships and in the rise of democracy. I would actually give the EU more credit here. Speaking of which,
the EU: I honestly don’t know how you can give USA hegemony credit for this. It started as a free trade agreement, USA didn’t start doing anything similar until 1994 with NAFTA. Stating USA hegemony here is frankly a little insulting, insinuating that Europeans cannot take autonomous decisions regarding their own affairs.
The only think we can definitely thank the Americans for is demilitarization and the initial buildup of infrastructure.
But I think you get the point here. Attributing all of these to USA hegemony is a very simplistic—and frankly wrong—view of history. Honestly at this point I can’t tell what you consider hegemony, if USA had hegemony over Europe since 1945, how did it not have hegemony over Argentina during the dictatorship?
> The British empire stopped existing in 1998, but I’d say the end of British rule over India in 1947 was the peak for the end of European imperialism. This had nothing to do with USA.
Decolonization, including the dismantlement of the British Empire, was an explicit policy goals of the US dating all the way back to at least WWII. One of the signature examples of this orientation—and the first clear assertion of American hegemony even over Britain—was the Suez crisis.
> Rise of democracies: Again did not follow USA occupations.
The democratic governments of West Germany, Italy, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, and Austria were effectively installed by the US and UK at the end of the Second World War. Without American involvement, none of these countries would have become democratic; they would have either remained fascist or become communist.
(This was not the case for e.g. Argentina, Turkey, or Portugal.)
> the EU: I honestly don’t know how you can give USA hegemony credit for this.
The core concept of the EU is the goal of establishing a “United States of Europe”. In other words, it is an attempt to emulate Europe’s hegemon, and it arose almost immediately after Western European democracy was installed by the Allies at the end of WWII.
For sake of argument let's say the US military is a fine institution & let's say corporations making a profit supporting it is fine.
But my god, the inefficiency & fleecing being done by corporations is ghastly. It's an absurd detriment that the system is robustly categorically fucked, incapable of getting effective help to aid/drive/support the cause. The US taxpayer pays out the nose, when we could be bettering ourselves greatly, because of this systematic incompetence that we suffer.
I don't see your comment as replying to anything whatsoever topical here. You've paved over concerns with jingoism. We can debate that jingoism, but - at a minimum - I don't feel like America should suffer itself to keep getting fleeced by an ineffective & ghastly expensive defense industry. We could do this without it being such a racket.
Do you think hegemonic mono-culture mono-ideal is preferable to a multi-polar world of competing ideas and systems? If so, how do you prevent the hegemon from transmutating to the very thing we feared in the first place?
One thing to consider about your anecdotal encounters with people of those countries is that they were probably in your country. They were probably emigres. If you spoke to people within those countries who are happy with their country, the sentiment would probably be quite different.
Immigration, especially to us, is the best thing a typical person in these countries could do from quality of life perspective, and what most talented usually do. So selection bias here is based mostly on ability and intelligence, not political opinion.
Ironically, China has probably benefited from US hegemony more than any other major country. They are highly dependent on imports of food, fertilizer, energy, and raw materials. The US Navy has kept their sea lines of communication open for free since the end of WW2. Imagine a scenario where the US pulls back and another country like, let's say, India decided to close down China's trade routes. China would be in an economic crisis within months. China is now working to build up a blue water navy and they have other ways to retaliate against threats, but still they are in a very precarious strategic position.
What an embarrassingly privileged comment. The US funds terror around the world for their own benefit. Millions die because of the actions of the US or are effectively enslaved for the benefit of US capitalists to sell overpriced products to wealthy consumers such as yourself. The CIA regularly destabilizes 3rd world countries for the benefit of US corporations (see United fruit company and Guatemala). To suggest the world is a “peaceful” place simply because you live in a country that has never seen war in its homeland during your lifetime is ludicrous especially given the wars the US has started and participated in. Frankly this comment reeks of propaganda, I wouldn’t be surprised if you worked for the fed or a company profiting from the military industrial complex.
Please provide sources for the millions of deaths. Your post sounds like an anti-capitalist screed more than an argument against US military hegemony. Consider that alternative of world war and Russian or Chinese imperialism.
> Over 937,000 people have died in the post-9/11 wars due to direct war violence, and several times as many due to the reverberating effects of war
> An estimated 3.6-3.7 million people have died indirectly in post-9/11 war zones, bringing the total death toll to at least 4.5-4.6 million and counting.
It's weird to set Chinese imperialism as the worst alternative, when the US is China's most prominent provider of technology, and first consumer of manufacturing and services. In exchange China is of course also the biggest holder of US dollar.
These are two nations with H bombs and ICBMs. Lack of new iPhones would never even cross our minds. By the time the populace had formed an opinion it would likely be too late.
That’s the exact opposite of what every military in the world has thought for the last 70 years. If you were China, you would not wait for the American military to dominate yours. If you were the US, you would know this, and not wait for them to launch their nukes at your silos.
As an Indian, I can tell you this is how everyone thinks about their country. Everybody thinks they stand for for good, others stand for evil. And by that definition their order must be spread in the world. And for that they are ok with them having overwhelming military power, and they are vehemently against others having it.
Is your sample of Chinese and Russians limited to those who have had reason to leave their homes and move to the US? Because if it is, I suspect there's an element of selection bias there.
Thank you for bringing a voice of reason to this discussion. Far too many pilloried the US over the decades for unjust wars. Perhaps there are some, like Vietnam, Iraq, etc, but a far worse outcome would be to have the global security situation be controlled by China and Russia. We know what happens when non-democratically elected leaders rise to global power and decide to exert their will, and it is not pretty (world wars, basically).
The US military industrial complex is incredibly complex and somewhat corrupt - it is a revolving door between industry and government, but the alternative is far worse and leads to genocide on a scale unimaginable since WW2.
I don't think the only alternative is "replace the US with a different (evil) power". An alternative is that the UN plays more of a policing role and we move away from power and justice being applied unilaterally and capriciously.
In no way am I suggesting that this is an easy thing to do, or even neccessarily to be desired, but the idea that the world being run by China-Russia is the only alternative to US hegemony is a false dichotomy.
Wen Ho Lee was a PRC spy and was caught exfiltrating secrets. Hardly a reasonable example of unjust persecution.
Are you serious? No US person seriously believes we will deport a Chinese national on a legitimate visa for their political views. Can you point to a single example of this happening?
> Wen Ho Lee was a PRC spy and was caught exfiltrating secrets.
then why wasn't he convicted of it? LOL why is he walking around free, and with a bunch of money he won from a civil suit filed against the government?
who's incompetent here, the FBI, the DOJ, or the courts? how can we assure that every east asian accused of espionage is convicted?
it's a shame you aren't a federal judge, then no spy would ever get away.
There are famous cases of USA deporting a Polish-Lithuanian Jew and a British Actor because of their political views. Is there a reason to believe they wouldn’t deport a Chinese national for the same reason? Particularly since “having been a member of the Communist party” (a requirement for any Chinese citizen seeking a job in the public sector) is a question they ask before issuing a green card.
Killing people with drones based on metadata, in foreign countries, without fair trial, is extremely immoral. With every killed father you'll make several more enemies.
"In 2016, America dropped at least 26,171 bombs authorized by President Barack Obama. This means that every day in 2016, the US military blasted combatants or civilians overseas with 72 bombs; that’s three bombs every hour, 24 hours a day" https://old.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/x332z...
Black sites, extraordinary renditions, torturing people in third countries ... that's deterrence?
Imagine foreign power's drones over your own country, over your city. Imagine hearing exploding homes in your town, maybe few homes away. Imagine unmarked millitary men going through your street and home with their rifles scaring your children. Imagine that your children would refuse to play outside when it isn't cloudy, because they're afraid of blue skies. You cannot, can you? Would you feel safe and glad?
Imagine foreign powers overturning your democraticaly elected leaders and instead putting in their puppets, all for profit again, of course.
Except it hasn't been. Pinker's "long peace" theory with respect to global conflict is bad statistics - 20th-21st century under US military hegemony had a comparable if not higher number of conflicts, see Max Roser’s work documenting global conflicts over the past 600 years. What has changed is that war now is generally shorter and less deadly especially towards combatants, but that's more reflective of the pace of modern war enabled by modern weapons. High intensity wars don't last for 20+ years anymore because you can pretty much destroy nations in 1-5, and belligerents are quicker to exhaust and forced to settle. In aggregate war fatalities is down, but not # of conflicts. US hegemony didn't stop USSR and RU from warring in their periphery, nor PRC border skirmishes pre 90s when US had vast more naval power asymmetry. When countries want to fight for their interests, especially regional, they still do. His conjectures on QoL indicators around the world are improving, and we can credit some of that to US/western innovation, but it’s also a byproduct of technology disseminating as societies develop.
As for the opinion of your colleagues, consider some sort of self-selection bias happening - I've not met many from PRC that don't think China needs better military and regional hegemony to forward her interests the same way US does hers, especially post Belgrade embassy bombing in 99 by US/NATO. And frankly even among PRC diasporas, most people I know except very liberal types are increasingly unabashedly pro PRC military power - they’re just too polite to say so. See how PRC students in the west generally become more pro China the more they’re exposed to western society. Many are smart enough to not voice "objectionable" opinions.I can't speak for RUs.
Ultimately, US military dominance is good for US+LIO interests, but hard to extrapolate anything more. IMO multipolarity will increase the chance of "smaller" conflicts as poles assert their own interests for sure, but it's going to be around the baseline of conflicts that's consistently been simmering throughout history. The fear is increasing large-scale conflict between poles/blocks - ending the cyclic gap between major wars among major powers - but that's what happens when declining hegemon pushes their interests to the exclusion of others too intensely for too long.
In my 20+ years in software engineering, I've yet to meet a Chinese or Russian colleague who thinks it would be better if China or Russia had more military/political power. I've even argued in favor of that position in the past (that the world would be better off if there was more multipolarity), and they fervently opposed my position. They are keenly aware of the kind of crimes their ex-governments engage in.
US military dominance is hegemonic, yes, but it would be far worse to have it any other way currently.