Straight up show the posts that say that people should exempt the US/UK from abhorrent acts. This is a geopolitics thread so it is inherently comparative.
Geopolitics
- Thread starter Mciahel Goodman
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Ok, I meant the literal choice faced by nation states between CCCP vs USA. Not being pissed on or shat in
For context as to how fecking grim the alternative was, my parents started dating in the early to mid 80's but didn't marry until 1988 because my mum was barely allowed to see my dad as she had no reliable way to cross the Iron Curtain. They could only see each other on delegation trips, mostly in Berlin where she worked as a translator. I missed half my early childhood with my dad because after my mum got pregnant there was just no way for her to get me from Ukraine to Berlin where my dad was stationed or to Britain. She managed to get smuggled into the British Sector through the Berlin Wall with unofficial help from Dad's buddy's to escape but had to leave me behind with my grandparents. Wasn't until 1992 until I actually met my father for the first time.
So yeah, feck the "alternative."
So yeah, feck the "alternative."
Good Point, South Korea, West Germany, and USA would be my preferences, because it would appear they treat their own citizens better than the other nations do. My gripe is more about how these nations treat and view citizens of countries they actively look to suppress (again, see that Kissinger report).
And by the way, even my view of their treatment of their own citizens compared to the other countries you mention would be based on information fed to me by a pro-West press/media machine, so even while agreeing here, I'm inherently biased (As much as I do suspect South Korea, USA, and West Germany are better options).
To my point though about my discourse being how these nations oppressed other nations, I could flip the script and say I suspect you'd prefer to live in versions of Iraq, Afghanistan, Chile, etc. pre American meddling.
Depending on the timeline and the context one side is better. Not necessarily saintly good, but better.
I did two tours of Afghanistan and was pulled from assignment to assist with intelligence during the withdrawal process.
Walking around with Insignia in Kabul, people were offering absurd things, money, items, (even their female family members on occasion), to help get them out of Kabul because we were leaving. People were angry at us because we were leaving. Just walking the streets in uniform would result in people shouting curse words at us in Dari calling us traitors and that we were abandoning them. Various diplomatic missions were compromised because people were swarming to the locations of any Western officials there the moment their location was known, pleading to not leave.
To suggest to the broad Afghani population that they preferred pre-Western intervention Afghanistan is absurd.
I was in Iraq too for a very brief time. I didn't spend anywhere close to enough time there to make any such of judgement, but when the first Western transport planes landed in Al-Asad in 2014, people literally came to the fencing of the base just to cheer the arrival.
The point about Afghanistan is that, to my knowledge, it's not really a unified nation. Some groups (Northern Alliance) were against the Taliban but the Taliban also didn't fall out of the sky, they had a degree of local support during their rise too.
It's a country with Tajiks, Pashtuns, Uzbeks, Hazara and other ethnic groups with varying interests.
That was the problem.
Even the various ethnic groups didn't even align with each other. Pashtun tribes were too busy trying to one up one another - there was no semblance of nation state.
When you have a singular, determined, unified group sweeping through and nobody willing to stick their necks out to offer resistance or to aid other tribes/ethnic groups, it's going to be a sweep.
But the cities were a different matter. Jalalabad, Herat, Kabul had pretty normalized values, with mentalities and lifestyles not too far from typical middle-income European ones. They were the ones who were worth persisting for in the hopes to build a true nation state - and they were the ones who truly suffered after we all pulled out.
My gripe (and it's not exclusive to this thread mind you), is that it's impossible to discuss only the first part of that sentence. The second part derails what could have been an interesting and much more important discussion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma
The false dilemma here is:
A) side with the US
B) be swallowed whole by a ruthless autocracy
It is possible to discuss this, but you're in the geopolitics channel, which is about nation states and their relations and comparisons to other nation states.
Well. No one actually has to make that choice untill they are put in a situation where they are forced into it. It would probably also be better to focus on liberal democracies vs authoritarian regimes and failed communist states in a conjecture about how cold war v2 is shaping up.
Of course all these states are hardly unified about for instance unwavering support for Israel which sparked the newer discussion.
I think 'good guy vs bad guy' is simplistic framing and not very useful. But I do think you can say something useful about a nation's lived values, even if not perfect, and make comparisons. Some values produce measurably better outcomes for a population and that is ultimately why those countries are preferable places to live.
Are you telling me that it's impossible to discuss the US (the de facto world leader) and all its immoral acts over the last 80 years, without resorting to "well what about XYZ"? Because that is clearly not true.
Can you please re-read what I said?
It's very possible to discuss US problems and immoral acts post WWII without the context of comparison to other countries, but that discussion needs its own thread like "American Foreign policy" or something of the ilk, not in the Geopolitics channel, which is a channel about nation states interactions and comparisons with other nation states.
Of course. But it's also going to contextualized and in many instances the US foreign interventions are going to be considered a massive failure and blot on their nation.
Bringing up Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan are some the most popular talking points to shit on the US
It doesnt make the result of those interventions better, but at its a liberal culture to attack your politicians, policy and history. Which further increases the sentiment to avoid those mistakes rather than having an authoritarian leader who can't be ousted.
I was unaware that the rules of this thread was that every example must be met with a comparison from another country/regime/empire.
It's not a rule - but that's what geopolitics is. The impact of geography on international relations and foreign affairs and relationships between two nations.
I don't think discussion of pure US foreign policy without context of geopolitics belongs here.
Feel free to make a thread about that topic and I'll happily contribute because I have a lot of thoughts on that topic.
The US might be morally visibly more humane, but behind the scene the disruption and tampering of other nations created much more casualty than direct bullet.
Iran, Iraq, Vietnam, not to mention clandestine operation and behind the scene handshakes with whatever freedom fighter they decided to arm.
But hey they didnt torture POWs in WW2
For what it's worth pre cold war the US in my view were the real good guys, beating nazi, Marshall plan, it all started to go south i think once the cold war ended
Iran, Iraq, Vietnam, not to mention clandestine operation and behind the scene handshakes with whatever freedom fighter they decided to arm.
But hey they didnt torture POWs in WW2
For what it's worth pre cold war the US in my view were the real good guys, beating nazi, Marshall plan, it all started to go south i think once the cold war ended
More firebombing of Tokyo perhaps, which killed 225,000 people, more than were killed at Hiroshima & Nagasaki. That was an option.
Invading Japan, with enormous costs in dead amongst US troops, Japanese civilians, and across the wider S Pacific as the war continued - maybe another 500k-1m dead? That was an option.
Setting off a bomb in a safe place to demonstrate US power? A great way of showing US lack of resolve to a bunch of lunatic Japanese fascists..
Yes, I am sure there were diplomatic and political considerations around the dropping of the bomb, how could there not be, but there were utilitarian ones too.
ironically the prevalence of armed conflicts in the world continuously drop under the unipolar world order dominated by the USA (see the blue line), and please note that the graph is exponential.
yes, of course people can attribute it to russia/china and co. owning nuclear weapons
I actually have noticed an interesting psychological phenomenon when we come to political/war debates - people usually put less moral worth on the lives of soldiers than civilians.
Say, if military operation A causes 0 civilian deaths and 100,000 soldiers' deaths and military option B causes 10,000 civilian deaths and 0 soldiers' deaths, most citizens would choose A since it sounds cleaner. It is understandable since fighting is the duties of soldiers so it technically speaking they are more prepared for deaths. But in the end soldiers are human beings and they shall have the same moral worth as anybody else.
Also given that WWII had mass conscription and men were dragged kicking and screaming from their homes and handed a rifle, 6 weeks basic and then sent to a tundra field where the survival rate was 80 hours.
I think despite it being unfair to conscripts its considered part and parcel of what you've signed up for. Its common throughout history to highlight brutality by slaughtering of women and children because their roles tend to be more innocent and of course are in the case of children.
How about I don't live in either and western/communist countries not give a crap about what form of government the people want and let them be and not, you know, invading and overthrowing them if they didn't agree with what the powers wanted?
That is what the US was doing during the Cold wars right? Either support us or we'll try everything to destroy your government and get someone who does.
Note: I currently live in Germany and I admit I do because it's better for me economically. What I said above would be a presumed hypothetical question to the rest world who had to choose between the West or Russia
I think it is more or less the "grass is greener on the other side" thinking, you can easily see the problems or shortcoming of your own girlfriend, wife, daddy, mum and so on and so imagine that the alterative could be better
I assume that is ironic?
Imagine that someone says to you, here's a device that could end years of slaughter and stop the worst War of all time in a week. It'll cost 150,000 lives (in a war where millions have already died) but save up to a million more. Would you push that button?
That's pretty much what Truman was being presented with, IMO. Yes, it'd also demonstrate X, Y, and Z to the Soviets. But it seems a bit mad to overlook the core thing here, which he was being given a way to force the end of the war.
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It's obviously sad what you had to go through but respectfully there are a million other true stories that can talk about how the US destroyed their family and lives.
Ultimately, we are pulling hairs about which of the two evil empires are worse.
We are talking about two different topics here:
1) what USA shall do and shall not do
2) is it preferable to have USA/west as the most dominating force or the alternatives (be it multipolar or Russia/China dominance)
Of course on 1) I agree USA has committed numerous crimes and wrongdoings but for 2) I would have no hesitation, at this moment, to have USA
You can even ask the question right now. Would most countries in SE Asia rather live under Chinese or US hegemony?
I think for Malaysia and Indonesia most would choose China due to religious reasons.
Vietnam and Phillippines are very pro-USA.
Like I said, I live in Germany and wouldn't for a moment think of living in Russia. But that's doesn't excuse point 1) at all. There are plenty of expats from SE Asia, South Asia and western countries who live in the Middle East, would that be an indicator that the ME countries are "better" or more moral than the democracies in those other countries? No, ME have dictatorships and their economic prosperity is due to the fact that are supported by the West and therefore have all the opportunity for their economy to thrive.
Throughout the history of humanity which empire do you think is not an evil one?
Did you even read the rest of the post? Allowing the Soviet Union to declare war against Japan before dropping the bomb (which had been the plan for months), and giving assurances about the Emperor were options that were not tried before dropping the bomb. This is pretty likely the cause of action Roosevelt would have chosen, at least on the first part.
And I don't see how a demonstration of the bomb would show a lack of resolve, when Japan's cities had already been bombed relentlessly as you mention. If a demonstration of the bomb was unsuccessful, the US could then just proceed with what they did - bombing cities with it. The best argument against a demonstration was that it would give the Japanese the chance to shoot down the plane (that chance would be quite slim, as the US had almost complete air domination).
Did the bomb have to be used on a city to force a surrender? Perhaps, but not certainly. Japan arguably needed an excuse to surrender, and the awesome power of the bomb was a good one. Whether a demonstration along with a Soviet war declaration would have been enough is not knowable.
the discussion is a bit circular now, no one in this thread has excused USA from the crimes it has committed which deserves condemption - it has been widely accepted in this thread. We were comparing USA and its alternative empires.
That you believe this, says something horrific about how you’re wired.
With due respect, "Japan surrendering due to Soviet Union declaring war on Japan" just popped up in recent years as part of Krelim's propaganda.
USSR had virtually no amphibious capability by 1945
Isn't Malaysia quite anti-China*? And craving everything Western. No idea about Indonesia. Singapore also is US-aligned despite being Chinese. Thailand to some degree. Japan and South Korea (albeit they're east, not south east) obviously are Western-aligned. Thing is, most of Chinese neighbours do not like China and prefer the US/West.
China has been good for Africa though. But not good to their neighbours.
* Despite Chinese being the second biggest ethnic group after Malay.
The US had three bombs, they didn't have the arsenal for mucking about.
And while detonating the bomb in a safe space might have forced a surrender, it might also have been seen as weakness by a lunatic bunch of holdouts who up until that point only understood the language of force.