Geopolitics

[JeffFromHK]

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.

just found an online source and it somewhat supports my claim that Malaysia is pro-China comparatively.

I guess USA's wars on Afghanistan/Iraq and the Israel-Palestine conflict has made the muslims in Malaysia dislike USA? Not sure about that.

Yes, Malaysian Chinese/Indonesian Chinese are much more pro-china than the Singaporean Chinese, and it is a well talked about issue in the liberal side of Chinese social media.

Isn't it quite interesting that Japan (on which USA threw two nukes), Vietnam (we all remember Vietnam war) and Phillippines (which USA colonialized) are the three most pro-USA countries in the world

Mongolia is an often missed out country that is very unfriendly to china.

 

[Revan]

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.

The fact that even after the US dropped two bombs, Japan didn’t want to surrender and even did a coup to prevent surrendering means that they would not have surrendered if the US just dropped a bomb in the middle of nowhere.

 

[hasanejaz88]

Throughout the history of humanity which empire do you think is not an evil one?

None, humans who gain power will ultimately become corrupted and want to keep it for as long as possible, even if it means sacrificing innocent people.

In this whole argument of 'better empires' I did think about how we are told that the Muslim Empire (not during the whole time) was 'better' than the Christian empires during the Middle ages because they allowed more freedom of religion and were advanced in science etc. it would be the same discussion we're having now (would you rather live in the Arabia or in Europe?).

Ultimately though, they were still an empire that conquered land that wasn't their's by force and how they allowed freedom to their people should not excuse how they got to control those people's in the first place. I'm sure if we look more at depth at their political workings we would see that they too allowed a lot of shady things to happen within their empire because it suited them keeping their power, while everything was more rosey in Baghdad.

 

[Mike Smalling]

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

It doesn't have a lot to do with USSR's capacity to invade the Japanese mainland really. In the months leading up to the Japanese surrender, Japan's leadership was still foolishly hoping for diplomatic help from the Soviet Union, who they shared a Neutrality Pact with until Manchuria was invaded. The Japanese ambassador to the USSR was repeatedly asked to get the USSR to help them secure favorable peace terms with the Allies, even though he repeatedly reported back that it was hopeless. A war declaration obviously puts a dent in that and further solidifies the hopelessness of the Japanese position - something they should have realized already, but didn't.

 

[Mike Smalling]

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.

The Manhattan Project was scheduled to produce 3-4 bombs in September 1945. They were not going to run out.

 

[Mogget]

That you believe this, says something horrific about how you’re wired.

"Every single man" might be pushing it but I don't think it's outrageous to think a lot of men in the pre-1900s were rapists based on today's definition of martial rape.

A lot of people's morals are based on what's currently socially acceptable or not

 

[JeffFromHK]

None, humans who gain power will ultimately become corrupted and want to keep it for as long as possible, even if it means sacrificing innocent people.

In this whole argument of 'better empires' I did think about how we are told that the Muslim Empire (not during the whole time) was 'better' than the Christian empires during the Middle ages because they allowed more freedom of religion and were advanced in science etc. it would be the same discussion we're having now (would you rather live in the Arabia or in Europe?).

Ultimately though, they were still an empire that conquered land that wasn't their's by force and how they allowed freedom to their people should not excuse how they got to control those people's in the first place. I'm sure if we look more at depth at their political workings we would see that they too allowed a lot of shady things to happen within their empire because it suited them keeping their power, while everything was more rosey in Baghdad.

Unfortunately we are forced to make choices between Level 90-Evilness Empires and Level-999 Evilness Empires.

 

[Revan]

just found an online source and it somewhat supports my claim that Malaysia is pro-China comparatively.

I guess USA's wars on Afghanistan/Iraq and the Israel-Palestine conflict has made the muslims in Malaysia dislike USA? Not sure about that.

Yes, Malaysian Chinese/Indonesian Chinese are much more pro-china than the Singaporean Chinese, and it is a well talked about issue in the liberal side of Chinese social media.

Isn't it quite interesting that Japan (on which USA threw two nukes), Vietnam (we all remember Vietnam war) and Phillippines (which USA colonialized) are the three most pro-USA countries in the world

Mongolia is an often missed out country that is very unfriendly to china.

Thanks, this is very interesting and quite different to what I expected.

I thought that Chinese nowadays are getting discriminated in Malaysia. And while after China's investments, Malaysia improved the relations with China, nowadays that is not the case anymore (wasn't Malaysia the first country who recognised Philippines' claim in South China's sea?). Might it be a case of government still being Western aligned while people starting to prefer China?

From my very limited anecdotal evidence in Malaysia, Malay people I met craved everything Western. Also, Chinese Malaysians who do not live in Malaysia do not like Malaysia (but I have a very small sample here).

 

[JeffFromHK]

"Every single man" might be pushing it but I don't think it's outrageous to think a lot of men in the pre-1900s were rapists based on today's definition of martial rape.

A lot of people's morals are based on what's currently socially acceptable or not

As a Chinese myself I think most elderly in China (or maybe other east asians) would be categorized as racists in today's western standard. Most elderlies would simply reject their children marrying people from colored ethnicities and they may refuse to hire or rent their apartments to the same group of people. But to be honest those "racist jerks" are mostly nice old people. they just got a different worldview due to their different society growing up

 

[Revan]

The Manhattan Project was scheduled to produce 3-4 bombs in September 1945. They were not going to run out.

And how many people, including US soldiers would have died if the war continued for a month? How many more would have died afterwards if the infrastructure would have been even more destroyed (let's not forget that Japanese people died from hunger until 1948).

For context, just the battle of Okinawa (which lasted 2 months) had around 200K deaths, one third of which were American. Would people have really preferred the US do a conventional invasion, losing in process half a million or a million soldiers, killing a few million Japanese with a few millions afterwards dying from hunger? Cause that was the only alternative.

 

[nickm]

At the

The Manhattan Project was scheduled to produce 3-4 bombs in September 1945. They were not going to run out.

At the point the US took action, it had three bombs in its arsenal. It could not assume all were viable. But it should have used one of these precious devices on a possibly empty gesture, that is the argument?

 

[hasanejaz88]

Unfortunately we are forced to make choices between Level 90-Evilness Empires and Level-999 Evilness Empires.

We shouldn't be though, there should be a third option of having the freedom to choose your own. And for that both empires are equally at fault, though actually one could argue the US have meddled a lot more in foreign policies than Russia, especially since the Cold War ended.

 

[JeffFromHK]

And how many people, including US soldiers would have died if the war continued for a month? How many more would have died afterwards if the infrastructure would have been even more destroyed (let's not forget that Japanese people died from hunger until 1948).

Alternative historians may say "Let's wait 3 more days when USSR declare war on Japan then Japan would surrender with 0 civilian casualties"

 

[Revan]

Alternative historians may say "Let's wait 3 more days when USSR declare war on Japan then Japan would surrender with 0 civilian casualties"

Yes, the Japan who didn't want to surrender after US dropped 2 nukes there (and who had a far superior military to the Soviet Union), would have surrendered cause Soviet Union (who didn't have near enough boats to attempt invading Japan) declared war on them? Make it worse, they might have surrendered cause Mars or San Marino would declare war on them. Cause for the Japan islands, the thread of those 3 places was roughly the same.

 

[JeffFromHK]

We shouldn't be though, there should be a third option of having the freedom to choose your own. And for that both empires are equally at fault, though actually one could argue the US have meddled a lot more in foreign policies than Russia, especially since the Cold War ended.

history has proven that an anarchic (or multipolar) world order has led to more wars and deaths.

Like we can only choose either to be employed or unemployed, married or unmarried, and there are no "third option"
we can only choose either A) a world order dominated by USA and europe, B) a world order dominated by Russia/China, C) a multipolar world order
and I don't think options B and C are better than A we are having, as an east asian myself.

but of course, we can still demand the USA empire to be less evil

 

[Mike Smalling]

At the point the US took action, it had three bombs in its arsenal. It could not assume all were viable. But it should have used one of these precious devices on a possibly empty gesture, that is the argument?

I'd say the Trinity Test proved the viability.

And how many people, including US soldiers would have died if the war continued for a month? How many more would have died afterwards if the infrastructure would have been even more destroyed (let's not forget that Japanese people died from hunger until 1948).

For context, just the battle of Okinawa (which lasted 2 months) had around 200K deaths, one third of which were American. Would people have really preferred the US do a conventional invasion, losing in process half a million or a million soldiers, killing a few million Japanese with a few millions afterwards dying from hunger? Cause that was the only alternative.

I'm not advocating that the US should have invaded. My original point was simply that no-one can know whether it was absolutely necessary to drop them on cities to force a surrender, and that there were options that were not tried, partly because it was in the US' interest to not have the Soviets at the table afterwards.

Saying that the atomic bombs were an absolute necessity to end the war is just as stupid as saying it could easily have been ended without them.

 

[AfonsoAlves]

That you believe this, says something horrific about how you’re wired.

Mate, relax. fecking hell.

There's data to show that a significant (P > 50) sample size of men would be guilty of sexual assault/rape under modern definitions based on a study on late Stuart period.

 

[Revan]

I'm not advocating that the US should have invaded. My original point was simply that no-one can know whether it was absolutely necessary to drop them on cities to force a surrender, and that there were options that were not tried, partly because it was in the US' interest to not have the Soviets at the table afterwards.

Saying that the atomic bombs were an absolute necessity to end the war is just as stupid as saying it could easily have been ended without them.

But none of those options would have resulted with an unconditional surrender of Japan, which was necessary.

 

[AfonsoAlves]

We shouldn't be though, there should be a third option of having the freedom to choose your own. And for that both empires are equally at fault, though actually one could argue the US have meddled a lot more in foreign policies than Russia, especially since the Cold War ended.

Why do people who criticise the US feel the need to grossly embellish?

Like, you don't need to. US has already done some tremendously bad things - but shit like this just lowers your credibility

 

[AfonsoAlves]

I'm not getting into the nuclear wepaons thing again, it's so pointless.

The options that were on the table were all discussed and the cabinet minutes discussed why each one was not viable.

Read the damn minutes before making uniformed comments ffs

 

[Mike Smalling]

But none of those options would have resulted with an unconditional surrender of Japan, which was necessary.

You can't possibly know that.

 

[LawCharltonBest]

I reckon if you could sort people by their happiness and you then put the 1000 happiest people in the World in a room together, not one single conversation about Geopolitics would arise.

That is my only contribution to this thread.

 

[Revan]

You can't possibly know that.

We also can't possibly know that Trump won't be the best president when it comes to combating the global warming in the future, unless he becomes president.

But it is very unlikely that would be the case.

 

[hasanejaz88]

Why do people who criticise the US feel the need to grossly embellish?

Like, you don't need to. US has already done some tremendously bad things - but shit like this just lowers your credibility

I don't honestly see anything wrong or exaggerating with that statement. The US has influenced the politics of, and invaded, more countries than any other. Which country do you think has dominated foreign politics more than the US?

 

[Gehrman]

I think for Malaysia and Indonesia most would choose China due to religious reasons.
Vietnam and Phillippines are very pro-USA.

You think Indonesia a muslim majority country would choose China over the US? Well apart from the CCP's hostility to all religion, anti-american sentiment is common in muslim majority countries for obvious reasons.

 

[Gehrman]

I reckon if you could sort people by their happiness and you then put the 1000 happiest people in the World in a room together, not one single conversation about Geopolitics would arise.

That is my only contribution to this thread.

Would they prefer to pissed on the leg or shat in the mouth though?

 

[maniak]

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.

I entered this discussion because the nuking of japan was described as humane and a mercy. You don't see how that can be interpreted as making excuses?

 

[AfonsoAlves]

I don't honestly see anything wrong or exaggerating with that statement. The US has influenced the politics of, and invaded, more countries than any other. Which country do you think has dominated foreign politics more than the US?

I would like to test your knowledge and your biases on this actually:

Can you list what you perceive to be US invasions since 1945?

 

[AfonsoAlves]

I entered this discussion because the nuking of japan was described as human and a mercy. You don't see how that can be interpreted as making excuses?

Can you stop with your childishness.

You knew what I meant, don't pretend you don't. You knew it was in context of what the passable alternatives were.

Yet here you are still crying about the use of one word which you do not agree with.

 

[maniak]

Can you stop with your childishness.

You knew what I meant, don't pretend you don't. You knew it was in context of what the passable alternatives were.

Yet here you are still crying about the use of one word which you do not agree with.

Yes, I've read all your hypothetical scenarios, please don't write another book about them.

Normally I prefer to deal with what actually happened, not what ifs. But of course, you're making excuses, so hypotheticals are all you got.

 

[Red in STL]

At the

At the point the US took action, it had three bombs in its arsenal. It could not assume all were viable. But it should have used one of these precious devices on a possibly empty gesture, that is the argument?

The bombs, or at least the 2 they dropped, were different types, and they didn't really know if they would work or not

 

[JeffFromHK]

You think Indonesia a muslim majority country would choose China over the US? Well apart from the CCP's hostility to all religion, anti-american sentiment is common in muslim majority countries for obvious reasons.

yes
I can think of two Muslim majority countries/territories that are pro-USA though - albania and kurdistan.

 

[AfonsoAlves]

yes
I can think of two Muslim majority countries/territories that are pro-USA though - albania and kurdistan.

Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kurdistan (though not really a country), Qatar, UAE, Oman, and a bunch of central asian 'stans range from friendly relations, to official agreements to full military co-operation.

Actually you can add Morocco to that list too

 

[Revan]

yes
I can think of two Muslim majority countries/territories that are pro-USA though - albania and kurdistan.

Kosovo and Bosna too. Turkey historically has had great relations with the US, nowadays they're still allies and generally Turkish people have preference to the US than China or Russia.

Many Arab countries have great relations with the US (UAE, Qatar, Jordan, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, even Saudi Arabia to name a few).

 

[Sky1981]

You think Indonesia a muslim majority country would choose China over the US? Well apart from the CCP's hostility to all religion, anti-american sentiment is common in muslim majority countries for obvious reasons.

As an Indonesian, they hated China and Chinese pretty bad. Thanks to Soeharto and cough... US helping him topple Soekarno in the name of twarthing the Soviet and off course the lease to our largest gold mine Freeport.

Millions of people killled in the aftermath of the coup.

But for the past 10 or 20 years, yes I think they started to hate China less due to trade, and the fact that everything here is mostly made in China and the chinese actually build many stuffs and invested alots of factory.

Compared to the US, which off course has their own issue supporting Israel. We are still the largest Muslim population in the world.

Just because they eat McDonalds, KFC and drinks coke doesnt mean they align with US, hypocrite or necessity it surely isnt based on ideology.

 

[UnrelatedPsuedo]

"Every single man" might be pushing it but I don't think it's outrageous to think a lot of men in the pre-1900s were rapists based on today's definition of martial rape.

A lot of people's morals are based on what's currently socially acceptable or not

Might be?

The suggestion that men in the 1800’s were all rapists because they’d not been told not to, is disgusting or stupid.

 

[AfonsoAlves]

Might be?

The suggestion that men in the 1800’s were all rapists because they’d not been told not to, is disgusting or stupid.

Stuart era women were mostly seen as property. There didn't exist a concept where wives could say "no" to their husbands.

A lot of studies and research has been done on this topic. What you believe and what reality was don't conflate here.

Who said anything about "they'd not been told not to?"

 

[UnrelatedPsuedo]

Mate, relax. fecking hell.

There's data to show that a significant (P > 50) sample size of men would be guilty of sexual assault/rape under modern definitions based on a study on late Stuart period.

If you want people to relax, tidy up how you express yourself on stuff that serious. You’ve just cut your argument in half* at the first point of challenge anyway, so I don’t know why you didn’t just delete it. (*Partially by adding sexual assault into the suggestion).

It’s mental.

But whatever. The exhausting ‘Mercy’ discourse and the insanity of the above, means it’s better to set you to ignore than engage on any of it further.

 

[DanH]

Might be?

The suggestion that men in the 1800’s were all rapists because they’d not been told not to, is disgusting or stupid.

Sure but the age of consent in England was 12 until 1875, rising to 13 until 1885 where it was changed again to 16. So for 85% of the century you could have sex with someone under 16 without it being considered a statutory rape. I'm sure some men didn't for whatever reason but if you apply todays definition of rape and sex with a minor to that period then a lot of men are going to have been rapists by the standards we apply. Marital rape is another area, albeit one which was only criminalised in the 1980's.

 

[AfonsoAlves]

If you want people to relax, tidy up how you express yourself on stuff that serious. You’ve just cut your argument in half* at the first point of challenge anyway, so I don’t know why you didn’t just delete it. (*Partially by adding sexual assault into the suggestion).

It’s mental.

But whatever. The exhausting ‘Mercy’ discourse and the insanity of the above, means it’s better to set you to ignore than engage on any of it further.

Take a step back and relax, it isn't that serious. It's an internet forum discussing things that happened before most of our fathers were born. None of our opinions have been that egregious or outrageous, you're working yourself up for no reason.