The United States Is Making the Soviet Union’s Mistakes

I am a French citizen, but I admired the USA all my life and still does. I understand that life is complex and things are not black and white. I feel in this excellent article the pain of a citizen loving its country.

Many thanks Mr Astore.

On the specific issue of dependence on weapons sales, I think the author is wrong. In 2016, US weapons exports were $33.6B, against total GDP of $18.5T and exports of $1.47T.

It's a drop in the bucket.

The United States has been making the same mistake for decades - it was called "globalization". Globalization was necessary to finance the Imperial War Machine. I think this was covered in Perkin's Confessions of an Economic Hitman [1][2] (my earlier comment on this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13442222 ).

[1] https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1576755126 [2] https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1626566763 (2016 edition, which I haven't yet read)

This quote is on the right track:

> In February, if you remember—and given the deluge of news, half news, rumor, and innuendo, who can remember anything these days?—Donald Trump memorably compared the United States to Russia. When Bill O’Reilly called Vladimir Putin “a killer” in an interview with the new president, he responded that there was little difference between us and them, for—as he put it—we had our killers, too, and weren’t exactly innocents abroad when it came to world affairs. “There are a lot of killers. You think our country’s so innocent?” he said. > > The president has said a lot of outlandish things in his first months in office, but here he was on to something.

The rest of the article doesn't demonstrates that the author doesn't understand President Trump's modus operandi [3]...

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13538462 (also see Scott Adams' blog for commentary on El Presidente Trump as a "persuader").

I think El Presidente wants to do a good job, but he's in charge of a briar patch. He can't do everything himself, and is at the mercy of his advisors... As long as El Presidente keeps his eye on the bigger picture, America still has a chance.

P.S. Remember that the Briar Patch tricked President Obama into authorizing the Libyan regime-change operation [3]. President Obama has said that not adopting the "you break it you bought it" policy (thereby allowing chaos to replace the stability that the Libyans used to enjoy) was his biggest mistake.

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libya#2011_Civil_War