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Comment by bargl | Hacker News Reader

The USA military fills a space that would be filled by another power if there was no USA military.

I personally don't want that to be China. Not because I think they'd do a bunch of crazy things but because I think they'd slowly and methodically subvert other countries just like they're doing in the South China Sea.

While I agree 1000% we need to minimize the USA military, we also need a plan for other (UN) countries to contribute to a shared force or something similar that can police in place of the USA military. Even in turn policing the USA in cases of military overstepping.

EDIT: What I'm saying is this article points to a problem, but it's complex. I imagine with UN oversight a military force might actually be less of a polluter and we might slow down arms races as well.

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Why should there be any superpower policing other countries? IMO, China, like any other country strong enough to put up a fight, so to speak, acts out of self-preservation. It's understandable if you look at US' decades long foreign policies.

Why are police necessary anywhere? To enforce the rules of the land that enact peace and order.

China is trying to steal territory from the Philippines, they arguably don't have the power to fight China. Without allies in the USA they'd have no recourse.

If every country was equal I'd agree with you, but they aren't, so we need protections for the smaller countries out there that get rolled over by the big countries.

Edit: Ideally we wouldn't need a police force, and I don't use Police force to mean what the US is doing in the middle east. I'm all about anti-interventionist policies. But I also don't want to see big governments roll over smaller ones, I think the UN is a good counter to that.

This is what I meant by South China Sea. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c... Hopefully that link resolves correclty.

>Why are police necessary anywhere? To enforce the rules of the land that enact peace and order.

A police force is something formally established and democratically controlled. And it should not have private interests of its own, even less so on the same domain as the people it protects.

A superpower/global cop is a self-selecting entity that serves its own interests, and answers to no one.

That is exactly what I'm saying.

EDIT: With the caveat that. end edit.

In the absence of said democratically controlled police force I think the USA military is not the worst substitute. It's not a good one, but it's better than having no counter to other forces.

I would like to clarify. I want a UN controlled military of the size of the US military patrolling the world. NOT the USA. I'm only saying in the absence of a formally established "governing" body to world powers, we need them to be at a stalemate in power.

>In the absence of said democratically controlled police force I think the USA military is not the worst substitute. It's not a good one, but it's better than having no counter to other forces.

I dunno, WWII aside, the worst offenders of meddling with other countries, toppling governments, invading, plundering, and promoting their own interests, etc, in the 20th and 21st century, globally, were the US and USSR.

Not some "rogue states", especially not the small ones, who can't seriously do much to anybody outside their immediate borders anyway...

That's a fair point. But if we also compare the meddling in this century to those past this one has had the fewest deaths due to war, famine, etc. This is, from what I've seen, a commonly held principle is fundamental to my belief that the US isn't as bad as what we've had historically. If that is wrong then I need to re-evaluate my entire opinion here.

Again, I'm 100% not saying the US is perfect or should be in this role. I'm just kinda extrapolating that based on what previous super powers have done the USA/USSR are less aweful.

That could also be to religion losing a lot of it's hold over superpowers, but IDK that's pure speculation on my part.

I also want to say, I get your position and WANT the US out of it's role too. I know this is probably weird for an American to say but I'm super glad that there are other powers out there to push back on the US. I could see us running amok a lot more if there weren't.

> I want a UN controlled military of the size of the US military patrolling the world.

To get a US-sized military from Europe, you would need to require most EU states to triple their current GDP allocated on military. That might make it difficult to fund other things.

>To get a US-sized military from Europe, you would need to require most EU states to triple their current GDP allocated on military.

Well, a lot of that is wasted on wars like Iraq and bureaucracy and waste (e.g. the failed new plane designs).

Given that, they could have a US-sized military in Europe with their current GDP allocation or close, minus the waste.

Nobody outside China thinks what's going on in the South China Sea has anything to do with "self-preservation".

Well, for one, I'm not so sure about that, and I'm not inside China...

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