Why does everything has to be a war with the US?
More seriously... "war" seems to be a byword for "unlimited and opaque budget" so it's attractive to all political stripes; it's also a byword for "we're actually taking this seriously" which is attractive to a large segment of the population.
It's war all the way down.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_D._Kaplan#Early_life_an...
Israel benefits heavily from US militarization and US belligerence toward non-allies.
Israel invests a lot of money on lobbying US politicians and on PR to influence the US public. I'm not sure how much they spend. Israel receives $3B in military aid from US every year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Israel_Public_Affairs...
Even with its current turmoil, the US is a far more resilient society and is more likely to prosper (and that is what prevailing or “victory” should mean) than China in its current configuration.
The US stayed legally out of the war in Europe due yes to a strong isolationist movement but also a strong pro-german movement. Without committing troops, Roosevelt tacitly involved the US in the European war (enough deniability that congress would not interfere) and specifically mounted a petroleum embargo in Japan leading to the Japanese decision to bomb Pearl Harbor (not at all blaming the victim — USA — for Japan’s decision). I don’t think you can say though that the us tried to stay out.
“Very cooperative with Stalin at the end of WWII” is hardly borne out by the historical record. The US invaded the USSR during its revolution, and long before Yalta both countries were jockeying for post-war position once it became clear that victory over Germany was inevitable.
The French asked for help yes but it was no treaty matter (not a NATO issue): the US willingly intervened in both Korea and Viet Nam because of communists being on the other side.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/10/asia/xinjiang-china-reeducati...
https://nypost.com/2019/06/01/chinese-dissidents-are-being-e...
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/09/04/7570898...
What's more, I recall the US in the last 2 decades:
- went to a war by lying about WMD and against the entire world (at least the world represented by the UN) will, killing thousands
- deployed mass surveillance of its own people, introduced bypasses to Habeas corpus and legalized torture using the Patriot Act
- elected a man that is at the center of so many Clinton-size scandals in a row it became the new normal
Now, I don't even begin to claim I have a superior country, mine has done many terrible things.
But let's not pretend the US (or any other superpower's) behavior has anything to do with morality. It's either naive or dishonest.
However, labelling everything with "war" is, indeed, a very American thing to do.
It's up for people to decide what they view as acceptable, the history of every country is for the most part transparent these days.
Laundry listing things other countries do (I disagree they come close to the atrocities committed by the CCP) is not a great defense.
I listed CURRENT atrocities being committed by the CCP right now, you picked from our entire history that we as Americans have already expressed outrage (WMD's, etc)
I even left out surveillance because all countries seem to be spying on their citizens, though the CCP goes a lot further with no accountability because it's a dictatorship.
And it is a bloody dictature.
That's not the point. The point is: why does the US has to formulate systematically its antagonist positions as a War?
Given they have the biggest army in the world, this is the best way to have the most violent resolution of this antagonism.