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Comment by pattusk | Hacker News Reader

I agree with the article's title but much less with its content, which seems to claim that returning imperial soldiers will always cause some sort of trouble for the (soon to be former) empire.

I think it's quite telling the author had to go back to the 15th century to find a historical precedent for his claim. Especially since the Hundred Years War could be described as many things (succession war, civil war...) but certainly not an imperial or colonial war. Why not take an example from the end of the British Empire, the French Empire or the Japanese Empire - all great colonial powers in the 20th century? Or Spain, Portugal and Netherlands before that? Because they are very few. I can only think of the loss of Algeria and the coup attempt by the French military in that context - but in the end that hardly destabilized the country.

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>I think it's quite telling the author had to go back to the 15th century to find a historical precedent for his claim.

To me, it is just a period with an anecdote the author was familiar with. The War of the Roses, while an important event in British history, isn't the type of nation destabilising event you're looking for either. It is yet another succession crisis that happened in monarchies time-to-time that was militarised. The argument being that the militarisation is the result of failed foreign military campaigns.

>Why not take an example from the end of the British Empire, the French Empire or the Japanese Empire

All fell more or less as a protracted result of the Second World War followed by the Cold War. I don't think that is comparable. The Vietnam War and the cultural effect it had on the US probably more apt. That is probably where this first began, and then continued with Afghanistan and Iraq.

>Spain, Portugal and Netherlands

The history of both Portugal and the Netherlands are quite intertwined with Spain and its (ie. the Hasburgs') imperial ambitions. Take the War of Spanish Succession for example, the Spanish ceded what was left of the Spanish Netherlands (after the Dutch revolt) to Austria, and arguably had much more impact than the War of the Roses.

It's a widely accepted view that the imperial activities of these powers in foreign lands (both in Europe and beyond) aggravated the conflicts in Europe over several centuries, culminating in the World Wars.

How about the Weimar republic after the end of World War I? Even though that's not a very apt comparison either.

It feels like the author tries to draw historic parallels with current events, which is always a tenuous exercise at best.

The Blutmärz Era was quite different too, there a social democrat administation asked for, or at least tolerated, the aid of right wing forces (Freikorps) to stop significant strikes of Spartakist Communists, about 2000 of them were killed. That schism and distrust on the left also significantly helped the Nazis a decade later in not having a unified left to their opposition.

The conflict here was a fundamantal post war struggle about the course of action in the first ever German Republic. Germany was not an established Empire like the others either. It was not even 50 years since the German Unification 1871 under Prussian Dominance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_March_Battles

Your argument persuaded me, but the content of the article can be seen in a different thought still relevant lens - a misplaced analogy drawing attention to the fact that the United States has rapidly decaying political institutions (the Congress has lost all respect if I recall the polling data, the office of president isn't doing great and the mob justice style of the internet will eventually start clashing with the judiciary).

This is an excellent time to start looking at the circumstances of combat veterans and making sure they don't have an incentive to get involved in trouble. The US political infrastructure is vulnerable and nobody is proposing anything better. That suggests things will get worse if it gives way.

It's not that the soldiers will randomly turn against the public, it's that the tactics developed in building empire are also very good at subjugating the population at home.

Look at Germany in the late 1800's and early 1900's they tried to colonize a couple of regions in Africa,and developed military and social tactics to coerce and control indigenous populations. This colonization effort was largely a failure, and these same tactics turned against German citizens to seize and hold power.

I didn't read (or skim) the article, but there are recent examples. Chechen vets coming back to Russia and forming into what Russia calls "OPGs" Organized Criminal Groups. Now that I think about it, Mexico has this without the colonial wars in the form of cartel enforcers.

Then we had the US vet running around South America this year and embarrassing the US.

There are several examples of ex-troops assassinating presidents.

The French Foreign Legion started trouble in France when bored after multiple deployments.

I can think of probably a 100 examples.

Right, but this is a problem of not knowing how (or not wanting) to manage returning vets, nothing specific to imperial bellicose ventures overseas.

Most ancient societies had strict purification rituals for returning warriors, so that they could cleanse themselves spiritually and socially of the violence committed on the battlefield. Modernity and rationality have gotten rid of these religious rituals but not of their psychological necessity.

Agreed.

But how many applications of soldiers overseas are there other than in the advancement of imperial aims? Dubious peace keeping claims? I understand this is a very subjective topic, but its at least understandable that someone should make this connection.

I read the article as arguing that the USA is an empire, and as such its soldiers are overseas furthering those imperial aims. So in that sense it is the imperial ventures that are creating the vets who need to be managed at home.

Sam Esmail's Homecoming comes to mind...

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