I cringe every time I hear the US president being described as the leader of the free world, as if there were 2 specific sides and USA were leading it and as if USA was an advocate for freedom.
In cold war it was obvious there were two sides, and the other was obviously more free than the other. Go ask for example Estonians, Lithuanians or Latvians who they enjoyed the yoke of the USSR.
Now, as China is becoming an ever more stronger player, we again see that there are two sides arising. While party lacks expansive ambitions in the traditional sense of landborders (except for Taiwan), they would very much like everyone to kotow to the party.
We are in a world where democracies are in decline and autocracies are in the rise. USA is still the biggest democracy. Leader of the free world? It's hyperbolic, but not _obviously totally wrong_.
This is not to say we are in some sort of manichean conflict world were one side is good and one is evil, or that US is good and the autocrats are evil. US is obviously a state actor that acts in it's own benefit and in the benefit of it's elites and so on, and these actions sometimes are very bad for civilians.
> In cold war it was obvious there were two sides, and the other was obviously more free than the other. Go ask for example Estonians, Lithuanians or Latvians who they enjoyed the yoke of the USSR.
You could also ask a Guatemalan how they enjoyed living under the US installed military dictatorships (which came out of a US supported coup after democratic elections resulted in a win for the left). Things are by far not as clear cut. Both blocks supported atrocious regimes if it was in their economic interests and worked against "the other side". That we largely only hear about one side shows how well the propaganda was/is working.
Ah yes, proximity. Now go ask the small Central American nations if they enjoyed living close to the USA during the 70s and 80s.
It's quite funny that after the cold war it came out that nukes of 'the more free side' was targetting Estonian, Lithuanian and Latvia cities.
USA never had any qualms about targetting civilians. Foreigners don't have any rights.
I'm just saying that it was not actually something that people "found out" after the cold war and it wasn't specific to the Baltic nations nor the US or USSR. All nuclear capable superpowers had set potential targets which would have killed tens of millions of civilians. Singling out some of the countries occupied by the USSR (Estonia/Latvia/Lithuania) is minimizing the situation IMO :)
These two sides narration was a very intentional American construct. View from the other side wasn't symmetrical. US as seen from the other side was just seen as a powerful country that likes to mess around with other countries business exploiting them for their own purposes.
End of cold war changed nothing. US is still a powerful country that likes to mess around the world to exploit it better, and Russia is still insular country that doesn't want to allow any of that on their turf.
The only thing that changed with the end of the cold war was that US could no longer credibly spin the narrative that Russia wants to take over the world and turn Texans into communists.
Fortunately, after a bit of mucking around USA could brand terrorists as their global super dangerous enemy and business could continue as usual.
Currently when terrorists turned out to be a very limited threat and USA proved to be very incompetent at fighting them long term, USA again began shopping for a narrative enemy. Obvious choice is China, but USA leaders with more than two brain cells are little hesitant about that, because you don't necessarily want to frame yourself as enemy of someone who could very likely seriously eff you up.
We'll see how it all unfolds.
I also think that the end of the Cold War, the failure of the forever wars, and our bungled pandemic response has taken a lot of gloss off the old propaganda. The interruption of having the USSR fall has made a lot of Americans look around and saw “wait, why does life kinda suck here though?”, and it’s kind of hard to rebuild that propaganda machine once it’s stopped.
US is of course a selfish actor. But it's not black and white, and while US has never been "the good guy" they are still a stabilizing force that for most parts promotes rule based order. Yes, they assault sovereign states and all that, I'm not disagreeing US has pathologies to bear.
But in some regions it's influence benefits the local population (even though the goal is not directly to help anyone but to promote a specific selfish policy).
On the Eurasian theater Russia is not a neglible actor. Given it is being lead by a mafia more or less, in regional matters Russia is still a looming threat (ahem, Ukraine, ahem).
As a citizen of country which shares a very long land border with Russia (Finland), and given the realpolitik fact small nations are at the mercy of larger powers, I much prefer a situation where US can politically and financially influence events in my local vicinity to a one where Russia would be the larger presence.
If I was for example Vietnamese I might hold quite different views. Or if I lived in an area that was a theater of conflict for drone strikes and my family suddenly died as collateral damage.
Um, no. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Aligned_Movement
"many of the Non-Aligned Movement's members were actually quite closely aligned with China or the Soviet Union"
Since the USSR collapsed, and especially since 9/11, things have gotten a lot murkier.
That's a false dichotomy if I ever seen one.
There's a reason why "I'm not as bad as <other person>" is not an acceptable legal defense.
- Guatemalan genocide
- Operation Condor
- Mass sterilization in Puerto Rico
- Panama as a country
- Arming the Taliban
- And more...
I think both governments had really shady people and cannot be characterized as "good".
Just a massive history of interfering with democracies with the sole aim for furthering the economic goals of the US.
This is a child’s way of seeing the world.
Public messaging by POTUS for national consumption is very different from actions on the ground.