> End all wars. Bring all troops home. Close all foreign bases. Use the budget to empower the citizens. A well regulated militia of you and I for world peace.
...let the Russian flag fly over the Baltics.
...let the Russian flag fly over the Baltics.
In fact we keep seeing the outcomes of it still in the media.
This is reminiscent of how war protests in my liberal city stopped suddenly as soon as Obama was elected, and never restarted though he bolstered troop levels (initiated surges). The war was never the main point.
"End all wars/get rid of the military" rhetoric sounds great, until you realize it's a lie. It just means there will be different wars, perhaps won by the wrong people.
You can see this right now in Ukraine. The US and its allies are busy donating/selling all of their soon-to-expire weapons, their older model (but still good) jets, their brand new weapons. Who benefits from this? Ukraine, now. But also the weapon manufacturers, who represent a non-trivial proportion of the US economy. If Ukraine wins the war, it will be paying off its debts to the US for a century, with interest.
An economic example might be the sanctions it placed on Russia along with its allies. Russia is currently forecasted to see a 20% drop in its GDP this year, probably the single biggest effect of the war (compare to Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria effects on the US). Lots of the sanctioning can only be done because most of the global economy runs on the US dollar, as opposed to the yuan, yen, pound, euro, because the Russian loans are dollar denominated. If someone's putting the pressure on the US in some way, its various investments let it wield some massive clubs.
Can you provide a source for the claim that the bulk of US military aid to Ukraine is in the form of loans that will have to be repaid? I'm skeptical because tens of billions in government spending has been authorized for that purpose.
Would the US be the country it is nowadays if it didn't join WWII? Probably not, it would be a very different world.
The war for Europe was arguably won in Africa well before any major advances happened in either of the European fronts.
The North African campaign combined with the supplies the US has sent to the Soviets was pretty much the only reason why the Soviets have won on the eastern front.
The Axis and specifically Germany were over extended in Africa and Africa pretty much took all the fuel and air lift capacity Germany had at the time.
The Italian campaign was the nail in the coffin for the Axis in Europe well before D-Day.
And that is if we can ignore the pacific theater altogether.
> I think we forget over time and become complacent to the strong possibility that the US maintaining its economic and defense hegemony has generally resulted in fewer non-American people doing bad things.
American hegemony is mostly good for the US. Let's not lie about doing 'good' elsewhere. American actions have destabilized many countries and governments to secure and advance American interests. Have American citizens benefited? Probably.
> So you go from a generation who used the military might to stop literal Nazis and effectively save the world. Follow that up with generations of overthrowing democratically elected governments and fostering civil wars globally.
> to more of a lull where people forget that and start calling for a removal of all foreign bases and a reduction in might, to being smacked by the reality again that bad people predictably do bad things, such as russias invasion of ukraine.
I don't think people want a removal of all naval bases or military presence, just enough to pay for fucking healthcare, teachers, food, bridges, and housing. You know the usual basic necessities for life. I guess killing and maiming people around the world is just easier to do.
> it’s good overall that we have this military might, even if not everyone appreciates it. That remains to be seen. Tell me that in a few years when we have more guns than food and water.
As always, unless you're colorblind, the world exists in color, not black and white.
It's a nice sound bite, but it doesn't work that way does it?