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Comment by pfannkuchen | Hacker News Reader

I feel like the word sovereignty is a bit odd in the modern world. Classically I believe it meant that a nation (etc) could stand alone and defend itself against reasonable (i.e. non suicidal) encroachments from its neighbors, and therefore it had sole discretion over policies within its borders. I think that is pretty clearly not the case today for most “sovereign” nations today? I wonder why the word took on a different meaning? Is it just rude to call someone a vassal state these days?

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Afghanistan is a relatively poor, undeveloped country, yet they just demonstrated their sovereignty in your sense against the most capable country on earth. Of course, if the US wanted to they could have steamrolled afghanistan - but they didn't. What changed is that the willingness to destroy people in war evaporated, and so the ability in theory to conquer a country, and the willingness to do so given the costs it would entail diverged significantly. This might be particular to the west, and countries like china or russia don't care as much. But they are living in the world created by US hegemony, which in large part entails playing by the US' rules.

> What changed is that the willingness to destroy people in war evaporated, and so the ability in theory to conquer a country, and the willingness to do so given the costs it would entail diverged significantly. This might be particular to the west, and countries like china or russia don't care as much.

The USSR tried to invade and occupy Afghanistan too. Lasted less than 10 years despite being next door.

Correction: The US has never tried to occupy Afghanistan. So there is no "too".

Feels like you could make a case either way, like how "freedom fighters" or "resistance fighters" might be used for some groups vs "illegal combatants" for others... or even the same group at different times.

The US toppled the government and had troops stationed there for ~20 years.

I think depending on your political leanings you could reasonably frame that as a) police action and support for a fragile government, or b) an occupation propping up a puppet regime.

Occupation doesn’t always have a negative connotation in popular culture, e.g. the allied occupation of Germany after WWII. I don’t really see how Afghanistan wasn’t an occupation, regardless of whether one is for or against (also confused who could possibly be for it today).

Yeah I’ll buy that, Afghanistan is sovereign. Terrain matters! Switzerland may be as well.

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