US was well intentioned in Sudan (this happens sometimes), but it did not work out.
Wagner has no morals at all.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/04/20/sudan-civil-war-biden-b...
Wagner has no morals at all.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/04/20/sudan-civil-war-biden-b...
Good luck finding a conflict where the US wasn't poking around before it started.
I get it, it's funny, but US destroyed so many unnecessary lives it;s not really. Im in favor of a strong US as a leading power of the World, instead of China or Russia, but there needs to be a lot more accountabliity.
The Cold War saw the U.S. and USSR take geopolitical positions with global remit. There is no conflict where either “wasn’t poking around before it started” because there was no place either wasn’t. In some cases, e.g. the banana republics, we can clearly trace causation to one party. Sudan is more complicated: there is a mix of foreign interests, some American-aligned, some not.
The conflicts we hear the least about tend to be those we were least involved in. Myanmar. Tigray. Whatever the fuck South Africa is currently up to.
Sure. But the American strategy relies on building alliances. That naturally aligns us to others in a way a more-domineering imperial approach doesn’t.
And also... “To be an enemy of America can be dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal.”
Nobody has permanent friends or alliances. The point is we, a maritime power, tend to be mutually supportive in our alliances in a way land powers are not. (We prefer them to have strong economies and militaries, for instance, and are generally okay, if not thrilled, when they compete with us.)
Contrast to all the newly formed (and preexisting but growing) non-western alliances and trade agreements.
At this rate, we’re going to isolate ourselves (Europe is already feeling significant pain). The West is only around a billion people out of what, 8 billion?
The U.S. still does this. Now the Eastern European countries are used as a wedge against the Western ones. Pipelines are blown up, which is not supportive.
Bullshit.
The American strategy with Iran has been to surround it with enemies, including the Saudis. It took China to come in and make peace between the two. In that instance, and many others, the clear USA strategy was to make enemies.
There's a difference between alliances and proxies. The USA likes having vassals, it does not like having alliances with equals. Like in Ukraine the USA likes to have its proxies do its dirty work. And like in its growing bombast towards China, the USA would gladly sacrifice Korea and Taiwan if it hurt China.
I’ll concede that our strategy with Iran makes zero sense to me. But I never said we don’t make, or even seek out, enemies. Just that we build alliances. That’s true in our approach with Iran, which leans heavily on our Saudi, Emirati and Israeli allies.
> USA likes having vassals, it does not like having alliances with equals
We like both. Our alliances with Canada, the U.K. and Australia are ones of supreme, to the point of vulnerability, mutual respect. Our alliances with France and Germany approach co-equal status–we regularly disagree without abandoning each other. We obviously don’t give a shit about the people in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan or, frankly, Ukraine, the way we do about Western Europe or Korea.
> the USA would gladly sacrifice Korea and Taiwan if it hurt China
Just got back from Taipei. Don’t think anyone there sees our committing to defending their homeland as sacrificing them.
They don't have to see it that way. In fact, it's much better that they don't.
Easier to sacrifice them when it's convenient.
This is directly helping them with their defense.
Which they couldn't really hope to win. In short, the US is just trying to instigate conflict, a thing US does best.
It's not like Taiwan is going to do a first strike against the mainland, or invade the mainland.
Weapons would only be needed in the case of an invasion from China.
And if that happens, then they will want as many weapons as they can get.
It's not like they are turning down the weapons. They are accepting the military aid, because they want to have methods of defending themselves.
Sort of the attitude that’s putting Beijing in a regional bind.
We have allies of colour and allies of convenience. They’re easy to differentiate because we care deeply, almost genuinely, about the internal politics of the former (e.g. the U.K., Germany, Japan, et cetera). They’re discussed as a prize to be contested for. And we tend to welcome their immigrants. With the latter, we don’t, they’re closer to assets, and as a result we tend to prefer the efficiency of autocracy with them. The Gulf and Pakistan fall into this bucket. I understand why we do it, strategically. But I agree it tarnishes our reputation.
The difference is, most countries don’t have any relationships in the first category. (Think: the Scandinavia, the Baltic sisters.) Certainly not superpowers.
I bring that up not to crow about the USA’s bygone righteousness, but to highlight that the people of Japan and Germany were ready to embrace a new paradigm, because the old one had resulted in so much suffering and death.
No country does. Countries don't have morals, countries have interests.
Actions by countries are of course almost always justified based on the former, rather than the latter.
"Everyone is as depraved as me, so I can and should be infinitely depraved preemptively."
A nation is comprised and guided by people
Thus, unless something extraordinary happens, nations will act in their own interest
That's a common belief, especially among people outside the U.S. But I think it's totally wrong. I don't think you can look at the Iraq or Afghanistan wars, our our support in Ukraine, and say that's serving America's interests. George W. Bush and Hilary Clinton exemplify a bipartisan coalition, cut from the same cloth, that believes in liberal democracy and individualistic human rights as a religion, and who think America is justified in using war to promote that religion around the world.
What you are describing to me sounds a lot more like a single powerbase with a few disagreements of narcissism amongst its participants, with a dramatic hegemonic control over the broader citizenship.
The self interests of this neoliberal consensus include empire-building, and have since the cold war that spawned and shaped it. A program to spread that hegemony broader and broader to preserve the flow of resources into the imperial center.
I'm trying not to assign morality here per se; just give I think a better model with, I think, more explanatory power.
I also disagree that your model has "more explanatory power." We spent $6 trillion going to war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we certainly didn't get $6 trillion in oil. We opened up trade with China, gave them our technology, and put them on a path to leapfrogging ahead of us. Your theory is that America is an empire trying to direct "the flow of resources into the imperial center"--but if that's the case then our imperial leaders are extremely incompetent.
What happened in Iraq and China makes much more sense under my model. It was an attempt at converting those countries into our religion of liberal democracy, human rights, and capitalism.
In fact they mostly don't work at all.
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2023/04/11/1169072190/why...