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Comment by myrmidon | Hacker News Reader

I'd argue the US only got dragged into lots of conflicts because of its role as de-facto global hegemon.

A lot of wars it did not really start; if you blame the US for Vietnam (instead of the french), you also have to count South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Transistria and Chechnya 1 & 2 on the Russian side.

The industrialized nations that actually did laudably little warmongering in the last half centuries are (somewhat ironically) the core WW2-axis powers: Italy, Austria, Germany, Japan; despite having plenty of "opportunities" to start something (e.g. over Königsberg/Silesia, Dalmatia, Kuril islands, ...)

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> you blame the US for Vietnam (instead of the french)

I'm all for saying french caused a lot of death and destruction, but the Vietnam war was clearly created by the US during the 1954 Geneva Conference. Also, US-British involvement in France politics during the Indochina war (under Truman: Roosevelt didn't had to deal with Dixiecrats and give racist idiots a new enemy) probably made the 'sale guerre' last way longer that it had to.

My view is that France tried to hold on to Indochina unjustifiably for almost a decade after WW2.

So they get the blame because the US could have hardly escalated a proxy war without proxies.

Not saying America is blameless though, but I do blame France for setting the whole thing up basically (split Vietnam), and for all the wrong reasons, too.

You ought to remember that 40% of french voted communist in 48. Without heavy involvement of CIA and MI6 to curb the movements (including assassinations), the sentiment would probably have grow, which would have stopped the war (also, now that I think about it, it also means that the soviet are even biggest culprits on this as they did kill more french leftist in 5 years than everyone else combined). The more centrist government also would have tried to get out by 49 without the heavy British investment, and later USA support. And during the peace deal in 54, the milk toast also known as Mendes France accepted a first peace deal that the US then refused, and the division of Vietnam was probably US decision too.

"...laudably little warmongering.." - forgetting China here perhaps?

Not counting China (and South Korea) because they joined the "industrialized" club much later than the rest, but so far it is looking good, and I'm somewhat hopeful because their demographics make war an increasingly risky proposition.

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