China's military expansion continues

Meh. @Paladin was playing Whataboutism. In the absence of oldfella, someone's got to fill the void.

Mostly tired and grumpy but not, I hope, nationalistic. We're just as horrific as anyone else given the opportunity.

No, I feel a spot of nationalistic bias.

Ohhhhh....

Aw, leave the man alone! He's got the 'rona, acquired on the front lines. We should be grateful he's still with us and coherent.

And my point is this: someone ultimately will. If a powerful nation chooses not to, it invites other nations to do so.

Moral is subjective. From my perspective, much of our military endeavors are moral because they're in service of a political and economic order that is beneficial.

And if you believe that a world where states will not exert the influence they are able to muster, you need to stop being naive.

In statecraft, there is no non-self-serving action. Everyone acts in their nation's interests. It would be insane to do otherwise. That is not to say that one's interests cannot be humanitarian or benevolent; only that there is always an underlying interest.

Again, hegemons can have vastly different beliefs and aspirations. Europe was threatened by two different totalitarian systems in the 20th Century; I assure you that the differences you would note living under them would not be merely academic. You take a lot of the world system that we helped make for granted.

Yes. China will not be immune to that. That's why they're building aircraft carriers. They intend to take their game elsewhere.

For all the minor wars, rebellions, insurgencies, etc. since World War II, it has been a remarkably peaceful period in this respect: great countries no longer march off to war with each other. And its the global economic system that's done that. But that system is based on U.S. hegemonic power, and that power is being steadily challenged by a rising China. China may eventually reach a point where they forcefully take Taiwan and are so dominant in world economic power, that the world will simply have to acquiesce. Hong Kong is a precursor of what's to come.

Until you troglodytes evolve to where you stop looking at everyone who isn't Just Like You as teh Enumy.

Nothing can evolve unless it survives.

If A embraces non-violence and non-aggression, he's liable to fall prey to B who doesn't share that ethos.

I thought the given approach was to just let problems build in the hope people will adapt to them?

And you've got yours, so fuck everyone else.

You really buy into this shit don't you? You really believe the bullshit that you are the shining beacon of freedom Hollywood would have us believe.

You actually believe you are our saviours, our guardian angels. It's interesting how the nationalities of posters seem to so strongly correlate with their positions on your Pax. The moment someone threatens your precious position of dominance you feel the need to "protect" people who just wanted to be left alone.

Just how peaceful the world has been post WW2 is another debate but where there has been violence you've been inevitably part of the cause, not the solution. You didn't keep the world safe from communism, you competed with a rival and brought death upon countless innocents in doing so. You didn't build the modern world, you haven't even mastered the basics of maintaining a civilised nation yourselves.

You invaded country after country, deposed one legitimate government after another, not as crusading heroes but as the schoolyard bullies making a point so you wouldn't have to fight the other bullies.

China would be no different but this isn't about life under China, it's about the pathetic muscle flexing we grandly term the Cold War, the defeat of Communism, the War on Terror and how a resurgent China is prompting the same tired pattern all over again.

Yes there will always be someone competing for that spot but the idea you're in any way special is pure jingoism.

hey... he's been a good and willing accomplice all these years.

somebody has to do the logistical grind to keep the cattlecars running on time.

I don't believe any fairytale version of reality. I do believe that it's possible for there to be much worse powers than the United States influencing the world.

No. I believe we've established and maintained a world system that benefits you.

Would the people of Hong Kong prefer we butt out? How about the Taiwanese? Or are we just selling them a fantasy about China?

The rival was seeking to exert its influence in the world; we countered that. You're better off for it. You're welcome.

Saddam? The Taliban? Vichy?

Perhaps you prefer the era of great powers competing for world domination. You know, the world that made your continent burn down. Twice.

Again, ask the people in Hong Kong whether our concerns are valid.

Special is relative and so is better, but I maintain that you will not be more satisfied if China is the world's hegemon, or if the world descends once again into great powers competing to be the hegemon.

So say the conquering heroes. Except it's your version of history you're writing.

You have not built any world order, you're part of the post WW2 world but if you want credit for it then you also get the responsibility. None of us wanted the Cold War, or the proxies you take such cultural pride in. They were your follies, not our salvation.

Yes that includes Saddam, the idea we'd actually thank you for that is typically tone deaf. You're despised for it, not lauded. No one thanks you for Vietnam, or your antics with Iran.

The Taliban you'll note seem to have worn you down anyway and let's not get started on what the power vacuum led to.

It's not about what hegemony we all have the misfortune to live "under", it's about the competition between rivals and how we all suffer for it. When the proxy wars start it's only you who see yourselves as the heroes of the hour.

The rest of us just hope we're not next.

You Western sons of a bitches, are going down.

And it is precisely because we don't think the current US political and economic order (dominated by neo-fascists and corporations making billions while the average person gets little or none of the benefit) is "beneficial" that many of us do not approve of most of America's military adventures.

Add to that the fact that we don't think military power should be used to further a given "political and economic order" no matter how "beneficial" it is, and you are left with the only legitimate function of the military, IMO: national defense. It's not for nothing that it is officially called the Department of Defense. But American military power has been used for much more than defense, going all the way back to Korea. And has produced major diplomatic messes everywhere.

This.

@Paladin states he believes the US can take credit for building the modern world. He actually seems to believe pointing to the Middle East will serve to vindicate that position. He's done so right here with an apparently straight face.

I've no doubt he does believe these things.

Notably not one non American has come forward to agree, which pretty much says it all.

Well, to be perfectly honest, there aren't that many non-Americans on the board, so the sample is probably too small to be statistically significant...

To give some credit, in the post WWII world the US did amazing work helping to stabilize Europe as it rebuilt in the decades after WWII. Problem is that it seems to have taken the wrong lessons and assumed that those unique times were the start of a new normal operation.

You may have unwittingly identified the nub of the problem here - the nation state system. While it might be ideal if that were changed in some substantial way, there's no prospect of nation states "fucking off" any time soon, unfortunately. So what we might hope for instead - @Paladin's claim that there will always be a top dog notwithstanding - is a rules-based, multilateral order where the threat of violence is not the primary motivator.

That is not to say that the post World War 2 "international order" hasn't brought stability of a kind, and that that hasn't often been beneficial for some of us. But it has often not been beneficial too and with the continuing erosion of US economic (and arguably arguably diplomatic and cultural) dominance they are increasingly relying on their military to get their way. This is why they are apoplectic at any kind of challenge to that.

True, but trawl through the ratings on this thread and the trend is notable.

You have @RickDeckard, @ k., @Spaceturkey, @Bailey (IIRC a Canadian), myself and others all telling certain Americans (and specifically Americans, no one else) that we aren't fans of US military adventuring and they find it hard to stomach because it's integral to the US self image that they are the heroic defenders of freedom. They can't accept that manifest destiny is a lie they feed themselves.

When you believe you're the most popular guy in the room and everyone else disagrees it's time to look long and hard at the disparity between that self image and reality.

Many Americans do indeed do that, yourself included, but isn't it just a wee bit telling that the supposed international acclaim for the US is so lacking in international flavour?

When have to tell someone they love you....

Absolutely. But you have seen what the response of many of those people is when that is pointed out: "Who cares what the rest of the world thinks?"

Since America is far and away, without any possible doubt, the greatest country on Earth, the fact that so many other people refuse to at the greatness that is the USA shows how inferior they are, and thus helps to prove once again that America is the greatest country on earth. QED.

How do you reason with those kinds of people?

And on a less serious note:

Close. You're only in the wrong hemisphere, both ways (west instead of east, north instead of south). Bailey's Australian. But as I said, you're close -- you got the right planet, and from a galactic POV that counts for something!



And as you can tell, I have way too much time on my hands...

Same difference.

For you Europeans whining about American dominance, maybe you should have thought of that while you were busy with centuries of near-constant warfare that culminated in two World Wars that blasted you into irrelevance. Maybe you'd have preferred having that Soviet boot on your necks following WWII? You know, like your friends in Eastern Europe had to deal with. I'm sure you would have enjoyed that. Or maybe you'd like China to be calling the international shots, treating the lot of you like misguided children in need of constant supervision?
America wound up in the position it holds because the rest of you carried on like myopic idiots for a thousand years. Sucks to be you.

Yup.

You expect an argument?

The premise being made is that one hegemony is much the same as another. We did exactly the same things.

China or the US means very little to most of us, but another Cold War is not an appealing prospect.

America ended up in the position it did by virtue of having a large population, sitting at a geographical remove and entering the war late, not any special qualities or foresight.

Much like the Battle of Britain was win in no small part by the Channel and forewarning, not the famed stiff upper lip.

You imagine you hold some special place in the world? You're just the current top dog, give it a few years and that seems doubtful, but crucially most of the world doesn't care provided we don't get caught up in the shooting.

Actually, the "special quality" that greatly helped America was the sheer size of the country and its gigantic economy. Our industrial output was not only undamaged by enemy action, but simply much, much larger than Europe's.
As for "you did exactly the same things," well, that's just not the case. You engaged in centuries of great power wars and intrigue. The US largely stayed out of it for most of our (short) history, like George Washington wanted. Wasn't until Teddy Roosevelt and the Great White Fleet that America really started engaging in a major way.

"He who beats his swords into plowshares will be doing the farming for the people who still have swords."

Exactly, when you became the dominant power, which is not a "special quality", its just numbers.

Unless you want to take that logic further and argue that you're losing your special quality and China are gaining it?

Is that all you have left to cling to? Manifest destiny through industry? What happened to all those natural rights?

The problem is you're actually right, military and economic power ARE the aces up your sleeve, much as they were once ours, the Romans, the French, the Germans, the Russians.

In no way though does that mark you out from all the various major powers which came before and will come after. Everything else was always just nicely worded propaganda.

Next up China.

Don't worry, they'll lose it eventually too, it's in the nature of these things to be transient.

Tell that to the people of Iraq.