China's military expansion continues

What's interesting in this argument is that while saying "You guys did these same things for a thousand years" and "Look at the mess that created", Lanz thinks that that somehow justifies the USA doing the same things.

In reality, it should serve as a dire warning. European wars (based on nationalism), and foreign adventures up to and including colonialism (based on technological superiority), nearly destroyed Europe and did untold harm to the rest of the world, harm that hasn't been repaired to this day. And most of the time, they did it fully convinced that their "superior culture" made it not only right, but something that ought to be done. ("White man's burden" and all that.)

That much is just straightforward history. Americans see it plainly, rightfully condemn it on moral grounds, and smugly point to the destruction it wrought (not realizing that the very existence of the USA is the result of that we-don't-care-about-inferior-peoples expansion based on military superiority).

And yet the USA follows on the path of nationalism and foreign intervention based on military advantage and perceived cultural supriority, seeing how wrong and ultimately harmful it was to Europe and the rest of the world and don't see the massive intellectual disconnect between condeming it in Europe and doing the same things!!!

In fairness it's a well trod path to ruin.

Every empire, every hegemon, every superpower has made much the same claims.

Rome was the apex of civilisation, the Greeks too, the British genuinely saw ourselves as bringing order to a world of chaos.

For the most part they've believed them too. Indoctrination is amazingly easy to recognise in others, almost impossible to see in yourself.

Right here we're seeing people seething and bewildered at the suggestion we don't laud their particular brand of dominion, precisely because they believe exactly what they are preaching. The idea it's turning out to be the transient sham many of us predicted all along is terrifying because their worldview, their self identity is based on being atop that supposedly unassailable pinnacle.

In a few years doubtless we'll be hearing people fervently proclaim how China rescued the world from the brink of American imperialism and most of us will give it much the same regard.

We'll say "meh" and laugh at the Chinese answer to Dayton telling us how the world needs The Party and how the United States of Asia will last forever. (Yup, he did that)

Superpowers will come and go, some incrementally better or worse than others, but for most of us it's a question of not getting in the way when they're provoked.

Lighten up everyone! It's time to come together in celebration of the best holiday of the year! When is Guy Fawkes Night anyway?

Pax Americana.

The core of the irony of this, to me, is this:

There really was a Pax Americana, and more importantly an American promise of freedom. I clearly live in a free country today mostly because of the United States, and not least because of the United States' military. And while for many countries, the connection is less obvious than for my own, it does hold true for most of the free countries on the planet.

But if you support that peace and that freedom, today's American patriots call you 'anti-American', 'Communist', or just say straight out that they oppose (small-d) democracy because it allegedly leads to Mao and Stalin. The values, prosperity, equality and freedom that I enjoy in Germany are laughed at or despised by those American patriots in 2020. Its most verbose defender in this thread is the same person who celebrates a stolen election, a racist police state, and the murder of children at home and abroad. Another goes on racist tirades every five weeks or so. Of the two Americans in this thread who support actual American values, one is considered a pinko commie -- mostly, if I understand correctly, because he is a war veteran who fought to make good on American promises as opposed to breaking them, and to the patriots people who fight for America are losers -- and an ex-pat.

What about me? What am I, something the baby spat up?

This is the crux of the whole process. It is ultimately based on profound selfishness (the power, wealth and status it brings the home country), but always disguised by a profound dose of arrogant pride that justifies all the harm done by somehow convincing itself that it is the "superior civilization" and thus is actually helping the countries is trods underfoot. Sargon the Great surely had the same attitude. We know that all three (or four, depending on how you define it) Egyptian empires did it. The Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Carolingians, the Spanish, the British, nazi Germany, stalinist Russia -- every last one of them was convinced they were doing the world a favour by furthering a superior philosophy of governance. And the USA has been doing the same thing for a long time.

What was that about those who don't learn from history?

And the ex-pat would be considered a dangerous socialist by most Republican voters in the States, even those who proclaim the most loudly how little they like Trump but are going to "hold their nose and vote for him anyway" because Joe Biden will turn the USA into a communist wasteland...

Who are you again?

the geezer that rendered a heart rending reveal earlier in the thread.

Not entirely sure to be honest.

We all just figured you were someone's pet or something.

Sorry, quite right. I vow never to forget you again, Gladys.

so much for the myth of the citizen soldier who goes back to his farm?

His farm is rubble and dust I'm afraid to say, so he joined ISIS instead.

Y'all Quaeda down in Talibama?

The major difference is that America isn’t interested in “empire,” we’re interested in business. The whole basis for American foreign policy is “buy our shit and we’ll buy your shit.”

That and communism bad, unless you have the biggest growing market.

We really can't complain about China. We enabled them, much as we have all our adversaries.

Considering the original topic of this thread, I think it is interesting to compare the current American Empire to the historical Chinese Empire.

Generally, GENERALLY, speaking both were content with holding on to their ‘home territory’ while being the central and controlling power of their sphere of influence.

For the Chinese Empire that meant that if you wanted to trade with China or any of its tributary states you first had to acknowledge the Chinese Emperor as the leader of the known world and pay a yearly tribute. That was it, after that you got to do pretty much whatever you wanted (generally).

An interesting case study here is Okinawa. No, I’m not talking about the 30k US troops and 10s of thousands of dependents and civilian employees supporting them.

I’m talking about the Ryukyu Kingdom.

See the Japanese didn’t want to ‘bend the knee’ to the Chinese. However they also needed access to ‘world markets’ (which at that time meant China and their tributaries). And the Chinese wanted to trade with Japan, but couldn’t let them get away with not following the ‘international norms’ of the time.

So the Japanese came up with interesting work around. The Lord of Satsuma (not Japan the country *wink* *wink*) personally conquered the Ryukyu Kingdom (Okinawa and its surrounding islands). But he didn’t formally conquer them. The Ryukyu Kingdom remained an ‘independent‘ kingdom. The Lord of Satsuma just got the King (and his successors) to acknowledge the Lord (and his successors) as ‘benefactors’ and agree to certain trade rules.

Basically once a year the king of Ryukyu had to go to both China and Satsuma, acknowledge each as supreme powers (Chinese Emperor over the world, Lord of Satsuma over the Ryukyu Kingdom) and then allow both China and Japan to use the kingdom’s ports as a free trade area.

In other words ‘Do what you want (as long as I’m not really opposed) as long as you allow me and my companies free reign in your country’ is not a uniquely American or western invention and it is interesting from a historical standpoint for China to be upset with America for doing it.

What were the Vietnamese not buying?

Interesting you would bring up our ally Vietnam.

The Vietnamese hated Chinese domination.

They still do. It’s why they are now an American ally and our Navy makes regular port calls there. There is a saying which is possibly apocryphal (maybe even likely, I have yet to find a source I trust that confirms) but it is still a good point, of when in the 90s after the Soviet Union disolved and Vietnam turned to the US for patronage a US admiral working on the defense cooperation agreement asked his Vietnamese counterpart ‘Why?’ to which his counterpart replied ‘We fought you for 20 years, the French for 100 and the Chinese for 2000.’

Keep in mind after the US-Vietnam war the Chinese and Vietnamese fought one full scale war and another half dozen smaller ‘border conflicts’ (smaller as in only 10-15k casualties).

And you think there have never been empires whose primary interest was finances? Trampling anyone and everyone under foot in order to make as much money as possible, while third-world workers live in poverty so American corporations can roll in the big bucks, is empire. Putting puppet regimes in place, then sending in the American troops to defend our "allies", is not really all that different from what the Romans did in quite a few cases.

I don't think the difference in procedure is as great as you think, and I don't think there's much moral difference at all.

This is 100% a completely irrelevant sidenote, and I only bring up as I am sitting outside the Vietnamese pool hall a block from my house (I am not exaggerating when I say it is the best Vietnamese in all SE Seattle, it has been recognized multiple times as such, and the owner fucking adores me for some reason so I usually get a free Heineken or two) working and now waiting on lunch. It’s been hot enough I’ve needed a few refreshing beverages (god bless work from home).

Yes!

I completely agree that colonialism was a horrible, dark part of our western history. Like real bad. Shitton dead, cultures erased, should not have happened.

But beauty can come from something ugly.

So I give you the Bahn Mi.

The perfect fusion of East and West. French bread, mayo, pickled Vietnamese vegetables, rice vinegar, cilantro, jalapeños, French style ham, Vietnamese sausage...

❤️❤️❤️

Still missing the point that you fought a bloody and deeply destructive proxy war in their country whose primary motivator was a rivalry you couldn't afford to deal with more directly.

They may be an ally now, but they went through Hell on Earth as pawns in the CW.

That's what concerns most of us, living through conflicts that aren't ours because American, or Russian, or Chinese civilians and politicians can stomach a war on their screens provided it's half a world away.

Again, couldn't give a shit if the US is dominant or not, most assuredly could give a shit about the sabre rattling and brinksmsnship that ends up with the disposable deaths of foreigners.

Sorry bud but you really need to realise this relativism you're preaching is insular in a way which is depressingly commonplace. You are assuming the view you hold of yourselves and your place in the world is shared by others, but frankly it isn't and a lot of the world remain highly wary of the US and see little or nothing benign in it's foreign policy.

I would challenge you that maybe your view of me and my perspective is incorrect.

While it is true that I am in fact an American, I don’t think that tells you what you think it does.

Am I from South Alabama? Yes.

Did I grow up in conservative/religious family? Yes.

Was my initial upbringing very insular, with little exposure to other cultures/perspectives? Also Yes.

Did my gay ass realize from an early age I didn’t fit in and beg my parents to let me go to a boarding school, which they resisted? Yes.

Did I finally talk them into agreeing that if I got THE full ride scholarship to one of the top international boarding schools in the country ($28k a year, which in the 90s was a nice chunk of change for high school) I could go? Yes.

Did I luck out and get it? Also yes.

Was I drawn to, got along with, and thus got matched with international student roommates, starting with Sung-Woo Cho, from age 14-18. Yes.

Through those friendships and those I’ve made since and have I spent over a year living abroad with friends? Yes.

Have I spent another half a year studying abroad? Yeppers.

Have I spent another two years abroad in the military? Yes.

Did I graduate Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelors in International Political Economics with my advisor being one of the principle authors of the Bonn Agreement/proto-Afghanistan Constitution (Nader Entessar). This is also a yep.

Did my post graduate schooling (18 months learning how to be the Hearts And Minds dude [Psychological Operations Sergeant] on a Special Operations team, including six months of Russian language and cultural immersion) and then additional hands on experience in country also give me additional perspective? Yes, I think so.

So maybe, instead of throwing out ‘You Americans just don’t know!’ when I spend a significant amount time trying to help educate you on this history and present of a situation, you actually point out what I got wrong.

Teach me something new. (With actual facts, not just your feelings please.)

I like being right, so if you have some knowledge I am unaware of, I’d love to see it so I can improve my understanding.

But please just facts. I’ve read enough of your feels.

Sounds exactly like how the British Empire saw itself.

I'm not really sure what more you want here. I didn't "feel" the decades of unnecessary and petty Cold War bungling and aggression, they happened entirely independently of my personal bubble.

Likewise the hundreds of thousands dead on battlefields across the world in the name of "protecting democracy" aren't part of my imagination. They aren't subjective in their truth.

That you were the "hearts and minds guy" actually undermines your credibility, not reinforces it. You've been the instrument by which the sales pitch was made, but like so many others I'm not buying. You've had the job of presenting the sanitised picture to the outside world, but that doesn't give you an outsider's perspective.

You may have been in warzones, but you've never lived in credible fear your home would become one. You've never been the little guy whose leaders kowtow to deeply unpopular decisions in order to curry US favour because they're understandably intimidated or at least unwilling to risk censure.

You are a superpower, much like any other. You behave when that status is threatened much like any other. When you do so there's little the rest of us can do, we can't match your military or economy and there's little evidence that you or any other, similar, power is open to negotiation or reason once set upon a course. Either we're with you or we're at best an irrelevance, at worst the latest bug to be squashed.

Just think, if that perspective is common here in the UK (it absolutely is) and as indicated by posters here elsewhere in the developed Western world, what hope do you have of actually gaining the "hearts and minds" of the Middle East, or much of the developing world?

Let me give you a clue, you didn't win over Iraq, or Afghanistan, or even (contrary to your assertions) Vietnam. Fuck knows what you've been trying to achieve with Venezuela or Iran.

At best you got a marriage of convenience with subordinate partners, not genuine belief in the rightness of your cause, much less loyalty which would override the survival instinct.

The idea we, as a global community, are tied to the idea of a US hegemony is deluded as only the truly insular can be, regardless of your education.

What causes fear isn't the thought of not being under your shadow, it's the thought of dying there as collateral.

Cool...

Have a good weekend.

You too, take care bud.

For what it's worth you do seem like a really decent guy.