Comment by j_maffe
Honest to god, everything that Trump is doing might actually end up being that the world becomes a better place. The US hegemony really ran its course.
Honest to god, everything that Trump is doing might actually end up being that the world becomes a better place. The US hegemony really ran its course.
I’m well aware. (Probably any American who can name East Timor, let alone is aware of our participation in their genocide, is more likely than not to be familiar with our history.)
What you said doesn’t discount that we are better with free democracies, regardless of whether we see that through. Democracies tend to raise the per capita income across the population, which, in concert with free markets, gives our multinational corporations new markets to sell shit to.
Sometimes we have other more pressing concerns, like oil in Iran/Iraq (a democracy destroyed and created, respectively); global shipping / colonialism in our support of Israel in conflicts with Egypt over the Suez; abandoning our Kurdish allies to keep Turkey happy enough to keep military assets there.
Geopolitics doesn’t always do one thing or another, even if it were perfectly rational. And no foreign policy is that.
Yes, they do:
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2023/06/27/international-...
People globally have routinely acknowledged that:
1. The US is a hegemony that meddles in others’ affairs
2. It does so selfishly, despite the high flying rhetoric about freedom, democracy, etc.
3. This is good
The preconditions for absence of war in Europe came before the EU existed and has to do with the post-WWII balance of power, which was heavily driven by the United States.
The poll you reference didn't ask a single country in the middle east (except Israel, of course!) or most of South American countries (half of which puppet governments were placed). I wonder why. And you really argue with a straight face that this is representative of "People globally"? I'd be more insulted by your attempt of slight if PEW wasn't doing the same.
I’m happy to review other data if you have it!
I’m not at all suggesting that the United States’s history isn’t fucked. I would suggest, though, that many people recognize that there are tradeoffs and having a single global superpower provides stability in exchange for freedom.
Yes, I’m aware of our history overturning democracies in South America or south east Asia due to communism or Iran because of oil. I’m also aware of efforts to install democracies (e.g. Iraq) not being about freedom. The people polled understand this as well.
I’m curious which counter factual reality you think would be better? Be specific as to what it would look like; who the regional powers would be; how they would cooperate / interfere with each other; what wars would look like, including frequency, between regional powers vs. today; whether states within their sphere of influence would be required to participate in these wars, etc etc etc.
The US hegemony has been a tremendous boon to the world. Yes, the US has done terrible things (lots in South America, Vietnam, genocide in East Timor, failed nation building and war crimes in the Middle East, support for genocide in Palestine, etc.) This isn’t to minimize that.
But the reality is that the US benefits immensely from free democracies with rules-based open markets and international order. Again, do we break that when it suits us? Absolutely. But America being selfish has been a positive outcome compared to, for example, more war in Europe.
Polls consistently show that people recognize the benefits of US hegemony while acknowledging that the US does it purely from self-interest.