Nah Americans don’t go to war over anything but self interest. That might be on the right side of history but there must be a gain to be made.
Disagree. There was nothing to gain in Afghanistan, especially during the second half after Bin Laden went down. It was an ideological war. That’s a major reason why they didn’t make more progress, actually; they could barely leave their own bases for fear of taking domestically unpopular losses.
However… wars start over perceived future weakness in comparison. If <insert country> thinks war with <insert adversary> is inevitable, and adversary will grow stronger over time, the best moment for war is… Now… or at some close future date. If the country thinks their adversary will grow comparatively weaker over time, war waits.
Neglecting domestic politics, yes. Not neglecting domestic politics, Americans are not psychologically ready for total war - they don’t even understand what that means - and would need to be ideologically massaged into thinking military world domination is cool again. Right now, there’s a powerful faction that wants to go back to straight-up isolationism, and the rest of the American political mainstream is for a rough continuation of the status quo, with the Western agenda being advanced through economic policies and (military or civilian) aid.
War has very high costs. The US knows what most of their costs are… since they have been at war for most of the last 100 years. But a first strike on china makes no sense… not militarily Nor economically. They need their allies in the fight… and that will not “just” happen.
Russia just found out the hard way how long a 600 whoops… 300 billion warchest lasts… or does not last. We’re down to ~50 billion now.
China however has no clue what the costs will be… just prognoses and projections.
That could be, although it’s obviously not public. Conquest still happens, though, because people want to build an empire, for money, ideology or just a place in history.
Это означает ли ты Русский? Всегда интересный слушаю людеи из других стран.
The point was America started the war for self interest. The whole ordeal was an exercise in paying heaps of money to defense contractors. There was no clue what victory looked like. They should have just up and left after vin laden was killed.
That America starts wars for self interest is easier to defend, but honestly I’m not convinced of that, either. There was always a lot of that neocon ideology that democracy (or just capitalism) can be spread by force, and I see no reason to expect it’s just a facade. It would be hard to prove that either way, though, because once you’re an ideological actor your ideology losing means your national influence losing as well.
More relevant to the original topic, it’s fair to say that America doesn’t always start a war that would be in it’s national interest, at least. In the 90’s, they could have gone on an expansionist spree pretty easily, but they did triumphalism instead, and just kind of rested on their laurels until 9/11 (with the possible exception of Bosnia).
Disagree. There was nothing to gain in Afghanistan, especially during the second half after Bin Laden went down. It was an ideological war. That’s a major reason why they didn’t make more progress, actually; they could barely leave their own bases for fear of taking domestically unpopular losses.
Neglecting domestic politics, yes. Not neglecting domestic politics, Americans are not psychologically ready for total war - they don’t even understand what that means - and would need to be ideologically massaged into thinking military world domination is cool again. Right now, there’s a powerful faction that wants to go back to straight-up isolationism, and the rest of the American political mainstream is for a rough continuation of the status quo, with the Western agenda being advanced through economic policies and (military or civilian) aid.
That could be, although it’s obviously not public. Conquest still happens, though, because people want to build an empire, for money, ideology or just a place in history.
Это означает ли ты Русский? Всегда интересный слушаю людеи из других стран.
The Taliban harbored bin Laden, who used it as a training base openly. After 9/11 that couldn’t stand.
Sure, and that accounts for the first decade, however questionably.
The point was America started the war for self interest. The whole ordeal was an exercise in paying heaps of money to defense contractors. There was no clue what victory looked like. They should have just up and left after vin laden was killed.
That America starts wars for self interest is easier to defend, but honestly I’m not convinced of that, either. There was always a lot of that neocon ideology that democracy (or just capitalism) can be spread by force, and I see no reason to expect it’s just a facade. It would be hard to prove that either way, though, because once you’re an ideological actor your ideology losing means your national influence losing as well.
More relevant to the original topic, it’s fair to say that America doesn’t always start a war that would be in it’s national interest, at least. In the 90’s, they could have gone on an expansionist spree pretty easily, but they did triumphalism instead, and just kind of rested on their laurels until 9/11 (with the possible exception of Bosnia).