Guam is like Guantanamo, or Diego Garcia. We're there only because they are of strategic importance for the post-war (WWII) projection of power and nothing more. Else all those little island bases would be quiet places like so many other small islands that dot the oceans.
Most of those "quiet places" in the Pacific are in free association with the United States. They still "act as bases" in return for the United States offering guaranteed protection and sovereignty. So I'm not quite sure what your comparison point is supposed to be: a) places that ended up under US possession after the Spanish-American war and are now full of American citizens (barring one specific example that still exists for very racist reasons) after being a part of the US for over a century or b) places that willingly lend themselves a similar situation in exchange for protection from (what they consider) worse options.
Are you aware that the US acquired Guam decades before WWII?
People always focus on the fact that there is a military base in some of the territories and assume that is the primary reasoning, while ignoring the fact that there are hundreds of US airbases in California alone, along with the marine, naval and army bases. Yet that's hardly the reason California is a part of the US.
There's certainly an argument for the territories' status and where they should end up, but I don't believe the primary motivation is militaristic.
There are some positive economic impacts for the locals.
(Okinawa has DC offices because the prefecture and the Japanese mainland gov't are not aligned on these topics at all. The prefecture basically wants these bases gone, and don't really want SDF bases there either. Tokyo wants the bases.)
-- Socialism pointing at subsistence farmers happy at earning a good wage
Or should you give it to the "native" people that were there before them? Or the ones before those ones?
Or maybe just accept that the one constant of life is everyone takes everyone else's shit if/when they can/want.
Sure. But if this is normal, why is it so hard to accept what Russia is doing to Ukraine?
Just because evils were done in the past, doesn’t mean we should just accept it as universal truths and continue doing the same things to others (islanders).
If you accept that Russia is wrong, then invading natives was wrong and taking land from islanders *IS* wrong.
Disagree?
Jesus christ, that's a logical jump if I've ever seen one, but ok, I'll bite:
IF Russia succeeds at taking Ukraine, then sure in few hundred years it should be accepted as "normal" that's just what Russia's territory is. Just like most European countries where their borders have shifted through wars and violence many times in the past. That doesn't make the present actions ok, just like the past actions of European colonists in North America aren't ok.
There is literally ZERO reason to accept what Russia is doing now. They should be fought against with all might that can be offered, because it's barbaric, brutal, and has no reason to happen. Just like I'm sure Native Americans and all "first people" of any lands have fought against invaders in their time.
Because before significant aid could even reach Ukraine, the Ukrainians stopped Russia - ergo they didn’t “defeat the natives” and instead are being defeated.
So your comparison here doesn’t really make sense. It also doesn’t make sense because we Russia is actively attacking Ukraine today.
Islanders had their land taken from them and still don’t have it (just like natives). How is this different from Russia taking Ukraine’s land?
> How is this different from Russia taking Ukraine’s land?
Hasn’t happened yet (in the context of the 2022 invasion - aware of previous annexation). And bigger, more powerful countries like the United States are helping Ukraine stop Russia from doing so.
But since this is ongoing we can say “hey that’s wrong!” And do something about it. Not much we can do (though there is some) about events hundreds of years old.
So it’s normal because it has occurred through your history, and also possible for us to stop today, hence we are. If you want to really dig into the whole might makes right thing (and at the nation state level it does) then the US is the mightiest and is stopping Russia from taking from Ukraine.
If Russia had kicked Ukraine's ass what do you think would have happened? NATO declaring war? Remember that Putin got away with Crimea in 2014.You only have sovereignty if you can defend it.
Fairness doesn't come into it.
The justifications we give are just words.
It actually makes a difference in the long run.
Complete gibberish. You can’t seriously be claiming that cities in Guam are being turned to rubble under heavy artillery fire, and children being kidnapped etc.
Ukraine is at war.
Let's say China started supporting people in Guam who want independence, and supplying them with weapons - that would be just and a good thing, right?
Because you did posit in the previous reply that it's completely expected and a fact of life that larger powers overtake these smaller ones - like USA and Guam, and Russia and Ukraine.
Sounds like you’ve forgotten that Russia marched on Ukraine’s capital, deliberately shelling civilian targets, and Ukraine fought off the Russians on their own for weeks, completely defying everyone’s expectations, which is why the West is now supplying weapons to them.
On top of that Ukraine was an independent state with a treaty with a Russia guaranteeing that.
Can you tell us again how Guan is like Ukraine?
I think you’re just making that you, but in case you aren’t you’ll be able to quote where I said that.
Why do you think it is happening at their expense? The other option is leaving these alone and letting the likes of China and Russia run the world.
Because that's what superpowers do if they want to keep their position as superpowers.
You can, for example, stop policing shipping lanes. But then can't complain once shipments start disappearing as other countries don't take the slack. There is less justification to keep warships near 'interesting' countries in that scenario too. You get to keep the military machine well oiled. And the list goes on.
The US is not doing this out of benevolence.
The United States was the world's superpower on December 6, 1941.
It did not get to that position by keeping the military machine well oiled.
On December 6, 1941, the US vs. rest of world might have been a fair fight. Maybe.
That didn't happen by being the world police.
No, it wouldn't have. The US would likely have lost the fight, especially if you consider that in such a counterfactual world there probably wouldn't have been a WW2 going on for the past few years.
While it is difficult to be more precise about when the US became the top world power than "during WW2", it is pretty clear to most knowledgeable observers that the answer is definitely not before WW2 breaks out (it is at best at parity with Britain). And honestly, I'd be skeptical of putting it before the Guadalcanal Campaign, where the US throws battleships into a cruiser battle because it has run out of cruisers. The point I'd go for is when the Essex carriers start coming online, which is 1943.
The US had industrial power before 1941, before 1911, starting in the 1890s.
The US could turn that into military power any time it wanted to, and in the time period between the world wars, it didn't want to.
After 1941, it wanted to. Because of a lot of lies, but that's another discussion entirely.
The USA and Europe have a role to play in keeping the peace. It's not a accident that China is regularly violating Japanese territorial waters (as they did last week, he 8 mile line here, not exclusive economic zones) and threatening their neighbors over possession of islands that can strangle world trade.
When China (and Russia for that manner) show that they can be apart of a international community based on common principles of human rights, there won't be a need... but until then.
Is US pritectibg Europe, or US interests in Europe?
Over the past 40 years the US spending on arms has grown, but fewer and fewer pieces are being produced. Pentagon fails audits.
Now it got to the point where USA cannot supply Ukraine with enough artillery rounds, and they are like the aimplest item to produce. Economy of Russia is like 10x smaller, this should not even be a contest in terms of production.
Imagine if there is a real conflict, and things like cruise missiles need to be replaced, what happens then - you place an order and wait 2 years for it to be delivered? China has 10 the manufacturing capabilty of Russia.
I doubtwe need to spend so much, but why are we not getting our money's worth?
Never in modern history has a country been able to sustain a full-blown war without adapting its production capacity. It's not surprising that an economy dimensioned for peacetime doesn't successfully sustain a war.
> Imagine if there is a real conflict, and things like cruise missiles need to be replaced, what happens then - you place an order and wait 2 years for it to be delivered?
Basically, yes. Always was. As explained in the Vietnam war example [1]: "D to P stocks are those war reserves of ammunition which are stocked in peace time to provide the necessary reservoir of ammunition to sustain combat operations until such time that the planned production base can be activated"
[1]: http://webdoc.sub.gwdg.de/ebook/p/2005/CMH_2/www.army.mil/cm...
To me, that is worth a lot.
Sweden had an atomic bomb program which was dropped in the 1970s after assurances from the US to extend its “nuclear umbrella” to protect Sweden.
One big reason Sweden jumped into NATO now is that the Swedish military is, not exactly a shadow of its former self, but very small.
If Sweden would have had an equivalent of the military power it had in say, 1991, I doubt a NATO application would have been made, or at least not as hastily.
If we did not spend those extra tens of billions per year in projecting power, we could better serve our students, workers, retirees, infrastructure, etc. Instead, they go to ensuring Japan, Korea, Philippines, etc. don't have to spend so much on defense.
As China ascends to No. 1, will they take over the spending? (I'd be happy of they were the ones keeping shipping lanes for their own exports open and not us)
OPEC was formed on September 14, 1960. The definition of "world currency" is somewhat nebulous, but for the purposes of determining when the "dollar became the world currency", perhaps the best date to use is the Bretton Woods conference, which set up the main international financial system, establishing that everyone would peg their currencies to the US dollar, as well as the existence of the IMF and the World Bank. This was done--on purpose, not "by accident"--in June, 1944, 16 years before OPEC ever existed. The Bretton Woods system itself collapses in the 1970s.
This is laughable. If we didn’t spend billions projecting power, we’d be much poorer because world trade would become much more costly for us, as China reshapes it to its own advantage.
China isn’t looking in great shape to do any ‘ascending’ anyway.
History's not on your side for that one. You're talking about the country that, plagued by pirates disturbing its coastal shipping, went to massive expense to construct an enormous system of inland canals running parallel to the coast that the pirates couldn't reach.
If Chinese merchants wanted the sea kept clear, say because they wanted to trade with nearby islands, they had do that in their own private capacity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koxinga
Except that's history. Reality today is not on your side. PRC has more ship building capacity than rest of world combined. Annual production of dead weight tons per year is about 6x-8x more than output US emergency ship building program during WW2. Not to mention most new PRC surface combatants do anti piracy tours out to Africa. If PRC/PLAN wanted to take over piracy protection for her SLOCs, they can basically do so already, plenty of small hulls being retired to coast guard that even they have enough capacity to do it.