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Comment by rich_sasha | Hacker News Reader

It's quite sad. I really do broadly think of the US as "the good guys". And where they are not perfect, they tend to be better than most.

But things like this, and similar heavy handed botch jobs that America then continues to double down on... really sting.

Especially since, if you are a liberal, small "d" democrat, there isn't much alternative for world leadership. The EU is too sleepy to do it, and most of the other players (Russia, China, India etc) are either illiberal or focused on internal problems.

So even when the US decides to continue to dish out collective punishment on a nation with rich culture and history, even then there isn't much alternative to it.

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The world is complicated, but I honestly believe that last 70 years or so of geopolitics makes more sense if I start with the assumption that the USA are "the bad guys."

Vietnam, Iraq, Iran in the 50s, Chile in the 70s, Israel/Palestine since the beginning, the list goes on. Hell, even in WWII where the USA was ostensibly on the "right side" of the war, the USA ended it in such an profoundly evil way by dropping two nuclear bombs, killing thousands and thousands of people. There's a good list of US-invovled regime change on Wikipedia, for anyone looking for a starting place: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...

Besides armed conflict, the way the USA exploits the third world in the name of mining resources and cheap manufacturing is abhorrent. Conditions that are illegal within the USA's borders are common elsewhere, and then the USA turns a blind to that suffering while enjoying cheap food, clothes, and gadgets

Not dropping nukes would have resulted in way more casualties. It was a calculated decision to minimize loss of life, not be an evil enemy.

I agree in principle but have always wondered if a purely military target could have been chosen, at least for the first demonstration. Something like a military port or base.

After that it could have been made clear that arms manufacturing centers may be targeted next, followed by political centers.

(They did not know we had only two bombs and would need time to make more.)

As far as I know the reasoning was that the Japanese public would have to see it, but I wonder if a suitable military target on the mainland could have been found that would have minimized civilian casualties while being impossible for the regime to hide.

So here I disagree. You list a number of wars that turned out to be disasters, and in hindsight were possibly a bad idea to get involved in. But I see you missed off Korea - a very bloody war, which however cemented a free(ish) South Korea. I'd imagine present day South Koreans are quite glad to not be under Kim Jong Sun's thumb. Had the Vietnam war succeeded, would we see it similarly?

As for Iraq wars, terrible as they turned out to be, I see a kernel of wanting to contain, then remove, a really awful tyrant. That Hussein was terrible seems to be beyond any question. Alas, the medicine was perhaps more bitter than the disease.

I think it's just hard to be the world's policeman, and maybe you get even most things wrong. That in itself doesn't mean you're a bad guy. I'm not defending the outcomes, just to be clear.

As for America as "the bad guys"... It seems you don't live in a country neighboured by a proper baddie. At worst, I would say that the worst, most terrible, isolated atrocities of the American wars of last 30 years perhaps match the daily reality of what Russia does in Ukraine.

176k people in Afghanistan died during the war[1]. Up to 1 million died due to the Iraq war[2]. We left almost all of Korea and Vietnam completely destroyed after those wars.

The US has actually has been at war for nearly every year of its existence[3]. I find it really hard not to consider America "the bad guys".

I don't think there are "proper baddies" though. The US acts just as much of a baddie as any other country. Every country will do what it wants to advance its interests (especially a superpower)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_in_the_war... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_Uni...

So, for one, I'm not arguing the outcomes of these wars was good. Rather, that (a) the intentions may well have been good, and also (b) we would really need to compare to the counterfactual of these wars not happening in the first place. Then there are also mitigating circumstances.

Vietnam wasn't started or even fanned up by the US, but rather by the French. The US "inherited" an awful situation. And lest we forget, North Vietnamese did awful purges to the South Vietnamese after the war.

Afghanistan to me is the least ambiguous of them, at least in the early years. US was attacked by a terrorist unit, given official shelter in Afghanistan, whose government also refused to give them up. Not just that, but the propped up regime did things we care about as good. Since NATO withdrawal the Taliban brought thei own variety of peace and associated poverty, and it's not particularly good either. Sure, not a deadly war, but not exactly a niceout come either.

Time and time again the West, lead by the US, faces the nasty choice between seeing evil be done and standing by, or intervening, by means of war, to protect some notion of goodness. And yes, mostly this failed - and maybe the lesson is, don't get involved. But I don't think it's a straightforward a priori obvious thing.

Oh, and if you say there are no "baddie" countries, that just means you aren't familiar with being invaded by one. It's not immutable in time, tables turn etc. But just read up for 2 mins about say Russian atrocities in Ukraine and you may well think warmly of the other wars.

The US absolutely chose to get involved in the Vietnam war. The US could have easily just stayed out of it and let North Vietnam conquer South Vietnam from the start. That's what ultimately happened but a million Vietnamese could have kept their lives.

It was also insane that the US was paying France billions before the war in order to help them maintain their Vietnamese colony. We usually consider colonial powers to be "the baddies".

We should never have invaded Afghanistan. If we wanted to kill the Al-Qaeda leaders then we should have sent the CIA or special forces (which is what we ultimately did). The Taliban did not attack us. We might not like how the Taliban runs the country but we have no business in invading a sovereign country over that. Invading other countries is usually a baddie move.

I think its absolutely straight forward. Just don't start offensive wars if you really think you aren't one of the baddies.

Those past wars included millions of casualties and tons of atrocities. You don't want to be invaded by a baddie and you definitely don't want to be invaded by the US!

Maybe you know more about the history of South Korea, but the time between the USAMGIK and the Sixth Republic, but calling South Korea free - even "-ish"- sounds like a stretch.

The Fifth Republic was a military dictatorship that promised democratic reforms that never materialized. The June 29 Declaration specifically called for the holding of direct presidential elections and restoration of civil rights - two items which don't exactly scream free.

I don't think this should be downvoted. I don't know anything about the post-war history of Korea, but your comment led me to look it up, and according to Wikipedia, between 1948 and 1987, South Korea was ruled by a succession of corrupt authoritarian elected governments and military dictatorships.

Not a great triumph of America's professed values, but consistent with America's actual support for anti-communist dictators around the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Republic_of_Korea

My point of reference is North Korea. I don't know much about SK internal politics, but I know which one I'd rather live in.

Can't we choose any country to compare it to NK and say it's free?

I have standards and they say that living under a dictator with civil rights suspended isn't free even if the neighbor is worse. What are your standards?

"I think it's just hard to be the world's policeman..."

What some people call being the "world's policeman," I call being a bully. The USA only occupies such a role by having the most weapons and the most money. The USA its military and economic might to further strengthen its power, not to mete out justice. And when I say "USA," I don't just mean the government, but also the biggest corporations. Sometimes it's in the best of the USA, Coca-Cola, Facebook, and Raytheon that people live, and sometimes its in their interest that people die. Some people get to live very comfortable lives, and some people must live in squalor. Those countries that buy fighter jets and McDonald's tend to earn the USA's favor, and those that do not are forces into compliance or brutally punished. Cuba wanted to nationalize its oil industry in the 60s, and the Cuban trade embargo began (and has lasted ever since). The USA will describe it as fighting authoritarian dictators or whatever, but its all about whether a nation will agree to play by the USA's rules of capitalism or not.

Proponents of the USA and capitalism like to tout it as the most morally superior system in the world so far devised, but it is no coincidence that the richest country in the world also has the largest military in the world. The USA maintains its position by violence.

I think you're exposing the problem with neo-liberalism and why the USA are the bad guys. It's not our role to impose our (meaning the establishment's) will on other people. We should not be "spreading" our ideals or way of life. That's colonialism. That's why the USA are the bad guys.

If you start with US are bad guys and it would have been better for Hitler to be in power or Russia or imperialist Japan then I'd love to learn about your ideal worldview. Most of those wars were a counterweight to Russia taking over countries.

Free trade gave you cheap clothes, food and gadgets. The US isn't exploiting poorer countries those countries want to sell their goods and services. They are cheaper only because wages/costs are higher here (plus transport). Going back to tariffs is a productivity drop globally and a way to keep poorer countries down.

> The world is complicated, but I honestly believe that last 70 years or so of geopolitics makes more sense if I start with the assumption that the USA are "the bad guys."

The world makes more sense if you assume there are no good and bad guys, but just self-interested actors. USA does good things when it benefits them but also bad things when it benefits them. Same with everyone else, usa just is slightly more incentivized to take a soft power approach.

if you want to talk about US evils in ww2 i think it makes more sense to emphasize the firebombing of tokyo rather than the atomic bombs. they were way worse, and curtis lemay famously said he expected to be tried for war crimes if the us lost the war

(the dresden bombing was also quite bad but i'm not sure how they compare)

You’re just jumping on the anti American bandwagon. It’s a cold dark forest. Conflict and self interest are immutable characteristics of humankind. You act as if we’re the only nation who’s ever committed acts of violence.

There’s no objective “good guys” or “bad guys.”

The irony of the US having an embargo against Cuba...while also basing their war crime camp there is so ridiculous it's hard to believe.

You can’t make this shit up.

> they tend to be better than most

Domestically, maybe. Internationally, well - ask those on the receiving end of US geopolitical and military shenanigans.

Even the word maybe is doing a lot of heavy lifting

Ask anyone on the receiving end of any geopolitical or military shenanigans how they feel about it. Most nations are far more disrespectful toward other nations they get involved with, they just have less power.

How many nations has China bombed in Africa? They’re quite involved there - building infrastructure, laying rail. Can you point to any US funded infrastructure projects there in the last 20 years?

Well, clearly. That's my point: that paired with, IMO, a really decent set of values, pragmatism and a will to lead, there's also some quota for such "geopolitical and military shenanigans". Which is disappointing.

> Internationally, well - ask those on the receiving end of US geopolitical and military shenanigans

Japan, Korea and Europe, for instance? The Philippines? We're not great. But we're better than our colonial predecessors, or their imperial precursors.

Anywhere in the middle east, anywhere in south east asia, Grenada, A dozen or so countries in Africa, anywhere in Central America or South America. But it's ok, they don't teach you these things in US schools.

The US treated the Philippines absolutely horribly and its still a basket case today.

South Korea for most of its post WW2 life has been a totalitarian dictatorship.

Europe was already civilized and fairly democratic before US occupation.

I used to stupidly think the US were the "good guys" too. Until Libya and then Syria occurred. U.S. media were telling one story about "moderate rebels" and "freedom fighters" while my friends - actual citizens there - told another story. The U.S. political system is merely a puppet of its War Industry which eggs on war year after year to make its oligarchs richer and richer while causing extensive mass slaughter in the name of "democracy".

This can be over tomorrow. Release the political dissidents and hold open free elections. Sanctions will be lifted.

If those were the conditions to put an embargo on another country, I reckon the US would be quite busy.

Of course the difference between Cuba and most countries is that Cuba is in USAs back yard, while most countries aren’t.

This is a general pattern with the US. The communist coop in '65 illegally seized American property, illegally imprisoned Americans, and to this day the Cuban government oppresses and jails political dissidents.

American foreign policy tends to be fairly uniform this way, no?

If Iran released prisoners and held open elections, I suspect American would move to lift embargos and normalize relations. Same with Caracas, et al.

It seems that the issue is socialism, then?

It might be a role; but I think the pattern is that a strong-man government overthrows a democratically elected government. When that occurs, American sanctions follow.

To see this play out in real time, watch Niger.

https://www.state.gov/military-coup-detat-in-niger/

I think this is a naive perspective, historically speaking. For starters, Cuba was a dictatorship already before Castro rose to power, but Batista was backed by the US. Around the same time, Chile's Pinochet overthrew the democratically elected socialist government with CIA's aid.

Currently, the US backs a handful of dictatorships, of which some are former democracies. Egypt may be an example of former democracy, albeit flawed, turned into a military dictatorship. And among de facto dictatorships that the US still maintain perfectly open relationships are Thailand, Myanmar, and Morocco.

Those might be good things to do, but what business does the US have dictating that to other nations? And to have the gall while maintaining diplomatic and trade relations with absolute monarchies like Saudi Arabia that hack up journalists and execute people for homosexuality...

The US has every right to decide who and who they do not wish to do business with.

In this case, _the_ difference is that Saudi Arabia has never been a liberal democracy. America hopes it's relationship with countries like Saudi Arabia helps to liberalize them. In that regard, Saudi Arabia is liberalizing, albeit very slowly. Just look up women's rights.

As for homosexual rights, that tends to be a religious issue that many Muslim countries have an unfortunate record of oppression on. America's freedom of religion tends to be tolerant of these people, even though its antagonistic to our liberal values.

> The US has every right to decide who and who they do not wish to do business with.

Who are "they" and "the US" here? I guess you are referring to the political elite. I rather not have someone else force me to boycott whatever they think they have a feud with.

>America hopes it's relationship with countries like Saudi Arabia helps to liberalize them.

US foreign policy is 100% not about this. If the US had no economic interests in keeping Saudi Arabia on its side, it wouldn't happen. That's all our foreign policy is about and lofty goals like this only matter if there's no economic interest.

Pax Americana. The empire is slowly but steadily crumbling.

As a 3rd world spectator I only have to say "it's about time"

> there isn't much alternative for world leadership.

I strongly suggest you glance through the Accidental Superpower.

Take what it says with a grain of salt, but it lays out a pretty strong case that the US's role in global politics is going away and that everything will be returning to a pre-Bretton Woods, "every people for themselves" world.

> US's role in global politics is going away and that everything will be returning to a pre-Bretton Woods, "every people for themselves" world

We're pretty much there. We don't need to be peaceful hegemony to project power where necessary. It's personally aggravating to see legitimate attempts as peacekeeping cast as colonialism. If a region wants to just buy arms and duke it out on their own, there is no downside to America aside from morality. And that standard is flexible in any civilization.

I want this so bad.

Can. We. Just. Fucking. Stop.

Seriously. Ukraine and Russia? None of our business.

Palestine and Israel? None of our business.

Defense of Europe and NATO membership? None of our business.

Let the world figure out their own shit.

It’s none of the US’s business until it is.

If China takes over Asia you think they will stop there?

Kill a monster when it’s small. Defense in depth.

Also shipping lanes.

If a nation takes unilateral action that the world wishes to prevent, then maybe it's the world's shared responsibility to respond. I have no problem with the US being an equal partner in that, but right now we're doing nearly everything, and the American tax payer is paying for it.

The US does it because

a) it's one of the few countries with global force projection capability

b) it's in both its long and/or short term interest to do so

Today, the US under Biden is pretty selective about intervention. For example, it isn't intervening on the the behalf of the Saudis anymore as their oil isn't as important to the US as it used to be.

> as their oil isn't as important to the US as it used to be

Riyadh--specifically, MBS--is also being petulant and immature in taking for granted American support. There is remarkable symmetry between Netanyahu and MBS in this respect, e.g. the former trashing Israel's formerly bipartisan image by allying with the GOP under Obama and Trump.

A) That costs money. More than 800 BILLION dollars a year, to be exact.

B) Extremely debatable. There's a lot we could do with 800B that would have a much more tangible impact on the average American.

If it's in our interest, it's in the worlds interest as well. Something tells me it wouldn't be too long before the UN had a maritime task force capable of defending shipping.

All the UN's military power is provide by its member nations. If those nations willing to lend their military to the UN don't have global force projection capability, the UN doesn't have global force projection capability.

> If those nations willing to lend their military to the UN don't have global force projection capability, the UN doesn't have global force projection capability

To put this into context, the United States has 11 aircraft carriers, 38 overseas bases, 130,000 troops overseas and nukes [1]. Turkey has 1, 12 and 60,000, respectively; Russia 1, 10 and 50,000 (exempting Ukraine, I think).

You have to go from China to Australia--through India, Japan, France, Italy and the U.K.--to get to America's aircraft carrier fleet. U.K., Turkey and France for bases (this one is plausible). And none of this counts the massive logistics reserve the U.S. military has compared to the world.

America has built and funded a military designed to check global hegemony. It doesn't produce it, even if our policymakers sometimes pretend it does. But it prevents a global hegemony from emerging, with regional hegemons kept from dominating their neighbors. In general, it is difficult to read history without concluding this is the right approach. It's basically antitrust as geopolitics. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_projection#Power_project...

TBH, I don't really care. I don't mind the idea of the US being an equal partner as part of said UN task force, but I'm pretty much over the US being solely responsible for it

You have no idea how much we benefit from our interventions. We keep oil prices low and relatively stable, we keep long and complex supply chains from collapsing. We create and then maintain a global network of consumers for our goods.

Withdrawing our military globally would cost us so so much.

You think we invade and bomb countries because we are concerned for their welfare? Hah! We do it because it's long run profitable for us.

No land-grab expanding empire from history has managed to survive more than a few hundred years. What makes us think that China would?

Communism doesn't have a great track record of building empires that span a millennia.

> No land-grab expanding empire from history has managed to survive more than a few hundred years

i.e. multiple human lifetimes. Carthage and Athens were thriving polities. The potential fruits of their minds were permanently lost.

> No land-grab expanding empire from history has managed to survive more than a few hundred years. What makes us think that China would?

USA is a land-grab expanding empire, they still exist. Do you think USA will end just because it is the result of massive land grabs and conquest?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Indian_Wars

Now imagine what we could accomplish with even half of the 800+B dollar defense budget here at home.

For those saying there's no way we could afford it, we already spend 1.9T. If we spent the same as the UK with it's NHS it'd only be 1.6T, so you could argue we'd even save money.

> Let the world figure out their own shit

Isolationism has its limits. The world will figure out its own shit without you. Eventually, it will start figuring out yours. America alone would be poor and impotent. America overstretched, the same.

> Let the world figure out their own shit.

Price of owning the world is interfering in everyone's shit. If america stops doing that they start getting treated like a normal country instead of a super-power, which would bring a rude awakening to many ordinary americans.

>If america stops doing that they start getting treated like a normal country instead of a super-power, which would bring a rude awakening to many ordinary americans.

I'm not reading a downside, yet.

> If a region wants to just buy arms and duke it out on their own, there is no downside to America aside

Are you sure about that? America benefits a lot I think from the world being relatively peaceful and, more importantly, predictable place.

An instable free-for-all world is more difficult to navigate, and probably devastating for the economy.

> Are you sure about that? America benefits a lot I think from the world being relatively peaceful and, more importantly, predictable place

No, I'm being hyperbolic. (Sorry.)

We lose from isolation. But sometimes going down together--America, isolationist and the world in turmoil--seems like the preference of the ignorant.

> If a region wants to just buy arms and duke it out on their own, there is no downside to America aside from morality.

Instability tends to ignore borders, not least in the floods of migrants it unleashes towards more stable and prosperous countries.

Colonialism is good. It brought a high standard of living to the natives and increased life expectancy.

it brought exploitation and in some cases extermination of natives and pretty much extracted wealth from the colonies. It would be much better for the natives to merely trade their valuables in order to get access to western goods and technologies (and of course they had trade goods; that's the whole point of colonialism)

I've always taken Zeihan's assertions that world trade will collapse without the US playing world police as pretty laughable. It's in pretty much everyone's interest that world trade be protected. Even if the US were to sink into the ocean I could see the UN raising a fleet to ensure shipping was protected from piracy and harassment the next day.

But we are already seeing huge trade disruptions in the Gulf and the Black Sea and the UN is not even close to doing anything about it.

> It's in pretty much everyone's interest that world trade be protected.

That's not necessarily true. There are prominent exemptions - Russia, India, the US, and Iran, among others.

Huge disruptions? Really? If we're seeing 'huge' disruptions, you'd think the world would care enough to do something about it no? Why is it always our responsibility?

No, you are not the good guys. Not at all.

I think one problem right now is that the US policy class tried the strategy of economic engagement and integration with authoritarian China, expecting it to liberalize and democratize as a result.

But that backfired horribly, and the CCP used its newfound wealth to become increasingly authoritarian internally, belligerent externally, and to initiate the largest and fastest military buildup since Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

As a result there’s even less chance of the US policy class ever agreeing to that strategy again, especially not with Cuba. Unlike China, Cuba is a mere 90 miles away from the US, and just a few minutes flight time for a tactical nuclear missile to Washington DC.

The US will never take that risk again. Cuba will have to democratize first for that embargo to ever end.

> just a few minutes flight time

You realize that it is only for the, what, top 0.001% for which the exact flight time has any relevance, so that they have time to hide and spend the next 200 years underground belittling us for not being war mongers enough.

I think you missed the broader point. The point is there is a non-zero risk that dropping the embargo might enable Cuba to smuggle or develop weapons that could quickly hit anywhere in the Eastern half of the US or further, DC or elsewhere, with little or no warning or possibility of defense. You don't have to be a warmonger to see that any possibility of that is a non-starter.

Sure. But there are satellites to watch for that, and I reckon that while the embargo might make manufacturing or importing some long range high explosive missiles somewhat harder, it is probably mainly a matter of will, which friendly ness is way better to counter. I mean Hamas seems to make missiles out of scrap.

> But there are satellites to watch for that

Satellites can detect a launch, but if the launch is very close to its target it's still difficult or impossible to react in time and defend against. Maybe the US has some new secret tech for that we haven't seen yet, but based on what we know publicly it doesn't. As you mention, Hamas has shown you can overwhelm expensive missile defense systems with quantity of cheap rockets, though the distance from Cuba to the US is much greater and that wouldn't work as well there.

> friendly ness is way better to counter.

That's what everyone believed in the 90s and why the US policy establishment pushed to integrate China and Russia and others into the WTO and global economy. But they now know it's not universally true. It works with some countries like Vietnam, but failed with others like China and Russia. It now depends on the particular circumstances of each country. Cuba's circumstances are that it's just too close to the US for comfort, and with a history of threatening the US with nukes. So there won't be any policy of friendliness toward Cuba unless it renounces single-party authoritarian rule and fully democratizes.

if you take a step back, double blind every country's name and judge them based on their history, i doubt most, if any, would rate the US as the good guy.

it has a history of starting wars, especially in places far from their territory, and has overthrown/destabilized many governments for their own interest. it's civil rights records isn't the best either, but it constantly criticizes internal politics or other countries. sooner or later they'll have burnt enough bridges people won't forget.

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