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0 pointsroberttod3y ago0 comments

Your first argument sounds like appeasement, didn't work so well in WW2. Sounds like burying your head in the sand hoping no one will do anything bad.

I think the parent post means top dog in military and power sense, not welfare of citizens which is all well and good until another nation is trying to undermine your core values.

> Your successor will be judged by the standard you set

What successor are we thinking of here? Is that China? India? Russia? These are all very scary regimes.

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9 comments · 2 top-level

Santosh833y ago· 5 in thread

Yes indeed. Two out of those three countries have never invaded outside countries, whether for freedom, WMD or some other crap excuse. One of them is actually a functioning democracy. On the other hand a citizen of a country that has invaded almost a dozen sovereign nations, conducted almost an equal number of proxy wars and even used nuclear weapons twice, thinks we are scary. And lumps Russia, China and India all into one ill defined category of "scary regimes"...

All this ignoring for the moment the general Western enterprise of erstwhile colonialism and current economic neocolonialism that makes the destruction wrought upon developing nations by direct war/attacks pale in comparison.

ravel-bar-foo3y ago

> Two out of those three countries have never invaded outside countries

Limiting ourselves to the currently existing states, India has annexed Hyderabad, Junagardh, Dadra, and Nagar Haveli, while China has invaded India and Vietnam, and is presently annexing the South China Sea. This doesn't excuse the US actions in Iraq, but it does show that they are less unique than you claim.

trasz3y ago

Most of those were merged into India, not invaded. The ones that were invaded resulted in minimal losses, in the order of hundreds. It also happened 60 years ago.

Now compare this to Afghanistan.

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plonk3y ago

> Two out of those three countries have never invaded outside countries

If you consider Taiwan a country, that's technically true but misleading. China would have invaded long ago if the US weren't capable or (claiming to be) willing to defend it.

trasz3y ago

[citation needed]. US claims that’s true, but everyone who remembers Iraq knows US loves a good lie. China, on the other hand, explicitly declares they won’t invade. China also doesn’t have much to gain by invading, and everything to lose.

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roberttodOP3y ago

Perhaps not really fair to lump India in with China and Russia.

My biggest concern is domestic policy, given that being "top dog" would probably imply a general cultural and political movement towards whichever regime wins.

USA has done awful things, and nowadays seems to have a very uncertain future but values such as freedom of speech, freedom of religion are important to humanity and happiness imo and they still stand in the US despite all the craziness.

China and Russia shouldn't need any explanation in that respect, I can point to many sources. India's BJP is almost openly persecuting Muslims and doctoring history to be more Hindu.

roenxi3y ago· 2 in thread

The story of appeasement was basically that the Nazis kept invading places, country after country, until they tried to take on the USSR and got transformed into paste (the US getting involved being a major factor). It was really quite breathtaking in hindsight because they wouldn't stop and obviously didn't intend to stop, ever.

gp's argument has no parallel to appeasement.

roberttodOP3y ago

> treating countries as though they are enemies can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. It can increase the threat rather than decrease it.

That's what I was referring to. Not appeasement exactly but seems like similar logic.

roenxi3y ago

That logic is nothing like appeasement. Or if it is then appeasement is a great strategy that we should all be using daily at all levels of societal organisation.

Making enemies of people who are not enemies is one of the stupidest moves imaginable. It is hard to overstate how mistaken that sort of mistake would be.

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9 comments · 2 top-level

Santosh833y ago· 5 in thread

ravel-bar-foo3y ago

> Two out of those three countries have never invaded outside countries

trasz3y ago

Most of those were merged into India, not invaded. The ones that were invaded resulted in minimal losses, in the order of hundreds. It also happened 60 years ago.

Now compare this to Afghanistan.

1 more reply

plonk3y ago

> Two out of those three countries have never invaded outside countries

If you consider Taiwan a country, that's technically true but misleading. China would have invaded long ago if the US weren't capable or (claiming to be) willing to defend it.

trasz3y ago

2 more replies

roberttodOP3y ago

Perhaps not really fair to lump India in with China and Russia.

My biggest concern is domestic policy, given that being "top dog" would probably imply a general cultural and political movement towards whichever regime wins.

China and Russia shouldn't need any explanation in that respect, I can point to many sources. India's BJP is almost openly persecuting Muslims and doctoring history to be more Hindu.

roenxi3y ago· 2 in thread

gp's argument has no parallel to appeasement.

roberttodOP3y ago

> treating countries as though they are enemies can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. It can increase the threat rather than decrease it.

That's what I was referring to. Not appeasement exactly but seems like similar logic.

roenxi3y ago

That logic is nothing like appeasement. Or if it is then appeasement is a great strategy that we should all be using daily at all levels of societal organisation.

Making enemies of people who are not enemies is one of the stupidest moves imaginable. It is hard to overstate how mistaken that sort of mistake would be.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse