America's Dangerous Obsession With Invincibility - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15256463


I think this channel really touches on something when he discusses the shift from American focus on 'dominance', which is having enough force to win the game, to 'primacy': the desire to maintain enough force to set the rules of the game. This is what makes the United States one of the great dangers in the world and it stems out of fear and insecurity.
#15256474
Fasces wrote:
I think this channel really touches on something when he discusses the shift from American focus on 'dominance', which is having enough force to win the game, to 'primacy': the desire to maintain enough force to set the rules of the game. This is what makes the United States one of the great dangers in the world and it stems out of fear and insecurity.



After WW2, America worked up hundreds and hundreds of agreements, treaties, trade negotiations. We became the global hegemon.

After the USSR collapsed, ending the Cold War, we slowly reduced our domination. You got it backwards. Last time Iran got frisky, we put an entire fleet in the Gulf. This time, nothing...

The thing that is creating the current insecurity is a war that threatens to spread across Europe. Same way the first two World Wars started..

That's obvious.
#15256518
late wrote:After WW2, America worked up hundreds and hundreds of agreements, treaties, trade negotiations. We became the global hegemon.


So the Soviet annexation of the Baltic States, occupation of Poland and other Eastern European states, division of Korea and Vietnam and the breaking of the world into two camps of influence was a deliberate American decision, then, that they had the power to stop? :lol:

The entire Cold War was because of hardliners like Dulles, Truman and Byrnes trying to assert some concept of American primacy and being forced to settle for 'merely competing' with the Soviets.
#15256554
I'll note that that's a classic example of rightist rhetoric, where an *ideological* indication ('American exceptionalism'), is conflated with an empirical *fixture* ('the heart and soul of this nation').

One can't deny the *fixture*, of course -- *everyone* has a heart and soul, right? Since heart-and-soul is an anatomical *given*, and irrefutable, then one probably won't want to 'deny' *America's* heart-and-soul, which happens to be *American exceptionalism*, or imperialism.

So then *no one* will want to 'deny' 'American exceptionalism', and so no one *does* deny it. And the status quo *wins*, and continues-on, *with* American exceptionalism.


philosophical abstractions

Spoiler: show
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#15256576
Fasces wrote:

So the Soviet annexation of the Baltic States, occupation of Poland and other Eastern European states, division of Korea and Vietnam and the breaking of the world into two camps of influence was a deliberate American decision, then, that they had the power to stop?







If you want to try and argue we weren't the global hegemon, be my guest. I could use a good laugh.
#15256578
Fasces wrote:
So the Soviet annexation of the Baltic States, occupation of Poland and other Eastern European states, division of Korea and Vietnam and the breaking of the world into two camps of influence was a deliberate American decision, then, that they had the power to stop?



late wrote:
If you want to try and argue we weren't the global hegemon, be my guest. I could use a good laugh.



The U.S. can always *walk away from* being the global hegemon, at any time.
#15256583
Fasces wrote:So the Soviet annexation of the Baltic States, occupation of Poland and other Eastern European states, division of Korea and Vietnam and the breaking of the world into two camps of influence was a deliberate American decision, then, that they had the power to stop? :lol:

The entire Cold War was because of hardliners like Dulles, Truman and Byrnes trying to assert some concept of American primacy and being forced to settle for 'merely competing' with the Soviets.

I'm not quite sure what your view is here, but the Cold War was just an extension of the conflict that started in November 1917. Many grievances championed by Communists were just, but the Communists were totalitarian expansionists and needed to be resisted.

What we know as the Cold War was a result of FDR's disastrous policy of unconditional surrender. One doesn't have to demonise Nazism or idealise non Nazi German nationalism to see the potential great advantage of distinguishing between Nazism and German nationalism and being prepared to accept a negotiated peace treaty with Germany on the condition that the Nazis were removed from power.
#15256588
[EDITED]


1917

Rich wrote:
I'm not quite sure what your view is here, but the Cold War was just an extension of the conflict that started in November 1917.


---

1917

Rich wrote:
Many grievances championed by Communists were just,


---

circa 1956

Rich wrote:
but the Communists were totalitarian expansionists and needed to be resisted.


---

1945

Rich wrote:
What we know as the Cold War was a result of FDR's disastrous policy of unconditional surrender.



Sounds more like what *Japan* did.

According to *your* calculations it *wasn't* FDR -- it was a nationalist *choice* / decision (to use the 2 atomic bombs pre-emptively against the USSR, on Japanese cities, thus kicking off the Cold War).


Rich wrote:
One doesn't have to demonise Nazism or idealise non Nazi German nationalism to see the potential great advantage of distinguishing between Nazism and German nationalism and being prepared to accept a negotiated peace treaty with Germany on the condition that the Nazis were removed from power.



Is this 1917 or 1945, Rich -- ?
Last edited by ckaihatsu on 23 Nov 2022 15:38, edited 1 time in total.
#15256589
Fasces wrote:
Not even your hero Zeihan would agree that the US was global hegemon in 1945.



What I mentioned earlier was the world order we set up after WW2. There were hundreds of things going on, and that took over a decade to build.

Sorry, but you are way out of your depth here.
#15256598
Fasces wrote:

Sure, bud. The US was global hegemonic hyperpower in 1945.



You are really quite good at missing the obvious.

We built a fence around Russia that restricted them enough that their economy eventually collapsed.

Pretending this is only about 1945 is brain dead, for a number of reasons.

But in 1945, WW2 had nearly devastated Russia, and we had kept them going with Lend Lease. We had nukes, even if we had given a few to Russia, they had no way to deliver them to us. They wouldn't have ICBMs for years, and their bombers didn't have enough range.

There are a number of component parts to being the hegemon. Russia was in no shape to take us on. The global economy was a wreck, our economy was about to boom.

First Rule of Holes: when you're in one, it's time to stop digging.
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