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DarkStar

DarkStar

Junior Member
Registered Member
Bellum_Romanum said:
"You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing after they have tried everything else.”
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Strictly speaking, the quote is not an endorsement of Americans, if anything, it demonstrates their cowardice and their opportunism. When presented with the choice to not be a dick and behave like an honourable human being with ethics, the American foreign policy response is immediately to do what serves himself at the expense of others. Such is the philosophy of capitalism, anglo american style.
case eg COVID-19 vaccine hoarding and anglo american shamelessness in trying to get political upmanship at the expense of the lives of their own citizens, let alone the lives of ppl worldwide.
 
T

takwb

New Member
Registered Member
DarkStar said:
Strictly speaking, the quote is not an endorsement of Americans, if anything, it demonstrates their cowardice and their opportunism. When presented with the choice to not be a dick and behave like an honourable human being with ethics, the American foreign policy response is immediately to do what serves himself at the expense of others. Such is the philosophy of capitalism, anglo american style.
case eg COVID-19 vaccine hoarding and anglo american shamelessness in trying to get political upmanship at the expense of the lives of their own citizens, let alone the lives of ppl worldwide.
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Mostly agree, but capitalism isn't the only cause of their inhumane behavior.

I sincerely believe the Anglo Saxon culture, at its very root, is primarily driven by religious and primitive fear of the natural world and other cultures. Incidentally, this is why they consider nature, along with many other things, are to be "conquered", whereas cultured civilizations such as the Chinese believe in harmonious living with the natural world, the preservation of the natural order, etc.
Their fear translates into a distorted belief that zero sum (or even negative sum) game is the only way out. Hence their hyper-aggression against just about anyone, even including their own kind.

Couple this with that fact their stolen land is far and away from the world island, they will gladly see the world burn just so they can come out on top. Afterall, the fortune from the 2 world wars that destroyed / greatly damaged just about every other industrial power is what propelled them to the center stage. I am sure they would love a repeat of that.

I also believe that the historians will remember their short domination as highly similar to the ancient Mongolian hordes that swept through eurasia, destroyng advance civilizations that were too peaceful to war against them.
 
W

W20

Junior Member
Registered Member
In 1976 Lieutenant General Sir John Glubb published an essay called “The Fate of Empires”. In it Glubb suggests at least two ideas that are influential today. The first is that all empires have a lifespan of 250 years

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My opinion is 200-100 years, 200 in a very broad sense and 100 in a narrow sense

USA Empire

1846-2046 = 200 years

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But strictly speaking the imperial founding act was Hiroshima and Nagasaki

1945-2045 = 100 years

Equivalent to 1814-1914 in the British Empire and 1500-1600 in Spanish Empire

My opinion therefore is that a good approximate measure is 100 years
 
I

Inst

Captain
Bellum_Romanum said:
Mr.Churchill was dead when the Vietnam War was peaking in 1965. And most importantly that stupid quote "You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing after they have tried everything else.” didn't exactly come from Mr.Churchill. There are no exact record of the man saying such American propaganda on print, books, radio and t.v. it's alleged that the person who actually spoke or uttered those words was from an Israeli politician and diplomat, Abba Eban.

Since the premise and origin of that quote is based on a lie and at best on flimsy evidence I have no reason to believe that such fanatical belief in the U.S. divine providence or ability to ultimately arriving at the best possible moment with the best possible outcome for itself is nothing but wishful thinking and propagandist lie to pat itself on the back for undeserved achievements.

You ought to come up with a much more pertinent example(s) that actually support your interpretation that America always finding itself doing the right thing b.s....
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The point being made is that during WW2, the United States, iirc, finished the war with half the world's GDP. The United States was so strong that it could afford to make mistakes; whereas Afghanistan strongly contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union, the United States was able to bounce back from the disaster of Vietnam.

That's to say, for a large, relatively resilient country, it can afford to search for the correct alternative by trying ALL the alternatives until it finds one that works without destroying itself in the process.

With the United States, it has taken up the New Cold War as a fashion, or specifically in this case, it seeks to contain China all the way as close as Taiwan. What is most likely going to happen is that evidence will mount that containing China at the Taiwan point is not actually feasible, and the United States will drop it and eventually seek a modus vivendi with the Chinese.

This is just part of the process of the United States "trying all the alternatives" before it finds the one that works.
 
PiSigma

PiSigma

"the engineer"
Temstar said:
In normal times MFA wouldn't add that last sentence, so it's a little bit surprisingly that he did.

Maybe one of these days after the US retreat from Western Pacific China will pull out Treaty of San Francisco and say "according to this thing you only have four islands?"
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Did the SF treaty specify which 4 islands? I'm sure China and Russia can work out a deal to let japan have the 4 small islands in Kuril and take over Honshu, Hokkaido Kyushu and Shikoku and divide it among themselves
 
Bellum_Romanum

Bellum_Romanum

Brigadier
Registered Member
Inst said:
The point being made is that during WW2, the United States, iirc, finished the war with half the world's GDP. The United States was so strong that it could afford to make mistakes; whereas Afghanistan strongly contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union, the United States was able to bounce back from the disaster of Vietnam.

That's to say, for a large, relatively resilient country, it can afford to search for the correct alternative by trying ALL the alternatives until it finds one that works without destroying itself in the process.

With the United States, it has taken up the New Cold War as a fashion, or specifically in this case, it seeks to contain China all the way as close as Taiwan. What is most likely going to happen is that evidence will mount that containing China at the Taiwan point is not actually feasible, and the United States will drop it and eventually seek a modus vivendi with the Chinese.

This is just part of the process of the United States "trying all the alternatives" before it finds the one that works.
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"The point being made is that during WW2, the United States, iirc, finished the war with half the world's GDP. The United States was so strong that it could afford to make mistakes"...

I am going to let this retired and former SACEUR rebut this specific response. This is Gen. Wesley Clark's testimony at the Senate Armed Services committee being asked to testify as an expert witness regarding then America's intent to invade Iraq in 2003.


The notion that the U.S. can afford to making incalculable mistakes after mistakes and would then still be okay or come out victorious in today's global landscape is a fallacy and a fool's gold. The U.S. of today no longer contribute 50% of the world’s G.D.P. The U.S. is not the world's largest trading partner; it's no longer the world's largest market, not in auto, not in retail with the exception of finance. And the only reason the U.S. did manage to become defacto Superpower post WWII was a combination of geography and geopolitical distance from the ravages of conflicts in Europe and Asia. The country was unscathed during two world wars and it's industries were responsible for the mammoth redevelopment that Europe needed after the war.

I fail to see the relevance of that time long gone by to have any semblance of application in the current geopolitical tussle with China. So I hope for all of our sakes, the U.S. mustn't bumble it's way into committing another strategic miscalculation because I am afraid that timing and luck can only protect them so far before a calamitous event awakens them from their hubris they call manifest destiny.
 
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