Otherwise you have the crusades.

Well, that definitely seems to be the purpose of the US military.

The US is the most aggressive military on Earth. There's no peace in its presence.

We've seen Pax Romana, Pax Britannica, Pax Mongolica, and now Pax Americana.

There could be shining utopia without military conflict in the future, but personally I'd rather not take the risk during my lifetime. Many equally matched opponents has historically resulted in brutal warfare.

The Pax Romana was 200 years of relative quiet after 700 years of effectively constant war, and followed by another 200 years of war. The thing most historians stress is just how far from peaceful it was. In practice, Roman-held lands were at peace because all resisting inhabitants were already dead, and peace on the border constituted a period of slowed conquest and retrenchment. As soon as the political situation deteriorated, both domestic fighting and foreign glory-seeking resumed.

The Pax Mongolica followed what was per capita the single bloodiest war of conquest in human history, wiping out perhaps 10% of Earth's total population and killing literally every person in several nations. The conquest stopped basically thanks a succession crisis. In return? About 200 years of relative peace and good administration, before the black plague fragmented the khanate. (And if we want to get cynical? The improvements to trade and travel under super- and hyper-powers are a key vector for pandemics. It's not sheer coincidence that disease ended the khanate.)

The Pax Britannica... well, it was accomplished mostly with vicious oppression and butchering local populations until resistance stopped. In return, we got about a century of quiet empire, ending in a global war and yet another world-shaking pandemic (this time, the Spanish Flu).

The history of imperial peaces is one of temporary quietude after an empire has killed off the opposition and reached a pause in its wars of conquest. Fighting remains on the edges, and the peace usually ends in yet another bloodbath as suppressed violence is unleashed - and often as disease wipes out large portions of the empire. It's peace by comparison, not absolute quality.

(The one thing to be said for the Pax Americana is that it's been comparatively bloodless. Even across a double-dozen shadow wars and conquests, the act of conquest was vastly gentler than its predecessors - but the history of such things does not inspire hope.)

Fair point. I guess my thought was that empires increase the risk of pandemics, since they tend to come alongside expanded travel and trade. Periods of peaceful empire see population and trade increase faster than technological growth would predict, and disease becomes a frequent limit on their durations. But it's certainly not an intended consequence, and the risk would be rising with urbanization and technological growth regardless.

It's something that worries me about global connectivity, and I think it's a widely underestimated risk. But it's hardly a risk I could hold against Pax Americana; in an era of consumer plane travel nothing short of utter isolationism would constrain the risk. At least in a relatively peaceful world we have proactive monitoring and countries that can work together on treatment and vaccines.

You don't end war by starting with the assumption that there aren't and won't be anymore before you're successful - or you would've been already.

You mean exactly like US Military did in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria due to "terrorism" and in various Central/South American countries due to "communism"? Bush specifically supported US "bringing" (his words) peace and democracy to the Middle East.

This is not even the point. You're just reasoning very poorly. You found one "good" aspect of massive armies and then showed it as evidence of their non-evilness. But if you think more, you can see that massive armies can easily do bad to the world. The fact that they haven't done yet (which, they did) does not change this fact. If tomorrow US turns into the Fire Nation, you cannot stop it, I cannot stop it, no one can.

I'm sorry, but I think in our current world historical evidence is stacked against you.

Humans are a political species. The ultimate form of political power within a specified region is to have the most capability for the violence within the region.

Hence, if a nation state would secede all capability for violence it would effectively yield the ultimate political power to someone else.

Within this framework a state needs some force projection capability within it's territory or it will sooner or later lose it's political power.

Projecting force outside of the nation states borders or using the force to subjugate it's own population is a different thing all together. You can have too much violence, but you can't really get rid of it with the current psychological configuration of the human species.

Making this violence engine more powerful is evil, even if one accepts that a military force is 100% necessary.

How quaint - "regions" don't exist with modern weapons. To say the US doesn't have to worry in it's "region" is laughably naive.

Their spending and investment is well beyond what is necessary to keep up with the "competition"

Also quaint. China is able to leapfrog decades and trillions of dollars of US spending on defense due to modern technology advancements. One only needs to look at terrorism and militants fighting in the Middle East to realize that spending does not equal capability or effectiveness. In war games, China's sheer numbers overwhelm a technologically superior foe at a fraction of the cost.

hasn't actually been needed to enforce "ultimate political power within its region" in decades,

It is literally being used every second of every day to project power and maintain stability around the globe (not to mention daily active engagements over Syria/Iraq/Afganistan etc.). Just because we haven't had a "traditional" war in (years) doesn't' mean this power isn't a vital part of defense.

*Making this violence engine more powerful is evil, even if one accepts that a military force is 100% necessary.

Who fill this power vacuum if the US steps down? Will the world hold hand and sing peace songs if the US reduces military spending and activity?

"not to mention daily active engagements over Syria/Iraq/Afganistan etc."

That's like saying it's ok to first smash windows and then charge for replacing them and being happy about how good you are in mending broken windows. It would be better no to break the fucking windows in the first place.

While US is a stabilizing force in eastern Europe and the pacific, it has totally fucked up the lives of millions in the middle east area by it's interventionist escapades. The only charitable interpretation would be that US views world history through the narrow disfiguring lense of it's own revolution which was an astounding feat by any measure. It's as if they all believe that if you just give rebels guns then a George Washington will be magically summoned to lead the country in good order to a proper form of post-despotic administration.

Of course there are lots of other reasons to interfere in other countries, but given how easy it seems to be politically to engage in these activities I can't figure out anything else masking common sense.

I agree :) However, my point was that these regional conflicts, with "tiny* countries are anything but. Superpowers are funding these wars, and it's all part of a larger game of hard and soft power. Saying the US's only worry are nukes, is just ... insane.

"While US is a stabilizing force in eastern Europe and the pacific, it has totally fucked up the lives of millions in the middle east area by it's interventionist escapades"

Excuse my vulgarity but shit has been fucked in the middle east for over 100 years. The US din't break any windows, if anything they bombed these broken windows into dust, along with everyone else.

In 10-20 years, this same statement will apply to the Pacific as China becomes more "assertive". To say the US "got it right" here is only because China's aggression or "assertiveness" is so new.

"It's as if they all believe that if you just give rebels guns then a George Washington will be magically summoned to lead the country in good order to a proper form of post-despotic administration."

I agree this is what is "sold" to the US public and the world. However the real motivations are always monetary, even in the case of the American Revolution.

Yes, Syria, Iraq, and Afganistan are good examples of the exact opposite of that.

You're not wrong, _in theory_. A military is necessary. Maybe even a military as large as the current one is necessary. Maybe even a _larger_ military is necessary.

All of those things can be true, but these drones are not being built to dissuade China from breaking their policy of isolationism and attacking. The growth of the US military is not happening to "maintain stability".

The theory is sound, and the propaganda paints a good picture, but the reason why adding more power to that system is evil is not just because it's a military and militaries are somehow intrinsically wrong. It's because that military is being _used_ in evil ways.

Again, to make it super clear: The US needs a military, and it needs a big one. The idea that humanity could achieve peace by just losing all the militaries is nice, but unfounded. It is possible for all of these facts to be true, and yet for it not to be true that literally anything a military does is thus moral and just, yeah?

I agree to a point. US is "hooked" to war as it feeds the profits and the subsidies of the military industrial complex. Especially in the eastern mediterranean area and middle east US escapades have been hugely destabilizing.

However, given the current world stage in total with such jolly players with extraterritorial ambitions as Russia and China, I would much prefer that US was ready to aggressively project force than not. As a counterbalance.

Especially as I live in Finland, I much prefer having US backed Nato force as a counterbalance to which ever clique in Kremlin has control of the Russian military antics.

This is anything but clear cut.

Definitely agreed.

For our current world conditions to hold stable it is important that at least one of our rich, basically politically aligned western countries has a worldwide military force. The US military has gone way past merely that point, however, and that is the point at which this starts getting "evil".

There's a lot of factors stacked against us. It doesn't matter, we will continue moving towards this goal.

Refusing to assist the military develop weapons doesn't really help that goal. A weak(er) military with a lesser technological edge could actually encourage war, as countries that aren't as bound by peace-seeking principles exploit the opportunity to wage war for their benefit. Basically, military weakness is destabilizing.

The refusal line of thinking makes a little more sense if you assume (in this case) the US will be perpetually militarily dominant, which I think is a bad assumption. It's also kind of racist assumption, since it assumes other nationalities are incapable of technologically leapfrogging the US or negating its military advantages.

That's not to say there might be good reason to not want to work on particular weapons systems that have specific moral problems to them, but I'd feel like you'd need a lot of detailed information to make those calls.

I think the most defensible type of objection to assisting the military is at the personal ethical/religious level.

I also hope for peace but I do not believe there will be peace without our military. I suppose it's a difference of ideals but I do not see why it would be considered "evil"