I agree that the US military has made positive contributions to the world, but I don't think it's the main source of the Pax Americana -- strong international bodies (NATO, UN, &c), the tendency for democratic nations (the dominant sort in the 20th century) to avoid wars with each other, and advancements in crop science are all individually more responsible for the relative global stability of the last 30 years.
I don't deny that the military had a role (usually financial) in any or all of the above, but I wouldn't call it a causal role: virtually all academic research funding hits the defense world eventually ("food security", "ecological security", &c), especially during the Cold War. That's the result of political contrivances, not any sort of deep connection between the U.S. military and scientific progress.
Finally, I wonder about drawing comparisons between the past U.S. military and current ventures. The Google engineers in question probably wouldn't be designing waterproof radios for fastboats; they'd be training models that "recognize" "terrorists" from afar and systems that pass that information to drones for remote killing. Put another way: the shift away from conventional warfare changes the moral dimensions of working for the military.
The DoD sure wants to have a major influence on fundamental research and scientific progress. http://www.defenseinnovationmarketplace.mil/FFRDC_UARC.html
The UARCs are DoD's attempts to have influence into fundamental research and engineering.
Those positive impacts probably are still likely due to political factors like you said, but it isn't for lack of the DoD trying.
NATO and the UN both benefit (and suffer) from the power and presence of the US military, but their proudest moments (the German economic miracle, smallpox eradication, historic decreases in child mortality and malnutrition) all stem from smart policy and liberal principles, not from the looming threat of American tanks.
- At some time between 1945 and 1950 the USSR likely would have moved the Iron Curtain all the way to the Atlantic, and quite possibly to the west coast of Britain or even Ireland. Practically anyone who lived under Communist rule in Central- and Eastern Europe would agree that this would have been a Very Bad Thing.
- In the summer of 1950 the Korean peninsula would most certainly have been reunited under the Kim Il Sung regime — this damned near happened anyway, when the U.S. and ROK forces were nearly pushed into the sea at Pusan — and the South Korean economic miracle would never have occurred, to say nothing of the fact that the North Korean gulag would be that much larger.
- Japan probably would have rearmed, and who knows what that would have led to.
Oh, and absent the freedom of the seas heretofore provided by the United States Navy, the world's economy would look very, very different.
As to "smart policy and liberal principles," those are certainly important. But as President Obama said in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, nonviolence wouldn't have stopped Hitler's armies.
Disclosure: I'm biased — I'm both a veteran and the son of a career U.S. military officer.
You’re begging the question. If a particular means consistently yields good results, is it bad means? When the Roman Empire fell, we call the subsequent period the dark ages. What does that say about whether the Roman Army was good or bad?
I think so. Here's an example: over 3/4ths of released prisoners are re-arrested within five years. Half are re-arrested within a year of release[1]. If my end is substantially reducing the crime rate, I could reasonably claim that mandatory lifelong sentences would achieve that end: recidivism would be eliminated, and there would be a strong disincentive for anybody to commit even minor crimes. But this is clearly a terrible means, both legally and morally: the punishment doesn't fit the crime, and we end up condemning 25% of the prison population to a life in jail because of a statistic.
[1]: https://www.nij.gov/topics/corrections/recidivism/Pages/welc...
It's unfair to pretend these institutions, their purposes, and their effects stay the same across generations. It is similarly unfair to pretend people's perception shouldn't change across those same generations while the other factors do change.
It's like telling someone writing something critical of the Mexican government that it's ironic because of Mayan contributions to writing. Sure the timescales of the analogy may appear off, but so do the ones of technological advancement lately.
Ehh, kinda, but not really. Less military contractors and more research grants given to academics. The difference is subtle, but an academic institution is a public institution focused on advancing science and teaching it to the public. A corporation or contractor is in it for the profit. Notably, the academics involved were able to publish their work as the TCP/IP standard (and others), and anyone was able to use it.
If it had actually been military contractors we would not have the internet as it is today.
Like... while getting his Ph.D so I'm not wrong about the academic link. Though sure, it was literally built by the military industrial complex, but the original implication that the military somehow has a primacy over an idea that was going to take off one way or another is still absurd.
Anyway I've heard it said that the container ship has done more to lift the world standard up, than all the political action of the last 1000 years. By distributing goods to all the corners of the world at a cheap price.
I understand the analogy of Container being an innovative idea. With out calm seas under-written by US Navy, its not so great.
Without US Navy and its 10 carriers, we will be back to 19th century mercantilism and how much fun colonialism which is its off-shoot has been.
Shipping containers have made an impact in the efficiency of shipping, not the existence of shipping.
I understand safe passage.. Safe Passage does not mean that Fifth fleet sits in the Persian Gulf round the fucking clock!
I will not engage in word play, I am not good at it, and it comes from an agenda of being cute or clever.
You are exaggerating the degree to which international shipping depends on the US Navy.
They now have a lifetime emperor who is enacting surveillance and citizen "ratings" that make dystopian novels look tame, along with crippling polution, poor living and safety standards, intense competition without any consumer or IP protection, lack of political freedom, and slowing economic growth that needs to absorb the momentum of a billion people lifted out of poverty and expecting the good times to continue without a revolt.
Where your analysis is incomplete is that military might is not the only reason that people will avoid fighting. A strong military is a negative incentive ("I might lose or die"), but there are plenty of positive incentives for nations to avoid warfare.
In fact, international relations tend to be dominated by positive incentives, which is why "cheeseburger diplomacy" is such a reliable concept, and open warfare is historically rare, even before Pax Americana.
Google is a much smaller and younger entity than the U.S. military, so you might still be technically right on total quantitative impact. But that's not really a fair way to look at it.
“Cheeseburger diplomacy” is not a reliable concept, either the Obama practice to which the media gave the name or Friedman's McDonald's peace theory, which makes more sense in the context of your comment.
That was just an example, though. My main point is that the peoples and nations of the world, given the opportunity, overwhelmingly prefer to pursue relationships of peaceful mutual benefit, rather than military threat. The purpose of a military is merely to preserve or restore that opportunity.
The notion that trade has a negative correlation with war is a well-accepted concept in international relations, and one of the reasons national governments exert themselves to grow international economic relationships.
It's perfectly coherent to support the overall ends (relative world peace) and oppose the means (extrajudicial drone strikes, invasion of Iraq, etc.)
even on Vietnam war, look at the aftermath of US army giving up - for South Vietnamese: mass concentration camps, shoving inside CONEX boxes, a lot of deaths...
...all of this when the war is over and the communist gov. isn't desperate for anything...
...and US media doesn't cover this because Americans want to think "we lost because we were bad (yay justice!), not because we were stupid/weak/etc"
Of course, US army was too desperate & chose to "shoot/bomb whoever (isn't wearing US army uniforms)" - a combination of stupidity / lack of discipline / common sense
More generally, the irony is that the U.S. military has made a far greater positive contribution to the world than Google. Under the Pax Americana, we have seen the greatest number of people rise out of abject poverty in human history. The stable, liberal world order that has been beneficial to so many people has been bankrolled by the U.S. and backed by the U.S. military.
This world where people in India and Pakistan are using Gchat Facebook to talk to each other instead of waging nuclear war against each other is not the result of Google or Facebook. It's not the result of humans evolving beyond their tendencies towards warfare. It's because the U.S. military has made entire classes of armed conflicts untenable.