What about those islanders though? "Power projection" is important. But it's sad that its at the expense of human beings who live and work there.

I know someone who grew up near a US base in the Philippines. Her father was employed as a cook at the base. When the base was closed, they went back to eeking out a living through subsistence farming.

There are some positive economic impacts for the locals.

Then there is Okinawa and like a thorn, despite all their rejection, we remain unwelcome squatters.

I mean, starting a war comes at a cost sometimes.

Well, it depends on which "they" you're referring to. The Japanese love hosting the US bases there, except that Okinawa is to Japan largely as Puerto Rico is to the US, and the Okinawans themselves are quite unhappy to be the actual hosts (surely not helped by soldiers' predilections for raping local girls).

Capitalism good according to capitalism

Look at the bourgeoisie!

-- Socialism pointing at subsistence farmers happy at earning a good wage

That's how it works ruling class makes up the "party line"

https://dc-office.org/basedata#p5 I highly recommend reading the Okinawa prefectural government's DC office fact sheet. Short story: There'd be a lot more useful economic activity from developing the land these bases are on.

(Okinawa has DC offices because the prefecture and the Japanese mainland gov't are not aligned on these topics at all. The prefecture basically wants these bases gone, and don't really want SDF bases there either. Tokyo wants the bases.)

This could be (and has been) said about literally any "first peoples" anywhere. Does something about them being "islanders" change things for you?

Oh so since we’ve screwed natives before, it’s fine to do it again to islanders? We shouldn’t ask these questions because we’ve done worse anyway?

Talk when you've given your house back to whatever native people were there before you.

Or should you give it to the "native" people that were there before them? Or the ones before those ones?

Or maybe just accept that the one constant of life is everyone takes everyone else's shit if/when they can/want.

> Or maybe just accept that the one constant of life is everyone takes everyone else's shit if and when they can and want.

Sure. But if this is normal, why is it so hard to accept what Russia is doing to Ukraine?

Just because evils were done in the past, doesn’t mean we should just accept it as universal truths and continue doing the same things to others (islanders).

If you accept that Russia is wrong, then invading natives was wrong and taking land from islanders *IS* wrong.

Disagree?

> But if this is normal, why is it so hard to accept what Russia is doing to Ukraine?

Because before significant aid could even reach Ukraine, the Ukrainians stopped Russia - ergo they didn’t “defeat the natives” and instead are being defeated.

So your comparison here doesn’t really make sense. It also doesn’t make sense because we Russia is actively attacking Ukraine today.

I don’t understand. By your logic, if Russia had defeated Ukraine, then it would’ve been fair and normal?

Islanders had their land taken from them and still don’t have it (just like natives). How is this different from Russia taking Ukraine’s land?

Yes. Unfortunately we live in a world where might makes right.

If Russia had kicked Ukraine's ass what do you think would have happened? NATO declaring war? Remember that Putin got away with Crimea in 2014.You only have sovereignty if you can defend it.

Fairness doesn't come into it.

Well that was your logic. I was pointing out that:

> How is this different from Russia taking Ukraine’s land?

Hasn’t happened yet (in the context of the 2022 invasion - aware of previous annexation). And bigger, more powerful countries like the United States are helping Ukraine stop Russia from doing so.

But since this is ongoing we can say “hey that’s wrong!” And do something about it. Not much we can do (though there is some) about events hundreds of years old.

So it’s normal because it has occurred through your history, and also possible for us to stop today, hence we are. If you want to really dig into the whole might makes right thing (and at the nation state level it does) then the US is the mightiest and is stopping Russia from taking from Ukraine.

I do not consider the stated material conditional logically invalid.

Are you saying the natives didn’t fight back?

I’m not saying that. Natives did fight back. Just like the brave Ukrainians.

It is possible to both agree with fighting back and trying to keep the peace such as it exists, and at the same time realize it’s obviously absurd to try to undo all the aggressions stretching back through history.

Of course it’s impossible to undo evils of the past. I’m talking about the present though. The islanders shouldn’t be invaded for “power projection” because they are human beings too. It’s pretty much the same thing Russia is doing.

> It’s pretty much the same thing Russia is doing.

Complete gibberish. You can’t seriously be claiming that cities in Guam are being turned to rubble under heavy artillery fire, and children being kidnapped etc.

Ukraine is at war.

Ukraine is still at war because the west is helping them repel an occupator.

Let's say China started supporting people in Guam who want independence, and supplying them with weapons - that would be just and a good thing, right?

Because you did posit in the previous reply that it's completely expected and a fact of life that larger powers overtake these smaller ones - like USA and Guam, and Russia and Ukraine.

> Let's say China started supporting people in Guam who want independence

Sounds like you’ve forgotten that Russia marched on Ukraine’s capital, deliberately shelling civilian targets, and Ukraine fought off the Russians on their own for weeks, completely defying everyone’s expectations, which is why the West is now supplying weapons to them.

On top of that Ukraine was an independent state with a treaty with a Russia guaranteeing that.

Can you tell us again how Guan is like Ukraine?

> you did posit in the previous reply that it's completely expected and a fact of life that larger powers overtake these smaller ones

I think you’re just making that you, but in case you aren’t you’ll be able to quote where I said that.

I don't think you can sensibly describe Guam as "being invaded" at this point. Last time there was a referendum there, outright independence from US got less than 4% of the vote. What they rightly want is proper representation within US.

We hold and use Guam for the same reason we support Ukraine against Russia: We believe these things are in our interests.

The justifications we give are just words.

Of course. The trick is to at least somewhat align your interests with the moral high ground.

It actually makes a difference in the long run.

>>why is it so hard to accept what Russia is doing to Ukraine?

Jesus christ, that's a logical jump if I've ever seen one, but ok, I'll bite:

IF Russia succeeds at taking Ukraine, then sure in few hundred years it should be accepted as "normal" that's just what Russia's territory is. Just like most European countries where their borders have shifted through wars and violence many times in the past. That doesn't make the present actions ok, just like the past actions of European colonists in North America aren't ok.

There is literally ZERO reason to accept what Russia is doing now. They should be fought against with all might that can be offered, because it's barbaric, brutal, and has no reason to happen. Just like I'm sure Native Americans and all "first people" of any lands have fought against invaders in their time.

> But it's sad that its at the expense of human beings who live and work there

Why do you think it is happening at their expense? The other option is leaving these alone and letting the likes of China and Russia run the world.

Sometimes you have to let countries duke it out themselves and settle their scores by themselves. I also think post Cold War, we're spending way too much money protecting others at US taxpayer expense. Let those countries defend themselves. Why do we have to be the world police and take all the blowback?

> Why do we have to be the world police and take all the blowback?

Because that's what superpowers do if they want to keep their position as superpowers.

You can, for example, stop policing shipping lanes. But then can't complain once shipments start disappearing as other countries don't take the slack. There is less justification to keep warships near 'interesting' countries in that scenario too. You get to keep the military machine well oiled. And the list goes on.

The US is not doing this out of benevolence.

No.

The United States was the world's superpower on December 6, 1941.

It did not get to that position by keeping the military machine well oiled.

On December 6, 1941, the US vs. rest of world might have been a fair fight. Maybe.

That didn't happen by being the world police.

> On December 6, 1941, the US vs. rest of world might have been a fair fight. Maybe.

No, it wouldn't have. The US would likely have lost the fight, especially if you consider that in such a counterfactual world there probably wouldn't have been a WW2 going on for the past few years.

While it is difficult to be more precise about when the US became the top world power than "during WW2", it is pretty clear to most knowledgeable observers that the answer is definitely not before WW2 breaks out (it is at best at parity with Britain). And honestly, I'd be skeptical of putting it before the Guadalcanal Campaign, where the US throws battleships into a cruiser battle because it has run out of cruisers. The point I'd go for is when the Essex carriers start coming online, which is 1943.

You are confusing military power with industrial power.

The US had industrial power before 1941, before 1911, starting in the 1890s.

The US could turn that into military power any time it wanted to, and in the time period between the world wars, it didn't want to.

After 1941, it wanted to. Because of a lot of lies, but that's another discussion entirely.

This entire narrative reads like someone who has not consumed any geopolitical news whatsoever since the mid-2010s.

Because we benefit disproportionately from world peace, uninterrupted shipping, and the world economy using the U.S. dollar as its reserve currency.

The dollar became the world currency by accident after the OPEC started pricing petroleum in dollars. We're starting to see a slow departure from that.

If we did not spend those extra tens of billions per year in projecting power, we could better serve our students, workers, retirees, infrastructure, etc. Instead, they go to ensuring Japan, Korea, Philippines, etc. don't have to spend so much on defense.

As China ascends to No. 1, will they take over the spending? (I'd be happy of they were the ones keeping shipping lanes for their own exports open and not us)

> I'd be happy [if China] were the ones keeping shipping lanes for their own exports open and not us

History's not on your side for that one. You're talking about the country that, plagued by pirates disturbing its coastal shipping, went to massive expense to construct an enormous system of inland canals running parallel to the coast that the pirates couldn't reach.

If Chinese merchants wanted the sea kept clear, say because they wanted to trade with nearby islands, they had do that in their own private capacity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koxinga

Do you think that it is possible that in the last 400 years that the strategy might change in how to deal with piracy?

I hardly think the situation a few hundred years ago is relevant to their ability to secure their modern shipping lines

They had the ability then. It just wasn't something they were interested in doing.

>history's not on your side for that one

Except that's history. Reality today is not on your side. PRC has more ship building capacity than rest of world combined. Annual production of dead weight tons per year is about 6x-8x more than output US emergency ship building program during WW2. Not to mention most new PRC surface combatants do anti piracy tours out to Africa. If PRC/PLAN wanted to take over piracy protection for her SLOCs, they can basically do so already, plenty of small hulls being retired to coast guard that even they have enough capacity to do it.

> If we did not spend those extra tens of billions per year in projecting power, we could better serve our students, workers, retirees, infrastructure, etc.

This is laughable. If we didn’t spend billions projecting power, we’d be much poorer because world trade would become much more costly for us, as China reshapes it to its own advantage.

China isn’t looking in great shape to do any ‘ascending’ anyway.

> The dollar became the world currency by accident after the OPEC started pricing petroleum in dollars.

OPEC was formed on September 14, 1960. The definition of "world currency" is somewhat nebulous, but for the purposes of determining when the "dollar became the world currency", perhaps the best date to use is the Bretton Woods conference, which set up the main international financial system, establishing that everyone would peg their currencies to the US dollar, as well as the existence of the IMF and the World Bank. This was done--on purpose, not "by accident"--in June, 1944, 16 years before OPEC ever existed. The Bretton Woods system itself collapses in the 1970s.

An implicit deal we have made with many other states is that in exchange for managing the peace, they will not develop or further develop nuclear capability.

To me, that is worth a lot.

Yup - if we didn't accept Finland and Sweden into NATO then their only option to prevent a Russian invasion would be to develop nukes and aim them at St. Petersburg.

I’m not sure what the joke is.

Sweden had an atomic bomb program which was dropped in the 1970s after assurances from the US to extend its “nuclear umbrella” to protect Sweden.

So if the USSR were to attack Sweden then what would the USA do exactly?

Do you mean Russia or USSR? It is unclear if you are asking about a hypothetical event in the past or a hypothetical event in the future after ratification of Sweden’s NATO membership.

I don’t know. Most of it is still classified, but whatever it was, it was enough to assure Swedish governments of the time. (70s - early 90s)

Interesting that Sweden sees modern Russia as a bigger threat than the USSR. Whatever there was before is not enough now and they want a full NATO membership instead.

Whatever there was before, was dismantled late eighties or early nineties, it’s hard to tell for sure.

One big reason Sweden jumped into NATO now is that the Swedish military is, not exactly a shadow of its former self, but very small.

If Sweden would have had an equivalent of the military power it had in say, 1991, I doubt a NATO application would have been made, or at least not as hastily.

American actions post world war II and post cold war are founded from the experience post-world War I, when USA left Europe to fend for itself, defend itself, and rebuild itself it resulted in a much worse outcome for the world. We tried again after World War II, but after it became clear that Europe would be ripped apart by their internal issues after World War II, and stalin would exploit that to continue to drive the iron curtain west, the USA re-engaged in Europe.

The USA and Europe have a role to play in keeping the peace. It's not a accident that China is regularly violating Japanese territorial waters (as they did last week, he 8 mile line here, not exclusive economic zones) and threatening their neighbors over possession of islands that can strangle world trade.

When China (and Russia for that manner) show that they can be apart of a international community based on common principles of human rights, there won't be a need... but until then.

USA keeping "peace" using Japan as example is detached from reality. The entire reason PRC (and TW and both Korea's and RU via USSR) has DISPUTED maritime borders and territorial claims with Japan (read: not Japanese territory / water) is because USA deliberately kept post war East Asian order unresolved post WW2. There's a reason Japan, the loser of the war, has maritime / territorial disputes with EVERY one of her neighbours (no other country has 100% territorial dispute) her post war territory should have been dictated to her via treaty, but due to US posturing, was left messily unresolved specifically because it gave US military more freedom to operate in region. It's absurd to think anyone but US and by connection JP for being the bad actors for fucking up post war resolution for other ALLIES (read: USSR -> RU and ROC -> PRC). East Asian territorial friction is precisly because USA couldn't keep peace by engineering an situtation where peace is impossible because they didn't want a durable peaceful international order and gave literal war criminals preferential geopolitical treatment because it benefited US military interests, and continues to.

So much to unpack.

You mean US was unfair to its USSR ally? Cry me a river. Uneasy bedfellows if there ever were, united briefly by the threat of Hitler.

Pax Americana is built not only by treaty but by force. Is it surprising the US wanted to keep its Cold War foe in check around Japanese waters?

> we're spending way too much money protecting others at US taxpayer expense.

Is US pritectibg Europe, or US interests in Europe?

Over the past 40 years the US spending on arms has grown, but fewer and fewer pieces are being produced. Pentagon fails audits.

Now it got to the point where USA cannot supply Ukraine with enough artillery rounds, and they are like the aimplest item to produce. Economy of Russia is like 10x smaller, this should not even be a contest in terms of production.

Imagine if there is a real conflict, and things like cruise missiles need to be replaced, what happens then - you place an order and wait 2 years for it to be delivered? China has 10 the manufacturing capabilty of Russia.

I doubtwe need to spend so much, but why are we not getting our money's worth?

> Now it got to the point where USA cannot supply Ukraine with enough artillery rounds, and they are like the aimplest item to produce. Economy of Russia is like 10x smaller, this should not even be a contest in terms of production.

Never in modern history has a country been able to sustain a full-blown war without adapting its production capacity. It's not surprising that an economy dimensioned for peacetime doesn't successfully sustain a war.

> Imagine if there is a real conflict, and things like cruise missiles need to be replaced, what happens then - you place an order and wait 2 years for it to be delivered?

Basically, yes. Always was. As explained in the Vietnam war example [1]: "D to P stocks are those war reserves of ammunition which are stocked in peace time to provide the necessary reservoir of ammunition to sustain combat operations until such time that the planned production base can be activated"

[1]: http://webdoc.sub.gwdg.de/ebook/p/2005/CMH_2/www.army.mil/cm...

Because that’s what being a superpower means. A lot of the rights and privileges you enjoy is precisely because the US is a superpower. If you don’t like it, you’re more than welcome to move to some quiet backwater, there are plenty of those around the world.