I see this as good news, no country should rein supreme as that would most certainly allow it to misuse it's power, instead having two competitors guarantees, to some degree at least, that neither will abuse it's position.
In principle, yes. In reality, look at how they use their power. You don't see the US taking territory and resources at gunpoint from Mexico and Canada, like China in the South China Sea. You don't see parallels to the Taiwan situation. Let's not pretend that communist China acts with the same level of integrity in the world as the USA. Not the the US hasn't done many questionable things, but by and large the US has invaded countries and brought them democracy and freed their people from dictators. China would do the opposite if they could get away with it, look at Nepal, Hong Kong.
I spent 10 years in Panama, where although many people still resent the US invasion, chiefly over the loss of life - the country is unquestionably better off today for it.
Are you sure about that? I live in California, which was previously Mexican territory.
I also have friends from Texas, which was also Mexican territory.
Perhaps your point is that the US became less imperialistic since then, but that's easy to say once it's taken what it wants.
China sees Taiwan as an integral part of the "Greater China", a still unresolved problem from the past century's wars. It sees the South China sea as its own backyard. Can you imagine the US response if China were sailing military vessels provocatively close to the cost of continental US?
I'm not saying either is right. I'm pointing out that the US is not without its hypocrisies either, and that each country has its own flaws.
That was hundreds of years ago when the world was a very different place. In a post WWII, post UN world, the standards for behavior for nation states are very, very different.
The point I'm trying to make is the world has largely moved beyond that, but China still thinks it's ok to steal territory from it's neighbors.
If the situation were reversed and Chinese vessels were patrolling in international waters in the Caribbean to dissuade the US from taking territory from it's neighbors there, I'd be cheering them on.
That's not to say the USA doesn't do their fair share of despicable or hypocritical things, but by and large they have been a much better steward of power than China. I think the world will come to miss those days of American leadership in this century.
"“It has not entered the territorial seas of the U.S. and it is in accordance with international law regarding freedom of navigation,” Capt. James said in a statement released to the Wall Street Journal. He explained that the ship was in Hawaii’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ). The U.S. maintains that freedom of navigation for all international ships extend to countries’ EEZs, and it has long maintained ships inside China’s EEZ."
170 years ago. Hardly relevant now. At the time conquest was considered a legitimate way to acquire territory. That changed with the Kellogg-Briand Pact in 1928 and the UN Charter in 1945.
I'd say the treatment of Cuba has some parallels to the Taiwan situation.
And there have been many comments in recent months pointing out that China is actually acting with a lot more integrity on the international stage as the US with regards to, for example, the Paris Climate Treaty.
With regards to Panama: let's not forget that the US actively supported Noriega until they changed their mind.
Yes, all good points. Although I think (hope?) the policies of Trump are not representative of past or future US policy.
Nobody, group, or nation is all good or bad, it's always somewhere on a slider between the two. China does many admirable things that the US would do well to follow. But I think it's also clear that the US ranks better on that sliding scale.
As someone whose country was destroyed by the US and is still taking damage and being oppressed by them, I tend to disagree with your opinion, in fact both China and Russia have been way more helpful.
> You don't see the US taking territory and resources at gunpoint from Mexico...
Not in this century. It happened, though.
But I agree with your larger point. The US has not always been pure in how it used its power, but I don't trust China very far in terms of how it uses power. (Tibet, Vietnam, South China Sea, North Korea...)
>You don't see the US taking territory..at gunpoint from Mexico
>by and large the US has invaded countries and brought them democracy and freed their people from dictators
Hahaha. I mean really. It's amazing that educated people can be brainwashed to believe this absolute nonsense.
The first of those statements show, I don't know, breathtaking historical ignorance, or something, it's hard to explain otherwise. You don't see it because it already happened, long ago.
The second is the official line heard in the US mainstream media and White House press statements etc. I was brought up believing it too. But it's very far from reality. It's been more usual since the 1890s for democracy, self-determination, refusal to submit obediently to US bullying, standing up to the US, to be the very reasons for invasion. It's thoroughly depressing to learn the history. It's the opposite of what you're told. The US has installed dictators, often military types given a load of US weapons. The US prefers dictators—whatever makes for docile 'stability' and exploitation by US business, and democracy is unpredictable, uncontrollable. Then, disgustingly, the US media is filled with stories of how it was all to bring democracy to a land threatened by communists, terrorists, instability etc. And more bilge about doing God's sacred work on earth etc.
> the same level of integrity in the world as the USA
hehehe. Ah I don't know if it's much use my saying this stuff to people on here. The reality is soooo different from what people in the US are taught to believe. So different that you'll feel physically sick when it starts to dawn on you.
I'm not from the USA, nor am I ignorant of history. I used the present tense, because I'm talking of modern times. You cannot judge countries in the past by today's standards. Things were just different then.
You also should not say that the US prefers dictators, I don't think that's ever been true. But sometimes they see it as the lesser evil when the populace would go against US interests - which is certainly hypocritical.
OK, sorry if some of my assumptions were incorrect.
>sometimes they see it as the lesser evil when the populace would go against US interests
So here democracy is 'the greater evil'. Countries have their own interests, the US has just often tried to stomp out any chance of other countries achieving theirs. If anyone tries to do the to the US it's met with moral outrage. Same with 'free markets'. Endless preaching them, actually it's the last thing corporations want.
Yes. To be fair, sometimes those interventions have worked out for the better - look at the difference between North Korea and South Korea today. Of course the reasons for that intervention had little to do with the best interests of the Korean people and a lot more to do with preventing the USSR from spreading their influence - but even that seems to be a clear win in hindsight - those places where the USSR spread it's influence suffered in poverty, their populations denied basic human freedoms. Many of them still do.
So yeah, the US looked out for their own interests, and I don't suppose that should be a surprise to anyone, because that's what every nation state does. But by and large they made the world a better place for it - with a few glaring exceptions. I don't think the world would do as well under Chinese leadership - but I also do not think we will see that world in this century. China is not poised to overtake the USA as many seem to believe is inevitable - their near future is written in stone in the demographics of their country, and will more closely mirror the story of Japan. This seems likely to be a second US-led century.
To play devils advocate - its not at all clear that the south would be better off were there not massive embargos imposed upon the north. For decades after the split the North was the more prosperous country.
> having two competitors is what causes the most bloodshed in the world
If by "most bloodshed" you mean the population-adjusted (or unadjusted) incidence of violent mortality, bipolarity has its proponents [1][2]. Unipolarity has traditionally been seen as nice in the short-run but inherently unstable in the long [Cf 3].
One point on which there is agreement, however, is the violent instability of multipolar social systems.
Actually, most of my international relations professors tend to disagree. And there is a huge amount of literature that points out that bipolar system was probably much safer for international stability, than unipolar or multipolar for a long run.(nice summary[1])
The general idea is that unipolarity is anarchical and that it will always try to produce a competitor = lots of wars to come, while in bipolar system you always have 2 strong competitors and it is in theirs interest to stop any local conflict before the second superpower uses it in its advantage. Today it is a complete different story where everyone is figing for who know what reason and USA doesn't really care to stop anyone and it probably cannot do anything in most cases, because back in the days of the cold war there was fight for power and now we actually have luck of power in most conflicts. During cold war we had a clear understanding who is finghig and major hot spots were actually pretty localized (Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan), but nowadays look at Syria/Yemen/Iraq/Libya/Egypt (I try to follow international relations daily, but have a hard time to truly understand who is fighting whom at this point)War on Terror, wtf is this, some USA global war? who are they fighting really? Afghanistan? Iraq? Enforcing national interests? Who knows. It actually looks like everyone have this war on terror nowadays and USA was just one of the first to face this lack of power all over the world. Actually I'm really hoping that USA is playing the role of Orwellian big brother with constant war, because the alternative is scary: USA is already not able to control the situation and it is going to get worse, much worse. The unipolar world brought us 3-4 more nuclear powers because no one is playing by the rulls anymore. There is no policemen to enforce those rules. We have North Korea escalation not because they are playing with nukes, but because if the USA allows them to keep the weapon, everyone else will go and create one. And then we will be truly fucked up.
- "The United States has been at war for thirteen of the twenty-two years since the end of the Cold War. Put another way, the first two decades of unipolarity, which make up less than 10 percent of U.S. history, account for more than 25 percent of the nation's total time at war."
- "in 2014 these are the only 11 countries in the world that are actually free from conflict" [2]
And if you look at [3] you can see that starting from late 70-s - early 80-s (because that's the time SU started to loose power) we have a spike in number of local conflicts worldwide and there are lots of brutal massacres in 90-s+. Most of the conflicts are in ongoing status for 30-50+ years now and we can see the rapid increase in deaths [4].
I'm not saying that it is 100% correct, most of this is just a theory and everything can change in a matter of 1-5 years, but we still have to see the emergence of new rivals of the USA hegemony and the worst case scenario is the comeback to the multipolar world of 18-19 centuries, but with everyone having nukes and who knows what else.
The converse is that having one supreme superpower is better for world peace because there's nobody to compete with them militarily. Therefore there's only one power that can decide to take military action (the superpower). This is because the weak players won't start a war because they will get crushed.
However, if N > 1 powers are on equal footing where starting a war does NOT mean you get crushed, now there's N > 1 actors that can start a very large war. And that may have compounding effects where likelihood of war isn't just Percentage * N, but instead some exponent of N because the increased likelihood of war itself increases the likelihood of war.
One country misusing its power is probably less destructive to humanity than superpowers militarily fighting (i.e. number of deaths/problems caused by US wars since WW2 is substantially less than deaths during WW2).
Neither a unipolar world or a multipolar world is inherently more or less peaceful. Peace comes when you get used to living in a certain world and accept your position. Conflict happens in transitions to such acceptance.
I spent 10 years in Panama, where although many people still resent the US invasion, chiefly over the loss of life - the country is unquestionably better off today for it.