[SkyMarshal]

If it makes you feel any better, many US citizens hate it too. It's stupid both to privatize the military, and to provide military training to repressive authoritarian regimes.

America and our democratic allies spent half a century fighting totalitarianism, only to turn around and treat the post-Cold War "peace dividend" as carte-blance to sell out everything we had just finished fighting for. Now authoritarianism is on the rise again as a result.

This has to be most idiotic own-goal in history.

[drewcoo]

> spent half a century fighting totalitarianism

By destabilizing and ousting democratically elected leaders around the world and replacing them with our puppets? Or do you mean fighting those puppets when they became inconvenient?

I suspect what happened is not the history you think it is.

[seanmcdirmid]

> By destabilizing and ousting democratically elected leaders around the world and replacing them with our puppets

El Saud was put in place as rulers of Saudi Arabia by the British, not the Americans.

[pkphilip]

US has done "regime change" in many countries replacing elected officials with warlords/monarchs/dictators etc.

Consider Mossadegh in Iran - an elected, secular politician who was replaced to put Shah - a monarch, in power:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Mosaddegh

Then, of course, all across Latin America: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...

[seanmcdirmid]

Yes, but the linked story was about Saudi Arabia, not Iran or Latin America.

[pkphilip]

I was replying broadly on the issue of regime change

[bigbillheck]

But across the gulf: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27état

[refurb]

Destabilizing oppressive regimens controlled by the Soviets.

Arguably still oppressive after we’re done but better than before.

[SkyMarshal]

>By destabilizing and ousting democratically elected leaders around the world and replacing them with our puppets? Or do you mean fighting those puppets when they became inconvenient?

I suspect what happened is not the history you think it is.

I hate justifying the US's behavior in this regard, but all such critiques need to at least be context-aware.

The USSR was attempting to spread a system of totalitarian social, economic and thought control world wide. At the time, almost everything by comparison was a lesser of two evils. In opposing their efforts, anyone who also opposed the USSR, be it a European Democracy or a third world strongman, became a US ally. Anything to thwart the spread of the USSR's variant of Communism. Supporting strongmen was ugly and unpleasant, but those were also desperate times.

The USSR was expanding rapidly and adding satellite states left and right. Any strongman who 1) opposed the USSR, and 2) who was strong enough to maintain control of their country despite USSR attempts to destabilize and gain proxy control of it, was a potential valuable ally in the greater contest. Sometimes the strongmen were the only ones in a given country who could meet both criteria, and the US had to work with was available. Ugly, but c'est realpolitik.

Though I'm not sure Iran can be justified even under that framework. Fomenting a coup in a country with a democratically elected government and liberalizing society just so we can take their oil instead of buying it at market rates is unjustifiable, even in a Cold War context. Their oil could potentially tip the military balance of power, but surely an alternative to a coup was some kind of oil-for-military-aid treaty with a fellow Democracy.

[knownjorbist]

Your picture may be as narrow-minded as the person you're replying to, but in the other direction. The US also uses its economic clout to push for social, political and economic reforms in other countries as well.

[cycomanic]

The problem is if there is a conflict between economic and and "ethical" interests the economic interest always won (let's not even get into all the political reasons why totalitarian regimes were supported).

The US (and much of the west by extension) certainly has a very spotty history of supporting democracy, especially if it was in their economic interest to support the totalitarian regime.

[reducesuffering]

The US supporting democracy (or atleast classical liberal enlightenment values that would eventually lead to a functioning democracy) in Vietnam, Iraq, Korea, Syria, Afghanistan, and more has by far been a net negative economic interest. We've paid dearly while Europe mostly enjoyed social welfare benefits.

[mxxc]

Let's not confuse payments with loans (Europe is not Israel). Let's also not ignore the fact that there have been plenty of analyses showing that post-WWII Europe showed a natural recovery independent of US aid in several countries, and let's not ignore the shackles imposed by the winning powers on several technologies, not to be developed further.

This statement is also incorrect when referred to several key places the US have picked over the years (e.g. Pinochet's Chile or Syngman Rhee / Park Chung-Hee's Korea), and of course looking at the constant heavy military occupation of several "allied" countries, a fact without precedents in history, rather than the fable of "exporting democracy" this just looks like version 2.0 of the British Empire :)

[orbifold]

What technologies aside from nuclear weapons are you referring to?

[pjc50]

> classical liberal enlightenment values that would eventually lead to a functioning democracy) in Vietnam

That's a strange way to talk about carpet bombing and chemical weapons. Besides, the US lost: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Saigon

"The Vietnamese government officially calls it the "Day of liberating the South for national reunification" (Vietnamese: Giải phóng miền Nam, thống nhất đất nước) or "Liberation Day" (Ngày Giải Phóng)"

.. I don't think the Vietnamese democratic government thanks you for it.

[reducesuffering]

> That's a strange way to talk about carpet bombing and chemical weapons.

It's widely accepted that the US made seriously grave mistakes.

> Besides, the US lost

I was attempting to phrase it as the US supporting values or institutions that would eventually lead to democracy, not that US support means it will win.

> I don't think the Vietnamese democratic government thanks you for it.

They don't obviously and we ended up with the worst of all outcomes. It would've been better for the Vietnamese people if there was never any civil war, even better if the US hadn't supported the South. But, best of all for the Vietnamese people would've been if the South had won. One look at the GDP difference between Vietnam and Korea would create some serious introspection on that scenario. To save you some time, it's $47,000 to $12,000 PPP.

[refurb]

How much do you know about the country post-war? The Vietnamese people paid a very heavy price for the North wining that war. Arguably the communists saw economic light, but plenty of people have been jailed as recently as last year for blogs they’ve written.

[chmod775]

Right. Europe just loves dealing with the millions of refugees that the US-led destabilization and destruction of the middle east caused.

Also I'm not sure what you mean by "social welfare".

[reducesuffering]

Social welfare as in funds for safety nets and public spending, like free healthcare, education, and improved disability, unemployment, and welfare benefits. US chose to spend trillions militarily that otherwise generally could've been allocated to those types of public spending within the US as well.

Refugees that Europe deals with is mostly Syrian and Afghani. The US supplied weapons and support to Syrian rebels and weapons to anti-communist mujahideen. Now, hindsight is 20/20, but Assad was literally using chemical weapons on Syrian citizens. The Taliban was wantonly wreaking destruction across Afghanistan causing the refugee displacement. These are complex issues when it comes to human rights abuses and geopolitics. My point is that the US paid a price in attempting to be world police, regardless of the outcome. It wasn't economically beneficial as the grandparent comment stated.

[p_l]

Vietnam and Korea weren't about ethics or democracy but about influence and control (arguably so was Iraq, Syria) and Afghanistan is mostly a kneejerk reaction to a terror strike that might be quite symbolic, but ultimately pales in numbers.

EDIT: spelling

[f6v]

> has by far been a net negative economic interest

Yeah, maybe for the population of those countries and the US budget. But think of all the military suppliers, they must be very happy!

[nzmsv]

Afghanistan? Really?

You may want to look up who installed the Taliban in the first place.

[Paradigma11]

The russians by indiscriminately killing 1.5 million ppl so that only the hard core extremists survived?

[Intermernet]

For every example of this you give me, I can give you a pertinent counter example. This should tell you that these actions aren't altruistic.

[akudha]

Yes, the U.S govt does good things abroad. They also do lots of bad stuff. We can criticize them for the bad things they do and appreciate them for their good deeds, at the same time.

[knownjorbist]

Agreed! In fact, that's basically what I said.

[yetihehe]

Definitely, but it's very clumsy and many times it backfires.

[f6v]

> America and our democratic allies spent half a century fighting totalitarianism

Maybe they weren't fighting totalitarianism in the first place.

[Intermernet]

Maybe the real totalitarianism was the friends we met on the way...

[hackeraccount]

underrated comment.

[refurb]

In America, it’s easy to find a party.

In Soviet Russia, Party finds you!

What a country!!

[KMag]

> Now authoritarianism is on the rise again as a result.

Perhaps this is an indirect result of the US providing military support to totalitarian regimes, but I don't see how it accounts for a rise in totalitarian/authoritarian tendencies in Russia, China, and other countries that don't receive such aid.

Nationalism and authoritarianism/totalitarianism tend to have more support when economic and other factors make people worried about their futures. In such situations, the natural human instinct is to crave stability at any cost, which opens the door for nationalism and authoritarianism/totalitarianism.

[SkyMarshal]

>Russia, China, and other countries that don't receive such aid.

Russia and China received immense amounts of US aid.

After the USSR fell, the US was concerned about their nukes proliferating, and gave billions in foreign aid, financial/credit support, and technical assistance to Russia to help them rebuild their economy and maintain nuclear security.

For China, we opened our markets and brought them into the WTO, which massively enriched and empowered their economy and government, and without which they would not have developed nearly as quickly.

[KMag]

The GGP was talking specifically about direct/indirect military training leading to the rise in totalitarianism, which I broadened to military support (to which the "such" you quoted refers). It sounds like you're talking about direct and indirect economic aid.