[BSEdlMMldESB]

> anyone who conducts in an (unapproved) war (such as Russia right now)

you're actually saying that any war is OK as long as the USA starts it.

it's an expression of: "do as the USA tells you to do; do not do what the USA itself does"

the 'grown up view' is that there are trade-offs. the USA is an empire... I define the essence of an empire to be: a group of people from one place telling people from another place what to do. the most often thing they're told is to pay tribute (which by this point is part of a semi-obscure system of taxes, tariffs, technological transfers, and other hidden things)

[safety1st]

I'm not saying any war is OK, regardless of who starts it. I would prefer there be no wars, if such a thing were feasible. I'm just saying that if you start a war the US doesn't like they have the ability to fuck you up with sanctions, and they use this ability pretty liberally to enforce a US-led peace.

And no one else really has this ability, take the Iraq War which was exceptionally vile - did the US get sanctioned for it? Nope, because sanctioning the US is basically shooting yourself in the foot. Even today it's still about a quarter of global GDP and a huge buyer of everyone else's stuff.

[anonymouskimmer]

> you're actually saying that any war is OK as long as the USA starts it.

Bush Jr. has been convicted of war crimes in at least one country because of his actions with respect to the Iraq war: https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a35397/b...

Very few countries are opposed to the US invasion of Afghanistan, as those plotting the previous attack on the US were doing so from a position of sanctuary in Afghanistan at the time.

Wars of genuine self defense are basically automatically approved by standard international law: https://legal.un.org/repertory/art51.shtml