It seems pretty silly to answer a question about military intervention by insisting that the major instance of military intervention by a world power that's happened in the last year shouldn't be counted
> by insisting that the major instance of military intervention by a world power that's happened in the last year shouldn't be counted
I’m not. I’m saying exempting that, we have an even field of conflict mongering. Counting Iran, the field is biased, but we have significant sampling-timing issues for something like “is there war.”
China has violently annexed sovereign countries in the past decades. Its threats to do the same again are at least as serious as Trump’s Greenland nonsense. There can be more than one baddie.
Iraq war? Venezuela raid? Libya? Syria? Afghanistan for 20 years? And that's just some of the higher visibility cases.
If China had special forces deployed and conducting ops in random African countries it would be a massive aggression. When we do it, it doesn't even make the headlines.
I think they're referring to occasional fist fights between the Indian and Chinese deployments at the top of the Himalayas where there's a dumb territorial dispute. There were a couple of times decades ago where the forces shot at each other and the governments had to scramble to calm things down and deescalate, so somehow they've reached this gentleman's agreement to have fistfights instead.
> We're talking about this kind of thing balancing out, say, Fallujah or shock and awe over Baghdad
Nonsense. For that comparison you’d look to the invasion and annexation of Tibet. (And it’s not ancient history if it’s currently endorsed and un-apologized for.)
I’d say the South China Sea island building in violation of UNCLOS text and judgement comes pretty close to American CIA-style fuckery in South America and Africa.
To be clear, American fuckery is broader. But if we agree we’re discussing magnitudes and not kind, we agree on all I’m arguing.
> it's former sovereignty is very questionable and not clear cut
Same as Taliban-run Afghanistan, same as Iraq, same as Ukraine, same as Taiwan. If you’re Tibetan, the line is academic—you faced, by modern definitions, genocide all the same.
Calling the territory you’re invading and/or annexing illegitimately independent, illegitimately governed is how these always go.
> US was literally founded on genocide. Glass houses
Most nations have been. The American one was particularly bad, being both recent and extensive. But I’d venture that a strong minority of us descend from lineages who never committed genocide. It’s a unique trait to humans (and chimpanzees, apparently).
If any history of genocide invalidates an accuser, genocide becomes a consequence-free crime. The general defence becomes pointing out the accuser’s history.
I’m not. I’m saying exempting that, we have an even field of conflict mongering. Counting Iran, the field is biased, but we have significant sampling-timing issues for something like “is there war.”
China has violently annexed sovereign countries in the past decades. Its threats to do the same again are at least as serious as Trump’s Greenland nonsense. There can be more than one baddie.