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ordinary people just worry more about their lives than political shits, tbh
Nooooooo!!!!
They cook the books. The experts were like, "normally we see a small amount of cooking, that's expected, but now there's a lot".
And war will get them completely unprepared.
This is complete bullshit.
(a) China (Viet Nam invasion of '78, Korean War, Tibet, Taiwan).
(b) North Korea (Korean War)
(c) Most Arab nations (4 separate wars against Israel, though I suppose only 3 are counted in "after 1950s")
(d) Iraq (vs. Iran)
(e) Iran (vs. Iraq)
(f) France (not a US ally at the time IIRC) - First Indochinese War
(g) India (vs. Pakistan)
(h) Pakistan (vs. India) - I forget if they were an ally during this period
(i) the USSR (vs. Afghanistan). And of course, all those Eastern European countries where they were "invited to help".
(j) Viet Nam (Laos, Cambodia)
(k) Libya (Chad)
...I could go on, and of course that's not even including civil wars. And I didn't feel like going to Wikipedia so I'm probably missing a bunch of nonsense that went on in Africa and South America.
I'm deeply skeptical you've truly added all those numbers up.
I'm not saying the US hasn't bombed other countries, but the way you phrase things is purposefully deceptive. "The USA and her allies" would include a vast number of countries, depending on how you define ally. Also, not every action undertaken by said allies was with the USA's support, and in many cases was over objections.
But hey, don't let me interrupt your "The US is evil and Communism is good!" line with boring old facts.
Germany in 1939 was not experiencing a food crisis and the food crisis you refer to didn't start until 1943 when imports collapsed. Germany never went to a "war footing" with rationing, etc. until the last couple years of the war because Hitler didn't want to disk civil discontent. Women didn't even work in factories until 1944 and they were still producing consumer goods like cosmetics as late as 1943.
You are right about debt, though not Versailles-related debt, which was minimized and extended multiple times. Germany had grown dependent on foreign loans (particularly from the US) which abruptly stopped in 1929 after the depression started.
Germany effectively solved its oil problems through conquest, though once allied bombing took hold, this reversed and they made massive (and very inefficient) attempts to produce synthetic fuels.
Japan was never a "boogeyman" for the US and the "trade wars" you refer to were pretty small change and were largely over by 1985 with the Plaza Accord. I lived through the 1980s and Japan was viewed as more a very difficult competitor who didn't always play fair.
However, Japan post-WWII has never exhibited the sort of territorial expansionism or engaged in the kinds of human rights atrocities that are routine for China. Japan is also a democracy whereas China is not.
You really can't compare how Americans view Japan post-WWII versus how Americans view China today. Americans have always had a very positive view of post-WWII Japan.
What always surprises people about military spending is who #3 is. Everyone instinctively thinks that the US or China is #1, the other is #2, and Russia must be #3.
But #3 is actually India...
Russia is #4, UK is #5, and #6, surprisingly, is now Saudi Arabia.
Can we all just agree that the mjjs will be pissed and need a way to vent their anger?
I didnt say it started in 1939, I am saying that even when Germany controlled 3/4 of europe which is in about 42 or so, the food already started to be scarce due to many reasons, rationing was not on there AFAIK but it came soon after.
At that time agriculture was not living the green revolution, a lot of labour was manual and the high death toll and mobilization made it hard to work the fields or even harvest the crops as soon as 1940, but the effects only started to show a couple of years later. This was before bombing took hold in any serious way.
Yes, imports from denmark, nl and even poland, romania and whatnot maintained the huge militaro-industrial machine fed, but Hitler and especially Goebbels were acutely aware that the debt crisis and the huge industrial orientation as opposed to a pretty underdeveloped agriculture compared to even neighbours, would sooner or later implode the ability to continue the arms race and Hitler had to go to war sooner rather than later to acquire the Lebensraum in the east.
Japan had a similar issue, albeit they did not really fear the food issue as they already had a pretty big empire (which Germany did not have) in which Japanese were fed and the locals were starving. They were more worried about the oil, metals and whatever needed for continuing the militaristic expansion.
In comparison, China has a demographic issue which was not present in the 30s, even as the nazis were aware they need a large population for the war and industry as well as the colonization after the local populations would have been moved or exterminated so they stimulated natality the best they could.
So, the Chinese population is not breeding as imagined by the communists that would happen as soon as the restrictions are lifted, they are acutely aware they have a time bomb on their hands and they have to use THIS generation to achieve their expansionist goals. When 50% of the population will have to be fed by 25%, then going to war would be inconceivable unless in a totally electronic/automatic way to consider only the people involved, not to mention the cost of the production diverted to the war effort.
IF the breeding would have gone as planned, in a control manner but still at replenishing levels and higher up even, then the plan would have had more chances to succeed, continue economic development on credit for a while longer, entrap more countries in debt, install more friendly regimes, pour more propaganda in people minds, cut ties with the rest of the world in a less abrupt manner, land the debt crisis internally with less fuss in a totally controlled environment and simply live off the reserves for 10 more years. By that time the population would be almost completely cutoff from the rest of the world with a controlled media, internet etc and they would not know anything else than what the party would tell them.
Now it is too soon to go to war, the things move to quick, China is not prepared yet and wont be ready for at least 10 years, plenty of time for the rest of the world to understand what is going on and prepare.
There is still the possibility of an internal collapse, but that is extremely remote, the average Chinese is aware already he is superior and the regime will keep delivering stability and prosperity while teaching the rest of the world a lesson without any consequences for him, or minor ones.
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2021/10/fbi-raids-chinese-point-of-sale-giant-pax-technology/
This must be totally unrelated, right?
Why was there no war in the USA (after 1945)?
Because there's no US embassy in the USA. (A joke that however hits the nail well)
Anyway, one could shine some more light on your list and in many cases find the hand of the USA, the USA creating a situation in which other nations then (as planned) engaged in war, etc. But I think it's not helpful to count wars of one country against wars of other countries. Yes, maybe, depending on how one looks at it, the USA did not execute more wars than all other countries combined.
The USA however has by far the largest war, uhm, "defense" budget and it has been "bringing democracy" - via bombing - to many countries, significantly more countries than any other nation.
But ...
... so did other countries before the USA. The UK for example, France, Netherland, Germany
... the USA also brought more to the world than most other countries, e.g. the internet
... the USA did not win most of its wars. Yes, it brought immense destruction and piles of dead bodies but it hardly ever won a war since 1950.
... the USA isn't the undisputed and unchallenged hegemon anymore. Some even consider it to have lost most of its power (and very unlikely to regain it).
Things are more complex than "nation X evil, nation Y good!".
The country name of Taiwan is "Republic of China."
I live in Taiwan.
China vs EU on debt conditions
https://youtube.com/watch?v=9tJatdtv4jQ
This move wouldn't be necessary if western democracies have our own great firewall.
It is often attributed to tyranny but one can have a complete police state on the other side of that firewall or free flow of information (or anything in between). So freedom/openness is actually a separate issue.
The only thing wrong with the great firewall is us not having our own.
Who is stopping you from setting up your own “great firewall” on your own router and blocking your access to everything?
There are a few problems with that.
Yes, US is also propping up and installing fascists and whatnot in power for the sake of "stability" AKA bribes. But US is not asking for land, ports, mines, etc as collateral, they only force the client governments to lease them in very favourable conditions, while the country remains nominally sovereign there.
Yes, China bought US debt, which was a big mistake, but they had no choice. China is trapped now in it's expansionist intentions.
Let me explain.
1. The totalitarian propped up regimes.
So, US is not supporting Myanmar military, China does because it thinks that, while it lost a lot of carefully built influence in the more open and a bit less genocidal former regime, it has to because Myanmar going fully democratic and westwards oriented is NOT in it's interest.
US is not supporting Thai military regime either, China does. Again, no choice.
China tried on all fronts really hard to win the Phillippines and support Duterte's authoritarian regime, but he didn't manage to install the full dictatorship and had to cave inn to people's will of independence. China's push in SCS was too much to bear and the humiliation too strong.
US is not supporting North Korea, China does. Without the Chinese help there would have been no North Korea.
I think that the regimes China supports are way more murderous than those US supports, only Israel and Egypt could compare and, perhaps, indirectly, some regimes in central and south america, but those are rather nationalistic, it is a different story there, even as they would have not been in power without the US support before and during the coups.
So, in general, China does worse and US does nominally support democracy in many countries, not only those in which China props up murderous regimes.
Yes, China holds a big part of it, but it has to. There was absolutely no other way it could dump it's low quality produce there in the beginning and even now. China competed on price and exploited its population, the minorities, the political prisoners etc. to manage low prices at the cost of huge pollution and whatnot.
How can you sell something and make sure the buyer can still buy in the future? Simple, the credit solves the problem. It is used on large scale in the capitalistic system, you cut wages, lay off people, but give them cheap credit to continue to live and buy.
Same with China, it sent its goods over the ocean and in exchange got US debt.
It allowed the development of the industry, the foreign investment, all that we see today and China HAD to get at any price, the Great Leap forward was clearly not working. China did not buy US debt because it wanted to help US, but because it had no choice, that was a necessary condition for development.
Today that is weighing heavily on its expansionist policies.
The whole idea is to live off the reserves for the 10 years in which they have to build up the military and close down the country, but those reserves are mainly in foreign debt and currency.
When they will try to militarize those assets, US can simply change all dollars overnight and only recognize the debt held by the rest of the world or not even that.
During the war, the economy will get developed in US and ruined in China due to many reasons, so the war must be quick, the Chinese have to make the same bet the Japanese did, for one that the americans will stay isolationists and will try to get out of the war as fast as possible, second, that, even if that does not happen, they will not want a war and will not be able to sustain it more than a year when conquest after conquest and big atrocities would sap their morale. Americans are pussies, Japanese/Chinese are iron spirited and will prevail. It didn't work in the early forties, we will see whether it will work now or not.
What's stopping the US from banning all carriers?
Why do you assume I want to block everything?
The idea is not new, after the Bolshevik revolution, Russia was incapable to even feed its people, the socialist economy and especially forcefully collectivized agriculture had no chance to do it, let alone build a powerful military.
So Lenin came up with an ideological trick. The socialism was supposed to come after the Industrial Revolution, after the Bourgeoisie built up a capitalistic system but Russia was still mainly feudalistic. So Lenin created the NEP, novaya ekonomicheskaya politika (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Economic_Policy) It allowed for the country to get up from its knees and made possible the future militaristic and murderous regime.
Of course, Stalin did not understand the inherent flaws of a socialist system, he thought he can maintain control by force and he managed that to a great extent, there were millions of deaths, hunger, forced labour, displacement, etc, the war came just when the system was about to collapse and he was able to channel it to motivate the population. If the nazis would have not been so murderous from the start they would have been received as liberators (they were at the start and many peoples in the USSR fought alongside them against the red army to the bitter end https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0940766/).
Now, the Chinese learnt the lesson, the NEP must take much longer, the country must be much more open to investment, the rule of law must apply at least for a bit and at least in some regions in order to succeed to bring the country out of the darkness of Maoism.
It worked however it ment that the natural course of events predicted by the US and many others started to happen (when people have something to eat, will want freedom). The Tienanmen square and the fall of communism almost everywhere else was a rude reminder that this opening cannot last for too long and cannot be complete if the regime must stay in power. But it was also way too early to make a Great Break (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Break_(USSR) ) so they had to keep going with a mixt system of political oppression and economic liberalism.
But now they have to end it. If they want to go to war they have to do it now. The illusions of democratization will not fool anyone, either inside or outside, they must uphold the pact, deliver prosperity and national pride (conquests and respect of the might of the country and superiority of the regime) proof right now. Cut off from the world economy and with only dissent repression and media blackout keeping it together, China will implode in at most 10 years much worse than the Soviet Union which had a much lower population in a much larger and more resourceful country and they were able to stay afloat by selling natural resources and grains, much like Russia does today, something that China can't afford.
Agreed. But the US needs to tell Saudi Arabia to fuck right off.
I am not sure US supports the regime in Saudi Arabia. It is rather that Saudi Arabia buys the US, it is the exact opposite of Israel, US is subsidizing the regime of apartheid in Israel, while the Saudis are subsidizing the political clique in US in exchange for free hand in local wars and "sphere of interest".
The Saudi regime would likely not collapse without the US support, they can simply buy their weapons elsewhere (China, for instance), but Israel would collapse without US subsidies, be those military or financial.
Actually, I am expecting the Saudis to soon ditch their efforts to buy the US administration as it is not as open to bribes as the former one was and look elsewhere as criticism mounts. The Chinese ask no questions, neither do the Russians.