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Imagine if the World stopped fighting at the end of WWII and the U.S. stopped making any other atomic weapons. Imagine a global "Peace Treaty".
Imagine if each country spent their military $$ on water, food, housing, and free medical care for their citizens.
Fuck them all!!
The World could've been an amazing village of humans living together as friends and have the freedom to roam the globe without the need for a passport.
One World!
Fuck every military leader and/or political leader that has screwed over the people of the World.
Then one day, putins russia could roll down over the whole of Europe in one big swing.
Someone said "Every country has an army. Their own or someone elses".
Could be better for sure, but it could also be worse.
I mean, we're discussing a hypothetical utopia. In this hypothetical, Russia wouldn't have an army to "roll down over the whole of Europe".
Yeah but... That is kind of the problem.
Imagine that the US goes full hippie and dismantles its entire military, sending all the money to schools and hospitals and infrastructure and its economy. Fixes poverty, free healthcare, yay!
Pardon my French, but China and Russia would ass duck it into oblivion within a week. THAT is why we can't have nice things. As long as there are dictators out there, we will continue to need armies, unfortunately.
Russia has shown that depending on each other with economies doesn't work to keep the peace, all you need is a greedy bastard who is happy to throw hundreds of thousands of innocent lives into the meat grinder, happy to ruin his countries economy, all so he can play the next tzar.
So like it or no, we NEED armies and given the choice of being ruled by the US or China or Russia, I'll choose the US a hundred times over, as idnlike to stay out of punishment camps for the rest of my life.
I'm very aware the World won't play nice. That's why my scenario was dependent on an impossible situation. That sucks!
Humans suck.
Of course there are countless nice people that love others, wish kindness, and happiness.
Unfortunately, the masses have not been able to control the powers that have driven the World in a combative and globally destructive feedback loop. The combination of violence and climate disaster will mean the extinction of humanity much, much sooner than most believe.
We've been in these situations before, albeit in smaller scale, the formula still works the same. And it never ends up well for the "ruling class". It'll probably take a lot of fuckery before the world unites in the class struggle, but when that happens we'll know what to do. Just look at what human nature does in natural disasters - we collaborate, cooperate, and rebuild. We will do the same in the future.
No. Sorry. Bubble burst. You're in true denial if you think humanity will save itself. We're finished within a few years. Not decades, plus....
Just a few years.
Oh yeah, I do believe that humanity will go extinct within the next 100 years or so. At the very least there will be a huge downfall. India registered 52.9 degrees this week, but climate change is a hoax! What can you do.
Funny how China and Russia combined spend a tiny fraction of what the US does on the military if the US only has it for defense.
You either know that these dumb over simplifications are disingenuous at Nestor you should really go to school.
Yes, yes, yeah yeah, military industrial complex is a thing, but you should.also count your blessings that the US does spend what it does. As bad as the US is, as fucked up the shit is that it regularly pulls with its armies, it's all child's play with what, say, China or Russia would do.
Before you start with how loving and caring Russia and China are, maybe you should ask the Uyghurs and Ukrainians about that.
I have no interest in your bloodthirsty jingoism.
Great way of missing or ignoring the point
The point that I should lick the boots of the murderous monsters who killed hundreds of thousands of innocents in Iraq and Afghanistan and are actively arming an ongoing genocide, all so they can protect their precious quarterly profits and buy off more senators? That point?
I hope you someday find yourself on the receiving end of what you support, imperialist warmongerer.
No, the point is that you apparently like licking boots? So you prefer China's rule or Russia's?
Understanding reality is not licking boots
I wonder how well you'd fare under chinas or Russia's rule. But that is the point you're missing. I never claimed that the US plays nice, a lot of US politicians belong in jail for life.
However.
If China was in power (or Russia for that matter) you wouldn't even be able to vent your frustrations, lest you are far away from high windows you can fall out off. Or maybe you just need to spend 20 years in a Chinese rededication camp?
As bad as the US is (and yeah it's bad, nobody denies that) the alternatives are way WAY worse
Nothing funny about it. USA has a lot more money to spend, and spends a lot of money on overseas defence - basically bases across NATO and beyond - along with maintaining a huge technological advantage against any of its adversaries.
If you look at Russia, it spends a much higher percentage of its GDP on its military than the US - it just happens to be a relatively poorer country (so probably should focus on economic growth than aggressive foreign policy...) - since its invasion of its sovereign neighbour it has only gone on to spend an even higher share of its budget on war machines, further stunting its economic growth and long term prospects. Things the US doesn't need to worry about as much.
China's spending per GDP is difficult to know given their self reported figures are largely regarded as under-reported. Some estimates put their spending at a higher % of GDP than the US as well.
Don't be fooled into thinking Russia and China wouldn't be just as bad, if not worse, than the US if they were able to achieve military dominance. Make no mistake that Russia would have invaded many more of its neighbours by now, and China would have at least invaded Taiwan and likely subjugated many of its other neighbours along with taking control of a huge swathe of international and foreign territorial waters by force.
Personally I am better off with the US having the dominion it does, and I worry for those who will start to fall into the dominion of those other fascist and totalitarian states. But I can also see the evils that the US has perpetrated in order to gain and maintain and dominion.
None of the players have clean hands - don't think for a second any of them wouldn't do the same shit if it could.
Nothing funny about it. USA has a lot more money to spend, and spends a lot of money on overseas defence - basically bases across NATO and beyond - along with maintaining a huge technological advantage against any of its adversaries.
Yes, that is what I'm criticizing, thanks for spelling it out.
If you look at Russia, it spends a much higher percentage of its GDP on its military than the US
Comparing military spending by GDP is such a funny metric. It makes literally no sense whatsoever. Do you think countries should just keep spending more and more on their militaries as they develop, even if there is no practical strategic reason to? Do you think that countries with powerful rivals, whose continued survival depends on meeting certain level of military strength, should ignore genuine threats to security if it would mean spending a higher percentage of GDP than other countries? Complete insanity.
The only reason to compare military spending as percentage of GDP instead of absolute numbers is because the numbers are more convenient to your argument. The country with the biggest military is the most militaristic and the biggest threat to the world. Anything else is nonsense.
Things the US doesn’t need to worry about as much.
Really? Because US infrastructure is falling apart. Medical debt and student loans are soaring out of control. Rents are skyrocketing. I could go on, if you like. There's a lot of really important domestic priorities that are getting ignored so that the US can maintain hegemony in every corner of the globe.
I think you missed this part: "Imagine if each country spent their military $$ on water, food, housing, and free medical care for their citizens." I know it unfortunately isn't even remotely realistic but that's the comment you answered to :)
Well yeah but that is the point. If all countries were democracies, if all countries worked together economically, if all countries made sure that wealth was nicely distributed amongst the world population with a top 1:5 difference between the poorest and richest, then we wouldn't need armies, we wouldn't need borders even...
Borders and armies exists because we have dictators and an again rapidly growing wealth inequality
And you want people to vote for the guy currently supplying and giving cover to a genocidal regime...
Where did you see him asking people to vote for anyone? I'm tired of this no need to bring this shit into every conversation, lots of people on here don't even live in the U.S. Fuck off
Oh? It's almost like I was talking directly to him about something he knows about. Like that time he decided to call me a moron because I want Biden to stop supporting weapons to Israel. Then he posts... This.
Oh sorry I didn't realize it was personal. Don't mind me then
Shut up, dumbass.
Nah don't think I will.
No we want people to vote for the guy who's not going to make it worse.
Do you think everyone on this godforsaken website is American? Fuck your American politics and fuck you.
No. But this guy came at me for protesting Israel's genocide. So this is pretty hypocritical of him.