I've never been able to understand what the giant military is supposed to be doing that does the country any tangible good -- it gives us more foreign policy options, I suppose, but not ones that turn out well. But in any public discussion of the issue, that sort of question gets dismissed as hopelessly naive.
The reason it gets called naive is the phrase "but not ones that turn out well". To militants, we're constantly successfully defeating fascist tyranny. Barely.
Silbey has interesting, non-disproving quibbles.
But we're not, or at least not generally in a way that results in a net decrease in tyranny.
To militants, we're constantly successfully defeating fascist tyranny. Barely.
I don't think that's right. It's more like we're constantly having to accept humiliating, unacceptable situations while if we just had a large enough military (and the right President in charge!) no one would dare to mess with us.
And to the line quoted in 1, and heebie's point, I think what Silbey seems to be arguing is that it gives us the ability to act like an empire. You could believe (I do!) that acting like an empire is per se a bad idea, or you could believe (lots of people do) that you either are an empire or you're under the thumb of somebody else's empire.
That's exactly how bad the problem is, and why we need so much spending! We're not even able to keep it at a standstill.
According to wikipedia US military spending is 41% of the world total which is a lot but isn't more than half.
1 and 4 are only superficially contradictory. Right wing nuts contain multitudes.
I've never been able to understand what the giant military is supposed to be doing that does the country any tangible good
<canonical stupid answer> They give us our freedoms, LB. We wouldn't have the right to even talk about whether our big military is a good idea if it wasn't for our brave troops protecting our freedoms. We'd be like all those other countries where they don't have any rights. </canonical stupid answer >
That's what a relative chosen at random from my dad's side of the family would say, at least.
Right. 9 is what I'm picturing, too - something about how we're free here at the US because we're successfully beating back all the threats, abroad.
They hate our freedom and our fries!
In other words, heebie has it right in 1, I think. In the worldview of the median American we are constantly threatened by outside forces who are going to turn us into a dictatorial state and it is only the valiant struggles of GI Joe that allow us to keep having the functioning democracy we treasure so much. That this has no connection to reality doesn't make it any less strongly believed. Probing people's belief in a giant military is like probing their belief in God.
Bumper stickers I see regularly:
Freedom can't protect itself.
If you enjoy your freedom, thank a soldier.
Etc.
Besides being giant, the US military also has a lot of rather unique capabilities (e.g., stealth aircraft, aircraft carriers, tiltrotors), which are costly and not always a good value for the money. Some of those are plausibly useful (the B-2, carriers), some are unreasonably expensive because we're paying to develop new technologies that will then become cheaper for other countries to acquire a decade from now (tiltrotors), and some definitely seem like lousy value (the F-35 STOVL variant).
12 written before I saw that heebie said it more succinctly in 10 and without the gratuitious analogy to religion, which I probably should have left out.
Another very real component of this is the whole "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it" thing. A huge amount of (red state?) economy depends on maintaining the millitary, and they'll do even better if it grows.
Also, I suspect that several of the teachers I had in elementary school and pretty much all the teachers currently working in said elementary school regularly teach their students the line in 9.
Continuing 13: God bless our troops, especially the snipers.
According to wikipedia US military spending is 41% of the world total which is a lot but isn't more than half.
Add in the DOE's weapons spending, the VA, the cost of pensions and benefits...
The truly mystifying bumper sticker I see fairly often is: "If you can read, thank a teacher. If you can read English, thank a Marine."
Because all those Mexicans, Germans, Japanese, Koreans, Vietnamese, and Iraqis are probably pissed that they are no longer able to read Spanish, German, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, or Arabic.
The military needs to be large enough so that every incumbent Senator and Representative can keep their seats. Last year many incumbents tragically lost their jobs because they weren't able to send enough military contracts back to their districts. The only way to stop this madness is to increase the size of the military.
This line in the article seems pretty revealing:
He asked a question, which was purely rhetorical: "What if, all of a sudden, we don't have troops in Europe, we don't have troops in Asia, we are just, frankly, like pretty much every other country in the world?"
We'd have to get along just like people in, I don't know, Norway or Scotland or something. The horror!
"What if, all of a sudden, we don't have troops in Europe, we don't have troops in Asia, we are just, frankly, like pretty much every other country in the world had an extra 300 billion dollars a year to work with?"
I had the impression that in some sense the military was a form of vaguely New Dealish employment for the sake of employment that conservatives could stomach because it came with the attractive implication of perpetuating the status of the U.S. as Blair Waldorf among nations. But I know less than nothing about economics, so this may be dumb.
25 After all, that would be the only way to maintain the looming debt crisis cliff of despair.
23: Scotland, unfortunately, does have troops in Europe and Asia. 1st Scots Guards and 1st Scots are in Helmand, and the 4th Scots and the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards are in Germany.
17: Destroying a deeply buried well-defended target, such as a nuclear weapons facility? Admittedly, I was using the word "useful" in a pretty narrow sense.
21: Those countries don't have the U.S. military, and that's why they are stuck with those off-brand languages.
26:Wiki Military Keynesianism, or the despair of Hyman Minsky in the 70s. Of course, Minsky's preference was for a much bigger social state, including ELR. That wasn't what we got.
Some critics, and even some supporters, contend that in the modern world, these policies are no longer viable for developed countries because military strength is now built on high-technology professional armies, and the military is thus no longer viable as a source of employment of last resort for uneducated young people.
Milton Friedman and Nixon made sure of that.
The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is to have a good guy with a gun in every school. Everywhere in the world.
Honestly, a huge fraction of the US seems happy with commentary and political rhetoric that treats all Muslims as an indistinguishable mass enemy. It's pretty hard to respond to that with short sentences made of small words.
One substantive response might be that neither Yemen nor Mali can manage to build something as complex as a motorcycle, and Chinese jet engines are shit, apparently requiring much, much more frequent maintenance than their Soviet templates. The US is a blind giant.
Less glibly, post WWII, the USSR was the reason for the size of the military. 27% of budget in 1989 to 17% in 1996, 21% now. Cutting the military by 20% from current levels would sure be nice.
Really, I don't understand why we need to be spending more than, say, the next largest military in the world (plus some percentage if you're going to be tense about it). What has being an empire ever done for us?
Add in the DOE's weapons spending, the VA, the cost of pensions and benefits...
I think I see a way to cut costs!
Right. 9 is what I'm picturing, too - something about how we're free here at the US because we're successfully beating back all the threats, abroad.
And the opposite is also true - those decadent countries in Europe can afford to have health care and pensions and sleep soundly at night because rough men from America stand ready to spend trillions of dollars visiting violence on those who would harm them.
33:Don't be so selfish.
It was the white man's burden to give the Japanese their word for fuck.
re: 35
I've had that parroted back at me almost verbatim, more than once. Coming as I do from a notoriously fighting-averse country with no history of military involvement anywhere (sshhh, ajay), I could see their point.
rough men from America
And my niece the Marine! I will say that whatever you think of the military, basic training does wonders for making a young person look healthy and fit.
Everyone should read the link in 2 before commenting further.
More broadly, while I very much agree that bloated military spending would be a good "free" place to look for budget cuts if we were to make budget cuts (which we probably shouldn't be doing now, anyway, but whatever) the basic role of our military right now is to maintain a global Pax Americana through the total dominance of a single world empire that constrains large scale wars or at least relegates them to the far margins of the world economy (eg, the Congo). That requires an army that's massively bigger than anyone else combined, but it also has (so far in global relative terms) effectively preserved world peace through empire since 1945 and especially since 1991. There has been relative peace and prosperity with the world effectively dominated by the US military. Whether that same world peace could be maintained with a much smaller US Army is an interesting question, and we probably don't reap as much benefit from the Pax Americana as countries who get the full benefit of the pax but don't have to pay for the guns. But that's the plausible reason for having a giant American army, and the strategic question involved in having one, not fantasies about the bare minimum for national self defense.
notoriously fighting-averse country with no history of military involvement anywhere
What, after all, does one expect from a bunch of men in pleated skirts?
33. Seriously? The US imports oil from the rest of the world, and frequently negotiates trade agreements (we export very expensive weapons, lots of them, keep out other countries' produce) on pretty favorable terms. We do not take for example Mexico's concerns about water in the Rio Grande or human rights abuses here at all seriously, and interfere very heavily in the foreign affairs of central America.
The largest recipient of US foreign aid, Israel, is a choice vacation destination of US religious fanatics, who are welcomed there with open arms. If for some reason americans took an interest in Greek ruins or some foreign export besides petroleum, there would be an exchange of money and power to ensure satisfied Americans.
Chomsky out, I guess.
41: Those all seem like fairly meager benefits, if we take how any other developed country manages to cope as a baseline.
39: Here's where I get into feeling naive. But what's the concrete evidence that the world is a more peaceful place than it would be if our military weren't so outsized?
36: It's because it was a trick. The importation of the word "fuck" is the main cause in the collapse of the Japanese birth rate.
5 to 43 in reference to 39, amended "toldja".
I've always felt that the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans do an excellent job of keeping America safe, and are the primary reasons that there hasn't been a significant foreign invasion since 1814.
it also has (so far in global relative terms) effectively preserved world peace through empire since 1945 and especially since 1991. There has been relative peace and prosperity with the world effectively dominated by the US military.
There's no evidence that a world dominated by a single power is more peaceful than one with multiple roughly equivalent powers.
41: Interfering in central America doesn't need a huge army. The US has been doing it for the last century and more, including the bits where it had a tiny army.
The correlation between US aid and US visitors is very far from perfect. The commonest destinations are, in order:
Canada
Mexico
UK
France
Italy
Dom. Rep.
Germany
Jamaica
PRC
Spain
Israel is 14th on that list.
43.1 I can't tell if this is sarcasm or not, sorry, am playing it straight. Cheap oil is really important outside of crowded big cities, in which economic activity per unit of energy is much higher than in the countryside. The material standard of living in the US is much higher than in most of the rest of the world; bigger houses, bigger cars, more luxury goods. The only other places that could build say, Phoenix, are other oil exporting countries.
Even if the tasteless McMansions and new cars are not important to the urbanites who write here, they are to very important to demographically typical Americans, and any threat to those benefits is a threat to lifestyle, something people here will take personally.
Canada
Mexico
UK
France
Italy
Dom. Rep.
Holy cats! I think the vast majority of tourism trips to the Dom. Rep. are to the Punta Cana beach area that's close to Puerto Rico. I had no idea that many people went there.
they are to very important to demographically typical Americans
Demographically typical Americans don't tend to have much experience of either McMansions or new cars.
49: A whole lot of boomeranging immigrants, largely living in my neighborhood. I probably know five people who live in NY and own land in the DR.
49: it is an extremely weird place, almost entirely disconnected from the rest of the country.
47.1 Agreed.
47.last Red state visitors please.
51: not in Punta Cana. That's all briskly manhandled package tourists shuffling through cruddy all-inclusive resorts. It's basically like somebody glued several dozen cruise ships to the coast.
Everyone should read the link in 2 before commenting further.
Why should we view military spending as relative to GDP?
The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is to have a good guy with a gun in every school. Everywhere in the world.
That sounds about right, common wisdom-wise.
There has been relative peace and prosperity with the world effectively dominated by the US military.
"Relative" does a lot of work here. If you assume that the natural state of humanity is World War, then maybe there has been relative peace.
Even if we assume that it was a massive military - and not a nuclear deterrent - that kept the Russkis from invading Germany, the threat to Germany seems to have subsided.
Heh, I just noticed some guy calling himself politicalfootball asking the same question in the first comment over there.
55: because it's a good way of making it look smaller compared to what it used to be.
Demographically typical Americans don't tend to have much experience of either McMansions or new cars.
Yes but arguments as thought they had them are appealing. Isn't there some quote about how working class Americans view themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires?
49: A whole lot of boomeranging immigrants, largely living in my neighborhood. I probably know five people who live in NY and own land in the DR.
But then wouldn't you also see other big sources of immigrants on the list, like Colombia and the Philippines? With Dom. Rep. right next to Jamaica I think tourism is swamping the family-based travel.
50. I do not think that's true, either as lived experience, or as an aspiration that most view as realizable. My point is that cheap energy creates a lifestyle that many people want, and which they are unhappy to see threatened. Phoenix is growing and Cleveland isn't.
61: Oh, probably -- the family travel is just very salient for me.
But what's the concrete evidence that the world is a more peaceful place than it would be if our military weren't so outsized?
I don't really know, but I would guess that in a world that wasn't US-dominated, most other countries would take other measures to address their security -- higher military spending, possibly more nuclear weapons, more robust alliances and coalitions, possibly an expanded role for the UN. It's hard to know how that would have played out.
The relative peace and prosperity - which does exist - could just as well be ascribed to the UN, and the general growth in international institutions for settling interstate disputes in peaceful ways.
It's very useful to look up just how many international organsiations the UK (for example) is a member of.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_the_United_Kingdom#International_organisation_membership
Virtually all of those are post-1945 institutions. None of them existed a century ago. And they all have the purpose of binding countries into a framework where disagreements are resolved by peaceful negotiation or arbitration or reference to an agreed set of rules.
This is stuff that, a lot of the time, we used to do with gunboats.
55: That astute question was posed by an insightful commenter on that site.
"In the absence of the US, other countries would spend more on the military" is a tricky one to address. In the absence of a general atmosphere of peace and prosperity, yes. But China and Iran are certainly not benefitting from a US security umbrella - they are explicitly preparing to face a direct attack by the US! - and they both spend less - as a percentage of GDP, and per capita - than the US does.
66: Oops, pwned in my discussion of pwnage.
Yeah, 64 is right, and 65 is a plausible counter-theory. On the other hand the record of multipolar peace preservation among more roughly equivalent armed states, or much of 1648-1945, is not on the whole great, so you need some argument that the world has changed (economically, through international institutions, culturally, whatever) such that a world of multiple more closely equivalent powers wouldn't matter much anymore for peace, even if there were problems in the past. And this isn't exactly an area where you can run controlled experiments, so we'll never "know", and also one where the consequences for getting things wrong are catastrophic.
Catastrophic in both directions, unfortunately. The resources being wasted on unnecessary military spending are desperately needed elsewhere.
Yeah, come on, Halford. Just imagine how much bacon we could buy with that military budget. And if we had a lot fewer soldiers but they were all at the peak of caveman health? That'd keep our enemies at bay.
Well, we could afford both something loke our current military (which, as I say, there are lots of obvious reasons to cut) and a vigorous social welfare state, but we don't because rich idiots.
If you assume that the natural state of humanity is World War, then maybe there has been relative peace.
Looking at history it's pretty clear that the natural state of humanity is regular brutal warfare with occasional interludes of peace. Even with the Pax Americana in place there has not been a single year in my lifetime during which there was not a war of some sort somewhere on the planet. Fighting comes naturally to humans.
Opportunity cost aside, the argument in 69 doesn't really give a guideline for the optimal size. Maybe we could accomplish the same results with half our current military. Maybe we could discourage the remaining global conflicts if we double it. Who knows?
And a serious effort to combat climate change and and and. That's the problem with things like Cheney's 1% doctrine -- there's not one direction to be cautious in, getting things wrong is equally problematic regardless of the direction of error.
the record of multipolar peace preservation among more roughly equivalent armed states, or much of 1648-1945, is not on the whole great
There's research (from the Correlates of War project, IIRC) suggesting that unipolar worlds are not actually any more peaceful than multipolar ones. Periods where one state had far more warmaking power than any other are generally just as violent as periods where you had three or four with roughly equal power.
60: "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires."
But were any of those unipolar powers America? We're the first country in the history of the world with freedom, you know. Thanks to The Troops.
Looking at history it's pretty clear that the natural state of humanity is regular brutal warfare with occasional interludes of peace.
If you read Steven Pinker and his sources, the natural state of humanity is constant warfare on a level we can barely imagine. 25% of all deaths are violent deaths in pre-state societies. That's World War levels.
My guess, which I'm sure you all are were eagerly awaiting, as to why peace has become more prevalent is that we've had a good run of economic growth, and there was a bit of a dynamic lag for political institutions and international relations to catch up to the new realities and break their old habits.
There aren't any recorded periods of history when everybody just decided to take long naps?
This does not make me optimistic about our future, though.
I am prepared to argue, with the full weight of my advanced degrees backing me up, that the world has changed considerably since 1648.
83: Maybe that's right. Gandhi said something like that, right? -- that history was all about those times when people killed each other, but there were many more times when people managed to get along, and not as much was written about that, because everyone was too busy taking nice long naps.
There's a lot of Keynes in there. Our senior senator, running for re-election, will move heaven and earth to keep open the airbase where Minuteman missiles are maintained. Not only does the city where the base is located need the thing, but the small town shopkeepers between the base and the silos live for the weekly visits of traveling crews.
In an email today, the senator said he's embracing an effort to get a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United.
I hear also that our military is heading for a pretty substantial RIF.
Fighting comes naturally to humans.
Phooey. Peace also comes naturally to humans, and is a much more common state, even in the Pinker/Hobbes state of nature. The question is: What sorts of arrangements tend to promote the natural human tendency toward peaceful interaction?
84: I'll say. Have you tried finding someone who knows how to properly gopher a ruff lately?
There's a lot of Keynes in there.
This, as you are probably aware, is an inappropriate invocation of Keynes, whose position on government spending didn't really involve ongoing expenditures of this sort. And yes, IMBSALB.
(Malmstrom AFB has 3,600 active duty military, and over 6,000 reservists attached, a very big deal in a town of some 25,000 households.)
Napping also comes naturally to humans. I'm with peep on this one.
(But less than piffle, obviously, in the big picture.)
88: Both fighting and peaceful cooperation come naturally to humans, in varying proportion depending on a bunch of variables. Cooperation or mutual indifference are a non problem. I agree that your question is important and would be interested in hearing what your attempt at an answer is, realizing full well that a complete answer isn't really possible at the moment.
But less than piffle, obviously, in the big picture.
I feel like I should use this as some sort of personal epigraph. It's really a shame that nobody has business cards anymore.
Nobody who isn't also a tuff mudder, I mean.
I believe that 78 is not generally accepted political science, and that most experts believe some version of unilateral hegemony=relative stability and peace. But I'm not expert on this stuff and haven't read in the literature in many years, putting aside whether or not you think that literature has important things to say.
Perhaps, to help the political scientists out, we could perform an experiment and disarm.
Actually I think it should be possible to cut defense spending quite a bit, without incurring any real risk. Because our current level of military spending is a luxury, not a necessity. We have lots of stuff we will hardly ever need. (Unless we are really serious about fighting a war with China. But for purposes of deterrence, we could get by with much less, and people would still be afraid.) Also we could save some money by making fewer mistakes, like not invading Iraq unnecessarily.
And I agree with 100 (again, without making any claims to expertise or knowledge about exactly what projects are purely "luxuries" on any theory).
80: My guess, which I'm sure you all are were eagerly awaiting, as to why peace has become more prevalent is that we've had a good run of economic growth
Yeah, it's really tempting to go for that explanation, and to further suggest that US military hegemony has done quite a bit to secure that growth, to grease the wheels of commerce to our benefit -- but you gotta wonder who "we" are here. Western economies have been doing great, but the areas of the world currently in extreme turmoil are a bit more in question. Dictatorships of various kinds had kept things at bay for some time -- dictators supported by the US.
Somewhat related, Richard Engel, the NBC reporter who's constantly reporting excellently from areas of turmoil, was speaking recently to the effect that the US's shift from the status quo in northern Africa is partly to blame for the chaos there. I'm winding up quoting this at mild length.
MR. ENGEL: This-- the drone policy has spread all over the world. And that is sort of what we're known-- known by best. And to the Arab Spring, the United States was not a passive observer in this. Yes, a fruit vendor in Tunisia set himself on fire. Yes, there was social media that helped spread this-- this enthusiasm for change. But the United States did turn its back on Mubarak in Egypt. And I think we're going to look back and see that as one of the most important decisions that President Obama ever made.
MR. AXELROD: And-- and, you know...
MR. ENGEL: And we're not sure if it was the right one or not.
MR. AXELROD: I-- I am deeply respectful of you and your experience and like everyone happy to see you sitting at this table. But do you believe that we could hold back the tide of history that if the United States had made a different decision that ultimately...
MR. ENGEL: Yes.
MR. AXELROD: ...those forces wouldn't...
MR. ENGEL: I think it-- it wouldn't have happened. Syria wouldn't have happened. The revolution in Libya would have started, and the rebels would have lost. Things would have been very different had that decision not been taken. Was it the right decision, was it the wrong decision, I don't think we know yet. But it was a very pivotal decision.
(It's kind of interesting to see Axelrod spluttering to hear Engel say that the US may have fucked up in dissing Mubarak, who'd been a US ally/client for, what, 30 years? The other commentators do a bit of stuttering and ahem-ing as well.)
My point, though, is that economic prosperity for some only secures overall global peace (relatively!) when we stomp on those who aren't benefiting, and that stomping is managed through military might, or the threat of its use.
God this is depressing.
An even distribution of political, economic, and military capabilities between contending groups of states is likely to increase the probability of war; peace is preserved best when there is an imbalance of national capabilities between disadvantaged and advantaged nations; the aggressor will come from a small group of dissatisfied strong countries; and it is the weaker, rather than the stronger; power that is most likely to be the aggressor.
constrains large scale wars or at least relegates them to the far margins of the world economy (eg, the Congo). That requires an army that's massively bigger than anyone else combined, but it also has (so far in global relative terms) effectively preserved world peace through empire since 1945
It blows my mind how provincial even educated Americans are when they talk about the world. The Iran-Iraq war, an 8 year war with something like 1.5 million casualties happening right next to the world's major oil supply route, that's preserving peace everywhere but the 'far margins' of the world? See also three Vietnamese wars, the Korean war, the two Gulf Wars, several India-Pakistan wars, Afghanistan, etc. Or are the 'far margins' everythere that isn't the U.S., Europe, or Canada?
Seriously, this claim does seem to rest on the world wars as a comparison, which is not totally unsensible given the stakes of those wars. But the absence of world wars seems to me much more about the huge nuclear deterrent than the rest of our military forces, and you have to add in some terrifying close calls that would have resulted in hundreds of millions of casualties (e.g. Cuba).
"In the absence of the US, other countries would spend more on the military" is a tricky one to address. In the absence of a general atmosphere of peace and prosperity, yes. But China and Iran are certainly not benefitting from a US security umbrella - they are explicitly preparing to face a direct attack by the US! - and they both spend less - as a percentage of GDP, and per capita - than the US does.
Conversely, Saudi Arabia which used to benefit from an explicit US security umbrella and still benefits from an implicit one to some degree,spends huge amounts on its military.
The other problem with the 'we deter world war!' justification is that it leads to perpetually refighting the last world war. In this case, replaying Munich/deterring Hitler in your mind as the guiding narrative of what national defense is about. Other forms of war -- most notably asymmetrical warfare by nations/communities aggrieved by how you throw your weight around -- are ignored. The attempt to maintain unipolar status leads to all kinds of bullying behavior and proxy wars, and in the era of WMDs we are only beginning to understand how destabilizing that can be.
Also, the link in 99 is interesting and all but let's not start mistaking 'International Relations' for a science.
Semi-OT ||
This is fascinating. (25 min. video, but 5 gives you the flavour of it.)
|> Does the US military budget as published also include that kind of thing?
The attempt to maintain unipolar status leads to all kinds of bullying behavior and proxy wars
I've noticed that.
105 is exactly why I said "post 1991." Obviously, Korea and Vietnam were proxy wars, or more precisely civil wars that got dramatically more violent due to blundering by both superpowers. Iran-Iraq is exactly the kind of war you (might) expect to see more of in a more multipolar world, and was notable for being a rare situation in which both existing superpowers didn't care about the outcome and wanted both sides to lose.
both existing superpowers didn't care about the outcome and wanted both sides to lose.
Wrong. At least in the early stages Iraq was heavily subsidised by the US who hoped their tame secular dictator, Saddam, would kibosh the Islamic revolution (which they were hostile to because they had supported the Shah). The Russians therefore reflexively supported Iran.
I've always been confused about who these new multipolar powers are going to be, i mean presumably we are talking about first world industrial states and they are mostly our allies who were constantly pressuring to have larger militaries. Or how the united states would plausibly stop them anyways, we can plausibly lose a war with the Taliban, how are we going to stop France from rearming.
Well, yes and no. The history of Iran-Iraq is complicated. The US clearly didn't want Iran to win (in that sense, my "care about the outcome" was clearly wrong, apologies for shorthanding) but it also didn't want Iraq to "win" in any significant sense, having long before supported the Shah precisely in part to limit Iraq, hence Kissinger's famous dictum about the war. In any event it was a war that in important ways happened outside of the regular cold war/proxy war state system, because of the Iranian revolution, and I think (for purposes of this discussion) provides a window into the kinds of wars you might see more of in a more multipolar world.
112 -- I think the question is "why would France want to rearm"? That question gets answered differently in a world in which there are many different players, each with a more equal distribution of power.
Although in fact France is AFAICT pretty dang heavily armed for its size already, largely for reasons of national pride and post-imperial imperialism.
113. last. Yeah. Basically the category of "some damn silly thing in the Balkans" (Bismark). The other main flashpoints (apart from the Balkans) today are Kashmir and the South China Sea.
113: I really disagree with this analysis. The Iran-Iraq war was to a significant degree about preventing a regionally dominant power from emerging in the ME that the U.S. did not trust. It therefore strikes me as precisely the kind of proxy war that powers trying to maintain unipolar status will fight. I think there is surprisingly little discontinuity in U.S. grand strategy before and after the fall of the Soviet Union because the strategy to maintain dominance in your 'sphere of influence' in a bipolar world just gets ported over into a strategy to maintain total dominance over the entire world once the Soviets are gone. And it can be pursued with less inhibition without an opposing power. So I think Halford's line at 1991 is misguided.
I've always been confused about who these new multipolar powers are going to be
I doubt it's France in isolation. Some of the actors would be (are already?) multistate consortiums: NATO, whose compact includes the proposition that a threat against one is to be treated as a threat against all. There's always China, a single actor. The African Union has some clout in the UN.
Where bending the will of other nations is concerned, I really have a difficult time distinguishing between military might and economic and diplomatic might. People haven't fucked with South America in some time (since the US got itself into multiple embarrassments there), and that's not because they have awesome military power but because they've increasingly entered into global economic arrangements. I think that's why, at least.
108: Floaty hair is cool and all, but wouldn't it be more pragmatic to tie it back? I mean, I can't imagine there are a lot of space station components that benefit from getting hair lodged or snagged in them.
118: I think there is surprisingly little discontinuity in U.S. grand strategy before and after the fall of the Soviet Union because the strategy to maintain dominance in your 'sphere of influence' in a bipolar world just gets ported over into a strategy to maintain total dominance over the entire world once the Soviets are gone
I quite agree with this. I thought all that was obvious.
97: I believe that 78 is not generally accepted political science
69 it was fine, you say, but by 79, it's gonna be mine, I say. 71 rang the knell, 72 we went through hell, 73 & 74 only gave us more. Bloody bloody bloody bore. But now it's here, our new year: It's gonna be 78 revolutions a minute!
There's little discontinuity in the sense of "the US has maintained a relatively large army" (though much smaller than that at issue in Korea or Vietnam. There's a huge amount of change in the nature of warfare and inter- and intra-state conflict you see all over the world.
||
Well, while the rest of you play Risk
The Nightmare that is the Obama economy pt 1
The numbers startle even labor economists. In the United States, half the 7.5 million jobs lost during the Great Recession were in industries that pay middle-class wages, ranging from $38,000 to $68,000. But only 2 percent of the 3.5 million jobs gained since the recession ended in June 2009 are in midpay industries. Nearly 70 percent are in low-pay industries, 29 percent in industries that pay well.In the 17 European countries that use the euro as their currency, the numbers are even worse. Almost 4.3 million low-pay jobs have been gained since mid-2009, but the loss of midpay jobs has never stopped. A total of 7.6 million disappeared from January 2008 through last June.
Pay zero attention to the unemployment numbers, or economists who focus on it.
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119: People haven't fucked with South America in some time
What about Plan Colombia and the US-backed Venezuelan coup attempt? I'm not sure that "hasn't been fucked with" is really the right way to characterize this question. While it's true that there haven't been high-intensity conflicts at the level of the Falklands War, and while it is true that Brazil and the oil-producers wield a considerable amount of power, I don't think you can make a very strong case that colonialism is a dead issue in South America. No, the US is probably not going to invade any S. American countries anytime soon, but we're still doing a lot of the same kinds of things we've been doing all along under the Monroe Doctrine.
I don't think you can make a very strong case that colonialism is a dead issue in South America
Heck no, I wouldn't try to make that case. Are we still engaging in covert operations to support/not-support/overthrow various leaders there? On one level, we obviously can't know as yet; but there seems to be an increased level of autonomy there. That's all I meant.
The B-2 bomber is not only very expensive but also bad news for model airplane hobbyists. As Nicolson Baker points out:
The Cold War has moved from the upper atmosphere of spy photography to the wind tunnel, and aerodynamic drag has effectively replaced the Soviet Union as the infinitely resourceful enemy. But drag, unwelcome though it is to the airplane designer, is everything to the plastic-model enthusiast, because drag means rivets, knobs, wires, hinges, visible missiles, sensors, gun blisters - all those encrustations that inspire study, and make imitation difficult enough to be worthwhile.
He goes on to argue - successfully in my view - that since the B-2 (and other geometrically pure military hardware) has as its highest purpose the preservation of such freedoms as the freedom of the model airplane hobbyist to pursue his or her special recreation, the B-2 ironically fails in its mission. At least to some degree.
BTW, this Yair Lapid thing seems to be great news, no? At least relatively great?
Re 128: Not long after 9-11 a Nighthawk stealth fighter flew over our house. It was totally weird looking and very loud. Sobering.
Also, re the model builders, if the B-2 failed its mission of protecting freedom, Old Ironsides (U.S.S. Constitution) was an outstanding success as a ship model. As a middle schooler I tried to build the big Revell model with the yucky plastic sails and it took me forever to finish about 3/4 of it. Added bonus - glue and enamel fumes.
130: Better than expected, anyway.
Zahava Gal-On, leader of Meretz, (actual leftist party) on Lapid
I haven't heard any ideological statement from Yair Lapid, and he also has no intention of being a mere MK. Right away he appointed himself as party head. This attests to the cheapening of politics − the fact that people who don't come with a record of accomplishments or a clearly stated position think that it's enough for them to quote all sorts of lines that suit the consensus, and that they'll succeed that way.
Er if we're looking for reasons there's been no general European war in the past 60 years, isn't the EU a pretty awesome candidate?
And comparatively speaking, US military spending not really at all? In fact I'd go as far as to say US military spending has been a major contributor to world instability.
Talking of EU and war should include Yugoslavia. It's very nice that France, Germany, and the rest of the EU-27 cooperate. I think the EU is a consequence rather than a cause of a collective desire for peace.
Isn't the post-Yugo Balkans an awesome ad for the EU? There was a brutal, genocidal sectarian war on the doorstep of Europe, and er, nothing much happened! No general war this time round! Everyone else kept their noses clean, apart from a few bombing runs at 40,000 feet. And then we put the criminals in front of a court.
Will allowing women in combat roles erode the prestige of the military so much that it can be seriously cut?
oops, should've followed the link in 129.
137 is correct. Previous Balkan dust-ups have not gone well for the rest of Europe.
133: European Great Power rivalry ended because of the needs of the anti-Soviet military alliance. The EU was an outcome of this, not a cause.
Er, and then after the Soviet threat dissipated we reverted to Great Power rivalry?
Also note that the French pulled out of the anti-Soviet military alliance under de Gaulle; apparently the fear of the Russki wasn't enough to keep the French in line.
Which is to say that while the establishment of the various multilateral institutions may have been driven by a perceived need to maintain unity in the face of Russia, they have continued to do so even in circumstances beyond those they were set up to handle. They are both outcomes and causes.
Also note that the French pulled out of the anti-Soviet military alliance under de Gaulle; apparently the fear of the Russki wasn't enough to keep the French in line.
France pulled out of the unified command structure, but it never left the alliance. France remained and remains party to the collective defense compact (an attack on one is an attack on all).
they have continued to do so even in circumstances beyond those they were set up to handle
Arguably due (largely) to unipolar American military power. That's the argument, anyway.
There was also a perceived need not to go through another goddamned World War.
142.last simplifies way too much, to be fair -- I should say that I argue that de Gaulle tried to pull out of the alliance, but found that the ties of multilateralism went too deep to make it possible. Which is an argument for the EU etc acting as checks on the recurrence of great power rivalry.
137. No. It's very nice that the war didn't spread, and possibly the disaster in Yugoslavia tempered Tudjman and Meciar when they needed to be reined in. The bombing runs which ended the war were not European, and only a few criminals were tried.
Probably not a topic that's all that interesting, but claiming peace in europe as a consequence of the EU without thinking through the counterexample seems pretty unconvincing to me.
France also maintained troops in Germany up to the end of the Cold War as part of the anti-Soviet deterrent -- though there was an aspect of suppressed Great Power rivalry at work there as well (recalling the old saw about the mission of NATO: "To keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down".)
148 --- it's not a claim that peace in Europe is a consequence of the EU in the sense that somehow the EU appeared magically and we've been benefiting from the magic ever since. It's a claim that multilateral institutions designed to prevent war in fact work to prevent war in the long term.
145 --- also note that US unipolarity didn't stop the Falklands conflict. There's something a bit awkward about a Pax Americana which doesn't actually work.
OMG I forgot about THE FALKLANDS. All right, I've already gotten into trouble about that one once.
It's just that was a case where you'd expect US unipolarity to prevent war, and it turned out the US was pretty much incompetent at it. (Kirkpatrick at the UN would be hilarious if it wasn't so depressing.)
(Leaving aside, of course, the couple of times the nuclear deterrent strategy almost led to world-blowing-upness.)
The bombing runs which ended the war were not European
O rly? In Bosnia, the army that marched to Sarajevo was the British 24th Airmobile Brigade and a French GTIA, and most of the air support was Italian F-16s or British or French Jaguars.
In Kosovo, the airpower came from all over NATO, including a lot of American aircraft, but also the Dutch, Norwegians, Germans, French, Italians, etc etc. Had the ground war started, the British army was on point and the eventual move forward was held up 24 hours to let the US Marines catch up.
144: The French very much didn't quit the alliance; they planned for fighting the Russians, kept an army in southern Germany, and re-badged their staff posts at SHAPE and NATO HQ as the French military mission. They further stayed in a lot of naval and air force bilateral planning.
That said, this thread is a proud achievement of sensible.
154 yeah, you're right --- watch me walk that one back in 142...
67
... But China and Iran are certainly not benefitting from a US security umbrella ...
Iran I will grant you but China? China like Japan seems to be doing pretty well.
50
Demographically typical Americans don't tend to have much experience of either McMansions or new cars.
Maybe not McMansions but I believe the median house in the US is larger than most other places. As is car ownership (even if not new cars specifically although I think the median American probably buys a new car at some point in their life).
47
There's no evidence that a world dominated by a single power is more peaceful than one with multiple roughly equivalent powers.
It certainly seems plausible. Would the US be as peaceful if it was 50 separate countries?
33
... What has being an empire ever done for us?
Most of the US was militarily conquered from other claimants.
You know all these gun nuts in my facebook feed who argue that the 2nd amendment is giving them the right to protect themselves against the US military? You'd think they'd be in favor of rolling back military spending. After all, they're not going to defend themselves very successfully against unmanned drones, no matter how many clips in the magazine.
128: if Nicholson Baker thinks that the B-2 is the shape it is because it has to be streamlined then he is a complete idiot and not worth listening to. (Also, it didn't really help preserve freedom during the Cold War because it wasn't in service until 1997.)
also note that US unipolarity didn't stop the Falklands conflict.
The US was not, in 1982, a unipolar power. Different bits of the US government wanted different sides to win. In a sense, the Falklands conflict was a proxy war, part of the larger and longer-running conflict between the US government and itself.
164.last is SO GOOD.
(Also dear god I have been having far too many anoraky conversations this week; worst was argument over the form and cost of a Scottish Defence Force of all things.)
I think the EU is a consequence rather than a cause of a collective desire for peace.
Considering that the whole European project was started in the 1950ties by French and German leaders eager to tie the two countries together to avoid repeats of '14-18 and '39-45, no, you got that entirely the wrong way around.
I would advise the Republic of Scotland to take a leaf from the book of a Danish libertarian of the 1980s whose name I've forgotten, and replace the armed forces with a loop tape saying "We surrender".
Personally I wouldn't even bother with the loop tape. The SNP line on this one is surprisingly far over to the lets-have-a-SOTTISH-army*, it's a bit depressing. (What does the SNP say about Kuwait? It's Scotland's oil!)
* with the old regiments back in some cases, it's kinda weirdly Tory.
Fourteen militarised oil rigs, two flotillas of armed trawlers (based in Peterhead and Loch Ewe respectively) and the Rangers Supporters' Club.
Aren't there laws against letting Old Firm fans loose on unsuspecting warfighters?
If they're going to bring back the old regiments, they need to go the whole hog and bring back the Cameronians. I think the time is right for a military unit that descends directly from the Covenant. (And whose regimental march was "The Sash".)
Definitely bring back the Cameronians; you could simply rename the Rangers Supporters Club. Which defunct regiment would the Bhoys join?
The Highland Cyclist Battalion, obviously.
...well, not obviously, but it needs resurrecting.
