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Slava Ukraini
(lemm.ee)
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this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2024
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The society that unilaterally decides it's not interested in war gets conquered by the ones that don't follow along. It's an unfortunate reality, but history is full of civilizations that were largely peaceful and reaped the rewards that come with it, and were predated by other civilizations who kept the hard edge.
Anthony Blinken said "If you're not at the table, you're on the menu.". The US sure lives by the law of the jungle in international relations. Although this has been the case for centuries, this style of foreign policy really got going with WWII. Our country's war materiel production was behind what was necessary at the time to participate in a 2-front global war. Soldiers were training with cardboard weapons, but because we hadn't outsourced our production offshore, we created an economy based on war that was so lucrative for business that that economy has lasted to this day. Such is it that a war economy itself can conquer a nation. Eisenhower warned about this in his farewell address.
There's protecting a country from invasion, and then there's basing a country's whole economy on a continuation of arms sales. The latter provides a perverse incentive to destabilize regions in order to maintain demand for the American arms industry. In the case of defense of the US against invasion, are you honestly suggesting that the country with the highest private gun ownership rate in the world has that to fear in any scenario? Even if we did need a military at all, one that could appropriately be called a department of "defense" would be a tenth of its current size.
I wouldn't suggest that the US is a happy medium for militarism, but the idea that you can melt down all the weapons and somehow maintain your peace in a world where there are characters like Putin is really dangerous.
The US foreign policy serves to create a demand for their arms industry. It's counterproductive to maintaining peace. Drastic changes would need to take place for this to be a possibility. I'm in favor of those changes. The American military industrial complex is a bigger threat to Americans than Putin is. It's certainly a bigger threat to other countries. The US has had no need to be involved in a conflict it's been in for almost 80 years. The military has literally done us no good since Arpanet.
Si vis pacem, para bellum (If you want peace, prepare for war)
If you aren't ready for war, you get conquered by a war monger. If you want to be at peace, you must be ready for war against those who want to conquer.
Are you implying a country whose economy depends on arms sales wants peace?
No, I'm saying that a nation that wants peace still needs to be ready for war, or they end up like Ukraine and are invaded. Ukraine is lucky that there are nations who supported them, because they gave up a lot of their defence for nothing. I didn't mention any specific nation.