Without a military or nuclear weapons, what is preventing other countries from taking advantage at the first chance they get?
Criticize the U.S. all you want. But the country is full of valuable resources that other countries want. Take away the U.S.'s ability to defend themselves and the risk of foreign nations taking advantage will spike dramatically. Nukes are basically the ultimate “don’t even think about it” sign.
sorry full of valuable resources? what, corn? dataservers? pedophiles?
the U.S. is not some piggy bank waiting to be cracked. Realistically, the current US military exists to defend America from all the nations it’s pissed off by invading them in the past. It’s a self-fullfilling system.
I’m talking about big oil and gas production, food and farmland, massive agricultural output and the ability to export it at scale, freshwater and arable land (underappreciated, but increasingly strategic as climate stress rises elsewhere), minerals (some, not all).
And don’t forget non natural resources the U.S. has like:
Capital markets: Deep, liquid markets that can fund governments and companies. Money is a resource; the U.S. is one of the main wells.
technology and IP: Advanced R&D, software, aerospace, biotech, semiconductors design, and the companies that sit on them.
Security alliances and military reach: Not a resource in nature, but it functions like one. i
It shapes trade routes, deters threats, and sets terms.
The world’s reserve currency system: Being able to transact, borrow, and settle trade in USD is a kind of meta-resource. Others want access to it more than they want a mine.
That bundle is why the U.S. stays permanently relevant, for better and worse.
If you have nukes and are the only sick fucks ever top use it why do you need to ‘defend’ yourself everywhere in the world unprovoked.
get fucked with your BS. You’re parroting regime propaganda.
Even they at least became less hypocritical in naming it the Dep of War, not defense.
Maybe follow that lead if you want to be a little warcriminal imperialist bootlicker.
Every fucking day there’s some fucker online that makes me despise that cancer country even more.
Absolute scum of the earth
I never specifically said “joining US military is bad”, I said joining the military in general is a bad thing. And neither did I talk about nukes, which are the ultimate evil.
I also never demanded to remove the military capabilities of one country, leaving it open for other countries to attack. I never talked about these things, about balance of power, about mutually assured destruction and all these geostrategic aspects of military logic.
All I said was - if you are a person who joins your country’s military, I despise you. Period. This is a statement I made completely disregarding all these other aspects you mention, and it is completely logically valid on its own.
Correct. You never demanded to remove the military capabilities of one country.
I said “I wonder what would happen if we didn’t have a military”, and you made a comment about the little girl’s backpack. I followed up with a counter argument.
You failed to get the point I was making. Just because the military is a driving factor to technological progress, doesn’t mean it’s a good thing all of a sudden. And all that progress could also have been made by science. Wernher von Braun didn’t care who funded his research into rockets.
Thats the trick. If a country doesn’t have a military and they have something like resources other countries want. The become puppets of the countries that have militaries. The exceptions are small countries that don’t have enough of anything anyone wants for others to bother taking it. They don’t tend to do so well usually.
Correct. If there is one, then others have to exist to balance them out. Only with none can we all exist without militaries. And that really should be a goal.
Yeah i’m sure it’s a curse, and not centuries of colonialism, imperialism, uneven trade etc etc.
The Third World is not poor. You don’t go to poor countries to make money. There are very few poor countries in this world. Most countries are rich! The Philippines are rich! Brazil is rich! Mexico is rich! Chile is rich—only the people are poor. But there’s billions to be made there, to be carved out, and to be taken—there’s been billions for 400 years! The Capitalist European and North American powers have carved out and taken the timber, the flax, the hemp, the cocoa, the rum, the tin, the copper, the iron, the rubber, the bauxite, the slaves, and the cheap labour. They have taken out of these countries—these countries are not underdeveloped—they’re overexploited!
The “resource curse” is just people trying to pretend imperialism isn’t responsible. Norway has plenty of oil and they have a high quality of life, because nobody invaded them.
Plenty of these countries had leaders who wanted to use their resources to help the people, but the powers that be, most often the US, didn’t want that. And so for example Mohammed Mossadegh of Iran, a peaceful, democratically elected progressive, was overthrown by the CIA, and he was replaced by a monarch who could be easily bribed and would use the oil to enrich himself. And when that monarch caved to domestic pressure and participated in an oil embargo, US support was withdrawn and he was overthrown and the current government came to power.
There’s no “mystery” or “curse.” It’s just imperialism. The story generally goes that these resources were stolen by force during colonialism and remained in foreign hands after independence and the country still functions as a neocolony, leading to poverty and exploitation, or war and instability if they challenge it.
Very much so. So ewhere there is a balance of having enough to be a stable country, but not so much to draw attention. But it’s a very small point to balance on.
I wonder what would happen if we didn’t have a military at all
but think of the stock market!
This is what I look like when listening to the new Gorillaz album.
What kind of fantasy world are you living in?
Ah, I see. So when the U.S. bombs another country, it’s genocide. But if someone does it to the U.S. it’s a good thing? Got it.
Wont someone please consider the genociders??
I prefer that even more
We wouldn’t see images like the Iranian girl’s rucksack smeared with blood.
Good point. But let me ask you this:
Without a military or nuclear weapons, what is preventing other countries from taking advantage at the first chance they get?
Criticize the U.S. all you want. But the country is full of valuable resources that other countries want. Take away the U.S.'s ability to defend themselves and the risk of foreign nations taking advantage will spike dramatically. Nukes are basically the ultimate “don’t even think about it” sign.
sorry full of valuable resources? what, corn? dataservers? pedophiles?
the U.S. is not some piggy bank waiting to be cracked. Realistically, the current US military exists to defend America from all the nations it’s pissed off by invading them in the past. It’s a self-fullfilling system.
I’m talking about big oil and gas production, food and farmland, massive agricultural output and the ability to export it at scale, freshwater and arable land (underappreciated, but increasingly strategic as climate stress rises elsewhere), minerals (some, not all).
And don’t forget non natural resources the U.S. has like:
Capital markets: Deep, liquid markets that can fund governments and companies. Money is a resource; the U.S. is one of the main wells.
technology and IP: Advanced R&D, software, aerospace, biotech, semiconductors design, and the companies that sit on them.
Security alliances and military reach: Not a resource in nature, but it functions like one. i It shapes trade routes, deters threats, and sets terms.
The world’s reserve currency system: Being able to transact, borrow, and settle trade in USD is a kind of meta-resource. Others want access to it more than they want a mine.
That bundle is why the U.S. stays permanently relevant, for better and worse.
Your conscience is projecting
If you have nukes and are the only sick fucks ever top use it why do you need to ‘defend’ yourself everywhere in the world unprovoked.
get fucked with your BS. You’re parroting regime propaganda.
Even they at least became less hypocritical in naming it the Dep of War, not defense.
Maybe follow that lead if you want to be a little warcriminal imperialist bootlicker.
Every fucking day there’s some fucker online that makes me despise that cancer country even more.
Absolute scum of the earth
They say ignorance is bliss. It must be nice to be as delusional as you and live in a peaceful hippy dippy little fantasy world.
I never specifically said “joining US military is bad”, I said joining the military in general is a bad thing. And neither did I talk about nukes, which are the ultimate evil.
I also never demanded to remove the military capabilities of one country, leaving it open for other countries to attack. I never talked about these things, about balance of power, about mutually assured destruction and all these geostrategic aspects of military logic.
All I said was - if you are a person who joins your country’s military, I despise you. Period. This is a statement I made completely disregarding all these other aspects you mention, and it is completely logically valid on its own.
Correct. You never demanded to remove the military capabilities of one country.
I said “I wonder what would happen if we didn’t have a military”, and you made a comment about the little girl’s backpack. I followed up with a counter argument.
This is how conversations work.
because we wouldn’t have the internet. the US military contributed significantly to the development of today’s internet.
Would we have the Autobahn if Hitler hadn’t built it?
probably with some time delay, the germans love a good race (/s)
apart from that, the military did some significant research into a lot of technology, including airplanes (and rockets), internet, nuclear energy.
You failed to get the point I was making. Just because the military is a driving factor to technological progress, doesn’t mean it’s a good thing all of a sudden. And all that progress could also have been made by science. Wernher von Braun didn’t care who funded his research into rockets.
they can stick the entire internet up their ass if it’s used to post idiotic exclamations like yours
What do you think the drones are for?
Thats the trick. If a country doesn’t have a military and they have something like resources other countries want. The become puppets of the countries that have militaries. The exceptions are small countries that don’t have enough of anything anyone wants for others to bother taking it. They don’t tend to do so well usually.
It’s a race to the bottom.
So what you’re saying is… superpower nations shouldn’t exist
Correct. If there is one, then others have to exist to balance them out. Only with none can we all exist without militaries. And that really should be a goal.
but they do. And now it is just a game of brinksmanshit
ironically the countries with more natural resources typically have lower quality of life. this is known as the resource curse phenomenon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse
Yeah i’m sure it’s a curse, and not centuries of colonialism, imperialism, uneven trade etc etc.
-Michael Parenti
The “resource curse” is just people trying to pretend imperialism isn’t responsible. Norway has plenty of oil and they have a high quality of life, because nobody invaded them.
Plenty of these countries had leaders who wanted to use their resources to help the people, but the powers that be, most often the US, didn’t want that. And so for example Mohammed Mossadegh of Iran, a peaceful, democratically elected progressive, was overthrown by the CIA, and he was replaced by a monarch who could be easily bribed and would use the oil to enrich himself. And when that monarch caved to domestic pressure and participated in an oil embargo, US support was withdrawn and he was overthrown and the current government came to power.
There’s no “mystery” or “curse.” It’s just imperialism. The story generally goes that these resources were stolen by force during colonialism and remained in foreign hands after independence and the country still functions as a neocolony, leading to poverty and exploitation, or war and instability if they challenge it.
Very much so. So ewhere there is a balance of having enough to be a stable country, but not so much to draw attention. But it’s a very small point to balance on.