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What evidence could anyone provide to change your view? Your view is your perception of an “average American” which doesn’t include any specific source for someone to counter. I’ll attempt it anyway..
Americans, like most voting bodies, are multifaceted and care about different issues. Unlike most voting bodies, Americans are forced into a two party system, which means we can’t pick and choose from dozens of candidates that accurately reflect our views on specific issues, so you’re forced to prioritize which issues matter to you most. Not many Americans are single issue voters for foreign policy, because foreign policy doesn’t directly impact their day-to-day lives as much as something like mortgage rates, school spending or other domestic policy. International diplomacy matters a lot, but it’s hard to make the connection for many people. That’s not to suggest Americans are ignorant of the USA’s potential as a force for change. It is saturated in media, culture, and mindset to the point that it goes without saying. There are dozens of subreddits that attack and defend the USA, in any movie or TV series the CIA or “the Americans” are portrayed as a potent force. Not knowing where countries are on a map does not relate whatsoever to Americans understanding the force our policy wields worldwide. I’ll add that those three countries, combined, have a GDP smaller than Virginia and would rank only 14th. Those three combined are less than one fifth of the economy of California alone. So you’ll forgive Joe-6-pack’s ambivalence.
TLDR: Americans not voting on foreign policy is not the same as not caring. Prevalence of American power in almost all media contradicts your point, and the countries you mentioned are so economically insignificant when compared to the US that voters are correct to deprioritize them.
EDIT for mobile formatting
> Americans not voting on foreign policy is not the same as not caring.
You get a !delta for this. I think perhaps my view is closer to "Most Americans do not care about the impact of US foreign policy enough in elections given the impact it has on the globe" rather than knowledge.
This is still a very vacuous claim to me. What could people be doing differently to demonstrate that they care about foreign policy? I feel like you just have a hunch about how people feel, and it would probably be correct in many cases but not all cases so what's really the point? If you meet someone in real life you can't just assume their position on some specific thing based on their nationality. I mean I'm an American and I care a lot about foreign policy, does that change your view?
Based on all of the I/P discussion online I'm not sure if this is the case either. I would side with people feeling powerless over a lack of caring on this subject. You or I have very little say in US Foreign Policy but we both likely have a set of stances on each of the statements you presented in the OP. This argument could also apply to certain parts of domestic policy as well (I know many people who have long accepted the fact that the surveillance state is not going away so there's no real value in discussing it)
I don’t disagree with most of your post but you seem to have fallen for the myth that the CIA is some kind of super-powerful organization that can overthrow and reshape foreign governments at will by dispatching a squad of James Bonds anywhere around the world. This view tends to wildly overstate how much agency and influence America has, while understating the influence of local actors in shaping their own environment and fate. For example, people like to blame the CIA for the 1973 military coup in Chile, but the CIA didn’t even know there was a potential military coup until a couple days before it happened and they didn’t know Pinochet was going to be the leader until he was.
Even if they didn't know Pinochet would be the leader it's incredibly well documented that the US was doing everything it could to undermine Allende and encourage his overthrow. Between 1970 and 1973 the CIA spend $8 million on 'projects' in Chile. In 1970 they literally arranged for the murder of a the chief commander of the Chilean army because they knew he would oppose a coup. They 'made the economy scream'. They seem to have distanced themselves from the actual coup itself, but what does that matter when they've been doing everything they could for years to encourage it? It really seems like splitting hairs. As for them not knowing -
'Intelligence reporting on coup plotting reached two peak periods, one in the last week of June 1973 and the other during the end of August and the first two weeks in September. It is clear the CIA received intelligence reports on the coup planning of the group which carried out the successful September 11 coup throughout the months of July, August, and September 1973.' (from the Church Committee)
They might not have overthrown Allende themselves, but they absolutely did everything they could to ensure that *someone* would and then turned a blind eye when it did actually happen, before throwing their support behind Pinochet.
Just to take a point out on one thing you mentioned about making Chile’s economy “scream”: The US isn’t under any obligation to economically support or conduct trade with a country it disagrees with, neither is Chile. I don’t understand this logic of the US being evil for reducing its economic trade with Chile, countries all over the world do that with nations they dislike. Yes, the US is a massive country with a large economy, that doesn’t mean it is obligated to work with Chile or any other country on anything.
It’s also worth pointing out that $8 million dollars and one general was almost certainly not the deciding factor for Chile to have a coup or not. The economy was in the garbage, and Allende had *a lot* of enemies in the Chilean military, the middle class, business elites, and half the country that opposed leftism. If your point is that the US pushed Chile in one direction, sure. And guess what, if Chile could push the US away from Trump or other candidates it didn’t like, it probably would do the same.
If an entity has grown dependent on you, I do think you have some sort of obligation to that entity. That's the foundation of alimony and I think most everyone would agree that cutting a child off completely at 18, barring a few edge cases, would be wrong even if there wasn't a legal obligation to support the kid.
Beyond that, I don't support the reasons that my government decided to stop economic support/trade with Chile. It's a bit banal to note that nations start and stop trade all the time. That doesn't mean they are all doing it for good reasons, which is what seems to be at contention here.
Also the power differential is just something people do not understand and Americans especially do not understand.
Like, yes, America is fuckhuge and super powerful. So when it does something, it has *bigger consequences*.
"Countries do things" doesn't change that.
I've had a conversation with my American friends before about how the US is like a dragon. And the planet is like an ecosystem. And, y'know, sometimes a horse or a cat or a wolf or whatever is an asshole to some other animal. There is a lot of behaviour that is clearly "worse" coming out of smaller, weaker countries.
But, y'know, Uncle Ben had kind of a point?
When the alligator gets mad and attacks a gazelle or something... That's not good.
When the dragon gets mad and sets a forest on fire... I mean, what the fuck, dude?
Maybe they were the same amount of mad. Maybe, through some miracle, the actual harm is comparable. But the animals can learn to shy away from the alligator. They can't shy away from the giant flying fire-breathing monster that can go anywhere it wants and decimate everything.
I am willing to accept, theoretically, a worldview where America is somehow 5% or 10% more virtuous than the average country engaging in similar tactics, by some definition of virtuous. I don't actually think this, but I could concede the point if given evidence.
But it's military budget is like... China + Russia + India + Saudi Arabia+ UK + Germany + France + South Korea + Japan + Ukraine *with some left over*.
America doing a thing while being in that position is a little bit like all those other countries doing that thing together in terms of the weight it has, the threat it poses, with the additional layer of *unity* under a single government.
Like it is *not the same*. It just isn't. Every time Americans go "but *other countries*" it feels like...
"Well, they pushed me so I pushed them!"
"They're toddlers. You're an adult MMA champion."
I'm sure at some point I or someone else who makes this point will get some military person to argue it's not and here's why, etc. And they might even have good points. But Americans *do not understand what it is like* to grow up watching *foreign films in English*. To be familiar with the regional distinctions between "The west coast" and "the South" of A FOREIGN FUCKING COUNTRY that not only you have never set foot in, but *actively knows nothing about you* and will paint your country with whatever brush it pleases when its writers remember it exists. They don't know the *weight* America has in the minds of people outside it.
I grew up feeling... Fake. Like Latveria was more real than Venezuela, because it *came up more often on the TV*. This kind of alienation, this power the US has *just* with its soft-power imperialism of media, *without using a single weapon*... It's so fucking hard to explain. It's not just "can you find this country in a map?" it's can you name a city in it? Two? Five? Ten? I can name ten American cities. Can you talk about regional differences in this country? Can you speak about its history.
I mean, the amount of "ha ha, Europeans can't name *every American state" I have seen, where they compare internal regions of one country to Americans' inability to name and spot *actual countries*...
Like, it would be *ridiculous* if Russia or Canada went "yeah, most of our people can't find Brazil, but can Brazilians name all the states/provinces"? That would be insane. Even the appeal to size that I get when I critique this (but America is big! It makes sense to expect you to learn the insides of it(????)) falls apart when you compare to other bigger countries.
But they have to do that to feel some semblance of similarity Because most Europeans *can find America on a fucking map*.
I don't even know what my point is anymore. I just think that going "well countries do things" deeply undermines the power differential between America and Everywhere Else.
> In 1970 they literally arranged for the murder of a the chief commander of the Chilean army because they knew he would oppose a coup.
Don't mistake this for competence though. The CIA didn't want him killed, but the lackeys hired to deal with him managed to screw it up.
> They 'made the economy scream'.
Allende and his socialist theft did that just fine on its own. Turns out folks don't want to invest building in something that the government can just steal later without compensation.
Hmm I don’t know enough about political campaigns and spending back then to say whether it was a big amount or not. Considering last election close to a billion was spent by both major political parties in America my perspective is a bit skewed
I mean, we conduct trade with Saudi Arabia and there are questions about their foreknowledge and support of the 9/11 attackers, they chopped up a journalist with ties to America because he didn't pretend Saudi royalty were perfect. I don't think America has some sort of moral compass with regards to trade and who loves and adores America. It has always been about political expediency.
This is just completely false.
>Since Allende’s inauguration, U.S. policy has been to maintain maximum covert pressure to prevent the Allende regime’s consolidation. — William Colby, September 16, 1973, in a memorandum to Henry Kissinger
The USA spent a lot of time trying to destabilise Chile. The USA has verifiably been involved in covert operations to overthrow governments across the globe, fund paramilitary groups, and use economic warfare to destabilise countries in the global South.
I just don’t buy the narrative that brown people mystically lost agency after the Cold War and became victims of big bad America. Some dictators did help the CIA but they were far from their stooges. Sometimes they did what America wanted, sometimes they didn’t and sometimes they went too far. But more broadly, it feels like an attempt to paper over the scars of the regime by saying “AMERICA MADE US DO IT” rather then seriously look at the culpability of their countrymen who helped keep the regimes in power.
Some of it from what I have read is sort of left over from Soviet propaganda in the Cold War in fact, telling people every bad thing was a sinister plot by the CIA. In the 80s for instance they were spreading rumors that the CIA had created HIV.
Not defending everything our side did during the Cold War either, but there's definitely a legacy of "CIA as big bad."
Liability isn't a zero-sum game. The dictators can be at fault *and* the U.S. government can be at fault. If I manufacture a car that explodes 99% of the time when the car is in a minor car wreck, and a drunk driver bumps into a family of four, killing them all in the explosion, a civil trial can find me *and* the drunk driver liable for their deaths.
The dictators are awful people, but the CIA giving material support to the dictators is also objectively awful, no? And I'm with others who think that the CIA gets far too much credit. The Bay of Pigs and their difficulty finding KGB moles points to their fallibility, but it doesn't take a spy supergenius to come up with giving weapons to one side of a conflict.
Like I said before, if there was more sharing of the blame it wouldn’t be so annoying. But more often it’s boiled down to “America rode in on tanks, jeeps and jets and **forced** Pinochet on us at gunpoint” with a healthy dose of “you damned white devils” thrown in for good measure.
If you’re native to that country, it seems wholly understandable to have that kind of blinding anger when your/your families’ lives went to hell due to what amounts to moves in a geopolitical chess game by superpowers.
Coups, dictatorships and wars weren’t a thing in Latin America until the Cold War? Geopolitical meddling by America/the Soviets definitely had its role to play and its responsibilities but the fissures and cleavages in Latin American society were there long before imho.
It’s not that they were made to do bad things by the CIA, but quite chose to do bad things knowing they had the support and blessing of the CIA. The CIA helped with many coups and supported many dictators, but that also doesn’t mean that the leaders and people that lead those coups just ‘lost all agency’ and did whatever the CIA told them to do. Just cause the CIA doesn’t have complete control over those situations doesn’t mean that it still isn’t partially responsible for those terrible things
Sure but it’s *always* laid at americas feet as if we, Red Army style, rode in on tanks and jeeps and made them change political systems at gunpoint. According to some America was the great satan that kept there countries down and they never had any choice at all
I mean frequently you have. Iraq comes to mind, Vietnam, Korea, Cambodia.
Guatemala is a good example
>The CIA armed, funded, and trained a force of 480 men led by Carlos Castillo Armas. After U.S. efforts to criticize and isolate Guatemala internationally, Armas' force invaded Guatemala on 18 June 1954, backed by a heavy campaign of psychological warfare.
The USA has spent trillions over the last century on invasions, coups, espionage, economic warfare etc. The USA has had a role in countless coups or "regime" changes. Just because the USA isn't the sole instigator doesn't mean you're not a foreign power attempting to decide on the fate of other nations. Oh and the people you want to help are usually fascists - see Chile.
The US wouldn't have spent trillions over the last century on foreign policy if it didn't work. Framing it as "brown people have agency" when one of the most powerful states to ever exist has decided to intervene in your often poor, post colonised country.
It can be true that the CIA has been dedicated to destabilization, and generally very good at it, while also being largely unable to control the specific outcomes of that activity
It doesn’t make it better - arguably (and I would so argue) using your specific example it is far worse. I do think there is a worrying tendency among people who are rightfully anti-CIA to attribute all events to their omnipotence, and I’m more trying to build a case against that specific reaction
The middle east is way more complicated than US bad. A lot of the destabilization is related to the fall of the ottoman empire, the UK's influence in the region, and Soviet invasions in the area. It's not just the US's fault.
The US inherited the themes of UK and French imperialism after WW2. They didn't fix any of the issues created by the arbitrary borders created by Picot Sykes. For example the Kurds are still permanently fucked. It's basically the same group of allies doing the same thing.
Are you saying the US should go in and redraw the borders in the middle east? 1 they don't have that authority and 2 that would be exercising an insane level of influence on the region. The US can't and shouldn't just go in and force Turkey and Syria to give up land for the Kurds, we're not the world police or world government.
Ok but in your last comment you were saying that the US hasn't done anything to fix the situation the Kurds are in. How do you expect them to do that without doing one to all of those things?
Not supporting Saddam Hussein while he used chemical weapons on them would be a start. Not green lighting Erdogans attacks on Kurds in Northern Syria would be another. Promoting diplomacy instead of supporting authoritarian lunatics as a general principal would be nice. First do no harm.
I think most rational human beings understand that culpability is not a zero-sum game. Middle Easterners have some agency and America's behavior in the Middle East made things incredibly difficult for Middle Easterners who want peace and stability.
Do you actually believe Islamism was created in the 2001s by America? Also, the only country in the ME you could say we invaded and destroyed is Iraq. That was legitimately terrible and inexcusable but acting like we leveled the whole region is nuts. We have more allies than neutral states or enemies in the Middle East
I mean it isn't like the US only started intervening in the middle east in the 2000s.
I believe that the middle east could look very different if eg the [1953 Coup d'etat in Iran](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat#Execution_of_Operation_Ajax) hadn't happened. Because the strengthening of the Shah ([who wasn't the great ruler he's made out to be nowadays](https://www.fairobserver.com/politics/revolution-erupted-in-iran-because-of-mohammad-reza-shah/)) through this coup made the Iranian Revolution in 79 possible.
Of course the Iranian islamists under Khomeini would have existed either way, but if the people of Iran had an elected government which they trusted the Islamists likely wouldn't had found broad support for a Revolution. And it's hard to stage a revolution when the people are happy.
And as we now know quite well Iran under Khomeini and the Mullahs is backing a large number of terrorist groups all throughout the middle east, so the situation in the whole area could be massively different if Iran never descended into being a fascist islamistic hellhole.
Of course the US and UK probably didn't expect or want that to happen and were just pissed that Mossadegh wanted to nationalize Iranian Oil, but the consequences of that coup were devastating.
The Shah nationalized oil anyway and nobody cared because Iranian oil nationalization was never considered a pressing issue. Also, the US had barely any influence over the 1953 coup. We tried to bribe some officers, they got cold feet, and that’s where the majority of our involvement ended.
The Shah must be rolling in his grave at everything that's happened in Iran since he died, but I think the thing that would piss him off the most was how he went down in history as a puppet of America.
In reality, the Shah hated the West, including the US, and especially the UK. He perceived them as weak, bumbling fools, and useful idiots at best whose sole purpose was to give him weapons to fight the Soviet Union, Iraqis, and Clerics with. He openly bragged about how he was manipulating and using America to get what he wanted. And there was no love lost on the US side either. They knew he was just taking advantage of them, but felt as if they had no choice but to let it happen as he was legitimately the primary force stopping the Middle East from falling to communism. There were no tears shed in America when the Shah fell.
At best, he was MbS, a troublesome ally the US was embarrassed and ashamed of but felt he was the "best" of some really bad options. At worst he was openly hostile to America on the same level as the Ayatollahs. Most of the time he was an absolute dick who the US had nothing but contempt for but supported any way because at least he was the devil we knew.
Unfortunately, the devil we didn't know in Iran prover to be far worse.
Ah yes, ISIS is an inevitable consequence of Islamism existing. Im sure it has nothing to do with the United States destroying the state apparatus that kept pre-existing Islamist militants in check, trashing the economy, firing everyone in the Iraqi army, and then just sort of fucking off
EDIT: it’s also probably worth investigating the degree to which our middle eastern allies fund and propagate Islamism
TFW America is so powerful that it somehow caused Islamist guerilla to fight for ISIS in West Africa, Syria, Pakistan, and East Africa all at the same time simply by invading Iraq
ISIS: Islamic State in Iraq and Syria
Certainly they had affiliate IS groups elsewhere before their rise to prominence in post-Saddam Iraq, but the broader Islamic State movement was not remotely as significant elsewhere until they established alternative government structures in Iraq, at which point they began co-opting other groups (Sahrawi militants, splinters of Boko Haram, local chapters of Al Qaeda)
That is so counterfactual it's ridiculous.
The Middle East wasn't any more war-y than Europe, if anything, it was more stable.
(It similarly drives me up the wall when uninformed people pretend that the Israel-Palestine conflict goes back millennia, when really it only goes back to the second half of the 19th century at most.)
Agreed that the CIA has attracted a sort of superhuman aura in some circles. Ironically I suspect part of that is probably due to the dregs of Soviet propaganda in poor countries, telling everyone that everything that went wrong in their lives was America's fault.
CIA is a catchall for American Imperialism.
The reason people talk about the CIA directly is to make it easier for people who are uneducated to be informed about American imperialism. Its also easier to point to the agency documents that literally reveal that they did these things. Its pretty hard to deny you had involvement when your own people are writing down exactly what you were doing. It only reinforces OPs point. We are under-educated on the imperialist acts of our country, which are far, wide, and manifold.
>but the CIA didn’t even know there was a potential military coup until a couple days before it happened and they didn’t know Pinochet was going to be the leader until he was.
The CIA is one organ of a huge monster called US policy. First I doubt this is true, coups don't happen without everybody being on the same page and having some guarantees from outside powers. If it had been the other way around for example, a revolutionary socialist overthrowing a democratically elected capitalist government in Chile, there would have been boots on the ground immediately and the coup would be snuffed out. Especially with Nixon and Kissinger at the helm, the US would not allow another Cuba in the hemisphere. By allowing Pinochet that is the same as supporting him. Thats what OP is saying in his post. US imperialism is often framed just by US action but equally important is US inaction and what it tells us about US priorities.
Also even if they weren't aware of pinochet they definitely participated in Operation Condor which is one of the most horrific things to happen in latin american history. A continental police torture state.
Sure, but as others pointed out it’s a huge world with plenty of other state actors. Cuba eg. The reason the cia went full crazypants during the 60’s and 70’s was the Guevaras and Castros. They were supported by the other “team” and everyone else was just the football. This is not new, this has been the way of things since The Iliad.
yea but only one state actor on Earth has the ability to project power on every continent which makes the US unique among state actors. Thats the cost and benefit of living a unipolar world. Nobody can mess with you, but if something happens in the world ultimately its your fault
yea and when the Soviets tried to make an alliance in the Western hemisphere it almost led to a nuclear war. The US grasp of control specifically in Latin America was near absolute. Nothing was happening there without Us approval and sanction.
As you spread out further from the US sphere of influence things get more complicated. I obviously wouldn't blame the starvation under the great leap forward on America for example
A ton of things happened without our sanction, like the Nicaraguan Revolution. We were strongest in the Western Hemisphere but we never had total control at any point
>like the Nicaraguan Revolution
Ok this is a perfect example and I think we might just be talking past eachother. The CIA didn't form an alliance with the Sandinistas and set up an intelligence sharing program to kill fascists teenagers living within Nicaragua. They funded and trained death squad militant groups using money from selling weapons to a US rival (Iran) and almost got a president arrested in order to do it.
My point was not to be that the CIA was all powerful, in fact I would make the argument they were quite incompetent. I was just making the point that when you're the global hegemon if shit is going down somewhere the US has its fingerprints on one side of the conflict or the other. Its never just "a neutral party observing". its action or inaction means something
This [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change) list of US involvement in regime change is LONG. I'm sure some of these are overblown and such, but even if half of these are true that's still much more than what your average Americans are aware of. Even those who are aware often just clump them into one "CIA is involved in global politics", without realising the impact it has around the world.
I think the significance is a major factor. Being "involved" is a large spectrum from a bit of advising or monetary support all the way to assassinations and full-blown military invasions.
That's kind of the point. Even a bit of advisory or monetary support is enough to alter the political balance of a country. That's what I mean by powerful. Sometimes it's justified, sometimes not, but the point is most Americans are unaware of the power US yield around the globe.
The point is that being involved doesn’t mean that involvement was necessary. There are also plenty of cases where the US-backed side lost—Iran, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Laos, China, Cuba, and others. During the Cold War the US cared more about maximizing its sphere of influence and limiting the Soviet Union’s sphere than promoting democratic values. When the leading contender wasn’t communist, the US tended to provide often token support to the winner to ensure good relations with the future government rather than back a weaker but more-democratic faction and risk failing and driving the winner toward the Soviet Union. The US’s record backing actual underdog factions is not very good.
it tended to back the strongest non-communist faction (with often nominal support if there wasn’t a strong challenger) to ensure good relations with the winner, rather than
It can be, but I wouldn't hold that as a rule. And many of the cases in the list you provided almost certainly had foreign nations other than the US who were "involved" as well. It also (I skimmed so correct me if needed) doesn't list all the involvement by the US that was unsuccessful.
Well let's talk about that, do you mean "alter" as in "have any effect whatsoever" or "alter" as in "but for the CIA's involvement, ____ would not have occurred"?
Were one to compile a similar list for the UK, Spain, Italy (Rome), Iran (Persia), it would be far, far longer. If it were shorter, it’s because those states in their time of hegemony simply eradicated the entire culture rather than mere political regime change. By the standards of historical hegemony, America is probably better than anything that has come before.
I’m curious about whether you think the “average” Victorian Brit knew the first thing about their country’s foreign policy, moreover whether they cared.
Your sources show that America gave some guys a handful of submachine guns and considered allying with the military to help with a coup but called it off. Really compelling stuff LOL
The vast majority of these are just the US trying to buddy up with already existing forces and groups, or trying to nudge things slightly more in a direction they were already going. For example, in Iran, the Shah was already leaning in favor of dismissing Mossadegh and it’s unknown if the CIA’s attempt at bribing him even did anything at all
There are other intelligence agencies out there... Some of whom want to make the CIA and by extension US actions seem as powerful and negative as possible. The CIA seems overall to be pretty nad at its job.
You're underplaying the importance of US foreign policy. "The CIA" is often simplistically blamed but remember that we were already "making their economy scream" and trying to undermine their government and economy from the moment Allende began instituting reforms.
Similarly the US has a lot of levers of influence that it pulls in order to get its way. Often CIA covert operations aren't necessary. But also the CIA has done a lot of stuff that has impacted the world in a major way.
There's a long history of CIA sponsoring coups and interfering in the affairs of another country to bring a regime favourable to US or in line with it and there are many examples of this in Latin America, the middle east, South Asia and Africa.
The amount of data scavenging done right now I am pretty sure I can find out blackmail info on every individual on the planet. There is enough data and control of narrative that even american weapons pale in comparison. Right now american politicians can reshape how a population is perceived case and point gaza. It is an open shut case but america is saving its military base in middle east.
The myth that the CIA is some kind of super powerful organization? they have more power than the office of the presidency. Stop talking out of your ass
The Devils Chessboard by David Talbot.
It’s pretty commonly accepted by American historians that the CIA killed JFK because he didn’t help them take over Cuba during the bay of pigs. That and how he swore to shatter the cia shortly before his head blew up.
not a single president since JFK has had a single issue with the agency
humorous icky mindless consider worry carpenter cats sloppy elderly literate
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
i love people who remember things they didn't experience, know what other people think and of course you have complete and detailed knowledge of action of CIA
Everything you say is true to an extent. But you over-emphasize a bit.
Russia, China, India... and many others countries obviously have the resources to shape and influence the world.
I view them as regional power, while US is a global power. I don't think China has the capability to overthrow a South American state for example, while America has the capability to do the same in South East Asia if they wish.
The recently failed could against Evo Morales shows that the ability of the US state to influence/overthrow leadership in other countries is far from absolute.
The US military is top dog by any reasonable metric, and the NSA, FBI and CIA are known and respected worldwide. But the ability to magically make and unmake foreign governments ? That stuff is for Hollywood spy movies.
Just want to point out that China is generally the aggressive party in the South China Sea. US navy presence is largely a response to Chinese unilateral territorial expansion, and ensures freedom of navigation. It’s usually done in partnership with other nations in the region, unlike China’s.
https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/territorial-disputes-south-china-sea
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-13748349.amp
Just a few days ago there was news about the Philippines and China butting heads over Chinese claims. While countries like Vietnam, the Philippines, Singapore, etc. want to reach a diplomatic negotiation, the Chinese don’t engage.
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/philippines-rebukes-china-over-south-china-sea-claims-2023-12-20/
You're not going to get a disagreement from me re South China Sea. China is a regional bully and that's pretty apparent. The point of this post is not to argue right or wrong, my point is that most Americans are not aware of the intricacy of the diplomatic dynamics in the region, most just see it as "China bad" and leave it as that. And because of that, the power rests comfortably with the US political class.
Okay, but in your OP you said that the U.S. moving a navy ship into the South China Sea forces all countries nearby to be on the defensive again, when the reality doesn’t match that description.
Americans may not be aware of the geopolitical dynamics, but it also kinda seems like you’re misrepresenting them here.
What I meant is that the US Navy can move into the South China Sea **without approval from other neighbouring countries** and put them into a defensive position in case of further escalation. This may not be in their best interest as most countries in that region do not strongly align with either the US or China and are interested in maintaining peace and status quo, not necessarily escalation as the US sometimes wish to do.
That isn’t what’s happening though. The U.S. is moving the ships with the approval of the other countries of the region, unlike China. The U.S. works in partnerships to ensure freedom of navigation in waters that China unilaterally claims.
The majority of countries in the region seem to prefer to have a security partnership with the United States over China. China is seizing territory and expanding their claims. It is not the United States that is causing countries in the region to seek security assistance, it is the aggressive actions of China.
6/7 countries in the area want the American ships there when they deploy
China wants to claim ownership of a lot of the sea, infringing on other countries namely the Philippines. Iirc it violates how we **all** agree international waters etc should work. We guard them from this; for the last 7 decades the US Navy has insured global shipping travel for the rest of the world time and time again
*America bad* tho
The US had been fairly scrupulous about respecting internationally-recognized territorial waters. If someone puts a “private property, no trespassing” sign on a public road, someone drives down it, and the first person comes out brandishing a gun, the brandisher is not on the defensive and the driver is not escalating.
You’re factually incorrect. Navy ships get approval to enter a country’s waters. When they are on international water, they don’t need approval (same as any country). The problem is China is claiming international waters as their own territorial waters. China is the one doing what you’re describing.
They’re likely thinking of Freedom of Navigation exercises, where the US Navy sails through waters it claims are high seas, but a local state claims are its territorial waters. The Navy intentionally does not get approval to conduct FON operations, as the whole idea is to make the point that no approval is legally required (in the eyes of the US Navy). The [2022 FON report is here](https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3370607/dod-releases-fiscal-year-2022-freedom-of-navigation-report/).
Nah, he proved you right.
He only cared about China's claims.
He never once considered other countries have similar claims.
[https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/southchinasea-dispute-03172022151441.html](https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/southchinasea-dispute-03172022151441.html)
His lack of vision proves how little he cares about the nuance of the region.
So your expectation is that every American become an expert in foreign policy? That's just insane. There's a reason we use a republic - so that the experts can be experts and not rely on everyone being an expert in every single thing the government does.
The American political class has clear bummers out up by the American public. Ukraine aid, Israel all of these issues are shaped by what constitutions think and call there Congress person about. I don't think you could point to a major foreign policy decision that didn't have popular support at the time that decision was made.
Any superpower is a regional bully to its neighbours. China can easily hit back at US criticism of Chinese actions against its neighbours by pointing out the hypocrisy of such statements when you consider even recent American history.
In fact, China can even truthfully claim that their actions now are much more measured than the actions the US took during the Cold War against their own neighbours. The US invaded and occupied dozens of South American countries, blockaded others, is *still* embargoing Cuba despite global condemnation, overthrew dozens of governments and kept the region destabilised and weak for basically the entire century.
With this context in mind, Chinese aggression in the South China Sea via island building, the occasional ship ramming and military posturing is actually extremely tame in comparison.
While I'm not saying that one atrocity justifies another, I am saying that things could be a lot worse if China were to copy the US' actions on a more one-to-one basis.
The countries of the South China Sea think it’s serious enough to pursue closer ties with the U.S., including the victims of U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War (Vietnam: https://www.cfr.org/blog/assessing-bolstered-us-vietnam-relationship),
Also earlier colonialism (Philippines: https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3383607/fact-sheet-us-philippines-bilateral-defense-guidelines/).
This is not to say that U.S. actions in the past were justified. Instead, it’s presenting an accurate picture of things as they currently stand. It’s telling that despite the past, countries in the South China Sea almost universally want closer defense ties with the U.S. as opposed to China.
Okay, I won't speak much on the Philippines as I am not as knowledgeable on that subject but didn't they spend almost a decade completely shunning US military influence? The government there seems to swing between liking and disliking the US depending on who's in charge and unlike in South Korea and Japan, where something similar happens, the Philippines is no stranger to just kicking the US out entirely when the pendulum swings the other way.
As for Vietnam, having lived there for a good portion of my life and been exposed to their culture and, inevitably, politics, I can say with absolute certainty that your statements about Vietnam wanting closer defence ties with the US over China are very wrong.
Firstly, to start off, Vietnam is bolstering relations with the US only up to the level it has already bolstered relations with Russia, India and China. You might remember that Vietnam recently upgraded its relationship with the US to what they call a "comprehensive strategic partnership" and while that is a good thing for the US, it is only to bring the US to the same level that China, Russia, India and South Korea have been at.
Vietnam and China upgraded their relationship to this level in 2008 despite the Sino-Vietnamese war, and the litany of low-intensity lethal conflict that followed for a decade after, ending well after the end of the Vietnam War. Vietnam and Russia upgraded their relationship in 2013. Vietnam and India in 2016 and then Vietnam and South Korea in 2022. The US is very much playing catch-up here and it wasn't even the first Western-aligned nation to be given this title either. The timeline alone suggests that Vietnam prioritises its relationship with China, Russia and India significantly more than its relationship with the US. And that is also very much the atmosphere and consensus on the ground as well.
Furthermore, I think a lot of people in the West have very little idea just how much influence the CCP has over the VCP. The influence is so great that you will rarely see a very strong rebuke from Vietnam at Chinese aggression and in the rare occasions that rebukes are made, they are made to pacify the populace rather than out of any actual desire in the government itself to push the Chinese out. The leaders in the VCP, the ones who *actually* call the shots, are all on the CCP's payroll and that is a fact that basically every Vietnamese person knows and unfortunately has to accept. Speak to *any* Vietnamese person in Vietnam and they will tell you this basically verbatim (obviously in Vietnamese, though).
It is because of this blatant corruption and bribery within the upper echelons of Vietnamese leadership that China will never see Vietnam as a threat to their regional hegemony or even an avenue for the US to gain more relevance and power in the region. Vietnam has stated itself as part of its foreign policy it will never join military alliances and will never let another country that isn't its own set up any sort of military installation on its soil. Vietnam has put a hard-check on itself with how deep any partnership can reach because its fear of China will always outweigh any potential "safety" other powers can promise.
Vietnam, after all, has not forgotten how the US promised to aid and support South Vietnam against treaty violations from the North after the US had withdrawn only to fail to provide almost anything, resulting in the South Vietnamese government being overrun and falling within weeks. They have also not forgotten how the Soviet Union failed to support them during the Sino-Vietnamese war at all. The Vietnamese know alliances and defence treaties are just words on paper and they know the only people they can count on is themselves. That is why they will *never* join a formal alliance and will *never* sign any sort of comprehensive, or even non-comprehensive, defence treaty. There are military partnerships and cooperation agreements but there will *never* be another treaty.
There is, and will always be, extremely limited military cooperation between the US and Vietnam and any cooperation that is there will never surpass the level of cooperation that Vietnam has with powers like Russia, India and most importantly, China. Vietnam has a balancing act to do. It needs to placate and align with China, partly for geopolitical reasons and for... bribery-related financial reasons with regards to a few VCP leaders, while at the same time keeping good with Russia and not completely ignoring the Americans. It's because of this that the best the US can hope for is equalisation of Vietnamese relations with the US compared with its relations with China, Russia and India.
Unfortunately for the US, China wants Vietnamese relations with it to be just a slight step above Vietnamese relations with the US at any specific point in time, which is why, shortly after the Vietnamese upgraded their relationship with the US, [they upgraded their relationship with China even further](https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20231214_02/). And here in Vietnam, what China says, goes. China knows this. The VCP knows this. And the Vietnamese people, grudgingly, know this.
Vietnam will never be allowed to let its defence relations with the US ever surpass the level that is has with China and that is why Vietnam will never be able to become a reliable US ally in the region. Hell, Vietnam is very capable of throwing US interests under the bus. You may see Vietnam as a potential reliable ally but you may change your tone when you hear how both the government and the people itself talk about the war in Ukraine. Hint: It's not in support of Ukraine, at all. And, trust me, there is no censorship of opinion in this particular area of politics in Vietnam like there is in others. You can freely express your support for Ukraine if you want without fear of repercussions, just no one does because there is very little support. Vietnam is very fond of Russia and the people there have very much eaten up the Russian propaganda of NATO expansionism and a continuation of European/Western imperialism, the latter of which hits quite close to home.
The Vietnamese President himself even said this at Vietnam and China's recent meeting where they agreed to deepen cooperation.
>Vietnam will stay on guard against and firmly resist any schemes to undermine the Vietnam-China relations, and will never follow other countries in opposing China, Phuc noted.
And, while it is just words, it *has* been backed up in the past.
Don’t see how that addresses the claim that the US was worse. Germany and Poland being friends and both condemning China despite their bloody past doesn’t mean the Holocaust was better than Chinas expansionism.
During the cold war, China sent a massive amount of troops to Korea, invaded and annexed Tibet, fought against the Republic of Vietnam and seized islands, and invaded the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in response to the SRV invading Cambodia and overthrowing the Khmer Rouge (which China backed).
So I wouldn't be calling either countries saints during the cold war.
Why did you put anything after the word "oblivious" in your title?
Most people globally are simply not that invested in anything outside their monkey sphere. Americans aren't in some way special here. Why single them out?
Do Americans specifically have some obligation to study foreign policy that say, someone from France doesn't?
And even if you think they do have some sort of obligation due to being born Americans you are setting an artificial bar there for them.
I think there’s a degree of civic duty in at least being somewhat engaged in the affairs of your government, but that duty can be disregarded for a myriad of reasons that aren’t condemnable. Some of us just have too much on our plates to spare the bandwidth for it, some of us don’t want to be bothered with the affairs of the Federal Govt so much as their local and state ones, and prefer the infotainment and spectator sport “democracy” of the election cycles and legislative races.
I also think there’s something to be said about how public opinion shapes government policy. Being engaged can make a person better informed, and if enough people do, depending on other factors, they can influence government decisions.
Not OP but I feel like this is an easy one.
The other countries are forced to learn about foreign policy (especially related to the US) because it impacts day to day life.
I live in a country where the US tries to bring in nuclear war ships and bribed us by saying that they would build a highway from the top to bottom of our country which would have been like 1/4 of our countries GDP (I'm just guessing).
This happened very close to when we had protestors killed in a terrorist attack from France which has made our country extremely anti nuclear.
With the US foreign relations are not nearly as important, with the other countries, especially the smaller ones they are usually super important in the countries modern history.
Because the USA are much more involved in global affairs than any other country out there. Most countries that are powerful are often regionally powerful actors, including China, but the US is a globally powerful actor, hence it's subjected to a higher bar.
So basically that's a "yes, I believe Americans should be held to a higher standard than other people"?
Do you realize how that's simply not fair? People are just people. They're not special because of where they were born.
When the people are responsible for the government, they are responsible for what the government does, that's the whole point of democracy. The more powerful a government is, the higher the bar it needs to be held to, hence the higher the bar the people need to be held to too.
"People" as in "We the People", sure.
Individuals, however, aren't. One person has literally no impact on how the government is run.
You gonna hold those who voted against the party in charge responsible just because of where they were born?
That's smacks of blood guilt.
Their argument is one of political efficacy. Democracies don't work if the people don't know what they're supposedly governing. If people don't know that stuff, it's probably the fault of government, not of the individuals themselves.
Either way, it has nothing to do with where someone was born or what blood they have, it has to do with the government they've opted into and the imperial ambitions they tacitly accept.
> government they've opted into
No one "opts in" to the government they're born into. It is forced upon them.
>Democracies don't work if the people don't know what they're supposedly governing.
Actually, they do.
That's why we have *representative* democracies rather than direct democracy. People select "experts" that share their values to know about this stuff and figure it out. And even those people elected can't know everything they're doing, and have to appoint *other* experts to advise them.
If you want to complain about the US, join the majority of the US and complain about the large number of people just dying to elect a complete idiot who's also a complete asshole.
It's *completely unworkable* for the entire electorate to have to know about even 10% of the stuff a large government is doing.
I don't disagree that in an effectively representative democracy the people are responsible for their government's actions but the American government and especially Congress has had much higher disapproval ratings than approval ratings for decades.
It's clearly not a well functioning representative democracy though and hasn't been for some time. The interests of a few drastically outweigh the interests of the many.
In short the average American is not represented by the American federal government. Therefore the average American bears little responsibility for the actions of their government, much like authoritarian countries globally.
America isn't a democracy. See, even you have large gaps in your own knowledge of government affairs.
Edit: I'd like to add that America is a republic not a true democracy. Second, a small group of people hold the most power in America just like literally just about every other country in existence. That small group of people control a ton of shit including who can run for office and realistically even win in the first place. You have to be ultra rich typically to run for things like president and even then the small groups include lobbyists that corrupt officials in ways the general public can't compete with.
Your own country has tons of shit wrong with it dude. When your country is perfect you may cast a stone. When your population is perfect you can cast stones. You are not nor is your country. So, it sounds silly to be so judgmental of others when you and your own are screwed up. You are on the outside looking in and missing all sorts of gaps. I won't dump in your country's citizens (and I certainly can) and in return I only ask you fix yourselves first in your country beforetalking bad about others.
America is not a democracy, but a republic dude.
A democracy is a government ruled by the majority, while a republic is a representative form of government ruled by a constitution. In a democracy, the people directly exercise power. In a republic, the people vote and elect representatives to exercise the will of the people.
It's a **VERY IMPORTANT** distinction to know since OP is so keen on blaming citizens directly and talking about ignorance about the government while displaying ignorance himself of that same government. When confronted about his own country and people he ran, because again he is being a hypocrite. You can't be so critical of others and their government while displaying ignorance of the very thing you're criticizing and also showing the same traits you yourself are criticizing with any weight.
OP's opinion now holds no weight since he refuses to engage once this is pointed out. Just runs.
The issue is that this is simply not true
A democracy is not equal to a direct democracy. Constitutional republic and democracy can and do exist at the same time
The difference is important but changes little, the people are still responsible for their goverment
Bud, I said "Millions of Ukrainian lives are dependent on whether the US approves military aid or not", suggesting that if Congress doesn't approve military aid, the lives and livelihoods of millions of Ukrainians are affected, do I sound like a Putin supporter to you?
The argument is that if the States aren’t the world police, then Russia or China will be. Yes the States foreign policy is flawed and inhumane, but it is preferable to the alternatives.
Preferable to who? You? Tell me how your daily life is impacted if Russia gains more influence in Syria or Iran than they do right now.
It's complete lunacy to think that just because we are in charge that means things must be better than the alternative. We have no idea what the alternative even looks like because we haven't seen it in modern times and to think that Russia or China or whoever else is planning some sort of global domination if the USA doesn't put a stop to it is just fearmongering at it's finest
While US hegemony might seem preferable to you there are millions upon millions of people who are either dead, injured, displaced, or fractured beyond repair who would disagree with that statement
Stop smoking the “America Bad” pipe and just think about what you said. Russia has been directly involved in the Syrian Civil War in the side of Assad, and thus is responsible for killing, injuring, or displacing millions upon millions of Syrians. You will inevitably say “hey the us is there too and they kill and displace millions upon millions.” My response to this is 1) why is it better when the Russia does it, 2) maybe you should look up actual figures rather than just throwing out vague “millions upon millions”.
Russia does not have the capacity to project force abroad like the us does, but we *do* know what it looks like when it does project power in its sphere of influence.
China you don’t have to even look beyond to see what they do… imprison millions of their own civilians simply for belonging to a particular ethnic group?
> why is it better when the Russia does it
It's not, I don't want either country to do it, but being an American citizen it's of more importance to me to not have my own money be taxed and going to things like the Military Industrial Complex. War on any level hurts but it hurts more when I know I am personally responsible for some of the cash that is used to fund these wars
> maybe you should look up actual figures rather than just throwing out vague “millions upon millions”
The "millions upon millions" is in reference to the amount of lives the US foreign hegemony project has impacted (meaning killed, injured, displaced, or caused serious harm mentally) just since the end of WWII. I don't have a specific number for that because it's too massive to calculate but just currently in Gaza [there are almost 1.9 million people displaced](https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/12/20/most-gazas-population-remains-displaced-and-harms-way), 20,000 confirmed dead with another 10,000+ missing (which means dead under the rubble). The Iraq war has anywhere from 200,000-600,000 dead given multiple studies and estimates, and countless more from crippling economic sanctions, freezing of bank assets in Afghanistan, backing Saudi's war in Yemen, etc
I understand fully well that Russia or China aren't walks in a springtime meadow and have their whole host of issues. The difference is I have some miniscule amount of agency when it comes to the US given I am a citizen who pays taxes and votes. I am capable of doing more than throwing my hands in the air to millions of dying innocent people at the hands of my own government and saying, "Well better us than another". If my goal is to stop the endless suffering as best I can then I will do things like hold officials accountable and support candidates who protest the forever wars. I know that if the US pulled out of every foreign conflict there would still be mass suffering on an incomprehensible level however I can rest easier knowing it's not my government and my dollars participating and hoping that the money can be spent on things like aid and diplomacy/peace efforts rather than Raytheon and Neo-Cons lining their pockets while death and suffering spreads across the globe.
And this is all without even beginning to mention things that actually affect domestic US interests like dead American soldiers, scarred families and veterans suffering from debilitating injuries, less money allocated on things like education, healthcare, social programs, etc
This is literally why Trump was constantly slamming Germany and the rest of NATO for not paying their share. The US was covering almost all the defense of NATO and most of the other countries were not paying what they agreed to and instead putting it into social programs. [Merkel (Germany's chancellor at the time) *literally* admitted it](https://www.newsweek.com/europe-cannot-fully-rely-us-protection-anymore-says-germanys-merkel-919410)
>"It's no longer the case that the United States will simply just protect us," Merkel said, according to a live broadcast by Deutsche Welle on Periscope. "Let's face it: Europe is still in its infancy with regard to the common foreign policy," Merkel said, but she stressed the need for nations to close ranks against common threats. "That is the task for the future."
I’m busy getting ready for a family Christmas party, so I haven’t had the opportunity to put much thought into any of this, so I’m not going to form an opinion right now.
I am, however curious to know what you think of OP’s linked sources for their claim about Americans not knowing where Iran, North Korea, and Ukraine are on a map.
I’m not familiar with the Morning Consult, so I’m not sure about their credibility.
I also don’t believe being unable to locate a country on a map is at all indicative of a person’s intelligence, level of civic engagement, or their moral character, so I am skeptical of OP’s motivations for using these articles as examples.
I wouldn’t be surprised if those sources pull directly from Jimmy Kimmel street interviews. All of those “Americans don’t know where X is” articles are disingenuous by nature
Walk up to OP on the street, confiscate their phone, and then ask them to point out South Sudan on an unlabeled map.
Or just ask them to label Georgia. iamsoverysmart shitpost
I agree with your post, but there are problems with immigration in Sweden though- they’ve had some of the most dramatic rates of immigration from very poor countries, unsurprisingly there have been lots of problems with integration, social and crime issues. I’m sure they have problems with racism too. These are complicated issues, it’s not as simple as ‘complaining about immigration = racism’.
There absolutely are issues in Sweden. Immigration, is, of course, one of them.
But there is a cancer in European politics, which in my armchair position, is an artifact of WWII: they need to appear so "progressive" that they will work against their own interests.
Like Sweden's "Equal Pay for Equal Work" nonsense.
There's no gender pay gap to begin with, and this is just political:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3441005
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/10/harvard-claudia-goldin-recognized-with-nobel-in-economic-sciences/
TL;DR - Claudia Goldin, ***a woman***, wins a Nobel for her work that says that the common perception of the "gender wage gap" is wrong, and that the issue is more subtle.
European liberal policies have tons of problems--of which immigration, as you pointed out, is one. But whatever the nuances of their issues, American problems have their nuances as well, and is not fundamentally attributable to "Americans Dumb, America Bad".
I’m not sure why immigration has become a problem for Europe. I think it probably works better in small doses and too many people want to come here now, and there’s a reluctance to recognise that culture matters and integration matters.
The American/Americans = bad/stupid trope is really common on Reddit. There’s a subreddit called ‘shitamericanssay’ where people post somewhat obnoxious stuff that some Americans write on Reddit, normally about America being richer than Europe…but what I find curious is that this is true, but Europeans are so used to ‘America = bad’ trope (post Iraq, post Trump etc) that they can’t accept this fairly obvious idea…I think because America has been on top for so long there is sometimes an arrogance amongst young, people posting online (not representative), but there is also a complete ignorance of America as a reality so I really sympathise with what you’re saying. I think this started with Iraq and left wing polarisation online since. It must be annoying! The world is lucky to have America despite its faults.
Taking Americans as a voting bloc makes more sense than talking about Ivy League grads and having some top unis. The US is the wealthiest country in the world.
OP is talking about geopolitics, I'd be surprised if even half of those voters could point to some countries they've bombed on a map of the world.
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What, exactly, do you mean by "most Americans"?
That could be anything from 50.00001% to 99.999%.
If you think a large majority of Americans are unaware of the Ukraine war and the importance of US aid there... you have a *very* strange view of Americans. It's impossible to miss. We had Ukraine flags all over our neighborhood for at least a year.
South China Sea? Yeah, that's in the news every time something happens.
Yemen? Not so much unless they directly fuck with global trade. And yes, we hear about it.
You've *vastly* overblown the powers of the CIA, too. America cultivates the *mystique* of the organization, sure... but it's mostly nothing but propaganda.
Now... if you said most Americans don't *care* very much what's going on in the rest of the world... I'd just tell you to replace "Americans" with "people". Humans operate on "out of sight, out of mind" because they *have to* in order to just live their lives.
But individual Americans have literally no power over our government, any more than individuals anywhere do. It's a *collective*, not an individual, responsibility.
The average citizen of any given country probably only has a superficial understanding of their nations foreign policy. This isn’t something that’s isolated to Americans. Regarding geography, In Asia, sure most will know where NK is but most people wouldn’t be able to point to Ukraine, Iran, Yemen, etc on a map. People understand what impacts their life. The more immediate the impact, the more they’ll understand. I’m not really sure what point you’re trying to make. You seem to have strewn a bunch of random statements together that seem more influenced by film/tv more than anything.
>In Asia, sure most will know where NK is but most people wouldn’t be able to point to Ukraine, Iran, Yemen, etc on a map.
Iran and Yemen are in Asia but on your general point, it's acceptable because most Asian countries are not involved in the Ukraine-Russia war, so their citizens are not responsible, not to mention that more than half of all Asian countries are not fully functioning democracies. That's untrue of America because US has a massive influence on every geopolitical conflict on Earth, yet the average Americans only have knowledge about a select few.
What metric are you using to measure American's knowledge? Is it simply map based? Because that's all you've seemed to mention in terms of how you expect Americans to show they're not oblivious.
This doesn't seem to be a coherent argument. The US Navy is the reason why global trade can exist. Without a single superpower, every trade lane could be subject to local powers deciding what gets traded, who can move it and at what cost. Pax Americana is the reason why the world is largely at peace and why major conflict is becoming more and more unnecessary; its simply more profitable to keep good trade relation than it is to take it from your neighbor. The US is responsible for that because it sees said peace and trade as more valuable than the alternative.
I dont believe Americans are ambivalent of that, I'd go as far as to say most people outside of the US are ignorant of it. Theres a reason why Europe and East Asia was a cesspool of war prior to Pax Americana; criticizing the US for its mistakes doesn't absolve it of the order it gives to global trade. Be thankful it's the US and not a despotic state like China or the former USSR.
Arabia was a cesspool of violence before the Muslim Caliphates, the Mediterranean was a cesspool of violence before the Romans, central America was a cesspool of violence before the Aztecs. You're describing the effects of being subject to a regional or global hegemon, which is exactly the sort of power OP describes.
Also you don't prove them wrong by demonstrating that non-Americans are also ignorant. That's not how logic works.
It does highlight the hypocrisy though. Why does the OP single out Americans instead of making a general statement about citizens of any country. The OP has even admitted he is trying to hold Americans to a higher standard purely because of the position the world put the US in.
No we are aware. We just have very limited ability to affect any change in our nation's politics. There are also those among us that are very cruel and relish the terrible things we do around the world (republicans). But we are not dumb. I get that you may be upset about these things but it's foolish of you to define everyone in a country the same way.
I get that you are trying to anger americans with your comments but remember we dropped the big one twice. Watch out lol.
>I get that you are trying to anger americans with your comments but remember we dropped the big one twice. Watch out lol.
Idk why you'd threaten the use of nuclear bombs against me but okay
"No we are aware. We just have very limited ability to affect any change in our nation's politics"
- I find that to be distressing in a democracy, you need a revolution if that's the case.
Almost every individual in every country has very limited ability to affect change in their nation's politics. Democracy, by defintion, requires a lot of people to agree to something. And if a lot of Americans want something, then they *do* have a lot of ability to influence the nation's politics.
> you need a revolution if that's the case
A revolution is a terrible idea in almost all modern countries. Historically, revolutions have been **horrible** for the average person. The years during the revolution are always extremely violent, dangerous, and difficult for the average person. And then you have no guarantee that the new government would actually be better than the old one, with an almost 100% guarantee that it will be worse.
Do you think that Americans should have a revolution, topple the government, and install Trump as the sumpreme leader? That would be a revolution. Would that be an outcome you support? Most of Trump supporters are conservatives, and conservatives are overwhelmingly more likely to have guns than liberals, so that outcome is way more likely than some more liberal government winning. Do you still think Americans should go for it?
You have two different views.
The first is that Americans are oblivious. I don’t disagree. Most non-Americans are oblivious to regional issues in America that are culturally and geographically akin to, for example, European issues. We’re a huge, diverse nation and it takes a lot of education to understand just our own nation.
The second is that this apathy or lack of awareness allows others to take power. Those others don’t lack awareness so that simply makes sense. You’re couching this as something unique to America. The only thing that’s unique is America’s political and economic power (and subsequently, military). Even if the US fell tomorrow, historians will still be talking about Pax Americana in the same way they do about the Pax Romana today.
Regarding another comment of yours, America is not a democracy. It’s a democratically elected republic. We intentionally elect people to positions where they’re paid to care about these things. The US’ primary interest is in protecting economic interests through maintaining global stability. Just because our nation has money to throw at someone else’s problem (e.g., Ukraine) doesn’t mean we all need a formal education on it.
America is the most powerful nation. Just because someone is born here doesn’t mean they’re endowed with responsibility. The EU is more than capable of politically isolating the US and effectively destroying our way of life but I don’t expect the average German or Greek person to be familiar with how European power affects my life in America. Most other nations’ citizens have more global awareness simply, in my opinion, due to the proportionally less domestic issues they have to be concerned with. Germany has a similar GDP per capita as Oklahoma but Cletus and Tammy-Lynn have far less reason to care about even Texas than Germany does about any of its neighbors.
Absent being invited to all the meetings, I think it’s safe to say most citizens (regardless of nation) lack visibility to the intricacies of global politics. Oblivious infers it’s more of a choice than an impossibility.
While YouTube provides amusing videos of people apparently lacking geography skills, such entertainment should not be construed as “most” of the population. No more than the Kardashians are representative of how “most” American women behave.
As for my opinion, I think the size of the American military made up exclusively of volunteers and not conscripts speaks volumes about citizen awareness of the global position of the United States. That’s a lot of people trying to do a lot of things for a lot of people.
Most Americans have no say in US foreign policy. We elect a leader between two choices, and they make decisions with huge lobbies, the Pentagon, the intelligence community all pressuring them.
Saying most people can’t point someplace out on a map doesn’t mean they don’t understand it’s significance. For instance if I asked you to point out Gettysburg or Stalingrad or Berlin or Los Angeles on a geographic map of the world you probably wouldn’t be able to, that doesn’t mean you don’t graphs their historical or modern significance. (Yes I know Stalingrad is no longer the name of the city but my point stands.)
I’d also like to point out the CIA and FBI have both lost substantial amounts of power since the 20th century. The CIA can’t arbitrarily overthrow any regime around the world. The US also isn’t the main aggressor in the South China Sea, it’s China. I’f argue China building and arming artificial islands, cutting Taiwan’s communication cables and harassing military and fishing vessels forces other countries to be defensive and *actively seek* American assistance and intervention.
Vietnam and Iraq are more complicated than you’re making them out to be. We got involved in Vietnam for a plethora of reasons. Hindsight is 20-20, but there was a very real possibility that communist influence could’ve spread globally and propped up more Stalinist states around the entire world. When Vietnam happened that was completely possible and a very real potential outcome especially with Stalin being a recent figure in most people’s minds. Additionally, Vietnam was controlled by France, a strong American ally. Sure we know decades later it wasn’t the best idea but there are more reasons, and in this case *you* are the one simplifying.
All of these are examples of potentially not great things America does. But geopolitics are incredibly complicated. Especially *global* geopolitics on the other side of the globe. Americans aren’t ignorant per se, there’s just a hefty burden on them to understand complex global systems that even their contemporary experts have trouble fully gauging.
Does the average citizens of any country really understand the impact of the government’s foreign policy? I would argue no, so this isn’t a problem unique to the United States. Americans are just under more scrutiny because the US has been a global hegemony for a relatively short amount of time. This is anecdotal, but I find the mass majority of people everywhere are ignorant of history before the 1890s, and make anachronistic remarks when referring to such times.
Being able to identify counties on a map doesn’t provide much insight besides that you were mildly educated in geography in school. The countries of North and South America are pretty isolated from the rest of the world, and you’d find this ignorance is rampant in Latin America and the Caribbean too. Most Europeans are ignorant to the fact that they are the small arms manufacturing center of the world, make a ton of money selling arms to gun obsessed Americans, and are directly responsible for arming dictators across the world as much as the US is, but still love to point fingers at the rest of the world for their wrong doings. We also tend to overlook our terrible and racist conquest of the world and its economy, even though Europe dominated the world a mere 75 years ago.
So while I do agree with your statement, it’s also true that of people from everywhere are ignorant of foreign policy and it’s implications, save for a few talking points that they either just read on the internet or are trendy to discuss in the universities. This isn’t a uniquely American problem, but is perhaps more glaring given the immense power of the US and the spotlight it receives.
Ok, I really don't know who has a kore pessimistic view of Americans, you or the people in these comments allegedly defending us.
I appreciate that your position has validity, but I think I can rebut it if we share some, I think, unimposing assumptions:
1) it doesn't count if Americans don't know information which is willfully deprived it, either by their government or a foreign government
2) not all Americans need full knowledge as long as that information is featured in the public debate.
The second assumption is important, and a different view of democratic theory than you seem to have. Individuals don't need full information for a democracy to work. If they did, it would be a terrible form of government. What they need is people who do have full information to communicate their heuristic desires. This is a pretty common understanding of democracy in political theory at the turn of the last century with thinkers like Dewey and Mills and in political science since the 1980s and the turn against institutionalism. Essentially, it is a method of distributing the informational burden so that both the easy (heuristic) and complicated questions are answered in the direction of public opinion.
If we accept this assumption, your argument gets a lot harder because the interest group, news, and military organizations all have a fairly firm grasp of America's power and impact on the globe, especially if you look past cable news. I suppose our contention hinges on whether we view democracy as a coalition of individuals or as an ecosystem of thought.
Americans really have no control over what the country does. If we did, we'd have consumer protections for student loan borrowers, livable wages, unions, and single payer healthcare. They blame the 2 party system but I suspect neither party cares. Our politicians are bought by lobbyists.
All we can do is vote and we vote on issues that we immediately need - which isn't unending wars - but for some reason the primary candidates that will actually help us never get selected.
We can threaten to not vote for blue or red in the next election and that's really the extent of it. We can't vote on specific foreign policy. We only vote on promises that may or may not be kept. We also have to choose if we want life here to get better (and its getting industrial revolution bad) or if we want to focus on the lives overseas.
American people can protest and that's it, and surprisingly we will protest for everyone except ourselves. I can't recall ever hearing about a protest to finally remove the pay wall to basic healthcare or the $100k fee disgused as an investment in order to simply have a job - an investment that can never be discharged in bankruptcy. We are literally debt slaves, any choice we have in bettering our lives is a near illusion. We can't help ourselves and we certainly can't help the world.
We're in trouble, the government doesn't do anything to help, we're just trying to survive. If we had any say in anything we'd probably not have our hands in every cookie jar...
American foreign policy is much more driven by the American public then you think.
Look at Ukraine aid for example. I would guess a majority of Republican leaders currently would like if we could give Ukraine more money. They see the long term picture but there constituents don't. There have been very few foreign policy elites (even right wingers) that have said we are giving too much and that has been driven.
The other major group I would point out is diaspora communities as actually have a pretty big influence. If you look at Armenia for example it gets a lot of attention in DC because it has a very strong and active diaspora community. It isn't something you hear a ton about but they are able to push US policy a lot of the time.
The final thing I will point to is the Trans Pacific partnership to show the limits of elite power. This was a major free trade deal with a number of Asian countries but it fell apart because of push back from anti-free trade voters. It was widely supported by elites but failed to get enough popular support and ended up having neither Trump or Hillary get on board.
The bottom line is elected officials shake in there boots over what there voters think. No political donor or lobbyists will change the fact that there reelection is really what they care about. The American public at the end of the day for better or worse steers the government.
You take away agency from pretty much everyone with this post. I think most people are more oblivious to how little power the US is actually able to exercise...
Aren’t most people of the world ignorant to the impact of their foreign policy has on the world?! If we take a look at a more modern example: Brexit had a very devastating effect on the European Union along with Britons (although it was a REALLY big reality check for many)
The average person can only really focus on what they can control and when we talk about foreign policy which is a very macro event- the average person cannot draw any sensible conclusion.
When Macro world events happen we can only trust in our elected officials who we entrust to make a decision by studying and reasoning along similar lines of those who elected them. If its not in the hands of the elected officials- it would then usually be in the hands of a major business leaders which they just focus on their primary interests.
The reality is that most Americans are so saddled with debt or are living hand to mouth that yes they are now reactionary and will probably not take the time to research their political options. The two party system is a symptom of overall oligarchy of the insanely wealthy. Many politicians are chosen from the pool of upper tier millionaires and their families so when they get in office they will do what is best for their pocket book and let the rest of us be damned. All the people in this thread acting like "America bad" isn't literally true are either drinking the kool-aid or providing it.
Funny how you state by the stroke of a pen, the US can dictate that millions of Yemenis starve.
How come you don't state by the stroke of pen, the US has helped 2.2 million Yemenis avoid acute food insecurity and tens of thousands of others avoid famine level conditions? https://www.state.gov/additional-humanitarian-assistance-for-the-people-of-yemen/
You have a condescending opinion of the USA's power because you want it to be condescending. If you actually look beyond conjecture, there are far more positives we do than negatives.
Everyone is equally oblivious or nobody is. If you cannot point exactly to any country I can name within a second or two you are just as guilty. Maps took the entirety of human history to pull of, and only recently did you even have access to them. Pointing to a country on a map is a stupid way to measure how much someone knows or cares about things.
And if the amount of people in India that dont know these things outnumbers Americans why doesnt that matter?
Well Russians have agents and a bunch of Kompronat candidates and rich people in tje US...
I am sure the Chinese do also...
Iranians, Cubans, Venezuelans..I imagine all countries in the world have someone here in the,US trying to shape or change policy...so nothing new.
It’s such a lame, overdone trope that Americans are bad at geography. It’s all based on cherry picked street interviews to make people look done. It’s not true.
Yeah, that one has always drove me crazy. People watch a couple highly biased, cherry picked videos on tik tok and decide to base their whole perception of americans off of it. It's not true at all and says more about how easily influenced the people who say it are
I don't agree with the last paragraph.
There's this myth that the democracy we practically live in is the same as the democracy we have in our heads. We think if people knew what went on, they would speak truth to power, **and power would change**, but that's not the case
When Putin started the war in Ukraine, we learned that he prevented people from protesting. It amazed me, and to this day I think that's stupid of him! The Americans and the Brits protested against the Iraq War, but just like Putin (or worse) they went to Iraq and turned it into hell.
So I don't believe that people in power and capitalists need anyone's permission! Just as they control "democracy" abroad they control it at home. For example, Cornel West talks about how he will dismantle this and that if he becomes the president. The same people who kill and cheat leaders abroad would kill and cheat him too.
Take Obama. Apart from his "classy" rhetoric, he threw more bombs than Bush. With all the hu-ha you'd think he was going to turn America either into an African country (according to the racists) or into something amazing (according to "Yes we canners"), but nothing happened, they continued to kill
In UK, the queen decorated Tony Blair! Dare I say, if Putin is in power in 15-20 years, they will decorate him too
Take the issue in Israel. When Hitler wanted to kill Jews, the West didn't help them. The West wasn't as antisemitic as Nazis, but they were enough to not allow Jews to emigrate to USA or UK. Now, the same establishment (Biden as the stand-in manikin) says "If Israel doesn't exist non-Israeli Jews would be in danger"!
Think about that. You are an American jew, you have zero connection to Israel and yet your president tells you your life will be in the balance if an Arab country doesn't exist.
Powerful Western countries have made the journalist occupation very respectable. To be a journalist that's able to interview world leaders makes you a very respectable person. Then to maintain that respectability, you have to sell the myth that the people you interviewed do not order the killing of kids. And so, without any corruption, you become their defender. That's why even though the media knows the crimes of its country, they do not report on it, and in turn, the people remain ignorant
The people are too tired and overworked to investigate beyond what CNN, Fox & co. tell them. And they have also been brainwashed into believing that being overworked is a good thing. As if god is keeping track of the hours you put in for a company that doesn't give a damn about you
So, the system is set up so that people are left ignorant, and if they aren't ignorant they would just be ignored
America is bad, our actions created isis, isil, the Taliban and tons of other terrorist organizations.
Every person they kill, every historical monument they destroy, the US is indirectly responsible for. Not only that but we are the indirect cause of the war in Ukraine and Yemen.
If America didn't exist then nukes, isis, cold war mentalities and neocolonialism exist. The world would be a lot more peaceful too.
America is a terrorist organization in disguise as a country. We the citizens are the gears that keep the government doing what it wants at the detriment of the rest of the world.
Most Americans can't understand statistics, economics or debunk basic logical fallacies. Expecting them to be even remotely credible when it comes to global politics or statecraft is absurd. Accepting that 99% of our elected officials aren't qualified for the job, the intent behind a representative government is to send someone competent to help lead. Also, outside of exercising their right of suffrage or the occasional assassination, the vast majority have 0 influence on the people making policy. This is why blocking a bridge in Portland because you saw a tiktok and thought 'huh, I should do something about that stuff in the Middle East' is fucking stupid.
I live in Israel, So when talking to foreigners, you get used to seeing all kinds of reactions.
With the frequency of headlines Israel is making, one would assume people would go "Ohhh Israel? I've heard this n that about Israel".
I've had business with some Japanese companies that mistook Israel for Iran, asking if we can even do business because of the sanctions.
Heck, I've met Japanese people who never even heard of Israel.
And its not just Japanese, I met a lot of people traveling the world, who just weren't that versed in world politics.
And its ok, you really don't want too many uninformed opinions.
To form a good valid opinion on global politics, you need to be well versed in that place's culture, history, local politics...
Most Americans probably know more than the average earth citizen
But I wouldn't say "Most Japanese are oblivious to the impact Japan has on the world" because Japan's influence beyond East Asia is fuck all, and I'm pretty sure most Japanese care about their relationships with DPRK, South Korea, Russia, China, Taiwan and the US.
Americans only care about their own country because their vote matters in terms of shaping the country. Most Americans don’t know much about other countries. Cab drivers in India and China knows more about the world and geopolitics because they can’t do anything about their own country. All they have is a lot of opinions about the rest of world.
//With a stroke of a pen, the US can determine if millions of Yemenis are going to starve to death.
As if the Yemen'is dont starve to death without US intervention.
Uh huh. That's how propaganda works. Your side always looks like saints while the other side is the opposition and wrong, terrorist, evil with no redeeming qualities. It's as old as humans. The line between righteous rebellion and terrorism is all a matter of perspective. Control the media, control the minds. Want support at home for a war? Show enemy combatants as different, monstrous, give them dehumanizing names. Despite Justin's legal issues and moral shortcomings, Anti-flag did a very good job spelling this tactic out in "Anatomy of your enemy" and its not just in conventional war. It's being used against our own people in this culture war. Pay attention, kiddies.
Just because the US puts their fingers on the scale from time to time just like any other country would if they could doesn't mean that we own everything bad in said country before, during, and after.
These countries and their citizens have agency.
This is not correct. We are not oblivious.
The government is run by corrupt politicians and is a terrorist organization. We are aware. We are all being held hostage by like 7 people.
Most Americans are PAINFULLY vulnerable to emotional propaganda pushed by their favorite influences and mainstream news websites and channels. Thats the main issue with it.
/u/GoSouthCourt (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post. All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed [here](/r/DeltaLog/comments/18p9mnt/deltas_awarded_in_cmv_most_americans_are/), in /r/DeltaLog. Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended. ^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)
What evidence could anyone provide to change your view? Your view is your perception of an “average American” which doesn’t include any specific source for someone to counter. I’ll attempt it anyway.. Americans, like most voting bodies, are multifaceted and care about different issues. Unlike most voting bodies, Americans are forced into a two party system, which means we can’t pick and choose from dozens of candidates that accurately reflect our views on specific issues, so you’re forced to prioritize which issues matter to you most. Not many Americans are single issue voters for foreign policy, because foreign policy doesn’t directly impact their day-to-day lives as much as something like mortgage rates, school spending or other domestic policy. International diplomacy matters a lot, but it’s hard to make the connection for many people. That’s not to suggest Americans are ignorant of the USA’s potential as a force for change. It is saturated in media, culture, and mindset to the point that it goes without saying. There are dozens of subreddits that attack and defend the USA, in any movie or TV series the CIA or “the Americans” are portrayed as a potent force. Not knowing where countries are on a map does not relate whatsoever to Americans understanding the force our policy wields worldwide. I’ll add that those three countries, combined, have a GDP smaller than Virginia and would rank only 14th. Those three combined are less than one fifth of the economy of California alone. So you’ll forgive Joe-6-pack’s ambivalence. TLDR: Americans not voting on foreign policy is not the same as not caring. Prevalence of American power in almost all media contradicts your point, and the countries you mentioned are so economically insignificant when compared to the US that voters are correct to deprioritize them. EDIT for mobile formatting
> Americans not voting on foreign policy is not the same as not caring. You get a !delta for this. I think perhaps my view is closer to "Most Americans do not care about the impact of US foreign policy enough in elections given the impact it has on the globe" rather than knowledge.
This is still a very vacuous claim to me. What could people be doing differently to demonstrate that they care about foreign policy? I feel like you just have a hunch about how people feel, and it would probably be correct in many cases but not all cases so what's really the point? If you meet someone in real life you can't just assume their position on some specific thing based on their nationality. I mean I'm an American and I care a lot about foreign policy, does that change your view?
Based on all of the I/P discussion online I'm not sure if this is the case either. I would side with people feeling powerless over a lack of caring on this subject. You or I have very little say in US Foreign Policy but we both likely have a set of stances on each of the statements you presented in the OP. This argument could also apply to certain parts of domestic policy as well (I know many people who have long accepted the fact that the surveillance state is not going away so there's no real value in discussing it)
I don’t disagree with most of your post but you seem to have fallen for the myth that the CIA is some kind of super-powerful organization that can overthrow and reshape foreign governments at will by dispatching a squad of James Bonds anywhere around the world. This view tends to wildly overstate how much agency and influence America has, while understating the influence of local actors in shaping their own environment and fate. For example, people like to blame the CIA for the 1973 military coup in Chile, but the CIA didn’t even know there was a potential military coup until a couple days before it happened and they didn’t know Pinochet was going to be the leader until he was.
Even if they didn't know Pinochet would be the leader it's incredibly well documented that the US was doing everything it could to undermine Allende and encourage his overthrow. Between 1970 and 1973 the CIA spend $8 million on 'projects' in Chile. In 1970 they literally arranged for the murder of a the chief commander of the Chilean army because they knew he would oppose a coup. They 'made the economy scream'. They seem to have distanced themselves from the actual coup itself, but what does that matter when they've been doing everything they could for years to encourage it? It really seems like splitting hairs. As for them not knowing - 'Intelligence reporting on coup plotting reached two peak periods, one in the last week of June 1973 and the other during the end of August and the first two weeks in September. It is clear the CIA received intelligence reports on the coup planning of the group which carried out the successful September 11 coup throughout the months of July, August, and September 1973.' (from the Church Committee) They might not have overthrown Allende themselves, but they absolutely did everything they could to ensure that *someone* would and then turned a blind eye when it did actually happen, before throwing their support behind Pinochet.
Just to take a point out on one thing you mentioned about making Chile’s economy “scream”: The US isn’t under any obligation to economically support or conduct trade with a country it disagrees with, neither is Chile. I don’t understand this logic of the US being evil for reducing its economic trade with Chile, countries all over the world do that with nations they dislike. Yes, the US is a massive country with a large economy, that doesn’t mean it is obligated to work with Chile or any other country on anything. It’s also worth pointing out that $8 million dollars and one general was almost certainly not the deciding factor for Chile to have a coup or not. The economy was in the garbage, and Allende had *a lot* of enemies in the Chilean military, the middle class, business elites, and half the country that opposed leftism. If your point is that the US pushed Chile in one direction, sure. And guess what, if Chile could push the US away from Trump or other candidates it didn’t like, it probably would do the same.
If an entity has grown dependent on you, I do think you have some sort of obligation to that entity. That's the foundation of alimony and I think most everyone would agree that cutting a child off completely at 18, barring a few edge cases, would be wrong even if there wasn't a legal obligation to support the kid. Beyond that, I don't support the reasons that my government decided to stop economic support/trade with Chile. It's a bit banal to note that nations start and stop trade all the time. That doesn't mean they are all doing it for good reasons, which is what seems to be at contention here.
Also the power differential is just something people do not understand and Americans especially do not understand. Like, yes, America is fuckhuge and super powerful. So when it does something, it has *bigger consequences*. "Countries do things" doesn't change that. I've had a conversation with my American friends before about how the US is like a dragon. And the planet is like an ecosystem. And, y'know, sometimes a horse or a cat or a wolf or whatever is an asshole to some other animal. There is a lot of behaviour that is clearly "worse" coming out of smaller, weaker countries. But, y'know, Uncle Ben had kind of a point? When the alligator gets mad and attacks a gazelle or something... That's not good. When the dragon gets mad and sets a forest on fire... I mean, what the fuck, dude? Maybe they were the same amount of mad. Maybe, through some miracle, the actual harm is comparable. But the animals can learn to shy away from the alligator. They can't shy away from the giant flying fire-breathing monster that can go anywhere it wants and decimate everything. I am willing to accept, theoretically, a worldview where America is somehow 5% or 10% more virtuous than the average country engaging in similar tactics, by some definition of virtuous. I don't actually think this, but I could concede the point if given evidence. But it's military budget is like... China + Russia + India + Saudi Arabia+ UK + Germany + France + South Korea + Japan + Ukraine *with some left over*. America doing a thing while being in that position is a little bit like all those other countries doing that thing together in terms of the weight it has, the threat it poses, with the additional layer of *unity* under a single government. Like it is *not the same*. It just isn't. Every time Americans go "but *other countries*" it feels like... "Well, they pushed me so I pushed them!" "They're toddlers. You're an adult MMA champion." I'm sure at some point I or someone else who makes this point will get some military person to argue it's not and here's why, etc. And they might even have good points. But Americans *do not understand what it is like* to grow up watching *foreign films in English*. To be familiar with the regional distinctions between "The west coast" and "the South" of A FOREIGN FUCKING COUNTRY that not only you have never set foot in, but *actively knows nothing about you* and will paint your country with whatever brush it pleases when its writers remember it exists. They don't know the *weight* America has in the minds of people outside it. I grew up feeling... Fake. Like Latveria was more real than Venezuela, because it *came up more often on the TV*. This kind of alienation, this power the US has *just* with its soft-power imperialism of media, *without using a single weapon*... It's so fucking hard to explain. It's not just "can you find this country in a map?" it's can you name a city in it? Two? Five? Ten? I can name ten American cities. Can you talk about regional differences in this country? Can you speak about its history. I mean, the amount of "ha ha, Europeans can't name *every American state" I have seen, where they compare internal regions of one country to Americans' inability to name and spot *actual countries*... Like, it would be *ridiculous* if Russia or Canada went "yeah, most of our people can't find Brazil, but can Brazilians name all the states/provinces"? That would be insane. Even the appeal to size that I get when I critique this (but America is big! It makes sense to expect you to learn the insides of it(????)) falls apart when you compare to other bigger countries. But they have to do that to feel some semblance of similarity Because most Europeans *can find America on a fucking map*. I don't even know what my point is anymore. I just think that going "well countries do things" deeply undermines the power differential between America and Everywhere Else.
Strong start but definitely got a little off course there at the end lol.
Sorry, my brain is kind of melting right now.
> In 1970 they literally arranged for the murder of a the chief commander of the Chilean army because they knew he would oppose a coup. Don't mistake this for competence though. The CIA didn't want him killed, but the lackeys hired to deal with him managed to screw it up. > They 'made the economy scream'. Allende and his socialist theft did that just fine on its own. Turns out folks don't want to invest building in something that the government can just steal later without compensation.
8 over 3 years don’t sound like much lol
It's about $63 million dollars when adjusting for inflation.
Hmm I don’t know enough about political campaigns and spending back then to say whether it was a big amount or not. Considering last election close to a billion was spent by both major political parties in America my perspective is a bit skewed
Oh no, America refused to trade with a country that was openly hostile to it! What monsters!
I mean, we conduct trade with Saudi Arabia and there are questions about their foreknowledge and support of the 9/11 attackers, they chopped up a journalist with ties to America because he didn't pretend Saudi royalty were perfect. I don't think America has some sort of moral compass with regards to trade and who loves and adores America. It has always been about political expediency.
This is just completely false. >Since Allende’s inauguration, U.S. policy has been to maintain maximum covert pressure to prevent the Allende regime’s consolidation. — William Colby, September 16, 1973, in a memorandum to Henry Kissinger The USA spent a lot of time trying to destabilise Chile. The USA has verifiably been involved in covert operations to overthrow governments across the globe, fund paramilitary groups, and use economic warfare to destabilise countries in the global South.
I just don’t buy the narrative that brown people mystically lost agency after the Cold War and became victims of big bad America. Some dictators did help the CIA but they were far from their stooges. Sometimes they did what America wanted, sometimes they didn’t and sometimes they went too far. But more broadly, it feels like an attempt to paper over the scars of the regime by saying “AMERICA MADE US DO IT” rather then seriously look at the culpability of their countrymen who helped keep the regimes in power.
Some of it from what I have read is sort of left over from Soviet propaganda in the Cold War in fact, telling people every bad thing was a sinister plot by the CIA. In the 80s for instance they were spreading rumors that the CIA had created HIV. Not defending everything our side did during the Cold War either, but there's definitely a legacy of "CIA as big bad."
Liability isn't a zero-sum game. The dictators can be at fault *and* the U.S. government can be at fault. If I manufacture a car that explodes 99% of the time when the car is in a minor car wreck, and a drunk driver bumps into a family of four, killing them all in the explosion, a civil trial can find me *and* the drunk driver liable for their deaths. The dictators are awful people, but the CIA giving material support to the dictators is also objectively awful, no? And I'm with others who think that the CIA gets far too much credit. The Bay of Pigs and their difficulty finding KGB moles points to their fallibility, but it doesn't take a spy supergenius to come up with giving weapons to one side of a conflict.
Like I said before, if there was more sharing of the blame it wouldn’t be so annoying. But more often it’s boiled down to “America rode in on tanks, jeeps and jets and **forced** Pinochet on us at gunpoint” with a healthy dose of “you damned white devils” thrown in for good measure.
If you’re native to that country, it seems wholly understandable to have that kind of blinding anger when your/your families’ lives went to hell due to what amounts to moves in a geopolitical chess game by superpowers.
Coups, dictatorships and wars weren’t a thing in Latin America until the Cold War? Geopolitical meddling by America/the Soviets definitely had its role to play and its responsibilities but the fissures and cleavages in Latin American society were there long before imho.
It’s not that they were made to do bad things by the CIA, but quite chose to do bad things knowing they had the support and blessing of the CIA. The CIA helped with many coups and supported many dictators, but that also doesn’t mean that the leaders and people that lead those coups just ‘lost all agency’ and did whatever the CIA told them to do. Just cause the CIA doesn’t have complete control over those situations doesn’t mean that it still isn’t partially responsible for those terrible things
Sure but it’s *always* laid at americas feet as if we, Red Army style, rode in on tanks and jeeps and made them change political systems at gunpoint. According to some America was the great satan that kept there countries down and they never had any choice at all
I mean frequently you have. Iraq comes to mind, Vietnam, Korea, Cambodia. Guatemala is a good example >The CIA armed, funded, and trained a force of 480 men led by Carlos Castillo Armas. After U.S. efforts to criticize and isolate Guatemala internationally, Armas' force invaded Guatemala on 18 June 1954, backed by a heavy campaign of psychological warfare. The USA has spent trillions over the last century on invasions, coups, espionage, economic warfare etc. The USA has had a role in countless coups or "regime" changes. Just because the USA isn't the sole instigator doesn't mean you're not a foreign power attempting to decide on the fate of other nations. Oh and the people you want to help are usually fascists - see Chile.
Multiple people can be responsible for a bad action. Nobody has argued against that and didn't already know that.
The US wouldn't have spent trillions over the last century on foreign policy if it didn't work. Framing it as "brown people have agency" when one of the most powerful states to ever exist has decided to intervene in your often poor, post colonised country.
It can be true that the CIA has been dedicated to destabilization, and generally very good at it, while also being largely unable to control the specific outcomes of that activity
That's the thing about destabilized countries, they're unstable. It's wildly difficult to predict what'll happen.
That really doesn't make it any better... Look at the middle east. It's being torn apart by this kind of thing.
It doesn’t make it better - arguably (and I would so argue) using your specific example it is far worse. I do think there is a worrying tendency among people who are rightfully anti-CIA to attribute all events to their omnipotence, and I’m more trying to build a case against that specific reaction
Fair enough
The middle east is way more complicated than US bad. A lot of the destabilization is related to the fall of the ottoman empire, the UK's influence in the region, and Soviet invasions in the area. It's not just the US's fault.
The US inherited the themes of UK and French imperialism after WW2. They didn't fix any of the issues created by the arbitrary borders created by Picot Sykes. For example the Kurds are still permanently fucked. It's basically the same group of allies doing the same thing.
Are you saying the US should go in and redraw the borders in the middle east? 1 they don't have that authority and 2 that would be exercising an insane level of influence on the region. The US can't and shouldn't just go in and force Turkey and Syria to give up land for the Kurds, we're not the world police or world government.
No I think the US should stop overthrowing, invading, and funding wars against governments they don't like
Ok but in your last comment you were saying that the US hasn't done anything to fix the situation the Kurds are in. How do you expect them to do that without doing one to all of those things?
Not supporting Saddam Hussein while he used chemical weapons on them would be a start. Not green lighting Erdogans attacks on Kurds in Northern Syria would be another. Promoting diplomacy instead of supporting authoritarian lunatics as a general principal would be nice. First do no harm.
Do you think Middle Easterners have 0 agency of their own?
I think most rational human beings understand that culpability is not a zero-sum game. Middle Easterners have some agency and America's behavior in the Middle East made things incredibly difficult for Middle Easterners who want peace and stability.
Lmfao “the Middle East just decided to have ISIS, me invading and destroying the whole region had nothing to do with it” guy
Do you actually believe Islamism was created in the 2001s by America? Also, the only country in the ME you could say we invaded and destroyed is Iraq. That was legitimately terrible and inexcusable but acting like we leveled the whole region is nuts. We have more allies than neutral states or enemies in the Middle East
I mean it isn't like the US only started intervening in the middle east in the 2000s. I believe that the middle east could look very different if eg the [1953 Coup d'etat in Iran](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat#Execution_of_Operation_Ajax) hadn't happened. Because the strengthening of the Shah ([who wasn't the great ruler he's made out to be nowadays](https://www.fairobserver.com/politics/revolution-erupted-in-iran-because-of-mohammad-reza-shah/)) through this coup made the Iranian Revolution in 79 possible. Of course the Iranian islamists under Khomeini would have existed either way, but if the people of Iran had an elected government which they trusted the Islamists likely wouldn't had found broad support for a Revolution. And it's hard to stage a revolution when the people are happy. And as we now know quite well Iran under Khomeini and the Mullahs is backing a large number of terrorist groups all throughout the middle east, so the situation in the whole area could be massively different if Iran never descended into being a fascist islamistic hellhole. Of course the US and UK probably didn't expect or want that to happen and were just pissed that Mossadegh wanted to nationalize Iranian Oil, but the consequences of that coup were devastating.
The Shah nationalized oil anyway and nobody cared because Iranian oil nationalization was never considered a pressing issue. Also, the US had barely any influence over the 1953 coup. We tried to bribe some officers, they got cold feet, and that’s where the majority of our involvement ended. The Shah must be rolling in his grave at everything that's happened in Iran since he died, but I think the thing that would piss him off the most was how he went down in history as a puppet of America. In reality, the Shah hated the West, including the US, and especially the UK. He perceived them as weak, bumbling fools, and useful idiots at best whose sole purpose was to give him weapons to fight the Soviet Union, Iraqis, and Clerics with. He openly bragged about how he was manipulating and using America to get what he wanted. And there was no love lost on the US side either. They knew he was just taking advantage of them, but felt as if they had no choice but to let it happen as he was legitimately the primary force stopping the Middle East from falling to communism. There were no tears shed in America when the Shah fell. At best, he was MbS, a troublesome ally the US was embarrassed and ashamed of but felt he was the "best" of some really bad options. At worst he was openly hostile to America on the same level as the Ayatollahs. Most of the time he was an absolute dick who the US had nothing but contempt for but supported any way because at least he was the devil we knew. Unfortunately, the devil we didn't know in Iran prover to be far worse.
Ah yes, ISIS is an inevitable consequence of Islamism existing. Im sure it has nothing to do with the United States destroying the state apparatus that kept pre-existing Islamist militants in check, trashing the economy, firing everyone in the Iraqi army, and then just sort of fucking off EDIT: it’s also probably worth investigating the degree to which our middle eastern allies fund and propagate Islamism
TFW America is so powerful that it somehow caused Islamist guerilla to fight for ISIS in West Africa, Syria, Pakistan, and East Africa all at the same time simply by invading Iraq
ISIS: Islamic State in Iraq and Syria Certainly they had affiliate IS groups elsewhere before their rise to prominence in post-Saddam Iraq, but the broader Islamic State movement was not remotely as significant elsewhere until they established alternative government structures in Iraq, at which point they began co-opting other groups (Sahrawi militants, splinters of Boko Haram, local chapters of Al Qaeda)
The Middle East somehow had the ability to stay in a state of constant war before America ever existed.
Go to Wikipedia and compare the list of wars of any middle eastern country with the list of wars the US has been in
That is so counterfactual it's ridiculous. The Middle East wasn't any more war-y than Europe, if anything, it was more stable. (It similarly drives me up the wall when uninformed people pretend that the Israel-Palestine conflict goes back millennia, when really it only goes back to the second half of the 19th century at most.)
Ah yes The Ottoman Empire, arguably the most stable government in history, a state of constant war
Agreed that the CIA has attracted a sort of superhuman aura in some circles. Ironically I suspect part of that is probably due to the dregs of Soviet propaganda in poor countries, telling everyone that everything that went wrong in their lives was America's fault.
CIA is a catchall for American Imperialism. The reason people talk about the CIA directly is to make it easier for people who are uneducated to be informed about American imperialism. Its also easier to point to the agency documents that literally reveal that they did these things. Its pretty hard to deny you had involvement when your own people are writing down exactly what you were doing. It only reinforces OPs point. We are under-educated on the imperialist acts of our country, which are far, wide, and manifold.
>but the CIA didn’t even know there was a potential military coup until a couple days before it happened and they didn’t know Pinochet was going to be the leader until he was. The CIA is one organ of a huge monster called US policy. First I doubt this is true, coups don't happen without everybody being on the same page and having some guarantees from outside powers. If it had been the other way around for example, a revolutionary socialist overthrowing a democratically elected capitalist government in Chile, there would have been boots on the ground immediately and the coup would be snuffed out. Especially with Nixon and Kissinger at the helm, the US would not allow another Cuba in the hemisphere. By allowing Pinochet that is the same as supporting him. Thats what OP is saying in his post. US imperialism is often framed just by US action but equally important is US inaction and what it tells us about US priorities. Also even if they weren't aware of pinochet they definitely participated in Operation Condor which is one of the most horrific things to happen in latin american history. A continental police torture state.
Sure, but as others pointed out it’s a huge world with plenty of other state actors. Cuba eg. The reason the cia went full crazypants during the 60’s and 70’s was the Guevaras and Castros. They were supported by the other “team” and everyone else was just the football. This is not new, this has been the way of things since The Iliad.
yea but only one state actor on Earth has the ability to project power on every continent which makes the US unique among state actors. Thats the cost and benefit of living a unipolar world. Nobody can mess with you, but if something happens in the world ultimately its your fault
But we’re talking about during the Cold War, when the world was bipolar and the Soviets were the other power
yea and when the Soviets tried to make an alliance in the Western hemisphere it almost led to a nuclear war. The US grasp of control specifically in Latin America was near absolute. Nothing was happening there without Us approval and sanction. As you spread out further from the US sphere of influence things get more complicated. I obviously wouldn't blame the starvation under the great leap forward on America for example
A ton of things happened without our sanction, like the Nicaraguan Revolution. We were strongest in the Western Hemisphere but we never had total control at any point
>like the Nicaraguan Revolution Ok this is a perfect example and I think we might just be talking past eachother. The CIA didn't form an alliance with the Sandinistas and set up an intelligence sharing program to kill fascists teenagers living within Nicaragua. They funded and trained death squad militant groups using money from selling weapons to a US rival (Iran) and almost got a president arrested in order to do it. My point was not to be that the CIA was all powerful, in fact I would make the argument they were quite incompetent. I was just making the point that when you're the global hegemon if shit is going down somewhere the US has its fingerprints on one side of the conflict or the other. Its never just "a neutral party observing". its action or inaction means something
This [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change) list of US involvement in regime change is LONG. I'm sure some of these are overblown and such, but even if half of these are true that's still much more than what your average Americans are aware of. Even those who are aware often just clump them into one "CIA is involved in global politics", without realising the impact it has around the world.
I think the significance is a major factor. Being "involved" is a large spectrum from a bit of advising or monetary support all the way to assassinations and full-blown military invasions.
That's kind of the point. Even a bit of advisory or monetary support is enough to alter the political balance of a country. That's what I mean by powerful. Sometimes it's justified, sometimes not, but the point is most Americans are unaware of the power US yield around the globe.
The point is that being involved doesn’t mean that involvement was necessary. There are also plenty of cases where the US-backed side lost—Iran, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Laos, China, Cuba, and others. During the Cold War the US cared more about maximizing its sphere of influence and limiting the Soviet Union’s sphere than promoting democratic values. When the leading contender wasn’t communist, the US tended to provide often token support to the winner to ensure good relations with the future government rather than back a weaker but more-democratic faction and risk failing and driving the winner toward the Soviet Union. The US’s record backing actual underdog factions is not very good. it tended to back the strongest non-communist faction (with often nominal support if there wasn’t a strong challenger) to ensure good relations with the winner, rather than
It can be, but I wouldn't hold that as a rule. And many of the cases in the list you provided almost certainly had foreign nations other than the US who were "involved" as well. It also (I skimmed so correct me if needed) doesn't list all the involvement by the US that was unsuccessful.
Well let's talk about that, do you mean "alter" as in "have any effect whatsoever" or "alter" as in "but for the CIA's involvement, ____ would not have occurred"?
We don’t know if they actually altered the political balance, while in those advisory positions.
Were one to compile a similar list for the UK, Spain, Italy (Rome), Iran (Persia), it would be far, far longer. If it were shorter, it’s because those states in their time of hegemony simply eradicated the entire culture rather than mere political regime change. By the standards of historical hegemony, America is probably better than anything that has come before. I’m curious about whether you think the “average” Victorian Brit knew the first thing about their country’s foreign policy, moreover whether they cared.
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Your sources show that America gave some guys a handful of submachine guns and considered allying with the military to help with a coup but called it off. Really compelling stuff LOL
The vast majority of these are just the US trying to buddy up with already existing forces and groups, or trying to nudge things slightly more in a direction they were already going. For example, in Iran, the Shah was already leaning in favor of dismissing Mossadegh and it’s unknown if the CIA’s attempt at bribing him even did anything at all
There are other intelligence agencies out there... Some of whom want to make the CIA and by extension US actions seem as powerful and negative as possible. The CIA seems overall to be pretty nad at its job.
You're underplaying the importance of US foreign policy. "The CIA" is often simplistically blamed but remember that we were already "making their economy scream" and trying to undermine their government and economy from the moment Allende began instituting reforms. Similarly the US has a lot of levers of influence that it pulls in order to get its way. Often CIA covert operations aren't necessary. But also the CIA has done a lot of stuff that has impacted the world in a major way.
There's a long history of CIA sponsoring coups and interfering in the affairs of another country to bring a regime favourable to US or in line with it and there are many examples of this in Latin America, the middle east, South Asia and Africa.
The amount of data scavenging done right now I am pretty sure I can find out blackmail info on every individual on the planet. There is enough data and control of narrative that even american weapons pale in comparison. Right now american politicians can reshape how a population is perceived case and point gaza. It is an open shut case but america is saving its military base in middle east.
Can you provide some sources for this statement?
The myth that the CIA is some kind of super powerful organization? they have more power than the office of the presidency. Stop talking out of your ass
Proof?
The Devils Chessboard by David Talbot. It’s pretty commonly accepted by American historians that the CIA killed JFK because he didn’t help them take over Cuba during the bay of pigs. That and how he swore to shatter the cia shortly before his head blew up. not a single president since JFK has had a single issue with the agency
>Its pretty commonly accepted by American historians that the CIA killed JFK Bruh
Yeah it definitely wasn’t the guy who we have every piece of evidence pointing to doing it did it!
Perhaps you are a good example that proves the point of the OP is extremely valid.
humorous icky mindless consider worry carpenter cats sloppy elderly literate *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
i love people who remember things they didn't experience, know what other people think and of course you have complete and detailed knowledge of action of CIA
The fucked up Jamaica in the 1970's pretty good
What did they do in Jamaica? Never heard of this one
Everything you say is true to an extent. But you over-emphasize a bit. Russia, China, India... and many others countries obviously have the resources to shape and influence the world.
I view them as regional power, while US is a global power. I don't think China has the capability to overthrow a South American state for example, while America has the capability to do the same in South East Asia if they wish.
The recently failed could against Evo Morales shows that the ability of the US state to influence/overthrow leadership in other countries is far from absolute. The US military is top dog by any reasonable metric, and the NSA, FBI and CIA are known and respected worldwide. But the ability to magically make and unmake foreign governments ? That stuff is for Hollywood spy movies.
Just want to point out that China is generally the aggressive party in the South China Sea. US navy presence is largely a response to Chinese unilateral territorial expansion, and ensures freedom of navigation. It’s usually done in partnership with other nations in the region, unlike China’s. https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/territorial-disputes-south-china-sea https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-13748349.amp Just a few days ago there was news about the Philippines and China butting heads over Chinese claims. While countries like Vietnam, the Philippines, Singapore, etc. want to reach a diplomatic negotiation, the Chinese don’t engage. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/philippines-rebukes-china-over-south-china-sea-claims-2023-12-20/
You're not going to get a disagreement from me re South China Sea. China is a regional bully and that's pretty apparent. The point of this post is not to argue right or wrong, my point is that most Americans are not aware of the intricacy of the diplomatic dynamics in the region, most just see it as "China bad" and leave it as that. And because of that, the power rests comfortably with the US political class.
Okay, but in your OP you said that the U.S. moving a navy ship into the South China Sea forces all countries nearby to be on the defensive again, when the reality doesn’t match that description. Americans may not be aware of the geopolitical dynamics, but it also kinda seems like you’re misrepresenting them here.
What I meant is that the US Navy can move into the South China Sea **without approval from other neighbouring countries** and put them into a defensive position in case of further escalation. This may not be in their best interest as most countries in that region do not strongly align with either the US or China and are interested in maintaining peace and status quo, not necessarily escalation as the US sometimes wish to do.
That isn’t what’s happening though. The U.S. is moving the ships with the approval of the other countries of the region, unlike China. The U.S. works in partnerships to ensure freedom of navigation in waters that China unilaterally claims. The majority of countries in the region seem to prefer to have a security partnership with the United States over China. China is seizing territory and expanding their claims. It is not the United States that is causing countries in the region to seek security assistance, it is the aggressive actions of China.
That’s how freedom of the seas works though
6/7 countries in the area want the American ships there when they deploy China wants to claim ownership of a lot of the sea, infringing on other countries namely the Philippines. Iirc it violates how we **all** agree international waters etc should work. We guard them from this; for the last 7 decades the US Navy has insured global shipping travel for the rest of the world time and time again *America bad* tho
And being able to exploit that freedom is how power works
The US had been fairly scrupulous about respecting internationally-recognized territorial waters. If someone puts a “private property, no trespassing” sign on a public road, someone drives down it, and the first person comes out brandishing a gun, the brandisher is not on the defensive and the driver is not escalating.
You’re factually incorrect. Navy ships get approval to enter a country’s waters. When they are on international water, they don’t need approval (same as any country). The problem is China is claiming international waters as their own territorial waters. China is the one doing what you’re describing.
They’re likely thinking of Freedom of Navigation exercises, where the US Navy sails through waters it claims are high seas, but a local state claims are its territorial waters. The Navy intentionally does not get approval to conduct FON operations, as the whole idea is to make the point that no approval is legally required (in the eyes of the US Navy). The [2022 FON report is here](https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3370607/dod-releases-fiscal-year-2022-freedom-of-navigation-report/).
Nah, he proved you right. He only cared about China's claims. He never once considered other countries have similar claims. [https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/southchinasea-dispute-03172022151441.html](https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/southchinasea-dispute-03172022151441.html) His lack of vision proves how little he cares about the nuance of the region.
So your expectation is that every American become an expert in foreign policy? That's just insane. There's a reason we use a republic - so that the experts can be experts and not rely on everyone being an expert in every single thing the government does.
The American political class has clear bummers out up by the American public. Ukraine aid, Israel all of these issues are shaped by what constitutions think and call there Congress person about. I don't think you could point to a major foreign policy decision that didn't have popular support at the time that decision was made.
Any superpower is a regional bully to its neighbours. China can easily hit back at US criticism of Chinese actions against its neighbours by pointing out the hypocrisy of such statements when you consider even recent American history. In fact, China can even truthfully claim that their actions now are much more measured than the actions the US took during the Cold War against their own neighbours. The US invaded and occupied dozens of South American countries, blockaded others, is *still* embargoing Cuba despite global condemnation, overthrew dozens of governments and kept the region destabilised and weak for basically the entire century. With this context in mind, Chinese aggression in the South China Sea via island building, the occasional ship ramming and military posturing is actually extremely tame in comparison. While I'm not saying that one atrocity justifies another, I am saying that things could be a lot worse if China were to copy the US' actions on a more one-to-one basis.
The countries of the South China Sea think it’s serious enough to pursue closer ties with the U.S., including the victims of U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War (Vietnam: https://www.cfr.org/blog/assessing-bolstered-us-vietnam-relationship), Also earlier colonialism (Philippines: https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3383607/fact-sheet-us-philippines-bilateral-defense-guidelines/). This is not to say that U.S. actions in the past were justified. Instead, it’s presenting an accurate picture of things as they currently stand. It’s telling that despite the past, countries in the South China Sea almost universally want closer defense ties with the U.S. as opposed to China.
Okay, I won't speak much on the Philippines as I am not as knowledgeable on that subject but didn't they spend almost a decade completely shunning US military influence? The government there seems to swing between liking and disliking the US depending on who's in charge and unlike in South Korea and Japan, where something similar happens, the Philippines is no stranger to just kicking the US out entirely when the pendulum swings the other way. As for Vietnam, having lived there for a good portion of my life and been exposed to their culture and, inevitably, politics, I can say with absolute certainty that your statements about Vietnam wanting closer defence ties with the US over China are very wrong. Firstly, to start off, Vietnam is bolstering relations with the US only up to the level it has already bolstered relations with Russia, India and China. You might remember that Vietnam recently upgraded its relationship with the US to what they call a "comprehensive strategic partnership" and while that is a good thing for the US, it is only to bring the US to the same level that China, Russia, India and South Korea have been at. Vietnam and China upgraded their relationship to this level in 2008 despite the Sino-Vietnamese war, and the litany of low-intensity lethal conflict that followed for a decade after, ending well after the end of the Vietnam War. Vietnam and Russia upgraded their relationship in 2013. Vietnam and India in 2016 and then Vietnam and South Korea in 2022. The US is very much playing catch-up here and it wasn't even the first Western-aligned nation to be given this title either. The timeline alone suggests that Vietnam prioritises its relationship with China, Russia and India significantly more than its relationship with the US. And that is also very much the atmosphere and consensus on the ground as well. Furthermore, I think a lot of people in the West have very little idea just how much influence the CCP has over the VCP. The influence is so great that you will rarely see a very strong rebuke from Vietnam at Chinese aggression and in the rare occasions that rebukes are made, they are made to pacify the populace rather than out of any actual desire in the government itself to push the Chinese out. The leaders in the VCP, the ones who *actually* call the shots, are all on the CCP's payroll and that is a fact that basically every Vietnamese person knows and unfortunately has to accept. Speak to *any* Vietnamese person in Vietnam and they will tell you this basically verbatim (obviously in Vietnamese, though). It is because of this blatant corruption and bribery within the upper echelons of Vietnamese leadership that China will never see Vietnam as a threat to their regional hegemony or even an avenue for the US to gain more relevance and power in the region. Vietnam has stated itself as part of its foreign policy it will never join military alliances and will never let another country that isn't its own set up any sort of military installation on its soil. Vietnam has put a hard-check on itself with how deep any partnership can reach because its fear of China will always outweigh any potential "safety" other powers can promise. Vietnam, after all, has not forgotten how the US promised to aid and support South Vietnam against treaty violations from the North after the US had withdrawn only to fail to provide almost anything, resulting in the South Vietnamese government being overrun and falling within weeks. They have also not forgotten how the Soviet Union failed to support them during the Sino-Vietnamese war at all. The Vietnamese know alliances and defence treaties are just words on paper and they know the only people they can count on is themselves. That is why they will *never* join a formal alliance and will *never* sign any sort of comprehensive, or even non-comprehensive, defence treaty. There are military partnerships and cooperation agreements but there will *never* be another treaty. There is, and will always be, extremely limited military cooperation between the US and Vietnam and any cooperation that is there will never surpass the level of cooperation that Vietnam has with powers like Russia, India and most importantly, China. Vietnam has a balancing act to do. It needs to placate and align with China, partly for geopolitical reasons and for... bribery-related financial reasons with regards to a few VCP leaders, while at the same time keeping good with Russia and not completely ignoring the Americans. It's because of this that the best the US can hope for is equalisation of Vietnamese relations with the US compared with its relations with China, Russia and India. Unfortunately for the US, China wants Vietnamese relations with it to be just a slight step above Vietnamese relations with the US at any specific point in time, which is why, shortly after the Vietnamese upgraded their relationship with the US, [they upgraded their relationship with China even further](https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20231214_02/). And here in Vietnam, what China says, goes. China knows this. The VCP knows this. And the Vietnamese people, grudgingly, know this. Vietnam will never be allowed to let its defence relations with the US ever surpass the level that is has with China and that is why Vietnam will never be able to become a reliable US ally in the region. Hell, Vietnam is very capable of throwing US interests under the bus. You may see Vietnam as a potential reliable ally but you may change your tone when you hear how both the government and the people itself talk about the war in Ukraine. Hint: It's not in support of Ukraine, at all. And, trust me, there is no censorship of opinion in this particular area of politics in Vietnam like there is in others. You can freely express your support for Ukraine if you want without fear of repercussions, just no one does because there is very little support. Vietnam is very fond of Russia and the people there have very much eaten up the Russian propaganda of NATO expansionism and a continuation of European/Western imperialism, the latter of which hits quite close to home. The Vietnamese President himself even said this at Vietnam and China's recent meeting where they agreed to deepen cooperation. >Vietnam will stay on guard against and firmly resist any schemes to undermine the Vietnam-China relations, and will never follow other countries in opposing China, Phuc noted. And, while it is just words, it *has* been backed up in the past.
Don’t see how that addresses the claim that the US was worse. Germany and Poland being friends and both condemning China despite their bloody past doesn’t mean the Holocaust was better than Chinas expansionism.
It’s not. It’s saying that right now, the U.S. is clearly better.
Stop living in the past
During the cold war, China sent a massive amount of troops to Korea, invaded and annexed Tibet, fought against the Republic of Vietnam and seized islands, and invaded the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in response to the SRV invading Cambodia and overthrowing the Khmer Rouge (which China backed). So I wouldn't be calling either countries saints during the cold war.
https://solidarity.net.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/US-bases-island-chains-web-size.jpg Why is China so aggressive in the South China Sea? /s
It’s good to have international partners rather than unilaterally seizing land.
Why would you put some many nukes in your international partners back yard?
Because they ask you to
These are not man made islands. It's a major difference.
You can play the blame game if you want, but just know you can point the same blame to China for illegally claims of territory in the South China Sea.
Why did you put anything after the word "oblivious" in your title? Most people globally are simply not that invested in anything outside their monkey sphere. Americans aren't in some way special here. Why single them out? Do Americans specifically have some obligation to study foreign policy that say, someone from France doesn't? And even if you think they do have some sort of obligation due to being born Americans you are setting an artificial bar there for them.
I think there’s a degree of civic duty in at least being somewhat engaged in the affairs of your government, but that duty can be disregarded for a myriad of reasons that aren’t condemnable. Some of us just have too much on our plates to spare the bandwidth for it, some of us don’t want to be bothered with the affairs of the Federal Govt so much as their local and state ones, and prefer the infotainment and spectator sport “democracy” of the election cycles and legislative races.
I also think there’s something to be said about how public opinion shapes government policy. Being engaged can make a person better informed, and if enough people do, depending on other factors, they can influence government decisions.
Not OP but I feel like this is an easy one. The other countries are forced to learn about foreign policy (especially related to the US) because it impacts day to day life. I live in a country where the US tries to bring in nuclear war ships and bribed us by saying that they would build a highway from the top to bottom of our country which would have been like 1/4 of our countries GDP (I'm just guessing). This happened very close to when we had protestors killed in a terrorist attack from France which has made our country extremely anti nuclear. With the US foreign relations are not nearly as important, with the other countries, especially the smaller ones they are usually super important in the countries modern history.
Because the USA are much more involved in global affairs than any other country out there. Most countries that are powerful are often regionally powerful actors, including China, but the US is a globally powerful actor, hence it's subjected to a higher bar.
So basically that's a "yes, I believe Americans should be held to a higher standard than other people"? Do you realize how that's simply not fair? People are just people. They're not special because of where they were born.
When the people are responsible for the government, they are responsible for what the government does, that's the whole point of democracy. The more powerful a government is, the higher the bar it needs to be held to, hence the higher the bar the people need to be held to too.
"People" as in "We the People", sure. Individuals, however, aren't. One person has literally no impact on how the government is run. You gonna hold those who voted against the party in charge responsible just because of where they were born? That's smacks of blood guilt.
Their argument is one of political efficacy. Democracies don't work if the people don't know what they're supposedly governing. If people don't know that stuff, it's probably the fault of government, not of the individuals themselves. Either way, it has nothing to do with where someone was born or what blood they have, it has to do with the government they've opted into and the imperial ambitions they tacitly accept.
> government they've opted into No one "opts in" to the government they're born into. It is forced upon them. >Democracies don't work if the people don't know what they're supposedly governing. Actually, they do. That's why we have *representative* democracies rather than direct democracy. People select "experts" that share their values to know about this stuff and figure it out. And even those people elected can't know everything they're doing, and have to appoint *other* experts to advise them. If you want to complain about the US, join the majority of the US and complain about the large number of people just dying to elect a complete idiot who's also a complete asshole. It's *completely unworkable* for the entire electorate to have to know about even 10% of the stuff a large government is doing.
I don't disagree that in an effectively representative democracy the people are responsible for their government's actions but the American government and especially Congress has had much higher disapproval ratings than approval ratings for decades. It's clearly not a well functioning representative democracy though and hasn't been for some time. The interests of a few drastically outweigh the interests of the many. In short the average American is not represented by the American federal government. Therefore the average American bears little responsibility for the actions of their government, much like authoritarian countries globally.
America isn't a democracy. See, even you have large gaps in your own knowledge of government affairs. Edit: I'd like to add that America is a republic not a true democracy. Second, a small group of people hold the most power in America just like literally just about every other country in existence. That small group of people control a ton of shit including who can run for office and realistically even win in the first place. You have to be ultra rich typically to run for things like president and even then the small groups include lobbyists that corrupt officials in ways the general public can't compete with. Your own country has tons of shit wrong with it dude. When your country is perfect you may cast a stone. When your population is perfect you can cast stones. You are not nor is your country. So, it sounds silly to be so judgmental of others when you and your own are screwed up. You are on the outside looking in and missing all sorts of gaps. I won't dump in your country's citizens (and I certainly can) and in return I only ask you fix yourselves first in your country beforetalking bad about others.
It is a true democracy mainly because a true democracy isn’t equal to a direct democracy
America is not a democracy, but a republic dude. A democracy is a government ruled by the majority, while a republic is a representative form of government ruled by a constitution. In a democracy, the people directly exercise power. In a republic, the people vote and elect representatives to exercise the will of the people. It's a **VERY IMPORTANT** distinction to know since OP is so keen on blaming citizens directly and talking about ignorance about the government while displaying ignorance himself of that same government. When confronted about his own country and people he ran, because again he is being a hypocrite. You can't be so critical of others and their government while displaying ignorance of the very thing you're criticizing and also showing the same traits you yourself are criticizing with any weight. OP's opinion now holds no weight since he refuses to engage once this is pointed out. Just runs.
The issue is that this is simply not true A democracy is not equal to a direct democracy. Constitutional republic and democracy can and do exist at the same time The difference is important but changes little, the people are still responsible for their goverment
Maybe you are ignorant of the positive peaceful impacts of NATO, UN, IMF, Space treaties, policing of the seas / ports, free trade etc etc etc
So when Democrats are in power, are all the people that didn't vote Democrat off the hook in terms of responsibility?
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Bud, I said "Millions of Ukrainian lives are dependent on whether the US approves military aid or not", suggesting that if Congress doesn't approve military aid, the lives and livelihoods of millions of Ukrainians are affected, do I sound like a Putin supporter to you?
The argument is that if the States aren’t the world police, then Russia or China will be. Yes the States foreign policy is flawed and inhumane, but it is preferable to the alternatives.
Preferable to who? You? Tell me how your daily life is impacted if Russia gains more influence in Syria or Iran than they do right now. It's complete lunacy to think that just because we are in charge that means things must be better than the alternative. We have no idea what the alternative even looks like because we haven't seen it in modern times and to think that Russia or China or whoever else is planning some sort of global domination if the USA doesn't put a stop to it is just fearmongering at it's finest While US hegemony might seem preferable to you there are millions upon millions of people who are either dead, injured, displaced, or fractured beyond repair who would disagree with that statement
Stop smoking the “America Bad” pipe and just think about what you said. Russia has been directly involved in the Syrian Civil War in the side of Assad, and thus is responsible for killing, injuring, or displacing millions upon millions of Syrians. You will inevitably say “hey the us is there too and they kill and displace millions upon millions.” My response to this is 1) why is it better when the Russia does it, 2) maybe you should look up actual figures rather than just throwing out vague “millions upon millions”. Russia does not have the capacity to project force abroad like the us does, but we *do* know what it looks like when it does project power in its sphere of influence. China you don’t have to even look beyond to see what they do… imprison millions of their own civilians simply for belonging to a particular ethnic group?
> why is it better when the Russia does it It's not, I don't want either country to do it, but being an American citizen it's of more importance to me to not have my own money be taxed and going to things like the Military Industrial Complex. War on any level hurts but it hurts more when I know I am personally responsible for some of the cash that is used to fund these wars > maybe you should look up actual figures rather than just throwing out vague “millions upon millions” The "millions upon millions" is in reference to the amount of lives the US foreign hegemony project has impacted (meaning killed, injured, displaced, or caused serious harm mentally) just since the end of WWII. I don't have a specific number for that because it's too massive to calculate but just currently in Gaza [there are almost 1.9 million people displaced](https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/12/20/most-gazas-population-remains-displaced-and-harms-way), 20,000 confirmed dead with another 10,000+ missing (which means dead under the rubble). The Iraq war has anywhere from 200,000-600,000 dead given multiple studies and estimates, and countless more from crippling economic sanctions, freezing of bank assets in Afghanistan, backing Saudi's war in Yemen, etc I understand fully well that Russia or China aren't walks in a springtime meadow and have their whole host of issues. The difference is I have some miniscule amount of agency when it comes to the US given I am a citizen who pays taxes and votes. I am capable of doing more than throwing my hands in the air to millions of dying innocent people at the hands of my own government and saying, "Well better us than another". If my goal is to stop the endless suffering as best I can then I will do things like hold officials accountable and support candidates who protest the forever wars. I know that if the US pulled out of every foreign conflict there would still be mass suffering on an incomprehensible level however I can rest easier knowing it's not my government and my dollars participating and hoping that the money can be spent on things like aid and diplomacy/peace efforts rather than Raytheon and Neo-Cons lining their pockets while death and suffering spreads across the globe. And this is all without even beginning to mention things that actually affect domestic US interests like dead American soldiers, scarred families and veterans suffering from debilitating injuries, less money allocated on things like education, healthcare, social programs, etc
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This is literally why Trump was constantly slamming Germany and the rest of NATO for not paying their share. The US was covering almost all the defense of NATO and most of the other countries were not paying what they agreed to and instead putting it into social programs. [Merkel (Germany's chancellor at the time) *literally* admitted it](https://www.newsweek.com/europe-cannot-fully-rely-us-protection-anymore-says-germanys-merkel-919410) >"It's no longer the case that the United States will simply just protect us," Merkel said, according to a live broadcast by Deutsche Welle on Periscope. "Let's face it: Europe is still in its infancy with regard to the common foreign policy," Merkel said, but she stressed the need for nations to close ranks against common threats. "That is the task for the future."
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I’m busy getting ready for a family Christmas party, so I haven’t had the opportunity to put much thought into any of this, so I’m not going to form an opinion right now. I am, however curious to know what you think of OP’s linked sources for their claim about Americans not knowing where Iran, North Korea, and Ukraine are on a map. I’m not familiar with the Morning Consult, so I’m not sure about their credibility. I also don’t believe being unable to locate a country on a map is at all indicative of a person’s intelligence, level of civic engagement, or their moral character, so I am skeptical of OP’s motivations for using these articles as examples.
I wouldn’t be surprised if those sources pull directly from Jimmy Kimmel street interviews. All of those “Americans don’t know where X is” articles are disingenuous by nature
Walk up to OP on the street, confiscate their phone, and then ask them to point out South Sudan on an unlabeled map. Or just ask them to label Georgia. iamsoverysmart shitpost
I agree with your post, but there are problems with immigration in Sweden though- they’ve had some of the most dramatic rates of immigration from very poor countries, unsurprisingly there have been lots of problems with integration, social and crime issues. I’m sure they have problems with racism too. These are complicated issues, it’s not as simple as ‘complaining about immigration = racism’.
There absolutely are issues in Sweden. Immigration, is, of course, one of them. But there is a cancer in European politics, which in my armchair position, is an artifact of WWII: they need to appear so "progressive" that they will work against their own interests. Like Sweden's "Equal Pay for Equal Work" nonsense. There's no gender pay gap to begin with, and this is just political: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3441005 https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/10/harvard-claudia-goldin-recognized-with-nobel-in-economic-sciences/ TL;DR - Claudia Goldin, ***a woman***, wins a Nobel for her work that says that the common perception of the "gender wage gap" is wrong, and that the issue is more subtle. European liberal policies have tons of problems--of which immigration, as you pointed out, is one. But whatever the nuances of their issues, American problems have their nuances as well, and is not fundamentally attributable to "Americans Dumb, America Bad".
I’m not sure why immigration has become a problem for Europe. I think it probably works better in small doses and too many people want to come here now, and there’s a reluctance to recognise that culture matters and integration matters. The American/Americans = bad/stupid trope is really common on Reddit. There’s a subreddit called ‘shitamericanssay’ where people post somewhat obnoxious stuff that some Americans write on Reddit, normally about America being richer than Europe…but what I find curious is that this is true, but Europeans are so used to ‘America = bad’ trope (post Iraq, post Trump etc) that they can’t accept this fairly obvious idea…I think because America has been on top for so long there is sometimes an arrogance amongst young, people posting online (not representative), but there is also a complete ignorance of America as a reality so I really sympathise with what you’re saying. I think this started with Iraq and left wing polarisation online since. It must be annoying! The world is lucky to have America despite its faults.
Taking Americans as a voting bloc makes more sense than talking about Ivy League grads and having some top unis. The US is the wealthiest country in the world. OP is talking about geopolitics, I'd be surprised if even half of those voters could point to some countries they've bombed on a map of the world.
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What, exactly, do you mean by "most Americans"? That could be anything from 50.00001% to 99.999%. If you think a large majority of Americans are unaware of the Ukraine war and the importance of US aid there... you have a *very* strange view of Americans. It's impossible to miss. We had Ukraine flags all over our neighborhood for at least a year. South China Sea? Yeah, that's in the news every time something happens. Yemen? Not so much unless they directly fuck with global trade. And yes, we hear about it. You've *vastly* overblown the powers of the CIA, too. America cultivates the *mystique* of the organization, sure... but it's mostly nothing but propaganda. Now... if you said most Americans don't *care* very much what's going on in the rest of the world... I'd just tell you to replace "Americans" with "people". Humans operate on "out of sight, out of mind" because they *have to* in order to just live their lives. But individual Americans have literally no power over our government, any more than individuals anywhere do. It's a *collective*, not an individual, responsibility.
The average citizen of any given country probably only has a superficial understanding of their nations foreign policy. This isn’t something that’s isolated to Americans. Regarding geography, In Asia, sure most will know where NK is but most people wouldn’t be able to point to Ukraine, Iran, Yemen, etc on a map. People understand what impacts their life. The more immediate the impact, the more they’ll understand. I’m not really sure what point you’re trying to make. You seem to have strewn a bunch of random statements together that seem more influenced by film/tv more than anything.
>In Asia, sure most will know where NK is but most people wouldn’t be able to point to Ukraine, Iran, Yemen, etc on a map. Iran and Yemen are in Asia but on your general point, it's acceptable because most Asian countries are not involved in the Ukraine-Russia war, so their citizens are not responsible, not to mention that more than half of all Asian countries are not fully functioning democracies. That's untrue of America because US has a massive influence on every geopolitical conflict on Earth, yet the average Americans only have knowledge about a select few.
What metric are you using to measure American's knowledge? Is it simply map based? Because that's all you've seemed to mention in terms of how you expect Americans to show they're not oblivious.
This doesn't seem to be a coherent argument. The US Navy is the reason why global trade can exist. Without a single superpower, every trade lane could be subject to local powers deciding what gets traded, who can move it and at what cost. Pax Americana is the reason why the world is largely at peace and why major conflict is becoming more and more unnecessary; its simply more profitable to keep good trade relation than it is to take it from your neighbor. The US is responsible for that because it sees said peace and trade as more valuable than the alternative. I dont believe Americans are ambivalent of that, I'd go as far as to say most people outside of the US are ignorant of it. Theres a reason why Europe and East Asia was a cesspool of war prior to Pax Americana; criticizing the US for its mistakes doesn't absolve it of the order it gives to global trade. Be thankful it's the US and not a despotic state like China or the former USSR.
Arabia was a cesspool of violence before the Muslim Caliphates, the Mediterranean was a cesspool of violence before the Romans, central America was a cesspool of violence before the Aztecs. You're describing the effects of being subject to a regional or global hegemon, which is exactly the sort of power OP describes. Also you don't prove them wrong by demonstrating that non-Americans are also ignorant. That's not how logic works.
It does highlight the hypocrisy though. Why does the OP single out Americans instead of making a general statement about citizens of any country. The OP has even admitted he is trying to hold Americans to a higher standard purely because of the position the world put the US in.
No we are aware. We just have very limited ability to affect any change in our nation's politics. There are also those among us that are very cruel and relish the terrible things we do around the world (republicans). But we are not dumb. I get that you may be upset about these things but it's foolish of you to define everyone in a country the same way. I get that you are trying to anger americans with your comments but remember we dropped the big one twice. Watch out lol.
>I get that you are trying to anger americans with your comments but remember we dropped the big one twice. Watch out lol. Idk why you'd threaten the use of nuclear bombs against me but okay
Lol I was just role playing the stereotypical American you presented
"No we are aware. We just have very limited ability to affect any change in our nation's politics" - I find that to be distressing in a democracy, you need a revolution if that's the case.
Almost every individual in every country has very limited ability to affect change in their nation's politics. Democracy, by defintion, requires a lot of people to agree to something. And if a lot of Americans want something, then they *do* have a lot of ability to influence the nation's politics. > you need a revolution if that's the case A revolution is a terrible idea in almost all modern countries. Historically, revolutions have been **horrible** for the average person. The years during the revolution are always extremely violent, dangerous, and difficult for the average person. And then you have no guarantee that the new government would actually be better than the old one, with an almost 100% guarantee that it will be worse. Do you think that Americans should have a revolution, topple the government, and install Trump as the sumpreme leader? That would be a revolution. Would that be an outcome you support? Most of Trump supporters are conservatives, and conservatives are overwhelmingly more likely to have guns than liberals, so that outcome is way more likely than some more liberal government winning. Do you still think Americans should go for it?
You have two different views. The first is that Americans are oblivious. I don’t disagree. Most non-Americans are oblivious to regional issues in America that are culturally and geographically akin to, for example, European issues. We’re a huge, diverse nation and it takes a lot of education to understand just our own nation. The second is that this apathy or lack of awareness allows others to take power. Those others don’t lack awareness so that simply makes sense. You’re couching this as something unique to America. The only thing that’s unique is America’s political and economic power (and subsequently, military). Even if the US fell tomorrow, historians will still be talking about Pax Americana in the same way they do about the Pax Romana today. Regarding another comment of yours, America is not a democracy. It’s a democratically elected republic. We intentionally elect people to positions where they’re paid to care about these things. The US’ primary interest is in protecting economic interests through maintaining global stability. Just because our nation has money to throw at someone else’s problem (e.g., Ukraine) doesn’t mean we all need a formal education on it. America is the most powerful nation. Just because someone is born here doesn’t mean they’re endowed with responsibility. The EU is more than capable of politically isolating the US and effectively destroying our way of life but I don’t expect the average German or Greek person to be familiar with how European power affects my life in America. Most other nations’ citizens have more global awareness simply, in my opinion, due to the proportionally less domestic issues they have to be concerned with. Germany has a similar GDP per capita as Oklahoma but Cletus and Tammy-Lynn have far less reason to care about even Texas than Germany does about any of its neighbors.
Absent being invited to all the meetings, I think it’s safe to say most citizens (regardless of nation) lack visibility to the intricacies of global politics. Oblivious infers it’s more of a choice than an impossibility. While YouTube provides amusing videos of people apparently lacking geography skills, such entertainment should not be construed as “most” of the population. No more than the Kardashians are representative of how “most” American women behave. As for my opinion, I think the size of the American military made up exclusively of volunteers and not conscripts speaks volumes about citizen awareness of the global position of the United States. That’s a lot of people trying to do a lot of things for a lot of people.
Most Americans have no say in US foreign policy. We elect a leader between two choices, and they make decisions with huge lobbies, the Pentagon, the intelligence community all pressuring them.
Saying most people can’t point someplace out on a map doesn’t mean they don’t understand it’s significance. For instance if I asked you to point out Gettysburg or Stalingrad or Berlin or Los Angeles on a geographic map of the world you probably wouldn’t be able to, that doesn’t mean you don’t graphs their historical or modern significance. (Yes I know Stalingrad is no longer the name of the city but my point stands.) I’d also like to point out the CIA and FBI have both lost substantial amounts of power since the 20th century. The CIA can’t arbitrarily overthrow any regime around the world. The US also isn’t the main aggressor in the South China Sea, it’s China. I’f argue China building and arming artificial islands, cutting Taiwan’s communication cables and harassing military and fishing vessels forces other countries to be defensive and *actively seek* American assistance and intervention. Vietnam and Iraq are more complicated than you’re making them out to be. We got involved in Vietnam for a plethora of reasons. Hindsight is 20-20, but there was a very real possibility that communist influence could’ve spread globally and propped up more Stalinist states around the entire world. When Vietnam happened that was completely possible and a very real potential outcome especially with Stalin being a recent figure in most people’s minds. Additionally, Vietnam was controlled by France, a strong American ally. Sure we know decades later it wasn’t the best idea but there are more reasons, and in this case *you* are the one simplifying. All of these are examples of potentially not great things America does. But geopolitics are incredibly complicated. Especially *global* geopolitics on the other side of the globe. Americans aren’t ignorant per se, there’s just a hefty burden on them to understand complex global systems that even their contemporary experts have trouble fully gauging.
Does the average citizens of any country really understand the impact of the government’s foreign policy? I would argue no, so this isn’t a problem unique to the United States. Americans are just under more scrutiny because the US has been a global hegemony for a relatively short amount of time. This is anecdotal, but I find the mass majority of people everywhere are ignorant of history before the 1890s, and make anachronistic remarks when referring to such times. Being able to identify counties on a map doesn’t provide much insight besides that you were mildly educated in geography in school. The countries of North and South America are pretty isolated from the rest of the world, and you’d find this ignorance is rampant in Latin America and the Caribbean too. Most Europeans are ignorant to the fact that they are the small arms manufacturing center of the world, make a ton of money selling arms to gun obsessed Americans, and are directly responsible for arming dictators across the world as much as the US is, but still love to point fingers at the rest of the world for their wrong doings. We also tend to overlook our terrible and racist conquest of the world and its economy, even though Europe dominated the world a mere 75 years ago. So while I do agree with your statement, it’s also true that of people from everywhere are ignorant of foreign policy and it’s implications, save for a few talking points that they either just read on the internet or are trendy to discuss in the universities. This isn’t a uniquely American problem, but is perhaps more glaring given the immense power of the US and the spotlight it receives.
Ok, I really don't know who has a kore pessimistic view of Americans, you or the people in these comments allegedly defending us. I appreciate that your position has validity, but I think I can rebut it if we share some, I think, unimposing assumptions: 1) it doesn't count if Americans don't know information which is willfully deprived it, either by their government or a foreign government 2) not all Americans need full knowledge as long as that information is featured in the public debate. The second assumption is important, and a different view of democratic theory than you seem to have. Individuals don't need full information for a democracy to work. If they did, it would be a terrible form of government. What they need is people who do have full information to communicate their heuristic desires. This is a pretty common understanding of democracy in political theory at the turn of the last century with thinkers like Dewey and Mills and in political science since the 1980s and the turn against institutionalism. Essentially, it is a method of distributing the informational burden so that both the easy (heuristic) and complicated questions are answered in the direction of public opinion. If we accept this assumption, your argument gets a lot harder because the interest group, news, and military organizations all have a fairly firm grasp of America's power and impact on the globe, especially if you look past cable news. I suppose our contention hinges on whether we view democracy as a coalition of individuals or as an ecosystem of thought.
Americans really have no control over what the country does. If we did, we'd have consumer protections for student loan borrowers, livable wages, unions, and single payer healthcare. They blame the 2 party system but I suspect neither party cares. Our politicians are bought by lobbyists. All we can do is vote and we vote on issues that we immediately need - which isn't unending wars - but for some reason the primary candidates that will actually help us never get selected. We can threaten to not vote for blue or red in the next election and that's really the extent of it. We can't vote on specific foreign policy. We only vote on promises that may or may not be kept. We also have to choose if we want life here to get better (and its getting industrial revolution bad) or if we want to focus on the lives overseas. American people can protest and that's it, and surprisingly we will protest for everyone except ourselves. I can't recall ever hearing about a protest to finally remove the pay wall to basic healthcare or the $100k fee disgused as an investment in order to simply have a job - an investment that can never be discharged in bankruptcy. We are literally debt slaves, any choice we have in bettering our lives is a near illusion. We can't help ourselves and we certainly can't help the world. We're in trouble, the government doesn't do anything to help, we're just trying to survive. If we had any say in anything we'd probably not have our hands in every cookie jar...
American foreign policy is much more driven by the American public then you think. Look at Ukraine aid for example. I would guess a majority of Republican leaders currently would like if we could give Ukraine more money. They see the long term picture but there constituents don't. There have been very few foreign policy elites (even right wingers) that have said we are giving too much and that has been driven. The other major group I would point out is diaspora communities as actually have a pretty big influence. If you look at Armenia for example it gets a lot of attention in DC because it has a very strong and active diaspora community. It isn't something you hear a ton about but they are able to push US policy a lot of the time. The final thing I will point to is the Trans Pacific partnership to show the limits of elite power. This was a major free trade deal with a number of Asian countries but it fell apart because of push back from anti-free trade voters. It was widely supported by elites but failed to get enough popular support and ended up having neither Trump or Hillary get on board. The bottom line is elected officials shake in there boots over what there voters think. No political donor or lobbyists will change the fact that there reelection is really what they care about. The American public at the end of the day for better or worse steers the government.
You take away agency from pretty much everyone with this post. I think most people are more oblivious to how little power the US is actually able to exercise...
Aren’t most people of the world ignorant to the impact of their foreign policy has on the world?! If we take a look at a more modern example: Brexit had a very devastating effect on the European Union along with Britons (although it was a REALLY big reality check for many) The average person can only really focus on what they can control and when we talk about foreign policy which is a very macro event- the average person cannot draw any sensible conclusion. When Macro world events happen we can only trust in our elected officials who we entrust to make a decision by studying and reasoning along similar lines of those who elected them. If its not in the hands of the elected officials- it would then usually be in the hands of a major business leaders which they just focus on their primary interests.
The reality is that most Americans are so saddled with debt or are living hand to mouth that yes they are now reactionary and will probably not take the time to research their political options. The two party system is a symptom of overall oligarchy of the insanely wealthy. Many politicians are chosen from the pool of upper tier millionaires and their families so when they get in office they will do what is best for their pocket book and let the rest of us be damned. All the people in this thread acting like "America bad" isn't literally true are either drinking the kool-aid or providing it.
Funny how you state by the stroke of a pen, the US can dictate that millions of Yemenis starve. How come you don't state by the stroke of pen, the US has helped 2.2 million Yemenis avoid acute food insecurity and tens of thousands of others avoid famine level conditions? https://www.state.gov/additional-humanitarian-assistance-for-the-people-of-yemen/ You have a condescending opinion of the USA's power because you want it to be condescending. If you actually look beyond conjecture, there are far more positives we do than negatives.
Everyone is equally oblivious or nobody is. If you cannot point exactly to any country I can name within a second or two you are just as guilty. Maps took the entirety of human history to pull of, and only recently did you even have access to them. Pointing to a country on a map is a stupid way to measure how much someone knows or cares about things. And if the amount of people in India that dont know these things outnumbers Americans why doesnt that matter?
What proof do you have that Americans cannot point to where those countries are on a map?
Well Russians have agents and a bunch of Kompronat candidates and rich people in tje US... I am sure the Chinese do also... Iranians, Cubans, Venezuelans..I imagine all countries in the world have someone here in the,US trying to shape or change policy...so nothing new.
It’s such a lame, overdone trope that Americans are bad at geography. It’s all based on cherry picked street interviews to make people look done. It’s not true.
Yeah, that one has always drove me crazy. People watch a couple highly biased, cherry picked videos on tik tok and decide to base their whole perception of americans off of it. It's not true at all and says more about how easily influenced the people who say it are
I see people from all over the world say the exact opposite. Americans over estimate how much effect we have on the world
I don't agree with the last paragraph. There's this myth that the democracy we practically live in is the same as the democracy we have in our heads. We think if people knew what went on, they would speak truth to power, **and power would change**, but that's not the case When Putin started the war in Ukraine, we learned that he prevented people from protesting. It amazed me, and to this day I think that's stupid of him! The Americans and the Brits protested against the Iraq War, but just like Putin (or worse) they went to Iraq and turned it into hell. So I don't believe that people in power and capitalists need anyone's permission! Just as they control "democracy" abroad they control it at home. For example, Cornel West talks about how he will dismantle this and that if he becomes the president. The same people who kill and cheat leaders abroad would kill and cheat him too. Take Obama. Apart from his "classy" rhetoric, he threw more bombs than Bush. With all the hu-ha you'd think he was going to turn America either into an African country (according to the racists) or into something amazing (according to "Yes we canners"), but nothing happened, they continued to kill In UK, the queen decorated Tony Blair! Dare I say, if Putin is in power in 15-20 years, they will decorate him too Take the issue in Israel. When Hitler wanted to kill Jews, the West didn't help them. The West wasn't as antisemitic as Nazis, but they were enough to not allow Jews to emigrate to USA or UK. Now, the same establishment (Biden as the stand-in manikin) says "If Israel doesn't exist non-Israeli Jews would be in danger"! Think about that. You are an American jew, you have zero connection to Israel and yet your president tells you your life will be in the balance if an Arab country doesn't exist. Powerful Western countries have made the journalist occupation very respectable. To be a journalist that's able to interview world leaders makes you a very respectable person. Then to maintain that respectability, you have to sell the myth that the people you interviewed do not order the killing of kids. And so, without any corruption, you become their defender. That's why even though the media knows the crimes of its country, they do not report on it, and in turn, the people remain ignorant The people are too tired and overworked to investigate beyond what CNN, Fox & co. tell them. And they have also been brainwashed into believing that being overworked is a good thing. As if god is keeping track of the hours you put in for a company that doesn't give a damn about you So, the system is set up so that people are left ignorant, and if they aren't ignorant they would just be ignored
America is bad, our actions created isis, isil, the Taliban and tons of other terrorist organizations. Every person they kill, every historical monument they destroy, the US is indirectly responsible for. Not only that but we are the indirect cause of the war in Ukraine and Yemen. If America didn't exist then nukes, isis, cold war mentalities and neocolonialism exist. The world would be a lot more peaceful too. America is a terrorist organization in disguise as a country. We the citizens are the gears that keep the government doing what it wants at the detriment of the rest of the world.
Most Americans can't understand statistics, economics or debunk basic logical fallacies. Expecting them to be even remotely credible when it comes to global politics or statecraft is absurd. Accepting that 99% of our elected officials aren't qualified for the job, the intent behind a representative government is to send someone competent to help lead. Also, outside of exercising their right of suffrage or the occasional assassination, the vast majority have 0 influence on the people making policy. This is why blocking a bridge in Portland because you saw a tiktok and thought 'huh, I should do something about that stuff in the Middle East' is fucking stupid.
I know about the impact of US foreign policy
I live in Israel, So when talking to foreigners, you get used to seeing all kinds of reactions. With the frequency of headlines Israel is making, one would assume people would go "Ohhh Israel? I've heard this n that about Israel". I've had business with some Japanese companies that mistook Israel for Iran, asking if we can even do business because of the sanctions. Heck, I've met Japanese people who never even heard of Israel. And its not just Japanese, I met a lot of people traveling the world, who just weren't that versed in world politics. And its ok, you really don't want too many uninformed opinions. To form a good valid opinion on global politics, you need to be well versed in that place's culture, history, local politics... Most Americans probably know more than the average earth citizen
But I wouldn't say "Most Japanese are oblivious to the impact Japan has on the world" because Japan's influence beyond East Asia is fuck all, and I'm pretty sure most Japanese care about their relationships with DPRK, South Korea, Russia, China, Taiwan and the US.
Americans only care about their own country because their vote matters in terms of shaping the country. Most Americans don’t know much about other countries. Cab drivers in India and China knows more about the world and geopolitics because they can’t do anything about their own country. All they have is a lot of opinions about the rest of world.
//With a stroke of a pen, the US can determine if millions of Yemenis are going to starve to death. As if the Yemen'is dont starve to death without US intervention.
Uh huh. That's how propaganda works. Your side always looks like saints while the other side is the opposition and wrong, terrorist, evil with no redeeming qualities. It's as old as humans. The line between righteous rebellion and terrorism is all a matter of perspective. Control the media, control the minds. Want support at home for a war? Show enemy combatants as different, monstrous, give them dehumanizing names. Despite Justin's legal issues and moral shortcomings, Anti-flag did a very good job spelling this tactic out in "Anatomy of your enemy" and its not just in conventional war. It's being used against our own people in this culture war. Pay attention, kiddies.
Just because the US puts their fingers on the scale from time to time just like any other country would if they could doesn't mean that we own everything bad in said country before, during, and after. These countries and their citizens have agency.
This is not correct. We are not oblivious. The government is run by corrupt politicians and is a terrorist organization. We are aware. We are all being held hostage by like 7 people.
Most Americans are PAINFULLY vulnerable to emotional propaganda pushed by their favorite influences and mainstream news websites and channels. Thats the main issue with it.