Ask HN: Is USA at war with the rest of the world now?

6 pointsposted 14 hours ago
by roschdal

Item id: 47859859

14 Comments

whatthesmack

8 hours ago

Not by any means… but that is what the media would have you believe.

More countries are closer to the US than ever before, which is why China is nervous. BRICS is failing. NATO countries are being ordered to get their act together. Trade is being leveraged to the advantage of the US for once.

The US is reasserting its place and role as the dominant and benevolent power in the world and is reordering it such that it will no longer function as the world’s sole peacekeeper, bank, etc. The American people (myself included) are done working half the year to earn money to pay taxes to make the world function and get none of the benefits, while the rest of the world puts their taxes towards benefits for their own society (social safety nets, paying for unlimited migration, etc).

When the status quo has been the US being taken advantage of by the whole world, you can expect there’s doing to be discomfort and pushback by most institutions (including the media) and countries when the US changes the status quo such that every country needs to contribute. That our president has reordered as much as he has in slightly more than a year is astounding.

mostlysimilar

3 hours ago

> The American people (myself included) are done working half the year to earn money to pay taxes to make the world function and get none of the benefits, while the rest of the world puts their taxes towards benefits for their own society (social safety nets, paying for unlimited migration, etc).

You are utterly delusional if you think Trump and the Republicans are interested in scaling down military spending in favor of social safety nets.

bigyabai

4 hours ago

> When the status quo has been the US being taken advantage of by the whole world

The US chose this status quo. America can forfeit it at any time, and give up the reigns to a country like China if they want. Nobody is forcing them to be the guarantor of global security.

Looking at a brushfire conflict like Iran, it's plainly obvious that America was wrong to instigate violence. The Strait closed, America's Navy is not getting support from bluewater vessels that actually matter, billions of dollars worth of US-owned munitions were expended, no Article 4 was ever declared, and the rest of NATO isn't chasing around blockaded tankers like Trump wanted. Until something changes, this is a net-negative conflict being gussied up in "well if we fight long enough then the debt goes down" platitude.

In truth, if we keep this war up for long enough then Americans will come home by the score in bodybags. And people like you will moan about how "America was taken advantage of" by all the countries that didn't want to kill their citizens for a Likud political objective.

timonoko

13 hours ago

when Ronald Reagan was president, 87% of Swedes said that USA is greatest threat to world peace.

nephihaha

14 hours ago

No. Most countries are not. However, they have managed to get into tense situations with Russia, China, most of the Middle East, parts of Africa and Latin America.

Most of Europe and Canada are in a difficult situation with the USA right now.

bigyabai

14 hours ago

How complex of an answer do you want? I typically flag posts like this for lacking curiosity and substance, as much as I abhor war.

In a broader context, the Cold War was already America's Mexican standoff with "the world" and they won by default. You live in a hegemony where America gets the first and final say in trade, warfare, nuclear deterrence, missile defense and surveillance. You don't have to get jingoist about it, but maintaining that hegemony is the goal and it will eventually end with a standoff against China, probably focused on the First island chain.

With that info, you should be able to generally extrapolate from [YOU ARE HERE] and "Invasion of Taipei" if you've got a loose understanding of geopolitics. If not, start here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_Doctrine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphere_of_influence

l8283

14 hours ago

I think Trump is a madman

whatthesmack

8 hours ago

What does he do that convinces you he is “a madman”? What would the ideal leader—from your perspective—be doing instead?

cosmicgadget

2 hours ago

Not threatening the extinction of a civilization?

bigyabai

37 minutes ago

Here's a few of the low-hanging fruit:

- Avoid blatant idolatry and make peace with the Pope

- Stop threatening civilization-scale collapse and assent to ICJ investigations

- Prosecute Ghislaine Maxwell and end the DOJ's shell game with the Epstein files

jjgreen

12 hours ago

Senile rather than mad.

jfengel

3 hours ago

Possibly both, but the madness is more relevant than the senile. Senility would be purposeless, but the madness has a passionate and malignant intensity.

Senility would be progressive. He has been acting the same way since coming into the public eye. We see it somewhat more now than in his first term, where he had to hire experienced hands to execute things, and they put a damper on some of his worst ideas. In his second term, he feels beholden to nobody, and his friends are happy to do exactly as he wants.

nephihaha

13 hours ago

I think Trump like most politicians is the shiny object to distract us, while most decisions are made in boardrooms and conferences. Most of the US presidents this century have been clown figures apart from Obama and he was a war monger, so did what the military industrial complex wanted.

cosmicgadget

2 hours ago

Obama inherited a couple of wars and was famously dovish on Russia. He made a deal with Iran. His rhetoric was always diplomatic. In the context of American presidents or historical empires he was absolutely no war monger.