Should He Stand?

Leave a smaller presence that is assisting in training the military and monitoring activity around to country to squash threats before they become too large.
Which is essentially what we are doing now.

So option 2. Gotcha.

Have a good one

Out of curiosity, when has nation building actually worked?

Post WWII?

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Totally random and probably doesn’t matter, but how do supporters of the FFs reconcile with nation building given how it’s essentially the core of everything they ever stood against?

How is it the core of everything they stood against?

Controlling a country militarily and economically while not only giving them no choice, but actively and openly ignoring their wishes whenever you feel like it?

Is there a difference between our nation building and England’s other than collecting taxes on em?

That’s what nation building is to you?

Well, England colonized they didn’t nation build. England never intended to give us the colonies… The plan was never to stay in the Middle East or claim Iraq as the 51st state.

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That’s the core of nation building to me. What’s the core of nation building to you?

Kinda sounds like a distinction without a difference?

Sure coulda fooled me

Edit: to this point I guess you’re right. Despite spending billions and American lives, we don’t give them a star on the flag. Guess that’s something

Helping to secure and provide aide to a nation and so that an infrastructure can be created/put into place so that that country can then govern itself.

England ruled the colonies. The US never ruled Japan or Germany or Iraq. We spent many lives and tons of money helping these nations re-establish/establish a functioning government/economy and then left. Sounds way different to me.

No one said mistakes weren’t made.

Would you say this is done militarily and economically, and is almost always done by force with the added bonus of ignoring the host country’s wishes whenever you feel like it?

So they were free to vote to eject us on day one of said nation building? The citizens had more say in the matter than the countries England colonized?

So if I google whether or not we’ve had manned bases in all of these countries and haven’t left for a second since the nation building started on the backs of not leaving until they signed treaties and/or contracts with us…?

Agreed

Ever. After WW2 we helped rebuild nations, we also gave some away to the Soviets.

We spent money rebuilding Japan and Germany but very few, if any, lives. That’s the difference with Iraq. Iraq was an unwilling recipient of nation building. Besides, unlike Japan and Germany, Iraq could not be built on Western cultural values.

There’s normally a force component, sure, but it isn’t always initiated by us and it’s not with the intent to take the land/resources for our own.

Economically, we give them aide and help them build things while not extracting anything really. That’s pretty much the opposite of what the British Empire did.

I believe in all three cases we came to an agreement with those nations to leave. They didn’t have to forcibly try and remove us as they would have with the crown.

Probably in Germany and Japan’s case. Iraq, I mean, it’s the Middle East. “Citizens” don’t have a lot of say in anything…

We still have a presence in most of these nations, but in most cases, that’s a part of the NATO alliance. We also still have a presence in Iraq and Afganistan for a lot of reasons.

The point is, we might have a military presence for a multitude of reasons, but we don’t govern these nations. We still have several bases in Japan, for example, but we don’t create laws they have to follow. We follow their laws when there (when off base anyway). Same with Germany. Same with South Korea. So on and so forth.

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I don’t follow. You asked when nation-building has actually worked. I would say helping to rebuild Europe, particularly Germany, and Japan worked out really well. For us and them.

? We spent hundreds of thousands of lives…

Do you have an example of America’s nation building that wasn’t initiated by us? Perhaps an example where a country requested we militarily occupy their country until they’re acting as we see fit?

We extract plenty of value by way of lives and destroyed infrastructure

You mean… The options were to accept our conditions or we’d keep occupying them until they do?

So in Germany and Japan cases the citizens wanted to be militarily occupied by the country who had just killed millions of their citizens?

Fwiw, I don’t mind occupying the losers of a war (although I’m not a fan or dumping resources into them). I just accept that it’s done purely by force

I’m sure Iraq and Afghanistan don’t feel governed.

Do you genuinely believe we weren’t controlling the govt of Germany and Japan while we were occupying them?

It’s legal to forcibly occupy a country with another military? Or its legal because we say it is?

And follow the local laws? Wot? Stories were dropping every other day of military contractors wiping people out or any number of terrible things. I don’t remember seeing a bunch of Iraqi trials.

Let’s not pretend like we give 2 shits about the feelings of a Nation we’re occupying OR their laws

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We didn’t bomb Pearl Harbor. We didn’t want to be involved in either World War. We didn’t fly plans into the Twin Towers.

I don’t understand what this means?

How have we gained economically from re-building Iraq? Certain aspects of the economy/certain companies have gain monetarily, but as a whole the US has lost much more than we’ve gained in pretty much any measurable way. Monetarily, blood, etc…

You mean… after we accepted their surrender for the wars they started? I have no idea if they could have rejected our money and our materials and our help rebuilding their war-torn countries. Why would they?

They were “militarily occupied” temporarily as a condition of their surrender for the wars they started. They were only occupied* because they picked a fight and lost. I would be surprised if the citizens of Germany and Japan didn’t love all of the aide we provided after the war.
*temporarily

Sure, force comes first. We are talking about war after all, but I doubt the rebuilding process was “by force” because I doubt any nation would turn down aide and monetary help rebuilding particularly after WWII.

They shouldn’t we don’t govern them at all. We have a handful of bases most FOBs in either country. We don’t run their elections. We don’t appoint their politicians. We don’t make their laws.

Define controlling them.

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And the only possible response to those situations is nation building? We had no other options?

Agreed.

Does that differ that much from England’s empire? Sure they were collecting taxes, but the dollars and cents wasn’t what they were really after. It was global power and influence

Because humans are stupid and irrational. Is the implication that people, en masse, are happy about being mitarily occupied at the time?

I’m sure England felt the same way irt the advances they brought to conquered areas

And that’s a constant? Iraq had the ability to instill a government that was anti America for example?

“Occupation doesn’t end until you meet our demands”

We could not help rebuild their nation.

Yes. It’s very different. England took resources from the lands they colonized leaving the host nation worse off not better.

Take a look at what the British Empire did “for” India, for example, when they basically owned it and what the US did for Germany after WW2.

Frankly, look at how the British treated the US colonies vs. how we treated Japan.

It wasn’t just taxation.

image

But they didn’t…

I think the implication is that the people are happy being helped by a group of people that could conquer and kill them all, but instead wants to help them.

The British Empire didn’t provide aide to the countries they colonized. They took resources and governed their newest colony as they saw fit. We fought the Japanese after they attacked us and, as far as I know, we don’t run the Japanese government. We helped impliment reform, but it wasn’t one-sided. It wasn’t an Allied proclamation/decree. Same with Germany.

We removed Saddam from power after he violated a bunch of United Nations resolutions and denied inspection time and time again and we only removed him from power after economic sanctions didn’t work and the majority of the world was on board. Then we helped secure the nation so that they could have their own free elections and govern themselves.

I’m really having a hard time believing you don’t see the difference here.

They held their own elections and, unless the DNC was rigging their election too (hardy har har), then they were free to elect whomever they wanted.

In a lot of ways the US, allied forces, coalition forces, etc… “control” the governments/countries that they defeated for a time. This was true with McArthur. This is true of OIF/OEF. However, I t hink the glaring difference between this nation-building vs. colonization is that a) it was and has always been temporary control and b) the purpose and result in almost every case has been to re-establish or build the nation into something more prosperous, which is what the US has done in relation to WW2 reconstruction and has at least been the goal for Iraq. The polar opposite is true of British Expansion/colonization.

Agreed. That’s kinda my point. Our options were to militarily and economically control other countries, or not. Original question was framed specifically with the FFs in mind because I can’t imagine a world where their choice mirrors ours.

Yea the ME seems much better off this way

Right. Whose choice was that? Did they have an option? Any say in the matter?

In what world does that hold up? We subsidize the world’s defense spending when we could just conquer and kill the vast majority of them. I don’t see overwhelming love for America in ‘not america.’

Of course they did. That’s patently absurd. They brought innovation of all manner to virtually every area they controlled.

I absolutely see a difference. What I don’t see, is a difference that would have matter half a shit to any FF, which was the origin of my question

We’ll have the agree to disagree here. I have too much respect for America’s insane level of global control to think they were free to elect whomever they wanted. Americans aren’t free to elect whomever they want, and our entire region doesn’t run on bribes and corruption like the ME, only some of it