Enforcing pax americana, even using aggressive means, is a moral cause in its own. The world under US control is more peaceful, more just and better to live in than any other conceivable alternative. Not all ideologies deserve equal foothold.
Controversial to be sure. But I'd challenge down-voters to instead (additionally?) provide a framework of their envisioned "conceivable alternative" new world order which would be more peaceful, just, and better to live in.
This is a healthy thought exercise. It's extremely easy to complain about the way that things are but difficult to envision something better. I red-pilled myself on a lot of issues by thinking like this regularly.
I'm sure that the millions of dead Iraqis, the embargoed Cubans, the millions of dead under brutal regimes sponsored by the US all over Latin America, Africa and Asia, the people kidnapped to be tortured by the CIA due to their name or watch type would be thrilled to hear about how peaceful, just and better to live things are.
The US isn't a benevolent force for good, it's pure old capitalistic greed and realpolitik. That lots of good has happened thanks to it is mostly accidental.
I don’t think the US invasion resulted in a higher number deaths than Sadam’s actions in the 80s and 90. Not that this somehow justifies how its aftermath was handled...
Anyway the world is not black and white and there is a lot of nuance, however the US was still probably the most benevolent “hegemonic” power that has ever existed in human history (especially relative to its power projection capabilities)
You'll note the genocide of the entire Jewish people was not a part of your list of great travesties (and indeed they are). But the question is not "has the US done everything perfectly ever", it's: "Can you envision a better world order than Pax Americana? What, specifically, would that look like?"
Most estimates of Iraq war casualties are in 100-600 thousand range. The one estimate putting it at 1 million is an opinion poll. There are no estimates beyond 1 mil.
But if you judge by body count, you have great examples of actual millions dead like holodomor instrumented by stalin (3+ millions of Ukrainians), Chinese famine due to mao policies (10+ millions), khmer rouge massacres (average estimate around 2 mil), etc. Something is common among them huh?
US is not a saint and everyone makes mistakes but it is thanks to its influence and role in global economy we have drastically less death.
That'd be simple if you could identify "the beginning", but normally in conflicts what happens is both sides think they're right due to some pre-existing claim.
Yes, the unexpectedly effective brute force solution to the eternal bickering siblings problem: "I don't care who started it, I'm ending it!".
Typically invoked immediately after the stronger party commits such a disproportionally large show of power as to attract your attention anew to their otherwise minor long-term petty dispute.
It's a rather large leap imo to actually respect the terminology of 'Defence' in that regard, completely ignoring their obvious engagement with offensive action.
I am saying this as the "other". I am Russian (though not living in the country anymore). My country has started an unforgivable war of aggression. It is my imperative to do anything I can to remedy this.
The law is not there yet, the document was fake. But still it is possible. I can’t return, and I won’t be able to get a citizenship of the country I currently live in. Guess I will live as a stateless person.
One can go as far as to consider defense a moral imperative of free nations. Who knows whether Russia would have ever dared to attack Ukraine if Ukraine still had their nukes?
No, it would have not. Even under their super optimistic plans they expected to capture Ukraine within 3 days, which was still plenty of time to launch nukes
But that is a moot question because there was no universe in which Ukraine keeps nuclear weapons. They didn't have control over the ones they inherited (KGB did), and while retrofitting them was possible... Ukraine after independence didn't have the money for anything, let alone reverse engineering nuclear weapons and maintaining them.
Also, while on the micro level it might make sense for a certain country to have nukes to protect itself from attacks, on the macro for the world it doesn't. The higher amounts of countries with nuclear weapons, the bigger the risk something goes wrong - a crazy dictator decides to do a murder-suicide pact, poor maintenance leads to radiation leaks, etc. etc.
I respect Iran's desire to acquire nuclear weapons to be on par with Israel and prevent the Americans and Saudis from invading them (reminder that high ranking American politicians and cabinet members have clearly and openly talked about war with Iran)... but it would be devastating to the region. Iran's regime isn't stable, has lots of enemies around (US, Israel, Saudi Arabia and to a lesser extent the other Gulf monarchies), some of which don't hesitate at all to provoke and attack them. The risk of nukes flying if Iran has them is too great for the wider international community to accept it - which is why there was a deal with a carrot to get Iran to stop, which was working until the braindead Americans decided to kill it for no good reason. So now... nothing can be done to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons outside of an even more flagrant violation of Iran's sovereignty than what Israel has already done by assassinating top nuclear scientists and sabotaging their facilities.
Is your goal to support the idea or not? Universal acceptance of a moral perspective throughout history would typically be considered justification to continue accepting that perspective.
Unless of course a new angle was provided that called into question said perspective. Which you have not done here.
