Comment by 0xDEAFBEAD
1 month ago
For the past few decades I've only seen the US constantly criticized as either "complicit" or "imperialist". We tried to take responsibility for everything and it got us nothing but hate. Hopefully it will be Europe's turn soon.
That's a very childlike understanding of the world around you, I'm afraid.
If you're trying to imply that I have a childlike understanding... in that case, I appreciate you reinforcing the points I've made in this thread, namely (a) Europeans are condescending jerks, and (b) Europeans will airily claim "Americans are ignorant" but rarely have much interesting evidence to back up their claims.
Our relationship with Europe is not very important for American prosperity. The GDP growth trend is the same before and after NATO was founded: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/GDP_per_...
These two comments you made above and the fact that you care so much about what a not very well-defined mass of people thinks about you and blames you of that you mistake it for soft power are the perfect illustration of my point.
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It goes to show how pointless it is to chase 'soft power' by appealing to global public opinion. Even in democratic countries, most leaders have sub-50% approval. So even if the US was run by a politician chosen by a global electorate, we would most likely still be hated.
And of course good intentions are no guarantee of good results, e.g. I believe Bush had good intentions with Iraq, he was just incompetent.
China is very smart to simply not get involved in much of anything. As soon as you do something, it gives people the opportunity to blame you, if even a single person thinks the result is even a little bit less than perfect.
Switzerland is the smartest.