Comment by mnkyokyfrnd
10 days ago
It is a good start, but in the last 50 years, Russia has started maybe 1 or 2 wars at most, arguably. Can you even count the U.S. wars? I mean, I really wish U.S did start to imitate Russia more.
10 days ago
It is a good start, but in the last 50 years, Russia has started maybe 1 or 2 wars at most, arguably. Can you even count the U.S. wars? I mean, I really wish U.S did start to imitate Russia more.
Ukraine, Georgia, Afghanistan, Chechnya. These are clear-cut with Russia as the driving aggressor. All the other 20 or so in eg. Mali and Dagestan might be less so, but should probably also be counted.
I would take the Chechnya away from that list, you can't be in war with yourself, Chechnya is part of Russia.
By that logic the US independence war (1775-1783) was not a ”war” either because the colonies were part of England. Neither were the war of 1861-1865 between the northern and southern states. Can’t be at war with yourself?
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Apparently the US can. They have ICE ready to fight inland terrorists like people with signs or nearby a poorly maintained pool.
Operation Cyclone is largely understood as one of the main reasons for the invasion of Afghanistan by Russia. So US again is to blame as much.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone
To blame as much as Russia, who actually invaded? No.
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I'd argue the US only got dragged into lots of conflicts because of its role as de-facto global hegemon.
A lot of wars it did not really start; if you blame the US for Vietnam (instead of the french), you also have to count South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Transistria and Chechnya 1 & 2 on the Russian side.
The industrialized nations that actually did laudably little warmongering in the last half centuries are (somewhat ironically) the core WW2-axis powers: Italy, Austria, Germany, Japan; despite having plenty of "opportunities" to start something (e.g. over Königsberg/Silesia, Dalmatia, Kuril islands, ...)
> you blame the US for Vietnam (instead of the french)
I'm all for saying french caused a lot of death and destruction, but the Vietnam war was clearly created by the US during the 1954 Geneva Conference. Also, US-British involvement in France politics during the Indochina war (under Truman: Roosevelt didn't had to deal with Dixiecrats and give racist idiots a new enemy) probably made the 'sale guerre' last way longer that it had to.
My view is that France tried to hold on to Indochina unjustifiably for almost a decade after WW2.
So they get the blame because the US could have hardly escalated a proxy war without proxies.
Not saying America is blameless though, but I do blame France for setting the whole thing up basically (split Vietnam), and for all the wrong reasons, too.
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"...laudably little warmongering.." - forgetting China here perhaps?
Not counting China (and South Korea) because they joined the "industrialized" club much later than the rest, but so far it is looking good, and I'm somewhat hopeful because their demographics make war an increasingly risky proposition.