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America, let me just say: thank you for defending me for the last sixty-plus years. I haven't always agreed with your decisions, or the way you have carried them out. And I'm not entirely sure that I'm in love with the commercialized, globalized, and technologized world you have endeavored to create. Nonetheless, I doubt things would have been better had the Soviets been able to rush the Fulda Gap, the Chinese planted their flag as far south as Busan, or pirates roamed the sea lanes. You have paid for a meal we all enjoyed, while we complained that the steak was overdone.

Nevertheless, we do need to eat. If we wanted a different selection, maybe the rest of the West should have offered to cover more of the bill. Some European Union or NATO supercarriers, and a willingness to use them when needed, would have gone a long way towards giving Europe more of a say in military decisions. I know that many American leaders probably liked the fact that America's high levels of defense spending allowed it to make most of the big decisions, and such leaders probably engaged in their fair share of magical thinking about the long-term sustainability of the US military budget. But they were wrong, and as friends and allies of America, I wish we (Europe and Canada) had pulled more of our weight. If we had, perhaps America would have reduced its spending to more manageable levels a long time ago.

Hi Todd,

I think the dining metaphor may have outlived its usefulness, so for clarity's sake I'm going to dispense with it.

I wouldn't want to defend every American action over the past seventy years (though I'd be willing to defend a lot of them), but I think it is worth saying that, whatever its motivations, America has paid more than its fair share in defense of what have been common western interests. If America had only spent the same percentage of its GDP on defense that most European nations had spent, the last seven decades would not have gone so well for the West.

For starters, American military might rescued South Korea, safeguards the independence of Taiwan, and has kept China from being tempted to become adventurous in South East Asia. Furthermore, the US navy constitutes what is essentially the only high-seas police force, keeping piracy in check and safeguarding international shipping. US military expenditure was also instrumental in keeping Western Europe safe from potential Soviet aggression. And I almost forgot to mention that American tanks and planes kept Saddam Hussein from occupying Kuwait, threatening Saudi Arabia, and gaining control over most of the important Middle Eastern oil fields. These may be the actions of a hegemon, but would the world be better if they were undone? And while we are on the topic of hegemony, my real point was that these actions should have been performed in a more cooperative way, with greater participation by a broader coalition of nations--participation in both the decision-making process and the costs. But for that to have happened, Europe and Canada would have had to spend more so the US could have spent less.

Quote from Todd H. on October 17, 2013, 12:48
"Whatever its motivations," they've spent a lot cultivating a military-industrial complex that creates the very conditions it then defends "the common interest" against (without sufficient thanks)?

I'd be particularly interested in having this statement unpacked.

Hi Wyatt, Brian,

At the risk of further distancing myself from rational discussion, I'd like to suggest that I feel like we're bumping up into a category mistake (from my perspective), the one Brian calls realpolitik vs. philosophy is one way of seeing it, but I think it's even more profound than that.

From my perspective, the country with 300 million people in it is the USA, and it shouldn't be confused with what we're calling "America". In this world-wide drama, "America", to me, is just another word for late-modern (or now post-modern) global capitalism, and the USA is only the most recent and dominant 'agencies' whereby that agent (Captialism) acts (gets things done). I don't think it's a mistake to thank the ecology of capitalism for your dinner, but I don't think it has much to do with the USA as a people in the way you imply -- but only with how those people (like everyone else) act as an agency for the agent (Captialism). I think the USA stands in for the Capitalist system, and this suits the 'system' ecology, allows blame to be allocated somewhere specific (the "Americans" screwed this up), to create a scapegoat (when they are simply playing allocated role), and, conversely, when you 'praise' America (the USA), you are simply praising that system. I think that the "America"-system has no native interest in our well-being (US citizens and others) as we typically understand the term, or only inasmuch as it is we help or impede that system from functioning or 'feeding'. The praise is misplaced.

Quote from Todd H. on October 18, 2013, 10:48
Hi Wyatt, Brian,

At the risk of further distancing myself from rational discussion, I'd like to suggest that I feel like we're bumping up into a category mistake (from my perspective), the one Brian calls realpolitik vs. philosophy is one way of seeing it, but I think it's even more profound than that.

From my perspective, the country with 300 million people in it is the USA, and it shouldn't be confused with what we're calling "America". In this world-wide drama, "America", to me, is just another word for late-modern (or now post-modern) global capitalism, and the USA is only the most recent and dominant 'agencies' whereby that agent (Captialism) acts (gets things done). I don't think it's a mistake to thank the ecology of capitalism for your dinner, but I don't think it has much to do with the USA as a people in the way you imply -- but only with how those people (like everyone else) act as an agency for the agent (Captialism). I think the USA stands in for the Capitalist system, and this suits the 'system' ecology, allows blame to be allocated somewhere specific (the "Americans" screwed this up), to create a scapegoat (when they are simply playing allocated role), and, conversely, when you 'praise' America (the USA), you are simply praising that system. I think that the "America"-system has no native interest in our well-being (US citizens and others) as we typically understand the term, or only inasmuch as it is we help or impede that system from functioning or 'feeding'. The praise is misplaced.

For a self-professed "compliant hypocrite", that seems astonishingly smug and patronizing, Todd; sounding like the easy indolence of someone who's never been forced to fight for anything, whose superiority lies in knowing and professing his own inferiority (unlike the patsies). I think most Americans, who I know anyway, would be justly offended by being depicted as 'simply playing [their?] allocated role' like some mindless pawns of 'the system'. As I argued in the 'Disneyland' piece, I have little doubt that most feel--and rightly feel--they are defending and advancing a genuinely better way of life (than most), which includes among its virtues your freedom to call them, with impunity, mindless pawns.
Consider (if you'll excuse me echoing that piece--as you are essentially taking up the 'all about the oil' side in that debate, here) the different approaches of the victors in WWII and WWI. After the second, far from immolating its enemy as after the first, the winner poured money and energy into raising up the loser (who had preemptively attacked him only four years earlier) into a higher, stabler and more lasting prosperity than it had ever known before. Capitalism beefing up its competition for a better dog-eat-dog fight it couldn't help but win (since now the Japanese too, it turns out, are just 'agencies' for the Agent)? Or, basically, simply decent people acting decently in an indecent situation.
(To Stan Park: Hiroshima, however, for me, was an obscenity that centuries of such decency will not outweigh.)