Ok, what do you mean by “Russia and China push the envelope wherever they can”? Like in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Nigeria and Libya?
“We know that over 182,000 civilians have died from direct war related violence caused by the US, its allies, the Iraqi military and police, and opposition forces from the time of the invasion through November 2018.” [0]
Again, the general idea of both nuclear and non-nuclear brinkmanship is to avoid WWIII or anything close to it. Starting and participating in relatively small wars[1] does not change that calculus.
[1] I say small because WWII killed 85,000,000 in 6 years. The goal is to avoid that (or worse), not to avoid all death by war period.
Listen, personally I would recommend you visit countries abroad for a change - like China, Russia, India or Europe (pick any they are all nice) and leave your US bubble.
Nobody * has reason to start random wars abroad and people are not excited spending billions of dollars on weapons to nuke innocent civilians.
Just assume that people you don’t know (abroad or not) are guys like you - having no interest in nuking or bombing others or starting wars; but they are generally worried about their families and mortgages.
Wars are fabricated by a small group of people in power that gain from buying and selling death. Wars are inherently inefficient and a waste of resources.
Edit: * Well, I guess Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Laos, Libya, Syria and many others would disagree....
Definitely not a winning strategy to assume things about people you don't know and condescend to them based on your (incorrect) assumptions. I have literally been to all of those countries (probably more than you have), and have lived in Europe for 10 years. I've also lived in Asia.
When I say China is pushing the envelope, I'm talking about their actions in Hong Kong, the South China Sea, Taiwan, and more.
When I say Russia is pushing the envelope, I'm talking about Georgia, Ukraine, Syria, etc.
You're making a bunch of points that I don't disagree with (average people don't want war / war is not economically productive), followed by a single point which undermines the rest of your thesis ("small group of people in power"). It doesn't matter what Average Joe Russia does/wants if the people that actually have power in Russia are doing something else. Ditto for China. Nobody is claiming that all Chinese people are rabid expansionists, just that the people who matter are.
Both China and Russia have clearly demonstrated that they want to expand their real power / strengthen it in places where they already have soft power. If the US wasn't around to stick navies in contested waters, wag its finger, flex its muscles, and impose sanctions, most people think the world would not be as peaceful as it is. As you've pointed out, this still isn't as peaceful as it could be, and that's something to be worked on. But that doesn't change the fact that it could also be much, much worse.
US spent 6.4 TRILLION in the Middle East on wars. None of that was ever “to avoid WWIII”.
It cost every working American 42,000 USD. These wars cost the lives of almost 1 mio people and 21 mio were displaced. [0]
Do you honestly believe this was for the good of the world and necessary to prevent WWIII? I am not even suggesting something like “why don’t you spend all that budget on a better health care system, free education and racial equality” because I know that would just push blood pressure. But I know that you won’t worry so much about these insane spendings - because your children and grand-children will have to pay back all the debt these irresponsible arguments accumulated. So smart your generation has been!
WWII was a consequence of WWI. Germans are pretty chill these days and complain about increasing military budgets. So who should ever want to start WWIII???
And just for the sake of completing an argument: you do know, that Europe is now taking financial responsibility and giving shelter to those people in the Middle East whose livelihoods were destroyed, right? The refugee crisis is not “a natural occurrence”. Europe learned its lesson and prefers spending money on helping others rather than showcasing military strength and gadgets.
So what portion of the US Defense budget then is doing good for Nato, world-peace and avoiding WWIII? We rules out the spendings in the Middle East then? If you do not support the most obvious and on-going wars - how can you trust your government that they do the right thing?
I’m at a loss here. I keep hearing you say that others push the envelope and the US constantly prevents WWIII... But then again - they are the only ones constantly at war and nobody knows why.
> Listen, personally I would recommend you visit countries abroad for a change - like China, Russia, India or Europe (pick any they are all nice) and leave your US bubble.
Russia invaded Georgia in 2008[0]. Russia has taken over Crimea, a part of Ukraine in 2014[1]. Sweden plans to increase their military spending because of Russia's actions[2]. Estonia is upping its sea defenses[3].
I'm sure that the majority of Russians would prefer not to go to war. They have their own problems - a drug epidemic, a demographic implosion, and a quickly declining economy. Then there are the oligarchs. But, given the right carrot and stick (mostly stick), I see no reason why they wouldn't invade a neighboring country. Because, the small group of people you mention, those gangsters at the top, they have a lot of big sticks to motivate people to sign up for the army and do terrible things to their neighbors.
FYI, I've lived half of my life in Europe. Eastern Europe. The threat of Russia is always present in the back of people's heads. And they like NATO safety. No, they wouldn't prefer to welcome Russia and learn Russian. They like their life, they like their cultures, and yes, they are even so barbaric as to want to defend their life and culture with their lives by standing up to Russia.
How many wars did the US and China engage in over the past couple of decades and how many civilians were killed (in comparison)? Just curious in finding out who has the moral high ground here.
“We know that over 182,000 civilians have died from direct war related violence caused by the US, its allies, the Iraqi military and police, and opposition forces from the time of the invasion through November 2018.” [0]
[0] https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/civilians/ir....