General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: What is the "hard left"? [View all]Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)As to North Korea, their attitude towards us has become more belligerent as our military posture towards them has become more aggressive, and even though their leadership is horrible, it is also legitimately informed by the memory of how brutal the 1950-53 war was.
As to Russia, Putin likely wouldn't have ended up in power if we hadn't basically taken a "nothing has changed" attitude towards them in the 1990-maintaining a massive nuclear stockpile aimed at Russia even when Gorbachev had done everything the West ever asked, even when Communism had ended and even when Boris Yeltsin, the most pro-Western Russian leader in history, was in power.
We can't just never reduce the war budget for the rest of eternity.
We can't just never break with the post-World War II approach towards the world
And it can't be progressive to ever again increase war spending.
It's not a choice between militarism and neo-isolationism.
And no, it' not as simple as saying we have a big war machine to prevent wars. We equally have a big war machine to basically make the rest of the world do what our leaders want...and what our leaders want is not intrinsically morally superior to what all other leaders want simply because it's our leaders wanting it. What our leaders want is pretty much always just as cynical as anybody else's leaders.
Vietnam proves that. What we've done in Latin America proves that. Much of what we've done in Africa proves that as well(not all, but much).