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'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.
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.
Can we stop with this already? American oligarchs are perfectly able to destroy the country on their own. And they've been very transparent about their intentions to do so for a long time.
I was already thinking how the Iran situation is to the USA what Ukraine is to Russia.
Manly men (in their own heads at least) try to use testosterone to remove the thorn in their side, find things out the hard way. But although the finding out period is expensive, other people pay for it, so they are very slow learners.
Russia is trying to occupy land using ground troops and failing. Right tool for the job, but the tool is rotten.
The US is trying to enact strategic change by (competent) airpower, which in 100 years of airpower has never worked. No matter how potent that tool, it is the wrong one for the job.
Not that Trump would have an ounce of good intentions but those wars are quite different in important ways:
- The greatest enemy of Iranian regime are the Iranian people. They want to get rid of that government. Unlike the Ukrainians. Thousands of Iranian protesters were gunned down by their own government in December/January.
- Iran is not "winning" by holding the line in conventional warfare (like Ukraine). They would not stand a chance. They're winning because they're pain tolerance for collateral damage is higher than the US tolerance for high oil prices.
- Ukraine was attacked completely unprovoked, while Iran is a terror state and the single biggest reason for instability in the middle east.
The dynamic is completely different though. Russian has a culture and acceptance of sacrifice, sometimes in huge number. America is far more transactional and has increasingly treated sacrifice as unacceptable or even contemptable. There is an element of machismo in the way that the politicians talk and behave, but more in terms of executing on a transaction. But in general both sets of leadership are very protected from consequences of war (very unlikely to suffer violence to themselves or their family) so it must all be a bit abstract.
Military Ops, Armed Conflict, Defensive strikes, Global war on terror, counter terrorism ops to name a few. These are the labels given to recent conflicts like Afghanistan, Iraq and Vietnam wars.
Given how many times Trump declared the war a victory, I'm also curious to know if they declare it a war, how many time the families will be compensated? ten wars? a hundred wars? two wars and a a hundred rounds of ceasefire friendly matches?
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, ...)
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.
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.
Manly men (in their own heads at least) try to use testosterone to remove the thorn in their side, find things out the hard way. But although the finding out period is expensive, other people pay for it, so they are very slow learners.
Russia is trying to occupy land using ground troops and failing. Right tool for the job, but the tool is rotten.
The US is trying to enact strategic change by (competent) airpower, which in 100 years of airpower has never worked. No matter how potent that tool, it is the wrong one for the job.
- The greatest enemy of Iranian regime are the Iranian people. They want to get rid of that government. Unlike the Ukrainians. Thousands of Iranian protesters were gunned down by their own government in December/January.
- Iran is not "winning" by holding the line in conventional warfare (like Ukraine). They would not stand a chance. They're winning because they're pain tolerance for collateral damage is higher than the US tolerance for high oil prices.
- Ukraine was attacked completely unprovoked, while Iran is a terror state and the single biggest reason for instability in the middle east.
What a surprise.
“He talked to me as a mother who lost her son,” said Shari Feehan, Lt Feehan’s mother. “He saw the devastation. He witnessed that, and so he knows.”
.... Mmm