I get that america is failing in it's duty to suppress the rise of fascists but did the rest of the world just put all its eggs in the america basket?
After the 20th Century it became clear that war could spread anywhere at any moment and destroy vast swaths of people and nature indiscriminately.
The world had no choice but to ally with really big baskets. The USA was the most obvious choice given their lack of hostile landgrabs unlike China and Russia.
The US literally said "you don't need weapons, we'll protect you." They weren't asked to protect us, they strong armed us. And now we're lacking arms because of them. Most Americans, including Hesgeth and Vance have never opened a history book.
They actually enforce that members of NATO spend percentage of GDP on weapons. As for individual other nations, hard to say, but it was still no competition with the fucking dictatorships.
Quite ironically the USA actually trained Afghanistan to fight off invaders before invading Afghanistan. Other nations like Iraq and Jordan threw hats in with the communists in the late 1950s.
Or they have and just pretend not to know.
Lack of hostile land grabs? West of the Mississippi, Texas, Hawaii and the Philippines would beg to differ.
They specifically said 20th century, and were obviously referring to the post world war period.
After the wars, the US sought soft power, not territory.
Aligning with them was often a more safe move.
Which were the Chinese and Russian 20th century post world war land grabs?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_changes_of_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_occupations_by_the_Soviet_Union
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_territorial_acquisitions_table
Notable examples would be places like "Tibet", several Baltic states, and an attempt on Finland. Hell, Russia is currently trying to annex Ukraine.
My comment was a reply to this argument:
After the wars, the US sought soft power, not territory. Aligning with them was often a more safe move.
Seems like Russia also didn't grab new land after the wars.
In regard to the downvote, which conquered land have I overlooked? The argument is speaking of the past where the war in Ukrain didn't exist.
Ah, choosing to ignore the territorial annexation that took place during the war or annexations that failed? And China?
Yes, because that was the original framing. I guess the West did their own annexing, or OP would have kept the focus on those annexations.
What are the failed Russian annexations?
China did Tibet and tried Vietnam, as far as I know, as well as some Indian disputes. I was wondering if there are more because depending on the country, there were reasons enough for the annexations that an alignment with China was not unreasonable. BRICS shows that those annexations are not show stoppers.
Oh wow, 1848, great example of post-20th-century hostility. /sarcasm
The Philippines are literally independent.
They were part of a land grab that took it from the Spanish along with Guam and some other places. Gained independence in 1946.
puerto rico was in that and still hasn't gotten statehood OR independence. incidentally puerto rico is more populous than 7 countries in the EU
To be fair on that one, Puerto Ricans seem torn on what they want.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposed_political_status_for_Puerto_Rico
Up until Trump the US has been reasonable about independence questions since WW2, for the most part. (Highlighting that independence is different than being free from interfering)
Greenland may be on that list soon. I'm not saying I like it, I'm just saying thats the direction we're going.