
The world of threats to the US is an illusion - adventured
http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2015/04/11/have-seen-enemies-and-they-weak/Cho9J5Bf9jxIkHKIZvnVTJ/story.html
======
mark_l_watson
I wish that everyone in my country (the USA) would read this article.

War is big business and throughout history war has been the means for the rich
to get richer.

Even if we have some economic malaise when the dollar becomes less relevant as
the world's reserve currency, we have a lot going for us: geographic isolation
and natural resources.

------
neonhomer
This article makes a small case about the military profit complex, but it's
also ironic that according to the AP the "Chinese" have hacked their way into
all federal employee's information: [http://news.yahoo.com/union-hackers-
personnel-data-every-us-...](http://news.yahoo.com/union-hackers-personnel-
data-every-us-govt-employee-195701976.html).

So there are some real threats.

~~~
erikpukinskis
How is someone in China reading about some Americans a "real" threat? When I
think of a real threat, I think of a person with an intent to harm a U.S.
resident or citizen, a plan to do it, and the means to launch a plausibly
realistic attempt.

~~~
classicsnoot
...so your personal data being compromised by persons unknown is not something
you would deem a problem?

~~~
facetube
It is a problem, but the United States NSA is currently the biggest offender
in that department. Let's start out by not doing it to ourselves.

~~~
classicsnoot
The US passively spying on 300,000,000 > China actively spying on [and
suppressing] 1,300,000,000. What a wacky world.

~~~
facetube
I was referring to China's efforts to compromise systems in the US, not their
(dismal) domestic human-rights record. The point: we shouldn't be collecting
and concentrating the private communications of American citizens in a giant
data center – it's provided no proven protective value, and is a huge glowing
target for foreign espionage (corporate and/or governmental).

------
vinceguidry
> Future peace requires taking [Russia's] security concerns seriously rather
> than treating the country as an enemy that is always seeking to best us.

The problem with this is that Russia's security 'concerns' cannot be separated
from their nefarious geopolitical ambitions. We can't win with Russia, give
them an inch and they take a Crimea.

~~~
tonypace
But this article is straightforward isolationism, a very old current in
American political thought. The implied answer to your question is, 'So what?
America is safe, that's all that matters'.

------
r0naa
I think that this reasoning is completely flawed.

Reading this article, I understand that the author's definition of threat is
quite extreme. A threat is not something that "has the potential to
annihilate" but is rather "a thing that has the potential to inflict damages".

Dismissing any threats that has not a fully destructive potential as "not
important" is sloppy, dangerous thinking.

There is two extremes to this spectrum, you will notice that both have a
characteristic in common, they fail to differentiate and nuance threats.

From this fallacy, we can classify the two end of the spectrum as:

\- The "paranoid", who genuinely end-up thinking that "the end justify the
means" and propagate their hysteria to the rest of the group, effectively
becoming the biggest threat to what they were trying protect.

\- The "naive", who dismiss anything that has no fully destructive power as
"trivial", effectively allowing threats to turn into actual damages, grow to
become "fully destructive" (at which point it is too late) or cause a chain of
events leading to destruction of what they were effectively trying to protect
as well.

Let's not be fooled for a second by the "alliances" and "historical
relationships" between the US and its allies.

Nation-States are engaged in a game for survival which is directly linked to
growth and domination. A game-theoretic analogy would be the "non-cooperative"
game, defined as "a game where players play independently and where any
cooperation must be self-reinforcing".

There is exceptions to that rule but they are such of limited scope and impact
that we can safely consider them negligible.

Since "Nation-States" lack a system of belief, they are free from the
constraints that Humans self-impose onto themselves. A Nation-State will do
anything to further its own interest, they are in essence, cold-blooded
machines.

The author of this article is forgetting about the 195 other countries in the
world who are also playing this game.

Obviously not all of them have credible chances to become big players but you
can bet on the fact that all of them will fight tooth and nail for their part
of the pie, no matter what it takes.

~~~
Zirro
"Saying that the US has no threats is forgetting about the 195 other countries
in the world who are aspiring to be as much powerful as possible."

I believe that this is exactly the way of thinking that is being criticized in
the article. Very few of those 195 nations dream of removing the US from the
position of world power, and even fewer are capable of it.

~~~
classicsnoot
So are you of the opinion that if the US made an exit from the world stage
today, there would be no power struggle?

~~~
Zirro
It is hard to tell what you mean by "making an exit", but if it means that the
US were to reduce its military spending to a tenth of its current amount for
the foreseeable future - yes, I don't think it would hurt the US very much at
all.

In fact, the money gained from such an action could be used to strengthen the
nation against economic threats which currently are far greater than any
military ones.

~~~
classicsnoot
The point i was making is that the US, for all of its abundant faults, is not
exceptional. Sitting on top of the pile does not make the pile disappear.

~~~
zanny
If the US withdrew as global police, I would hope the UN would step up the
peacekeepers to fill that role. Thats what they are supposed to do at least.

Yes, I know they suck and are incompetent. They only get away with it because
they have big brother US to back them up. If they actually had to do their job
they might get their act together. Or maybe not?

I still don't see, in the absence of grotesque military spending, anyone going
batshit insane with conquest. We still have the nuclear threat to keep people
in line. Russia, for example, almost certainly does not fear a ground
incursion from any European power or the US for aggressively annexing Ukraine
/ Georgia. Why would you waste money on that? You can economically cripple
them. If they went insane and attacked a first world power they would see the
immediate return of the nuclear threat.

And really, total annihilation and mutually assured destruction _should_ be
deterrents enough to stop anything radical, while our globalized economic
system has bound everyone so much together that you do not need the threat of
soldiers to wreck a country. Consider how China is being kept out of all these
secret trade agreements because they have "overstepped their bounds" of those
with the money and power to influence these negotiations.

That doesn't mean you don't have any military, but you don't need to spend the
GDP of Turkey or Saudi Arabia every year on it, or try spreading ideology
through imperialism, or have military bases in almost every country on Earth.

------
makeitsuckless
Isn't the same kind of thinking not just dominant in the US foreign policy,
but also the same thing that explains much of it's internal issues?

From militarized police, the massive prison population to the proliferation of
fire arms, doesn't it all lead back to seeing the world in terms of "threats"?

------
bane
This is basically correct, but it's shaped by a few historic factors (note I
don't necessarily agree with all of these, just putting them out there):

1 - The U.S. was almost constantly engaged in a domestic or near-territorial
war of some kind from its founding until quite a few years into the 20th
century. [1] During the time period the U.S. massively expanded, strengthened
itself by defining borders and internally squashing various kinds of
rebellions. Since then, the U.S. has basically been at war continuously.
America is, believe it or not, a kind of warrior culture.

2 - The U.S. usually is able to claim some kind of victory out of most of its
military endeavors. Thus military engagement is seen as a tempting, low risk,
policy tool. The historic level of military success the U.S. enjoys is almost
unprecedented in history. By selectively choosing engagements it knows it can
win, the U.S. can continue the development of this legend.

3 - Domestically, Americans tend to think of our military actions as generally
being benevolent in nature (e.g. stopping communism, fighting nazis, freeing
subjugated peoples). The outstanding economic success of many countries who's
soil we fought on and then built strong alliances with (Germany, Korea, Japan,
France, etc.) feeds into this mythos. The post-war alliances we've formed help
to "encourage us" to get involved.

4 - The modern state of the world's powers, an outcome of WWII, is one in
which the U.S. is militarily uncontested by any power on the planet. The
relatively few conflict deaths post-WW2 [2] seems to imply that U.S. military
dominance brings peace, stability and prosperity and helps drive the notion of
the _Pax Americana_ [3]

5 - The failures and generally poor outcomes in countries under other major
power's influences and policies feeds into this as well. For example, at one
point a majority of the land-mass on the planet was engaged in Communism,
under Russian control (as the U.S.S.R.) or influence. Despite access to
tremendous natural resources (and short lived modernization programs), the
Communist countries failed to produce economic successes and were often
engaged in tremendously damaging internal conflicts.

6 - Pax Americana is viewed by Americans as a "good thing". Even though
Americans don't view themselves as expansionist colonial powers, they view the
expansion of the Pax via the export of American culture and influence as a
good thing. This implies then that the current state of American dominance is
a good thing, and that anything that even looks like it might be vectoring
towards threatening that status quo (e.g. belligerent Russia, rising China,
trouble on Allied borders etc.) needs to be aggressively halted or stopped.

American policy is generally framed as #6, with 1-5 as a supporting framework.
If thought of on purely military terms, American military expenditures and
actions can't really be rationalized. If thought of on terms of #6 they make
all the sense in the world. There's a lot of self-filtering involved too.
Americans ignore the failures and negatives surrounding military action, and
the various excesses that come with pouring something like half of the
government's discretionary funding into the DoD.

But the illusion of continued threats is one that we've created in order to
continue on justifying with what we generally believe is a better world under
our influence than the one that existed before.

You can hear most of this echoed when fairly sensible ideas like "maybe
Americans should pull out of Europe and let the Europeans, who are
economically and technologically able, to deal with defense needs for
themselves" are floated. Responses (even from Europeans) are often along the
lines of "no, European countries can't be trusted to cooperate well enough" or
"remember the last time Europe was left to sort things out?" and so on.

This also ignores entire continents like Africa, where Americans just simply
can't figure out what to do at all. Our national notion towards Africa is
basically to just ignore the continent and work on Middle-East containment
instead. These days when Africa comes up at all, it's usually in terms of
growing Chinese influence.

1 -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_Uni...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_United_States)

2 - [https://vimeo.com/128373915](https://vimeo.com/128373915)

3 -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Americana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Americana)

~~~
vinceguidry
> This also ignores entire continents like Africa, where Americans just simply
> can't figure out what to do at all. Our national notion towards Africa is
> basically to just ignore the continent and work on Middle-East containment
> instead.

Squeaky wheel gets the kick. Africa doesn't have a history of ramming planes
into buildings.

------
dataker
The largest threat to America is America itself.

For the past decades, America appears to be moving away from principles ,
objectiveness and liberty.

More and more, we see a 'democracy' ran by delusional ideologies and even
blind nationalism.

~~~
classicsnoot
The history of the US is not that rosy. We have always been a nation of
criminals, robber barons, and capitalist mercenaries. It was only after WWII
that the idea of being a benevolent super power came into being. After that
war, the US stopped seizing territory and began to go about forming the
structures of cooperative peace.

The question, as i see it, is which is better: small, consistent conflicts
lacing the developing sections of the world, or large, sporadic conflicts
wrecking the developed sections of the world?

~~~
douche
In the nuclear age, full-out shooting wars between developed countries are a
non-starter. Hence the 45 years of small-scale proxy wars between the U.S. and
Soviet Union throughout Africa, Latin America and Asia.

~~~
classicsnoot
The idea that a large scale conflict will inevitably lead to nuclear exchange
is so silly. Most nuclear weapons are not strategic, they are tactical.
Regardless, no one would nuke the property they are trying to occupy.

The reason their have been almost no real wars since the 1940s is because
business interest has taken over control of every western government.

I know people think there is a ton of profit to be made in war, but the
damages so heavily outweigh the benefits that i have a hard time believing
that is the sole motivation for hawkish policies.

------
codecamper
Germany and Japan were able to become powerful again, post WW2 because they
were not even allowed to spend money on any sort of army.

~~~
classicsnoot
...which they could do because their territorial integrity was guaranteed by a
country that spared no expense militarily.

------
atorralb
The last time the U.S was invaded was when Pancho Villa came from Mexico to
the U.S to steal some horses from Texas. In, March 9, of 1916,Pancho Villa
entered the U.S to kill some soldier in the city of Columbus and steal some
horses, then in the next day Pancho Villa returned to Mexico to brag about it.
That was the only time the U.S was actually invaded. Since 1947 the U.S
"ministry of war" was renamed to "ministry of defense" and its "budget of war"
was renamed to "budget of defense"... the name, is still a mistery to this
day. What an irony, those countries that fear to be invaded, are actually the
only ones that invade other countries. Regards

~~~
classicsnoot
>War of 1812 was fabricated

------
classicsnoot
This article is poorly written. It provides no background or supporting
references to bolster its claim. I find it frustrating in the extreme. Threats
do not have to be overtly threatening. A person in the room that dislikes you
and has a lot of money and time can be just as threatening as a person in the
room claiming to have a gun at home and an aversion towards your
faith/gender/culture.

I come from a place where people blindly believe the US is the best[sic]
nation in the world. Anyone that disagrees is obviously some
"egghead/pinko/etc" who can't appreciate the sacrifice of others. This, the
opposite extreme, is a s frustrating as the words of the dullard who penned
this piece. I confront it constantly in an attempt to represent the middle
path. In my years of argument, discussion, and reassessment, i have come to
realize that nothing is quite what it seems. To make absolute statements, for
or against anything, is to place oneself in an inherently weak position
intellectually.

The author shrugs at Russia's expansionist aggression, pointing out their
economic weakness as a reason they are no threat to the US. The approach to
China and Venezuela is similarly misguided. Threats != weapons. Europe's
relative peace since world war 2 is largely because of the US being extremely
security minded.

...but who knows. Maybe Russia bullying its neighbors is just as symptom of it
being misunderstood. Maybe China steals technology and data because they are
just in that adolescent "acting out" phase. Maybe the world is really a nice
place and the US is ruining the party for everyone.

:|

~~~
cyphunk
It is an editorial in the opinion section. agreed references help but ive
always assumed words in the opinions section of papers can be regarded as just
that

------
zxcvcxz
I've come to the conclusion that multiple world governments --working together
and against each other-- are attempting and in some cases are able to
manipulate the narrative of conversations on the internet to further certain
political agendas.

I don't believe most of the crap I hear about teenagers leaving in droves to
join ISIS all over the world, this is the red scare all over again. I'm also
pretty sure twitter is one of the main social platforms used to manipulate the
political/social narrative of the internet. More than half the accounts are
probably fake, who knows how many fake "ISIS" accounts there are or even what
countries government is making them. I also suspect twitter is being used as
some kind of data hub for surveillance because of how fast it caught on in
Arab countries and a lot of countries that aren't quite "western", then the
western media started to push it in every news broadcast for a while as if
anyone in America actually used it.

Surprise surprise! all the terrorists always have twitter accounts. I wouldn't
be surprised if the next "home-grown" terrorist has a twitter account.

