by notapplicable » Sat Mar 03, 2012 12:40 pm
Spinalcold wrote:Hence came the Democracy vrs Communism.
That's why we're still in a cold war with Communist China, right? I'm sorry, but the ideology differences were just an excuse. A way of defining how we were better than the enemy.
We don't care about communism as long as we have access to their markets (China). We don't care about authoritarianism, as long as we have access to their markets (Idriss Déby, Dictator of Chad; as well as most of South America until recently). African and east Asian tyrants are often ignored so long as we can sell them weapons or buy their diamonds/oil/rare metals, etc. We
did care about the spread of the Soviet Union because of their protectionist iron curtain. We care about the Venezuelan democracy and some even slander it as a dictatorship because Chavez's government is nationalistic and protectionist. We loved Saddam Hussein until he threatened Kuwait's oil reserves, and then we continued to tolerate him as long as he participated in the oil-for-food program. Suspiciously, we didn't invade Iraq on any pretext until Hussein threatened to switch from the Dollar-standard to the Euro for his country's international trade. There's a reason, when there turned out to be no WMD, that President Bush said it didn't matter... that we did the right thing. And it's not because he was a dictator that had to be removed for the sake of his people-- that was just a pleasant consequence.
The closest wars I can think of that were ideologically motivated were the crusades, but even they were based on claiming territory (the first papal crusade was in response to the expansion of Islam into the Christian Byzantine empire, for example). Their ideological differences were a way of dehumanizing the enemy, and made the wars easy to justify morally... but deep down it was always about land. Especially Jerusalem.
I mean, you can say that the propagandistic reasons for war are often ideological. But wars are incredibly devastating events for all participants. To put your nation through such requires tangible, concrete rewards. Proving your idea is "better" by killing all the dudes that disagree is, flatly, not enough. It would be beyond stupid for a libertarian nation to invade another because they want them to lower income taxes, but it's within the realm of possibility to invade a nation because they want them to remove tariffs on their exports.
[quote="Spinalcold"]Hence came the Democracy vrs Communism.[/quote]
That's why we're still in a cold war with Communist China, right? I'm sorry, but the ideology differences were just an excuse. A way of defining how we were better than the enemy.
We don't care about communism as long as we have access to their markets (China). We don't care about authoritarianism, as long as we have access to their markets (Idriss Déby, Dictator of Chad; as well as most of South America until recently). African and east Asian tyrants are often ignored so long as we can sell them weapons or buy their diamonds/oil/rare metals, etc. We [i]did[/i] care about the spread of the Soviet Union because of their protectionist iron curtain. We care about the Venezuelan democracy and some even slander it as a dictatorship because Chavez's government is nationalistic and protectionist. We loved Saddam Hussein until he threatened Kuwait's oil reserves, and then we continued to tolerate him as long as he participated in the oil-for-food program. Suspiciously, we didn't invade Iraq on any pretext until Hussein threatened to switch from the Dollar-standard to the Euro for his country's international trade. There's a reason, when there turned out to be no WMD, that President Bush said it didn't matter... that we did the right thing. And it's not because he was a dictator that had to be removed for the sake of his people-- that was just a pleasant consequence.
The closest wars I can think of that were ideologically motivated were the crusades, but even they were based on claiming territory (the first papal crusade was in response to the expansion of Islam into the Christian Byzantine empire, for example). Their ideological differences were a way of dehumanizing the enemy, and made the wars easy to justify morally... but deep down it was always about land. Especially Jerusalem.
I mean, you can say that the propagandistic reasons for war are often ideological. But wars are incredibly devastating events for all participants. To put your nation through such requires tangible, concrete rewards. Proving your idea is "better" by killing all the dudes that disagree is, flatly, not enough. It would be beyond stupid for a libertarian nation to invade another because they want them to lower income taxes, but it's within the realm of possibility to invade a nation because they want them to remove tariffs on their exports.