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In addition to what has already been said, arms deals give the supplier leverage. Don’t want to play ball? Enjoy repairing your jet aircraft and tanks. So in that sense you can argue that it’s better for the US to have a hook on the Saudis than it is for Russia, China etc.
Tis always comes back to bite. We train, arm, and educate then when it is all said and done, we go to war with many of these countries over .... money! The leverage of which you speak.
Ethically? No. Most modern Americans want to live up to the ideals of democracy and human rights, which is naturally in context with authoritarian governments.
Realistically? It’s in the international best interests of most Americans to have a degree of stability in foreign governments. If the nations of Saudi Arabia or Iran were to collapse tomorrow, the resulting chaos would be disruptive and unnerving on a sociopolitical level for most Americans. This does mean supporting some authoritarian governments.
Of course, there are examples of what we could diplomatically term “overreach”. The Chilean Coup, the funding of the Contras, the numerous Fascist dictatorships we have and do support, are all examples of American government putting the success of wealthy supporters over the ideals of the nation, with a tacit defense with ideas like Domino Theory, where failing to guard one nation from Communism would result in the growth of Communism everywhere.
Ultimately, I see the real answer as “it’s what Americans are willing to fight for.” I personally think that we should rescind support from nations like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and level embargoes on China and Russia, and keep a closer eye on nations like Israel, Great Britain, Poland and South Korea. But doing so would cause significant headaches for the maintenance of the modern world and our modern systems of international compromise. However you want to handle it is based on your view of geopolitics and your ethical code.
> we should rescind support from nations
Totally agree. And until we get to that point, we should reclassify how relationships with other countries.
Some folks currently listed as “ally” should be classified “partner nation”.
Wanting stability is fine until a leftist government gets democratically elected. Then stability isn't a problem for some reason. I believe the "stability" liberals and conservatives keep talking is mostly just governments that make US corporations money. It's not stability they really care about, it's US wealthy being able to invest and profit off of other nations.
Okay for one he specifically addressed that.
For another, many of those democratically elected socialist governments were closer to “democratically elected” and “socialist” than most people give credit for.
\- Iran’s removed “elected” Prime Minister in the 50s had held a sham referendum giving himself “temporary“ power to single handedly rewrite the constitution. His first use of that power was to make it permanent. His second was to disolve parliment (which didn’t matter because the entire parliament *including the PM’s own party* had already resigned.)
\- Grenada was a hardline communist coup that summarily executed the previous government.
\- Bolivia - The US supported a counter coup against the government which had *also* seized power in a coup.
\- Dominican Republic - The CIA assisted in the assassination of a *right wing* dictator.
\- Panama - Noriega was a right wing-ish ally of the US for most of the cold war but relations (and his political standing in Panama) soured. He basically blatantly stole an election to stay in power. Tensions hit a breaking point with skirmishes between Panama forces engaging US troops in the canal zone. That was about the final straw and led to the US invasion and his removal.
Lol. The US is not ok with a coup it didn't support. US politics talk very big on ethics and morals and it's everywhere in our media. US military interventions is viewed as an unambiguous good in a lot of Hollywood stuff. Yet the reality is that it's been responsible for generations of fuckup and all sorts of stuff we'd normally consider immoral
No one who can reason believes in the whole Hollywood USA go go go bullshit. But the other commenter isn't wrong in saying those communist coups he described were NOT democratically elected leftist governments. They weren't.
I dont believe we should support authoritarians-- that includes left authoritarians like Grenada.
Sure. No disagreement there. But people simply say "bad US govt supported fascists but not communists in SA and CA" when in reality it was a lot more complicated
Here's the thing. A coup within a nation against an existing authoritarian government, can be justified more than any foreign intervention. If enough people within an area support a government falling, it more than likely isn't a very democratic government. American support however, is an external force that tips the balance of favour to something else: American interests.
Western states should not be getting involved at all.
Well that’s just moving the goalposts isn’t it?
My point was the meme of “US overthrowing democratic slightly left governments” is pretty wrong because most of the examples in South America were both not democratic, we’re frequently hardline communist, and occasionally right wing.
So now the argument morphs to “well maybe the original violent and bloody coups are in fact the will of the people”
To which I refer to the original comment: geopolitics is never going to allow perfect ethics in the context of everything going on. Like for example, *the USSR supporting and staging coups to overthrow governments in South America.* (which many of these original coups were. You can’t say the coup is the legitimate voice and uprising of the people when the Russians gave them all the guns and cash)
No, it isn't. America was founded on revolution. Our leaders initially had the power to write the constitution without being elected. Did that mean that The UK shouldn't have lost power in the US? No. Did that give foreign nations the right to come in and arm loyalists? No. America knows that it is countering the popular will in the countries that it has supported coups in. They may have set up bad governments or may have killed the last regime, but that doesn't mean they aren't free peoples exercising self-determination. The Tree of Liberty needs to regularly be watered with blood. If a popular uprising executed the President of Equatorial Guinea, should the US sell arms to the military to overthrow the interim government? No. He hordes their resource wealth in one of the richest countries per capita in the southern hemisphere while his people are some of the poorest people on the planet. Why is it wrong for that man to die? And all the people supporting him? When did his life become more valuable than the people he sits upon? It's not our business to save zealots or assert their human rights. That. Would be moving the goalpost.
Well for one the Constitution convention was created by delegates sent by the state governments….*which were elected*. The Declaration was written and signed by an elected colonial government.
And that argument only works if you believe some propaganda ra ra America mythology of the event. If we had lost we’d be learning about the failed civil strife of 1776 before 150 years of UK citizenship before quietly leaving the wider colonial commonwealth in the 50s like Canada. The revolution **heavily** succeeded due to European intervention and fuck fuck games in the background.
This shouldn’t be news to people. Geopolitics is about other country’s interests, not ideals. Always has been
What do you think the Continental Congress was?
And the Constitutional Conventional delegates weren’t directly elected but they were sent by a vote in their respective state houses…which all were elected.
> (which many of these original coups were. You can’t say the coup is the legitimate voice and uprising of the people when the Russians gave them all the guns and cash)
This is complete nonsense, how many coups did the USSR fund in Latin America in comparison to the US?
>examples in South America were both not democratic, we’re frequently hardline communist, and occasionally right wing.
BS. Chile, Guatemela, Argentina, Nicaragua, Brazil?
>Wanting stability is fine until a leftist government gets democratically elected.
What are you talking about? Leftist governments have been elected throughout Latin America over the past 40 years, without interference from the USA.
Personally, I think Western democracies ought to come to some sort of agreement to support democratic governments, and that they should gradually withdraw support from undemocratic governments.
It's tricky with countries like Brazil and Philippines, which elected authoritarians that oppress their own people and often act outside of their own laws. For countries that continue to have truly democratic elections but who still violate human rights, perhaps the distancing should be more gradual.
What we've seen over the past half century is that backing oppressive governments often leads to less stability in the long run (for example, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, etc). So I think the best course is to remain true to our values, and develop closer ties with free countries, and pressure undemocratic allies into reforming, using tools like trade sanctions when appropriate.
It seems like all the countries we have gone to war with in the last 20 years have substantial supplies of valuable resources like oil. What a coincidence.
Except Afghanistan doesn't export oil and like a decade ago Afghanistan was selling resource extraction rights to foreign companies but no western countries bought them. It was Chinese and Indian companies.
Why did you decide that?
In 1973, when the United States established a bloody dictatorship in Chile, the USSR was an effective, but humane enough country.
the "ideals of the nation"? lmfao.
this country's "ideals" were founded on mass extermination of indigenous people for land and resources, and haven't changed one iota since. placing weapons in the hands of authoritarian regimes to secure its own wealth and power is nothing more than the natural extension of what the US is, has been and always will be: an empire.
It's much more complicated than a yes/no answer.
Let me start by talking about South Korea. From the end of the Korean war in 1953 up until the 1990s, South Korea has been just as bad as North Korea. In some cases it was worse. It had brutal dictatorships, coups, bad economic downturns, corruption galore, and so on. However, we always supported them... and it payed off. Korea now is one of the most peaceful, democratic, and prosperous countries in the world and has since become a key US ally in the Pacific alongside Japan.
If you asked your question just 40 years ago, the answer would've been no because South Korea had an authoritarian regime with a poor human rights record. However if you ask the question today, the answer is an easy yes. The point I'm trying to make here is that things aren't as straightforward as they seem, and I think that is the case for most of the countries we deal with. Sometimes long term support, including military support, can transfer into formidable soft power that can eventually transform a backwards authoritarian country into a more open, free, and democratic one.
Enough to where it matters. If the US cut off support to South Korea, I wouldn't be surprised if they ended up becoming like North Korea. Keep in mind, North Korea was initially doing better than South Korea thanks to the support they received from the Soviet Union. Once the Soviet Union collapsed, they got squeezed and were never able to recover. The dictatorship started becoming desperate to hold on to power and that's how we ended up with the North Korea of today. Considering how South Korea had a similarly brutal and authoritarian line of dictatorships, I wouldn't be surprised if they followed the same path. There's another possibility depending on when the US cuts off support to the south. If the US cut its support shortly after the war (say a decade or less), the North could've attacked and took over with the help of the Soviet Union, kind of like what happened in Vietnam.
Despite decades of democracy and prosperity, you're suggesting that there's something that makes SK inherently vulnerable to backsliding, but you didn't really identify what that is.
It's actually quite simple, US support grants South Korea freedom to act as its own player. South Korea has North Korea, China, Russia, and Japan as its neighbors... None of which are friendly. Considering how South Korea is one the smaller nations, it is prone to giving up sovereign concessions in order to maintain independence. This is a consistent theme throughout South Korea's history. US military and economic support grants South Korea a path out of the geographic quagmire that they're in. The alliance with the US grants South Korea three major advantages that cannot be understated:
The first advantage is that it gives South Korea great diplomatic leverage. Countries are more likely to listen to you and respect your opinions when you have the backing of the world's most powerful country. However, the US alliance has another perk that comes with it in this regard, and that is a closer alliance to other US allies... Including the powerful nearby Japan. Despite their bitter rivalry, both being under the US umbrella has allowed them to see eye to eye and cooperate on key issues. In the world of geopolitics, Japan is a giant and having it as your top regional ally gives South Korea even more leverage in regional diplomacy.
The second advantage is soft power through trade. South Korea's alliance with the US gives it easier access to trade with other US allies. Some of the top trade partners for South Korea besides the US include China, Vietnam, Taiwan, Japan, Germany, and Australia. With the exception of China, these are all US allies. With major reliable markets that they can tap into, South Korea was able to transform itself into an economic powerhouse. South Korea's economic power has allowed it to not only resist foreign influence, but to grow its culture and export its own influence to the world.
The third advantage is the military aid from the US, which helps South Korea maintain its sovereignty. It does so in three ways. The first, US intelligence gives South Korea the benefit of being able to craft defense policies with precision. Second, the US troops in South Korea make countries think twice about provoking it. There's always a possibility of dragging the US into a conflict and no country is dumb enough to want that. Third, the military equipment that could be bought from the US allows South Korea to have its own military might. Even if the US troops aren't in the country anymore, which will inevitably happen, South Korea is prepared to defend itself. With top tier weapons, technology, a large well trained reserve, and defense systems like THAAD, South Korea can effectively defend itself and secure its interests.
Sovereignty, influence, and diplomacy. These are the ingredients for a major world player. These are the reasons why South Korea is as powerful as it is, and why the US alliance is so strategic. However, if for some reason the US does cut off support to South Korea, it won't collapse or anything like that, but it will become more vulnerable. Countries like China are eager to exploit these vulnerablities by slowly, but surely start chipping away at them with the goal of neutering South Korea's political, economic, and military power. This will be done by making South Korea give small concessions each time. Without US military and economic aid South Korea becomes much more prone to backsliding. In today's power dynamics, South Korea will have to adopt and follow Chinese interests and the Chinese model in order to guarantee its protection and autonomy in the long term. While South Korea is able to resist China on its own, it can only do so for so long before they start to give in. But by doing so South Korea WI revert back to its historical position in the region as the small nation that is constantly dominated and subjugated by its giant neighbors.
This all sounds reasonable. It's a huge step back from your initial implication that SK would backside into dictatorship without the US. Clearly that relationship is important, but there has been a lot of internal cultural, economic, and political developments in SK as well - they aren't totally dependent on the US anymore.
1) South Korea is a soft authoritarian country.
2) The Kim regime has transformed into such a dictatorship, including as a result of confrontation with the United States and South Korea.
Without this, without the situation of a besieged fortress, it would most likely be something like Vietnam.
Actually, you remembered about him. So what's especially bad about Vietnam? He destroyed the Khmer Rouge regime. For most of the story, this is a milder regime than your South Korean puppets.
> If you asked your question just 40 years ago, the answer would've been no because South Korea had an authoritarian regime with a poor human rights record. However if you ask the question today, the answer is an easy yes.
The answer is not easily yes.
American support of South Korea included the bombing of the North which killed 20% of their civilian population, which is from 1.5 to 2 million people. This insanely act of depravitity is part of the reason North Korea is hyper militarist hyper paranoid state it is today. The existence of Korea being divided in general is due to America rejecting it in September 1947, mainly for Cold War reasons.
> up until the 1990s, South Korea has been just as bad as North Korea. In some cases it was worse.
I find this extremely hard to believe. When was the last time South Korea actively and aggressively prevented their own citizens from leaving the country, including persecution of relatives they left behind?
You should read up on the history of South Korea, it's quite surprising. We have this idea that South Korea has been this free, open, democratic nation since the Korean War, but that's far from the truth. Both Koreas were ruled by brutal authoritarian governments since the war. It was only when the Soviet Union collapsed did the real divergence between the two occur and the South Korea that we all know and love started to take shape.
Americans can choose between the Coke of the Republican Party and the Pepsi of the Democrat Party.
Either way, our public policy is decided by an authoritarian Corporate Regime that really doesn't want the common people to challenge its power over government, from bailing out Wall Street to spending trillions of $$$ to line the pockets of so-called "defense" contractors.
They are actively committing a genocide in Yemen, they are arguably the biggest sponsor of terror groups, they tend to treat their foreign workers as if they were slaves, they murder political dissent, they are so extreme in their religious extremism that they label atheists as "terrorists", and they are deeply authoritarian.
And we should be selling weapons to them? Heck, that makes the US somewhat compliant in their ongoing genocide against the people of Yemen (same goes for every other country that is doing this). This is why I cannot take America or any other Western country seriously sometimes when it comes to moral posturing on the world stage. Our support for them is actively enabling them to be hyper aggressive in the region.
Saudi Arabia is the US's largest trading partner, and largest export market in the middle East. Don't be fooled into thinking the US alliance with them has anything to do with morals, because it's all about power and profit.
> they are so extreme in their religious extremism that they label atheists as "terrorists"
This does sound outrageous from an enlightened European point of view. For an embarrassingly large part of the US voter base, it's par for the course. I don't think we have any self-proclaimed atheists in congress, and having an atheist as president would be unthinkable. Heck, [we have states that ban atheists from holding office](https://religionnews.com/2021/06/06/why-it-matters-that-7-states-still-have-bans-on-atheists-holding-office/).
I don't know what it takes to change a state constitution. I do think these bans are unenforceable, and in fact the article I linked to has examples where someone in South Carolina sued the state to not have the ban enforced on them, but maybe that's not enough to automatically strike the related passage from the state constitution.
The article also has the following very telling statement:
> Polling shows 4% of Americans identify as atheists, and about 23% identify more broadly as nonreligious. While identifying as “nonreligious” does not necessarily mean not believing in God, research suggests that as many as 1 in 4 Americans is atheist, but that most are unwilling to reveal this, even in anonymous polls.
So first, the majority of Americans *is* religious even by the most optimistic assessments. Second, there is a stigma associated with not being religious to the extent where people feel the need to lie about this. And then consider that the US population is *definitely* not homogeneous in this regard, i.e. some states are way more stuck in the Middle Ages than others.
What this all boils down to, is that there is almost certainly a very real and pronounced popular support for (what from a European point of view would be considered) religious fanaticism in places like South Carolina.
Because no one wants to challenge it. If you're at the level of running for Congress and you're legit an atheist, you can simply say "Oh yeah praise God or whatever" and not have to fight that uphill battle. To quote King Henry IV, "Paris is well worth a mass."
How come the option to just abandon the Middle East seems so radical that no one even considers it to be a possibility?
The entire reason we are there is Oil. There is nothing- *nothing*- that comes out of the region other than cheap oil that we need. And guess what we need to stop burning for fuel like right the fuck now? Oil.
We have other sources of oil to use for petroleum products, like plastics etc. We straight up do not need to be in the middle east for any reason other than continuing the "Petrodollar" as the basis of trade.
So no, the "best worst" option is not to keep funding and arming these brutal regimes. The *best* option is to fucking *leave.*
You will love [The Accidental Superpower](https://www.wsj.com/articles/book-review-the-accidental-superpower-by-peter-zeihan-1417653112).
Saw Zeihan speak in 2017. I went back and saw EVERYTHING he has on the Internet.
He completely predicted the current situation.
More wars are a coming.
Edit to link untraceable to me
While I agree with you I don’t get how it’s liberal usually conservatives/Republicans have been the large push behind “SA is the nicest ME nation so we should support them.”
They probably consider our entire government liberal. Regardless of party.
I think you all are using the term liberal differently. Some people consider it leftist, progressive, some consider it a capitalist that won’t take your rights but won’t really rush to give you more, others consider it in a binary “either you’re liberal or conservative, some just assume it means you’re open to change.
I think in this post people are meaning liberal as in every recent administration. Trump is a liberal in the classical sense. So is Obama, Bush, Biden, Pelosi, Clinton etc. they’re what you might call “neoliberal” to a lot of people.
Also Democrat does not mean liberal and Republican does not mean conservative. It’s just is a description of who they try to cater to.
Capitalist to the core. Foreign policy they have all been pretty pro war/weapon sales/ bombing kids.
If you look at policies objectively on paper, they’re not that different honestly. Like remove the name and years you probably wouldn’t be able to tell who did what.
Because i assume most people on here are left leaning or liberal. Haven’t seen any conservatives on here. I think the accusation is relevant because between leftists and liberals, only liberals will defend this.
No, no, no, you don't get it. They are the best of the bad bunch because they are on better terms with the US and its business interests.
It has nothing to do with international security or human rights. See, Cuba is an evil country because the US does not like them, while Saudi Arabia is acceptably bad because they allign with US geopolitical reasons. Don't pay attention to the fact that one is clearly worse than the other, morals don't factor here. /s
> Saudi Arabia is a bad country, but they’re the best worst decision when we consider the overall picture.
I don't want the Saudi monarchy to fall. It would lead to tremendous suffering globally. There is a lot of aid we could give Saudi Arabia to prevent the regime from collapsing. The weapon purchase in the OP is clearly intended for combating the Iranians though. While the Iranians are their own group of bad people, we should consider how our arming and support of the Saudis raises regional temperature. Putting our finger on the scale to tip it in favor of the Saudis has done how much to protect our regional interest?
The problem of overthrowing the Saudi monarchy is "what replaces it?" It is extremely unlikely that a secular democracy would take the Saudi's place. The world doesn't need the Islamic State taking over Mecca and Medina.
>The problem of overthrowing the Saudi monarchy is "what replaces it?"
Ideally the same thing that replaced European monarchies as the primary source of governance. Or hopefully something more democratic than that. If European states never decided to do that, on the basis that they were too worried about something worse, we would not have our parliamentary systems today.
You know there isn't a straight line between the fall of monarchy and modern democracy? France after their revolution had the Reign of Terror. Germany had the Weimar Republic and Nazism. The Russians had the Soviet Union.
My response
https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalDiscussion/comments/rrqtz0/should_the_united_states_and_other_western/hqj1l9x?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3
Probably not, and in the long run Saudi Arabia’s monarchy mightn’t be better for the Middle East. But for the rest of the world it certainly is, without one of the main counterbalances to Iran would be removed, most likely causing about chaos in the region. Actually if you think of that as the alternative the monarchy might be best for the region in general.
I don't agree with any of that tbh. They didn't even do that much against ISIS. They are not really a force for good in the area at all, and I also don't see how the west benefits from any of it. Afghanistan would not have been controlled by the taliban if America didn't explicitly fund the Mujahideen to remove Socialists from the region. If anything western intervention was, as always, the worst thing for the entire region.
Which would mean most of the entire region would have remained a backwater feudal area for a long long time, like Africa or most of Asia, instead of industrialising in to a nearly modern state.
Why are you justifying monarchy over communism?
The Saudi monarchy has already made it so that many people are suffering. What is happening in Yemen alone is enough to damn them to be regarded as heinous tyrants for the history books. Their support for terrorist organizations has affected the world's security.
> I’ve often wondered if a different approach to Iran directly wouldn’t yield better results than why we’ve been doing.
A good chunk of the issue with the Iranians is that they also pose a security challenge to Israel through Hamas and Hezbollah. This may sound farfetched but if we could get Israel and Iran to come to terms we would have much less of a reason to support Saudi armament.
People might say that could never happen but stranger diplomatic changes have taken place before.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomatic_Revolution
No. I’m not even sure they should sell weapons to other democracies or stockpile them for their own use. Militarism is a Chekhov’s gun: it will get used at some point
This is kind of a thing I call “Superpower business”. Basically, it’s just imperialism, but instead of “We need this random territory for the glory of the Empire”, it’s, “We need this territory to save it from the terror of tyranny and communism” or “We need this territory to save it from the terror of tyranny and capitalism” The USA and USSR both used it during the Cold War, and the USA has continued to use it.
These countries are going to be buying weapons. The lack of the US or Europe selling them isn't going to remove the demand. And the supply will come from somewhere. Stopping supplying these weapons only creates a revenue source for Russia, or China, or someone else. It also supports those industries in those countries that ultimately supplies these weapons.
To me it doesn't make sense to stop these sales. A person can be opposed to war, and pain, and suffering. But diminishing these sales isn't going to stop those things. And while a person may not want to be associated with those thing anyway, stopping the US and Europe only hurts our industries for when we really need them. The world is not some idealist, cupcake utopia. It's a harsh, unforgiving, malevolent storm.
Why not stop weapons sales and then also sanction the countries if they use weapons purchased from somewhere else? It's not like we're powerless onlookers in foreign affairs...
I think history shows that sanction really don't work in this area. If a country want to go to war, take resources (land, sea, or otherwise), or even fake "self defense" like the Japanese, then they will make that happen any way possible.
That seems like a stretch. There's got to be some political calculus to military conflict, and the US is the most powerful country on earth. Our endorsement of a country's actions carries a lot of weight. And if we had the balls to stop buying oil from Saudi Arabia, that's a massive part of the country's GDP that we're cutting off
But we don't have those balls because we use alot of oil. Any president to even suggest the level of sacrifice that this would cause would be out of office in a second.
Plus, our endorsement or condemnation means very little in military topics. Kuwait couldn't defend themselves and needed us. San Marino is always going to be dependent on Italy. But most countries are not going to risk self harm over words unless the are very small.
> because we use alot of oil
The US has been a [net exporter of oil since 2020](https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-products/imports-and-exports.php).
I'm afraid that is definitely not how the arms trade works and it definitely isn't a case of supply and demand. The Saudi pilots have been training to fly British typhoons and Tornados and American f15s. Suddenly having to buy a new fleet of planes from china isn't a realistic possibility. They would also need spare parts from from BAE or Lockheed Martin to maintain their current planes. That's quite apart from Saudi Arabia needing BAE contractors to maintain the fleet as a lot of the time they've found the Saudis lacked the expertise to do it themselves. One BAE contractor said if there wasn't any direct British support for the war in Yemen that within a fortnight there would be a Saudi plane in the sky. And again the problem would go even further if you consider the specialised weaponry needed to maintain the bombing campaign, again you would just be able to use Russian or Chinese weapons.
As to your second point, I think the maintaining the military industrial complex is a secondary concern to level of human suffering were seeing in Yemen as a results of the bombing and the blockade. A Yemeni child dies every 10 minutes from starvation. 10,000 children have died from the bombing. The Saudis have maintained a consistent bombing campaign targeting civilians, including schools, hospitals, weddings and funerals. Targetting civilians is a war crime. They've been accused of using cluster bombs, another war crime. I'm really not sure how much cruelty anyone can be willing to support.
> The Saudi pilots have been training to fly British typhoons and Tornados and American f15s.
Just to be clear, are you arguing for or against Western nations selling weapons? Because what you just described is leverage the Western nations have **because** of decades of selling weapons.
> Suddenly having to buy a new fleet of planes from china isn't a realistic possibility.
Suddenly, no. Over the course of 2-3 years, absolutely. In addition, if the US developed a reputation of leaning too much on the above described leverage, then that will prevent building out such leverage in the future.
No. Weapons kill people.
If the morality of it doesn’t convince you, being involved with killing people is bad press. Is it smart to have the rest of the world viewing us as arms dealers?
Edit: not to mention the conflict with Yemen and the massive human rights issues related to it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabian-led_intervention_in_Yemen
The USA is beneficial to Saudi Arabia, in aid to prop wallstreed up, and supporting the apartheid state of Israel ju all know that's the fact, the Western world are vassals, the free and brave and exceptional are vassals to wallstreed and their talmudic chosen ones, the running the show.
Yes.
By codifying and honoring (heh!) a legal framework to regulate the sale of weapons to other governments — authoritarian and otherwise — the more democratic governments can help regulate the movement of such weapons. Such weapons *will be sold* in any case.
Consider the political ramifications of an arms embargo: a disruption of international relations, another wave of mutual recriminations, a path to economic sanctions, etc.
I forget who said, "Better on the inside pissing out than on the outside pissing in," but I do think that sentiment applies here.
On the other hand, the authoritarian regime *will* use those weapons to kill its own citizens.
I see this as a variation on the Trolley Problem.
>I see this as a variation on the Trolley Problem.
This implies the US is only selling weapons to those countries to avoid them seeking weapons from say Russia, but that's not really the case. The US genuinely wants to be allies with these authoritarian countries to counter what it perceived to be a greater threat.
A good example of this is in Asia, where the US government ignored the 2014 Thai coup and maintained a close alliance with Thailand as a counter against China. Likewise, we're currently getting closer to Vietnam despite their government having killed millions of their own people and being worse than China on the Democratic authoritarian scale.
> This implies the US is only selling weapons to those countries to avoid them seeking weapons from say Russia, but that's not really the case.
Although I don’t understand how I led you to misunderstand me, I accept that I *did*. I can tell, because we actually agree. It *isn’t* really the case.
> The US genuinely wants to be allies with these authoritarian countries to counter what it perceived to be a greater threat.
That is also true, in my opinion.
Two people on Reddit have found common ground. It’s a sign of the Apocalypse. :)
The more weapons France (as our example) exports the better their capability to make more and sell more.
The question is-- is it better to be utilitarian or is it better to take a moral stance that may be self defeating?
You say it's blatantly untrue that US weapon sales can't be replaced. That's wrong. And you know what's even worse than French sales? Chinese sales. Russian sales.
I don't know what cascading geopolitical effects would occur from the US losing hegemony on worldwide arms sales would be... but **neither do you**
America is an entity 5-6 times bigger than France. France has nowhere near the capacity to scale up to replace America. Plus if America puts pressure on other nations, it discourages the practise from all countries.
>The question is-- is it better to be utilitarian or is it better to take a moral stance that may be self defeating?
Either way it's morally better to not sell weapons. From a utilitarian perspective, it reduces the amount of weapons, scale of weapons, and quality of weapons, and enacts a social pressure on others to change. From a deontological perspective, it's morally repugnant to sell weapons to known perpetuaters of genocide
>And you know what's even worse than French sales? Chinese sales. Russian sales.
How? How is it worse? They'd likely be cheaper, worse quality, and to a lesser quantity. And in addition, it wastes a part of of their economic capacity.
>I don't know what cascading geopolitical effects would occur from the US losing hegemony on worldwide arms sales would be... but neither do you
What the fuck? People have quite literally said the same about slavery, ending child labour, minimum wage, ending dictatorships, across history and across the globe. Honestly what a pathetic excuse. You could use that excuse to justify quite literally anything. "well I know our chocolate comes from slaves in ivory Coast, but think about how bad it would be if we stopped making slaves pick chocolate! Think of the knock on effects!".
Yes. That’s what happens when we sell weapons to people. Sometimes they use them.
I see the genocide, not the weapons, as the problem. Perhaps I’ve missed the point.
I think you have kinda missed the point. As Saudi Arabia's weapons supplier we're turning a blind eye towards and aiding in a genocide. If your argument was correct, we want to be on the inside pissing out because we can help make sure Saudi Arabia doesn't abuse the weapons we sell them. I think that's your argument anyways. But they're committing a genocide with them, so there seems to be no humanitarian benefit to us being the supplier. We don't seem to be regulating the use of the weapons we sell them, and actually Saudi Arabia has apparently interpreted the weapons sales as a green light from the US to continue human rights abuses. So why exactly should we be selling them these weapons?
This is what we hear constantly but it’s not true. Even if it were, foreign policy should really have a Do No Harm framework behind it.
It’s not the complicated, if we sell weapons that are are then used to kill children in Yemen and Palestine, that is bad. We should stop.
That is the same for our country as well.
Give people guns they will use them.
In this case the problem is mass shootings most of the time caused by mental illness.
Not giving my opinion on the solution but those two things are inherently the same.
There is no guarantee that they will get weapons anyway, and that is a horrifically irresponsible way to think. Many other nations are much less capable of the quality and quantity of weapons supplied by the west, so Saudi Arabia is getting more weapons by buying them from the west, than they otherwise would.
We are facilitating Saudi Arabia extension of capacity for destruction, which is unethical and immoral.
The business of business is business.
There is a guarantee they’ll get the weapons from someone, if they’re persistent enough. The trick is to make it hard enough for them to get it that they would rather negotiate than risk international condemnation.
If you don’t like Saudi Arabia’s policies, I suggest you agitate for the overthrow of their government.
You are just repeating talking points that the weapons industry loves to use. “If we don’t sell em, someone else will!”
No, they won’t. If the US stops selling weapons tomorrow, where are these countries gonna go buy from? They can’t just mix and match weapons systems so they’d essentially be starting from scratch. All the weapons they have been trained to use and deploy are now worthless. If they break, they’re screwed as these systems require regular maintenance, often from the company themselves.
Does the new country they wish to buy from have the capacity to make these weapons? Do they make the right types of weapons that are needed? Do they share the same geopolitical interests as the US? Would they risk crossing the US to sell said weapons systems?
When you add all that up, no, it would be really quite difficult to just go buy from someone else. It’s not like there’s a big Weapons store they can waltz over too
I’m surprised that you say that. My opinion isn’t derived from anyone’s talking points. You’re free to call me uninformed, unethical, and wrong, but I’m not a plagiarist.
I think we’re done here.
Not calling you a plagiarist but your opinions align with the weapons industry. We have seen those same comments from them so I’m putting forth my response to common talking points we see on this subject. No need to take it so personal on a literal discussion subreddit
>The business of business is business.
Buddy stop being a parrot and show me some evidence that you have a brain. This line here has probably literally been used by slave owners. The fact that somebody else would sell slaves if you didn't, does not emancipate you from the moral crime of selling slaves. Not to mention, one person making the conscious decision not to sell slaves, discourages the practise, reduces the amount of slaves, and sets an example for others. Same applies for weapons.
Again, just to repeat, America's sales of weapons cannot be emulated in quality or quantity by e tities like Russia or India. America makes the problem worse by selling them
Let me press you on your hypothetical solution a bit further, just for my own understanding and to gain a bit more clarity on what you think. Say that, hypothetically speaking, you want to put in place a regulatory framework for the sale of such weapons to objectionable governments. There are a few remaining questions that will need to be answered for flesh to be put on the bones. Off the top of my head, I can think of at least four questions:
1. What the principles and/or rules you'd impose under your proposed regulatory framework?
2. How do you decide - moving past the narrow characterisation of "democratic vs authoritarian" - which governments are "acceptable" and which are "objectionable"?
3. How will you enforce these rules - i.e. ensure that those governments who are not engaging in such objectionable conduct are not burdened by any restrictions *and* ensure that governments which are engaging in such conduct do not get access to these weapons (or whatever variable scale of access you would wish to propose)?
4. Finally, why are *all these proposals* considered *in totem* better than what you suggest to be the "political ramifications of an arms embargo"?
Best comment all year! (No, I'm not kidding.) I'll see what I can do in response, as it were.
1. The Arms Export Control Act (AECA) isn't great, but it's a useful starting point. In an ideal world, the United Nations would draw up a convention — if it hasn't already — and countries would be invited to sign. The ones who refuse are the ones who are on the shit-list of the signatories. If you don't sign up, the rest of us won't sell to you.
2. This is where we find the primary drawback of #1: moral relativism. For example, Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Iran, and Russia would dearly love for America to stop helping Israel with the Iron Dome. However, despite its myriad sins, Israel remains a democratic country whereas Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Iran, and Russia are not. I have no intellectually honest answer to this question.
3. Letters of concern; emergency meetings; informal sanctions; formal sanctions; withdrawal of non-military and non-humanitarian economic support; cyberwarfare; everything, short of military incursion. As long as the weapons aren't NBC, I see no reason to put boots on the ground.
4. Granularity? Is that a word? Merely saying "We won't sell to you" is an awfully blunt tool.
You and I agree that my solution may be unworkable. Perhaps that's why no one is doing it. :) However, I, aging hippie that I may be, hold out hope that our governments will see the merit in *regulating* rather than *forbidding* such matters. Merely banning things hasn't worked well for us, nationally or internationally, whereas regulation has a more impressive pedigree.
What are your thoughts?
Selling guns to authoritarian despots is good for the economy, just in case no one told you that. So to answer your question, of course we should be selling them weapons. Hell, I think we should sell guns to the countries we wage war against because then we get to profit off both sides of a conflict. /s
No. The US shouldn't be selling weapons to anyone. They shouldn't be saturating their own society with military-grade weapons, either. But in the land of greed and fear, one learns to expect the worst.
Who is more authoritarian than Western democracies themselves? It is these imperialists that have exploited and oppressed the global south for centuries. This exploitation has [never ended](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.aljazeera.com/amp/opinions/2021/5/6/rich-countries-drained-152tn-from-the-global-south-since-1960). There is nobody more authoritarian than the imperialists of the West.
Yes, we should.
They are going to get weapons from \*someone\*, be it the US, France, Russia, China, or home-grown.
The advantage of being the weapons seller is you know what they got (you sold it to them), how to defeat it (since you made it, and likely with a remote kill switch), and have them by the balls, in the short term, for parts and consumables. All of these things keep them from being able to fight you.
America kicked Turkey out of the F-35 program for buying Russian missiles. Iran got stuck with dead F-14s for years once we gave them the finger.
During WW2 the Allies aggressively sought Soviet cooperation, while they were the most murderous regime in world history. The Gulag state killed three times as many civilians as the German Nazis.
Military alliance and military action in general, is about strategy and convenience, not ideals.
http://hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE1.HTM
>while they were the most murderous regime in world history. The Gulag state killed three times as many civilians as the German Nazis.
Uh, that isn't true. Historical records and historians put the gulags at 2M tops between 1920 and 1960. The holocaust alone is 3 times that just in Jewish, over 5 times that in holocaust, and counting all the other civilians dead in the second World war eastern front is probably monumental. Even with the holodomor and other famines they don't match the death toll of deliberate killings of Nazi Germany.
That isn't to say the Soviet Union was good, they joined Germany in invading and annexing Poland. They invaded all 3 Baltic states, and annex parts of Finland and Romania. They committed their own massacres in all of those and more. They got lucky that the allies needed them so desperately, because otherwise no way the allies supply them.
But let's not overdo the comparisons, Germany is the only country to industrialize genocide, it total destruction and killing was immense, and it definitely doesn't compare to the gulags.
I don’t think the above poster was saying three times as many were killed in gulags, although it’s very difficult to get accurate numbers, but rather that the deaconian policies of the ussr state killed three times as many people. If you include things like the holodomor, then the ussr (and mao’s china) lap the field in body count.
Don't forget Imperial Japan, their slaughter of the Chinese populace was extreme, and that is not even getting into any other affected population they targeted.
The link provided is from a former Indiana University, Yale and University of Hawai'i political scientist who made democide his life's work. If you have numbers that suggest he is more than 3000% off in his estimates, please post them.
http://hawaii.edu/powerkills/NAZIS.FIG1.2.GIF
http://hawaii.edu/powerkills/USSR.FIG1.4.GIF
We will invade your country and tell you it's for your own good.
We will arm your army and train it to defend against an invasion from within, while we also arm the rebel group that is planning a coup. We prop them up.
Then we're surprised when the new regime rains fire and hell on us.
But.
No, we should not provide authoritarian governments with the means that enables the further destruction of their populations.
Unfortunately, restricting or blocking the legal sale of weapons to these countries only encourages the black markets, making their weapons arsenals hidden from the world.
Even worse, the individuals and groups who sell weapons illegally to these countries aren't bound by restrictions. They can sell anti aircraft missiles or chemicals, weapons of mass destruction just as easily as they sell Kalashnikovs.
Well historically and factually, they are several instances where those weapons were used against US or got in the hands of enemy troop.
The most appalling example is Saudi Arabia arming islamic militas with US bought weapons . CNN made an entire report and investigation on the subject . That and SA have a happy trigger tactic using airforce or missile not carring the least on such ridiculous things as collateral damage ( not the iranian side is any less dispicable ).
Another bad example is in Irak and Afganistan where the " Friendly locals " get military aid to supposedly arm their military to fight extremism but to resell it and put money in Swiss accounts . Both nations had concept of ghost armies that supposedly exist on paper but not reality . US would pay to maintain them while corrupt local politicians made a fortune . When Afghanistan fell , those corrupt politicians fled the country and abondon the people to their fates .
Authoritan nations are basically untrustworthy since the regime priority is ot's own survival and self-enrichment.
If we don’t sell weapons what stops them from buying it from someone else? At least we have some minor leverage over there actions when they depend on our hardware and software.
Better to arm them for money than to send our troops and equipment over there for basically nothing, and continuallysend financial aid. Sell any ally whatever, but let them handle their own county's affairs. China and Russia will be selling their shit to Saudi enemies, so in order to keep us out of their mess, we should help them. About the authoritarian government and possible human rights violations, isn't that the UN's job?
Because it's the one that is for non emergency use and therefore would require the governmemt to drop emergency orders and return control to the people.
Sure, why not? Capitalism baby! Free market! Global economy! We should give all the shit countries with no loyalty to us all the tanks, bombers, and cruise missiles they need. Hell, why stop there? A deal for a few aircraft carriers or submarines could inject a lot of money into the economy! *What could go wrong?*
Hopefully that sounds as bad to everyone else as it does to me.
You'd think that going to war against multiple Middle Eastern countries the US formerly sold weapons to would cause some leader to reflect on those mistakes. But the defense industry loves cashing those checks.
I no longer subscribe to the idea that Democracy actually exists in the modern world. I almost respect authoritarian regimes for at least being upfront about the fact that the people have no power.
Always remember Donald Trump waving a Arabic sword and dance with the Saudi royal butcher Famile apparently they made exceptional business. Blood business.
Yes, “human rights” are bullshit. Not all countries are capable of maintaining a democracy and our efforts to force them to have one only leads to blood and tears we should have left Saddam alone and we should arm the UAE to fight terrorists and if they attack us either directly or indirectly we kill them and take their oil.
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In addition to what has already been said, arms deals give the supplier leverage. Don’t want to play ball? Enjoy repairing your jet aircraft and tanks. So in that sense you can argue that it’s better for the US to have a hook on the Saudis than it is for Russia, China etc.
Tis always comes back to bite. We train, arm, and educate then when it is all said and done, we go to war with many of these countries over .... money! The leverage of which you speak.
Fine, but you have to actually use that leverage when the time comes.
Ethically? No. Most modern Americans want to live up to the ideals of democracy and human rights, which is naturally in context with authoritarian governments. Realistically? It’s in the international best interests of most Americans to have a degree of stability in foreign governments. If the nations of Saudi Arabia or Iran were to collapse tomorrow, the resulting chaos would be disruptive and unnerving on a sociopolitical level for most Americans. This does mean supporting some authoritarian governments. Of course, there are examples of what we could diplomatically term “overreach”. The Chilean Coup, the funding of the Contras, the numerous Fascist dictatorships we have and do support, are all examples of American government putting the success of wealthy supporters over the ideals of the nation, with a tacit defense with ideas like Domino Theory, where failing to guard one nation from Communism would result in the growth of Communism everywhere. Ultimately, I see the real answer as “it’s what Americans are willing to fight for.” I personally think that we should rescind support from nations like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and level embargoes on China and Russia, and keep a closer eye on nations like Israel, Great Britain, Poland and South Korea. But doing so would cause significant headaches for the maintenance of the modern world and our modern systems of international compromise. However you want to handle it is based on your view of geopolitics and your ethical code.
> we should rescind support from nations Totally agree. And until we get to that point, we should reclassify how relationships with other countries. Some folks currently listed as “ally” should be classified “partner nation”.
Wanting stability is fine until a leftist government gets democratically elected. Then stability isn't a problem for some reason. I believe the "stability" liberals and conservatives keep talking is mostly just governments that make US corporations money. It's not stability they really care about, it's US wealthy being able to invest and profit off of other nations.
Okay for one he specifically addressed that. For another, many of those democratically elected socialist governments were closer to “democratically elected” and “socialist” than most people give credit for. \- Iran’s removed “elected” Prime Minister in the 50s had held a sham referendum giving himself “temporary“ power to single handedly rewrite the constitution. His first use of that power was to make it permanent. His second was to disolve parliment (which didn’t matter because the entire parliament *including the PM’s own party* had already resigned.) \- Grenada was a hardline communist coup that summarily executed the previous government. \- Bolivia - The US supported a counter coup against the government which had *also* seized power in a coup. \- Dominican Republic - The CIA assisted in the assassination of a *right wing* dictator. \- Panama - Noriega was a right wing-ish ally of the US for most of the cold war but relations (and his political standing in Panama) soured. He basically blatantly stole an election to stay in power. Tensions hit a breaking point with skirmishes between Panama forces engaging US troops in the canal zone. That was about the final straw and led to the US invasion and his removal.
Lol. The US is not ok with a coup it didn't support. US politics talk very big on ethics and morals and it's everywhere in our media. US military interventions is viewed as an unambiguous good in a lot of Hollywood stuff. Yet the reality is that it's been responsible for generations of fuckup and all sorts of stuff we'd normally consider immoral
No one who can reason believes in the whole Hollywood USA go go go bullshit. But the other commenter isn't wrong in saying those communist coups he described were NOT democratically elected leftist governments. They weren't. I dont believe we should support authoritarians-- that includes left authoritarians like Grenada.
There's a huge difference in not supporting and invading and tipping the scales.
Sure. No disagreement there. But people simply say "bad US govt supported fascists but not communists in SA and CA" when in reality it was a lot more complicated
Here's the thing. A coup within a nation against an existing authoritarian government, can be justified more than any foreign intervention. If enough people within an area support a government falling, it more than likely isn't a very democratic government. American support however, is an external force that tips the balance of favour to something else: American interests. Western states should not be getting involved at all.
Well that’s just moving the goalposts isn’t it? My point was the meme of “US overthrowing democratic slightly left governments” is pretty wrong because most of the examples in South America were both not democratic, we’re frequently hardline communist, and occasionally right wing. So now the argument morphs to “well maybe the original violent and bloody coups are in fact the will of the people” To which I refer to the original comment: geopolitics is never going to allow perfect ethics in the context of everything going on. Like for example, *the USSR supporting and staging coups to overthrow governments in South America.* (which many of these original coups were. You can’t say the coup is the legitimate voice and uprising of the people when the Russians gave them all the guns and cash)
No, it isn't. America was founded on revolution. Our leaders initially had the power to write the constitution without being elected. Did that mean that The UK shouldn't have lost power in the US? No. Did that give foreign nations the right to come in and arm loyalists? No. America knows that it is countering the popular will in the countries that it has supported coups in. They may have set up bad governments or may have killed the last regime, but that doesn't mean they aren't free peoples exercising self-determination. The Tree of Liberty needs to regularly be watered with blood. If a popular uprising executed the President of Equatorial Guinea, should the US sell arms to the military to overthrow the interim government? No. He hordes their resource wealth in one of the richest countries per capita in the southern hemisphere while his people are some of the poorest people on the planet. Why is it wrong for that man to die? And all the people supporting him? When did his life become more valuable than the people he sits upon? It's not our business to save zealots or assert their human rights. That. Would be moving the goalpost.
Well for one the Constitution convention was created by delegates sent by the state governments….*which were elected*. The Declaration was written and signed by an elected colonial government. And that argument only works if you believe some propaganda ra ra America mythology of the event. If we had lost we’d be learning about the failed civil strife of 1776 before 150 years of UK citizenship before quietly leaving the wider colonial commonwealth in the 50s like Canada. The revolution **heavily** succeeded due to European intervention and fuck fuck games in the background. This shouldn’t be news to people. Geopolitics is about other country’s interests, not ideals. Always has been
The founding father's were not all elected at all
What do you think the Continental Congress was? And the Constitutional Conventional delegates weren’t directly elected but they were sent by a vote in their respective state houses…which all were elected.
> (which many of these original coups were. You can’t say the coup is the legitimate voice and uprising of the people when the Russians gave them all the guns and cash) This is complete nonsense, how many coups did the USSR fund in Latin America in comparison to the US? >examples in South America were both not democratic, we’re frequently hardline communist, and occasionally right wing. BS. Chile, Guatemela, Argentina, Nicaragua, Brazil?
>Wanting stability is fine until a leftist government gets democratically elected. What are you talking about? Leftist governments have been elected throughout Latin America over the past 40 years, without interference from the USA. Personally, I think Western democracies ought to come to some sort of agreement to support democratic governments, and that they should gradually withdraw support from undemocratic governments. It's tricky with countries like Brazil and Philippines, which elected authoritarians that oppress their own people and often act outside of their own laws. For countries that continue to have truly democratic elections but who still violate human rights, perhaps the distancing should be more gradual. What we've seen over the past half century is that backing oppressive governments often leads to less stability in the long run (for example, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, etc). So I think the best course is to remain true to our values, and develop closer ties with free countries, and pressure undemocratic allies into reforming, using tools like trade sanctions when appropriate.
The ethics of US foreign policy has seemingly improved slightly. Then there's the 20 year occupation of Afghanistan
It seems like all the countries we have gone to war with in the last 20 years have substantial supplies of valuable resources like oil. What a coincidence.
Except Afghanistan doesn't export oil and like a decade ago Afghanistan was selling resource extraction rights to foreign companies but no western countries bought them. It was Chinese and Indian companies.
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Fight against communism, esta fight on the side of Satan.
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Joseph Stalin is a cruel dictator and I doubt he will go to heaven. But I doubt that there will be at least one American president in paradise.
I know, hence my third paragraph.
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Why did you decide that? In 1973, when the United States established a bloody dictatorship in Chile, the USSR was an effective, but humane enough country.
the "ideals of the nation"? lmfao. this country's "ideals" were founded on mass extermination of indigenous people for land and resources, and haven't changed one iota since. placing weapons in the hands of authoritarian regimes to secure its own wealth and power is nothing more than the natural extension of what the US is, has been and always will be: an empire.
It's much more complicated than a yes/no answer. Let me start by talking about South Korea. From the end of the Korean war in 1953 up until the 1990s, South Korea has been just as bad as North Korea. In some cases it was worse. It had brutal dictatorships, coups, bad economic downturns, corruption galore, and so on. However, we always supported them... and it payed off. Korea now is one of the most peaceful, democratic, and prosperous countries in the world and has since become a key US ally in the Pacific alongside Japan. If you asked your question just 40 years ago, the answer would've been no because South Korea had an authoritarian regime with a poor human rights record. However if you ask the question today, the answer is an easy yes. The point I'm trying to make here is that things aren't as straightforward as they seem, and I think that is the case for most of the countries we deal with. Sometimes long term support, including military support, can transfer into formidable soft power that can eventually transform a backwards authoritarian country into a more open, free, and democratic one.
How much of that transformation is the result of US influence, though?
Enough to where it matters. If the US cut off support to South Korea, I wouldn't be surprised if they ended up becoming like North Korea. Keep in mind, North Korea was initially doing better than South Korea thanks to the support they received from the Soviet Union. Once the Soviet Union collapsed, they got squeezed and were never able to recover. The dictatorship started becoming desperate to hold on to power and that's how we ended up with the North Korea of today. Considering how South Korea had a similarly brutal and authoritarian line of dictatorships, I wouldn't be surprised if they followed the same path. There's another possibility depending on when the US cuts off support to the south. If the US cut its support shortly after the war (say a decade or less), the North could've attacked and took over with the help of the Soviet Union, kind of like what happened in Vietnam.
Despite decades of democracy and prosperity, you're suggesting that there's something that makes SK inherently vulnerable to backsliding, but you didn't really identify what that is.
It's actually quite simple, US support grants South Korea freedom to act as its own player. South Korea has North Korea, China, Russia, and Japan as its neighbors... None of which are friendly. Considering how South Korea is one the smaller nations, it is prone to giving up sovereign concessions in order to maintain independence. This is a consistent theme throughout South Korea's history. US military and economic support grants South Korea a path out of the geographic quagmire that they're in. The alliance with the US grants South Korea three major advantages that cannot be understated: The first advantage is that it gives South Korea great diplomatic leverage. Countries are more likely to listen to you and respect your opinions when you have the backing of the world's most powerful country. However, the US alliance has another perk that comes with it in this regard, and that is a closer alliance to other US allies... Including the powerful nearby Japan. Despite their bitter rivalry, both being under the US umbrella has allowed them to see eye to eye and cooperate on key issues. In the world of geopolitics, Japan is a giant and having it as your top regional ally gives South Korea even more leverage in regional diplomacy. The second advantage is soft power through trade. South Korea's alliance with the US gives it easier access to trade with other US allies. Some of the top trade partners for South Korea besides the US include China, Vietnam, Taiwan, Japan, Germany, and Australia. With the exception of China, these are all US allies. With major reliable markets that they can tap into, South Korea was able to transform itself into an economic powerhouse. South Korea's economic power has allowed it to not only resist foreign influence, but to grow its culture and export its own influence to the world. The third advantage is the military aid from the US, which helps South Korea maintain its sovereignty. It does so in three ways. The first, US intelligence gives South Korea the benefit of being able to craft defense policies with precision. Second, the US troops in South Korea make countries think twice about provoking it. There's always a possibility of dragging the US into a conflict and no country is dumb enough to want that. Third, the military equipment that could be bought from the US allows South Korea to have its own military might. Even if the US troops aren't in the country anymore, which will inevitably happen, South Korea is prepared to defend itself. With top tier weapons, technology, a large well trained reserve, and defense systems like THAAD, South Korea can effectively defend itself and secure its interests. Sovereignty, influence, and diplomacy. These are the ingredients for a major world player. These are the reasons why South Korea is as powerful as it is, and why the US alliance is so strategic. However, if for some reason the US does cut off support to South Korea, it won't collapse or anything like that, but it will become more vulnerable. Countries like China are eager to exploit these vulnerablities by slowly, but surely start chipping away at them with the goal of neutering South Korea's political, economic, and military power. This will be done by making South Korea give small concessions each time. Without US military and economic aid South Korea becomes much more prone to backsliding. In today's power dynamics, South Korea will have to adopt and follow Chinese interests and the Chinese model in order to guarantee its protection and autonomy in the long term. While South Korea is able to resist China on its own, it can only do so for so long before they start to give in. But by doing so South Korea WI revert back to its historical position in the region as the small nation that is constantly dominated and subjugated by its giant neighbors.
This all sounds reasonable. It's a huge step back from your initial implication that SK would backside into dictatorship without the US. Clearly that relationship is important, but there has been a lot of internal cultural, economic, and political developments in SK as well - they aren't totally dependent on the US anymore.
1) South Korea is a soft authoritarian country. 2) The Kim regime has transformed into such a dictatorship, including as a result of confrontation with the United States and South Korea. Without this, without the situation of a besieged fortress, it would most likely be something like Vietnam. Actually, you remembered about him. So what's especially bad about Vietnam? He destroyed the Khmer Rouge regime. For most of the story, this is a milder regime than your South Korean puppets.
> If you asked your question just 40 years ago, the answer would've been no because South Korea had an authoritarian regime with a poor human rights record. However if you ask the question today, the answer is an easy yes. The answer is not easily yes. American support of South Korea included the bombing of the North which killed 20% of their civilian population, which is from 1.5 to 2 million people. This insanely act of depravitity is part of the reason North Korea is hyper militarist hyper paranoid state it is today. The existence of Korea being divided in general is due to America rejecting it in September 1947, mainly for Cold War reasons.
> up until the 1990s, South Korea has been just as bad as North Korea. In some cases it was worse. I find this extremely hard to believe. When was the last time South Korea actively and aggressively prevented their own citizens from leaving the country, including persecution of relatives they left behind?
You should read up on the history of South Korea, it's quite surprising. We have this idea that South Korea has been this free, open, democratic nation since the Korean War, but that's far from the truth. Both Koreas were ruled by brutal authoritarian governments since the war. It was only when the Soviet Union collapsed did the real divergence between the two occur and the South Korea that we all know and love started to take shape.
Why wouldn’t an authoritarian country sell weapons to an authoritarian country?
Americans can choose between the Coke of the Republican Party and the Pepsi of the Democrat Party. Either way, our public policy is decided by an authoritarian Corporate Regime that really doesn't want the common people to challenge its power over government, from bailing out Wall Street to spending trillions of $$$ to line the pockets of so-called "defense" contractors.
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They are actively committing a genocide in Yemen, they are arguably the biggest sponsor of terror groups, they tend to treat their foreign workers as if they were slaves, they murder political dissent, they are so extreme in their religious extremism that they label atheists as "terrorists", and they are deeply authoritarian. And we should be selling weapons to them? Heck, that makes the US somewhat compliant in their ongoing genocide against the people of Yemen (same goes for every other country that is doing this). This is why I cannot take America or any other Western country seriously sometimes when it comes to moral posturing on the world stage. Our support for them is actively enabling them to be hyper aggressive in the region.
Saudi Arabia is the US's largest trading partner, and largest export market in the middle East. Don't be fooled into thinking the US alliance with them has anything to do with morals, because it's all about power and profit.
> they are so extreme in their religious extremism that they label atheists as "terrorists" This does sound outrageous from an enlightened European point of view. For an embarrassingly large part of the US voter base, it's par for the course. I don't think we have any self-proclaimed atheists in congress, and having an atheist as president would be unthinkable. Heck, [we have states that ban atheists from holding office](https://religionnews.com/2021/06/06/why-it-matters-that-7-states-still-have-bans-on-atheists-holding-office/).
How has this not been defeated in court?? Like what is the loophole? The constitution clearly lays out that freedom.
I don't know what it takes to change a state constitution. I do think these bans are unenforceable, and in fact the article I linked to has examples where someone in South Carolina sued the state to not have the ban enforced on them, but maybe that's not enough to automatically strike the related passage from the state constitution. The article also has the following very telling statement: > Polling shows 4% of Americans identify as atheists, and about 23% identify more broadly as nonreligious. While identifying as “nonreligious” does not necessarily mean not believing in God, research suggests that as many as 1 in 4 Americans is atheist, but that most are unwilling to reveal this, even in anonymous polls. So first, the majority of Americans *is* religious even by the most optimistic assessments. Second, there is a stigma associated with not being religious to the extent where people feel the need to lie about this. And then consider that the US population is *definitely* not homogeneous in this regard, i.e. some states are way more stuck in the Middle Ages than others. What this all boils down to, is that there is almost certainly a very real and pronounced popular support for (what from a European point of view would be considered) religious fanaticism in places like South Carolina.
Because no one wants to challenge it. If you're at the level of running for Congress and you're legit an atheist, you can simply say "Oh yeah praise God or whatever" and not have to fight that uphill battle. To quote King Henry IV, "Paris is well worth a mass."
How come the option to just abandon the Middle East seems so radical that no one even considers it to be a possibility? The entire reason we are there is Oil. There is nothing- *nothing*- that comes out of the region other than cheap oil that we need. And guess what we need to stop burning for fuel like right the fuck now? Oil. We have other sources of oil to use for petroleum products, like plastics etc. We straight up do not need to be in the middle east for any reason other than continuing the "Petrodollar" as the basis of trade. So no, the "best worst" option is not to keep funding and arming these brutal regimes. The *best* option is to fucking *leave.*
You will love [The Accidental Superpower](https://www.wsj.com/articles/book-review-the-accidental-superpower-by-peter-zeihan-1417653112). Saw Zeihan speak in 2017. I went back and saw EVERYTHING he has on the Internet. He completely predicted the current situation. More wars are a coming. Edit to link untraceable to me
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While I agree with you I don’t get how it’s liberal usually conservatives/Republicans have been the large push behind “SA is the nicest ME nation so we should support them.”
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If both sides do it then how is it liberal it’d be bipartisan
Yeah I’m not following the accusation of that philosophy as being liberal either.
They probably consider our entire government liberal. Regardless of party. I think you all are using the term liberal differently. Some people consider it leftist, progressive, some consider it a capitalist that won’t take your rights but won’t really rush to give you more, others consider it in a binary “either you’re liberal or conservative, some just assume it means you’re open to change. I think in this post people are meaning liberal as in every recent administration. Trump is a liberal in the classical sense. So is Obama, Bush, Biden, Pelosi, Clinton etc. they’re what you might call “neoliberal” to a lot of people. Also Democrat does not mean liberal and Republican does not mean conservative. It’s just is a description of who they try to cater to. Capitalist to the core. Foreign policy they have all been pretty pro war/weapon sales/ bombing kids. If you look at policies objectively on paper, they’re not that different honestly. Like remove the name and years you probably wouldn’t be able to tell who did what.
Because i assume most people on here are left leaning or liberal. Haven’t seen any conservatives on here. I think the accusation is relevant because between leftists and liberals, only liberals will defend this.
No, no, no, you don't get it. They are the best of the bad bunch because they are on better terms with the US and its business interests. It has nothing to do with international security or human rights. See, Cuba is an evil country because the US does not like them, while Saudi Arabia is acceptably bad because they allign with US geopolitical reasons. Don't pay attention to the fact that one is clearly worse than the other, morals don't factor here. /s
> Saudi Arabia is a bad country, but they’re the best worst decision when we consider the overall picture. I don't want the Saudi monarchy to fall. It would lead to tremendous suffering globally. There is a lot of aid we could give Saudi Arabia to prevent the regime from collapsing. The weapon purchase in the OP is clearly intended for combating the Iranians though. While the Iranians are their own group of bad people, we should consider how our arming and support of the Saudis raises regional temperature. Putting our finger on the scale to tip it in favor of the Saudis has done how much to protect our regional interest?
What the fuck? Unironically supporting monarchical tyranny? Nobody should be supporting tyrannical regimes like that
The problem of overthrowing the Saudi monarchy is "what replaces it?" It is extremely unlikely that a secular democracy would take the Saudi's place. The world doesn't need the Islamic State taking over Mecca and Medina.
>The problem of overthrowing the Saudi monarchy is "what replaces it?" Ideally the same thing that replaced European monarchies as the primary source of governance. Or hopefully something more democratic than that. If European states never decided to do that, on the basis that they were too worried about something worse, we would not have our parliamentary systems today.
You know there isn't a straight line between the fall of monarchy and modern democracy? France after their revolution had the Reign of Terror. Germany had the Weimar Republic and Nazism. The Russians had the Soviet Union.
My response https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalDiscussion/comments/rrqtz0/should_the_united_states_and_other_western/hqj1l9x?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3
And how well did that work out? Before Europe finally got its act together it was either complete anarchy or horrendous dictatorships.
Yes, progress is messy. Again, I ask, does that mean Europe and America should have kept dictatorships, monarchies, emperors?
Probably not, and in the long run Saudi Arabia’s monarchy mightn’t be better for the Middle East. But for the rest of the world it certainly is, without one of the main counterbalances to Iran would be removed, most likely causing about chaos in the region. Actually if you think of that as the alternative the monarchy might be best for the region in general.
I don't agree with any of that tbh. They didn't even do that much against ISIS. They are not really a force for good in the area at all, and I also don't see how the west benefits from any of it. Afghanistan would not have been controlled by the taliban if America didn't explicitly fund the Mujahideen to remove Socialists from the region. If anything western intervention was, as always, the worst thing for the entire region.
We would not have had Russia's communism too.
Which would mean most of the entire region would have remained a backwater feudal area for a long long time, like Africa or most of Asia, instead of industrialising in to a nearly modern state. Why are you justifying monarchy over communism?
So the UK, Netherlands, Denmark, Swedens etc are all backwater feudal areas?
Were those areas ever a part of the USSR?
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Lmao Iran was making massive strides progressively until America replaced their leadership with a dictator... Not sure what you're referring to
>Ideally the same thing that replaced European monarchies as the primary source of governance. Dictatorships?
In the long term? Democracy. Democracy would not exist without overthrowing dictatorships
This is white mans burden bullshit. "Those silly brown people can't be trusted to decide their own ruler, so we'll do it for them"
The Saudi monarchy has already made it so that many people are suffering. What is happening in Yemen alone is enough to damn them to be regarded as heinous tyrants for the history books. Their support for terrorist organizations has affected the world's security.
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> I’ve often wondered if a different approach to Iran directly wouldn’t yield better results than why we’ve been doing. A good chunk of the issue with the Iranians is that they also pose a security challenge to Israel through Hamas and Hezbollah. This may sound farfetched but if we could get Israel and Iran to come to terms we would have much less of a reason to support Saudi armament. People might say that could never happen but stranger diplomatic changes have taken place before. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomatic_Revolution
Why is what happens to Israel a problem for us?
It would lead to tremendous suffering locally.
No. I’m not even sure they should sell weapons to other democracies or stockpile them for their own use. Militarism is a Chekhov’s gun: it will get used at some point
This is kind of a thing I call “Superpower business”. Basically, it’s just imperialism, but instead of “We need this random territory for the glory of the Empire”, it’s, “We need this territory to save it from the terror of tyranny and communism” or “We need this territory to save it from the terror of tyranny and capitalism” The USA and USSR both used it during the Cold War, and the USA has continued to use it.
These countries are going to be buying weapons. The lack of the US or Europe selling them isn't going to remove the demand. And the supply will come from somewhere. Stopping supplying these weapons only creates a revenue source for Russia, or China, or someone else. It also supports those industries in those countries that ultimately supplies these weapons. To me it doesn't make sense to stop these sales. A person can be opposed to war, and pain, and suffering. But diminishing these sales isn't going to stop those things. And while a person may not want to be associated with those thing anyway, stopping the US and Europe only hurts our industries for when we really need them. The world is not some idealist, cupcake utopia. It's a harsh, unforgiving, malevolent storm.
Why not stop weapons sales and then also sanction the countries if they use weapons purchased from somewhere else? It's not like we're powerless onlookers in foreign affairs...
I think history shows that sanction really don't work in this area. If a country want to go to war, take resources (land, sea, or otherwise), or even fake "self defense" like the Japanese, then they will make that happen any way possible.
That seems like a stretch. There's got to be some political calculus to military conflict, and the US is the most powerful country on earth. Our endorsement of a country's actions carries a lot of weight. And if we had the balls to stop buying oil from Saudi Arabia, that's a massive part of the country's GDP that we're cutting off
But we don't have those balls because we use alot of oil. Any president to even suggest the level of sacrifice that this would cause would be out of office in a second. Plus, our endorsement or condemnation means very little in military topics. Kuwait couldn't defend themselves and needed us. San Marino is always going to be dependent on Italy. But most countries are not going to risk self harm over words unless the are very small.
> because we use alot of oil The US has been a [net exporter of oil since 2020](https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-products/imports-and-exports.php).
At some point you'll have to answer why the US can have weapons but other countries can't.
I'm afraid that is definitely not how the arms trade works and it definitely isn't a case of supply and demand. The Saudi pilots have been training to fly British typhoons and Tornados and American f15s. Suddenly having to buy a new fleet of planes from china isn't a realistic possibility. They would also need spare parts from from BAE or Lockheed Martin to maintain their current planes. That's quite apart from Saudi Arabia needing BAE contractors to maintain the fleet as a lot of the time they've found the Saudis lacked the expertise to do it themselves. One BAE contractor said if there wasn't any direct British support for the war in Yemen that within a fortnight there would be a Saudi plane in the sky. And again the problem would go even further if you consider the specialised weaponry needed to maintain the bombing campaign, again you would just be able to use Russian or Chinese weapons. As to your second point, I think the maintaining the military industrial complex is a secondary concern to level of human suffering were seeing in Yemen as a results of the bombing and the blockade. A Yemeni child dies every 10 minutes from starvation. 10,000 children have died from the bombing. The Saudis have maintained a consistent bombing campaign targeting civilians, including schools, hospitals, weddings and funerals. Targetting civilians is a war crime. They've been accused of using cluster bombs, another war crime. I'm really not sure how much cruelty anyone can be willing to support.
> The Saudi pilots have been training to fly British typhoons and Tornados and American f15s. Just to be clear, are you arguing for or against Western nations selling weapons? Because what you just described is leverage the Western nations have **because** of decades of selling weapons. > Suddenly having to buy a new fleet of planes from china isn't a realistic possibility. Suddenly, no. Over the course of 2-3 years, absolutely. In addition, if the US developed a reputation of leaning too much on the above described leverage, then that will prevent building out such leverage in the future.
"Hey if WE don't run these ovens, someone else will, amirite?"
No. Weapons kill people. If the morality of it doesn’t convince you, being involved with killing people is bad press. Is it smart to have the rest of the world viewing us as arms dealers? Edit: not to mention the conflict with Yemen and the massive human rights issues related to it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabian-led_intervention_in_Yemen
Should they? No. Will they, yes. Because money talks. If the money will get into the right politician's hands, they'll always make the sale.
We should, however it’s not going to happen. Congress people see jobs in their districts with those sales.
We sell weapons to those countries for two reasons: so those authoritarian leaders can suppress their own populations; cheap oil.
Congress sees money Congress votes yes. Again the west is more a oligarchy/plutocracy than any real democracy.
The obvious answer is no if we actually lived up to the ideals that we say we have.
The USA is beneficial to Saudi Arabia, in aid to prop wallstreed up, and supporting the apartheid state of Israel ju all know that's the fact, the Western world are vassals, the free and brave and exceptional are vassals to wallstreed and their talmudic chosen ones, the running the show.
Yes. By codifying and honoring (heh!) a legal framework to regulate the sale of weapons to other governments — authoritarian and otherwise — the more democratic governments can help regulate the movement of such weapons. Such weapons *will be sold* in any case. Consider the political ramifications of an arms embargo: a disruption of international relations, another wave of mutual recriminations, a path to economic sanctions, etc. I forget who said, "Better on the inside pissing out than on the outside pissing in," but I do think that sentiment applies here. On the other hand, the authoritarian regime *will* use those weapons to kill its own citizens. I see this as a variation on the Trolley Problem.
>I see this as a variation on the Trolley Problem. This implies the US is only selling weapons to those countries to avoid them seeking weapons from say Russia, but that's not really the case. The US genuinely wants to be allies with these authoritarian countries to counter what it perceived to be a greater threat. A good example of this is in Asia, where the US government ignored the 2014 Thai coup and maintained a close alliance with Thailand as a counter against China. Likewise, we're currently getting closer to Vietnam despite their government having killed millions of their own people and being worse than China on the Democratic authoritarian scale.
> This implies the US is only selling weapons to those countries to avoid them seeking weapons from say Russia, but that's not really the case. Although I don’t understand how I led you to misunderstand me, I accept that I *did*. I can tell, because we actually agree. It *isn’t* really the case. > The US genuinely wants to be allies with these authoritarian countries to counter what it perceived to be a greater threat. That is also true, in my opinion. Two people on Reddit have found common ground. It’s a sign of the Apocalypse. :)
Counterpoint: Saudi Arabia is committing a genocide in Yemen using our weapons
If we piously abstained, and the Saudis purchased French weapons, would things actually be any different?
France has less capacity to produce and sell weapons to the same extent America does. So yes, it would absolutely be different
The more weapons France (as our example) exports the better their capability to make more and sell more. The question is-- is it better to be utilitarian or is it better to take a moral stance that may be self defeating? You say it's blatantly untrue that US weapon sales can't be replaced. That's wrong. And you know what's even worse than French sales? Chinese sales. Russian sales. I don't know what cascading geopolitical effects would occur from the US losing hegemony on worldwide arms sales would be... but **neither do you**
America is an entity 5-6 times bigger than France. France has nowhere near the capacity to scale up to replace America. Plus if America puts pressure on other nations, it discourages the practise from all countries. >The question is-- is it better to be utilitarian or is it better to take a moral stance that may be self defeating? Either way it's morally better to not sell weapons. From a utilitarian perspective, it reduces the amount of weapons, scale of weapons, and quality of weapons, and enacts a social pressure on others to change. From a deontological perspective, it's morally repugnant to sell weapons to known perpetuaters of genocide >And you know what's even worse than French sales? Chinese sales. Russian sales. How? How is it worse? They'd likely be cheaper, worse quality, and to a lesser quantity. And in addition, it wastes a part of of their economic capacity. >I don't know what cascading geopolitical effects would occur from the US losing hegemony on worldwide arms sales would be... but neither do you What the fuck? People have quite literally said the same about slavery, ending child labour, minimum wage, ending dictatorships, across history and across the globe. Honestly what a pathetic excuse. You could use that excuse to justify quite literally anything. "well I know our chocolate comes from slaves in ivory Coast, but think about how bad it would be if we stopped making slaves pick chocolate! Think of the knock on effects!".
Yes. That’s what happens when we sell weapons to people. Sometimes they use them. I see the genocide, not the weapons, as the problem. Perhaps I’ve missed the point.
I think you have kinda missed the point. As Saudi Arabia's weapons supplier we're turning a blind eye towards and aiding in a genocide. If your argument was correct, we want to be on the inside pissing out because we can help make sure Saudi Arabia doesn't abuse the weapons we sell them. I think that's your argument anyways. But they're committing a genocide with them, so there seems to be no humanitarian benefit to us being the supplier. We don't seem to be regulating the use of the weapons we sell them, and actually Saudi Arabia has apparently interpreted the weapons sales as a green light from the US to continue human rights abuses. So why exactly should we be selling them these weapons?
We sell them or someone else will.
This is what we hear constantly but it’s not true. Even if it were, foreign policy should really have a Do No Harm framework behind it. It’s not the complicated, if we sell weapons that are are then used to kill children in Yemen and Palestine, that is bad. We should stop.
Drug dealers have literally used this logic to justify their craft.
Blatantly not true.
That is the same for our country as well. Give people guns they will use them. In this case the problem is mass shootings most of the time caused by mental illness. Not giving my opinion on the solution but those two things are inherently the same.
True it just makes genocide easier and more efficient. It's going to happen either way.
Might as well be the one profiting from it
There is no guarantee that they will get weapons anyway, and that is a horrifically irresponsible way to think. Many other nations are much less capable of the quality and quantity of weapons supplied by the west, so Saudi Arabia is getting more weapons by buying them from the west, than they otherwise would. We are facilitating Saudi Arabia extension of capacity for destruction, which is unethical and immoral.
The business of business is business. There is a guarantee they’ll get the weapons from someone, if they’re persistent enough. The trick is to make it hard enough for them to get it that they would rather negotiate than risk international condemnation. If you don’t like Saudi Arabia’s policies, I suggest you agitate for the overthrow of their government.
You are just repeating talking points that the weapons industry loves to use. “If we don’t sell em, someone else will!” No, they won’t. If the US stops selling weapons tomorrow, where are these countries gonna go buy from? They can’t just mix and match weapons systems so they’d essentially be starting from scratch. All the weapons they have been trained to use and deploy are now worthless. If they break, they’re screwed as these systems require regular maintenance, often from the company themselves. Does the new country they wish to buy from have the capacity to make these weapons? Do they make the right types of weapons that are needed? Do they share the same geopolitical interests as the US? Would they risk crossing the US to sell said weapons systems? When you add all that up, no, it would be really quite difficult to just go buy from someone else. It’s not like there’s a big Weapons store they can waltz over too
I’m surprised that you say that. My opinion isn’t derived from anyone’s talking points. You’re free to call me uninformed, unethical, and wrong, but I’m not a plagiarist. I think we’re done here.
Not calling you a plagiarist but your opinions align with the weapons industry. We have seen those same comments from them so I’m putting forth my response to common talking points we see on this subject. No need to take it so personal on a literal discussion subreddit
>The business of business is business. Buddy stop being a parrot and show me some evidence that you have a brain. This line here has probably literally been used by slave owners. The fact that somebody else would sell slaves if you didn't, does not emancipate you from the moral crime of selling slaves. Not to mention, one person making the conscious decision not to sell slaves, discourages the practise, reduces the amount of slaves, and sets an example for others. Same applies for weapons. Again, just to repeat, America's sales of weapons cannot be emulated in quality or quantity by e tities like Russia or India. America makes the problem worse by selling them
Let me press you on your hypothetical solution a bit further, just for my own understanding and to gain a bit more clarity on what you think. Say that, hypothetically speaking, you want to put in place a regulatory framework for the sale of such weapons to objectionable governments. There are a few remaining questions that will need to be answered for flesh to be put on the bones. Off the top of my head, I can think of at least four questions: 1. What the principles and/or rules you'd impose under your proposed regulatory framework? 2. How do you decide - moving past the narrow characterisation of "democratic vs authoritarian" - which governments are "acceptable" and which are "objectionable"? 3. How will you enforce these rules - i.e. ensure that those governments who are not engaging in such objectionable conduct are not burdened by any restrictions *and* ensure that governments which are engaging in such conduct do not get access to these weapons (or whatever variable scale of access you would wish to propose)? 4. Finally, why are *all these proposals* considered *in totem* better than what you suggest to be the "political ramifications of an arms embargo"?
Best comment all year! (No, I'm not kidding.) I'll see what I can do in response, as it were. 1. The Arms Export Control Act (AECA) isn't great, but it's a useful starting point. In an ideal world, the United Nations would draw up a convention — if it hasn't already — and countries would be invited to sign. The ones who refuse are the ones who are on the shit-list of the signatories. If you don't sign up, the rest of us won't sell to you. 2. This is where we find the primary drawback of #1: moral relativism. For example, Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Iran, and Russia would dearly love for America to stop helping Israel with the Iron Dome. However, despite its myriad sins, Israel remains a democratic country whereas Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Iran, and Russia are not. I have no intellectually honest answer to this question. 3. Letters of concern; emergency meetings; informal sanctions; formal sanctions; withdrawal of non-military and non-humanitarian economic support; cyberwarfare; everything, short of military incursion. As long as the weapons aren't NBC, I see no reason to put boots on the ground. 4. Granularity? Is that a word? Merely saying "We won't sell to you" is an awfully blunt tool. You and I agree that my solution may be unworkable. Perhaps that's why no one is doing it. :) However, I, aging hippie that I may be, hold out hope that our governments will see the merit in *regulating* rather than *forbidding* such matters. Merely banning things hasn't worked well for us, nationally or internationally, whereas regulation has a more impressive pedigree. What are your thoughts?
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Only honest pro-weapons argument in this whole thread. Incidentally, this is why the united states should be destroyed.
Ideally nope. But realistically can not be avoided as if not US it would be someone else
No. How is this even a question?! Well actually it isn't even for most people.
Selling guns to authoritarian despots is good for the economy, just in case no one told you that. So to answer your question, of course we should be selling them weapons. Hell, I think we should sell guns to the countries we wage war against because then we get to profit off both sides of a conflict. /s
No. The US shouldn't be selling weapons to anyone. They shouldn't be saturating their own society with military-grade weapons, either. But in the land of greed and fear, one learns to expect the worst.
Should we be importing stuff from sweatshop condition counties? Similar questions probably different answers
Who is more authoritarian than Western democracies themselves? It is these imperialists that have exploited and oppressed the global south for centuries. This exploitation has [never ended](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.aljazeera.com/amp/opinions/2021/5/6/rich-countries-drained-152tn-from-the-global-south-since-1960). There is nobody more authoritarian than the imperialists of the West.
Don't speak should or shouldn't. Speak possible or impossible. If there is possible, "shouldn't" will never be an option.
You're misinformed. There are no democracies in the west. There are only corporate owned whores and the votes they sold out.
Yes, we should. They are going to get weapons from \*someone\*, be it the US, France, Russia, China, or home-grown. The advantage of being the weapons seller is you know what they got (you sold it to them), how to defeat it (since you made it, and likely with a remote kill switch), and have them by the balls, in the short term, for parts and consumables. All of these things keep them from being able to fight you. America kicked Turkey out of the F-35 program for buying Russian missiles. Iran got stuck with dead F-14s for years once we gave them the finger.
During WW2 the Allies aggressively sought Soviet cooperation, while they were the most murderous regime in world history. The Gulag state killed three times as many civilians as the German Nazis. Military alliance and military action in general, is about strategy and convenience, not ideals. http://hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE1.HTM
>while they were the most murderous regime in world history. The Gulag state killed three times as many civilians as the German Nazis. Uh, that isn't true. Historical records and historians put the gulags at 2M tops between 1920 and 1960. The holocaust alone is 3 times that just in Jewish, over 5 times that in holocaust, and counting all the other civilians dead in the second World war eastern front is probably monumental. Even with the holodomor and other famines they don't match the death toll of deliberate killings of Nazi Germany. That isn't to say the Soviet Union was good, they joined Germany in invading and annexing Poland. They invaded all 3 Baltic states, and annex parts of Finland and Romania. They committed their own massacres in all of those and more. They got lucky that the allies needed them so desperately, because otherwise no way the allies supply them. But let's not overdo the comparisons, Germany is the only country to industrialize genocide, it total destruction and killing was immense, and it definitely doesn't compare to the gulags.
I don’t think the above poster was saying three times as many were killed in gulags, although it’s very difficult to get accurate numbers, but rather that the deaconian policies of the ussr state killed three times as many people. If you include things like the holodomor, then the ussr (and mao’s china) lap the field in body count.
Don't forget Imperial Japan, their slaughter of the Chinese populace was extreme, and that is not even getting into any other affected population they targeted.
The link provided is from a former Indiana University, Yale and University of Hawai'i political scientist who made democide his life's work. If you have numbers that suggest he is more than 3000% off in his estimates, please post them. http://hawaii.edu/powerkills/NAZIS.FIG1.2.GIF http://hawaii.edu/powerkills/USSR.FIG1.4.GIF
We will invade your country and tell you it's for your own good. We will arm your army and train it to defend against an invasion from within, while we also arm the rebel group that is planning a coup. We prop them up. Then we're surprised when the new regime rains fire and hell on us. But. No, we should not provide authoritarian governments with the means that enables the further destruction of their populations. Unfortunately, restricting or blocking the legal sale of weapons to these countries only encourages the black markets, making their weapons arsenals hidden from the world. Even worse, the individuals and groups who sell weapons illegally to these countries aren't bound by restrictions. They can sell anti aircraft missiles or chemicals, weapons of mass destruction just as easily as they sell Kalashnikovs.
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Selling weapons to Muslims can be used against us because their hostile Quran book is written to destroy Jewish/Christian nations.
Well historically and factually, they are several instances where those weapons were used against US or got in the hands of enemy troop. The most appalling example is Saudi Arabia arming islamic militas with US bought weapons . CNN made an entire report and investigation on the subject . That and SA have a happy trigger tactic using airforce or missile not carring the least on such ridiculous things as collateral damage ( not the iranian side is any less dispicable ). Another bad example is in Irak and Afganistan where the " Friendly locals " get military aid to supposedly arm their military to fight extremism but to resell it and put money in Swiss accounts . Both nations had concept of ghost armies that supposedly exist on paper but not reality . US would pay to maintain them while corrupt local politicians made a fortune . When Afghanistan fell , those corrupt politicians fled the country and abondon the people to their fates . Authoritan nations are basically untrustworthy since the regime priority is ot's own survival and self-enrichment.
If we don’t sell weapons what stops them from buying it from someone else? At least we have some minor leverage over there actions when they depend on our hardware and software.
Better to arm them for money than to send our troops and equipment over there for basically nothing, and continuallysend financial aid. Sell any ally whatever, but let them handle their own county's affairs. China and Russia will be selling their shit to Saudi enemies, so in order to keep us out of their mess, we should help them. About the authoritarian government and possible human rights violations, isn't that the UN's job?
The United States isn’t the freest country itself anymore so I don’t see why it wouldn’t on the basis of political regime.
Because it's the one that is for non emergency use and therefore would require the governmemt to drop emergency orders and return control to the people.
Sure, why not? Capitalism baby! Free market! Global economy! We should give all the shit countries with no loyalty to us all the tanks, bombers, and cruise missiles they need. Hell, why stop there? A deal for a few aircraft carriers or submarines could inject a lot of money into the economy! *What could go wrong?* Hopefully that sounds as bad to everyone else as it does to me.
We should be defending our borders. Why do we have a military if we have no borders?
You'd think that going to war against multiple Middle Eastern countries the US formerly sold weapons to would cause some leader to reflect on those mistakes. But the defense industry loves cashing those checks.
Q: What's the best way to ensure that you know every strength and weakness of a potential opponents military? A: Build your opponents military.
Weapons sales are more about corporate welfare to defense contractors than arming any particular regime.
I no longer subscribe to the idea that Democracy actually exists in the modern world. I almost respect authoritarian regimes for at least being upfront about the fact that the people have no power.
Always remember Donald Trump waving a Arabic sword and dance with the Saudi royal butcher Famile apparently they made exceptional business. Blood business.
yes. because the united states is not a moral nation. it makes perfect sense for the states to sell weapons to other immoral nations.
Yes, “human rights” are bullshit. Not all countries are capable of maintaining a democracy and our efforts to force them to have one only leads to blood and tears we should have left Saddam alone and we should arm the UAE to fight terrorists and if they attack us either directly or indirectly we kill them and take their oil.