1. Nothing has changed. War is less "culturally" important because of the international system that the United States has founded and maintained. This international system, while not totally stable, represents the highest level of sociopolitical aggregation on the planet. War has not ceased being relevant, and it will not cease to be relevant. Just because a certain level of peaceful human interaction has been achieved, that doesn't mean that it cannot be undone. We saw in 1914 a system of great power cooperation collapse, and the international system reverted to a state of Hobbesian anarchy. It's a fallacy to think that somehow "this time is different". Human nature doesn't change. History has illustrated this repeatedly.
The international system that we have set up and maintained is in many parts full of authoritarian regimes, dictators and despots because of our military (and intelligence) actions. I'm not saying get rid of it because we're terrible, I'm saying that this cycle will never stop if we continue to feel the need to intervene at every turn. If we're going to intervene, do it for the right reasons. We are exponentially safer by fighting for the rights of foreign citizens to have their own democracy, under their terms and permitted because of our intervention, than installing our own "guy." Furthermore, your 1914 example does not bear much relevance because it is pre-decolonization and pre-WWII - the defining characteristics of the society we have since established. Of course war is still relevant, I never said it wasn't. People will likely always be at war. However, to justify our spending by comparing it to a time when war was lower stakes is not proper. While I understand that WWI happened after a time of relative peace amongst major powers (excluding the Boer Wars), my point is that everyone was a lot more eager to shoot the shit out of each other than they are now.
2. War is always the fallback option for foreign policy, and it still is. It just hasn't been exercised nearly as often recently, because most nations are able to calculate that the likelihood of defeating the de facto world government, the United States, in a military conflict, is exceedingly small. So, they make the best of their situation and maximize their utility under the parameters set by the United States in the post-Soviet Union international order. As soon as nations begin to feel that it is worth it for them to engage in a military conflict with the United States in order to achieve their goals, they will.
This paragraph conflicts itself. You're saying that war IS the fallback option, only right now it isn't because of the US, and if we were gone everyone would be at war again. I find that a difficult conclusion to come to given how much we all globally depend on each other through trade. The fallback option for governments is diplomacy and sanctions, while for vested interests it is essentially multinational corporation operations, which governments aim to protect.
3. This happened not because we came to some collective existential realization, but because the victors of those two conflicts were able to design an international system and enforce the rules using their own military power. If we had really had some moment of realization, then we would have seen universal nuclear disarmament by now. And although there have been arms reductions, great powers will always keep stockpiles to hedge against the risk of a nuclear attack, however unlikely it may seem. It's human nature to not want to expose ourselves to risk. The best way to minimize the existential risk to ourselves is to maximize the existential risk to our potential adversaries should they decide to attack.
I disagree that we would see this by now. It is a slow, painful process that I hope will continue and accelerate. If we still lived like we used to, we would have used those weapons. There were essentially two sets of rules; Western and Eastern. If we wanted to use military might to enforce those rules, we would have, and did to a certain extent in proxy wars, but we did not use nuclear weapons because we don't want to obliterate the Earth. If we're going to use military spending on nuclear arsenals, use it to keep them as harmless as possible while reducing them to a reasonable level. I think we can agree on that, and I think we agree that nukes are not "real" weapons so much as they are a threat, which fits to my argument of realizing how out of hand it had gotten.
4. How so? Empirically speaking, the 19th century was the most peaceful century this planet has ever seen since the inception of large scale political organization. Throughout that century, all those countries had high levels of military spending. In Europe prior to World War II, most countries massively demobilized, assuming that a peace for the ages was at hand. This massive demobilization was followed by the most devastating conflict in the history of man. After World War II, both superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, were very militaristic in their foreign policies, yet a great power conflict never erupted. Do you have any evidence for what you are saying? It isn't attitudes that have changed, it's political realities.
You made my argument for me here. The reality is that the US and USSR could not directly attack each other because no one would win. We would all die. My statement of changing attitudes referred to the late 20th century, after WWII and the Cold War, as I stated.
5. I don't see how this is relevant. So you are saying that the attitudes of entire countries changed because the guy who is leading the global hegemon is perceived is less arrogant than the last guy? Thank God for representative government. If Europe hated America so much during the Bush years, why didn't they declare war on us? Why didn't they hike tariffs? Why didn't they withdraw their diplomatic representation?
Someone earlier in the thread said that they thought Europeans only liked Obama because he was cool. I was responding to that. And it's not about the arrogance, it's about the fact that we invaded 2 countries, one on shoddy intelligence. They didn't declare war on us because we were sauntering around like a child playing Risk and we have more weapons, and because we are NATO allies. Are you saying that we should keep our high level of military spending so that we do dumb shit like we did during the Bush years? Come on, I don't know what argument you're trying to conjure up there.
6. So what? They can think of us as Martians for all I care. Everybody has a problem with the guy in charge.
If you want to be a warmonger, then that's a pretty sick position to take. Don't glorify war. These are real people and real Americans dying.
7. The EU has forced them to be diplomatic with each other? How so? What is stopping Germany from declaring war on Poland right now? Is it the EU? No, aside from the fact that it wouldn't even be in their interests, it's NATO, and NATO's principle mechanism of enforcement, the United States military. You are correct to perceive the benefits that mutual cooperation brings to a society, but you are missing what allows the cooperation in the first place, a monopoly of force (government) achieved by a principal actor. When force is taken out of the equation by the monopolist, all the other actors have a huge incentive to maximize their own well being through methods not involving force. This is how a peaceful society arises. As soon as the monopoly disappears, actors begin to see that they can achieve even more through unscrupulous means, causing them to defect from the system. This, of course, changes the incentives of all the other actors, leading to a vicious cycle of violence that concludes in the total collapse of the society.
2 things. First, I think you're severely discounting the EU. These cultures have been trying to eliminate each other for all of history. Now they are economically and politically tied. Why do you think it's such a big deal if Greece leaves the Eurozone? Everyone has a stake in everyone else. Second, you're essentially acting like an autocrat at this point. You're saying that one element of force needs to keep everyone in control, by their own decision-making, and once no one else can do anything there will be peace. That's not the role I want us or our allies to take. That's bully shit. That is what makes people hate us.
8. They don't view their troops as heroes because their troops don't do anything heroic. They are inclined to send troops to Afghanistan because they are obliged to under Article 5 of the NATO charter, and they have a great interest in remaining in NATO. And also because they want to maintain good trade relations with the United States.
This just furthers my point - they don't want to go to war, they do because they feel like they have to, and for reasons that their sons should not be dying. If I were them I'd hate the Bush administration too. It's wars made their sons go to war for unheroic reasons.
9. I agree with all this.
10. And I disagree with this. The other actors in the system must be reminded of the disincentive to not act aggressively. If they think that the United States won't respond to a breach in the international system, conflict will arise.
See the bolded part above
11. Yes, it is absolutely worth the risk. Like most other orchestrated international systems, ours provides global stability. I would argue that given its nature, it provides much more stability than previous systems, and I think the facts would bear that argument out. But what makes our system entirely unique is that it is the first such system to be based upon the founding principles of our nation, liberty, equality, and free markets. Humanity under the leadership of the United States has been more prosperous than at any other time in history. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
