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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
If Japan was a rational actor, there would not have been a Pacific War. They simply would've withdrawn from their economically draining war in China. Fuck, if Japan was a rational actor, they wouldn't have let a bunch of junior officers start wars. If Japan was a rational actor, officers wouldn't physically assault underlings when told that their plans were impossible.
edited 29th Nov '16 9:02:44 PM by MonsieurThenardier
"It is very easy to be kind; the difficulty lies in being just."I wouldn't say it's a modern incarnation because the idea of spreading democracy by force of arms goes back to Ancient Athens during the Peloponnese War, and returned disastrously during the French Revolution when the Girondins launched a crusade for war (supported by Thomas Paine and Condorcet and other Christopher Hitchens predecessors of that time). Without that war you would have no Reign of Terror, no Napoleon.
- — David A. Bell, The First Total War
In both cases, the idea to spread democracy abroad led to an end of it at home.
I actually don't think we disagree...its merely about rhetoric. The general conclusions and views are the same.
Historically speaking, "hard-left" meant Stalinist since Stalin was on the Left and boy was he hard. However, I concede your point.
I just want to emphasize the view that International Relations and peace between nations is something that genuinely does transcend Left-Right debates. In terms of foreign policy I agree with the Republican Clint Eastwood (who opposes the war in Iraq and Afghanistan) more then I do with the Democrat Obama (who was against Iraq but okay with Afghanistan).
On that I agree. It's just that rhetorically I don't think it makes sense anymore to say Putin is an authoritarian and so-and-so is also authoritarian when in reality its liberal regimes that are a minority in the world. It doesn't make sense because 1) Most people don't know how to help them institutionally, 2) Don't actually want to help them, 3) Only bring up authoritarians who they dislike and 4) In the end just make things worse.
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And yet France made a very similar mistake. It's also more like being 40 years behind rather than 100 (the Spanish American war comes to mind), and that's a mistake that's been made many, many times over the course of history. Obviously there were people who realized that the Japanese mindset was in the wrong century, but they simply weren't the ones making the call.
edited 29th Nov '16 9:04:20 PM by CaptainCapsase
Wrong. France didn't start a world war, and they expected a long, drawn-out, plodding conflict in the event of one. Their doctrine was built around it.
edited 29th Nov '16 9:05:20 PM by MonsieurThenardier
"It is very easy to be kind; the difficulty lies in being just."
That has absolutely nothing to do with Japan ignoring reality for the sake of face. It's a non-sequitur.
BTW, telling your superior officer that their plans were literally impossible wouldn't get you physically assaulted in the French army. To my knowledge. Which was the case in the Japanese army even prior to the Pacific War.
edited 29th Nov '16 9:07:06 PM by MonsieurThenardier
"It is very easy to be kind; the difficulty lies in being just."edited 29th Nov '16 9:31:07 PM by MonsieurThenardier
"It is very easy to be kind; the difficulty lies in being just."![]()
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"Cultural psychology" is the same school of thought which suggest blacks and Latinos are poor because of their culture. Not necessarily racist, but uncomfortably close to it.
Japan knew they had very slim odds, but since the alternative was giving up their colonial empire, which to them meant becoming a de facto puppet of the United States, they chose to play the odds.
edited 29th Nov '16 9:13:23 PM by CaptainCapsase
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I like reality over fantasy. You're completely ignoring how they actually made their decisions. Even though Imperial Japan is fairly well-documented government. They were not in any way based on any kind of reasonable logic or military realities.
Here's a good example. Mark Parillo, in his book on the annihilation of the Japanese merchant marine, has to devote a significant amount of his book to explaining why a nation so willfully ignored such an obvious threat. Even many Japanese officers knew that their envisioned war was basically impossible due to this issue. Parillo lists many intersecting causes, but one is that Japan's economic experts posited such a grim picture of the coming war (any rational calculation showed that the merchant navy would be annihilated in short order, and that they couldn't do what High Command demanded even if they weren't) that they were simply ignored. Or in some cases, said economic experts were physically beaten and thrown out.
[Parillo, "The Japanese Merchant Marine in WWII,"
p.26]
edited 29th Nov '16 9:16:22 PM by MonsieurThenardier
"It is very easy to be kind; the difficulty lies in being just."It never fails. Somebody references a controversial topic, then tries to sidestep it by saying, "But I don't want to get into a debate about that..." So what happens? A shitstorm of debate over that very topic.
If you don't want to be swarmed by angry hornets, then don't poke the beehive, m'kay?
This Space Intentionally Left Blank.We have a thread specifically for discussing the nuclear bombing of Japan, FYI.
I only discussed that topic by citing it as part of Truman's overall policy record. Which also included other domestic and global blunders, and which set a precedent and set in motion woes that continue to plague America.
Anyway, I think I might as well go ahead and fully Rank my list of best Presidents Since 1932. My criteria is What they did with the circumstances given to them, domestic policy record and foreign policy.
1) FDR
2) LBJ
3) Nixon
4) Eisenhower
5) Obama
6) Clinton
7) Truman
8) JFK
9) Bush I
10) Ford
11) Carter
12) Reagan
13) Bush II
On basis of Foreign Policy the Top Five are 1) FDR, 2) Obama, 3) Nixon, 4) Bush I, 5) Eisenhower.
On basis of Domestic Policy, its 1) FDR, 2) LBJ, 3) Nixon, 4) Eisenhower, 5) Obama.
edited 29th Nov '16 9:32:36 PM by JulianLapostat
Yo, someone HAS to caption this photo.
◊
That's the face of a man who's dying inside
New Survey coming this weekend!It reminds me of the final lines of Scorsese's Casino:
"But in the end, I wound up right back where I started. I could still pick winners, and I could still make money for all kinds of people back home. And why mess up a good thing? And that's that."
Romney is trapped in hell, his soul belongs to the Devil, and The Devil Is a Loser.
edited 29th Nov '16 9:43:17 PM by JulianLapostat
By the way could the people calling democracy toppling invasions "humanitarian interventions" give some examples please, as the concept of humanitarian intervention under that name only emerged in the '90s.
Now yes it had roots in the old White Man's Burder (though that only if one ignores interventions carried out by non-whites, with the explicit consent of non-white and with the active partipation of non-whites, which people do seem to be doing for their own ends here...) but the actual concept of humanitarian intervention wasn't referred to as such until the '90s, before that it was "fighting communism" or "bringing civilisation to the savages" '
Honestly the attempts to use historical precedent are cheep, there is a difference between helping people who ask for help and forcing oneself on those who have not asked for help. If you can't tell the difference that's on you.
Likewise if you choose to ignore the historical examples of both successful interventions and disasterous non-interventions then you're not applying historical context properly.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran

edited 29th Nov '16 9:00:40 PM by CaptainCapsase