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When the war with Japan ended, the United States was in a unique position. In fact they held this until August of 1949. With a massive lead in infrastructure, and the ability to produce truly horrifying weapons of mass destruction they had a opportunity.
They could have chosen to unify the world under one government. But it would have required a horrific moral and ethical cost. More nuclear weapons would have absolutely been deployed. America would have been the bad guys.
BUT-look at where we went because we did not. We live with the fear of global nuclear annihilation. Multiple countries can destroy the world, and many unstable countries have nuclear weapons. This was very predictable. By not doing this we risk the destruction of our species. Surely thats a bigger issue?
Soon we will face another such opportunity. Perhaps more then one. AI, and nanotechnology both can give a country the ability to rule the world-if they are first. And right now its not truly clear who will be the first. Will a country face the choice of using a weapon first, or allow that opportunity to pass as America did? I am not hopeful. Did the US make mistake at the end of WW2?
We shouldn't be kings of the planet, and lords of the lands. There's an unbalance that comes with trying to police the entire Earth. Good of us not to get too pushy and proud in that area.
We used to have better awareness and sensitivity to that than we do now. Now is the risky time when we need to be extra careful. A wayward and loose cannon "leader" can be far more dangerous than actual weapons. That's the real message here.
We shouldn't be kings of the planet, and lords of the lands. There's an unbalance that comes with trying to police the entire Earth. Good of us not to get too pushy and proud in that area.
We used to have better awareness and sensitivity to that than we do now. Now is the risky time when we need to be extra careful. A wayward and loose cannon "leader" can be far more dangerous than actual weapons. That's the real message here.
If we had-we would not be worrying about destroying our species in a nuclear war. And we have come VERY close a couple times. We would not be spending untold effort building up militaries to fight each other.
But the other side of this is that we are about to have new technologies that have even more power then nuclear weapons did. So now we face questions about who will get them first. Putin has said whoever leads in AI will rule the world.
We shouldn't be kings of the planet, and lords of the lands. There's an unbalance that comes with trying to police the entire Earth. Good of us not to get too pushy and proud in that area.
We used to have better awareness and sensitivity to that than we do now. Now is the risky time when we need to be extra careful. A wayward and loose cannon "leader" can be far more dangerous than actual weapons. That's the real message here.
It's interesting that in this sub-forum we are in agreement a great deal.
When the war with Japan ended, the United States was in a unique position. In fact they held this until August of 1949. With a massive lead in infrastructure, and the ability to produce truly horrifying weapons of mass destruction they had a opportunity.
They could have chosen to unify the world under one government. But it would have required a horrific moral and ethical cost. More nuclear weapons would have absolutely been deployed. America would have been the bad guys.
BUT-look at where we went because we did not. We live with the fear of global nuclear annihilation. Multiple countries can destroy the world, and many unstable countries have nuclear weapons. This was very predictable. By not doing this we risk the destruction of our species. Surely thats a bigger issue?
Soon we will face another such opportunity. Perhaps more then one. AI, and nanotechnology both can give a country the ability to rule the world-if they are first. And right now its not truly clear who will be the first. Will a country face the choice of using a weapon first, or allow that opportunity to pass as America did? I am not hopeful. Did the US make mistake at the end of WW2?
Well, using your logic (and I'm using that term very loosely here), there have been times that other nations should have just ruled the planet...you know...sort of like Germany wanted to do. Great logic there.
We would have had to keep right on marching towards Moscow. We used all of our nukes on Japan - or so we are told.
Are you suggesting that we should have nuked the USSR into submission? That would have made us the biggest monsters in the history of the world. People don't like monsters. Plus monsters are, well, monsters.
Germany would have rolled right over us in 1941. Russia had 35,000 reliable battle tanks, that is what defeated the Third Reich.
Our main "battle tank" was the Sherman Tank (gasoline powered)- aka:Sherman Lighters. Unless they were equipped with the British supplied Firefly barrel, the Sherman was out of its league in every respect.
I'd guess 50 million casualties. Outcome undecided unless we rallied the support of the Allies. Russia had home field advantage, a great general in Zhukov, more robust and numerous tanks, and more battle experience.
What would we have been fighting for? What is the motivation for our troops? The Russians would have been plenty motivated. Pretty much only Patton and MacArthur wanted to attack Russia. Eisenhower, Hap Arnold, General Marshall, President Truman, etc.? No way.
The nuclear age has been historically peaceful as compared to general history. Nuclear weapons make for polite neighbors at times. The space race also gave us satellites, the internet (likely), and many other things.
Russia lost 28 million people in WWII. They defeated the Third Reich. And you think we should have killed them? For peace?
You should run for Congress. You would fit right in.
Under the republican form of government, people have Creator endowed rights that governments were instituted to secure... not conquer, administer, nor rule.
In fact, absent consent of the governed, American governments can only secure the endowment (prosecute crime, adjudicate disputes, and defend against all enemies, foreign and domestic).
Anything beyond that delegation of power comes from consent. That 99% of Americans do not know how and when they consented, is another issue entirely.
But no American government, state, or federal, has any delegation of power to conquer other lands or "make the world safe for democracy" (a vile, evil form of government where a majority can legally oppress a minority).
The US didn't have any atomic weapons, or enough materials to build more immediately, at the end of the war. Nor was there any appetite amongst the populace, or most of the military, to continue fighting. The Germans and Japanese were defeated, and it was time to move on.
The US would not have been able to conquer to world, nor did it have the inclination. They had just fought a war against fascism and were getting ready to free the Philippines before the war. They had witnessed the horrors of that ideology and were not about to become the monsters they had just come face to face with. That generation had given up enough of its humanity already and yearned for peace. Imperialism was becoming untenable as the enslaved masses of the world, who had fought in Europe's war, were ready to stand on their own. America was bruised and beaten, if they'd tried they'd have failed at great human cost and then their victims would have been out for vengeance. Instead, they established willing hegemony over most of the earth, never got into a shooting war with the USSR, and we enjoyed humanity's greatest era of peace and prosperity, with a flowering of art and science.
I am glad they listened to their humanity rather than their fears. It is sad that so many in the US today have forgotten the hard won lessons and values of their forefathers, looking rather to morally bankrupt ideas more akin to Mussolini's or Franco's. Ignore your basest impulses in favour of your best selves. Imperialism is a moral failing, and adhering to ethics is how we build the kind of world we want to live in and minimize risk, not by imposing horrors on others. What goes around comes around.
TL;DR - evil breeds more evil. Being decent leads to a better world, because we're all human and can be inspired.
When the war with Japan ended, the United States was in a unique position. In fact they held this until August of 1949. With a massive lead in infrastructure, and the ability to produce truly horrifying weapons of mass destruction they had a opportunity.
They could have chosen to unify the world under one government. But it would have required a horrific moral and ethical cost. More nuclear weapons would have absolutely been deployed. America would have been the bad guys.
BUT-look at where we went because we did not. We live with the fear of global nuclear annihilation. Multiple countries can destroy the world, and many unstable countries have nuclear weapons. This was very predictable. By not doing this we risk the destruction of our species. Surely thats a bigger issue?
Soon we will face another such opportunity. Perhaps more then one. AI, and nanotechnology both can give a country the ability to rule the world-if they are first. And right now its not truly clear who will be the first. Will a country face the choice of using a weapon first, or allow that opportunity to pass as America did? I am not hopeful. Did the US make mistake at the end of WW2?
Hitler had just tried to take over the world with one ruling leader. Do you really think the rest of the world would have stood silent if the USA tried to do the same thing after Hitler was defeated?
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