US and Allies Invasion of Iraq - 2003

[Ken]

Western states go on wars of adventurism all the time. Of course they don't grant statehood - they instead invade other countries and turn them into client states.

Sure, like Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. It is wrong too and usually doomed to fail after excessive expenditure of blood and treasure. For the same reasons that Russia is wrong now and will also likely fail.

[ohio jones]

Ken, it's obvious that the United States have no "territorial aspirations".
I am not so certain about some neighbouring states. For example, Finland is very suddenly very eager to join the Nato - perhaps because they hope to get back Karelia (or at least the part of Karelia they lost in WW2)?
And Poland might get the East Prussian exclave.
Then, there are aspirations of a different kind. The U.S. companies would nearly have got a grip on one fifth of the Russian oil and gas reserves when Chodorkovsky tried to join a Western corporation. And the Western/Russian relations soured just after Putin prevented that Chodorkovsky coup. That was the moment when the American media started to spread anti-Putin and anti-Russian propaganda. It looked a lot like frustrated commercial aspirations.

There's a good chance that Russia loses this war and then we shall see who gets what. Then we can continue this debate on a factual base.

I'm not aware that Poland and Germany actually want to open up that border dispute. Especially with EU integration making it increasingly irrelevant.

Other than that, every other territorial dispute I can think of involves Russia in some way. Georgia, Moldovia, Chechnya, Ukraine, etc. etc.

I assume Petr was referring to Kaliningrad, which would involve Germany and, yes, Russia. Poland might well be interested if it came up for sale, but its historic claims are much more distant.

Maybe so. But the point is that most western social democracies aren't really looking to add land and population, especially when the populations are poorer and less productive. The US would hardly want to absorb Guatemala, for example, turn it into a state and give citizenship and social welfare to 18 million Guatemalans and be forced to pour hundreds of billions of dollars into Guatemala to bring it up to US standards. We don't hardly want any Guatemalans, much less ALL of them.

Or even Mexico for that matter. The US would have no interest in annexing and absorbing the Mexican states of Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua and Coahuila, Nueva Leon, Tamaulipas which are the six border states. That would bring tens of millions of new Hispanics into the US, 12 new Hispanic Senators and a bunch of new Hispanic Congressmen which would completely upset the existing balance of power in Congress and would likely cost hundreds of billions to get those states up to American standards in terms of infrastructure and such. No one actually wants that.

Russia seems to be the exception to that rule.

If Guatemala and Mexico had the oil and gas reserves Petr mentioned, the US would probably develop territorial aspirations rather quickly. That was quite obviously a major factor in the US and Allies Invasion of Iraq - 2003.

[Ken]

Ken, it's obvious that the United States have no "territorial aspirations".
I am not so certain about some neighbouring states. For example, Finland is very suddenly very eager to join the Nato - perhaps because they hope to get back Karelia (or at least the part of Karelia they lost in WW2)?
And Poland might get the East Prussian exclave.
Then, there are aspirations of a different kind. The U.S. companies would nearly have got a grip on one fifth of the Russian oil and gas reserves when Chodorkovsky tried to join a Western corporation. And the Western/Russian relations soured just after Putin prevented that Chodorkovsky coup. That was the moment when the American media started to spread anti-Putin and anti-Russian propaganda. It looked a lot like frustrated commercial aspirations.

There's a good chance that Russia loses this war and then we shall see who gets what. Then we can continue this debate on a factual base.

I assume Petr was referring to Kaliningrad, which would involve Germany and, yes, Russia. Poland might well be interested if it came up for sale, but its historic claims are much more distant.

Maybe so. But the point is that most western social democracies aren't really looking to add land and population, especially when the populations are poorer and less productive. The US would hardly want to absorb Guatemala, for example, turn it into a state and give citizenship and social welfare to 18 million Guatemalans and be forced to pour hundreds of billions of dollars into Guatemala to bring it up to US standards. We don't hardly want any Guatemalans, much less ALL of them.

Or even Mexico for that matter. The US would have no interest in annexing and absorbing the Mexican states of Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua and Coahuila, Nueva Leon, Tamaulipas which are the six border states. That would bring tens of millions of new Hispanics into the US, 12 new Hispanic Senators and a bunch of new Hispanic Congressmen which would completely upset the existing balance of power in Congress and would likely cost hundreds of billions to get those states up to American standards in terms of infrastructure and such. No one actually wants that.

Russia seems to be the exception to that rule.

If Guatemala and Mexico had the oil and gas reserves Petr mentioned, the US would probably develop territorial aspirations rather quickly. That was quite obviously a major factor in the US and Allies Invasion of Iraq - 2003.

Mexico borders Texas. It has major oil and gas reserves both on land and in the Gulf of Mexico.

It is the 11th largest oil producing nation in the world ahead of Venezuela, Norway, Qatar, Nigeria, etc. and just behind #10 Kuwait: https://www.worldometers.info/oil/oil-p ... y-country/

[Josh]

The difference is, Mexico gladly sells lots of oil at good prices to America.

[PetrChelcicky]

Ken, I agree that "social democracies" can be rather generous. For instance, France as well as the Netherlands made some cautious attempts to cut little parts out of Germany after WW2, but both backed off when they found that the local inhabitants did not conform.
On the other hand, neither Czechoslovakia nor Poland were as generous. They argued that it was a matter of property rights - the contested regions "belonged" to them, inhabitants be damned.
A lot depends from the question if the contestants' claims are supported by mighty neighbours. For instance, Nato now supports the idea that Crimea and the Donbass "belong" to Ukraine (inhabitants be damned), so we can hardly expect the Ukrainian government to exercise more restraint than the Nato.
But as I said, let us wait and see.
As for BP and the oil business, that sounds a bit as if you want to deny "economic imperialism" completely, in the sense of state-private partnerships aiming to compete against foreign state-private partnerships. Do you really think that the fight against Huawei or the fight against Gazprom has nothing to do with competition between empires? And that wars are fought for purely noble and unselfish motives?

[Ken]

Ken, I agree that "social democracies" can be rather generous. For instance, France as well as the Netherlands made some cautious attempts to cut little parts out of Germany after WW2, but both backed off when they found that the local inhabitants did not conform.
On the other hand, neither Czechoslovakia nor Poland were as generous. They argued that it was a matter of property rights - the contested regions "belonged" to them, inhabitants be damned.
A lot depends from the question if the contestants' claims are supported by mighty neighbours. For instance, Nato now supports the idea that Crimea and the Donbass "belong" to Ukraine (inhabitants be damned), so we can hardly expect the Ukrainian government to exercise more restraint than the Nato.
But as I said, let us wait and see.
As for BP and the oil business, that sounds a bit as if you want to deny "economic imperialism" completely, in the sense of state-private partnerships aiming to compete against foreign state-private partnerships. Do you really think that the fight against Huawei or the fight against Gazprom has nothing to do with competition between empires? And that wars are fought for purely noble and unselfish motives?

I'm not denying that global capitalism exists. Of course it exists. One can travel anywhere on the planet and still find Exxon, BP, Coca Cola, Samsung, Apple, Sony, Toyota, Mercedes, etc. etc. There are American companies with holdings across the globe. But also hundreds of international companies operating in the US. That is essentially globalism.

I'm talking about wars of conquest not international capitalism. Prior to WW2 we had endless wars of conquest and colonialism. But since the end of WW2, most nations don't try to redraw national boundaries, especially by force. The only real examples of countries that have tried to do so post 1945 are:

Iraq (invasion of Kuwait)
Israel (occupied territories)
China (Tibet)
Russia (a dozen or more places)

Russia is BY FAR the worst and most aggressive violator of this international norm. They are really the only country on earth that is still waging wars of imperialism.

[barnhart]

The USA had a noted imperial stage, I think the glamour wore off gradually. If you look at sufficiently old maps you can see the territory conquered by the US labeled as "US colonies" (Phillipines, Puerto Rico, various pacific islands). This period didn't last long once it became clear there was no will to admit them as states and creating an empire was counter to the ideals of the American revolution where the right to rule comes from the consent of the governed. After that phase maps of the US only included the states and the colonies were renamed territories. New York state where I live still claims the slogan "the empire state," a relic from a time when that was something to be proud of.

[Ken]

The USA had a noted imperial stage, I think the glamour wore off gradually. If you look at sufficiently old maps you can see the territory conquered by the US labeled as "US colonies" (Phillipines, Puerto Rico, various pacific islands). This period didn't last long once it became clear there was no will to admit them as states and creating an empire was counter to the ideals of the American revolution where the right to rule comes from the consent of the governed. After that phase maps of the US only included the states and the colonies were renamed territories. New York state where I live still claims the slogan "the empire state," a relic from a time when that was something to be proud of.

Well yes, like Oregon Territory, Dakota Territory, Arizona Territory, Utah Territory, Wyoming Territory, etc. etc.

All conquered lands. Like all 19th Century expanding powers. We grew out of it though. Russia apparently hasn't. No one in the US is proposing we expand south into the border states of Mexico in the same way that Russia is trying to do with Ukraine.

[Ernie]

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/g ... -rcna29829

Woops.

[barnhart]

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/g ... -rcna29829

Woops.

Now that is a Freudian slip.