Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Gopher]

[venus]

[Octavius Hite]

I recognize the distinctiveness of the points but the US/UK used the "threat" of communism as a cover and justification for what was an economic grab. Without cheap Iranian oil the post-war boom would never have happened.

[Gopher]

(1) Was American foreign policy in X, Y, or Z morally justifiable?

(2) What motivated American foreign policy in X, Y, or Z?
(a) What were contemporaneous policymakers thinking and how did they arrive at their conclusions?
(b) What can we see and say about this from a more distant perspective, and as seen through a variety of perspectives (Marxism, Realism, bureaucratic models, etc.)

(3) What relative impact did American foreign policy actually have in X, Y, or Z?
(a) What were the correlation of forces, to cite a Marxian question?
(b) What relative impact did local conditions and actors have in shaping event A, B, or C?

(4) What relative impact did American foreign policy actually have in X, Y, or Z's subsequent history?
(a) What were the correlation of forces over time?
(b) What relative impact did local conditions and actors have in shaping events D, E, and F over time?

Above, you show that you have bought into the current antiEstablishment "America-cynically-fabricated-the-Cold-War-threat-to-justify-the-military-industrial-complex's-budget" line. In short: The X-Files, to cite perhaps the most well-known articulation.

I also believe that you and many others here simply assume all the wrong things (decisive American influence in all things, evil intentions, etc.) about 2, 3, and 4 and you focus nearly all of your outrage/energy on 1, the only question you ever really deal with in any serious way...

[Octavius Hite]

I think that at the beginning the Cold War was very real, much like 9/11 made the Terror War very real. However I believe that cynical politicans and buisness men used the legimate fear (from say the Cuban missile crisis) and concocted fear (Mr. McCarthy) to exploit the American people and relaunch a new form of colonialism. After the US had ICBM's and the ability to strike anywhere in the world they could have stopped and just went with MAD. They did not. They launched or fought in dozens of proxy conflicts in oreder to control "speheres of influence" as if people and countries were toys to be played with.

Now, I don't believe that the US was or is worse than the USSR, but when you run around the world claiming to be the knight in shining armor you're dirty secrets become more important than your good deeds.

Also the current "War on Terror" is so foolish and stupid that it just plays like a cheap sequel to the Cold War. The "terrorists", whoever they might be, are totally unable, unlike the USSR, to destroy the US or Israel.

[Gopher]

Octavius: if your position is that American national interests have always primarily included "offensive Realist," "defensive Realist," and macroecononic interests, since the 1790s and into the present, and that "Wilsonian Idealism" not only does more harm than good, but also does not sufficiently account for American foreign-policy history to be worthy of much time at all, then I and a huge number of professional historians already agree with you.

Moreover, if it is also your position that American policymakers from the Truman to Reagan Administrations misunderstood and/or overstated the Soviet threat to help sell Cold War-era policies, and also wholly misunderstood local conditions and actors in places like the Congo, Vietnam, and Central America then, again, you are not going outside of mainstream lines of thought here.

It is your overly-simplistic, preachy, all-too-happy-to-do-it scapegoating-style of painting events in places like Iran and Chile that I take issue with. These places have their own historical trajectories, Octavius -- and go where they go in many cases with or without American intervention, which rarely proves decisive...

In any case, I would advise you to start taking closer looks on the ground and see what you might learn.