Is the US a warlike country?

[Japher]

It's just we choose war over diplomacy.

Our words are backed with nuclear weapons

[chequita guevara]

And we never fail to remind anyone of that, either.

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by Patroklos
That is because the casualty count is NOT absurdly high when you think about ths scale and character of what we are doing over there.

That justifies it all, right?

I don't think Europe is any different from America, they just realize that in the current age they do not have a strong enough military to make war a viable option anymore.

If you did though....

Back in the days when we thought war was a viable option, we had million-man armies. It's a matter of priority. The size of our armies is a function of our thoughts, not the other way around.

[Colonâ„¢]

It all depends on circumstances as far as I'm concerned. It's easy to developed an isolationist streak if you're an ocean apart from any serious competitor (during the 19th century) and it's easy to turn pacifist if someone else is catching is carrying the burden of preserving international stability.
That said, I don't view France or the UK to be particularly less willing to use force than the US.

[DanS]

I am interested in what you consider to be the American ideology. More precisely, I'm interested in knowing whether you think the American ideology is significantly outwardly (i.e. if an important part of the American ideology is to do good to the world) or not.

The US has something of a split personality. For much of our history, the US wouldn't act militarily outside its sphere of influence. However, with the world wars and the Cold War, that sphere of influence has increased to global dimensions. We're the only ones left standing from the great Western wars of the 20th century. That said, you can find exceptions going back to Jefferson and the Barbary pirates, where the US took action outside of its sphere of influence.

Probably the best way to describe it is that there is a strong strain of isolationism, but the dominant view is ideological. To complicate matters, most Americans are not consistent from one military action to the next and some may even change their minds during a military action. I do it myself all the time. In addition, ideology may not argue for military action most often.

[Colonâ„¢]

Originally posted by dannubis


no simply because at the time you guys entered the second world war you hadn't de facto a superstatus among the other nations of the world.

Which was due to their own choice. Along with Russia they were de facto top dog, but out of isolationist motives they decided not to play out their role on the world stage as such.

[Colonâ„¢]

Originally posted by Colon
It all depends on circumstances as far as I'm concerned. It's easy to developed an isolationist streak if you're an ocean apart from any serious competitor (during the 19th century) and it's easy to turn pacifist if someone else is catching is carrying the burden of preserving international stability.
That said, I don't view France or the UK to be particularly less willing to use force than the US.

And I might add, if you take Germany as a case of a pacifist country: they may be pacifist due to the horrors of WWII, but also because they're not forced to militarily defend any interests. Their foreign policy is dominated by the EU. Japan OTOH is slowly but steadily turning its back due to the threat of North Korea and a conflict over Taiwan. They're forced to.

[DanS]

[edit] work in progress

[Colonâ„¢]

I'm done.

[Tuberski]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


Totally untrue.

Totally?

Fer sure.

ACK!

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Tuberski
Totally?

Fer sure.

ACK!

Exactly how many UN operations has the US taken part in? A handfull of token peace operations: Korea, Somolia, and Gulf War 1, and that later one, and in all those cases, we asked the UN to bless what we were doing. I can't recall a time the UN asked the U.S. to go into a combat situation. In any event, those handful of fights don't come close the nearly 50 other fights we've been in since WWII.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Colon
That said, I don't view France or the UK to be particularly less willing to use force than the US.

True, the French or British governments are quite willing to use force as well. The French are especially adept at sending troops in the former colonies.

However, my interest is more about the attitudes of the American citizens (their perceptions of war), than in the behaviour of the government.

I don't know about Britain, but the French understanding of war (and of nationalism) appears to me as vastly different than the American one.

1. Since France mostly participates in coalition wars, our media mostly focuses on what we bring to the coalition's effort: whether the Charles de Gaulle is being sent, how many planes and men we contribute, etc. I don't remember seeing much coverage of the French actions during the Kosovo war or the Afghanistan war (I was too young during Gulf War 1 to know how the media reacted, but I'd hazard it was in a similar fashion). The pics I mostly remember from the French invovement in the Kosovo war, were planes taking off and techie soldiers doing some reparations / communication. The coverage of the peacekeeping operation was something else entirely.

2. The only occurence where France was alone at war against an enemy (that I'm old enough to remember clearly) is the week of war against Ivory Coast. Despite the field being quite hot*, the emphasis was on the diplomacy between the two Heads of State. The media swept the nastiness under the rug, with little coverage and gentle words. If you now tell an average Frenchman that his country was an occupation power for several days last year (not specifically mentioning Ivory Coast), suprise is the likely reaction.
Even though our involvement in Ivory Coast could be easily spinned for a moral high ground (the French involvement is probably the main reason IC didn't turn in another Rwanda), such spin doesn't happen. Our establishment prefers to sweep it under the rug, rather than to bring light (even a positive light) on the matter.
The way I see it, had the Americans been involved in IC instead of us, that involvement would have been advertized as the US doing good to the world again, and that idea would have been picked up by many ordinary citizens. The French establishment prefers to maintain apathy over it.


*the Ivorian military attacked a small base and killed a few French soldiers, the French military replied by destroying the Ivorian airforce. Shortly after, an anti-French crowd took over Abijan, and the French military occupied the city to secure our citizens, and I suppose to scare the Ivorian President.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by techumseh
How would you answer this question objectively? I think 3 things would give you a pretty good idea:

1) Overall size, composition and mission of the US armed forces.

2) Total % of GNP spent on military expenditures relative to other countries

3) Number to times US armed forces have been deployed outside it's own boundaries in conflict situations.

Anything else?

Then France and England are the most warlike countries ever to have existed. Next?

[Kuciwalker]

In a related idea, I have witnessed here a strong difference between Europeans and Americans wrt colateral damage. It's only a bit of a charicature to say that the Europeans consider every civilian casualty as being as terrible (no matter whether the Civilian was caught in an explosion killing a military target, or in a terrorist explosion targetting civilians), while Americans are prone to excuse the killing of innocents if it was motivated by the termination of an actual enemy, while they consider the deliberate targetting of civilians to be the epitome of evil.
I have noticed the same pattern with Israelis, btw.

That's because good and evil exist in the motive of the actor, not the action itself.

[asleepathewheel]

yes

Is there any choice at this point?