Did Obama start the Afghanistan war? or the Iraq war?
Yes, he could exit those countries hastily. But that has its own cost. Getting in wars is the easy part. Getting out of one is the hard part. Ask Putin who went into Ukraine on a 3-day limited special military operation.
Bush Jr. got us into multiple wars and unlike his father did not limit the scope of them. His father did get us into a war with Iraq but was smart enough to keep it limited in scope.
Also, under Obama, the "wars" were not real wars like the Russia/Ukraine war where both sides are losing hundreds of people every week. But they were more like peacekeeping operations that occasionally ran into skirmishes.
> like the Russia/Ukraine war where both sides are losing hundreds of people every week.
Every week? If we just look at the Russian casualties numbers, its around 1000+ casualties PER DAY.
There was a recent leak of the death toll and the most active area's had a 2/5 dead rate, 1/3 "missing" rate, and the rest was wounded.
If we only count the death + "missing" over the entire front for Russia, its 500+ PER DAY.
Ironically, the Russian->Afghanistan invasion was WAY less deadly then what we see today in Ukraine.
Your point still stands about the US evolvement in Iran/Afghanistan, but darn your numbers really way below the actual body count in the Russian "3-day limited special military operation". Those are numbers from the first year, not the daily of the third year.
> Every week? If we just look at the Russian casualties numbers, its around 1000+ casualties PER DAY.
You are likely correct. I have heard of the high casualty estimates, but wanted to keep it conservative to not have someone complain about the estimate being too high.
Peacekeeping is like the UN sending troops in to monitor a ceasefire. These were wars. 35,000+ civilian deaths in Afghanistan. Overthrowing Gaddafi. Tens of thousands of airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Drone strikes killing thousands of civilians in Pakistan. US foreign policy has equated “peace” and “stability” with its own military hegemony, being almost constantly at war to further its hypocritical ideology. It’s been a cash cow for the defense lobby.
Fun fact, the 2 longest periods of peace in history are called the Pax Romana and Pax Mongolica. The Mongolians and the Romans are known for fighting wars, lots and lots of wars. The only prolonged periods of peace in history are when one country or empire gets much stronger than the rest.
Another fun fact, the lowest per capita worldwide war deaths in a specific year in world history occurred in 2019.
And finally, when the US goes isolationist, the rest of you animals start killing each other instantly. So keep it up if you want a lot more "history" to happen in your lifetime.
Both the Pax Romana and Pax Mongolica saw their share of violence - plausibly comparable to 19th century Europe, or the Han and Tang dynasties, which which were not unipolar. We just don’t have good numbers for any of these cases. The long-history basis of your argument is flimsy at best.
The US itself only began resuming mass offensives with the decline of the USSR. But a world collapsing into unipolarity should lead to less conflict according to your view, as there would be less incentive for inter-state violence. The other pole was undergoing collapse, and the US sent soldiers, and continued to do so for decades.
But strictly speaking 2019 is part of a longer term downtrend in violence between nations after World War 2. That’s a trend that preceded American hegemony - a hegemony which is frankly a shadow of its former self. The real risk today isn’t multipolarity, it’s that the US is denial of multipolarity. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Israel. The US just doesn’t have the money to hemorrhage out to military disasters any more. It’s a house of cards growing taller and taller. What has no limit is the foolish arrogance of our leaders. The way to stop war is rarely escalation (anathema to the defense lobby).
And we are all human beings, US and non-US alike, not animals. It’s the capacity for compassion that makes us human, not the ability to kill.
If you ask me, Putin is welcome to end the Ukraine war at any time he wants! Getting out of a war is actually easy if you don't care what happens after that, e.g. in the case of Afghanistan accept as "sunk costs" the billions of dollars and thousands of lives that were lost during the 20 years that NATO was involved there.
Yes, he could exit those countries hastily. But that has its own cost. Getting in wars is the easy part. Getting out of one is the hard part. Ask Putin who went into Ukraine on a 3-day limited special military operation.
Bush Jr. got us into multiple wars and unlike his father did not limit the scope of them. His father did get us into a war with Iraq but was smart enough to keep it limited in scope.
Also, under Obama, the "wars" were not real wars like the Russia/Ukraine war where both sides are losing hundreds of people every week. But they were more like peacekeeping operations that occasionally ran into skirmishes.