As a Canadian living in the U.S. for *thinks* 41 years, I'm in a sort of an insider-outsider position. I was raised with Canadian values and worldviews and came to adulthood there, but I've now spent more of my life in the U.S. I say that as context for my thoughts on this.
As far as I can tell, the belief in Mutually Assured Destruction - which has been long abandoned as a political policy here (and even in the USSR/Russian Federation) - may be the closest to what you're describing.
But I don't think that's the case here.
Instead, what I've watched happen in the U.S. over the past 40 years or so is less the deliberate use of irrationality to escape an impending defeat, than the equally stupid exercise of realpolitik, as championed by war criminals like Henry Kissinger - whose entire political philosophy was, as far as I can tell, built on European conservatism as developed and championed by German assholes like Metternich.
Nasty, yes; ultimately anti-democratic, yes. But the military and political structure of a nearly one-man autocracy setting policy - which is what I think we're dealing with when it comes to the current situation in Putin, - is lacking here in the States, as it is in western Europe and Britain, so I think gambling for resurrection is far less of an American failing than, say, American exceptionalism.
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branchandroot
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Date: Tuesday, 8 March 2022 12:16 am (UTC)As far as I can tell, the belief in Mutually Assured Destruction - which has been long abandoned as a political policy here (and even in the USSR/Russian Federation) - may be the closest to what you're describing.
But I don't think that's the case here.
Instead, what I've watched happen in the U.S. over the past 40 years or so is less the deliberate use of irrationality to escape an impending defeat, than the equally stupid exercise of realpolitik, as championed by war criminals like Henry Kissinger - whose entire political philosophy was, as far as I can tell, built on European conservatism as developed and championed by German assholes like Metternich.
Nasty, yes; ultimately anti-democratic, yes. But the military and political structure of a nearly one-man autocracy setting policy - which is what I think we're dealing with when it comes to the current situation in Putin, - is lacking here in the States, as it is in western Europe and Britain, so I think gambling for resurrection is far less of an American failing than, say, American exceptionalism.