Most likely some other country (or countries) would simply fulfill the same role of projecting their military and economic power onto the rest of the world to maintain their hegemony. We see this in limited ways already with many other countries, though with a few exceptions, they’re careful in how much they conflict with US interests. One of these, likely China, would move into that role and while the details would be different in some ways, many of the overall dynamics would be similar.
Now you got me questioning if China ever got involved in foreign politics and back a coup which was more favorite to them?
Chinese foreign policy has been fairly cautious and covert compared to other world powers. I think this has generally been a good strategy as it has avoided major conflicts with the US and Europe in recent times.
I can’t think of any coup they’ve directly supported but they certainly have supported military movements and governments in other countries, including Vietnam, North Korea, Myanmar, and Venezuela. So they’ve been a bit less prone to overthrowing governments but they aren’t afraid to use similar tactics to keep friendly regimes in power, and help those factions expand power. So is it a coup to help the North Vietnamese conquer the South? I guess it depends on the definition of coup which can be a fraught word.
Personally I’m not sure I see any of these as coups. The closest might be Myanmar but while China has protected and supported the junta there, it’s not totally clear they actually supported the coup itself. I interpret their actions as seeking stability and wanting to minimize Western influence.
China’s foreign policy model seems focused on making deals with the existing power no matter what. Part of that seems to be that China does not believe in odious debt like a lot of Western countries do. When settling debts, Chinese institutions have been far more insistent on keeping write-offs from occuring.
China has also generally pushed for more one on one transactional deals with countries. There have been some international institutions made like the AIIB, but I don’t see the institutional creation of systems like the USA tried to do.
What do you mean by keeping write-offs from occurring?
A lot of times, the IMF will lead all creditors of a country to restructure, reduce, or reschedule existing debt. What is happening is that Chinese institutions appears to be less willing to write down bad debt, holding up a lot of negotiations between debt holders. So, the debt doesn’t get reduced.
Is this a bad thing somehow? I would think reducing debts is generally beneficial, especially in times of economic crisis.
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I think the modern American empire is seen as much more dangerous than the modern Chinese one. Especially with how it tries to subjugate people even outside its continent
In the current moment I would agree. I’m not sure that would be true in comparison to a hypothetical sole superpower China. But who can say for sure.
Who needs to do that when they are loan sharking the countries
You might get to see that in Russia with how Putler is screwing things up.
Bananas would cost more
no more banana for $10
There’s always money in the banana stand.
America genociding Gautemala avoided in such a timeline?
History doesn’t provide answers to hypotheticals
That’s why they’re asking people and not reading a history book.
The world would be far more Socialized.
That’s actually the really sad story here.
Every “experimental” regime was either toppled (Chile) or had to align with the USSR (Cuba) to survive. There was never a real attempt at democratic socialist politics without interference from superpowers.
All Socialism is democratic, including Cuba and the USSR. Trying to reform the system along Socialist lines from within the system like Allende is why he sadly failed and was couped by the US Empire.
This is a non sequitur. It doesn’t follow that Allende choosing reform over revolution is what resulted in the US interference. The US has been known to interfere in revolutionary movements as well.
The US tried to invade Cuba as well, and tried to kill Castro, several times. That’s ultimately why he did align with the USSR - choosing the bully that’s slightly more on your side.
There was never a government at all without interference from superpowers.
Of course, but most governments are allowed to mostly be sovereign.
Sweden or Australia play ball on their own, no need for a coup here.
Lol, what? Australia is a US lackee more than anywhere else. And the CIA was definitely involved in the Whitlam sacking.
Idk, but I feel like Olof Palme (PM of Sweden) def got murdered by the USA for his criticism on the Vietnam War. Or by South Africa for his criticism on apartheid.
My relative likes to mention Nicaragua in the 1970s/80s, but I haven’t had the time to read up about it.
Just imagine how scared and hungry we could all be
Most countries would be socialist.
Well the troubles would have continued. So there that.
Ooh I think you need to read more about history. For once, CIA wouldn’t need to support drug dealers to finance its operations in Central America. Guess where those drugs were being consumed?
What?
the cia admitted to starting the cocaine epidemic so that they can use the money to fund rebel fighters to keep central american countries weak and dependent on the united states.
I probably should have capitalised The Troubles shouldn’t I
The US projects its own interests worldwide but those often overlap with the interests of other as well.
For example, the US often stipulates intellectual property and worker rights in it’s trade deals. The US actively protects shipping lanes. The US actively negotiates visa-free entry for American passport holders to other countries. The US invests in the economies of foreign countries to stimulate trade opportunities. The US controls the SWIFT banking network which makes it so that we don’t need to send gold bullion or pallets of cash to buy things from other countries, and participating in the system requires member countries to have certain controls in place that attempt to block bad actors. The US, through it’s embassies and ambassadors, deploys it ideology to foreign governments, and makes deals that allow foreigners to invest in the USA and Americans to open businesses in foreign countries.
The US actively shuns and makes life difficult for menace dictatorships on the global stage by creating trade exclusions.
There have been coups since the beginning of time and always will be, as it’s human nature. Many citizens of other countries have no belief that the future of their country belongs to them after decades or centuries of dictatorships or kingdoms. On the whole, history shows that kingdoms rise and fall for many reasons and the people sometimes benefit and sometimes suffer for it.
Obviously it’s a highly complex topic, but if the US wasn’t doing these things, then Russia or China would be, or there would be more powerful regional factions, which could reduce the size of the world in terms of travel and trade options for many.
Whether the US is the right one to be in control of this at this point in history is a matter of intense debate among some, but it could absolutely be worse than it is now.
Difficult to say. For starters, we can’t know with certainty the full list of countries that were affected. We don’t know all the ways countries were affected. There’s so much we don’t know that it’s really impossible to say.
Definitely a better place.
On a tangentially related note, this documentary series from BBC4 is a fascinating insight into the decision making process the US went through over dealing with foreign mass atrocities over the past 40 years: Iraq, Bosnia, Rwanda, Syria etc.
Warning: they do not hold back with the imagery of these events.
Other countries would probably still have some similar shit. People are people.
Not to mention some other country would’ve been doing this instead. Other countries do, the US has just been the most notorious and the king of colonialism
I’m not even sure the US counts as king but that’s for historians to argue I guess
It really depends on how far back you want to look.
If the US was to suddenly stop projecting its interests internationally, then as others have mentioned, then likely the world work become somewhat more socialized. European countries would probably step up and try to keep China in check, but without the US contributing to these efforts, it would cause a significant strain on their military resources.
If the US was to take an isolationist policy 100 years ago, then there is a good chance that WW2 would have been won by the Axis. The Allied forces likely would have put up a good fight, but I’m not sure they would have emerged victorious against the combined Axis forces. The war in the Pacific would have raged on much longer, and without nuclear weapons, there would have been an extreme loss of life invading Japan. At the very least, WW2 would have lasted much much longer than it did. Depending on the outcome, plenty of countries might currently be speaking German and debating if they should tear down 80-year-old statues of Hitler.
Why stop at 100 years? Imagine 150 years. No US - Spain war, no US intervention in WW1. Maybe that would have meant no WW2.
And isolationism includes not helping Nazis and their allies like Texaco, Ford or IBM did?
Germany would have taken over Europe.
Funny that you think Germany would have stopped with Europe.
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I am just wondering if the US stayed Isolated after WW2 and did not intervene in any countries business like over throwing dictators or supporting or starting rebelens and suchwhat would the world look like today? Would they look at the US and see that democracy works or would they go with some other type of governance?
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The “It’s a Small World” ride at Disneyland.
