One may ask, if some American Bismarck had explicitly said, after the cold war, we have enough NATO, and it shall not expand beyond Germany, or Poland, or wherever, would Ukraine still have ended up in a shooting war with Russia.
On the other hand, Abkhazia, Alania, Chechnya, Dagestan, Georgia, Moldova, and Tajikistan did not apply for NATO membership, and yet Russian Federation had armed conflicts with them. So, whatever would happen in a parallel universe is difficult to predict, but I would say that being a former Soviet republic gives you a significant chance of Russia wanting some piece back, sooner or later.
As for American universalism, I don’t know if I am capable of listing all the ways in which American elites, especially liberals and progressives, think that American values and practices are for everyone.
Speaking for myself, I was born and still live in Eastern Europe, grew up during socialism, both my parents were communists… and yet I strongly prefer the “American values”. Perhaps people in other parts of the world are also psychologically capable of enjoying freedom, or whatever specifically you consider to be exclusively “American”. Just like they can enjoy pizza despite not being Italians.
Do you believe that e.g. black Americans are genetically incompatible with “American values”? Because, you know, Eastern Europeans (such as Ukrainians) are genetically closer to white Americans than the black Americans are. Heck, even the Russians are closer.
Or do you assume it is all cultural? Well, sometimes cultures change. For example, Czechoslovakia wasn’t in the Russian sphere of influence before WW2; then it was; and then it wasn’t again. Is it wrong if Czechoslovakia after 1989 reverted to the values it had before WW2, just because by historical coincidence they happen to be similar to the American values? (Is there some rule like “once you were touched by Russia, you must remain culturally Russian forever”?)
I don’t see how you can deny the universalism in American thinking
The question is whether the “American values” are completely arbitrary, as you seem to assume. Like, some people prefer freedom, other people prefer slavery, neither is inherently more enjoyable, it’s all just a question of cultural brainwashing—if you believe that freedom is somehow preferable to slavery, apparently you were watching too many American movies.
Or maybe some of those values are just things that resonate with human nature, maybe with some hunter-gatherer egalitarian insticts that were for millenia suppressed but not completely eliminated by the forces of agrarian society, and now in the industrial society we can pay more attention to them again. Maybe no one ever really enjoyed being a serf, but for millenia people didn’t have much of a choice, and now they kinda do. And Americans were just the first who made this officially their national applause light; maybe because they founded their country at the right time, historically. (Actually, “liberty” was also an applause light of the French Revolution. So, maybe such ideas just happen naturally when you establish a country without a king, or an official equivalent of a king.)
Consider the fact that even in Russia today, thousands of people are in the streets, despite the fact that it will cost them a lot. So it makes sense to extrapolate that maybe hundreds of thousands also do not like the system, but are afraid to oppose it openly. In other words, you wish to protect people from something they want. You want them to stay in a system they hate. (Of course, not all of them. People are different. Just like in USA.) They should not be allowed to taste freedom, because Americans already have it copyrighted; and they should not be allowed to taste pizza, because Italians already have it copyrighted; no cultural appropriation!
Perhaps the Germans should revert to Nazism, because that is natural for them; that is what they would do in a parallel universe where Americans did not intervene, I guess. The Japanese should return to feudalism, the Indians should start burning widows again (okay, that was a British intervention, not American; but colonialism is bad either way, right?), and everyone outside of USA should disconnect from internet. That would make the world a much nicer place. /s
tl;dr—yes, Americans assume that the preference for “life, liberty, and pursuit for happiness” is a human universal, and although I am not an American, I personally happen to agree with them. I am not saying that all people are like that, but rather that in many cultures many people are naturally like that, and cultures typicallly have mechanisms to suppress this preference by force… which kinda proves that the preference has always existed, i.e. the Americans have natural cultural allies everywhere
On the other hand, Abkhazia, Alania, Chechnya, Dagestan, Georgia, Moldova, and Tajikistan did not apply for NATO membership, and yet Russian Federation had armed conflicts with them. So, whatever would happen in a parallel universe is difficult to predict, but I would say that being a former Soviet republic gives you a significant chance of Russia wanting some piece back, sooner or later.
I appreciate the concrete examples. Quickly having a look at them, it seems like the most recent conflict (involving Abkhazia and Georgia, starting 2008) was, in fact, immediately preceded by Georgia applying for NATO-membership, and NATO creating a plan for how they would become members, according to wikipedia.
It looks like the Chhechnyan, Dagestan, Moldovan, and Tajikistan conflicts all happened 1990-2000, which makes them slightly less relevant for predicting what might’ve happened today. (Though I could have missed some more recent events.) I couldn’t find info on Alania.
There are a lot of human values. It would be a profound and worthy achievement to understand the many civilizations of world history, in terms of which kind of values were foremost in their various sensibilities, successes and failures. Figuring out the ideal mix is even relevant to Less Wrong’s big picture—isn’t that what AGI alignment is about?
I don’t think anything I said is in contradiction with your assertion that the American civilization elevates certain values that have widespread appeal. My main point is that it is a missionary civilization which believes in actively spreading its favored values and social institutions, to all humanity if possible, and which uses all the Machiavellian tools of statecraft to do so.
If we compare America with China, then yes there is a huge difference, China seems to be happy enforcing its values within its historical territory, without much desire to expand. (I think so; maybe I missed something.)
If we compare America with Russia (and former Soviet Union), in my opinion Soviet Union / Russia is even more missionary… only less successful at doing so, but certainly not because of lack of trying.
Just look at the cold war in Europe. How often did Soviet Union intervene militarily in its vasal countries, just because they tried some outrageous idea such as “socialism with human face”? (Ironically, if you were a member of Warsaw Pact, you were more likely to be invaded by the Warsaw Pact than by NATO.) On the other hand, if a country in Western Europe tried something like “capitalism with universal health insurance”, America was cool about it.
So seems to me that although both countries are quite missionary, Russia is much more of a micromanager, and probably that is why it gets more resistance. If you are generally allied with America, then America is usually happy about it. If you are allied with Russia, once in a while you will still have Russian tanks rolling on your streets to remind you that you got some detail wrong. So it is quite difficult to be friends with Russia, even if you try.
In a different context, sure, let’s talk about how USA sucks. But in a context of Russia, such comparisons are absurd, because whatever bad thing USA has, Russia has as least twice as much of it. (Even the slavery? Ha! There were ethnic groups in Soviet Union who would have loved to get an opportunity to be merely enslaved.)
I am not so sure whether it makes sense to put Russia and the SU in the same category when it comes to being missionary. The ideology of the SU was basically universal—an ideal end state would have been the conversion of every country in the world to communism. For Russia I don’t see that. Getting the former parts of the Russian empire back, yes, maybe being the leading slavonic country (especially an important motivation until 1917). But would Russia care how, e.g., Spain was governed? I don’t think so (SU or USA would care).
Ok, this makes sense. After the fall of Soviet Union, Russia got defensive rather than missionary. Still “the best defense is a good offense”, but the ambitions to conquer other countries are now proportional to their geographical distance.
I think that is an important distinction you are making. Russia’s (and Putin’s) motivations for aggression seem to be primarily defensive, made from a position of weakness, of vulnerability (which can make them extremely dangerous). That wasn’t the case with the SU.
Russia was the dominant force in the USSR. It is perfectly reasonable to treat the USSR as red paint over a Russian Empire, especially considering the geopolitical framework from which I wrote the original post.
On the other hand, Abkhazia, Alania, Chechnya, Dagestan, Georgia, Moldova, and Tajikistan did not apply for NATO membership, and yet Russian Federation had armed conflicts with them. So, whatever would happen in a parallel universe is difficult to predict, but I would say that being a former Soviet republic gives you a significant chance of Russia wanting some piece back, sooner or later.
Speaking for myself, I was born and still live in Eastern Europe, grew up during socialism, both my parents were communists… and yet I strongly prefer the “American values”. Perhaps people in other parts of the world are also psychologically capable of enjoying freedom, or whatever specifically you consider to be exclusively “American”. Just like they can enjoy pizza despite not being Italians.
Do you believe that e.g. black Americans are genetically incompatible with “American values”? Because, you know, Eastern Europeans (such as Ukrainians) are genetically closer to white Americans than the black Americans are. Heck, even the Russians are closer.
Or do you assume it is all cultural? Well, sometimes cultures change. For example, Czechoslovakia wasn’t in the Russian sphere of influence before WW2; then it was; and then it wasn’t again. Is it wrong if Czechoslovakia after 1989 reverted to the values it had before WW2, just because by historical coincidence they happen to be similar to the American values? (Is there some rule like “once you were touched by Russia, you must remain culturally Russian forever”?)
The question is whether the “American values” are completely arbitrary, as you seem to assume. Like, some people prefer freedom, other people prefer slavery, neither is inherently more enjoyable, it’s all just a question of cultural brainwashing—if you believe that freedom is somehow preferable to slavery, apparently you were watching too many American movies.
Or maybe some of those values are just things that resonate with human nature, maybe with some hunter-gatherer egalitarian insticts that were for millenia suppressed but not completely eliminated by the forces of agrarian society, and now in the industrial society we can pay more attention to them again. Maybe no one ever really enjoyed being a serf, but for millenia people didn’t have much of a choice, and now they kinda do. And Americans were just the first who made this officially their national applause light; maybe because they founded their country at the right time, historically. (Actually, “liberty” was also an applause light of the French Revolution. So, maybe such ideas just happen naturally when you establish a country without a king, or an official equivalent of a king.)
Consider the fact that even in Russia today, thousands of people are in the streets, despite the fact that it will cost them a lot. So it makes sense to extrapolate that maybe hundreds of thousands also do not like the system, but are afraid to oppose it openly. In other words, you wish to protect people from something they want. You want them to stay in a system they hate. (Of course, not all of them. People are different. Just like in USA.) They should not be allowed to taste freedom, because Americans already have it copyrighted; and they should not be allowed to taste pizza, because Italians already have it copyrighted; no cultural appropriation!
Perhaps the Germans should revert to Nazism, because that is natural for them; that is what they would do in a parallel universe where Americans did not intervene, I guess. The Japanese should return to feudalism, the Indians should start burning widows again (okay, that was a British intervention, not American; but colonialism is bad either way, right?), and everyone outside of USA should disconnect from internet. That would make the world a much nicer place. /s
tl;dr—yes, Americans assume that the preference for “life, liberty, and pursuit for happiness” is a human universal, and although I am not an American, I personally happen to agree with them. I am not saying that all people are like that, but rather that in many cultures many people are naturally like that, and cultures typicallly have mechanisms to suppress this preference by force… which kinda proves that the preference has always existed, i.e. the Americans have natural cultural allies everywhere
I appreciate the concrete examples. Quickly having a look at them, it seems like the most recent conflict (involving Abkhazia and Georgia, starting 2008) was, in fact, immediately preceded by Georgia applying for NATO-membership, and NATO creating a plan for how they would become members, according to wikipedia.
It looks like the Chhechnyan, Dagestan, Moldovan, and Tajikistan conflicts all happened 1990-2000, which makes them slightly less relevant for predicting what might’ve happened today. (Though I could have missed some more recent events.) I couldn’t find info on Alania.
There are a lot of human values. It would be a profound and worthy achievement to understand the many civilizations of world history, in terms of which kind of values were foremost in their various sensibilities, successes and failures. Figuring out the ideal mix is even relevant to Less Wrong’s big picture—isn’t that what AGI alignment is about?
I don’t think anything I said is in contradiction with your assertion that the American civilization elevates certain values that have widespread appeal. My main point is that it is a missionary civilization which believes in actively spreading its favored values and social institutions, to all humanity if possible, and which uses all the Machiavellian tools of statecraft to do so.
If we compare America with China, then yes there is a huge difference, China seems to be happy enforcing its values within its historical territory, without much desire to expand. (I think so; maybe I missed something.)
If we compare America with Russia (and former Soviet Union), in my opinion Soviet Union / Russia is even more missionary… only less successful at doing so, but certainly not because of lack of trying.
Just look at the cold war in Europe. How often did Soviet Union intervene militarily in its vasal countries, just because they tried some outrageous idea such as “socialism with human face”? (Ironically, if you were a member of Warsaw Pact, you were more likely to be invaded by the Warsaw Pact than by NATO.) On the other hand, if a country in Western Europe tried something like “capitalism with universal health insurance”, America was cool about it.
So seems to me that although both countries are quite missionary, Russia is much more of a micromanager, and probably that is why it gets more resistance. If you are generally allied with America, then America is usually happy about it. If you are allied with Russia, once in a while you will still have Russian tanks rolling on your streets to remind you that you got some detail wrong. So it is quite difficult to be friends with Russia, even if you try.
In a different context, sure, let’s talk about how USA sucks. But in a context of Russia, such comparisons are absurd, because whatever bad thing USA has, Russia has as least twice as much of it. (Even the slavery? Ha! There were ethnic groups in Soviet Union who would have loved to get an opportunity to be merely enslaved.)
I am not so sure whether it makes sense to put Russia and the SU in the same category when it comes to being missionary. The ideology of the SU was basically universal—an ideal end state would have been the conversion of every country in the world to communism. For Russia I don’t see that. Getting the former parts of the Russian empire back, yes, maybe being the leading slavonic country (especially an important motivation until 1917). But would Russia care how, e.g., Spain was governed? I don’t think so (SU or USA would care).
Ok, this makes sense. After the fall of Soviet Union, Russia got defensive rather than missionary. Still “the best defense is a good offense”, but the ambitions to conquer other countries are now proportional to their geographical distance.
I think that is an important distinction you are making. Russia’s (and Putin’s) motivations for aggression seem to be primarily defensive, made from a position of weakness, of vulnerability (which can make them extremely dangerous). That wasn’t the case with the SU.
I can’t see how this is argument in good faith. Your choice of using Russia instead of USSR feels intentionally misleading.
Was Russia not the dominant force within USSR, the “unbreakable union of free republics, forever united by Great Russia”?
(Yes, I know that Stalin was not ethnicaly Russian. Anything else?)
Russia was the dominant force in the USSR. It is perfectly reasonable to treat the USSR as red paint over a Russian Empire, especially considering the geopolitical framework from which I wrote the original post.
Have you heard about Communist Party?