So the reality of a trump presidency is setting in and I’m starting to think of the historical transitions of “world powers”. As a hegemon, the US emerged as a world power as a victor in WW1, WW2, and the cold war, all of which were violent conflicts. Now, the US falters as China emerges as their respective philosophies on government play out.
Is there any way the US passes the baton to China in a peaceful manner?
What does that mean for us in the near future?
How’s your Saturday night?
Maybe the best example would be the collapse of the USSR, where massive pieces of state-owned infrastructure were privatized and sold for scrap to unscrupulous opportunists who were able to capitalize at the moment of crisis, while the majority of the population suffered a loss of retirements and the extenuating circumstances of a collapsing state (death, poverty, food insecurity, addiction, homelessness, etc). Yes I’m replying to my own post
Overall, it’s astonishing how little militarized violence occurred at the end of the Eastern Bloc. Nearly all of the violence (aside from shelling the government building to prevent the people from trying to go back to communism) was caused by austerity (not that this was a small amount of violence by any means, given that at least six million people died from it).
The Revolutions of 1848 would fit the bill if not for the violent counterrevolutions that occurred in 1849.
Well,barring Yugoslavia
I thought about that, but I think that that’s in a different category than the USSR’s dissolution.
Yeah definitely Yugoslavia was in the Balkens not Eastern Europe, and non aligned movement not Warsaw Pact. It’s more like if China broke apart and there was a restoration of “liberal democracy” and oligarchs etc, then Vietnam broke out in a Civil War due to US meddling economically, politically and covertly.
And all of the other wars.
And Romania
In Romania, while direct political violence did happen, it was hardly a blip as far as violent revolutions go.
And the Chechen war
And the civil war in Tajikistan. And wars in Transnistria, Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorno-Karabakh. And the war in Donbass and so on.
both of them
Fair point
It was a coup d’etat,not a true revolution
So much for the power-hungry militaristic communists and the unwavering state structure huh?
The Gang of Eight called their coup against Gorbachev off after three civilians died. Three! Three million civilian deaths wouldn’t even make the average American politician flinch.
There was war in Moldavia and between Armenia and Azerbaijan. So not entirely peaceful.
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