this post was submitted on 27 May 2024
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I was talking about Europe in case you missed it.
Half your examples are older than 30 years old. The other half are literally fighting Al Qaeda and ISIS, on behalf and request of the local governments and population. In fact, in many west african countries, the West was "kicked out" and now Russia is literally doing the same(or promised to). Is Russia going after jihadists in Africa imperialism?
Regarding the Red Sea, Is your argument that the West should allow people/nations/groups to attack commercial vessels? Is that morally ok with you? Is trying to stop them, imperialism? Should the West start hitting iranian vessels? Iran absolutely needs ships to be safe to travel in order to sell their oil. In fact, the Houthis hit a ship that was going to Iran.
https://www.reuters.com/world/ambrey-says-bulker-was-targeted-by-missiles-bab-al-mandab-2024-02-12/
Even China has publicly opposed this shit.
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/china-calls-red-sea-attacks-civilian-ships-end-2024-05-28/
You need to understand what ppp is. And you need to break down the cost to see what each country is paying for. France and Germany have limited but highly paid military personnel. Countries like China have an huge military+paramilitary, that work for low wages while they are spending a lot of money on new equipment(at higher ppp, thus cheaper per identical thing).
Remember when Trump was complaining about Nato allies not spending 2% of their gdp on defense? Literally every country in Europe has almost doubled their defense spending after the invasion of Ukraine. Why is that?
Russia is spending 7.1% of their gdp on defense, 35% of total government spending. Are they doing it because they are imperialistic or because they are afraid the West will invade them? And if you say "obviously they are doing it in self defense", let me remind you that
They started it by invading a sovereign country.
They have nukes, noone is invading them.