> Do you know how Russia got so large? They started out small.

Do you know how literally any country got the size it is today? They started out small. Some of them are still small today, but they might be larger tomorrow. Some of them will be smaller tomorrow. This is how the world has function and continues to function. Not sure how this could be surprising to anyone out there, even less how you think someone wouldn't understand this very basic fact about countries.

WTF???

If you are trying to make a counterpoint, try again, hopefully with an actual argument.

And maybe, maybe, you take into account that the size of Russia and its expansionism are on a whole other level and still ongoing, and that other countries are not like that at all, not even remotely.

How is that different from how US acted after 1776? Or China during Qin dynasty?

Yes, today Russia is trying to expand, which they've done before, like most countries in the world. Not sure what makes them special in that regard.

Did any country start out large? Since your main point seems to have been that Russia started out small, in contrast to some other country you're trying to reference that apparently started out large, but I'm not sure which one you're trying to reference here.

> Yes, today Russia is trying to expand, which they've done before, like most countries in the world. Not sure what makes them special in that regard

Sure. Correct. Wishing for the failure of the Pax Americana is cheering on the return of wars of conquest. First and foremost by the great powers.

Russia isn't special. It was–like every other ordinary country–previously restrained. Dissolving the rules that restrained it also dissolves the rules that restrained every other current and aspiring global or regional power.

> Sure. Correct. Wishing for the failure of the Pax Americana is cheering on the return of wars of conquest. First and foremost by the great powers.

So because someone doesn't want the US as a world police, means they want some other country as world police? Can't people just wish/want no one to be world police?

I never understood the lack of nuance in American politics and in lots of conversations with Americans. Just because you don't like A, doesn't mean you suddenly love B, no matter how much you see them as direct antonyms or whatever, what's up with trying to argue in this way? What conversation and discussions are improved by this sort of behavior? What is your goal with doing that, some sort of gotcha?

> Can't people just wish/want no one to be world police?

Yes. This is what happens. Which means various powers fight to establish spheres of influence, regionally and globally.

> Just because you don't like A, doesn't mean you suddenly love B

No. You can hate both. But sometimes, rejecting A implicitly means causing B. In this case, rejecting a world police means–ceteris paribus–incentivizing realpolitik.

(It doesn't mean the only options are America as world cop or anarchy. But rejecting the former without anything to fall back on is embracing the latter.)

> What is your goal with doing that, some sort of gotcha?

Describing reality around power vacuums. Releasing Pax Americana creates a power vacuum everywhere at the same time. (It also releases America from its rules-based obligations, though these pretty much became guidelines after each of the Iraq War, annexation of Crimea and China being China in Tibet and the South China Sea.)

> No. You can hate both. But sometimes, rejecting A implicitly means causing B. In this case, rejecting a world police means–ceteris paribus–incentivizing realpolitik.

Yeah, I think this is the core of our disagreement. Maybe my view of the world isn't US-centric enough, but I don't believe rejecting the US's Pax Americana somehow means I'm implicitly causing China or Russia to suddenly want their own version of Pax Americana played out. But I do know this is a really common view in the US, so I won't really attempt to convince you otherwise, I think it's at this point we just agree to disagree.