this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2026
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Hey socialists, if socialism is so great, why can't socialist countries defend themselves from external threats?
Edit: lmao, i thought this was a shitpost
Edit2: oh wait still is, this guy said north korea is unquestionably socialist.
Thank you for your insightful question!
By "external threats", you realize you're referring to THE global superpower, right? As in, the country which spends THREE TIMES MORE money on war than any other? The country which has been pushing terrorism and regime change against socialist and communist countries for decades?
It's a bit like saying, "Hey, if you spend so much time and energy on self improvement, how come you can't defend yourself against a team of highly trained professional assassins?"
There's also the fact that the priorities of socialist nations are more towards improving the lives of the people who live there, rather than the ability for those people to wage war. Why do you think the US has no universal healthcare? I'll tell you - because their priorities are not making the lives of US citizens better. Their priority is making socialist lives worse.
With all that said, Fidel Castro survived at least 634 assassination attempts, and despite all of the terrorist attacks from the US, quality of life in Cuba has increased dramatically - current events imposed on it by the US embargo not withstanding - did you know that Cuba has cures for lung cancer and Alzheimers that are not available under capitalism?
Finally, to answer your question directly - they actually can. For all of their faults, both China (if you want to consider it socialist) and North Korea (which is unquestionably socialist) are defending themselves quite adequately. I'm not a tankie, and I don't have much good to say about authoritarian leftist states, but that's just the reality of the situation.
North Korea has a centrally planned economy, which is one of the many ways of implementing socialism. The distribution of resources, the means of production, etc. are all controlled by the state. That is absolutely one possible approach to socialism. In my opinion, it's the worst approach, but that is simply the reality of the situation. Would you seriously argue that North Korea is capitalist?
The entire argument falls apart simply because if socialism was correct then it would have enough resources to beat the capitalists.
End of the day your arguing resource generation and expenditure. Socialism sucks absolute fucking ass at resource generation. Like absurdly. It's one of the worse there is.
It's why socialist countries still need capitalism to generate the resources they excel at managing. A management focused system can't beat a generation focused one.
It's why anyone arguing for a pure system of any type. Capitalism, socialism, Communism, etc. Are fucking removed and not worth engaging with.
The only ideal system would be one that can get out of its own ass enough to blend multiable different systems in a positive fashion. But humans suck too much to manage that.
Socialism is not magic. How would Cuba, a tiny island nation with a population of around 11 million people, ever be able to generate the resources required to stand against the United States, a vast continent-spanning behemoth with a population of 350 million, in a conflict?
Besides which, why should maximum resource extraction be the goal, rather than optimizing for the happiness and wellbeing of the people who live there?
Under capitalism, you get maximum fossil fuel extraction, but is that really a good thing?