Amercia as an Isolationist - what would result

[purplehaze]

I am curious what you all think would be the result if America adopted a drastically more isolationist policy. Militarily only, not isolationist economic policy. Clearly we would have more funds to spend on domestic issues, but what effects do you think would occur on a global level? Would N. Korea invade the south? China takes Taiwan? Middle eastern countries form against Israel? Those are a few of the more obvious ones I can think of, but I am interested what the rest of you think. Would America be better off long term, would the rest of the world?

Please do not turn this into an Iraq debate, im sure it would be effected but i'm more interested in the global effects.

[Logjam]

Quote by: purplehaze Would N. Korea invade the south? China takes Taiwan? Middle eastern countries form against Israel? Would America be better off long term, would the rest of the world?

Don't forget South Korea has the nuke. So do Taiwan and Israel. If either were attacked they'd use the nuke. 'They'd have to.

If Taiwan used the nuke so would China and they'd have an exchange of nuclear weapons. The results would damage Japan as well.

Israel has the nuke too. So it'd use theirs on Palestine and maybe Iran and Iraq; maybe Saudi Arabia. Believe me Israel is not going to stand back and allow itself to be invaded and annihalated; it will strike back with a vengance.

If Russia came in on the side of Iran (which she is wont to do), then Israel would have to hit her too. While Russia would survive, she'd be hurt and she just might chuck a missile or two over here, hopefully we'd have SDI to knock them down.

So, if the US stood aside I suspect that there'd be many nuclear outbreaks. What the left refuses to admit is that American has been a means to peace since WWII. Without American peace keeping influence there'd be hell to pay.

[bishop]

i haven't seen any evidence that s. korea actually has nukes, but they had been uranium enrichment since the early 80's (long before n. korea began its own enrichment program).

anyways... at what point should we hypothesize how things would be if we were isolationist? if we stayed out of ww2, for example you could say that europe would've been speaking german and asia would be speaking japanese.

perhaps the soviet union would still exist and be stronger than it once was..

perhaps we wouldn't be a superpower..

etc.. it all depends on when you want to start the analysis. determining if we would've been better-off is equally difficult. being isolationist would possibly cause us to be a weaker nation compared to preexisting powers. weaker nations are typically effected by the policies of stronger nations. in that light, we would not be better off.. then, there's also that timeless truth that what goes up, must come down - no global power has ever maintained that power forever. the greatest of societies rise and fall, and new ones rise in their place.


now, that said, i do think there are ways that we can maintain our power, although the way that we project that power would be considerably different than how we do it today. right now, especially thanks to bush, we are trying to rule the world like a bully rules a playground. you catch more flies with honey...

[purplehaze]

anyways... at what point should we hypothesize how things would be if we were isolationist? if we stayed out of ww2, for example you could say that europe would've been speaking german and asia would be speaking japanese.

I meant if, today, we started drastically changing our foreign policy to become military isolationists. For instance removing all overseas bases and severly cutting back on military spending/development. How would you think such a policy would change the global balance of power etc.

[bishop]

all of our foreign policy is intertwined with militarism.. be it our diplomacy, economic policy, it doesn't make a difference (the military is used to protect these imperial interests).

to take the extreme example, if we were to pull out of everything, there would be a big power vaccuum that opportunists could be expected to fill... middle eastern countries could war with israel.. china would likely take taiwan, maybe japan? terrorists would be free to wreak havok inside their own countries instead of ours.

perhaps global opinion will turn in our favor, but i'm not so sure that we will be better off for it. our international, military, presence does aid in global stability, but when we abuse that power to increase our dominion it, it backfires on us.

[SteveA]

I guess you can't deny troops being deployed defensively someplace where people needed and wanted them but consider as well that conventional warfare is becoming rather obsolete. Also, these have costs that slow our economic growth.

Long term things take a more economic and technological perspective. Someone standing around guarding something on the other side of the world doesn't in itself do much of anything beneficial.

The only real benefit that I see to having troops stationed abroad is simply in the event of a major strike on the U.S., so that not all the military was crippled and some response would be possible.

Wars aren't generally productive because they tend to destroy the people at war. Peaceful mergers of power, though potentially a problem are just as likely, if not more likely, to occur through having a large nation politically and militarily involved in much of the world. What power is granted to defend, can also be used to initiate aggressions, so I see decentralization in political power as stabilizing. We're already heading that way in the world in many ways. We've grown from something like 70 independent nations in the world after WW II to around 200 now, that's not a bad idea from my perspective and global trade makes this more possible as well, as people can be politically independent while still maintaining much of the benefits of a global economy.

Anyway, I don't know how all that pertains to exactly what would change without the U.S. spread around but honestly, I have a feeling most people wouldn't notice much of any difference and if nations are able to remain independent, that's a better scenario than having a global police force running the show and anyway. Having forces abroad just give people a target to blame when political problems occur (whether it's true or not) and conventional forces are costly and don't give any long term benefit. Best to own up to this fact, and get back to figuring out how we're going to be prosperous in the future. Other countries who want a military for defense can pay for it themselves and if later they truly do want help, at least our assistance would be appreciated in that event. (No, I don't trust the good intentions of everything our military does but I have no idea to what extent the use of the military is abused)

[bishop]

to a certain degree, the maintenance of foreign military bases promotes stability - letting economic growth continue.. as this growth continues, we grow more dependent on each other, and our economic interests become intertwined - and the feasability of war consequentially declines.

also, conventional warfare is hardly becoming obsolete.. yes, you can fight a war without having any "boots on the ground" - but can you win it? we could've bombed the hell out of iraq, but we would never have removed saddam from power had we not had ground troops there to occupy territory..

we could bomb the hell out of china, but without people to occupy territory, the communists would continue to hold power. clearly, our presence in east asia, for example, isn't intended to serve as an occupying force. but, the forces are large enough in number for us to make china (or north korea) think twice about an aggressive foreign policy.


i would be much more inclined to support a policy that promotes our true ideals through non-violent means - while keeping our troops in place for defensive reasons of last resort.

We've grown from something like 70 independent nations in the world after WW II to around 200 now, that's not a bad idea from my perspective and global trade makes this more possible as well, as people can be politically independent while still maintaining much of the benefits of a global economy.

many of these nations became nations after the fall of the ussr.. and with that fall, a vaccuum ensued, and there were all sorts of war where there weren't any before.

[SteveA]

also, conventional warfare is hardly becoming obsolete.. yes, you can fight a war without having any "boots on the ground" - but can you win it? we could've bombed the hell out of iraq, but we would never have removed saddam from power had we not had ground troops there to occupy territory..

If we'd only been interested in removing Saddam from power, we could have don't that without the need for a lot of troops. If the guy had been a brutal dictator and we wanted to take him out of power and discourage a few cohorts from returning to similar actions, it seems we could have done that without the need for a major war. We'd have had greater popular support as well.

I don't like to generalize things too much but if I'm going to stand by a libertarian perspective here, it's best to simply target the people doing these atrocities and there are more covert ways of pressuring for changes like that than occupying the country.

And what have all the "boots on the ground" really gained us?

I know what you're saying, nukes don't target individuals and radiation doesn't only affect criminals. Troops are for controlling people and "pursuation", but I tend to believe such military occupation is more costly than it's worth. If we're truly interested in freeing people from oppression, it doesn't take a standing army somewhere to do it and if it does require a standing army, then something is wrong.

Besides, when there's something that really needs people on the ground to accomplish and can't be done in a more covert fashion, consider how many people were willing to head to Afghanistan voluntarily after 9/11 and having permanent bases abroad gives people targets. Though the response might have taken longer to train people but that's offset by the gains of not needing to constantly support a larger military population.

Other nations can supply the boots themselves if they feel the need. If it's simply removing a few people from power, we can do that in other ways with the greater benefit of having popular support to assist things if we aren't the "occupying force". It might be better if other nations didn't view the U.S. as the self-proclaimed "world police". Ultimately we can't do much of anything "on the ground" elsewhere if there's not much popular support for it.

[bishop]

an argument put forth by many of the military establishment is that one of the biggest failures in iraq was that we didn't have enough people there to stabilize the country after we took baghdad. while i'm neither agreeing or disagreeing with that theory, there is a possibility that if we had sufficient manpower and a post-invasion plan, that the situation could have materialized much differently than it has.

also, my comments about boots on the ground were meant to be taken in this context - having troops positioned in strategic locations serves as a deterrant. i never said anything about iraq in my previous posts, so i think you took my comments out of context.

[RickSp]

I object to the label "isolationist". From the earliest days of our Republic, Americans have been deeply involved with trade and commerce all over the world. Nothing "isolated" about Americans. What is described as "isolationist" is closer to "non-imperialist".

If the US pulled troops out of bases around the world all that would happen is that the taxpayers would stop subsidizing the defense of countries like Germany and Japan who are perfectly capable of defending themselves. South Korea can defend itself without us and Taiwan is rich enough to buy whatever arms it needs on its own. China needs Taiwan and Taiwan needs China. Not having a bumbling super-power in the mix might facilitate the eventual rapprochement that must happen one day.

The "evil-empire" collapsed inward from its own weight - defeated as much by its inability to provide its own people with basic goods than by the threat of the US. In the middle east, Israel might be better served by facing the possibility of actually seeking a resolution with the Palestinians without having a rich uncle to fall back on.

Jefferson got it right in his second inaugural : "Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none."

[SteveA]

Quote by: bishop also, my comments about boots on the ground were meant to be taken in this context - having troops positioned in strategic locations serves as a deterrant. i never said anything about iraq in my previous posts, so i think you took my comments out of context.

Yes, I put it into the Iraq context as well to try to demonstrate that we really don't have many good examples of what benefits we get from militarily occupying some place, or attempting to. Especially not in recent history.

I would agree with you that deterrance is the primary function of the military and it's difficult to say what has or hasn't been deterred by the presence of our military. Just something to consider.

When was the last time our military did something of obvious benefit, and are the costs in economic terms as well as foreign relations "worth it"? Also, though deterance is the intent, consider that the military sometimes incites as well.

We need national defense but what's the best and most efficient way of doing it? I don't know, but it's something people might want to take a closer look at.

[purplehaze]

I think keeping troops abroad for a defensive purpose is necessary, but not in all the places we currently have them. I think the world is developing more and more into a global economy as time goes on. Each country depends on others to remain prosperous. One of the main reasons for declaring large scale war in the past was to secure more territory and resources in order to expand your economy. I think most reasonable leaders now realize that expansion will not improve their country due to the world trade market.

This is reason enough for most countries to work together and stay peaceful, without the need for troops as a deterrant. However some dictators care very little about the well being and prosperity of their country and people. You can't scare them by saying if you act aggressively your economy and country will suffer. This is when troops are needed to ensure they will not invade. If the US were to remove all of its overseas bases, it would be a lot harder to deploy troops to strategic areas in the time of crisis. Therefore the threat of American retaliation in the event of a large country invading its neighbor would be a baseless threat.

I really think the global economy is going to cause most major conflicts to cease in the future. The more we become dependant on eachother the less reason there will be to fight. However until the dictatorships and militarily run nations get phased out (which I think will take many years using economic pressure alone) troops will be needed as an effective deterrent. If they were not there I don't see many other deterrents in place to keep dictators from acting as they please.

[bishop]

there are so many different ways to look at this..

if you looked at regions where we have no military presence, that the region has suffered more from war than in places where we do have a presence.

oppositely, we tend to position large numbers of troops in regions that are important to us. not so many big bases in africa, but plenty of them in east asia.


broadly speaking, however, we should use our military only when necessary. i'm also tempted to suggest that we use the military to keep the peace when other countries initiate aggression. not exactly a novel idea, but it would be drastically different than our current military policy. we should also seek to do more to bring sides together rather than picking one side against another. that's extremely counterproductive.

[YumTum]

There should a overall over the UN, and the US join, and stop being a renegade state.
Large amounts of countries see the attitude of the US military as 'our way or the high way'.

Their actions are encouraging instablity in the world, and isn't solving any particular problems at them moment.
Finish business in areas where war has been started, and actually learn from your mistakes.

[purplehaze]

there are so many different ways to look at this.. if you looked at regions where we have no military presence, that the region has suffered more from war than in places where we do have a presence. oppositely, we tend to position large numbers of troops in regions that are important to us. not so many big bases in africa, but plenty of them in east asia. broadly speaking, however, we should use our military only when necessary. i'm also tempted to suggest that we use the military to keep the peace when other countries initiate aggression. not exactly a novel idea, but it would be drastically different than our current military policy. we should also seek to do more to bring sides together rather than picking one side against another. that's extremely counterproductive.

I agree the areas we have military bases currently don't make much sense. Although in all fairness our presence in eastern Europe is being scaled back dramaticly. Many airbases are being shut down and troops moved to other areas. Serbo croation and other slovik languages are not taught in nearly the numbers they were in past years at the deffense language institute. So the military is changing as the global threats do, just not as fast as would be Ideal.

The "evil-empire" collapsed inward from its own weight - defeated as much by its inability to provide its own people with basic goods than by the threat of the US. In the middle east, Israel might be better served by facing the possibility of actually seeking a resolution with the Palestinians without having a rich uncle to fall back on.

They collapsed because they were trying to keep up with the United States in an arms race. They spent so much on their military to keep pace with us that they were unable to provide services to their people. The notion that we had little to do with their collapse is way off in my opinion. If our military posed no threat to theirs they could have spent billions of dollars more wisely. Instead they built nukes, tanks, and planes. Many of which were never used for any real purpose, and have since been sold off to other countries. This is a prime example of how the threat of military action, and troops so close to the threat, is an effective diplomatic policy.

[RVonse]

Quote by: Logjam Don't forget South Korea has the nuke. So do Taiwan and Israel. If either were attacked they'd use the nuke. 'They'd have to. If Taiwan used the nuke so would China and they'd have an exchange of nuclear weapons. The results would damage Japan as well. Israel has the nuke too. So it'd use theirs on Palestine and maybe Iran and Iraq; maybe Saudi Arabia. Believe me Israel is not going to stand back and allow itself to be invaded and annihalated; it will strike back with a vengance. If Russia came in on the side of Iran (which she is wont to do), then Israel would have to hit her too. While Russia would survive, she'd be hurt and she just might chuck a missile or two over here, hopefully we'd have SDI to knock them down. So, if the US stood aside I suspect that there'd be many nuclear outbreaks. What the left refuses to admit is that American has been a means to peace since WWII. Without American peace keeping influence there'd be hell to pay.

So a lot of countries have nukes.....big deal. What makes you think there would be nuclear outbreaks??? I don't think they would do it at all. We went 40+ years with the USSR and never used them once because it is MAD (mutual assured destruction) to do so. Having a nuke weapon is mostly for status, no one in their right mind is going to use it against a nuclear armed opponent.

What the right refuses to admit is that the U.S. can't afford to babysit the whole world any longer. We don't have the wealth for it and they don't want our services anyway.

[SteveA]

Quote by: purplehaze They collapsed because they were trying to keep up with the United States in an arms race. They spent so much on their military to keep pace with us that they were unable to provide services to their people. The notion that we had little to do with their collapse is way off in my opinion. If our military posed no threat to theirs they could have spent billions of dollars more wisely. Instead they built nukes, tanks, and planes. Many of which were never used for any real purpose, and have since been sold off to other countries. This is a prime example of how the threat of military action, and troops so close to the threat, is an effective diplomatic policy.

I'm having a hard time seeing where the good is in this. Two nations spending a ton of money on resources that aren't used to created things like untraced nukes roaming the world, a bankrupt nation, and a half bankrupt one ... maybe I'm missing something. If a large part of the military buildup in the U.S.S.R. was due to a U.S. buildup, then it was needless on both sides.

I know this is a bit utopian of a statement but consider that if U.S. citizens instead rejected a bloated government here, what are the odds they'd peacefully accept a communist one? I'm not even certain to what extent threats from the U.S.S.R. were propaganda anyway and how many nukes are needed to deter things and how do we even know the nukes we've built aren't drifting around the world either. That's cynical but there's a problem to a large centralized and secretive military defense ... most people have absolutely no control over any of it and we've got to rely on the good intentions of a few people.

[purplehaze]

I'm having a hard time seeing where the good is in this. Two nations spending a ton of money on resources that aren't used to created things like untraced nukes roaming the world, a bankrupt nation, and a half bankrupt one ... maybe I'm missing something. If a large part of the military buildup in the U.S.S.R. was due to a U.S. buildup, then it was needless on both sides.

The point of it all was that the USSR could not achieve its goal for fear of US military intervention. If the US did not control western germany do you think the soviets would have been content to stop there? Maybe I am not being critical enough on the way it played out, but from all I can tell we were the only thing that stopped the soviets from expanding. You may be underestimating the effectiveness of the threat of US military actions against would be dictators persuing their goals of expansion and the eradication of those they hate.

I agree that we spend too much on trying to maintain order in the rest of the world. It is a huge burdon on our economy to keep troops overseas. However I think it has economical benefits as well. In regions of order there is prosperity. South Korea has such greater industrial output and economy than the North. When we keep order in an area and help a people, we are also benefiting ourselves. It creates new trade opportunities and new jobs/goods on the world market. It is in our interest to care about other nations in the world and make an effort to help them now. The UN should be doing this much more proactivley. I think we need to take a more active role in Africa and some of the other troubled nations of the world. It would help in improving our image with the rest of the world and re-establish the fact that we have good intentions.

[Livemike]

Quote by: bishop all of our foreign policy is intertwined with militarism.. be it our diplomacy, economic policy, it doesn't make a difference (the military is used to protect these imperial interests). to take the extreme example, if we were to pull out of everything, there would be a big power vaccuum that opportunists could be expected to fill... middle eastern countries could war with israel.. china would likely take taiwan, maybe japan? terrorists would be free to wreak havok inside their own countries instead of ours.

Well attacking Isreal hasn't helped any of the arab countries so far. As for
invading Taiwan it's a big loser for China even assuming that Taiwan doesn't
arm itself well enough to win. The Chinese would have to construct a huge navy
and air force whose goal would be to wreck havoc on one of their biggest and most
profitable trading partners. Given the worries the government has about stability
even with good economic growth this is unlikely. As for terrorists, they're most
motivated by Western intervention in their countries. Without that they have no
recruiting speil.

Quote by: bishop perhaps global opinion will turn in our favor, but i'm not so sure that we will be better off for it. our international, military, presence does aid in global stability, but when we abuse that power to increase our dominion it, it backfires on us.

[Livemike]

Quote by: purplehaze The point of it all was that the USSR could not achieve its goal for fear of US military intervention. If the US did not control western germany do you think the soviets would have been content to stop there? Maybe I am not being critical enough on the way it played out, but from all I can tell we were the only thing that stopped the soviets from expanding. You may be underestimating the effectiveness of the threat of US military actions against would be dictators persuing their goals of expansion and the eradication of those they hate. I agree that we spend too much on trying to maintain order in the rest of the world. It is a huge burdon on our economy to keep troops overseas. However I think it has economical benefits as well. In regions of order there is prosperity. South Korea has such greater industrial output and economy than the North. When we keep order in an area and help a people, we are also benefiting ourselves. It creates new trade opportunities and new jobs/goods on the world market. It is in our interest to care about other nations in the world and make an effort to help them now. The UN should be doing this much more proactivley. I think we need to take a more active role in Africa and some of the other troubled nations of the world. It would help in improving our image with the rest of the world and re-establish the fact that we have good intentions.

The soviet union could barely feed it's own people. The idea that they were going
to invade Europe is rediculous. When they Yanks were busy in Vietnam (sending
over half a million troops and practically all their helicopters there) did they invade?
No. Would they have invaded if Europe had to pay for it's own defence? No. In fact
the defence would probably be better if the Germans and French had to pay for it.