Yes, we can do that.
You know both of those (mainly European) wars happened when the US was neutral and isolationist…right? But thanks for the drive by links to WWI and WWII…it’s the kind of in-depth response I’ve come to cherish from you in these threads. 
why does there have to be class? Why there has to be and will be a leader, and will be economic classes is simple; human nature. Many a time man has tried to change, and failed pretty badly.
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Not sure your source but from NATO’s website for 2015 ( pdf file) the following countries are at or above the minimum target of 2% - Estonia, Greece, Poland, UK and US. That’s four non-US members. Not surprisingly the two most recent additions to the list border Russia.
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Sorry, I meant major NATO military’s, though I concede that Poland is probably one of the more powerful ones and I didn’t include them and probably should have. My over all point was that the majority of NATO allies, including some that SHOULD be in the ‘major’ category are not meeting their treaty obligations, which puts even more pressure on the US to fill in the gaps…and that by doing this the Europeans are ceding more and more control to the US, which isn’t and hasn’t been a good thing. I wonder how they would feel if, gods forbid the Trumpster pulls off an unforeseen victory and beats Clinton to become president. :eek:
Businesses see opportunity the world over, and the US’s moneyed interests won’t just leave cash on the table like that. Who cares if a bunch of poor kids die? That’s the price you pay for increasing profits.
We play World Police not because we want to “make travel and commerce safe” but because there is money to be made by interfering overseas. Maybe the US government will overextend itself like it did in Iraq, but plenty of money was made by the people and businesses who donate to politicians’ campaigns. Nobody actually cares about the US deficit or debt. The only thing they care about is their own bottom line, and from that perspective if they cheer on wars while the money rolls in, and then they try to cut taxes when the debt inevitably rises, that’s not hypocrisy at all, just predictably looking out for the bottom line.
We shouldn’t be isolationist but we also should not use military aggression to remake the world in our favor. Communism is dead, and with hindsight, it wasn’t so bad either, it was simply those in charge. The mistakes we made in the past had to do with opposing some exaggerated power because it both enriched our military industrial complex and curried undeserved patriotism. Imagine if we never gone into Nicaragua, Cuba, Vietnam, Afghanistan, or took sides in Iran/Iraq. I’m not claiming the outcomes would be better, but it wouldn’t make us look like some crazy drunk uncle at Thanksgiving ranting about “the reds”.
In the future, I hope America maintains a supporting role in the world stage. Sure, help out the likes of South Korea, Israel, Europe, Southeast Asia, Japan, or Africa when they ask for aid. But leave Syria alone, just let the dominos fall where they may. Leave most of the ME alone. Don’t try to influence Iran’s politics, too many blunders there and they deserve to enrich themselves with their oil. If Russia decides to take over some small neighboring states, lodge a protest but realize its not our war.
The first step in such a plan to have the U.S. cede the central role on the world stage isn’t to cut military spending or renounce free trade deals.
It’s to get the American people not to care all that much about anything happening outside our borders. As it stands now, if there’s a terrorist attack in Paris, most Americans freak out. If there’s Tibetans oppressed in China, some Americans freak out. If Russians invade a tiny neighbor, other Americans freak out. If Iran says something awful about Israel, lots of Americans freak out.
If the idea is for the U.S. to disengage from terrorism, human rights, European security, and discord in the Middle East, then Americans need to stop caring about these things. The leaders will follow.
I think it might make sense to sketch out a more coherent policy for the US to follow. DIfferent Presidents have established different doctrines that have tended to rule US foreign policy as it applies to those doctrines, but there’s no coherent whole. We know that we don’t tolerate interference in the Americans(Monroe), we seek to halt the spread of dangerous ideologies by aiding governments resisting them(Truman), we will not tolerate a cutoff of our energy supplies(Carter), and nations who support terrorism that strikes the US are considered to have done the act themselves (GWB). Plus freedom of the seas has been an American doctrine since Washington, and an issue we’ve been willing to go to war over even in our isolationist days.
But our views on issues like human rights, wars that affect our interests but don’t directly threaten us, the spread of nuclear weapons, we’re still play it by ear on those sorts of things. I know we don’t like to tie our leaders’ hands, but it actually seems that firm, well thought out doctrines work better for us in most cases than Presidents just winging it. YOu have to establish rules before you can figure out when it’s best to break them.
It would be good to have at least some basic guidelines and requirements. We always hear about how the US military budget is too big…but what does that even mean? The current global requirements seem to indicate it’s actually underfunded, and the requirements seem to shift based on what folks are freaking out about this week, as Ravenman noted. Should the US get involved in the South China Sea? Or should we allow China to essentially take control of a region where several trillion dollars a year transits, as well as an unknown amount of other natural resources resides? And what happens when/if the other powers in the region don’t want to let China have their way? Do we just kick back and hope for the best? It’s telling when even Vietnam, a long time US belligerent is imploring us to engage more in the region and is asking us to lift the remaining sanctions to allow them to purchase US weapons systems and perhaps begin discussions about an alliance. And this is just one of the many hot spot issues currently happening, and just one of the ones stemming from China and their obvious expansionist view in the region.
What should our response be to such things? Should we ally with regional powers looking for our protection and assistance against large, powerful and expansionist regional powers such as China or Russia? Or should we cede control in those regions and basically allow the smaller powers to be brushed aside or bullied by those powerful neighbors? Where do we draw the line on what we should care about and what we should just allow to happen? Should we only worry about it if our direct interests are involved and make that the basis by which we do or don’t do something? Do we extend that to our allies, or basically cut them off and let them fend for themselves unless it directly impacts us? Or perhaps only if they are committed to some minimal level of support and spending to hold up their end of things? I really don’t know, to be honest. But before we decide to cede leadership to countries like China or Russia (neither of which actually is in a position to take that leadership, both of which have myriad internal issues and walls they are hitting right now, and neither of which would actually BE good leaders) and retreat we should probably think that through…do we really want to retreat from the world and allow them to sort things out themselves, or do we at least want to guide the trajectory somewhat of how these and other regional hot spots play out? We should figure THAT out and then, based on what we figure out we will have a rational basis for what we need and what it will cost…and we can stop the endless yammering about things like the military budget (Too much! No, not enough! No, just right!).
One of the things I think we miss when discussing military policy is that no matter how much we spend on the military in peacetime, it’s a tiny fraction of what we’d spend in an all out war, and that goes for our adversaries too. I’d argue that spending 5% of GDP on defense doesn’t make us much more ready to fight Russia or China than spending 3% does. Once war starts, we jack that shit up to 30% or more, make citizens spend all their money on bonds(consumer goods will be scarce anyway), and put our economy on a war footing. THe US has gone from spending virtually nothing to running a successful huge war twice(although in WW2 we got a few years of rearmament before Pearl Harbor).
So IMO, the military budget is always underfunded compared to what we need to win a war, but we wouldn’t want to spend that much anyway. I think the peacetime goal would simply be to have a strong enough military to resist any sudden aggression by an enemy power until our vast war economy kicks in and swamps them. Seems to me that 3% probably gets us that.
Huh? Communism wrecked economies and nations. Would could possibly lead someone to think that Communism wasn’t so bad? Can you name one country that improved over time under Communism?
As to the OP, I think the US should stay heavily involved in the world affairs although we should continue to learn from our mistakes. I don’t think it’s a complete coincidence that since the US became a world leader we’ve had the most peaceful period in human history.
Which parts of our military are insufficiently strong?
Strong for what? What’s the mission? What are the requirements? Depending on how you answer those questions is going to guide the answer to the question you asked.
I have no idea. The claim was the military needs strengthening. So, what needs strengthening? I suppose I assumed the why was part an parcel of the stated question
But, it’s not inevitable. There have been many periods in world history when there was no leading power, but rather a multipolar world.
What does class have to do with this?
Other than to imply that there has always been a world-leader as well.
There hasn’t.
I blame the leaders, not the ideology. The ideology is something that leaders use to control its people. We’ve had terrible democracies but that doesn’t smear all democracies. There have been good and bad monarchs. Communism, owing to how new it is, hasn’t had much of a chance to develop into a better version of itself though I’d argue that the last few decades in China have been mostly benign and beneficial.
What we shouldn’t have done is fought Communism on all fronts. Fight the major battles, but there was no reason to isolate Cuba or protest Afghanistan. Cuba’s pretty much thrived with its current system and being able to trade with many other nations other than the US, and Afghanistan would be arguably better had it been a Soviet vassal state instead of a US-created mujahideen playground.
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Communism, owing to how new it is, hasn’t had much of a chance to develop into a better version of itself though I’d argue that the last few decades in China have been mostly benign and beneficial.
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:eek: Seriously? You think that the CCP has been ‘mostly benign and beneficial’, even if we exclude the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution and only focus on the ‘last few decades’?? Holy crap!
Yes, like World War I and World War II.
That’s really the crux of the issue. The US GDP is a little less than twice the Chinese GDP nominally(18 trillion vs 11 trillion), and roughly equal when adjusted for purchasing power parity.
We’re playing a big role on the world stage, whether we like it or not. That saying about how when Wall Street sneezes, the rest of the world gets a cold is only partially in jest- US choices on seemingly mundane things often affect far more than just domestic issues, or trade with one foreign nation.
And I’m not convinced that having a bigger population has much to do with international influence or power; if anything, having a huge population like India or China is as much or more of a huge millstone around the nation’s neck, as a valuable resource. They have to figure out how to employ and feed a billion people, while still managing to create wealth and rise from poverty. The US, by contrast, has a much lower percentage of truly poor people, which means a whole lot fewer people overall, and has more money.