Why does America care so much about certain random countries in politically unstable areas?

Meaning Israel, Taiwan, South Korea, etc. What’s in it for the Americans?

Why not forsake Israel for the sake of Arab-American relations, Taiwan for improved relations with China, ignore South Korea and let the North do as they please, etc.?

Disclaimer: I’m not trolling. I’m just ignorant of these matters and don’t understand what the US stake is in these situations.

There are plenty of reasons. Here are two:

  1. None of those nations will just go quietly into the night. Even without the U.S., they have enough defensive capabilities to lead to a major regional war, or even to something worse if they find other allies to replace the U.S. These wars will inevitably lead to millions of innocent deaths, on all sides, and worse, will be very bad for America’s business interests.

  2. International relations are not all that different from interpersonal relations. If the U.S. gets a reputation of abandoning its friends, then other nations will hesitate to ally with it, and some might ditch it for more reliable patrons. IMHO, despite what some people think, the U.S. still needs allies.

Heh, Israel is no random country. They have a lot of influence over here too, in case you haven’t noticed.

I Think the question he was asking was, why do they have so much influence over here.

I will leave it to others to open up that can of worms.

So far as Korea and Taiwan go, I think the answer is that America’s ongoing interest is part of the hangover from the Cold War. They were on the front lines of the defense against Communism, and once you get as deeply entangled with a country as America did with them, it becomes hard to disentangle yourself (look at what is happening in Afghanistan and Iraq even now). Part of this is that the American public and media gets used to thinking of them as “our friends,” even though their strategic importance to American interests is nothing like as great as it once was.

As for Israel, the best answer I ever saw was in a Thomas Friedman book. He pointed out that quite simply when the time to choose sides in that area came, 1940’s and 50’s, there were a lot of Jewish voters in the United States and very few Palestinian and/or Muslim voters. His point being that while Jews were a ethnic and religious minority, they outnumbered descendants and immigrants of other ethnic or religious backgrounds from that part of the world. There was no political pressure internal to the US to take a more nuanced and balanced approach.

Certainly there are other historical, political, and what have you factors at play, but it is undeniable that if the demographics of the United States in the post-war years were the same as they are now, then policy would have been different. How different is a matter for rampant speculation.

I think that there may be a GQ answer to this question before we degenerate and get shuffled off to Great Debates.

The named countries have at various times been part of documented State Department strategies for containment -

Israel & Iran : were non-Arab “cops on the beat” containing Arabian regimes.

South Korea, Taiwan & Vietnam : containing Chinese communism

There are lots of other factors - once you ally with someone you have all sorts of ongoing effects related to losing face, internal politics and commerce that can act as forcing functions to keep the relationship going - but the foreign policy doctrines are as close to an “official” answer as you’re likely to find.

To avoid debate, I’ll just say that containment is given by the government as a reason, and I know that doesn’t make it the actual explanation. Actual explanations are a debate topic though.

Uhmm… money?

You’re looking at it as too simple. One could look at WWI and say “Why did Russia back a small country like Serbia?” “Why did Great Britian care if Germany stepped all over a two-bit country like Belgium?” or “Why did Germany give free reign to Austria-Hungary, a weak country about to fall apart at the seams?”

Why do we back Israel? Well Israel is stable, this is very important. We need a friend, that has the proven track record, even if we don’t always agree.

The big myth is Arabs all hate Israel. This is so only on a most superficial level. Just look at tiny Israel and the rest of the Arab world. The Arabs could easily shed themselves of Israel if they wanted to. But the thing is they don’t. Oh sure they pay lip service, and while it’s true the Arab countries don’t like Israel, they don’t like each other much better. For instance Jordan hates Syria just as much as Israel. Probably more when you take into considertion economics and security. Jordan, while it pays lip service to hating Israel, likes Israel and has no interest in seeing Israels “pushed into the sea.” As long as Israel is there, Syria is going to be far to busy with Israel to give Jordan a second thought. And if they do, Jordan can rest assured, Israel isn’t going to let Syria invade Jordan, (well not invade to far in) before helping it.

China doesn’t like Taiwan but it’s really a matter of pride rather than anything else. China doesn’t care what Taiwan does, as long as it doesn’t declare independence. The fear is that would set a precident. Taiwan is like a mole to China. Suppose you had a mole on your face for 30 years. Yeah you’d like it removed but it’s not worth the money and it doesn’t hurt so why bother.

Lastly you have to look at the cost. Suppose the US were to abandon Israel. Is that going to make anything better in the Mideast? Do you think the Palestians will say “Yeah we won, now we’ll all be happy and live in peace.” No the Jews would leave, the land would return to the unproductive state and that would be that. The Palestinians have the backing of some of the wealthiest states in the world. A sharp leader, with the Gulf States backing could easily turn Gaza into something economically viable. The example of a desert turning into an economically thriving area, with the help of billions, is all too common.

I would say that, from a very simple point of view, it is because those countries are ideologically aligned with us and we feel as though if we help them, then we are helping to advance our ideological beliefs and causes. And since we ‘believe’ in the ideology, then we also believe that advancing it is a good thing.

In the '20s and '30s many Americans had a great emotional investment in China. They backed the Nationalists of Chiang Kai Shek with materiel and money and in the '40s there were many recriminations about how US policy had supposedly ‘lost’ China to the Communists. Taiwan was the last rump of the Nationalist regime and there were many in US politics who were ready to defend this rump to the last.
post-1945 South Korea was very much a US creation for which much blood in the Korean War had been sacrificed to keep it from going Communist. After the war it became a showcase example of how US aid could transform a smashed peasant economy into a First World industrial power with living standards as good as any in the West. Comparison is invited with North Korea, a hereditary Communist dictatorship that is wretchedly poor and unable even to feed itself. Why would State Department policy complaisantly see this creation threatened by another civil war in the Korean peninsular?

Israel is more difficult to explain, but Taiwan and South Korea are pretty obvious. South Korea is the 11th largest economy in the world, and Taiwain is the 18th. They are also both major trading partners of the U.S. at 7th and 10th respectively. Those figures are low as many SK and Taiwainese companies export products from China. In short, if we let NK screw up SK, or China to somehow annex Taiwan the US economy would suffer noticeably.

Each of these countries is in a different situation and presents a different claim for U.S. support.

We have a real interest in supporting South Korea. It’s an important ally and trading partner, and its rival, North Korea, is a highly bellicose and strongly anti-American state. A North Korean invasion of South Korea would be a disaster for American interests.

We essentially have forsaken Taiwan, or at least realigned our position to suit our interests. We have not recognized the Republic of China (the Taiwan government) since 1979. We currently take a position of strategic ambiguity, in which we refuse to say whether or not we would support Taiwan militarily in the event of a Chinese invasion. This supports our interests in that we do not want war, and our position makes Taiwan less likely to declare its independence, and China less likely to invade.

It’s frequently claimed that Israel provides strategic advantages or that it has a moral claim to American support. Whatever the validity of those claims, they are insufficient to account for the American support of Israel and the enormous related strategic costs. That derives from domestic political considerations: Israel has powerful supporters in the U.S., and its enemies essentially have none.

Power projection. In order to have power in an area we need to have a secure based there. A friendly Israel allows us to project power throughout the mid-east. Our bases in Korea, Japan and the Philippines allow us to project power, should the need arise, all over Asia. Look at a map of Iran and you will notice that Iraq is on one side and Afghanistan is on the other, both places where we now have a strong military presence. Hmmmm, what were we thinking when we invaded those places?

Or, my pet theory, the US military leaders want bases all over the world so they can have great places to vacation. Visit Hawaii sometime to see this in action.

Israel is a Western style liberal democracy, the other M.E. states aren’t.

Jews haven’t hijacked Western Airliners, machine gunned airline queues in Western countries, or people claiming to support the Israeli cause haven’t murdered people competing in the Qlympic games held in a Western country, kidnapped Western citizens or committed massive terrorist atrocities in Western countries.
Israel hasn’t broken the invioable staus of an embassty by invading it and holding the diplomats prisoner for a very long time.
Nor has Israel had a diplomat using the invioable status of its embassy in a western country to open fire on and kill a L.E.O. in the country where its embassy is located.

The female L.E.O. ironically being thereto protect the embassy from demonstrators.
Nor has Israel supplied arms,money and training to domestic terrorists in western countries.

Israel hasn’t attempted total oil embargoes on Western countries as a means of blackmail.

They also haven’t attacked the Western way of life, intimated that they will either convert the whole world to being Jews or failing that kill the dissenters.

They also don’t base their economy on on growing opium and exporting it to the West.

So thats why the U.S. gives support to them.

I.M.O.

I would suggest that you read up on the history of Israel, the Korean War and the Cold War in general.

The short answer, Israel was created in the aftermath of World War II and the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews (they also holocausted other people like gays, gypsys and so on).
Our interest in Korea and to a lesser extent Taiwan is a direct result of the Cold War and our policy of containment against the Communists. There was a thing called the Domino Theory that believed if one country fell to communism, it’s neighbors would soon follow. It led to a lot of involvment in Asia and South America.
The reason we care so much about “random” countries is because history has shown that events transpiring thousands of miles of way can sometimes find their way to our shores, even when we are isolationist. Pearl Harbor and 9/11 being two classic examples.

Never discount the preservation of national prestige. America has its hands in many different pots around the world. Most aren’t thrilled with that, and many fear us, but it is what it is. Disengaging from a particular nation or area is a long process because it has to be done in a way that is seen as deliberate and strategic. If we’re just running away any time the pressure gets turned up, it invites challenges.

Think of how painful it was to our national psyche to lose Vietnam. Not just because we lost, but because we had made a long, bloody, expensive commitment to a people (who in many cases proved undeserving of our sacrifices, but that’s for another thread) that we ultimately couldn’t uphold, and they suffered for it.

The US did not back Israel with actual support from the beginning. In fact, under the Eisenhower administration, France and not the US was Israel’s major “backer”. The US took a deliberately even-handed role, and in fact directly opposed Israeli interests vs. Egypt - think for example of the role of the US in the '56 war (where Israel, England and France colluded in ganging up on Egypt - until the US, essentially, put a stop to it).

The drift of US towards Israel was a product, first and foremost, of the Cold War - in particular, a reaction to Soviet influence in the region with Egypt and Syria. The Egypt-Israel peace deal saw both countries rewarded by heaps of US aid, as the US effectively replaced the Soviets as the big influence in the region (Sadat had earlier broken with the Soviets).

In summary, the ‘domestic lobby’ explaination does not fit the facts.

Acrually, Israel was established in the aftermath of the Dreyfus Affair.

It takes a while to establish a country. You can’t just do it in three years.

Well technically Israel was established after the events in Exodus.:wink:

Sorry - it’s just a pet peeve of mine. Saying Israel was founded as a result of the Holocaust is basically the same as saying that the U.S. was founded as a result of the Seven Year War. Sure, you could say that, in general terms, it was a perhaps a catalyst for the nation’s establishment on the date it was established, but it isn’t the whole story.