U.S. Isolation: Good or Bad?

DracoSuave

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Connosaurus Rex said:
Amnestic said:
snip yet again
<l<l rewind. What are we exactly argueing now. The fact of US troops in Europe protecting EUROPE( not necessarily Britain) or the fact the USA is in NATO
The reason US troops are in Europe is because it's an safe allied staging ground for operations in the middle east, and because it allows US to maintain a military presence against Russia, with whom relations are still... strained, if not hostile.

Similiar reasons put a reason for US troops in Korea and Japan as a US interest.

Regardless, US has yet to actively run into another NATO country and leap to their defense.

However, the converse is a different story. NATO is what required Canada to enter Afganistan once it was determined that the organization responsible for 9/11 was staged there. US was attacked, NATO countries must respond in defense. That's what the NAT in NATO means.

Do not be fooled by patriotic nonsense. US has it's own interests in mind, which is why they are in NATO. Or more accurately, why NATO is a multi-national arm of US interest that dates from the cold war.
 

SilentHunter7

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The U.S. can never isolate itself from the rest of the world. Too many countries turn the the United States to adjudicate in disagreements, and to provide aid when it is needed.

For the most part, our presence in so many countries around the world is the reason the United States can do all that is asked of it. Just look at the Somali Oil Tanker raid that took place this spring. How would we have gotten a cruiser on station within 2 days if it wasn't already in the area? Look at the 2007 Tsunami. The U.S. would never have been able to airlift as many supplies into the region as it did without bases in the area to refuel the cargo planes.

Like it or not, the United States isn't going anywhere, until someone else can step into their shoes, and even then, the only real two candidates for that are China and Russia, and neither of those two countries are particularly desirable to be a global super power.

Though I won't disagree with the request for the U.S. to hesitate to use its military might more. At least wait until we get decent intelligence, and when we do step in, make sure to not abandon the people we aid so they won't be shooting at us 10 years down the road.
 

demoman_chaos

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The US needs to stop invading other countries so we can get our mega-corporation's a foothold and start systematically draining them for every penny and resource they have (see Iraq and Afgahnistan).
If we would bring our troops back and call it a night, I'd be happy. The U.S. seriously has military bases in most every country, but there is no foreign base in ours.

And for those that don't know, we do NOT have a democracy over here. A communist country is lead by a ruling party, the U.S. is lead by 2 ruling parties. A real democracy is lead by the people and its representatives. The U.S. representatives are hand-picked not by the people but the corporate asses who bring in the guy who promises to let them do as they please.
So we have a corporate run government with a dual-communist face and a banker puppet master.
 

demoman_chaos

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raider89 said:
Im gunna go ahead and say you really have no idea what your talking about.
We are run by Republicans and Democrats only (the House has 1 or two independents, that's it for ALL of the Federal Government). 2 parties that rule everything in the name of whoever promises the most votes. So saying we aren't communist or have a government for the people is like saying George W. was an excellent president.

The U.S invades countries to impose ourselves onto it. Iraq had a decent thing going with Saddam. They were self-sufficient and weren't blowing themselves up. We came along (2 times) and screwed that whole deal up. Now they have our style of government, our brands, and military bases. How do they reward our efforts of imposing our "freedom" on them?
 

demoman_chaos

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raider89 said:
"Iraq had a decent thing with Sadam."

Thank you so much for proving my point for me.
With Saddam, were they murdering themselves like they are now?
And dictators are not all bad, Hitler took Germany from bankrupt and eyebrow deep in debt to owning almost all of Europe in under a decade. Sure he had a few bad habits (like Jew-necide), but I don't think Obama could have matched that with 50 years and the modern U.S. army.
 

RUINER ACTUAL

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YES!

close the borders. fuck everyone elses problems. we have our own shit to deal with.

were like the guy in high school that tries to be nice to the girls in hopes they will like us, but it never works, and they find a small reason or error to hate us.

so when we help countries in natural disasters, they and the int'l community forget about it once we invade someone on the same latitude.
 

LogicNProportion

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We need to keep to ourselves for a bit, foux on our own problem, and show the world what happens when we're out of the picture for a bit. It's like my Civics and Economics teacher always said:

"If we're involved, they hate us. If we're not, they hate us."
 

DanDeFool

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Amnestic said:
Best thing you could do is stop spending 0.7-1.1 trillion dollars a year on defense and military costs. Seriously. That's just farkin' stupid.
Don't knock military spending too hard. Military spending is the biggest investment our country makes into research and development of new technologies. Microprocessors, sattelite communications, GPS, the Internet; these were all developed on military dollars.

However, it would be nice if our country spent less money on waging war against people who like to blow themselves up, if that's what you meant.

OT: I definitely think the US should stop throwing its military weight around (we can't afford it; too busy keeping all of our major financial compaines from going belly-up). Granted, I don't think any of our country's major problems can be resolved just by throwing money at them, but we could at least stand to pay our teachers a bit better. We could also stand to spend some money on nuclear power; try to reduce that whole global warming thing.

Personally, I'm a bit more isolationist than most of the posts I've read so far. I think the U.S. sending aid to other countries (Africa, etc.) can be positive in the short term, but is ultimately counterproductive. Reliance on U.S. aid (which isn't really intended to be anything more than a stopgap measure) may keep these countries from becoming truly independent. Also, dictators and warlords often take control of the aid, and use this to increase their leverage over the people they oppress. These problems are further exacerbated by the U.S.'s tendency to kill off any foreign leaders who do not support us and back ruthless warlords and dictators.

If the U.S. had spent all the money it has spent on the Iraq war on renewable and/or nuclear energy developments, we would have our energy independence. I think we can all agree this 'world police' act is crap.
 

Simalacrum

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Apr 17, 2008
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No of course it bloody well isn't a good thing.

This is a globalised world. If nations don't co-operate with one another then we can't get anything done. Fair enough, going to war every half a decade or so is pretty bad, but then again, what about foreign aid? what about trade? what about global co-operation to solve the worlds problems? etc etc.

America plays a major role in todays global politics, and it needs to stay there.
 

Nova5

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Beowulf DW said:
According to a recent Pew Research Center survey, covered in a recent article of the Centre Daily Times, 49% of Americans (the highest percentage in decades) now believe that the U.S. should "mind its own business."

Do you think this is a good thing or a bad thing? Would the U.S. and the World be better off if we just keep to ourselves for a little while?
I think you've gotten "minding our business" and "isolation" confused. Look up Chinese isolationism on Google. That's not even remotely what the survey was about.

And yes, we should mind our own business for a while - in terms of not randomly invading other countries while our economy has just nigh-on tanked.
 

BonsaiK

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Beowulf DW said:
According to a recent Pew Research Center survey, covered in a recent article of the Centre Daily Times, 49% of Americans (the highest percentage in decades) now believe that the U.S. should "mind its own business."

Do you think this is a good thing or a bad thing? Would the U.S. and the World be better off if we just keep to ourselves for a little while?
This thread belongs in "religion and politics".

The US has always had great problems enacting its foreign policy. If you measure the power of a country in terms of "how effectively can a country achieve a certain result that it sets out to achieve" the US is one of the least powerful countries in the world. There is a definite parallel happening right now between the situation the US was in at the end of the Bush era, and the last days of the Roman Empire. Hopefully Obama can turn things around a bit but frankly his task has been made nearly impossible by the previous administration's actions - if he makes any meaningful headway at all I'll be very impressed.
 

Nickolai77

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BonsaiK said:
This thread belongs in "religion and politics".
Yeah, perhaps a mod should move this thread?

The US has always had great problems enacting its foreign policy. If you measure the power of a country in terms of "how effectively can a country achieve a certain result that it sets out to achieve" the US is one of the least powerful countries in the world. There is a definite parallel happening right now between the situation the US was in at the end of the Bush era, and the last days of the Roman Empire. Hopefully Obama can turn things around a bit but frankly his task has been made nearly impossible by the previous administration's actions - if he makes any meaningful headway at all I'll be very impressed.
How long you stay as a super-power depends on the Chinese as much as Americas own domestic actions. Economically, Americas about as good as it always had done. (Ok, economic recession, but everyone will recover from that, however, someone with more knowledge of American economics can feel free to correct me) It's just that the Chinese economy is growing quicker than the America one, and soon they will overtake you. This however probably won't stop Americas captability to be a military super-power, altough should the Chinese wish it they could out-spend you on their military, and overtake you on military power as well. So, my predictions are that the mid-21st century will be rather...turbulent. With America and China facing each other off, i would expect Europe to further intergrate, in perticualar intergrating our own armies, for the purposes of self defense.

GrandAm said:
If we instantly stopped and pulled everything to our shores and our shores alone, we will be eventually asked by others to help, negotiate, etc. There are many things that happened over the last 100 years that the USA was asked to particpate in by other countries. Not just wars, but also trade and aid. That we are asked to pay the lion share of.

Other nations can't have it both ways. I am not saying we never did wrong or chose to ignore a better option. That has happened. But the others can't sit and condemn us and at the same time demand that interference in the name of help for them in that moment they ask for it.

When the tsunami that hit the southwest pacific rim a few years ago happened, we sent war ships. Was it to conquer, no. Those warships had hospitals, food, water purifiers, doctors, civil engineers to help those countries devestated. Did the countries that continue to criticise the warships in the gulf and what has been our policy there (right or wrong) say good job for helping those in need? Maybe. But all I ever hear in America from foreign nations is we suck (last decade). I haven't heard anything from the countries that just criticise the USA acknowledging we also do good. Not that we haven't earned criticism, but just hold we do nothing wrong or selfish. Even when we did right (that they won't acknowledge), they did nothing or very little.
Yes, if America withdrew from world affairs that would be a bad thing, i think even the American haters accept that. However, perhaps if America showed some more restraint when it comes to "hard power", you would avoid some critisism. (I also acknowledge that the recent two wars were Bush's fault, and not a general fault of America)

Secondly, don't expect praise for doing good actions in the world like the tsunami incident, or indeed WW2 and Marshall aid. Other navies where when that tsunami struck, including the Royal Navy, but i have never heard any Britons clamoring for praise for our role in the incident. Likewise Europeans don't go around looking for recognition that we provide the majority of the worlds aid money. Britains (And i'm only using the Uk as an exhample because i know British history fairly well) don't go around wanting acclaim for stopping German imperalism in WW1, and saving the continent from Napoleon. Nor do we regret not being recognised for keeping the worlds oceons safe, free, and navigatable between 1815 and 1914. Further more, were not too fussed about the black Africans and SE Asians not thanking us for our extensive anti-slavery operations in the 19th century which virtually shut down the international slave trade. The fact is, countries have their heads to far up their own asses to give a damn about any other country that may be helping them.

Also, a "good" action should not be done with the intention of expecting praise for it later on. A "good" action should be done regardless if one will be praised for, critised, or not acknowledged at all.

America should not stop doing what is "good" simpily because it is not being praised for its actions.
 

Cargando

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robman1130 said:
Cargando said:
Bad idea, bad idea. If America was a smaller country, it would be fine, but you can't be world's only superpower and isolate yourself completely. You can see what happened last time with WWII - Pearl Harbour. Although, to be fair, at the time America was halfway between Isolationism and Interventionism.
only superpower? what? china fall of the face of the earth again?
Allow me to elaborate. America is the world's only superpower [i/]so far[/i]. China is not quite there yet, but it is rapidly gaining power. One can only reinforce the basement and wonder how America will react to it.
 

brenatevi

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Doug said:
brenatevi said:
Doug said:
True. I mean, America seems to help out alot in Africa, but screws over the middle East and central Asia countries. Unless they are run by friendly mass murdering dictators. To be fair, you're country's foreign policy seems bipolar.
Sorry for the double post, but the US forgot its medicine for the last 50 years. :p

On the serious side, Middle East and Asia... Huh, could it have to do with oil? Oil means money, and I'm the first to admit that Americans get funky in the head when lots and lots of money is involved.
Well, true about the Middle East, but Asia? Not so much.
Oh?

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cabs/Indonesia/Oil.html

According to Oil & Gas Journal (OGJ), Indonesia had 4.3 billion barrels of proven oil reserves as of January 2007. Oil production in Indonesia has decreased steadily during the last decade, owing to disappointing exploration efforts and declining production at Indonesia?s large, mature oil fields.
It's not as much as it used to be, but Indonesia is still pumping out oil. China is also pumping out oil, although I will agree that our problems with China is a different beast altogether.
 

mindclockwork

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it definedly would be for the best of others that u.s. would stop acting like freaking wanna be "world police".
 

Wintermoot

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orangebandguy said:
henritje said:
orangebandguy said:
What? As in separating yourselves from the UN?

I don't want what happened in Fallout to become a reality. It's how it all starts.

But in all seriousness I think you need be restrained a little bit with all those nukes and everything, I may have deviated entirely from what you meant but your post isn't very clear.
nope Fallout started with oil and coal reserves running drie
Well it came into it somewhere, the newspaper cuttings are the only evidence there is though.
Making everything pre-war very ambiguous.
its explained in the intro of FO1 or FO2 the UN disbantmant was a result of that
 

Danny Ocean

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Connosaurus Rex said:
Amnestic said:
You wanna now how many troops from Europe are in USA
0
How many troops from USA in Europe
a lot (idk the exact)
First off, I can categorically say that that is not true. As part of the RAF, I know that there are allied troops on American soil, we all share our bases. Some are off limits, sure, but a large minority have foreign men there. If we're training or advising some of your troops, is it not fair to conclude that we have some of ours there?

so my point is(was)that the Europeans should start actually protecting themselves instead of acting like they can't do anything. We shouldn't have to pay for your protection out their in Europe when you don't do anything for US.
1. Protect us from what? Terrorists? If I recall correctly, the UK is the only country to defeat a force of guerilla fighters, which are as close to terrorists as you're going to get.
2. We don't do anything for you? I think you need to go read some books to understand the global economy better. Trust me, if Europe went poof, the rest of the world would go down the can just as fast as if any other superpower went poof.


Right, well, I think it can be broadly summed up as this:

U.S. Economic Isolation= Very, very bad.
U.S. Military Isolation= Good-ish.

However: military isolation does still mean helping your allies if they ask you or are struck by some major disaster. It doesn't mean starting wars all the damn time.

Instead of bashing the U.N. and policing the world yourself, why not try and fix it? For God sake, how about you put some of your Trillion-dollar military spending towards helping reform it, or re-build Africa? I mean Christ, your military budget is greater than most of the rest of the world's combined. Do you really need that?

Yes, a lot of technology has come out of military spending, but then why not make dedicated research units with those money rather than relying on conflict for advancement?

I think that Europe, at least, has come to the realisation that armies are for defence and aid, not attack. Has America got there yet?
 

Doug

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brenatevi said:
Doug said:
brenatevi said:
Doug said:
True. I mean, America seems to help out alot in Africa, but screws over the middle East and central Asia countries. Unless they are run by friendly mass murdering dictators. To be fair, you're country's foreign policy seems bipolar.
Sorry for the double post, but the US forgot its medicine for the last 50 years. :p

On the serious side, Middle East and Asia... Huh, could it have to do with oil? Oil means money, and I'm the first to admit that Americans get funky in the head when lots and lots of money is involved.
Well, true about the Middle East, but Asia? Not so much.
Oh?

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cabs/Indonesia/Oil.html

According to Oil & Gas Journal (OGJ), Indonesia had 4.3 billion barrels of proven oil reserves as of January 2007. Oil production in Indonesia has decreased steadily during the last decade, owing to disappointing exploration efforts and declining production at Indonesia?s large, mature oil fields.
It's not as much as it used to be, but Indonesia is still pumping out oil. China is also pumping out oil, although I will agree that our problems with China is a different beast altogether.
Indonesia is a chain of pacific islands. Not central Asia, like I said :p ;)

As for China, that's a case of 1 superpower watching an emerging one.