The account below the asterisks gives an excellent account of why the Gulf War was such a disaster for the US. This one decision, made by the Bush I administration (and which I supported) directly led to 911, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and ISIS. One decision gave an unending series of cluster fucks that continue to this day.

Nobody could have predicted the shit storm we were unleashing by deciding to get involved in the Gulf. And this is precisely the problem, you cannot know the results of what you do when you intervene. So the question becomes should we ever intervene? It seems to me that the logical answer to this question is, well what has been the record of past interventions? For example, how much good has been achieved by interventions of the past 50 years? How much bad? Does the good outweigh the bad? This thread is for this discussion.

Consider this: if the answer is no, then we should never intervene, in which case we do not need the ability to intervene. When you think that were spend 3.5% of GDP on national defense compared to about 1.0% for the other three big nations in the Western hemisphere (who generally do not engage in interventions) it looks like we would rack up about $4 trillion in savings over ten years by “just saying no” to interventions. That $4 trillion would buy a lot of infrastructure, creating 20-40 million jobs over the decade. That’s quite a reward for ceasing to do stupid things that we later regret.

******************************************
Osama bin Laden used his vast inheritance go fight the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s. There he met other Arab fighters, self-described jihadists, with whom he formed al-Qaeda in 1988. The Saudi government, which along with the US backed the Afghan jihad as official policy, supported bin Laden. He came home in 1990 a national hero.

That same year, bin Laden personally met with Prince Sultan, the national defense minister, to ask permission to lead his jihadist fighters against Saddam Hussein's armies in neighboring Kuwait. When Sultan refused, bin Laden turned against the monarchy, publicly condemning it and questioning its legitimacy.¹ In 1992, Saudi Arabia revoked his citizenship and expelled him to Sudan. In 1996, under US pressure, Sudan expelled him to Afghanistan.

By 1996, bin Laden had come to blame his problems, and the problems of the Muslim world, on the United States, which he saw as a heretical imperial power little different from the Soviet Union. Salvation could only come through defeat of nonbelievers, which to him included the American-allied Saudi royals, and the establishment of a vast pan-Islamic empire.[ref]

¹After Iraq invades Kuwait (see November 8, 1990), bin Laden, newly returned to Saudi Arabia, offers the Saudi government the use of his thousands of veteran fighters from the Afghan war to defend the country in case Iraq attacks it. The Saudi government turns him down, allowing 300,000 US soldiers on Saudi soil instead. Bin Laden is incensed, and immediately goes from ally to enemy of the Saudis. (ref)

Mike, the biggest problem with analyzing the messes we've created is that lack of solid counter examples. Take Iraq and the Gulf War. What alternative would have unfolded if we had not intervened? We can speculate, but we can't know. That's the worst part of international affairs: we can't control and often can't even influence players outside our borders. So we model the problem and pick results we think are viable, but we're typically wrong. Models are simplistic versions of reality, but reality is complex, messy and often contradictory.

I suspect our chances are equally bad (or good) no matter what choice we make ... some cases to the contrary, of course. Meddling always generates blowback, but not meddling encourages recklessness. We intervened in the Middle East and got a rolling disaster (we should add Afghanistan to the list, since we meddled in the Russian war there by sponsoring Osama bin Laden). Now, we have the Chinese slowly absorbing one of the great trade routes as part of its territorial waters. Do we act ... not act ... wait ... hurry?

I doubt we can do more than guess at the results of any of those choices. This is the ideal time for a doctrinaire response, but BHO is not in any position to state and enforce an Obama Doctrine. I'm not sure any of the replacements could do so either. Worse, the Trump Doctrine sounds like a strategy in Bridge.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Mike, the biggest problem with analyzing the messes we've created is that lack of solid counter examples. Take Iraq and the Gulf War. What alternative would have unfolded if we had not intervened? We can speculate, but we can't know. That's the worst part of international affairs: we can't control and often can't even influence players outside our borders. So we model the problem and pick results we think are viable, but we're typically wrong. Models are simplistic versions of reality, but reality is complex, messy and often contradictory.

I suspect our chances are equally bad (or good) no matter what choice we make ... some cases to the contrary, of course. Meddling always generates blowback, but not meddling encourages recklessness. We intervened in the Middle East and got a rolling disaster (we should add Afghanistan to the list, since we meddled in the Russian war there by sponsoring Osama bin Laden). Now, we have the Chinese slowly absorbing one of the great trade routes as part of its territorial waters. Do we act ... not act ... wait ... hurry?

I doubt we can do more than guess at the results of any of those choices. This is the ideal time for a doctrinaire response, but BHO is not in any position to state and enforce an Obama Doctrine. I'm not sure any of the replacements could do so either. Worse, the Trump Doctrine sounds like a strategy in Bridge.

It is true that once an action is chosen, we can only speculate on what would have occurred had a different action been taken. The best we can do , before an action is taken, is to review history for possible insights. It appeared to me that the attempted occupation of Afghanistan was a mistake and the invasion of Iraq was a bigger mistake.

We need an historian in the President's cabinet.

I'm more in the camp of both M&L and Radind - thinking that attributing historical trends/directions to single events is limited but that it is still useful to keep the history of critical events in mind as one soldiers on (all puns intended).

As you noted, OBL first came on the scene in Afghanistan as a product of Charlie Wilson's War which was aimed at bloodening the Soviets like we were bloodied in Vietnam - all ties back to WW2 and WW1 and colonialism.

Who's that tall skinny bearded dude to Charlies's left?

He was also motivated by seeing both the Israelis bomb the Beirut Towers -




- and Ron Ray-gun turning tail after the Marine Barracks bombing. Those can be tied back to the formation of Israel, WW2 and colonialism.

Most all of that can be tied back to Napoleon who was in turn a reaction to the French Revolution which was just a "me-too" to the American Revolution
- so it really does come back to the usual - "it's all America's fault!"

I guess we should all just curl up in a ball, suck our thumbs and let the Russians and Chinese worry about the globe?

I'm certain that would set the world onto a new trend, but would it really be a better one?

Originally Posted by playwrite

Most all of that can be tied back to Napoleon who was in turn a reaction to the French Revolution which was just a "me-too" to the American Revolution
- so it really does come back to the usual - "it's all America's fault!"

Yeah, I got the punchline that you were leading to, but I think that the French revolutionaries, while taking encouragement from America, were successful for a whole lot of reasons related to conditions within France itself. And speaking of America, I suspect that ''we'' are closer to the France of the 1780's than to the America of the 1770's. This will be a mostly internal 4T. We have to fix our on country before we can help other countries fix themselves.

Let Russia and China overreach. They both seem hellbent to do so.

Originally Posted by herbal tee

Yeah, I got the punchline that you were leading to, but I think that the French revolutionaries, while taking encouragement from America, were successful for a whole lot of reasons related to conditions within France itself. And speaking of America, I suspect that ''we'' are closer to the France of the 1780's than to the America of the 1770's. This will be a mostly internal 4T. We have to fix our on country before we can help other countries fix themselves.

Let Russia and China overreach. They both seem hellbent to do so.

But before they get to "overreach," they get to "reach."

Do we draw the line at Hawaii and give them Japan and SE Asia or do we keep those Australian guys? I mean those guys speak English but with funny accents afterall.

And should we bother with the Berlin Wall again or would that be our own "overreach?"

Originally Posted by playwrite

But before they get to "overreach," they get to "reach."

Do we draw the line at Hawaii and give them Japan and SE Asia or do we keep those Australian guys? I mean those guys speak English but with funny accents afterall.

Pure sensationalism and fear mongering. Both Australia and Japan are big boys.

And should we bother with the Berlin Wall again or would that be our own "overreach?"

United Germany is also a big boy.

Originally Posted by playwrite

But before they get to "overreach," they get to "reach."

Do we draw the line at Hawaii and give them Japan and SE Asia or do we keep those Australian guys? I mean those guys speak English but with funny accents afterall.

And should we bother with the Berlin Wall again or would that be our own "overreach?"

Hmm, I guess the "Domino Theory" of containing communism might be considered a successful intervention. We could discuss the disagreement over whether we absolutely needed to defend autocratic tyrannies like South Vietnam. Still, containing communism didn't generate the sort of wild unforeseen consequences that recent Third World interventions feature.

I'd propose one difference is that both sides in the cold war pushed for some degree of control over their puppet states. If one side or the other lost a proxy action, the other would generally be in position to move in and not do too much harm.

That might have stopped with the US stepping in to make trouble for the Soviets in Afghanistan. Giving the insurgents a leg up, forcing the Soviets out while not stepping in to establish a stable acceptable government might be seen with hindsight to be problematic. We might have been fighting our own conflict for our own reasons with absolutely no regard for the consequences to the locals.

Is it worth pushing those points with regard to recent Third World attempts at intervention?

• Arming local insurgents can come back to bite one.
• Should one fight proxy wars to block another major power if one isn't ready to follow up and stabilize the result?

I've also frequently used the phrase, 'force culture change at gunpoint.' If arming insurgents without anticipating or attempting to control the consequences can easily turn problematic, putting enough boots on the ground to change a culture into anything-but-failed-state isn't easy either.

Not an easy problem, but that's what crises are for. You have to trial and error figure out how to solve a difficult problem.

I think a core problem here is that many decades of colonial imperialism has soured much of the Third World on Western Values. To a great extent in the Middle East our underlying policy has been 'get the cheap oil and (expletive deleted) the locals. They have seen this first hand and know it full well. This being the case, they aren't apt to turn to Democracy and Human rights as a solution. As far as they are concerned, the West is the problem, not the solution. Marx's perspective has treated them no better. Thus, if they have been so consistently burned by modern values, where do they have to turn but backwards to Agricultural Age patterns? What choices have they got outside of militant Islam?

I don't know that the question is 'can intervention work'. The Cold War was very different from the recent Middle Eastern situations. What applies to one style of conflict might not be expected to work in an entirely different situation. I think it safe to say, though, that we aren't good at stabilizing Middle Eastern cultures. I wouldn't step way back and look in abstract on the question of intervention. I would look very hard at how our recent interventions have turned sour, and look even harder at the next intervention we might consider. Look at the details and specifics.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Mike, the biggest problem with analyzing the messes we've created is that lack of solid counter examples. Take Iraq and the Gulf War.

Obviously it's not possible to know the alternative had we not acted. That's not what I was asking. Presumably there were interventions done it which it is fairly generally agreed that the outcome was positive, for example WW II. I think a case for the Kosovo intervention can be made too. The question is when the positive things accomplished by one set of interventions are compared to with the bad blowback that occurred with another, different set of interventions, one may be able to draw some conclusions.
What alternative would have unfolded if we had not intervened? We can speculate, but we can't know. That's the worst part of international affairs: we can't control and often can't even influence players outside our borders. So we model the problem and pick results we think are viable, but we're typically wrong. Models are simplistic versions of reality, but reality is complex, messy and often contradictory.

I suspect our chances are equally bad (or good) no matter what choice we make ... some cases to the contrary, of course. Meddling always generates blowback, but not meddling encourages recklessness. We intervened in the Middle East and got a rolling disaster (we should add Afghanistan to the list, since we meddled in the Russian war there by sponsoring Osama bin Laden). Now, we have the Chinese slowly absorbing one of the great trade routes as part of its territorial waters. Do we act ... not act ... wait ... hurry?

I doubt we can do more than guess at the results of any of those choices. This is the ideal time for a doctrinaire response, but BHO is not in any position to state and enforce an Obama Doctrine. I'm not sure any of the replacements could do so either. Worse, the Trump Doctrine sounds like a strategy in Bridge.[/QUOTE]

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Now, we have the Chinese slowly absorbing one of the great trade routes as part of its territorial waters. I doubt we can do more than guess at the results of any of those choices. This is the ideal time for a doctrinaire response

Why? I don't see Brazil, Mexico or Canada working out doctrinaire responses. Why should we?

Originally Posted by B Butler

Hmm, I guess the "Domino Theory" of containing communism might be considered a successful intervention. We could discuss the disagreement over whether we absolutely needed to defend autocratic tyrannies like South Vietnam. Still, containing communism didn't generate the sort of wild unforeseen consequences that recent Third World interventions feature.

I'd propose one difference is that both sides in the cold war pushed for some degree of control over their puppet states. If one side or the other lost a proxy action, the other would generally be in position to move in and not do too much harm.

That might have stopped with the US stepping in to make trouble for the Soviets in Afghanistan. Giving the insurgents a leg up, forcing the Soviets out while not stepping in to establish a stable acceptable government might be seen with hindsight to be problematic. We might have been fighting our own conflict for our own reasons with absolutely no regard for the consequences to the locals.

Is it worth pushing those points with regard to recent Third World attempts at intervention?

• Arming local insurgents can come back to bite one.
• Should one fight proxy wars to block another major power if one isn't ready to follow up and stabilize the result?

I've also frequently used the phrase, 'force culture change at gunpoint.' If arming insurgents without anticipating or attempting to control the consequences can easily turn problematic, putting enough boots on the ground to change a culture into anything-but-failed-state isn't easy either.

Not an easy problem, but that's what crises are for. You have to trial and error figure out how to solve a difficult problem.

I think a core problem here is that many decades of colonial imperialism has soured much of the Third World on Western Values. To a great extent in the Middle East our underlying policy has been 'get the cheap oil and (expletive deleted) the locals. They have seen this first hand and know it full well. This being the case, they aren't apt to turn to Democracy and Human rights as a solution. As far as they are concerned, the West is the problem, not the solution. Marx's perspective has treated them no better. Thus, if they have been so consistently burned by modern values, where do they have to turn but backwards to Agricultural Age patterns? What choices have they got outside of militant Islam?

I don't know that the question is 'can intervention work'. The Cold War was very different from the recent Middle Eastern situations. What applies to one style of conflict might not be expected to work in an entirely different situation. I think it safe to say, though, that we aren't good at stabilizing Middle Eastern cultures. I wouldn't step way back and look in abstract on the question of intervention. I would look very hard at how our recent interventions have turned sour, and look even harder at the next intervention we might consider. Look at the details and specifics.

One big difference during the cold war era is the it was essentially a bipolar world. It is easier to maintain 'control' with just 2 superpowers. I recall hearing after fall of Soviet Empire that 'the world is a safer place'. Better-maybe, but not safer.

Originally Posted by playwrite

I guess we should all just curl up in a ball, suck our thumbs and let the Russians and Chinese worry about the globe?

That's the question. Since WW II we have been worrying about the globe, and have engage in numerous interventions; in Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf, Afghanistan and Iraq to name the largest. Some achieved good things (Korea). Some were neutral--although achieved at great cost (Vietnam, Afghanistan). Some achieved clearly bad results (Gulf, Iraq). We can get a crude measure the good achieved with Korea, subtract the GDP of N Korea from that of the South. We can measure the direct bad of Vietnam, and Afghanistan in terms of cost (a % of GDP) and casualties. Iraq can be measured in terms of economic costs (direct expenditures and lots GDP) and casualities and the additional deaths from the ISIS activity today.

My gut feel is it is Korea that contributes most of the positive, and that was more than sixty years ago. Since then I think the scale is heavily weighted towards the negative.

Given that, then by letting the Chinese and Russian worry about the rest of the world would let them sleep in our bed that has been none too comfortable.

I'm certain that would set the world onto a new trend, but would it really be a better one?

Why does it have to be better. Even if its just the same but WE are out of it, what is wrong with that? Or put more simply if Brazil, Canada and Mexico aren't worrying about China or Russia enough to spend 4% of their GDP on defense, then why should we?

Originally Posted by playwrite

Do we draw the line at Hawaii and give them Japan and SE Asia..

My, how Kiplingesque

Originally Posted by B Butler

Hmm, I guess the "Domino Theory" of containing communism might be considered a successful intervention.

How can it be successful? We lost. Surely you must remember Saigon 1975?

Originally Posted by Mikebert

How can it be successful? We lost. Surely you must remember Saigon 1975?

We may have lost the battle of independence for South Vietnam from communism but we eventually won the Cold War.

Originally Posted by herbal tee

Yeah, I got the punchline that you were leading to, but I think that the French revolutionaries, while taking encouragement from America, were successful for a whole lot of reasons related to conditions within France itself. And speaking of America, I suspect that ''we'' are closer to the France of the 1780's than to the America of the 1770's. This will be a mostly internal 4T. We have to fix our on country before we can help other countries fix themselves.

Let Russia and China overreach. They both seem hellbent to do so.

I don't think that we are any where close to being the France of the 1780's. Wake up dude, look around you and get a grip on reality before you and others here end up experiencing what it's like to really get hurt.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

My, how Kiplingesque

I'm certainly not a neoCon (much of which is grounded in Kiplingesque) but I am also not so naive to believe China would give up on expanding their hegemony, including by military means, in southern Asia and around the China Sea or continue to move into influence in the Middle East and Africa to the point where their desires became a lot more important to Europe than our own - the impact on our own standard of living would be substantial and long-lasting. I also don't underestimate the propensity of our nuclear arsenal in dissuading other nuclear holders from taking a nuclear shot at one of their neighbors - radioactive fallout doesn't respect national boundaries.


While we all have at least a tad of each of the four major American schools of foreign affairs, I find myself most often in Hamilton's -

The four schools Meade introduces deserve a closer look. Hamiltonians find much of America’s foreign policy rooted in that of Great Britain and see commerce as the main driver of peace, much like the original European Community. Freedom of the seas, the free flow of money, and freedom of cargo, i.e. freedom of the skies — all this is needed for the free movement of goods. Hamiltonians introduced the most important principle of US diplomatic history, namely the right to respond with force. Any interference with the freedoms enshrined in Hamiltonianism is considered the fastest way to the start of a war with the US.


Wilsonianism, in turn, insists that the United States has the moral duty to change — some would argue, interfere with — the world’s conduct. This view is based on the history of US missionary activities, which partially helped shape American foreign policy, left-wing idealism as well as the promotion of human rights. As a result, Wilsonians look for the (utopian) realization of universal brotherhood and peace by promoting democracies, which are better and more reliable partners than monarchies and tyrannies, and the prevention of war by supporting and promoting collective security schemes.

Government is a big business and a necessary evil according to Jeffersonian tradition. Because Jeffersonians believe that war is the first and greatest evil, their foreign policy posits that unavoidable American involvement in world conflicts should be handled with the least possible damage to existing democratic institutions. The military should be reduced as far as possible, with civilians in control. Furthermore, Jeffersonians despise debt in any form, as it is a danger to democracy by dividing the populace into those who pay taxes and those who collect them.

Jacksonianism, the author notes, is the most obstructionist of all four schools and the most likely to torpedo any Wilsonian initiative, being unable to accept Jeffersonian patience in reaching diplomatic goals, and having a general unwillingness to approve of Hamiltonian trade schemes. Followers of Jacksonian traditions are not so much intellectuals, but are more rooted in American folk tradition with strong moral codes of honor, including self-reliance, a healthy skepticism of authority and a quest for economic success. Furthermore, absolute equality, individualism, financial esprit, and courage (to defend honor) are important cornerstones of Jacksonianism.

[Note- those classifications are more to do with the general perceptions of the four men than perhaps their actual actions, e.g. Jefferson]

Originally Posted by Mikebert

How can it be successful? We lost. Surely you must remember Saigon 1975?

There's some evidence that our Vietnam interjection contributed to Thailand and other SE Asia states being more circumspect about moving to the more "communal model" being offered.

Myself, I think the 'no go' had more to do with experiencing the Pol Pot "Year Zero fling" as well as a couple thousand years of pretty nasty rivalries between China, Vietnam, the Khmer and well, just about everyone in southern Asia. These guys have been going after each other even longer than the Sunnis and Shia (Islam is also in play there along with every other religion).

Originally Posted by Mikebert

The account below the asterisks gives an excellent account of why the Gulf War was such a disaster for the US. This one decision, made by the Bush I administration (and which I supported) directly led to 911, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and ISIS. One decision gave an unending series of cluster fucks that continue to this day.

My answer is no.
1. The money spent can easily be spent on domestic needs. One only needs to look at Michigan for one example. It's pretty disgusting that we're allowing folks there to suffer from lead poisoning. That's so 3rd world of us. I don't mind my Federal tax money going to fix something in Michigan while I do mind it being frittered away on useless military adventures.

2. Blowback.

Originally Posted by playwrite

Need I say more? Blowback's a bitch. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is a very good definition of insanity.

3. Global Warming. OK, it's February and Mr. groundhog said early spring, but hell , we got early summer. I really think we need something on the scale of a new Manhatten program to get off the fossil fuels before we really screw up the climate even more. Wildfires suck among other things.

Originally Posted by NWS

OKC059-182315-

BULLETIN - EAS ACTIVATION REQUESTED FIRE WARNING
AT THE REQUEST OF HARPER COUNTY EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT
RELAYED BY NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE
NORMAN OK 417 PM CST THU FEB 18 2016

THE FOLLOWING MESSAGE IS BEING TRANSMITTED AT THE REQUEST OF HARPER COUNTY
EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT.

A WILDFIRE WAS BURNING OUT OF CONTROL NORTH OF BUFFALO. PERSONS FROM
NORTH SOUTH COUNTY ROAD 183 AND STATE HIGHWAY 183 AND BETWEEN EAST
WEST ROAD 6 AND EAST WEST ROAD 7 SHOULD EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY. PEOPLE
ARE ASKED TO TRAVEL SOUTH ON HIGHWAY 183 OR ANY OTHER SOUTH LEADING
ROAD TOWARD BUFFALO.

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...

PEOPLE SHOULD EVACUATE TOWARD THE SOUTH USING HIGHWAY 183 IF
POSSIBLE.

Red Flag Warning

URGENT - FIRE WEATHER MESSAGE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NORMAN OK 316 PM CST THU FEB 18 2016 ...CRITICAL FIRE WEATHER CONDITIONS CONTINUE THROUGH EARLY EVENING... OKZ004>048-050>052-TXZ083>090-190100- /O.CON.KOUN.FW.W.0006.000000T0000Z-160219T0100Z/ HARPER-WOODS-ALFALFA-GRANT-KAY-ELLIS-WOODWARD-MAJOR-GARFIELD- NOBLE-ROGER MILLS-DEWEY-CUSTER-BLAINE-KINGFISHER-LOGAN-PAYNE- BECKHAM-WASHITA-CADDO-CANADIAN-OKLAHOMA-LINCOLN-GRADY-MCCLAIN- CLEVELAND-POTTAWATOMIE-SEMINOLE-HUGHES-HARMON-GREER-KIOWA-JACKSON- TILLMAN-COMANCHE-STEPHENS-GARVIN-MURRAY-PONTOTOC-COAL-COTTON- JEFFERSON-CARTER-JOHNSTON-ATOKA-LOVE-MARSHALL-BRYAN-HARDEMAN- FOARD-WILBARGER-WICHITA-KNOX-BAYLOR-ARCHER-CLAY- 316 PM CST THU FEB 18 2016 ...RED FLAG WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 7 PM CST THIS EVENING FOR WINDY CONDITIONS... WARM TEMPERATURES AND LOW RELATIVE HUMIDITY FOR CENTRAL AND WESTERN OKLAHOMA AND WESTERN NORTH TEXAS... * TIMING...THIS AFTERNOON AND EARLY EVENING. * WIND...SOUTH TO SOUTHWEST 25 TO 35 MPH WITH GUSTS 40 TO 50 MPH. * HUMIDITY...10 TO 35 PERCENT. * TEMPERATURE...MID 70S TO UPPER 80S. * IMPACTS...ANY FIRES THAT DEVELOP WILL SPREAD RAPIDLY. OUTDOOR BURNING IS NOT RECOMMENDED. PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS... A RED FLAG WARNING MEANS THAT CRITICAL FIRE WEATHER CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED OR OCCURRING. A COMBINATION OF STRONG WINDS...LOW RELATIVE HUMIDITY...AND WARM TEMPERATURES CAN CONTRIBUTE TO EXTREME FIRE BEHAVIOR.

Nice....

Consider this: if the answer is no, then we should never intervene, in which case we do not need the ability to intervene. When you think that were spend 3.5% of GDP on national defense compared to about 1.0% for the other three big nations in the Western hemisphere (who generally do not engage in interventions) it looks like we would rack up about $4 trillion in savings over ten years by “just saying no” to interventions. That $4 trillion would buy a lot of infrastructure, creating 20-40 million jobs over the decade. That’s quite a reward for ceasing to do stupid things that we later regret.

Bingo.

******************************************
Osama bin Laden used his vast inheritance go fight the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s. There he met other Arab fighters, self-described jihadists, with whom he formed al-Qaeda in 1988.

By 1996, bin Laden had come to blame his problems, and the problems of the Muslim world, on the United States, which he saw as a heretical imperial power little different from the Soviet Union. Salvation could only come through defeat of nonbelievers, which to him included the American-allied Saudi royals, and the establishment of a vast pan-Islamic empire.[ref]

There's that and I really don't think bombing everything over there to smithereens is a smart way to win friends and influence people.

Originally Posted by playwrite

But before they get to "overreach," they get to "reach."

Do we draw the line at Hawaii and give them Japan and SE Asia or do we keep those Australian guys? I mean those guys speak English but with funny accents afterall.

And should we bother with the Berlin Wall again or would that be our own "overreach?"

A big part of our problem is that US policy has been to deliberately discourage nations like Japan, Australia, European nations from having the kind of militaries that can defend themselves with. We convinced majorities in those countries to let the US be big brother and handle their defence. A policy which reached it's flowering in the Clintonista neo-Whig Francis Fukayama "end of history" ideology of the 1990s. And now that conflicts are no longer essentially "police actions" and power is more diffuse in the world and we really need allies who can make more of a contribution than basing rights and token fig leaf support for US actions, we don't have those kind of allies. Because until recently we didn't want powerful allies and didn't believe that we needed powerful allies. And we still see that attitude in every political candidate but Trump and Sanders.

Originally Posted by Ragnarök_62

My answer is no.
1. The money spent can easily be spent on domestic needs. One only needs to look at Michigan for one example. It's pretty disgusting that we're allowing folks there to suffer from lead poisoning. That's so 3rd world of us. I don't mind my Federal tax money going to fix something in Michigan while I do mind it being frittered away on useless military adventures.

2. Blowback.



Need I say more? Blowback's a bitch. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is a very good definition of insanity.

3. Global Warming. OK, it's February and Mr. groundhog said early spring, but hell , we got early summer. I really think we need something on the scale of a new Manhatten program to get off the fossil fuels before we really screw up the climate even more. Wildfires suck among other things.



Nice....



Bingo.



There's that and I really don't think bombing everything over there to smithereens is a smart way to win friends and influence people.

And it's not just Michigan and it's not just African-Americans. We are going to need an emergency program to replace 80 million water hookups across the US, in small towns as well as major cities. It will not only take a Superfund but a lot of volunteer effort to dig up and expose those lead pipes so that plumbers can get in and replace them--probably as a volunteer effort too. And now that we know what lead poisoning does to young children, we will be paying for compensation and care for those children--and lead poisoned adults either for the rest of their lives or until treatments that can regrow damaged brains are discovered.

Originally Posted by herbal tee

Pure sensationalism and fear mongering. Both Australia and Japan are big boys.
United Germany is also a big boy.

Yup, all 3 are big boys who can procure the bomb pretty easily.

Fallout? eh, we have that now from coal.

Originally Posted by Ragnarök_62

Yup, all 3 are big boys who can procure the bomb pretty easily.

Fallout? eh, we have that now from icky stuff

And there is a huge amount of angst and moral opposition to having the bomb in all three nations. Aussies and Japanese in particular find having nuclear weapons abhorrent. It would be a sea change for them to embrace defence self-sufficiency. In the case of Germany and Japan, the US put a lot of energy into convincing people that war was inherently immoral and that they should feel eternally guilty for their participation in WWII.

Originally Posted by playwrite

There's some evidence that our Vietnam interjection contributed to Thailand and other SE Asia states being more circumspect about moving to the more "communal model" being offered.

Myself, I think the 'no go' had more to do with experiencing the Pol Pot "Year Zero fling" as well as a couple thousand years of pretty nasty rivalries between China, Vietnam, the Khmer and well, just about everyone in southern Asia. These guys have been going after each other even longer than the Sunnis and Shia (Islam is also in play there along with every other religion).

It was America's covert intervention in Indonesia in 1964 (which produced the GOLKAR dictatorship that brutally killed 600,000 Indonesian communists) that really put paid to the "domino theory" in Southeast Asia. In Thailand and Malaysia, there simply was not the level of inequality and concentration of land ownership in the hands of a few that we saw in Indochina (Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia).( A concentration of landownership, by the way, that the US went into Indochina to protect, since the same ultra-conservatives who would support the Reagan Revolution and inequality in the US were, in the 50s and 60s, concentrated in the American national security apparatus). Communists tried repeatedly to make headway in Thailand and got nowhere. While in Malaysia, the Communists were beaten by the British in one of the few successful counter-insurgencies in the 1950s and Malaysia was busy laying the groundwork for it's later economic boom.
Frankly, the only way the US intervention in Vietnam helped Thailand (and Japan and South Korea and Taiwan) was by pouring money into those countries from bases and US servicemen's R&R, and by establishing a huge pipeline of containerised trans-Pacific shipping that led to dirt cheap exports of everything from textiles and garments to consumer electronics to cars on ships that would otherwise return to the US empty. It became the basis for the Trans-Pacific trade that advanced Asian economies and led to offshoring of jobs in the US and it was completely an unanticipated consequence of the Vietnam War.

Originally Posted by MordecaiK

And there is a huge amount of angst and moral opposition to having the bomb in all three nations. Aussies and Japanese in particular find having nuclear weapons abhorrent.

Could be, however the US is not as it was prior to WWII in that :
1. Then, Detroit was a manufacturing powerhouse, while now it's a post industrial wasteland.
2. Like I said before, our infrastructure is essentially 3rd world. We need to get something of a passenger rail system that works better than what say Bulgaria has. Folks are getting sick from lead poisoning due to decrepit water systems. Lead poisoning is a real nice way of racking up health costs and ruining the lives of those who are around it. So, I guess if it comes to something, they can pick nukes or picking up Mandarin as a 2nd language.

It would be a sea change for them to embrace defense self-sufficiency. In the case of Germany and Japan, the US put a lot of energy into convincing people that war was inherently immoral and that they should feel eternally guilty for their participation in WWII.

Could be, but the policy of non intervention also carries the nice thing in that we won't be nagging everyone else in the world either!

Like if Mexico wants to legalize weed or whatever and opting out of our inane war on drugs I'm fine with it. We also have no right to impose social costs of our fucked up moral crusades on other nations as well.