Signs of a Dying Empire

[David Horn]

(10-20-2017, 03:01 AM)Galen Wrote:

(10-19-2017, 02:51 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(10-18-2017, 03:35 PM)Galen Wrote:

(10-18-2017, 12:02 PM)David Horn Wrote: No one wants to see the US as the permanent cop-of-the-world, but, much like a land mine, once you step on it, lifting your foot is nigh to impossible.  If you have a plan that leaves the world in decent shape after we retreat from world leadership, let's hear it.

The British didn't step away but rather circumstances such as their fiscal condition in the wake of the First World War forced them to.  As things are now, the permanent bureaucracy in DC still hasn't figured out that their actual ability to project power has dramatically decreased in the last twenty years.  It is not the responsibility of the US to fix the problems of the rest of the world which really hasn't worked out all that well.

This is actually a good example.  The Brits had to fold; they were nearly bankrupt.  We opted to give world leadership a pass because, well, we just did.  The result: World War II.  QED.

The traditional position of the US prior to the First World War was neutrality.  Ironically it was the Lost that were anti-war and opposing entry into the Second World War.  It took FDR goading Japan into attacking Pearl Harbor to change that.  Consult Infamy by John Toland for more details.

The war was already on and the results could have been much much worse.  Asia might have been a cluster of Japanese conquests that would have been the worse kind of colonization on the planet.  Europe would have been split between the Soviets and Germans, because neither could defeat the other ... unless it had devolved into the first nuclear war.  The Germans were close.

No nation can sit on its hands and do nothing when chaos reigns, unless they can contribute most by doing so.  I give the Swedes and Swiss a pass here,  They did great work by staying neutral.  We, on the other hand, were a titan.  We had no choice, unless we were satisfied with Soviet/Nazi/Imperial rule.