The world is reverting back to empires with narrow parochial interests and a willingness to resort to naked brutality
The Post-WW II era was an historical anomaly...
"Europe's decline after World War II was immediately followed the era of American liberal internationalism.
With NATO and Japan as junior partners, the United States underwrote a variety of global institutions (mostly of its own making), maintained a vast array of military bases, waged and won a Cold War, and sought-with varying degrees of enthusiasm and success-to spread core "Western" values and institutions to different parts of the world. (Stephen M. Walt - End of the World as We Know it)
We kicked countries' asses and then invited them into the global family of interlocking economic, banking and security organizations. That fabric is now coming unraveled, with nations like Russia, Turkey, Brazil and China picking at the loose threads.
The collective will to hold these international institutions together is waning. Too many actors on the world stage see going solo as their shot at stardom. Walt concludes:
If this analysis is even partly correct, then we are going to need some serious rethinking of grand strategy in both Europe and the United States. Hard choices will have to be made, and traditional world-views and familiar platitudes won't help us very much.
Foreign policy expert Walter Russell Meade agrees:
[T]he world economy is evolving in ways that undermine the ability of international institutions to manage it.
In the future, American diplomacy will work better if we cut to the chase. Rather than chasing liberal internationalist mirages, we should focus on what we want and need, think about how we can get as much of it as possible at the best price — and go for it in the most efficient way possible. (Walter Russell Mead)
Learn to Let it Burn
As the Wilsonian World Order crumbles, both men point to international organizations being supplanted by regional ones. Some will be no better than crime syndicates, but most will simply be nations banding together for self-preservation. Individual treaties and pacts will replace UN resolutions, GATT agreements and IMF deals.
We Were The World...
Perhaps we've been ranging too far abroad. Do you think leaving Afghanistan and Pakistan will cause us problems? Nothing like the hell it will cause Russia and China, and they don't have the luxury of leaving like we do. They live there.
Closer to Home
Perhaps it's time for us to mend fences at home and leave the rest of the world to the idiots who are determined to burn it down. Hemispheric isolationism is not the evil that liberal internationalists portray it as. I've been up and down North and South America; our hemisphere is richly blessed. If you can't get it here, it ain't worth gettin', and making nice with Mexicans is way preferable to messing with Muslims. Just ask a European.
10 comments:
Good points SilverFiddle.
Doesn't really all boil down to a strong defense, a non interventionist foreign policy, a sound monetary and fiscal policy, and trimming the Leviathan military and social expenditures to manageable levels?
It is time we stopped being the worlds policeman and the gift giver to the rest of the world.
I fully agree with the sentiments of RATIONAL NATION USA:
The leftists have pushed us into trying to be all things to all people, but at what cost to our own nation?
The first BIGGEST mistake this country made was electing Woodrow Wilson, the second was joining the United Nations, and the third was electing Barack Obama.
WHAT??? Just because the left is diplomatic and we believe we should be good humanitarians does not mean we believe in invading all the countries of the world for no good reason. That is a rightie "thing". It's the liberals who hate being the worlds bully, remember?? You guys are wacko! What cost to our nation are these hideous Bush wars we are still fighting with no end in sight? YES, Obama is following in Bush's footsteps, but these are Bushs wars and always will be. Let's be clear, liberals are the party who want to take care of America and her people. The right love jumping from one war to the next, and on and on and on.....
Stratfor recently had an article in its Geopolitical Weekly titled "Germany and Russia Move Closer." Something worries me about some of the movement going on over there.
Historically, Germany, France, and Russia have been three of the main forces in that region, and have aligned and realigned with each other in various combinations at various times. Not much is very clear at this point, but as I said, something about the apparently coming realignments seems foreboding.
Reverend, I would add the election of FDR between Wilson and the U.N.
Sue,
I appreciate you standing up for "your side" but this isn't a partisan issue.
I'm not blaming Democrats. I am asking if it is time for us to do things differently on the world stage. I feature two foreign policy experts who are not conservative to provoke some thought.
I think it's time to focus on things here at home and piss on the lunatics across the oceans.
>does not mean we believe in invading all the countries of the world for no good reason. That is a rightie "thing".
Unless, of course, you count Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, Red China, and all the rest of the empire-building collectivist ("liberal") countries that invade other countries, slaughter millions of people, and never leave.
>liberals are the party who want to take care of America and her people
Actually, "liberals" are the ones who want to force Americans to take care of other people.
As has been said, the only thing that liberals are liberal with is other people's money.
>I think it's time to focus on things here at home and piss on the lunatics across the oceans.
Amen! I actually think I heard the words "I'm George Washington, and I approve of this message" when I read that.
points well taken Silver and yes Hussein is NO Harry Truman..he is a tyrant...end of story
thats right SF, but the left has been saying that, you haven't been listening. The Rev. made it partisan so I responded to him.
The left has been screaming it, interspersed with vulgarities and "Booosh is Hitler," so it was hard to comprehend.
When Reagan was busy freeing Central America, the left was busy undermining their freedom (I know, I was there). We freed them anyway and they are grateful, we now trade with them.
The only time the left doesn't scream about this stuff is when a Democrat does it (Clinton, the Balkans. And he did it all without a declaration of war or congressional approval)
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