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You conveniently forget the immense benefits the American Empire has obtained from maintaining allies in Asia. Japan, Korea and then the other Asian tigers have

by pm90 7y ago

You conveniently forget the immense benefits the American Empire has obtained from maintaining allies in Asia. Japan, Korea and then the other Asian tigers have been incredibly beneficial to American businesses and American consumers. Cheap manufacturing allowed Americans to keep a somewhat decent standard of life in the face of stagnating wages, and has allowed the US to focus on high end manufacturing, services and the like, all of which provide much better jobs than can be provided by the manufacturing sector. I want to point out the fundamental flaw in your analysis: Asian allies have been an incredible investment for American taxpayers, and not supporting them would not only mean the loss of those benefits, but also goodwill, prestige and respect.

SllX 7y ago
I never said there weren’t any benefits in it for us, let me be clear: I am a proponent for American hegemony. I want to see the American Empire continue. I’m pessimistic however that even in the face of what are to me some incredibly obvious benefits that have been borne out and proven in the last several decades, that the sentiment I share with a decreasing amount of people outside of Washington and our predecessors that we will probably not even continue to try to assert American global hegemony. After World War II, we were and possibly still are despite our President, the greatest proponents of free trade, but when I look at both the left and the right of the political spectrum today, I see that same historic isolationist tendency creeping up on both sides of the political spectrum from where I stand. Trump might be the first of several Presidents we see with such strong isolationist tendencies, but I sure hope not.
- jdhn 7y ago
  When you say isolationist, do you mean in terms of projecting force through military means, or by promoting and upholding trade liberalization?
  - SllX 7y ago
    Military. Americans generally had a distaste for foreign wars until about the 20th Century. Arguably still do. Arguably there has also been a rather bloodthirsty contingent among us that once we ran out of Indians to kill, started wanting to get involved in foreign wars. We got our first real taste of being a Maritime Empire after the Spanish-American War, but that same contingent brought us into two World Wars and just kept on going until we had invaded Asia no less than 6 times, and I’m probably missing a few. We’ve always favored free trade, but that was as much a consequence of being cut out of the British mercantile system post Independence as it was just a nice idea. Generally when opportunities came up to assert more sway on the global stage, by which of course what I really mean is get involved in European affairs, we balked all the way till 1917, and mostly kept trying to balk even after until 1942. The isolationist segment of society has been out of power for a long time now, but it has never truly gone away, and arguably they are gaining power. Clinton was a Hawk, Biden might be Hawkish relative to his contemporaries, but Trump is definitely an isolationist and there’s a decent chance the Democratic Party is going to nominate one as well.

by pm90 7y ago

SllX 7y ago

I never said there weren’t any benefits in it for us, let me be clear: I am a proponent for American hegemony. I want to see the American Empire continue. I’m pessimistic however that even in the face of what are to me some incredibly obvious benefits that have been borne out and proven in the last several decades, that the sentiment I share with a decreasing amount of people outside of Washington and our predecessors that we will probably not even continue to try to assert American global hegemony. After World War II, we were and possibly still are despite our President, the greatest proponents of free trade, but when I look at both the left and the right of the political spectrum today, I see that same historic isolationist tendency creeping up on both sides of the political spectrum from where I stand. Trump might be the first of several Presidents we see with such strong isolationist tendencies, but I sure hope not.

jdhn 7y ago
When you say isolationist, do you mean in terms of projecting force through military means, or by promoting and upholding trade liberalization?
- SllX 7y ago
  Military. Americans generally had a distaste for foreign wars until about the 20th Century. Arguably still do. Arguably there has also been a rather bloodthirsty contingent among us that once we ran out of Indians to kill, started wanting to get involved in foreign wars. We got our first real taste of being a Maritime Empire after the Spanish-American War, but that same contingent brought us into two World Wars and just kept on going until we had invaded Asia no less than 6 times, and I’m probably missing a few. We’ve always favored free trade, but that was as much a consequence of being cut out of the British mercantile system post Independence as it was just a nice idea. Generally when opportunities came up to assert more sway on the global stage, by which of course what I really mean is get involved in European affairs, we balked all the way till 1917, and mostly kept trying to balk even after until 1942. The isolationist segment of society has been out of power for a long time now, but it has never truly gone away, and arguably they are gaining power. Clinton was a Hawk, Biden might be Hawkish relative to his contemporaries, but Trump is definitely an isolationist and there’s a decent chance the Democratic Party is going to nominate one as well.