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Don't get me wrong, I'm no Trumper, and don't think we should leave NATO. But the US military expansionist policy is tiresome for the US as well as for the Euro

Don't get me wrong, I'm no Trumper, and don't think we should leave NATO. But the US military expansionist policy is tiresome for the US as well as for the European population who complain about it. There are a vocal minority (maybe not even a minority) who want our young men and women to come home and have our spending aimed towards education, our crumbling infrastructure, clean energy, climate cleanup, paying down our national debt, health care and fixing social security. Those are just the top things, there are other items to do that don't involve violent expansion or nation building. We don't mind working with NATO for peace keeping missions, though. Those seem to have broad support, but the media's spell seems to have been broken for a while on this rah rah, invade every country for any manufactured reason so the few can make billions =[

kranke155 4y ago
I agree in a sense. As far as US military expansionism - I think the overall security architecture is sound (NATO, AUSUKNZ, Four Eyes and Japan/South Korea means that the US effectively surrounds all of its major challengers on all sides). It’s kept US dominance in place for almost a century now. And I believe that’s a good thing. But it’s on the implementation that things went haywire. Because pre-fracking the US was so dependent on foreign energy, adventurism was encouraged in Iraq which led to a major geopolitical disaster (and a huge sink for the country’s resources). In that respect, yes the expansionist policy went totally overboard, due to poor leadership and planning and unrealistic political objectives. Overall I think: - the overall architecture is sound. The US dominates and reaps benefits for it, while in my opinion maintaining peace through strength - but Europe should be spending enormous amounts more in military power - something like 5% of GDP at least - so it has a realistic chance to defeat Russia on the battlefield on its own - if that happened then the US could probably reduce its military spending (im not even sure they would because of the issues you listed though).

kranke155 4y ago

I agree in a sense. As far as US military expansionism - I think the overall security architecture is sound (NATO, AUSUKNZ, Four Eyes and Japan/South Korea means that the US effectively surrounds all of its major challengers on all sides). It’s kept US dominance in place for almost a century now. And I believe that’s a good thing. But it’s on the implementation that things went haywire. Because pre-fracking the US was so dependent on foreign energy, adventurism was encouraged in Iraq which led to a major geopolitical disaster (and a huge sink for the country’s resources). In that respect, yes the expansionist policy went totally overboard, due to poor leadership and planning and unrealistic political objectives. Overall I think: - the overall architecture is sound. The US dominates and reaps benefits for it, while in my opinion maintaining peace through strength - but Europe should be spending enormous amounts more in military power - something like 5% of GDP at least - so it has a realistic chance to defeat Russia on the battlefield on its own - if that happened then the US could probably reduce its military spending (im not even sure they would because of the issues you listed though).