I’m mainly just curious to be honest, do you think that the US should return back to a neutrality stance? Not in an instant but overtime, just to make things go smoother. What are your views on this”\\?

29 comments

  1. Horribly useless in a hyper connected world. China would love nothing more than for us to shrink back to our continent so they can have all of Asia, Africa, and South America for whatever they’d like.

  2. I’m mainly just against nation building. With the size of the US military industrial complex it would be impossible for the country to take a more isolationist approach to current affairs.

  7. It’s a meaningless question today because it’s impossible. We are the biggest kid on the block and so whenever anything goes wrong, somebody, and probably several somebodies, will be coming to us and asking us to do something. See Ukraine for the current example. They are asking a lot from us and I don’t blame them for asking.

    The only way it could happen is if we were about one quarter (or less?) as powerful as we are now. And that means the world would be a completely different place in ways we couldn’t even imagine. The whole structure of that hypothetical world is unknowable.

  9. Unrealistic in today’s global economy/interconnected world.

    If we become isolationist and completely sit things out nations who wish us economic and physical harm will quickly sieze the opportunity to do so.
    International trade flows smoothly due in large part to our fleet being out there in all corners of the globe.

  10. You can dislike the world we find ourselves in. But pretending we don’t live in it isn’t useful.

    America will be involved in the rest of the world, no matter what. If we try to take an isolationist stance, then China will immediately be the one driving global policy. The world won’t be better off, but American interests will be massively harmed.

    Hopefully we aren’t as aggressive about pushing for coups and backing friendly governments regardless of how terrible they are as we were in the second half of the 20th Century. But there’s a huge gulf between “Put that Shah in power and support his oppressive secret police with infinite military support” and “declare strict neutrality about everything and abandon all entangling alliances like NATO no matter how much they have helped stabilize the world”

  11. America has NEVER been non-interventionist or neutral. That’s a racist and eurocentric myth we told about ourself, but it was never true. We weren’t isolationist when we were waging war, subjugating, and committing genocide against a continent’s worth of various Native American nations. We weren’t isolationist when we instigated a war against Mexico to annex 2/3 of their country. We weren’t isolationist when we were overthrowing governments all over Central America to install regimes pliable to American business interests. We weren’t isolationist when were using our Navy to force Japan and China to accept exploitative trade treaties.

    American “isolationism” only ever applied to European countries. We tried to avoid entanglements with foreign nations which were military, economically, or geopolitically more powerful in a way that could threaten America. If we didn’t perceive them as a potential threat, though, we were about as far from isolationist as a nation could be.

  12. It would cause a power vacuum that would be filled by Russia and China. Probably not the best idea to secede global hegemony to fascist dictatorships.

  14. Isolationism has been tried, and it doesn’t work. It just means aggressor countries like Putin’s Russia and Xi’s China become more powerful so they’re an even bigger problem when we do finally get dragged in.

  15. No, it’s bad policy. The world is full of sick savages who will rape and kill the fuck out of the people standing next to them. Of course we can’t stop all or even most of it, but I think the risk of getting hit with a hellfire missile keeps it at least mildly in check.

  16. The greatest problems in the world (climate change, pandemics, war) require global solutions. Honestly, I think we should do the opposite. There are all kinds of treaties (like the international criminal court) that we aren’t party to basically because we didn’t feel like it. Time to lean all the way in and lead by example because the world needs it. If the question is should we use our military less than I’m all for that though.

  17. It can’t happen in the status quo. Nations exist to exert their will. A nation cannot possess great power and simultaneously withdraw from the exertion of said power. Human nature demands that such a will be employed—be it through conquest, domination, economic power, etc.

    Neutrality and isolationism are not policies that nations adopt freely, but the traits of nations too weak to significantly exert themselves. The United States is simply too powerful to not wield its great influence.

  18. Have you ever seen the documentary The World Without US? It is an interesting look at this very idea.

  20. If the US wants to continue to project power then it almost has to get involved in a lot of the world conflicts. Someone like Switzerland can stay truly neutral as they’re not needing to project military or economic power.

  21. The US benefits *enormously* from being the dominant superpower in the world. Retreating into itself will ensure that American interests are no longer respected elsewhere, which bodes poorly for the future of the American people. We currently get a *very* good deal on everything in international affairs due to our insistence on taking a seat at every table of diplomacy and willingness to put skin into the game.

    I’d also point out that isolationism will inevitably be tested and likely stymied by, well, *gestures wildly at everything going on right now*. Feel free to make your case that the American response to, say, the invasion of Ukraine should be “lol fuck ’em” – I don’t think that you’re going to get many takers.

  22. Isolationism isn’t viable. Forget the morale arguments.. the havoc it would reek on our economy would be massive. Unemployment alone would more than double.

    With that said.. a lot of you need to spend time with soldiers or their family. Combat turns many of them into things they were never meant to be. I can’t fully understand wishing to bow out based on what I’ve seen alone.

  23. It’s an unrealistic idea today. China would likely fill the power vacuum and I fail to see how *anybody* benefits from that.

  24. Don’t believe in it since it limits what say the US has on global affairs but if it happens, whoever starts the next world war that kills tens of millions (maybe even a hundred million) needs to just leave the US alone unless they want the paddle.

  25. We have to defend our interests in a global economy. We need to keep ports and shipping lanes open and make sure that governments remain stable so we can continue to trade with them.

  26. I like this idea in theory but hate it in reality.
    Even the Swiss aren’t as neutral as they claim.

  27. I think that our other allies don’t have the will, unity, or ability to project the power needed to keep China and Russia in check. Such a retreat would leave a vacuum open for them to expand their influence on the world which I view as bad.

  28. No.

    Since America gained pre-eminence in the global stage, the world has seen the most peaceful era of Human history.

    Returning to neutrality, the big boys of regions would begin to swallow up their smaller neighbors again if the threat of America isn’t there to keep them in check.

    Imagine a modern Japan that doesn’t have the US staring down China.

    Or a Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia or Poland who doesn’t have the US by their side.

    Lithuania, for example, is one of the most pro-American countries in the world because America is the only thing stopping Russia from annexing them back into Russia.

    And this is a direct threat to America’s national security.

    As Ukraine has shown in 2014, neutrality isn’t this magical veil that protects you. All you need to do is shout “Neutrality!” and the bad guys will go away. Sweden and Finland are also proof of this. The only reason Switzerland can get away with it is their geographical location and militarization just doesn’t make invading them worth it. Especially when their main resources are their admin stuff.

    Allowing regional powers to gobble up the smaller countries and exploit their resources is not a good thing. The US being there to prevent that is part of America’s national security.

  29. From the way I see it, the only healthy relationship between America and the rest of the world is one where America stays in its own backyard, that being the Americas and maybe the Pacific.

    We spend so much on our military budget to safeguard countries from what we consider to be threats, and end up bogged down with locals who hate us. We go to war with the goal of installing friendly “democracies” and expect the local populations to want closer relations with a country that has bombed their cities and killed so many civilians, maybe even their family members.

    We love to push our weight around, and are chastised for our military spending, and then when something bad happens in the world, everyone urges us to “save the day”.

    We shouldn’t have to bear the burden and the responsibility of saving the world from what we consider to be hostile actors. A military exists to protect a nation and its direct interest.

    Tldr: We should not be world police, we should guard neighbors and self, and take a lot of our military spending and use it to improve things domestically.

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