Serious Should the U.S. maintain its current level of interventionism?

[Adeleine]

Really since the end of WWII, the US has consistently been a high-intervention global superpower. From the Marshall Plan to the Middle East, and including but not limited to matters in the more immediate sphere of influence (the Western Hemisphere), America has established itself as the #1 influencer of global affairs. Is this a good thing, is it sustainable, and should it continue?
Positives to keeping it include blocking hostile countries with worse recent human rights records and furthering human rights (at least in theory), negatives include monetary cost adding to an ever-inflating debt/deficit and a questionable if not dubious track record at executing pro-human-rights theoretical goals.

I myself think no, because of late the cost (not only monetarily, but the negative effects of much foreign policy, especially the huge destabilization of the middle east) has been high and the benefits smaller and harder to find.

 

[Ortheore]

Personally I am strongly opposed to US interventionism for a couple of reasons. The first is that I see it as arising from nationalist ideologies, where I consider nationalism an extremely toxic ideology that humanity would be better off without. The second is that a lot of the time it simply doesn't make the world a better place. There are the direct effects of military intervention, which are felt by the local residents, but also the broader consequences are often not what is expected. It's not hard to see the good intentions behind the Iraq war (not saying there weren't selfish motives either) and look what a fuck-up that was, given that it directly contributed to the birth of Isis. But that's just the stuff where you can identify good intentions. When you consider the fact that america has done things like fund and support al-qaeda and help to establish dictatorships in south america, it's hard to see how they can claim moral high ground in a more general context

 

[Cresselia~~]

As a foreigner, I personally do not like interventionism.
From a foreigner's point of view, if you don't mind, I'd say most foreigners would rather USA to not to have interventionism on their countries.
This is because, at least some people would believe that the "good intentions" are excuses, and that in reality, USA is profiting from its interventions.
Sometimes, certain groups of people from a certain country may benefit from the interventions, but the benefits the foreign country gets is usually way smaller in scale than what USA is benefiting from.
People would also raise the questions "What does it have anything to do with you?" "Why do you care?".

But say, if you are an American, and your country actually benefits from interventionism, then I don't see the reason for you to oppose it, apart from moral reasons.

 

[sunny004]

However, on the other hand, interventionism helps to combat many oppressive regimes and tyrannical threats to world peace, like Assad and ISIS. Sure, the Iraq war was stupid, but now that there's this huge mess in the Syria/Iraq region, what do you think will happen if the US withdraws support? Either a brutal dictator will regain control and oppress his citizens, or we will allow ISIS to gain more control and wreak havoc across the globe.

The UN won't do anything either. It's too weak and ineffectual to take actual action to take care of threats to world peace.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that countries like the US that are actually willing to fight against tyranny and oppression shouldn't be shamed for doing so. (And, before you start to grind your keyboards to dust, I'm only talking about actual threats, and not something stupid that would only serve to help the US.)

I guess you could talk about the moral problems with some of the US military's interventions in certain areas, but before a supposedly "more moral" force comes to keep the world (somewhat-free) from tyranny, the US should do so.

 

[Adeleine]

Either a brutal dictator will regain control and oppress his citizens, or we will allow ISIS to gain more control and wreak havoc across the globe.

The former would've happened if we hadn't gotten involved, and I find the former vastly preferable since ISIS does both anyway
The point I wish to make here is: intervention brought us the region into chaos, and I don't see how it will take the region out of chaos

The UN won't do anything either. It's too weak and ineffectual to take actual action to take care of threats to world peace.

well, yeah
and imo thank goodness, more complication and involved entities isn't the path I see ending in success

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that countries like the US that are actually willing to fight against tyranny and oppression shouldn't be shamed for doing so. (And, before you start to grind your keyboards to dust, I'm only talking about actual threats, and not something stupid that would only serve to help the US.)

Correct, but I think they should be shamed for not learning from the history they saw and often experienced themselves (especially Iraq and afghanistan), and for the negative consequences of such

I guess you could talk about the moral problems with some of the US military's interventions in certain areas, but before a supposedly "more moral" force comes to keep the world (somewhat-free) from tyranny, the US should do so.

I don't expect another, and even if there was another such "more moral" force, I don't think they'd do much better. incoming morality and outcoming success haven't seen a convincing positive correlation

 

[Asp Regent]

I personally take more moderate approach to the idea US interventionism, As long our actions are inherently peaceful and humanitarian then I take little issue with it. The moment weapons are used is when I start is oppose it.

 

[termi]

As much as I hate to say it, the US currently is too important of a military force to cease intervening in countries. A lot of European countries (like my own) have a very weak military and are mostly dependent on allies in case of invasion. Therefore, in order to keep countries from invading one another at will, alliances with more powerful states are necessary (although we must simultaneously realize that there's a dark side to the formation of alliances, see also: Europe pre-WW1). Without such alliances, Russia wouldn't have a whole lot of reason not to invade the Baltic states, for example. However, I do think that the USA's current interventionism is awful, so here's four general statements on the nature of legitimate military intervention:

1: In military intervention, the USA should never be the aggressor, but the protector of the victim.
2: The USA should ideally only intervene when the aggressor is, beyond reasonable doubt, a state attacking another state (so avoid intervention in a civil war).
3: If intervention happens, it must be as non-violent as possible.
4: If violence is truly necessary, "collateral damage" in the form of civilian deaths must be kept to a minimum, if not avoided altogether, no matter what.

The first point is self-explanatory, for invasion of another country as an aggressor is nothing less than imperialism. The second point may raise some questions with regard to terrorism, in which case a foreign non-state actor may directly attack the US. Due to how difficult it is to target a foreign terrorist organization in particular, though, and due to how low of a risk terrorism actually forms at the end of the day, it is wiser simply to protect the nation from attacks (insofar possible without compromising on fundamental human rights) than to try and completely destroy the terrorist organization in question. In addition, it's worth mentioning that trying to intervene in civil wars and whatnot tends to be horribly ineffectual. Most interventions in the Middle East with the goal of regime change have been futile at best, counterproductive at worst. In cases like these, it's better to let a country sort itself out during such scenarios, for even though the implications are painful, forcefully trying to democratize a non-democratic country or something along those lines has never worked too well. The other points seem pretty reasonable and don't require further explanation unless someone disagrees and finds them terribly illogical.

 

[Myzozoa]

this is gonna be one of those threads where i can use just one source for all my replies

I personally take more moderate approach to the idea US interventionism, As long our actions are inherently peaceful and humanitarian then I take little issue with it. The moment weapons are used is when I start is oppose it.

that sounds more like a radical approach, considering the reality of us intervention at the maximal extent involves targeted drone strikes and at the minimal extent selling arms to oppressive terrorist regimes like ISIS (our new ally in syria) and Saudi Arabia.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/03/u-s-allied-isis-al-qaeda.html

"
Islamic terrorism is allied with the U.S., not with Russia. (Russia experiences it in places like Chechnia.) Sunni extremists were even key U.S.-Saudi tools in weakening Russia and ending the U.S.S.R. This (and especially the Saudi aristocracy’s funding of Al Qaeda) is the reason why the U.S. White House refuses to allow the blocked 28 pages of the U.S. Senate’s Feinstein terrorism/torture report to be made public. The U.S. White House is, and has been at least since 2000, and maybe even before that, controlled by the U.S. aristocracy, no longer by the public. The U.S. Federal Government is, already, a dictatorship — actual rule by the country’s aristocracy or “oligarchs” — no authentic democracy anymore. This is a scientifically proven fact. Democracy in this country is now merely mythological, whatever the case might possibly have been before (when there were unfortunately no rigorous scientific studies yet regarding the question).

Sunni Islam is comprised of the Wahhabi variety and its offshoots, and it is comparable, in the Christian context, to fundamentalist or literalist Christianity, the extremist form of its own faith. That’s what the U.S. has been allied with after 1945."

Every regime that threatens the interests of multinational corporations will be made a pariah, and if it's in MENA it will be labelled a terrorist regime. It is the perfect cover to intervene, over, and over, and over, on behalf of multinational energy corporations. And war turns death to profit very quickly, even as it impoverishes the domestic that wages the war.

ignore sunny004 , he is confirmed less than 16 yrs old and spends too much time on these forums to have learned any history in school. how can the us be combatting isis and assad? that makes no sense, even if youre a neocon.

"
A commander of Iraq’s popular forces disclosed that wiretapping of ISIL’s communications has confirmed the reports that the US planes have been airdropping food and arms supplies for the Takfiri terrorists.

“The wiretapped ISIL communications by Iraqi popular forces have revealed that the US planes have been dropping weapons and foodstuff for the Takfiri terrorist group,” Commander of Iraq’s Ali Akbar Battalion told FNA on Wednesday.

He noted that tapping on ISIL disclosed the terrorist group’s regular contacts with the US army, and said, “They exchanged sentences like if they would have a share of the ammunition dropped near (Spiker Military Base) or responses such as ‘you will also receive your share’.”

“The US forces by dropping weapons and ammunition for ISIL, specially in Yassreb, Al-Ramadi and near Spiker Base in Hay al-Qadessiya have provided a lot of help to the ISIL,” he added.

Many similar reports by Iraqi officials and forces have surfaced in the last few months.

In February, an Iraqi provincial official lashed out at the western countries and their regional allies for supporting Takfiri terrorists in Iraq, revealing that the US airplanes still continue to airdrop weapons and foodstuff for the ISIL terrorists."


The solution to intractable problems with u.s interventionism will only be from the collapse of the empire or the election of politicians with agenda's like some of those mentioned in bernie sanders platform, that would take money from the military for domestic programs. defund the beast. this is literally like the only way, outside of the u.s military officers themselves all of a sudden becoming not down to intervene.

it would make sense to talk about the american military interventions benefitting the american people, or to even debate the principles that should drive us interventionism, except that:

"The U.S. White House is, and has been at least since 2000, and maybe even before that, controlled by the U.S. aristocracy, no longer by the public. The U.S. Federal Government is, already, a dictatorship — actual rule by the country’s aristocracy or “oligarchs” — no authentic democracy anymore. This is a scientifically proven fact. Democracy in this country is now merely mythological, whatever the case might possibly have been before (when there were unfortunately no rigorous scientific studies yet regarding the question)."

So any discussion of principles is wishful thinking, and the question of whether it benefits the american people is really more of a question of how much does america's citizens benefit from impoverishing it's tax payers to fund activities that protect the interests of multinational energy corporations, which have driven every american foreign policy decision since the mid 80's.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/jour...age-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B

 

[Myzozoa]

https://twitter.com/MazMHussain/status/805895624696721413

 

[verbatim]

I think that it's incredibly dangerous to pose this question as an ultimatum.

It's fine to say "I think doing x in situation y is bad because z", but saying that countries should always mind their own business is how the worst atrocities in human history end up happening.

IMO a lot of this election cycle has been about trying to make people pick between two extremes when they shouldn't have to. Read into that how you will.

 

[Machoke]

I'm against US interventionism. Time and time again it's made things worse in other countries, like the Iraq War. Not only do these interventions tend to destroy other countries and directly harm the people living there, they also contribute to a growing anti-US sentiment and cause people to join fundamentalist and dangerous organizations to retaliate. Additionally, US interventions have occurred in which a country was setting up a system that wasn't "pro-US" or capitalist enough, so the US decides to enter and just mess things up like a petulant child. Honduras and the coup that happened there, for example, was US backed. Even humanitarian efforts are often misused for ulterior motives or don't go through entirely.
Also, the amount of taxes that go toward funding the military is absolutely ludicrous. All that interventionism costs money too, money that could be going to infrastructure and necessary programs like education or healthcare. The US is focusing so much on intervening when there are still problems domestically that shouldn't exist. Basically it's creating problems abroad while not fixing problems at home. It's a mess.