Did USA make a unforced error 1898-2016 by making itself the "world's policeman" at great cost to itself? Potential? Alternatives? Was it worth it?

Question

Europe & Japan got the shiny new Marshall Plan while USA industry eventually stagnated cuz our industrial "stock" was antiquated & inefficient?

Europe & Japan got NATO & ASEAN while we subsidized their defense?

What happens if the triad of economic, military & cultural power that USA has relied on falters & fails?

OneViewpoint · Accepted Answer

You could argue that we trapped ourselves in a military industrial complex that Dwight Eisenhower warned us about after WWII. We created a monster that ended up eating us from about 1950 - Present.

But... Each of those decisions WWI, WWII, The Cold War, The Korean War, Vietnam War, Khmer Rouge, Chile, Panama, Colombia, Iran/Iraq War, 1st Gulf War, 2nd Gulf War, Afghanistan, and many small undeclared wars in Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Uganda, Democratic Republic Of Congo, etc. all seemed justified by some existential argument in the moment. "It seemed like a good idea at the time".

What if we hadn't intervened? But we did intervene. And there were consequences for those decisions too. We morphed into an economy that depended on defense jobs and arms sales to keep it going. We armed the 3rd world and monarchies which caused Russia and China to arm opposing countries. Thus enabling more wars.

We made the whole world get better and better at killing. Meanwhile back home in the capital of Capitalism, our military industrial complex became exactly what Eisenhower warned us about. To keep generating wealth, they eventually corrupted our government. And now our Democratic Republic is dying.

We have committed suicide. We overthrew our way of life from within. We never saw the larger pattern developing from all those individual decisions to intervene in world affairs.

MisterWack · Accepted Answer

America made its strength by being a strong ally, people didn’t f*ck with the USA and people weren’t thinking down on the USA though we lost that reputation as the years went by.

How did it begin? Our fight for independence, when did it peak? Dropping the Atomic Bomb on Imperial Japan & Reaching our arms out to allies to rebuild Europe under the Marshall Plan. Since when did we lose our grip? ‘War On Terror’.

War On Terror we began playing “peace maker”, blowing up innocent civilians, putting our funding toward unmanned drone attacks, etc. all for the select purpose of Oil, Democratic Government Building, and preventing another 9/11. By getting involved negatively with other people’s business and self interests / determination we fell behind….. Now we are pulling out of NATO and poking our fingers into the eyes of our allies, it is a disgrace.

This is a failure under multiple administrations and we should be putting efforts to patch things up, not dig into our greed & selfish acts & ego & prideful / vengeful nature.

Anonymous · Answer

The US didn't become the world police man until after WW2.

Americans don't really see it but a lot of wars the us got involved in from 1898 until the present was premeditated and planned out, either provoking and attack with various foreign policies or a false flag operation. America can't be seen by the us public to be the aggressor but must be justified in responding to an attack.

1. Spainish-American War 1898.

Suspicious incident sinking of the USS Maine blamed on Spain.

Result being that Spain is kicked out of the Bahamas, Cuba comes under US influence and Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines become under the control of the United States. Permanent naval based in Guatanamo bay.

2. Banana Wars 1898-1934

Various military interventions in the Caribbean and central America, sparked off by various events that justified us intervention and toppling of governments.

Result American government and private interests in Central America and the Caribbean enforced.

3. WW1 1917-18

Vast amounts of war loans had been given to france, Russia and Britain to fight the Central powers in exchangefor US manufactured goods and food. With Germany close to winning that would mean france could never pay back their loans like Russia. So justification was needed to ensure the us could enter the war, that was provided by a German plot to support Mexico against the us and unrestricted submarine warfare in the Atlantic.

Result being the US comes out of ww1 with new confidence as a military power and very wealthy though Russia doesn't pay its loans back.

4. WW2 1941-45

War is raging in Europe and the Japanese are fighting in China and challenging us imperial power and designs in the Pacific. The US is making a lot of money exchanging gold bullion with the British and Soviets as well as complete access to every piece of British technology. The US wants to be involved in the war but the public do not want to be involved. So to get justification as before in WW2 the US sets up a situation where either Japan or Germany attacks them with US Navy warships protecting British convoys as far as Greenland and sanctions and an oil embargo on the Japanese knowing the Japanese economy needs oil and steel for its economic and military growth.

The result is that Japan decides that survive it has to quickly knock America out of the Pacific in a quick but devastating war and seize the resources it needs, Germany declares war on America and launches an all out assault on British convoys in American waters. The AXIS are defeated and the us emerges as the richest most powerful nation in history.

Vietnam war

Already involved in the war in Vietnam supporting us ally south Vietnam, the us president wanted to deploy troops to south Vietnam without a declaration of war from Congress. So the Gulf of Tonkin incident was faked in August 1964

The result being that Gulf of Tonkin incident resolution was passed by Congress authorising the us president to deploy combat forces to Vietnam without a declaration of war.

1983 invasion of Grenada.

Using the pretext of rescuing 500 us medical students that was a pretext to get rid of a Marxist government.

Result is Grenada returned to the British commonwealth and back to the status quo with marxists deposed and other socialist governments in the Americas made sure to toe the line.

1991 Gulf War

Sadam Hussain long time us puppet is given the green light by the CIA to invade Kuwait.

The result is a un coalition to force Iraq out of Kuwait with the us military finally given the opportunity to test all it's new cold war weapons on the 4th largest army in the world and show its superiority in the field.

I didn't go into the Panama invasion in 89 or the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, us military interventions in Libya, Syria, Yemen and Somalia during the Obama administration, all false flags. You of course know about the Ukraine war.

US industry stagnated in the post war because they were building the same products as they were in 50s without thought to price, quality, durability, efficiency or longevity. It's kind of the same right now, if you look at US made trucks. They are building trucks without thought as to who is going to buy them. EV trucks that can't pull anything or travel any distance. Trucks that are bigger than they need to be. Trucks that won't last 10 years. Trucks that cost too much to buy. That's why you see all those truck lots full of trucks nobody is buying.

lightbulb27 · Answer

were going to find out aren't we:) Usually... it means more messy war. Same has played out before the USA took power in WWII. It was all temporary for those that suffered and survived that misery. We all got to ride on those coat tails for a while. That is over.

There's two sides to the coin... yes we do need global economic cooperation and that... trump is screwing, even if he makes it look good, the tides are gonna shift.

But the USA has been feeding the world with $ and our debt clock ran out which was coinciding with the nuclear clock. So rather than be taken out by war (the way England, France, Portgual. Spain were, we are solidifying teh finanances so we are strong. There are obvious problems.

This may lead to all sorts of mayhem in other countries as we pull back and new players enter...

exitseven · Answer

Yes, they got too involved in foreign affairs while ignoring the domestic needs of their citizens It started right after the Eisenhower administration.

Ike warned about the Military Industrial Complex.

beefcakebradybatson · Answer

Yes, even though colonizing and looting other countries (along with the enslavement of Africans and genocide and dispossession of First Nations) began the American Empire and the fatuous belief in American Exceptionalism many deluded Yanks hold to this day.

Pohjolan · Answer

US economy benefited a lot from the petrodollar and stable world trade. Mistake was offshoring industry to China.

Pterodon · Answer

I’ve always hated that we were the world’s police for awhile. I think things are changing

Did USA make a unforced error 1898-2016 by making itself the "world's policeman" at great cost to itself? Potential? Alternatives? Was it worth it?

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