Americans..a question about US Foreign Policy?

Question

Back during the Cold War the USA did not invade/attack/Occupy the Communist nations in order to create peace and democracy. We just lived and let live (within reason there were alliences made to ensure the safety of all and all of it was agreed to by each partner).

So with the current policy of intervention as a road to peace as opposed to the previous policy of non-intervention.....which policy do you think we should use and why.

This is a serious question I am asking for reasonable, intelligent answers so please no "traitor-liberal" and "nazi-conservative" talk.

pdooma> Good points but at what point did AMERICA do that to people? The USSR doing it that is a seperate issue because they would have LOST the Cold War much sooner due to population shifts if no Wall was put up, which would have saved lives, etc.

So while that was regretable it was not US's fault and we cannot even imagine being responsible so I do not see how it really applies

007> OK then tell me specifically which military unit invaded and took over the USSR...or re-read the question. Because right now your answer is not based in any real life world history.

pgb> Do you see any problems with their oppressors being our former allies? Do you think freedom is something we can give them instead of them getting for themselves?

john w> I agree we were not 100% non-intervention but I have only so much time and so much space to type but my main point is that we did not invade,attack,occupy others

pgb> What I meant was we supported+trained Osama+Saddam, supported the Shah who oppresses. These are basic facts, not war/anti-war opinions.

pgb> This question wasn't about Bush (considering Carter,Regan,Bush Sr and Clinton all had equal hands as well as Congress) AND the history is key to understanding which is key to solving...so join us here in this space/time reality where history has shown time+time again that extremist politics tends to make things 1,000 times worse

Answer 1

Well, having been around for the cold war....it appeared to work, didn't it?
So I say....non-intervention.
I know that everyone will point out that we were attacked, etc., but not by an individual country. We were attacked by, for lack of a better term, a rogue group.
We started out on a "seek and destroy" mission, to find that group....but then lost focus and started targeting countries.
Some people can try to say that it worked.....did it? They're still around. Many years later.
I think it's time to step back and re-evaluate how we're going about doing things. They say the definition of insanity is to keep repeating the same action, expecting a different result each time. Maybe it's time to think of a different strategy.
We managed to get things done in the past in a more covert manner. Isn't that what our Special Ops forces are for?

Answer 2

US foreign policy has been heavily interventionist since the end of the Second World War. At first this was done, officially, in order to prevent to spread of Godless Communism. Now it is done, officially, to "spread democracy" or to "fight the terrorists over there so we don't have to at your child's playground"--but the only real reasons for the violently militant nature of US foreign policy has been: 1. To make the world safe for global corporations to plunder resources, pollute air and water and viciously exploit workers and 2. So that US Defense Corporations can continue to siphen off billions of tax dollars each year.

So-called liberals please note: This policy was instituted by a Democrat (Truman) excellerated by a Republican (Eisenhower--who recognized what was happened and warned against it) was then pushed further by a Democrat (Kennedy, who was murdered when it looked like he might cut back on defense spending). All American Presidents since World War II have either carried out interventionist wars or have at least financed bloody tyrants (like Carter in East Timor or with the Shah in Iran). It is true that since the collapse of the Soviet Union, we have been able to push our military adventures in the Middle East a lot further than we could get away with before 1989. And the thugs who orchestrated the Coup of 2000 have been particularly aggressive and idiotically brutal these last six years. But it is a dangerous mistake to view the Bush/Cheney regime and its foreign policy as different in kind than the same foreign policy that the economic elites have manipulated this Country into following for the past 60 years.

Answer 3

For the most part, the current administration is made up of 'cold warriors' (i.e. crusty old white guys who spent their entire careers 'fighting the good fight' against the reds/commies/socialists). They couldn't just invade, because of the threat of nuclear war, so it was a stalemate.

A lot of them were still left after the USSR crumbled - but they were unable to turn off the cold war mentality. They got together and drafted a manifesto. The 'Project for a New American Century' or PNAC for short.

Basically a plan for world domination - or at the very least a plan to control the natural resources abundant in the middle east, it specifically says that the plan would take a long time to implement barring some 'catalyzing event' like 'another pearl harbor'.

They got it on 9/11.

And things have been going according to plan ever since.

Answer 4

During the cold war we fought economically as well as covertly. No, we didn't wander in with guns blazing. But we did send in spies. And we did basically bankrupt Russia by outspending them during the Arms Race. When the people are hungry, they will revolt. It's just a different method of warfare, one that has far more innocent victims than a dropped bomb. Don't you remember all the people basically locked behind walls and gates they wouldn't let out? I was in West Berlin during the cold war and saw the Wall, talked to people whose family members had been left behind. Don't you remember pictures of the Russian bread lines? Part of the reason for this is not just bad government on Russia's behalf, but the US' policy on trade with the Soviets and her allies. This was an economic war, not a non-intervention.

BTW we're using economic warfare now against many countries like Cuba, North Korea, and Libya, etc.

Answer 5

Live and let live? Non-intervention? The only 'good' thing, if you could in any way say that what we're doing is 'good', about US foreign policy now as opposed to then is now we're doing our own dirty work! During the Cold War the US killed and/or aloud to be killed hundreds of thousands if not millions of people all over the world through our support of Right Wing governments. The basic premise of your question is flawed! On the other hand, to answer your question we should return to the firm ground of our Constitution and policies of our Founding Fathers: Not isolationism, but true Non-intervention! If the Saudis want to whip rape victims, if Sudanese want to whip school teachers, if [insert name of country here] want to [insert type of 'atrocity' here] let them! It's none of our business! How they run their countries is none of our business.

Answer 6

Non-intervention. It's free and people don't get mad at us. That doesn't mean that we don't defend ourselves; it just means that we don't attack.

Let's say we decide that the Canadians are some tricky bastards who want to attack us. We go in there preemptively, blow up their infrastructure and occupy them. We now have a lot of pissed off Canadians. We now have to set them up again with running water, electricity, roads, et cetera. We have to spend money and lose lives sending soldiers over there.

Also, what always happens during something like this is that we end up with some 'infant industries'. People will say that we have to nurse the Canadian steel industry -or whatever- back to health. These infant industries never grow up, so to speak. So then when you get your troops out of there (the US isn't so good about that, we have troops in Germany and Italy and are providing Japan's army because they aren't allowed to have one) you have pissed off Canadians who will never trust you (i.e lost an ally), dead American men and women, and the eternal cost of propping up their steel industry. Just not worth it.

Answer 7

Vietnam was interventionist. We continually intervened in the business of many nations. One of the reasons we are in the mess we have in the Middle East is we supported Saddam against Iran and Iran and Afghanistan (including Taliban) against the Soviet Union. The Iran/Contra affair was intervention. The adversarial nuclear nations (USA and USSR, primarily) were in a stand off because they understood that if one shot off nukes the other would retaliate and that would be mutual destruction and horrendous collateral damage too. If we messed with Cuba the Soviet Union, being allied with Cuba might have done us harm. They had their allies and we had ours and so it wasn't just the main super powers but our allies too that if attacked would have meant possible mutual destruction. That was generally the cold war policy from Truman through Bush 41.

Answer 8

A policy of non-intervention is the ideal one, because whe need not get involved monetarily, which drains our economy. Right now we're not in the position to spend money spreading the so-called democracy around the world, but we need to use it to improve our situations here at home like health care and education.

Answer 9

The difference now is globalization. Who would care if there are a bunch of radicals running around bombing everything without the ability to get to us? No one. It's a global world now, as Tony Blair tried countless times to tell us, and there's no going back. These people can travel to western countries and do damage, as we have seen. Our only choice is to try to civilize them by getting rid of their oppressors and giving them freedom. People can oppose this tactic all they want, but in 20 years you'll see the difference of what the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts have done. Cultural evolution, it has to be done in a global world because we can't just ignore them.

:::edit: I see their "oppressors being our former allies" as a talking point from people who oppose the war and the USA in general. And you said you didn't want to get into that. Iraq was fighting Iran - who is still a dire threat. Things changed drastically from that time if you'll research it. Things always change in this world and some people need to learn to take those changes into account instead of continuing to harp on one issue because of their agenda.
****Bush didn't. Move on already. Are you Palestinian? That's why the Middle East is like it is today, still fighting battles from history. Move on. Evolve.

Answer 10

You have a point. Looking at the past, time and diplomacy brought peace - not trying to invade and force democracy. Democratic reform comes from within - the people have to want it enough to revolt.