[frankbreetz]

From the article: "Nations with allies thrive, and those without them wither. Alone, America cannot protect our people and our economy. At this time, we can see storm clouds gathering. A polemicist’s role is not sufficient for a leader."

This is a true statement, I just hope the damage done can be undone. We are stronger together than we are alone.

[rayiner]

Is that empirically true? The USA was the largest economy in the world by 1890, despite pursing a policy of isolationism for the entire century before that. By the time we entered the First World War, we accounted for a quarter of the world economy, about as much as all of Western Europe put together.

[dragonwriter]

> The USA was the largest economy in the world by 1890, despite pursing a policy of isolationism for the entire century before that.

The US was never isolationist unless you ignore the existence of Native American Nations; it was brutally expansionist from day one. From the time of the Monroe Doctrine, US imperialism expanded even further, leaving the US “isolationist” in most of the 19th Century mainly only in regard to what happened outside the Western Hemisphere, and not even always there.

[rayiner]

"Isolationism" when discussing U.S. history, and as relevant here, generally refers to our reluctance to our avoidance of alliances with European countries. (Or, really, anyone. In this context, "isolationism" isn't inconsistent with "expansionist." It's more about unilateral versus multi-lateral.)

[dariusj18]

I'd be interested in seeing this data. I couldn't find anything with a cursory search, can you point me in the right direction?

[rayiner]

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/2000-years-economic-history...

[dariusj18]

So the source for that appears to be http://www.ggdc.net/maddison/oriindex.htm "Statistics on World Population, GDP and Per Capita GDP, 1-2008 AD" but I can't find the methodology used. It is definitely an interesting spreadsheet to look through.

[xyzzyz]

Maddison is garbage source for anything pre 1800s, FWIW. His all "data" before 1800s is completely made up. See http://faculty.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/Book_Reviews/...

[jfengel]

That was also the last expansionist era in world history. The US was able to expand into new, fertile land and exploit new mining resources. The land wasn't completely empty, of course, but it was not being intensely farmed with the new large-scale agricultural techniques.

The expansion wasn't all of it; it was also an era of technological innovation in which the Americans were leaders (though Europe also produced a fair amount of innovation). But the expansionism had another advantage: while Europe was busy fighting a series of wars for control over the same territory, the US had a lot more freedom to devote to increasing production rather than destruction.

So the 19th century may not be an accurate model for the 21st. Isolationism was more feasible then because it was a large, self-sufficient nation. Today, capitalism has broken production down into finer and finer pieces and it's much harder for even a very large nation to compete against the combined strength of the rest of the world. If we don't collaborate, and others do, they'll gain a relative advantage that will slowly eat into our dominance. We can't simply conquer new territory because there isn't any, and even if we did, ownership of land isn't as important in a technological era.

[lkjhdcba]

"isolationism"

[ARandomerDude]

It doesn't seem like that statement is obviously true.

World War I comes to mind as an instructive case against over-alliance. Likewise, in World War II, Switzerland remained famously unallied.

Not that I'm anti-alliances, but the common idea that allies are a key to survival isn't necessarily true.

[Nasrudith]

That reminds me of one thing I noticed about nations and needing a "designated driver". Occasionally one prosperous democratic nation does something which the rest of the world can tell would be a terrible idea, warn them as such and get ignored because so many feel so strongly about. Predictably disaster strikes. The int

It makes me wonder if some sort of international veto arrangement might be a good idea - unfortunately it seems that even if they did so they would be unlikely to listen "because this time is different".

[dariusj18]

The problem is sometimes someone has to choose the least bad option. Sometimes there aren't any solutions that more than half a constituency are happy with, but not choosing is an even worse option. You can see this happening right now with Brexit IMO.

[davvolun]

> Sometimes there aren't any solutions that more than half a constituency are happy with

Which is part of the reason why most democracies in history are representative democracies; they represent the interests of their constituents, not their constituents personal choices.

A representative should properly make the decision that, in their view, presents the best possible result for their constituency, not "what their constituents would choose if they were elected."

[dariusj18]

That doesn't change the issue that sometimes there are no "good" options to choose from. It takes a rare politician to doom their career by choosing something unpopular.

[davvolun]

"More than half the population is happy with" is not the same as "good."

I fully believe in (representative) democracy, and with an extremely complicated issue like Brexit it needs dedicated politicians researching the issue and, ultimately, selling a solution to the public. I'm not deeply in tune with the parties in the U.K., but my general feeling has been that Labour has no fucking clue what to do, so all of the U.K. is just jumping into a yawning bottomless pit for no good reason.

[frankbreetz]

I like this idea, it seems difficult to implement, my first thought is to have the UN involved in some way, maybe if 75% of countries have the power to veto something. UN has always had a problem with enforcement, especially with G-7 type countries. It would be hard to see UN voting down Brexit and the USA and allies enforcing this somehow. We would have to generate higher respect for the UN and the world seems to be going down a different path right now.

[LoSboccacc]

> Nations with allies thrive, and those without them wither

let me show you exhibit A:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_betrayal

"allies" is a romantic concept that doesn't hold any water, only the return of investment forecast drives action and inaction.

[davvolun]

That is effectively fixed by amending the statement

> Nations with ardent and sincere allies

And, clearly though certainly teetering toward "no true scotsman," an ally who is only superficially allied (Germany and the USSR during the first half of WWII, or the Allies and USSR after the war) should not be considered an "ally," for all intents and purposes.

And I think it's clear in that specific example you gave how well selling out their allies worked for U.K. and France. If "greed" is your only motivation, eventually your greedy allies will sell you out as well. See, Prisoner's Dilemma or pretty much the entire field of ethics.