[refurb]

I would argue the US needs to batten down the hatches and become more isolationist. Let Europe deal with European problems. It's clear from the last 70 years, since WW2, that the US meddling in others' affairs only leads to death, destruction and more negative sentiment against the US.

If LBJ stuck to his promise, we could have avoid a ton of mess in Vietnam: "We are not about to send American boys nine or ten thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves."

We don't have a dog in this fight.

Edit: Apparently arguing for the US to not get involved in yet another foreign war warrants my comment being flagged.

[deeg]

It was a bad idea in the 1930's and it's an even worse idea now, with the globe being more interconnected than ever.

[icedistilled]

A similar sentiment was expressed in the 1930s.

[logicalmonster]

History doesn’t start in 1930.

Many have argued that it was US intervention in WWI that created the economic and political situations that allowed such a bad outcome to take place in WWII.

[icedistilled]

Is that your point US should have stayed out of WWII because of WWI?

[logicalmonster]

I'm talking about WWI here and the unintended consequences of US intervention there.

The US getting involved in WWI arguably extended that conflict, the action that made WWII possible, and had many drastic unintended consequences for humanity.

The very short version is this.

* During WWI, there were lots of peace overtures being pushed in Europe because a lot of people were sick of fighting. Because a lot of powerful people were hoping to drag the United States into that relative stalemate, these peace offerings were not taken as seriously as they otherwise would have been.

* Because the US's entrance tilted the scales at the end of WWI so dramatically, Allies were able to enact a little revenge in the Treaty of Versailles and impose punitive and humiliating economic and political measures. Rather than a normal, face-saving peace-treaty, Germany was punished harshly and this tilting of the scales is what led to conditions for the Nazis to take power.

* If Russia's economic and political attention wasn't directed externally at the time, it's likely the Russian Revolution would have failed and the world would have been spared a great deal of grief from Communism.

Obviously this is all alternative history speculation, but there's a strong case to be made that absolute US neutrality in WWI would have ended WWI sooner, not created the economic/social conditions that led to Nazis taking power in Germany, and Communists would have never taken root.