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Both intervening with the military jimmy like toppling democratic regimes and turning a blind eye like going isolationist are two sides of the same coin of ignorance and thinking it won't actually affect you.

> US foreign policy analysts think that every issue is the next WW2

If "US foreign policy analysts" would actually think that these situations might lead to the next WW2, then you wouldn't counter them with destabilizing countries, that leads to the rise of extreme parties and then treating them with ignorance. Because THAT is exactly how WW2 happened.

> If we are involved, we're called imperialist

Deploying the military is not the only way to get involved.

> It's always the same double bind. If we are involved, we're called imperialist. If not, we're called complicit. There's no way to win.

If other countries say that has bad consequences, you deploy the military, if they say we need your help here, you turn the blind eye. I mean you are a sovereign country and can do what you like, but you do it, because your administration thinks that is a good idea, not because all the other countries would tell you to. You frame it like other countries called for action and you did them and now they complain. No, they told you they won't like that, and you did it either way.

>Both intervening with the military jimmy like toppling democratic regimes and turning a blind eye like going isolationist are two sides of the same coin of ignorance and thinking it won't actually affect you.

Nope. Just the opposite. The reason the US did regime changes during the Cold War was because we were paranoid that communism would affect us. We need to be less paranoid.

>Deploying the military is not the only way to get involved.

Doesn't matter, we're called imperialist however we choose to get involved. Ever heard the term "neocolonialism"?

>If other countries say that has bad consequences, you deploy the military, if they say we need your help here, you turn the blind eye.

Even when US military action is requested or approved of by people in the country, we're still called imperialists. Consider the war in Vietnam. The South Vietnamese were attacked. We came to their aid for some time. They kept fighting after we left. Yet this was still described as "neocolonialist" activity on our part. That's how our actions are always described.

> Nope. Just the opposite. The reason the US did regime changes during the Cold War was because we were paranoid that communism would affect us. We need to be less paranoid.

I was more thinking of "post" Cold War interventions.

> Doesn't matter, we're called imperialist however we choose to get involved. Ever heard the term "neocolonialism"?

Yes. The US isn't alone in that situation. The EU is described as neocolonialist in the same way. Personally I think that is stupid and we shouldn't have let us be influenced by that. Now Europe stopped being "neocolonialist" and the Chinese has taken over that role in Africa. Now it's much worse both for us (EU) and for Africa. Great.

> Consider the war in Vietnam.

Honestly I wasn't alive and don't know the public opinion of that time. I basically only know it from history class. The rough sentiment is that the French messed up and the US has payed for it. It's true, that some actions in the war are portrayed as bad, most famously Agent Orange, but I think the war in total isn't blamed on the US.

> That's how our actions are always described.

Reading the other thread you linked, I think you have a worse view of the public opinion of the US then it actually is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics#Con...

mopsi 124 days ago

Earlier you wrote:

  > I favor a policy of neutrality and world peace, not rivalry between major powers like the US and Russia.

The thing is, nobody's offering you that. In the ideal scenario for Russia, the US would be mired in internal conflict and instability to such an extent that it would be unable to function as a country, leaving Russia to dominate the world:

  > Russia should use its special services within the borders of the United States and Canada to fuel instability and separatism against neoliberal globalist Western hegemony, such as, for instance, provoke "Afro-American racists" to create severe backlash against the rotten political state of affairs in the current present-day system of the United States and Canada. Russia should "introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social, and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements – extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics".

In other words, they want an endless line of Donald Trumps to ruin your country and turn it into a banana republic so that you wouldn't have the energy to pay attention to Russia stomping over the rest of the world.

Why would any American voluntarily choose this fate?

So according to you, the current state of the US is a result of us trying to "contain" Russia and protect Europe through NATO. Can you see why I wouldn't be particularly enthusiastic about continuing to do this?

None of this would've happened if we had avoided imperialism post-WW2.

I'm not sure exactly what you refer to with "the current state of the US". Domestic issues (e.g. personal financial struggle of the populace, "immigration", and cultural war like ICE), economic issues (bubbles, monopolies) or the role of the USA in world politics? It's the latter, that was the topic of the discussion so far, but I'm not sure if you call that "the current state of the US".

"mopsi" stated how you going isolationist and stuck in domestic struggles, is following Russias plan. So no, the current state of the US results in you stopping to

> "contain" Russia and protect Europe through NATO.

So this is what the EU complains about and tries to tell you: you follow Russians plan and that can't be in your best interest. (Not that the EU would be free from such interests either.) Do you think Russia would leave you alone when there plan succeeded? That would be the biggest success of Russian policy since 1945. When they can get you from the major world power to being a isolationist country with domestic struggles, why would they stop?

> None of this would've happened if we had avoided imperialism post-WW2.

I think you need to define terms here. What exactly counts as "imperialism post-WW2" and what not? I mean the arms race let to the collapse of the soviet union, so I guess until to the 90s it went pretty good for the countries part of the "First World".

If you wouldn't have stayed in Europe after WW2, the USSR would have reached to the Atlantic. And no not just in 1945, they also tried that in the 50s and continued to want that. Not sure, if you already know, but Putin was in prison in Germany in the 90s for trying to topple the German government and his goal was to expand the "Soviet/Russian" empire to the Atlantic. He was already ~40 and has served in the KGB before, so I guess he hasn't changed his opinion since.

>When they can get you from the major world power to being a isolationist country with domestic struggles, why would they stop?

Why would they continue?

>If you wouldn't have stayed in Europe after WW2, the USSR would have reached to the Atlantic. And no not just in 1945, they also tried that in the 50s and continued to want that. Not sure, if you already know, but Putin was in prison in Germany in the 90s for trying to topple the German government and his goal was to expand the "Soviet/Russian" empire to the Atlantic. He was already ~40 and has served in the KGB before, so I guess he hasn't changed his opinion since.

Interesting. So the US saved Europe, you say. Yet we get nothing but complaints, mockery, and condescension from Europeans. You mock us for the same military-industrial complex which saved your butts. Wonder why we aren't interested in saving Europe again?

> Why would they continue?

Because they like to increase their influence and territorial control and already did the hard part? Granted the USA becoming like Iran or Venezuela today seems a bit of a stretch. I honestly lack the imagination how a USA in ten years, that hasn't had elections that actually affect things, serves the best leader of all time and is a major ally of Russia looks like. There will also be so much other territorial changes in that scenario.

> Interesting. So the US saved Europe, you say. Yet we get nothing but complaints, mockery, and condescension from Europeans.

I don't think you get much mockery about the US cold war policy *in Europe*. Granted these people exist, but they also often do sit in the same party that merged with the ruling party of the GDR.

> You mock us for the same military-industrial complex which saved your butts.

I think a military industry propped up in war times by the government, and the resulting military complex having subverted civil rights and politicians are different situations. A military that is conjured by the people makes a country stronger, large "dead capital" in weapons and industry starting to control the government becomes dangerous.

> Wonder why we aren't interested in saving Europe again?

To some point yeah. I'm not going to say the EU hasn't made bad decisions in the last 30 years. I don't see it that black an white, so e.g. "So the US saved Europe, you say." I would say the US in alliance with West-European nations did save Europe, the Morgenthau plan wouldn't have helped against the USSR either. But my main argument for this discussion is, when the USA go isolationist now, it first messes up a lot of other things in the process and second the same will repeat that happened in the 1940s, there will be the need for the USA to intervene, because it affects their bottom line, and the situation will be much worse, and it causes much more loss (of human life).

This is essentially the same that process the EU just went through. It did "nothing" in 2014, because that is not NATO and we don't want to get involved in a war, and now it became worse. (I think our "we did get involved too much" is Yugoslavia, to some point participation in wars with the US and of course WW2.) Now we did get involved, because the next border will be a NATO and EU border. Sure, we can say it won't happen, Russia is not THAT strong, but the next decision would be to either get the EU in a complete war against Russia, or to give up on the territorial integrity of EU states. And we don't want to face that.

If we continue the discussion, I think it stops to make sense to treat both the US and the EU as single entities, because in both there are parties that have been arguing for one policy and for others.

mopsi 124 days ago

No, the Euro-Atlantic alliance produced incredible prosperity in its heyday.

The current deteriorating state of the US is the result of departure from the previously held values and forms of cooperation. Nothing illustrates this better than the US president openly threatening the sovereignty of Canada and Denmark while accepting massive bribes from Arab sheikhs and calling genocidal dictators like Putin his "friends". This is the wet dream of people who want to see the US fail.

Why would any American want to hit the gas pedal and accelerate even further down this road?

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/GDP_per_...

The US prosperity trend has been the same before and after WW2:

You yourself just explained how Russia saw us as a threat and destabilized our politics, which lead to the current situation. We would have been better off if NATO was never formed.

If you believe I'm a Trump supporter then you're misunderstanding my position.

mopsi 124 days ago

  > The US prosperity trend has been the same before and after WW2:

GDP alone doesn't tell the story, because it has become detached from real income metrics: https://aneconomicsense.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/going...

  > You yourself just explained how Russia saw us as a threat and destabilized our politics, which lead to the current situation. We would have been better off if NATO was never formed.

No, Russia fundamentally wants to see you fail and take your place in the world. Without NATO, that would've been simply easier. You can castrate yourself, but that will not change their goal.

>GDP alone doesn't tell the story: https://aneconomicsense.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/going...

Other sources disagree: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-median-income?tab=l...

But it doesn't matter--you're arguing that prosperity for the average US worker began stagnating about 20 years after the formation of NATO. That's basically an anti-NATO argument, from the US perspective.

>Russia fundamentally wants to see you fail and take your place in the world.

My goal is to abandon our place in the world and be like the Swiss. I don't want to destabilize yet another country (Russia in this case). We're gonna have to live with Russia whether we like it or not.

Russia sees you as a threat since 1917 and you aren't going to change that. You can blame that on Germany if you want, but the German regime has been toppled since four times, so good luck holding anyone accountable for that now.

Russia has made major leaps in destabilizing your politics since we (the EU too) believed we won the cold war and stopped treating the Russian empire and allies (which China definitely was, now it's more equal or the opposite) as a threat. The USA also has a superiority complex, like most European nations also had, which certainly isn't helping now.

> If you believe I'm a Trump supporter then you're misunderstanding my position.

You said the USA going isolationist is going to solve problems, which granted isn't as extreme as the Trump foreign policy, i.e. it won't fuel the worsening of the current situation, but it isn't going the improve it either.