I truelly believe isolationism can work for the U.S.

[Q Classic]

george washington also hated parties, citing them as the reason why england was bad.

[flash9286]

he was elected by threwing liquor parties

[Agathon]

Go on. Withdraw from Western Europe and Asia. You'll be finished as a world power, but go on do it anyway. Those forces are there for a reason, and it's a selfish reason.

Anyway, the US is going to get screwed for it's bad economic management when countries turn to a more stable currency (the Euro) which isn't being printed willy nilly to pay for Bush's militaristic lunacy.

Take a look at the balance of payments. You better fix your economy or you're dead.

[Lord Merciless]

European economy is in much worse shape than American's.

It can only get worse as you guys lose more and more competitiveness due to excessive welfare.

The only economy that is actually growing decently nowadays is China's. But they are still a long way behind.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Lord Merciless
European economy is in much worse shape than American's.

It can only get worse as you guys lose more and more competitiveness due to excessive welfare.

The only economy that is actually growing decently nowadays is China's. But they are still a long way behind.

uhhhhhh..... no.

It has nothing to do with welfare and everything to do with fiscal stability. The US dollar is now effectively the world's reserve currency - this gives the US somewhat of an economic free ride that other countries don't have. If the US starts printing money to pay for it's wars and tax cuts and the economy keeps sagging it will become less attractive as a reserve currency. If Britain adopts the Euro the European Union will have a bigger economy than the United States, making it much more attractive as a reserve currency.

Now what happens if foreigners dump their dollar holdings in favour of euros? Think about the balance of payments and the need for foreign investment.

Think "Splat!"

[ThePantaloonDog]

A return to isolationism would be a complete disaster not only for the U.S. but for the rest of the world.

First off pulling out of Europe basically leaves Europe with no security. This allows Russia to once again grab for central Europe and leaves Western Europe vunerable and scared. A scared Western Europe is going to be a rearmed Western Europe, possibly with wacky nationalists. ANd we all know what happens when Europe starts arming itself (see WWI and WWII). We keep our armies in Europe so Europe feels secured and can actually keeps its focus on unifying rather than retaking the Danzig corridor.

If we take our armies out of Japan and South Korea we basically allow China to swallow the entire region along with a rearmed Japan which is might try to counter China. A rearmed Japan has historically not been cool. Leaving Asia to China is going to threaten India along with Southeast Asia. So India has even more reason to push its nuclear program and Southeast Asia is worried about China trying to grab all of its dispora.

Removing our armies greatly reduces our international pull. Who's going to listen to us when we don't have armies strategically stationed around the world ready to smack any joker who gets out of line.

America has armies in other countries mainly because it gives the power to determine world events. Like AGaothon said its for a selfish reason, though I believe we can do a lot of good in the world if we get a coherent foreign policy which actually turns potential threats to our hegemony into allies. We are the indispensable nation because we have armies all over the world. If we pull out of the world we lose our superpower status. Plain and simple.

[Tingkai]

It would be great if the US withdrew its overseas troops and became isolationist. A lot of the world's problems are caused by the United States. Either the US is going around invading some two-bit country for no good reason, or the rest of the world stands around and does nothing while saying the US should do something.

But an isolationist policy will never happen. The American government wants to keep other nations in- line for big business reasons. Of course the same thing happened with the British empire where the British government sent troops to support companies like the East Indies Trading Company, British drug dealers in China, etc.

[Agathon]

Check it out LM. I managed to find loads of articles like this with a brief search

http://www.feasta.org/documents/papers/oil1.htm

How does the US intend to maintain its dominance if it can't pay for it?

*edit* I just read that Indonesia may be planning to dump the dollar in favour of the Euro.

[DinoDoc]

It's funny because it's so stupid

Originally posted by Tingkai
A lot of the world's problems are caused by the United States.

[Lord Merciless]

If you believe the future will belong to Europe, that's fine with me. We can argue for the next decade without coming to any conclusion. But you Euros remind me a little of the Chinese of 1700s.

[Tingkai]

It's sad that people like DD don't know what their government does.

[Lord Merciless]

Originally posted by Tingkai
It would be great if the US withdrew its overseas troops and became isolationist. A lot of the world's problems are caused by the United States. Either the US is going around invading some two-bit country for no good reason, or the rest of the world stands around and does nothing while saying the US should do something.

Sure we can leave you guys to your own device. We would enjoy Chinese, Japanese, and other East Asian folks tearing each other apart in a decade.

[Lonestar]

Originally posted by Tingkai
It's sad that people like DD don't know what their government does.

It's sad that people like Tingkai don't realise no one can stop us.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Tingkai
It's sad that people like DD don't know what their government does.

I've never seen any evidence to support your assertion that didn't make me fall down laughing but go ahead and enlighten me.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Lord Merciless
If you believe the future will belong to Europe, that's fine with me. We can argue for the next decade without coming to any conclusion. But you Euros remind me a little of the Chinese of 1700s.

I didn't say that. I said that if the US was so financially reckless the future would belong to the euro.

Euro - geddit?