Post: #1

Bush ran for President criticizing Clinton's foreign adventures, saying he was against Nation-building. We know how that turned out.

Obama talked like a dove, said he wanted to get out of Iraq, and then did so and re-invaded, as well as knocking off a few other leaders here and there, funding a few civil wars here and there.

Now there is Rand Paul, the only candidate out there who is truly outspoken against foreign adventures and interventionism. The Republicans have a crowded field and Paul's chances seem slim, but at the very least he has some sort of a chance to become President.

Yet it seems like every single President is inevitably gets involved in several foreign adventures, it's practically a right of passage to just start bombing this or that country the second anyone hears that there are problems there.

I just wonder if it is at all possible to have a President with a foreign policy that explicitly vows not to make the world's problems our own. I have a strong feeling president Rand Paul wouldn't be any more successful than Bush or Obama at staying out of foreign entanglements.

Post: #2

Some might say your question is simplistic.

Imperialism is still going strong, it just takes different forms.

Because of this, the USA has to flex muscle internationally. Just as Russia and China also have to be 'international players'. We know the consequences if they don't.

Post: #3

I think at some point, someone pulls the president into a room and gives him "the talk". Whatever idealistic foreign policy aims he might have had while running go out the window. They will learn that they are required to uphold all policies that will ensure America remains the sole superpower and that any force that threatens Israel is to be confronted. If the president doesn't comply, there will be "consequences."

Post: #4

The U.S. could, but they wouldn't be a world power much longer. At the end of the day, politics is about money and power in general, and specifically the control of resources, not all of which reside within the political borders of the U.S. If other countries could assert themselves the way the U.S. could, they would.

Post: #5

In the short-term, no. The only reason we are still alive is two reasons: We have highly productive, high human capital workers. But that advantage will diminish soon as the internet will allow the majority of people a free education. The second is that the military industrial complex and multinational corporations keep our consumption based economy afloat. Like a shark, the second we stop swimming, we die. In the past, we've only ran one trade surplus, which France pressured us into doing so we could take special loans from the IMF. Then ,we had that one supposed balanced budget year with Clinton. But otherwise, it can't be healthy to run decades of deficits, no matter what nonsense the diehard Keynesians endlessly spout. In short, its not possible until we reform our dependence on books and bombs.

In the long-run, yes. But only if we restructure our education system, infrastructure and bureaucratic system to revamp our industrial sector. While we are still technologically ahead of the world, we still have the comparative advantage in some adavnced goods, compared to say Bangladesh. One of the issues with American economics is that we exclusively teach Neoclassical economics in universities, which frequently hamsterizes massive government expenditures. We need to cut a lot expenditures and run trade surpluses if we want to restore our glory as a strong currency. Also, we must explore nuclear and hydroelectric energy options at a larger scale to solve the petroleum dependence.

I would like to hear Zelecorpion's economic opinion.

Post: #6

The value of the dollar is mainly coupled with either raw mineral resources of the country, manufacturing capacity and military power. The main part remaining in the US is the military force.

Sooner or later the US will cease to intervene militarily because it will be too broke to pay for it all. China is set up to take over and even as we speak bases are being erected by the Chinese :



http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-05-10...hoke-point

This is only the beginning and they will take over from the US just as the US took over from the UK 100 years ago as the leading political battering ram.

Politically you won't find an end to that policy.

Post: #7

Short answer, no.

When you're the global hegemon, you simply can't abide stepping back, because someone is going to move into that vacuum.

The US tried it, but they discovered in WWII that if you don't deal with assholes (Germany) they just become a bigger and bigger problem.

Post: #8

OP, read the book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. We will never have a president that is not imperialistic.

Post: #9

I can't answer your question, but it does seem like Rand Paul is the best pick in decades compared to previous presidents - though there may have been other good presidential candidates who never made it past the primaries.

Post: #10

(05-17-2015 11:09 AM)Basil Ransom Wrote:  I can't answer your question, but it does seem like Rand Paul is the best pick in decades compared to previous presidents - though there may have been other good presidential candidates who never made it past the primaries.

As for Rand Paul as well as his father Ron Paul - offering dead-end solutions and fake opposition is no way forward:




There you have your change.

Good luck with that.

Post: #11

The short answer to the OP's question is: No, the USA can't have a non-interventionist foreign policy.

That doesn't mean that the USA is going to continue its foreign misadventures forever. One day, the jig will be up for the American empire. When that day comes, then (and only then) will the USA have a non-interventionist foreign policy.

Post: #12

Certainly we are in that process now. We don't see that but little by little the US would have to accept the reality that the world has changed, that it doesn't have the money anymore that gave the American economy the edge to patrol the world, and that the American population is retreating from the interventionist notion by the minute.

Its not a bad thing, the Western world has been living a bubble for the past 20-30 years. And Others has come and beat them at their own game. Level of Consumption, and income to debt ration at the personal and government is unsustainable in the long term.

The question is, what would happen with trade routes and regions that America now protects. Let say Asia, and Europe. Can Asian countries withstand China pretentiousness without affecting their end game, their economy and trade routes, or Europe can withstand Russian with out deciding between their social experiment or be servants of the Russians? Interesting time I tell you.

Good luck if the USG thinks it can recruit the general population to go and fight other countries, and corporation wars.

But its good that we are retreating from a type of foreign policy that American people never vote in.

As the US keeps its transformation and limiting the excesses of the past decades we should see a return of a more rationale society.

Yep, the system will try but the heart of the American society is not in that anymore. Its difficult to care when you are working two jobs and just getting by.

Post: #13

We could if...

1) We return to a gold standard. This would force the government to instill some sort of financial discipline. It would force the government to pay for foreign wars by increasing taxation which is of course political suicide. The alternative we have now is we can merely inflate.

2)If AIPAC is outlawed.

Until these two things occur, no I don't believe it's possible.

Post: #14

Zelcorpion is right about the Chinese. Whilst the USA is bridging into countries via war and oil and losing out on the monetary contracts associated with it afterwards the Chinese have been integrating many different economies into their own, forming an alliance of nations for economic benefit.