Post by limey² on Nov 14, 2024 9:35:23 GMT
The US has something of a weakness in understanding the Interconnectedness of All Things. Ukraine's a great example; the incoming administration are myopic about emboldening antidemocratic forces, in a way that mirrors their 1900s & 1930s predecessors.
"Fuck Ukraine" is a really, really foolish, as well as a really, really immoral, position.
The U.S. was traditionally more concerned with its own interests and maximizing those interests. For example, while it was avoiding European conflicts, it was ensuring its control over the North American continent, then exerting influence over Latin America; in both instances, steadily pushing out European powers. And it did understand the interconnectedness, because it used this to its advantage, starting with the Louisiana Purchase (the Napoleonic Wars ended up being a great boon to westward expansion).
You really need to stop relying on caricatures of U.S. policy and history that are promoted by liberal internationalists and neocons. It's a very one sided presentation that ignores a lot, because they focus so much energy and attention on WW1 and WW2 in Europe.
US interests, in this analysis, = US short to medium term commercial interests.
WW2 is a great example of US commercial interests being severely threatened (by a prospectuve global fascist hegemony without US shores) & those commercial interests temporarily aligning with "liberal internationalists".
Medium/long term interests, very much including commercial ones, certainly include support for & promotion of rule of law, democracy, free trade. That's why the current conversations over Ukraine (& to a lesser extent Taiwan) are so interesting.
We can leave the wholesale outsourcing of manufacturing jobs from Western nations to authoritarian, State subsidised, China, for another thread, but it's kind of a sub-set to this one.