Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Why I'm Not An Isolationist

There's a streak in the Republican Party, one that rears its ugly head every few years, and that streak is isolationism.  Closing your eyes and pulling the blankets over your head might be effective for a four-year-old who wants to hide from monsters, but it's not very effective in a world where headlines like this are run:

Washington drives the world to war

Washington has lost Crimea. Instead of admitting that its plan for grabbing Ukraine has gone amiss, Washington is unable to admit a mistake and, therefore, is pushing the crisis to more dangerous levels. Russia, China, and Iran are in the way of Washington's hegemony and are targeted for attack. The attack on Russia is mounting.
The 80's called and they want their foreign policy back?  What an idiot.

There are bad guys in the world.  Pretending they don't exist, and pretending you can reason with them, is not a valid foreign policy.

If this is what a "reset" looks like, I'd hate to see continued failure!  Perhaps now would be a good time for some of that "flexibility" that President Obama talked about with Medvedev.

3 comments:

maxutils said...

This is one of the reasons I sometimes find it hard to be a Libertarian. I honestly don't know what we could have done with Ukraine, but I know the result isn't good. I'm a firm believer in picking one's fights wisely, and fighting them well ... and letting everyone know that's what you're going to do. Hopefully, that means fewer fights. Personally, I think we've done a not so great job of picking them, recently, and a worse job of finishing ... which is why we have Ukraine.

allen (in Michigan) said...

It's the ironically-name Pravda. Who cares what they publish?

As for isolationists, they had their day in the sun in the run-up to WWII. The unrealistic nature of isolationism has never really recovered from their part in impeding America's mobilization so about their only political utility is to belabor any American foreign policy that doesn't stop at the high water mark.

maxutils said...

One might argue that isolationism didn't work so well inWW!, either ... but it might have i Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq 2 ...