Re: Fires of revolution sweep the Aran World
Then the same should be true of anyone sitting across the table from us.
Having our foreign policy shift with election cycles pretty well eliminates the possibility of serious long term strategy formulation and implementation. With 4-8 year chunks, we tend to get stuck with short and medium term "solutions" which often shift after elections. Every president talks about a generic concept of a long term goal regarding this or that foreign policy objective but the paths taken to reach the destination shift greatly with each administration. I doubt you would disagree with that.
Point is, there never has been "a" long term solution but several "long term" solutions which are all predicated on the continuation of one foreign policy. It simply isn't realistic to believe we can actually pursue "a" long term foreign policy. We need to shift the governments role in foreign policy to mitigate problems associated with having foreign policy shift every 4-8 years and the best way to do this is by limiting the role of government to one of non-intervention where the rights of US citizens are not directly being threatened.
Ending the policy of going into negotiations bearing taxpayer funded gifts is a pretty radical change. And remember what happens if you give a child a cookie... he'll want a glass of milk too.
I believe America's role in helping to prop up oppressive foreign governments does play a role in the people of those countries harboring ill-will against the US. Do you disagree?
You are comparing a commodity that has drastic fluctuations in supply and demand against a commodity who's supply and demand are incredibly stable.
I'll try to find the time but such a project is time consuming so bear with me. As for propping up dictators... The futures market is based on speculation, hopefully you do not disagree on that fact. Having Pro-US regimes in the ME is comforting to the speculators. When there are problems, such as the Egyptian revolt, the speculators freak out and the price of oil climes. This price hike is NOT due to an actual change in supply and demand but purely speculation on what might happen sometime in the future.
I didn't agree with going into Iraq but I did agree with going into Afghanistan. I didn't agree with nation building in Afghanistan and still don't. The role of our military should be a killing machine, role in, wipe them out, and leave. If another group hostile to the US takes power and attacks US citizens, we repeat the process. Any involvement with the UN or other nations should be a simple notification, "Hey, these people attacked us, we're going to go kill them, anyone is welcome to join us and if you're so inclined, you can go about the process of nation building since we have zero interest in doing that."
Doesn't the US have such capabilities? It seems we do, therefore it stands to reason that other nations would see us as a potential threat. Perhaps if we were to stop flexing our military muscle and bragging about our ability to "project strength", it would go a long way to easing tensions and building an atmosphere of trust and cooperation.
We both know that governemnt spending does not add to the growth of real GDP.
Piracy is the only threat to shipping and trade routes that I'm currently aware of, I don't know of any foreign country, or foreign military, engaging in piracy. So to some extent I can agree with the US protecting US ships at sea but only until they reach the end of international waters, so as not to cross into foreign territority. Foreign ships should be protected by their respective governments in the same way and for the same reason. It is not the job of the US Navy to protect all the ships on the ocean.
As for foreign military bases across the globe, I think they are superfluous and should be drastically reduced. We have foreign embassies to promote and educate about our culture, that is not a job for the US military.
