Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Sure America did admit Vietnam was a failure at the end of their involvement and many years America had its tail between its legs when new threats came , as like Jimmy Carters , and Clinton's blunders in threats of conflicts ...... See Richard Nixon campaigned that He would pull out of the war if elected and so he did , as the war was not over as North Vietnam took over South Vietnam after America was out ........ See even the vets who came back from the war never had a victory march with flag waving pride and most were rejected and ridiculed
I would call it "revisionist" of you to describe as a "blunder" the successful intervention coalition that Bill Clinton put together to intercede into & stop the bloody confict & ethnic cleansing that came about as the former Yugoslavia broke up into warring factions. Remember the Bosnian war?
We lost Vietnam when we decided in 1945 or so to support the dying French Indochina Empire to prevent the loss of the French investments. We were afraid France would turn Communist. They became successfully socialist after we relieved then of their cost of Empire. Protecting your own investors from generally deserved revolutions is foolish. Protecting other investors is stupid. We lost the Indochina war before we got involved.
All quite true. Making the general admiration for Truman very puzzling.
Don't most Americans admit Vietnam was a failure? It can be argued that most of America's foreign policy in the 20th century was a failure.
20th century American foreign policy for such a young country is probably one of the biggest success stories in the history of mankind. You had basically had a country start out as a backwoods frontier nation at the beginning of the century into a world power from mid century on...finally to the world sole world power.
In the first half we had two world wars, both of which the US helped to end. The US and USSR emerged as world powers, but while one economic system and powerbase withered and died at the end of the century, the other prospered. Pax Americana!
Now, we existed in a world where, in the course of history up to the middle of the last century world powers had almost been at a constant state of war, as weapons become stronger and stronger. Yes regional conflicts still occurred, local genocides still occurred, but overall the powers remained at peace, stability reigned, the states under the US sphere of influence - western Europe and parts of Asia - prospered, rebuilt form a terrible war thanks both billions of dollars of US aid and the umbrella of US protection. There was no WW3 - that's simply a fact. There was no world war in the era of Pax Americana.
So yeah, as a world power, the US has made plenty of mistakes which are of our cause. Our military was tasked as a world police force. And, likewise, as a world power we get blamed for world events that are not of our cause. But, overall - Pax Americana - it worked. Given the weapons available to the world and the growing world population and extrapolating that to "what was" vs. "what could be" - I would suggest that the last 60 years were probably the most stable and peaceful in world history.
Now, as a current administration that seems to encourage the US dropping out of a world leadership role, along with the realities of global economics as they are, "Pax Americana" is ending. I cannot forecast what the future will bring - but it will not be stability.
I will venture a guess that as "Pax Americana" will be superseded by the Chinese speculators and industrialists protecting their own domestic and international markets. That should be interesting.
20th century American foreign policy for such a young country is probably one of the biggest success stories in the history of mankind.
I suppose if you exclude Rome, Spain and Great Britain you might have a valid argument but since you can't...
Quote:
You had basically had a country start out as a backwoods frontier nation at the beginning of the century into a world power from mid century on.
The U.S. certainly was not a world power beginning in 1860, I would argue that the U.S. didn't begin to be a world power until the beginning of the 20th certainly not until after WWI and even then in comparison to France and Great Britain a minor player. It would not be until the end of the Second World War that the U.S and the Soviet Union would assume their bi-polar roles of international dominance.
As for our military being "tasked" as the world's policeman, however you define tasked, it certainly a roll that was assumed at our own prerogative, and only if you think of the Soviet block as the world's sole criminal. And when it comes to Pax America, during that era it wasn't very peaceful for over 100,000 U.S. service men who died playing global policeman not mention the millions who died in the vast number of wars of independence and proxy battles between the cops (us) and the robbers (the reds). The fact is the world has pretty much been in a constant state of war since 1946, not ones with big set piece battles that seem to be the only the ones that qualify for their own roman numeral.
Does that make the U.S. the rogue cops of the world's trouble spots, no, many if not all of these conflicts date back to issues created by the former world police forces yet all too often our involvement was to perpetuate the status quo of deceased empires, which should have been left to die at the end of WW2. What Pax America was able to do was to forestall (so far) a nuclear holocaust, the potential of which we created in the first place.
I suppose if you exclude Rome, Spain and Great Britain you might have a valid argument but since you can't...
The U.S. certainly was not a world power beginning in 1860...
And when it comes to Pax America, during that era it wasn't very peaceful for over 100,000 U.S. service men who died playing global policeman ...
First point: Yes there was Pax Romana and Pax Britannia as well, but those were established after 100's of years of these empire's being in existence. In England's case, arguably a millennium. In the Roman Empire's case, this was the result of conquer and subjucation, same with Britian to some extent and also there continued to be wars between the major powers during this time - Franco-Prussian war, Crimean war, etc. Now you will have the Noam Chomsky's of the world proclaim America an Imperialistic Empire as well. There was a topic about that previously in this forum with some good discussion so I don't want to dwell on that except to say that the land US forces spilled blood on during the various conflicts - what happened? Simply enough, we left. These lands are not US states, within our hegemony yes, but they are self-governing nations. That's not the action of an imperial empire.
Second point: when the US became a "world power" is open to debate, once again there was a topic on this very forum, so I don't want to revisit that debate except to say we assumed the world stage probably with our victory in the Spanish-American war, and it was established without argument at Yalta in 1945 (along with USSR), in my opinion.
Third point: I expect lots of debate on this - "most peaceful period in world history" says Dd714? Is he crazy?
The problem is many of these posters are bombarded with non-stop bad news thanks to media, each and every hour of the day. The truth is the world was awash in violence, genocide, and war throughout history. Wars would last decades, and even if battles were rare the results of these wars - famine and deseise, would last during this whole period. Tribal warfare - extremely bloody with entire civilization's wiped off the map. Murders and violence - your chance of getting killed/murdered by another human being in the middle ages was something like 60% (I have to dig out the statistics I saw). This trend continued up until the 20th century. Now most people in the developed countries are more likely to die via a fall in the bathtub then murder or violence. Yes regional conflicts occur but imagine if England and France started wars with each other every decade as occurred almost constantly for 800years from the Norman conquest all the way to the times of Napoleon. Now, much of this is due to the growth of technology and global economies...but, hey, if the US is blamed for all the bad in the world, give us credit for the good as well. The price of this indeed - is that the US is truly perceived as the police of the world. We often pay the price economically and socially for Pax Americana.
And welcome the American Internet. You're welcome.
The OP will no longer, shall we say, be joining us here in CityDataForum (at least under his/her user name).
Ignore the OP, the topic has moved on without her. Really, rational debate and discussion was not the intention of her post.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Why don't Americans...
