The Allies exercised poor judgment but they did have leverage on Germany due to US presence. Without the US the Allies and Germany would have had to have had a more equitable agreement.
Yes, but for the wrong reasons. Or the treaty may have been written in the context of an Allied defeat. You don't seem to account for that very possible outcome.
Well fighting WW1 and exhausting all those resources would have ended plans for expansion at least for a while.
I don't know why you would think that. And how long is "a while?". Keep in mind that Hitler didn't invent the idea of expansion to the East. He just happened to be the one who tried to force it. German nationalists were generally supportive of it, because they favored unifying ethnic Germans (who were spread all over Europe) into a unified German Reich.
Plus continued US involvement extended the war making Russia more ripe for the Bolshevist revolution. The Russian army was still involved in the war when the Czar was deposed. Being in the war was a big part of the Communists message against the Czar. There were many factors in play that brought about the deposing of the Czar in Feb 1918 and the Bolshevik take over in October.
Did it extend the war? I'm not sure how that could be the case unless we're talking about an Allied defeat.
And you are correct that the war was a factor in the Russian Revolution, but Russia's problems were deeper than the war. Had it ended sooner, those problems wouldn't have gone away.
There is more going on there than you include in your comment includes. The only thing different between the occupations was not being half-assed vs being real. There are other examples in US history that bear that out too.
The occupations of Germany and Japan were different for two reasons. First, the underlying wars were different. We inflicted complete and utter destruction on the people both physically and psychologically. They were totally broken as human beings. Second, we had a massive occupation force that criminalized the underlying ideology under penalty of being summarily shot and destroyed all symbols of that ideology. That's why those nations folded and became manageable. We've never done anyone even close to that in the Middle East or really anywhere else.
am not into economic nationalism. US citizens and the citizens of the world should be free to trade with one another as much as possible.
You do know that's only possible with a naval presence that protects shipping routes, right? We just take it for granted, but the US Navy (and previously the Royal Navy) is the main reason we don't have pirates attacking and robbing trade vessels all over the oceans.
We understand some nations better than others. Some we don't understand at all. I think that is self-evident.
I'm not talking about understanding the nations. I'm talking about understanding how a nation's leaders perceive the United States and its presence in various areas. Those are separate issues.
Oh, yeah? The alternative is to roll back involvement slowly and evaluate each step of the way. There will be some optimum level, which I expect would be somewhere in between US border and across the globe.
So where should we start? And what's the contingency plan if the areas we abandon turn out not to be the peace-loving choirboys we assumed they were? Keep in mind that the places where we have a military presence are in regions where there has been trouble. We didn't go there for no reason.
True. But that doesn't mean you have to have regular patrols into the South China Sea into the Persian Gulf up into Black Sea.
So how often do you think we should patrol those areas?
We have on multiple occasions, like the missile system NATO (we) were going to put in Eastern Europe.
What's wrong with putting missile defense in Eastern Europe?
Yes, and we should protect our citizens from Islamic terrorism but otherwise leave them alone.
With the US becoming a major producer of oil, we'll have less need to be involved in the Middle East. However, we can't protect our citizens from Islamic terrorism if we can't go where they are. And again, their religion dictates that they not leave us alone, so conflict between the Islamic world (as divided and diverse as that world may be) and the rest of the world willl always be a major security issue as has been since the 8th century. The problem existed before we had ships in the Persian Gulf and before we had some troops in the Middle East (and we don't have that many nor do we have a presence in many Islamic countries), and it won't go away if we leave. We'll just be in a far weaker position to stop them if and when they decide they want more converts.
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