What about the contrarian view that the Pax Americana has brought the greatest era of peace, wealth and standard of living to the world?
Our forefathers paid a higher price.
Security and liberty are not without costs.
Our forefathers paid a higher price.
Security and liberty are not without costs.
And Libya and Syria...
https://www.betterworldbooks.com/product/detail/Overthrow--A...
^^ Not completely without bias, but probably contains a lot of inarguable historical facts that you weren't even close to being taught in high school or even college.
From my perspective, it seems that GWB created the seed that would grow into ISIS. Then it was Obama that gave it the fertile soil to grow.
I also don't understand how fighting ISIS made it worse.
But please, don't let these factors get in the way of your narrative of American exceptionalism.
Arguing that "security and liberty" (of Americans I assume, not the rest of the world) is worth "bringing peace" (read: starting wars and overthrowing democratically elected leaders) to other countries is just silly. Many millions of people were killed in the middle east (and many of them were innocent civilians). How would you act if a foreign power (acting as though they were the bringers of civilisation to a group of savages) decide to kill millions of Americans? I doubt you would think that those invaders were particularly deserving of the moral high-ground.
Could it be that these wars exposed how primitive guerrilla forces can bleed the mighty American military dry? It's not like the world has seen a very convincing show of force.
I for one worry that the bluff has been called and that every dictator in the world now knows that apart from the threat of nuclear war, the American military's capabilities are far more limited than some perhaps had thought. When relatively poor and simple battlegrounds such as Iraq or Afghanistan cause trouble one or two decades on, then what could America do against more advanced enemies or against more enemies?
This is to me the biggest worry: occupying two such relatively simple countries is a challenge. The Russians, the Chinese, Iran, heck even the tiny Syrian government, can now see that America had lots of trouble with what is currently nation No 54 and nation No 111 measured by GDP. Yes, I know that GDP does not equal military strength and that the US was officially not fighting the Afghan government. But in reality, the US was fighting primitive guerrilla forces in a primitive country. And the US didn't really come out impressing anyone with their strength.
Every dictator in the world fears an American military attack, because they will undoubtedly be overrun and dethroned. Look at how Ghadafi and Saddam tried to bend over backwards to show that they had no WMDs. American military prowess is second to none by a wide, huge margin.
A small occupying force like those allocated to Iraq/Afghanistan after the initial invasions simply can not defeat guerrilla warfare. The lack of post-invasion plans doomed these conflicts, but the initial dictators/governments had no chance of survival.
That's the reason they all now want nuclear weapons.
That's going to come with a big side order of "citation needed". To Americans? Yeah, arguably. "To the world"? Eh, there are a lot of non-Americans that might take issue. We can start with polls in Central America and the Middle East.
Apparently they weren't gentle to ethnic Chinese either, I have met many that were forced to flee in boats to avoid pogroms.
Keep in mind that yes, that required shooting up a few countries.
What matters for this however, is that it was a state sponsor and safe haven for people who'd go random places and blow economic interests up (from planes to tourist locations), located in a place where they actually had a shot at making stuff happen (ie. could have easy access to a lot of places). So Afghanistan had to go, both for it itself having to go, and to serve as a warning to other states what happens if you don't cooperate in the war on terror. The war on terror, of course, being the war to keep congress' economic interests safe.
The standard view? Pax Americana is unquestioned by American political leadership regardless of political spectrum. Of course it brought peace, wealth, and improved the world, and continues to do so, and should continue to do so. Of course American interventionism is, on average, a moral obligation and achieves moral good. And Pax Americana achieved, is still impermanent, and must constantly be renewed. And further, it cannot be questioned by international law. That is the pre-9/11 position of the vast majority of Reagnite and Bush 2 foreign policy officials, as stated in the position paper "Rebuilding America’s Defense" (2000) by the Project for a New American Century think tank, 10 out of 12 founders of which were Bush 2 administration officials. And one of those officials who is also in the current administration, John Bolton, just said yesterday, the United States will not be held accountable by the International Criminal Court. Period.
While there are data points suggesting this is more of a right wing ideology, you won't see the left wing aghast at these plainly spoken positions. They merely present a less verbally assertive version of it.
It is not at all controversial to say, American political thought is still today, insisting Pax Americana is believed in, cannot or should not be questioned, is morally good and proper, and any international institution that disagrees, is instantly discredited. I would expect a Clinton administration would be quite a lot more diplomatic about it, but the policy would be effectively the same. Clinton did vote, at the time, in favor of interventionist wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
And "Rebuilding America's Defense" is often cited as pretext for these wars, as it spells out Pax Americana is under threat without another Pearl Harbor-like event to motivate the American public to the cause. And then soon after 9/11 happened.