Do you think it is possible for the us to be isolationist today?
1 Answer
It depends on what is your political stance
Explanation:
Neocons(Neoconservatives) and Democrats consider that the policing of the world by the US is an absolute necessity for the stability of the world. Some people either on the Left or the Right, like Chomsky or Ron Paul do criticize strongly this position. They regard it as a new form of imperialism. All major conflicts of the last 100 years were started by the Democrats(except the two gulf wars) despite the fact that antiwar movements are often associated with the Left.
The victory of Donald Trump in 2016 over war hawk and warmonger Hillary Clinton( herself responsible for the war in Lybia) meant that for the third time in twenty years the American people elected a president who promised to bring the troops home and end interventionism after the betrayal of both Bush and Obama who broke their promises.
Despite Trump's pushing for peace, the Washington establishment is unwilling to have peace and pressures him constantly to trigger a new world conflict with Syria and Russia especially. US military interventionism is not based on promoting peace or democracy but on securing the control of resources. Oil is the most notable one, it is used as a guarantee to keep the US dollar as the reserve currency of the world with the Petrodollar(introduced by Nixon) which forces countries to buy oil with it.
The military presence of the US(around 900 bases in 130 countries in 2012) is a way of keeping the hegemony of the US dollars, any leader that counteract those plans like Hussein or Gaddafi are eventually overthrown, democracy is used as a pretext and yet governments which are far from democratic like Saudi Arabia are still supported. The media play a major role in promoting those wars since the 1898 conflict with Spain and the Yellow Press, the lies of the incubators and the weapons of mass destruction is what convinced the American public to accept the wars in Iraq
Last but not least, the USA is a nation founded upon the rejection os imperialism, the fact of military occupying and intervening all throughout the planet is contrary to the very values on which this nation was founded. This argument is used by PaleoConservatives and Libertarians to debunk interventionism.
