Ronald Reagan: Isolationist

American Conservative ^ | 2011-06-28 | Jack Hunter

[ansel12]

Reagan “waited out” the Soviets?

Did you think that Reagan was going to invade them and destroy Western Civilization, perhaps all civilization?

Do you know what war meant there? One reason many of us voted for Reagan in 1980 was because we felt that the Soviets were going to move against western Europe sometime around 1984 or 1985.

Reagan pumped everything we had into Europe and new weapons and clothing and preparedness for the military, to try and prevent that apocalypse, the tension for the GIs in Europe was immense, because the deaths would have been in the many, many, millions, including the loss of vast swaths of populations and cities, those were very tense times to be a NATO soldier.

In the face of 911, with no Soviet Union to interfere, Reagan would have taken down Hussein, and created an American foothold in the the Arab/Muslim world.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

Exactly. At times we were more friendly with China or Russia. Whatever served our purposes most. This is the realpolitik that Nixon/Kissinger were so famous for, that is loathed by the righteous neocons.

We were playing the Iraqis against the Iranians and vice-versa. They were both no doubt playing us.

It's ugly and its immoral, if done by individuals, but seems to be the only way for nations to survive in a world full of lying self-serving bastards.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

"In the face of 911, with no Soviet Union to interfere, Reagan would have taken down Hussein, and created an American foothold in the the Arab/Muslim world."

Congratulations for placing so many non-sequiturs in a single sentence.

[Hugin]

You are the one who noted that Iran is a threat. So was Saddam. Would it not be better if both Iraq and Iran had the kind of quasi-democracy that Iraq has today, and no nukes, as opposed to a brutal dictator with ambitions on controlling the world's oil supplies who could possibly have nukes by now, and a theocracy bent on bringing on the apocalypse that almost certainly does have them?

[who_would_fardels_bear]

Iran is a threat if they completely takeover Iraq.

Iran would not be as much of a threat if they were caught up in daily struggles with Iraq.

Playing Russia against China worked for us then. Playing the Sunnis against the Shiites could work for us now.

Of course I'm supposed to believe the cockamamie neocon drivel that there is some sort of Islam-wide conspiracy to institute a worldwide caliphate.

I choose, however, to remain in the real world.

[ansel12]

I don’t know what you were trying to say there.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

I believe I understand what you were trying to say, but what you said was wrong, and what you were trying to say was wrong.

I don't know much, but I do know that supplying our allies in Europe with sufficient troops and materiel to scare off a Soviet invasion was a reasonable, commonsensical, and proportionate response to our enemy the Soviets.

Going to war with Iraq was neither reasonable, nor commonsensical, nor proportionate. Reagan wouldn't have gone there.

[KevinDavis]

Here is a thing that isolationist tend to forget one thing.. When Washington was President, we had a very weak Military. Also our founders weren’t truly isolationist.. Adams almost had a war against France (Washington was willing to be the commander in chief before he died).. Jefferson sent Marines to Lybia, and of course Madison had a nice war with the Brits..

[Hugin]

Of course I'm supposed to believe the cockamamie neocon drivel that there is some sort of Islam-wide conspiracy to institute a worldwide caliphate. I choose, however, to remain in the real world.

And I choose to take people at their word when they say they want to kill me. When the Supreme Leader of Iran says God has brought the Jews to Israel so they can be nuked, I think he is serious. Especially when they are actually building nukes. When their president makes his cabinet swear allegience to the 12th Immam I think he means it. As for a caliphate, again that's their words, not ours. See my tagline.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

I'm not saying that there aren't small groups of fanatics that in their wildest dreams hope for a caliphate, or there aren't other groups of fanatics out to destroy Israel. We have the advantage, however, that there is a lot of disharmony amongst them. There is very little love lost between fanatical Sunnis and Shiites.

So some small fanatical groups will try to institute a Sunni caliphate while others try to establish a Shiite caliphate. What do we lose by playing one off against the other? I'd rather they be killing themselves off, then our soldiers.

[Hugin]

BTW, Reagan didn’t beleive in “proportionate response”. LBJ did, and it was a disaster in Vietnam. Reagan believed in disproportionate response. In fact, he coined the term “bomb them back into the stone age” when asked what he would do about the North Vietnam.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

Part of Reagan's brilliance was his occasional use of inflammatory language.

We begin bombing in five minutes.

[ansel12]

I am right about this, Reagan was no Clinton.

In the face of 911, with no Soviet Union to interfere, Reagan would have taken down Hussein, and created an American foothold in the the Arab/Muslim world.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

"an American foothold"

One foot on Shiite territory, another foot on Sunni territory, and presumably a third foot on Kurdish territory.

Not much of a foothold if you ask me.

If we wanted to establish a foothold in the Arab/Muslim world it would have "made more sense" to invade Iran, but since I believe that invading Iraq was complete and utter nonsense, it wouldn't take much to make more sense than that.

Even one of Lady Gaga's performances makes more sense to me than the invasion of Iraq.

[PieterCasparzen]

IMHO...

There is no comparing today to President Washington’s times; then America was not a major world power and was much more physically isoloated than today. Isolationism was generally a good starting point for policy in that case. Today, we are the dominant power in the world and a force for good and a force for stability. Also, today’s weaponry can reach across oceans in minutes and is incredibly more lethal than colonial weaponry. Obviously being too adamantly isolationist, i.e., having a policy of zero military action or presence anywhere unless we have been hit with a physical attack is not only unwise but impractical. Given the stealth invasion of muslim terrorists via the commercial air transport system, perhaps that is where isolationism should start, by plugging that hole in the armor.

All that being said, policy needs to be refined on an ongoing basis to respond to changes in the world. Also, policy should have a direction or an end, so as to not simply change with the wind, though it may be advantageous to change from time to time. Policies can be very detailed and the President, of course, does not write all these details themselves. Most often they communicate their ideology enough to create a starting point and manage others who develop and implement in more detail. While they certainly can get into details and in certain situations that may be called for and optimal, micro-managing is often a terrible mistake for an executive to make. Ultimately then it is principles and vision that a President needs, that guide their policymaking. In the case of foreign relations, they then they need the ability to lead and manage the Secretaries of State and Defense so their vision comes to fruition. Perhaps that is why so many hearken back to the glory days of both Washington and Reagan: those two men each had a vision which was optimal for America in their times,espoused principles at once timeless and righteous, and articulated and effected them with great success.

[Oceander]

Agreed

[ansel12]

Not much of a foothold if you ask me.

Nobody asked you, and I get the impression that you never spent much of your life interested in such things, except in this narrow political sense.

[newzjunkey]

How was Iraq a strategic threat? It was a pest, Saddam deserved to go but I think you overstate the case in hindsight.

It's interesting that, in her book "A Problem from Hell: America in the Age of Genocide," Samantha Powers—who famously pushed Obama into this Libyan misadventure over "responsibility to protect"—criticized Reagan for not doing more when Saddam gassed the Kurds in early '88 during the Iraq-Iran war.

While his administration condemned the use of chemical weapons—Reagan had called for and negotiated towards an int'l ban—we continued an active trade policy because Iraq was a large importer of agricultural goods and seen as a counter to Iran.

In light of the Cold War overshadowing the choices he options he had, it's difficult to say how he'd have reacted post 9/11.

I do believe, however, he wouldn't have wasted precious time on war college fantasies about reduced troop levels and would've opted for a larger force, avoiding the need for any surges later. I think he'd have stayed focused on Afghanistan and kept a close eye on Iraq.

We may have been pulled into engaging Iraq but I don't believe the time table would've been the same.

[CowboyJay]

We’ll put it this way. I don’t believe the Iraqi war would have been necessary under Reagan. No way would Saddam have risked crossing Reagan and incurring Old Testament retribution. If he had, he’d have been dead back in ‘91. Game over.

I also don’t think 9/11 happens under Reagan. Bin Laden would have been taken out cleanly and surgically long before then. If by some freak, Bin Laden weren’t taken out and 9/11 had still happened, Afghanistan would have been bombed from the bronze age back into the stone age, and the conflict would have been over in a matter of 2-3 years. I also believe the UAE would have suffered some serious repercussions for their role in the affair.

JMO of course, but Reagan would not have pussyfooted around the way his successors have.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

"from the bronze age back into the stone age"

I believe that Afghanistan is currently in the stone age.

Bombing the heck out of them would have generated enough shrapnel that enterprising Afghanis could have used to advance their civilization into a bronze, or even iron age.