>> If only we had followed George Washington about staying out
>> of foreign entanglements.
We are no longer a nation of planters, farmers, hunters/trappers and small shop artisans that we were in George Washington times.
We depend on global trade, oil and global information flow, all of the things that did not exist in the 18th century.
We will not be safe behind the two oceans if a hegemon arises either in Europe or in Asia.
For that reason we tacitly supported Japan waging a war against Imperial Russia in 1905 and smacked down Germany trying to rise to hegemon status, twice. Japan got the wrong idea from that war, also they tried the Perl Harbor thing for the 1st time in 1905 and thought it was a magic bullet.
Then we fought and contained the USSR in coalition with the West Europe.
In retrospect, should have probably listened more closely to George Kennan and Kissinger on post-Soviet arrangements in Eastern Europe, but alas that ship has sailed.
And we cannot allow anyone to use nuclear blackmail. Once you allow that, it will be done again and again.
Not sure if there are any good options at this point. Only bad and really bad.
That would always have been seen as appeasement from Moscow. A conflict was inevitable unless we were simply to concede a Russian sphere of influence over Eastern Europe.
Russia is just returning its historical mean as an empire whose internal elite are rewarded and legitimized by its barbaric population through killing and looting its neighbors.
All these geniuses who've claimed to be able to "manage" geo-politics, have failed utterly.
God forbid we export our actual founding ideals. No, we meddle with the local politics of cultures that are nothing like ours, creating endless brush wars and instability, creating waves of displaced peoples.
And that's presuming this is being done by misguided incompetence, instead of deliberate malfeasance.