hip hop bunny hop

I'm so bored I care about politics, sigh.

Whether one is for or against a sort of forced, crass American hegemony is not an indicator of broader ideology; there are Liberals and Conservatives for it (see, for example, neoconservatives), and Liberals and Conservatives against it (Paleoconservatives, for example)...

If you want a great example of some archconservatives who are against this crass Hegemony, look up the American Conservative, Pat Buchanan, etc...

WW2 did not have a clear aggressor in the European Theater. Britain and France made a promise to defend Polish Sovereignty; when Poland was invaded by the USSR and NSDAP, they only declared war on one of those countries for a reason.

As to the notion that Roosevelt some how "egged on" Japan; that's bull****. Banning oil exports to Japan was not provocative in design or execution. It was, at worst, benign realpolitik; that Japan responded to a goddamned oil embargo with a military assault just revealed their idiotic, Fascistic agenda.

The notion that geopolitical powers act in their own self interest is not, at all, in conflict with the notion that the USA is overextended, over-involved, and over-invested in a seemingly never ending list of countries that are of little to no geopolitical significance.

Further, when considering that opinion, it is imperative you keep in mind that Democracies are not a singularity but a plurality. Whereas Dictatorships are able to, somewhat, focus their foreign policy agenda, the foreign policies of Democracies are almost inevitably piecemeal and contradictory. This is because of the reality of the mobility, organized efficiency, and plurality of various special interest groups - which includes groups who have as their focus environmental, cultural, foreign policy, and economic concerns. Consequently, we get cluster****s such as, say, the current MidEast policy (or lack thereof).

MidEast aside (as that's too easy), I'll give you an easy example of how this forced Hegemony is both counterproductive and harmful to the States' real interest - Korea. Economically, it makes no sense to both subsidize South Korea's military/government and provide a guarantee to their independence when they are directly competing with the USA in several key markets (see Automotive and the ****boxes that country is pumping out) while their main rival, North Korea, is economically and military irrelevant from an American perspective.

The real realpolitik perspective on Korea (and Japan, the RoC vs PRC debacle, etc.) isn't the ludicrous extension of post-cold war subsidies to these governments; it's recognizing that if Seoul got nuked by Pyongyang, the practical effects on the USA would be negligible at worst and actually beneficial to the States' economy if you want to be practical about it.

Unfortunately, various special interest groups have discovered that it's actually possible to get the USA to act against it's interests in this area. Why? Because Senators are cheap, and the American cultural acceptance of foreign entanglements as beneficial. Some groups sell these entanglements as beneficial to human rights to liberals; some groups sell these entanglements as better for america's naked interest.

I propose, alternatively, that these entanglements benefit a small subsection of American society, and that these entanglements represent the most visible, harmful, and accepted sort of corruption in our these united states. It takes some bizarre logic to compute how it makes sense for a GM Employee in, say, Flint Michigan is best served having taxes taken out of his paycheck to subsidize the governments of Japan, Korea, etc....

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TLR - how on earth is it in line with realpolitik to give your citizens money to a foreign nation, to help that nation buy and build a military and economy which competes with your own?

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