ideology certainly has a huge impact on policy decisions

one of the major ideologues that influenced 20th century american foreign policy was henry kissenger. of course he promoted what is known as 'realpolitik', or as wiki describes it 'politics or diplomacy based primarily on power and on practical and material factors and considerations, rather than explicit ideological notions or moral or ethical premises.'

Realpolitik - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

edit - i'm gonna do a longer response to this thread i'm just being a bit lazy cause i'm moving and ****. hopefully i'll get to it today, but for now i'll just leave you with this, for anyone interested

i'd like to add, this is a good question. one that i don't know the answer to, either. it's sort of irresponsible sounding but i do have to wonder if it really came down to it, who can demand that the US pay their debt and actually enforce that?

everybody talks about the debt like its this monster under the bed that's gonna come get us some day, i dunno man i really don't know anything concrete enough to make me seriously worried. i see people in the US freaking out cause china owns so much of our debt while their economy is growing... meanwhile china is desperately reliant on the continuing stability and prosperity of the united states just for china's own economy to function. their whole strategy is built on exports, so there's really no hope for self sufficiency in the near future for them. the idea that a middle class of consumers in china could sustain their massive production based economy is a dream. they've basically run their environment into the ground with the model they have, and are acting basically as the world's industrial park.

edit - also, if the debt is really the issue, then i'd think a better strategy would be reverting back to say 60's style america where we trim a lot more off from the top earners. they've gotten sort of cocky over the years but worse comes to worse it makes more sense to do that than to give up military dominance.

I also don't know what would happen and economy really isn't something I'm all that interested in, but I assume it would have cascading economic consequences, like probably reducing the value of the dollar and cause a financial disaster and recession. The US would of course be cut off from outside funds. Right now, the US is borrowing money to keep things running, but of course if they refuse to pay their debt, I assume that's a no go.

Trade relations and diplomacy would go sour. I imagine it could be a catastrophy.

i think the lesson we learned in 2008 was if you tank the american economy you basically collapse the whole world's economy with it

so there really isn't that much leverage there imo

ok, here's my basic stance

at the beginning of the 20th century, the major powers of the world were primarily european, with the notable exception of a rising japan. and britain had naval supremacy and most notably, the key to the atlantic. after 2 world wars, the european powers were decimated as was japan. they were war torn and basically occupied by the 2 major surviving powers.. the united states and the soviet union.

britain and japan's naval leverage was transferred to the united states. the us controlled the oceans and was generally a more prosperous and mature society than the soviet union and so inevitably the soviets not only lost the cold war but saw their empire crumble to pieces. after ww2 the US entered the world stage as a major military superpower, after the cold war ended the united states solidified its position as the sole global super power.

this is is the basic foundation of america's prosperity and wealth in the modern world, in combination with the spoils of the previous imperial conquests from coast to coast of the continent, carving out a nation with access to the pacific and atlantic oceans and a massive amount of natural resources and arable land. it's this combination of factors that makes the united states run **** globally today.

how does the US benefit? look at the united states today vs the united states of 1900, 1850, 1800, etc. in controlling the world's oceans the US basically sets the rules on international trade. and by maintaining naval supremacy the US maintains the strategically advantageous postition of being a power that always capable of invading and is never invaded themselves.

this is why the united states went all the way out in the middle of the pacific and conquered the small island of hawaii. it wasn't just to be mean to the poor hula dancing, ancestor worshiping citizens of hawaii. it was to prevent any strategic vulnerabilities coming in from the pacific. alaska has a similar strategic buffer value.

so basically in order to appreciate where i'm coming from you have to look at this strictly from a geopolitical pov, or in other words, think in terms of military strategy. a solitary superpower wants to maintain that position if only because it basically has no serious rivals that can threaten it.

historical trends seem to suggest to me that geopolitical powers will always maneuver and compete for wealth and influence and so if you aren't the major superpower of the world/your region then you will most likely find yourself having to work something out with whoever it is that does hold that position.

Excellent post. Nailed it.

But how exactly does the US having control of the oceans allow us to "set the rules on international trade"? And how do these rules benefit us to an extent that they wouldn't if Britain had control? It's not like we demand tribute, or levy taxes on all international trade going on between all nations, regardless of whether the trade has anything to do with America.

Not challenging the idea. I simply don't know.

Well, I figure he's referring to the nations whose economies rely on USA's continued import of their products. What would China do if the US stopped importing child labor-produced sweaters? But I think I know just as little as (and probably a lot less than) you.

No he's talking about our navy.

Skimming is never enough, I guess.