George Washington famously advised that the US ‘avoid foreign entanglements’. In typical American fashion, we proceeded to ignore it completely and take it completely overboard as it suited us. Washington’s warnings were specific to his time and certainly an accomplished general like Washington had more than enough sense to realize the US had survived the Revolutionary War by the skin of its teeth and didn’t need to be trying that again anytime soon.

We did, of course, in the War of 1812. The British burned down the Capitol building and went home.

So we finally took Washington’s words to heart and hid under our proverbial bed for nearly a hundred years, only poking our nose out to Remember the Alamo and Remember the Maine. Both of those were in our own backyard so at least we weren’t involved in Europe’s never ending succession of wars.

We just had our own at home. Sigh, it’s kind of a wonder we didn’t destroy ourselves before we got this American Experiment off the ground. It sure wasn’t from the lack of trying.

Then we had two very big, very nasty wake up calls. There comes a time in every person’s life when they are forced to grow up; nation-states are no different. We thought it was World War I. We did get more mature, but what really snapped us out of our childishness was World War II.

WWII is far from a footnote in history. It’s shadow is long and still very present in American foreign policy. We will never know the true death toll. Best estimates are around 70,000,000,000. That’s 70 million human beings that were killed as a direct result of the war. Proportionately, there may have been more devastating wars in human history but there has never been another even close to the death toll alone of World War II.

American grew up in the bloody fields of Europe and the blood red oceans of the South Pacific. Four hundred thousand of our sons and even a few of our daughters gave their lives fighting for the freedom and liberty we take so for granted these days. Only one eighth of that total would die in Viet Nam and no other war or military action would even come close to that cost in blood for the United States. We lost more men invading Normandy than in both Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

World War II’s scale matters because it’s so very hard for us to understand it now. It also matters because America had come into her own as an adult nation-state and she was determined to NEVER do that again. Going home and pretending the rest of the world could take care of itself was no longer an option. The world had changed and America realized she would have to either change with it, or spend the rest of her existence cleaning up its mess.

So we changed. If you can’t beat ’em, bribe ’em. We couldn’t actually beat the whole planet, not even with nuclear weapons and we didn’t want to anyway. What we could do was to set up systems that greased a lot of the friction out of the past systems. When every nation-state that wants to trade overseas needs a blue water navy to do it, that leaves most nation-states out of the market. It also creates all kinds of opportunities for nations with blue water navies to abuse their weaker peers. Nothing ends well.

Our plan was to just be the danged world navy. We had mothballed more warships than most world navies had combined immediately after World War II so it wasn’t like the job was much of a stretch for us then. Plus, all those Lend-Lease contracts were being paid back as the rest of the Allies recovered so we had the cash. Kind of typical American, find the simplest solution and do it.

It worked. Tiny nation-states that didn’t have even a single warship could safely trade with incredible naval powers like Britain. It helped that most countries were way too busy rebuilding to bother with privateering but the reality is that the world could finally safely trade without having to build an entire navy to protect their ships. The US did it for them.

I know, globalism has become a bad word. Applied to world government, it is the stupidest and worst thing we’ve ever come up with because most of this planet is governed poorly or by governments that value their power over their citizen’s rights. First we need to learn how to govern well on small scale, then we can talk about governing the whole world. Probably sometime around the Twelfth of Never but we’ll just have to see.

But globalism referring to free trade has been fantastic. It’s allowed developing nations to start pulling themselves out of poverty. It’s allowed resource rich nations to sell to more capable manufacturing nations to the betterment of both.

Don’t get too enamored. Like all else, there’s always a downside. The US didn’t deal well at all with either its job loss as lower paying jobs went overseas nor with its incredible brain drain on the rest of the world. No economy can be a one trick pony, so we’ve learned, and no nation-state can advance if all their best and brightest move to greener pastures rather than make their own pastures greener.

All said, I think it’s been a net plus. We’ve not come anywhere near another world conflict. Millions upon millions enjoy higher standards of living. People who faced lifelong food insecurity are instead able to buy food from those who can produce it much more cheaply. Babies that once stood no chance of survival grow up healthy and strong. We should rightly be proud of the part we played in that.

So let’s get to the point: the US has enemies. The US is incredibly powerful but is not invincible. The US cannot just leave the world stage without consequences for hundreds of millions of people worldwide and, in a very self serving view, without massive consequences to itself.

We enjoy a lot of security because of our geography. We’re not impossible to invade but anyone trying is going to pay a horrendous price for the effort. Unless we let our guard down.

Neither Russia nor China are our friends. They both want to replace the US as the world’s only superpower. As many mistakes as the US has made over the decades, do you really think either an authoritarian or a totalitarian government would be better? Yeah, not hardly.

Neither is a threat militarily to the US – YET. Russia is scared to death of a conflict with the US – that’s what all the nuclear saber rattling is about. They can’t win and they know it. At least not now.

China is economically dependent on the US. We not only buy their stuff but we provide that blue water protection their entire economy depends upon. No US Navy, no Made in China and they know it. China’s problem is different from Russia’s but stems from the same mistake: they thought they were strong enough and the US weak enough that is was safe to make their move. Whoopsie.

Both are now stuck with their respective messes. Russia has to extract itself from Ukraine with some kind of gain in order to buy time to lick its wounds and regain its strength. China needs to placate the US and backdown from virtually every conflict it has started in order to do the same. Russia doesn’t really have a good way to get the gain it needs but it has some hope of declaring victory and going home, albeit increasingly small. China can’t ‘lose face’ so it’s pretty much doomed unless the CCP collapses which is not beyond possiblity.

That translates to decades of rebuilding under the best of circumstances for both. If we repeat our past mistakes and just assume freedom and capitalism will win the day without our influence, they’ll both be back, stronger and meaner. Let’s skip that.

Conversely, if we take our ball and go home, both will thrash about trying to take advantage of our negligence. That’s a great way to get a conventional World War III. Eventually, they will feel strong enough to attack the US directly even if we turn our backs on every ally we’ve made over the last eighty years.

Think not? Russia has made noise about reclaiming Alaska already. That’s bravado now but if they think we’re weak enough, it’ll turn into a real threat. Russia wants to be an empire. They’ll be perfectly happy to move into the American Continent doing it, given the time and opportunity.

China is already actively bullying every neighbor it has, even including Russia. The Philippines re-allied with the US. South Korea and Japan are just as vulnerable as Taiwan. Ever see a bully only take a kid’s lunch money only once? Yeah, bully nation-states don’t stop until they are forced to.

Part of why World War II was so devastating was our late response. It took most of 1942 to get our act together and we took some nasty beatings in the process. Everyone did.

But if we had responded in 1939? Would Germany have taken as much European territory? Probably not. Good chance that the Soviets would have sat it out and that Germany wouldn’t have invaded Russia. That’s more than half the casualties right there.

What about in 1934? What if we’d made it clear that Germany’s ‘annexations’ were a no go? Would that have stopped World War II? No, but it might, just might have limited the scope. Knowing the US was on a war footing would have given the Japanese Empire more than a little pause about trying anything that would bring American might into the Pacific.

Hindsight is 20/20 but it’s not a crystal ball. Maybe it would have made no difference if the US had asserted itself earlier but that is extremely unlikely. We can’t know for certain, but we do know this: the United States and the rest of the world paid an enormous price to free Europe and the South Pacific, Russia and China, from German, Italian and Japanese aggression.

Maybe we should use that experience to our advantage and not turn our backs on our enemies too soon.