What would happen if the US stayed out of everything?

We tried that between 1919 and 1941 and it didn’t work out well for us..Remember Hitler and Hirohito?

We couldn’t and wouldn’t. The world interlocks far too much. We can’t stay out of all military conflicts, because they are connected to economic and trade conflicts, and that contributes to global poverty, which leads to refugees, trying to come here. And we go full circle.

It would also mean disengaging from military presence in Asia (China would take over) and Europe (Russia would take over). The middle east would be the site of a regional war between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Disengaging militarily would make the US extraordinarily weak. Basically a 4th world nation. Weaker even than Canada or Tahiti.

It’s an awful idea. Unless you like suicide.

^I disagree. I don’t view the US as some stabilizing force in the world. Unless you mean we keep it the way we like it, whenever possible, using force when deemed necessary.

I also fail to see how returning hundreds of thousands of troops to only our shores weakens the country. Positioning our carrier groups strategically around our nation’s coasts, instead of having them scattered around the world, doesn’t seem like it would weaken the country.

Being uninvolved has worked well for Switzerland…

World War One and World War Two did NOT happen because the USA wasn’t projecting itself all over the world. And neither war turned out badly for the USA.

I don’t know exactly what would happen – it would depend on what we did and didn’t do exactly, and everyone else’s actions. However I do not think it would mean we would be overrun or anything. I think it would tend to improve our relations with many nations, and reduce the hostility of the nations and factions that are most hostile with us (as the issue usually boils down to they want us to leave them alone).

IMO USA should involve itself wherever necessary and keep away from creating new conflicts unless absolutely required. Currently it is viewed by others as a bully which will do anything to make others act on its terms.

This scene is pretty much spot on.

Everyone everywhere would be Caucasian and would be speaking German.

It would allow Russia to pull its troops into Eastern Europe. It would encourage China to grab various disputed islands. It would make the U.S. irrelevant in foreign affairs. These changes would eventually hit home.

The reason I asked, is this article (among others) and a percentage of the population just being completely fed up.

Only slightly more than a third of Americans felt the U.S. should help other countries with their problems. The election of a President who champions “America first” sentiments — and who wants to slash diplomacy and development funding by a colossal 32% — confirmed it as well.

Americans deserve to know the daily return they receive on their investment in diplomacy and development. That investment is small — just 1% of the U.S. federal budget — compared with its impact, but the rationale must be persuasive for each and every dollar. In the last three years alone, American global action has stopped the Ebola epidemic, rallied more than 65 partners to fight ISIS and led 195 countries to forge a historic climate change agreement — before Trump blithely turned his back on our best shot yet at saving our planet.

With a world in disarray and a President seemingly uninterested in it, one would be justified in thinking the best days of American foreign policy are long behind us. But, with so much at stake, it is imperative that we fight against the tides of isolationism. The source of our country’s strength — our greatness — has always been our willingness to lead in a world darkened by danger. While not perfect, our leadership has ushered in an undeniably more prosperous, more secure, more tolerant, more peaceful world. The success is evident all around us. Now, we must do more to demonstrate it.

http://time.com/4820160/trump-america-first-global-leadership/

There are resources our country needs for a healthy economy. Some of these are: precious metals for the catalytic converters that help clean exhaust from our cars, rare earth elements that are used in high efficiency magnets inside electric motors, generators, wind turbines and electric cars, lithium used in most batteries in cell phones, cars, computers. Those are all mined in places outside the US. If we isolate, another power will have the ability to starve us out.
We need to work with the rest of the world and they need to work with us.

That’s the problem. Our tentacles are everywhere. We can’t afford to be isolated because it would be bad for business.

There’s a huge gap too between continuing to stand up for NATO, Taiwan, Japan, etc., and intervene against actual invasions to helpless nations (e.g. Kuwait 1991), and going about invading places, launching drone and cruise missile attacks, etc.

As @NomoreY_A pointed out, isolationism was tried and it didn’t work. No matter how many people nowadays think certain countries shouldn’t get involved, it just doesn’t work.

Why can’t the US remain involved but in a more positive and constructive way. Involvement doesnt have to mean dropping bombs on people.

@flutherother Seems like the US only is pressured to get involved in military actions, due to the military strength. Many of us are tired of being the world police as the article I posted above stated.

@flutherother It could, and if we were a valid uncorrupted democracy there would be more discussion about it. But notice we mostly don’t discuss that, at least not where the conflict over control of oil resources, rebranded as “The War On Terror”, is concerned.

It’s disappointing to me that even on Fluther there’s still a generic argument showing up invoking the great wars to justify US/oil imperialism as if we’d be invaded if we were any less interventionist (when in fact the interventionism is largely what the terrorists are a reaction to).

What is disturbing about Trump is that he is withdrawing from many international agencies. The U.S. at one time had a high stock of what is called soft power. Countries struggling against colonial rule looked at the U.S. as a success story. This is no longer the case. Trump has made the U.S. in his own image, a narcissistic bully. All he understands is hard military power. The plain fact is that the rest of the world can get along without us and the more we we disengage the less relevant that U.S. concerns will become.

Here is an opinion article discussing this.