The US returning to isolationism after the Cold War

[La Fin Absolue du Monde]

President Bill Clinton turns out to be a neo-isolationist. He concludes that after the collapse of the USSR, no one threatens the US and their allies, so after the defeat in Somalia, he decides to withdraw American troops not only from that country, but also to liquidate most American military bases around the world and withdraw from NATO. US troops are only in South Korea. The level of expenditure on reinforcement is limited to 0.5% of the annual US GDP. What impact does it have on the US economy and global politics? There is no 11/09 and the War on Terror?

 

[Dave Howery]

the US can't really abandon the ME at this time, due to Iraq... the US has the no fly zones to cover, and Saddam still has a fairly potent army to bother the neighbors with. Maybe a POD here could be that the coalition forces in Desert Storm do even better than OTL, destroying nearly all of Iraq's air force and combat vehicles, so that the no fly zones are unnecessary. Of course, the rest of the world will have to cooperate in not selling Iraq more weapons, which seems really unlikely...

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

I remember folks on the fringe proposing exactly this back in the 1990s. We were all supposed to hunker down and wall out all that scary stuff outside America. Actually I remember those proposals circa 1960, so I guess the idea goes way back.

In the short run it boosts the economy with a 'peace dividend'. In the long run it risks the global trade of the US as former alliances are replaced with new arrignements. The emerging piracy of 1990s may not be suppressed without US participation & quasi state sponsored piracy may grow, further chipping away at trade. The US has since its inception depended heavily on exports. Even in the worst of times the majority of the raw materials extracted and industrial product were for export. The most prosperous times connected to rising exports. Without a ability to participate meaningfully in global military ops the US risks a larger disruption of its trade. Few others are going to extend military actions that benefit the US when we won't act on our own behalf.

The idea a global withdrawal would end terrorists targeting the US needs some further examination. Using political terrorism to further economic agendas is nothing new, and lacking any protective or retaliatory capability leaves US trade vulnerable to that, along side piracy and extortionate governments.

 

[Nazi Space Spy]

I don’t even think President Pat Buchanan, much less Bill Clinton, would outright leave NATO.

 

[creighton]

If NATO collapsed, you may see a British led invasion of Bosnia. In OTL Blair wanted a joint commitment of around 80,000 troops to invade, but Clinton wasn't willing to commit to a ground invasion. If the US is completely out of the picture, you may see a harder line taken by the remaining states.

 

[Viper91]

So how would that impact the Taiwan Straights Crisis?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Taiwan_Strait_Crisis

Unless the US maintains their forces stationed in Japan in order to support forces in Korea, the USS Independence and most if not all of her escorts out of Yokosuka would not be present. A major drawdown might well see Independence decommissioned several years sooner, and in such a scenario as this, I wouldn't be surprised if some of the other older non nuclear carriers are taken out of service sooner as well.

That would leave the US with just the Nimitz and her escorts, assuming of course butterflies don't result in the Nimitz being unavailable. If the Chinese don't think the US can meaningfully interfere in support of Taiwan, they might be willing to press things harder or be more willing to use military force.

 

[TonyA]

I don’t even think President Pat Buchanan, much less Bill Clinton, would outright leave NATO.

Hard to imagine any US president leaving NATO, such a person would have to be a total wildcard, a renegade trump card, if you will...never happen...

 

[raharris1973]

Maybe a POD here could be that the coalition forces in Desert Storm do even better than OTL, destroying nearly all of Iraq's air force and combat vehicles, so that the no fly zones are unnecessary.

Maybe an even better PoD is that Iraq simply does not invade Kuwait at all. Bill Clinton in OTL took over a country that was relieved that the Soviet empire had fallen but also had gotten a renewed pride in its military capability from Desert Storm.

In the ATL, the US is relieved at the fall of the Soviet Union, but has no recent example of stark recent dictatorial aggression and no perception that important military victories can be achieve with only a handful of casualties. That could foster the development of different attitudes.

 

[Jaenera Targaryen]

I'd just like to point out that historically, isolationism was aimed at Europe, not the Asia-Pacific. So even if America leaves NATO and leaves the Middle East to burn itself down, America will maintain her commitments in the Pacific.

We might see troops being re-deployed to the Pacific, for instance the 6th Fleet joins the 7th Fleet at Yokohama (or maybe to Kirun), additional air units deployed to South Korea and Japan, and army units to South Korea.

 

[Dave Howery]

Maybe an even better PoD is that Iraq simply does not invade Kuwait at all. Bill Clinton in OTL took over a country that was relieved that the Soviet empire had fallen but also had gotten a renewed pride in its military capability from Desert Storm.

In the ATL, the US is relieved at the fall of the Soviet Union, but has no recent example of stark recent dictatorial aggression and no perception that important military victories can be achieve with only a handful of casualties. That could foster the development of different attitudes.

that is a better POD. With both Iraq and Iran exhausted after their war and Saddam behaving himself (well, more than in OTL anyway), the US has every reason to wave goodbye to the ME...

 

[raharris1973]

that is a better POD. With both Iraq and Iran exhausted after their war and Saddam behaving himself (well, more than in OTL anyway), the US has every reason to wave goodbye to the ME...

Like without the post-Gulf War "unipolar moment" and the desire to prove the US was about more than "blood for oil" would anyone of note in the US be arguing for military intervention Bosnia? Or even Somalia?

NATO expansion was based on a few things in the US: a) the historic opportunity among foreign policy elites to do right by the Poles, Czechs and Hungarians in a way the U.S. had been unable to do in the interwar and Cold War, b) the idea that Russia's passivity might be transitory, but was assured in the short-term, but possibly also c) the way the Yugoslav break-up demonstrated that Europe *still* might not be all smiles and sunshine after the Cold War.

 

[jerseyguy]

A plausible way to get the a more isolationist America is domestic extremism or a violent cult that forces the US government to solve problems at home before it can worry about the rest of the world. The international system was relatively peaceful after the Cold War, but the '90s were still the decade that produced David Koresh, Heaven's Gate, the militia movement, Timothy McVeigh, and the Columbine tragedy.

If your POD only requires scaling back major US commitments in Eurasia, instability in Mexico or Central American that leads to a direct US intervention would tie up a lot of US resources. If the Zapatista movement, for instance, had snowballed into a Mexican civil war, the US wouldn't be able to worry about the Former Yugoslavia or the Persian Gulf.

 

[markus meecham]

so many jobs lost and money already spent, so many lockheed, honeywell, boeing, ge lobbyists flooding the congress when the president thinks about saying anything of the sort...
gonna be hard.

 

[jerseyguy]

so many jobs lost and money already spent, so many lockheed, honeywell, boeing, ge lobbyists flooding the congress when the president thinks about saying anything of the sort...
gonna be hard.

The end of military Keynesianism with defense cuts at the end of the Cold War did cause a lot of short term pain. The LA riots may not have happened without the end of the Cold War. Major cuts in military spending at the end of the Cold War lead to a massive wave of layoffs in the aerospace/weapons industries. The resulting socioeconomic problems from a rapid spike in unemployment helped exacerbate racial tensions, along with the proximate cause of policy brutality.

Then at the end of the Cold War, aerospace spending plunged across Los Angeles County, costing 550,000 jobs – more than one in eight.

By the early 90s, as many as one in four blacks was without a job, said Josh Sides, a professor of history at Cal State Northridge, author of a book and articles about the ‘92 L.A. riots. Drug addiction and alcoholism soared. In 1991 and 1992, the record years for homicide in Los Angeles, 3,200 people were murdered, most of them young black men.

“There was a high level of tension, to begin with, from widespread unemployment and abuse at the hands of police,” Sides said.

Then in 1991, the world watched a videotaped segment of Los Angeles police raising their batons 56 times onto the body of King after a high-speed chase that ended in Lake View Terrace.