WI: United States retreats into isolationism after the end of the Cold War

After the fall of Communism, the United States gives up any idea of being the world policeman. Withdraws US troops from Europe, Japan and South Korea, slashes defence budget for the peace dividend, withdraws from leadership in global affairs. The first signal of this new direction in American foreign policy is not interveneing in the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990. What happens?
 
The required POD to get the US to go isolationist the way you laid out would either have to be so far back or be so great that you might not even have an iraqi invasion of kuwait, more specifics are needed.
 
Actually the POD you need is H.W.Bush's intervention in Bosnia. OTL he was resistant to intervention and wanted the Europeans to deal with it.

But campaign pressure from Bill Clinton forced action.

FInd a non-interventiolist Demcratic canidate and you might have a non or less interventialist America.

Actually isolationism would probably require another POD or lots of butterflies but...
 
I don't think you'd ever get complete isolationism, because the US is fully tied into the global market, and it can't let threats to vital resources go unanswered... and oil is the most vital. The only way you'd get the US to be uninterested in what goes on in the ME is to have another huge source of oil pop up somewhere else. If that happened, then you would indeed see the US pull lock, stock, and barrel out of there. You might see us pull out of Diego Garcia and Europe as well, if we're not worrying about the ME... which also does away with 9-11, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.
Of course, if the US does retreat into a sort of political isolationism, then instead of being pilloried by the international community for interventionism, we'd be pilloried by the international community for not helping out around the world where it needs it. Basically, you can't win...
 

Blair152

Banned
After the fall of Communism, the United States gives up any idea of being the world policeman. Withdraws US troops from Europe, Japan and South Korea, slashes defence budget for the peace dividend, withdraws from leadership in global affairs. The first signal of this new direction in American foreign policy is not interveneing in the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990. What happens?
Let me see. What happened the last time we withdrew from the world after
the Great War? We got World War II. Al-Qaeda would probably pull us kicking and screaming back into the world just as the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor did in 1941.
 
Let me see. What happened the last time we withdrew from the world after
the Great War? We got World War II. Al-Qaeda would probably pull us kicking and screaming back into the world just as the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor did in 1941.

Al-Qaeda wouldn't pull us back into the world if the US was aiming to be truly isolationist, because they'd kick the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in the privates and then go home again.
 

Blair152

Banned
Al-Qaeda wouldn't pull us back into the world if the US was aiming to be truly isolationist, because they'd kick the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in the privates and then go home again.
There'd be some event that would drag us kicking and screaming back into
the world. Like Iran getting nukes.
 
Let me see. What happened the last time we withdrew from the world after
the Great War? We got World War II. Al-Qaeda would probably pull us kicking and screaming back into the world just as the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor did in 1941.

The world did perfectly well without the USA for All of Human History - 300 odd years.
 
There'd be some event that would drag us kicking and screaming back into
the world. Like Iran getting nukes.

... except that, if the USA had been isolationist, the Iranians wouldn't hate us so much - there wouldn't have been that whole affair of the Shah. If an Iran (possibly even a democratic Iran) that doesn't have any particularly negative feelings towards America gets nukes, then it doesn't matter to the TTL USA as much as the OTL Iran getting nukes would matter to the OTL USA.

Of course, a lot of the issues with how the Middle East views America can be traced to the whole thing with setting up Israel. Set it up so that America doesn't go and ensure that the Jews get their homeland, and you've got a world where ME tensions would be much less of an issue than OTL. Hm... maybe America is more isolationist from the get go, and this includes saying that Israel isn't their problem?

Who knows... anyways, interesting stuff all around, this is an interesting concept to consider. Sort of a cultural change PoD... we don't see enough of those, IMO, so it's good to see this one.
 
The world did perfectly well without the USA for All of Human History - 300 odd years.

So did the world without England.

On a serious note, your post is just stupid. The question whether a nation was good or not isn't what was the state of the world before them, it is what would have happened without them.

On topic, if the US retreated into isolation after the Cold War (which is really ASB itself) the world would retreat to Regionalism. Europe hasn't gone down the integration road enough to have a somewhat unified Foreign Policy until the 00's. The Chinese and Indians don't have a good enough Economy and why Russia can't fulfill that path is obvious. Iraq and Iran would dominate the Middle East, I won't try and imagine Africa, South America would be dominated by Brazil and begin integrating maybe by the 00's, or Brazil will just keep the position of dominating Latin America. Japan's Economy I believe will faceplant like OTL, that takes them out of the equation. Ultimately this creates a rather unstable Multi Polar world.
 
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I have a Honors U.S. history class 1877-present. Now for a reading/paper assignment I have to read "Blessed Among Nations" by Eric Rauchway. This book talks completely about how the U.S. was changed and shaped by Globalization from the civil war towards WWI. One metaphor he uses is that we were like the guy from the end of Hamlet who at the end of the play declares himself king of Denmark. The whole play is about Hamlet and the others around him all trying to take power then at the end this guy we never saw or heard about says "I declare myself King of Denmark" then the curtains end the play. Where did the guy come from and all that, we never heard of him the whole time. So I'm kinda reading a book the opposite of what your talking about :D
 
So did the world without England.

Urm, why the hell would you choose Scotland's anti-thesis to make that point?

And I totally agree with you. I think you may have missed my point.

On a serious note, your post is just stupid.

So was his, to imply that the world would descend into mad fighting simply because the USA is not there is mindbogglingly ignorant.

This is true of any country, why your response implied that I would think differently if England was removed from the world is ad hominem.
 
After the fall of Communism, the United States gives up any idea of being the world policeman. Withdraws US troops from Europe, Japan and South Korea, slashes defence budget for the peace dividend, withdraws from leadership in global affairs. The first signal of this new direction in American foreign policy is not interveneing in the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

The Gulf War happened before the collapse of the USSR, so it would still happen according to your POD.
 
After the fall of Communism, the United States gives up any idea of being the world policeman. Withdraws US troops from Europe, Japan and South Korea, slashes defence budget for the peace dividend, withdraws from leadership in global affairs. The first signal of this new direction in American foreign policy is not interveneing in the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990. What happens?
I could see this maybe happening over the 20 or 30 years after the Cold War, but it would have to be very gradual.
 
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