You and US Warfare

[vcczar]

new poll

[Pringles]

Question 1 Clarifications: 

A lot of the Native Wars I have a hard time with because it's a bunch of small wars compacted into 1. Some with instances justifying a war, others not. I voted for the Apache Wars but I could easily take it back. I think the outcome of the Spanish-American War was largely good, however, you learn about the reasons how we got into that war in a simple US history class, so I do not find it entirely justifiable, even if it would become justifiable at a later date in an alternate timeline. 

Question 3: 

Not sure what some of these even actually mean, unless they're just made up. But I only selected one here anyway. 

Question 4: 

Truman, Ford, and Clinton,  are ranges of B+ to B-, so I didn't select them even though Truman is one of my favorite Presidents. 

[vcczar]

I tend to dislike the aggressive Cold War policy that occurred. I think we would have been the superior power to the USSR and have encouraged Democracy and capitalism possibly even better without covert military operations, military interventions, and etc. I think what we really did was just draw a line in the sand. I do support arming nations invaded by the USSR but not supplying troops or putting boots on the ground. I'd accept naval support and missiles in the event of humanitarian crisis. 

I give Truman a D -- he set up a national security state and converted us from "We have nothing to fear but fear iself" into "we need to fear our neighbors because they might be commies" mentality. I think he did a lot of bad, unintentionally. He also didn't win the Korean War once he got involved in it and didn't pull out the troops before he left office once it was obviously unwinnable. 

I give Eisenhower a C -- he set the precedent really for routine covert military ops, coup attempts, and such. He proliferated nukes. He began early stages of US involvement into Vietnam. He did avoid major wars and he pulled us out of Korea once Truman showed the war was unwinnable. 

I give Kennedy a C -- He did more than those before in promoting the missile gap myth, which led to more proliferation of nukes. I think he handled the Cuban missile crisis very well, however. He increased US involvement in Vietnam. 

I give Johnson an F -- I would give him an A for domestics, and he's one of my favorite presidents, but he gets a well-deserved F here. Vietnam. That's all I gotta say. 

I give Nixon a D - He had the potential for an A, what with his success in China and all, but rather than pulling back from Vietnam, he escalated it and expanded it into Cambodia and Laos. This made it even more unwinnable. Saved from an F because of China. 

I give Ford a B - This was his one good area. He got us completely out of Vietnam. No new wars. Reached a somewhat tranquil ground with the USSR. 

I give Carter a B - He found a lasting peace between Egypt and Israel. Arguably his USSR policy helped dismantle the Soviet Union more than Reagan's if one believes his administration lured them into war against Afghanistan either purposefully or even just as a cause/effect. No major wars. The Iran hostage situation was bungled, so B.

I give Reagan a D - He spent way too much money on defense, rather needlessly, but he avoided major wars. He could have had a C but he had unnecessary covert operations and the whole Iran-Contra scandal. The USSR was going to fall soon with or without Reagan. He was mostly rhetoric, and that's where he shined. If this was a poll on foreign policy rhetoric, he'd score much higher. 

I give Bush I a C - I think he was technically the most skillfull in implementing his policy, even if I opposed it. In many ways, he has a potential for an A. He gets a C because much of what he did provoked both the War on Terror and the Iraq War. He basically set the groundwork for his son to destabilize the entire region. He gets a lot of credit for building a true multinational coalition to fight with him in Iraq. 

I give Clinton a C - No major wars. His presidency saw mostly random bombings--Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Somalia. He blundered in Africa twice, including ignoring the Rwanda Genocide, which is a rare military intervention I would have supported. He restored relations with Vietnam and further normalized relations with China. 

I give Bush II an F - After Bush, you see other nations greatly favoring Democratic presidents. Bush rightly waged war against Afghanistan, but his war on Iraq was completely unnecessary. We put a lot of money in two long wars that we arguably lost. Iraq was completely mismanaged and fell into sectarian violence. It's still not returned to pre-war tranquility. Afghanistan was our longest war. Bush never got Bin Laden. There was no end in sight after his 8 years in office. Ultimately, the Taliban would get back in control. Bush both destabilized a region and sort of set up future presidents for failure. 

I give Obama a C - He restored international opinion in the US after Bush. He sought peace with Cuba and Iran without cozying up to them and praising them. He pulled us out of Iraq and reduced participation in Afghanistan. He killed Bin Laden and likely did more to eliminate terrorists than Bush. He gets negative points for US minor intervention into Arab Spring, while well-intentioned, it was mostly unsuccessful. He indirectly helped (along with Bush II) in setting the environment for ISIS to emerge. While Obama inherited major wars, he ended one and got close to ending the other. US participation in Arab Spring was limited to missile strikes and aid. 

I give Trump a D - He started no major wars. He reduced troops in Afghanistan to a skeleton crew. However, no president since the end of WWII has treated our allies worse. Rhetorically, he was chummier with authoritarians in Russia and North Korea, and frequently attacked allies that weren't happy about that. His photo-ops into North Korea did nothing to stop North Korea's behavior. He was mostly a do-nothing on Foreign Policy, which considered what he was capable of, probably saves him from getting an F. He wa charged with abandoning Kurdish allies in Syria. 

I give Biden a C - He would have had a D had this poll been made at the end of 2021. The Afghanistan withdrawl was a complete mess, but I think that was unavoidable, considering the skeleton crew left by Trump. Taliban would have regained control without US occupation regardless of the president. Nevertheless, Biden finally ended US involvement in a war that lasted way too long. Other than that war he inherited, he started no new major war. Biden has raised international opinion of the US purely by treating US allies as US allies. I support him aiding Ukraine and Israel in their efforts of self-defense without committing boots on the ground. Biden's had more foreign policy events than Trump, and he's generally done well. He's helped in expanding NATO to include Scandinavian nations (some are still only in the application process) and it seems likely Ukraine will join, which will keep it out of the Russian sphere of influence for the first time in its history. Biden has the potential to raise this to a B. 

I typed this fast, so it is possibly I'm overlooking (or underlooking) things, but I think these grades would pretty much be my grades regardless. 

 

[Pringles]

4 minutes ago, vcczar said:

I give Biden a C - He would have had a D had this poll been made at the end of 2021. The Afghanistan withdrawl was a complete mess, but I think that was unavoidable, considering the skeleton crew left by Trump. Taliban would have regained control without US occupation regardless of the president. Nevertheless, Biden finally ended US involvement in a war that lasted way too long. Other than that war he inherited, he started no new major war. Biden has raised international opinion of the US purely by treating US allies as US allies. I support him aiding Ukraine and Israel in their efforts of self-defense without committing boots on the ground. Biden's had more foreign policy events than Trump, and he's generally done well. He's helped in expanding NATO to include Scandinavian nations (some are still only in the application process) and it seems likely Ukraine will join, which will keep it out of the Russian sphere of influence for the first time in its history. Biden has the potential to raise this to a B. 

 

I know we're quite different on policy, but I do agree with you on Biden. I was approving of Biden until Afghanistan/Economic woes of late 2021-2022, but concerning foreign policy he has a chance to get a B by the end of his presidency. A lot of it is due to simple events that have transpired in the world, chaotic events. But we as a country have responded to them well. Afghanistan brings both Biden and Trump down a lot for me. But Biden has been way better than Trump in almost all other areas, and just now we're seeing what's shaping up to be a historic response in the Middle East as American hostages are held by Hamas.

[DakotaHale]

Truman gets an A. Fucker set up the Marshall Plan and orchestrated the containment policy that helped bring down the Soviet Union in 43 years.

JFK is a C. Most Americans overrate his foreign policy chops, but he's still pretty average overall.

LBJ was a F, obv.

Nixon was the greatest American foreign policy mind of any 20th century President. B, with potential for an A if he finished his term.

Reagan also gets an A. While I think his presidency fucked us long-term domestically, his nuclear disarmament agreements with the USSR was huge and a top 3 foreign policy moment of all time in the US. That alone deserves an A.

Clinton is a C. Same reasons VcCzar stated.

Bush Jr. obv an F. He bungled an international coalition and his invasion of Iraq to attempt to one-up his dad led to the deaths of over a million Iraqis, and honestly led to worse events than Saddam could've imagined. Truly a horrible, terrible event.

Obama C. No major accomplishments, but was a relief from Bush.

Trump I'll give a C+/B-. His North Korea meetings were historic and a step in the right direction, I liked his policy with Iran, I liked his Afghanistan withdrawal, and the Abraham Accords were not something I ever thought I would see in a thousand years. Trade war with China fucks him.

Biden is a D. Fucked up Afghanistan getting Americans killed. Encouraged the Ukrainians to avoid talks of peace (we'll see if this was a good move or not). More military posturing from Russia/China/DPRK than during his predecessor. Outmaneuvered by OPEC. Even more protectionist than Trump. Former US economic allies partnering with BRICS. Inconsistent US border policy. Just a complete mess.

[Pius XIII]

Ah foreign policy. Probably my favorite political science topic, but I won’t dare grade the Presidents in a formal sense. This topic is the ultimate “hindsight is 20/20 situation”.

[MrPotatoTed]

Confessing up front that I have not taken the poll simply because I cannot answer the questions -- I won't pretend to know the ins and outs of the Apache Wars or even the foreign policy of someone as recent as Clinton, given that I was a child at the time.

But more broadly, the opposite of war isn't peace.  It's way more wars.

I know nobody here liked the Iraq war, I'm not going to try to convince anyone differently.  But the swing away from that -- becoming a far more pacifistic nation that isn't going to go to war for anything, anywhere, ever again -- has been fucking noticed.  Whether it's Syria, or Russia/Ukraine, or Hamas/Israel, or god knows what's next...knowing that the US is not going to tip the scales in any significant way has made a whole lot of nations a lot braver, at the cost of far too many innocent civilian lives.

[pilight]

Oh please.  Those people in the Middle East have been killing each other since long before the US existed and they're never going to stop.  The US going in and doing some of the fighting for them isn't going to help.

The US should have never given up their neutrality stance.  Fuck Woodrow Wilson.  Now, with the media completely in thrall to the military-industrial complex, we'll never stop fighting in other people's wars.