Rus: I would agree with you on certain points, and disagree with you on others.
I think Carter’s appeasement of Brezhnev and the Soviet Union, and his willingness to turn a blind eye to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, as well as doing nothing while the Cubans were running riot in Angola, did tremendous damage to US prestige throughout the world, and encouraged other despots, who no longer feared America as a counterweight to the Soviet Union.
In an earlier time, Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler at Munich in 1938, along with France and Britain’s standing idle during the Anschluss and the later annexation of Czechoslovakia, led directly to the invasion of Poland in 1939 and WWII.
Appeasement does not work. I am not arguing for war, rather I am arguing that History is brutally unforgiving when it comes to the weak or the morally unwilling.
As to our being in front, I would argue that the UN’s involvement in places like Bosnia, Rwanda, Somalia, etc has been nothing short of disastrous. Even a morally divisive war like Vietnam is remarkable for what happened after the US left Southeast Asia, meaning the genocidal actions of the North Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge following the “liberation”.
I would never argue that the US is always right. Far from it. We have more than our share of blood on our hands, and our actions at times have been far from pure. But sometimes the alternative is not between good and bad, but bad and worse.
