My dad, Lewis Askegaard, is back as a guest blogger for The Frugal Foodies. In past posts, he has shared his wisdom on Why the Good Old Days Weren’t So Good, on why free college is impossible, and he has helped us make sense of the seemingly irrational nature of US politics. Now, he’s offering insights on what in the heck the United States should be doing about Ukraine. Enjoy!
Russia wants to get Ukraine back under its sway. China has its eyes on Taiwan. The United States of America, with one-fifth of the worlds gross domestic product, the worlds most advanced military, and a majority of the Nobel prizes for the last twenty years, is in the spotlight, as usual.
Question: What should we do?
Answer: Nothing.
Not really nothing. We should remedy our shocking national deficit that will handcuff our descendants to crushing debt service. We should continue struggling to scrub clean the dirty fallout of centuries of slavery and apartheid. We should develop a sane national policy about gun ownership. We should continue to plow forward toward carbon neutrality and waste management. We should redistribute wealth to ensure a decent living for all American children and elderly.
Our days of being the undisputed leader of the world are ending. Thank goodness!
We had a great run: over a century of pre-eminence. We took the reins from England, which dominated the 19th century. We join a long, distinguished list of nations who have had their day at the top. Spain, Germany, France, Portugal, all have staked their claims. There were centuries of Roman pre-eminence. Ancient Persia. The Huns and Mongols. The Roman Catholic Church, arguably, for a millennium. There were empires that are nearly forgotten: the Akkadians, the Mesopotamians, African and New World empires, long buried by jungles or obliterated by glass and steel. Probably none were more advanced and long-lasting than Egypt. And now there’s the United States.
But nothing lasts forever. For a century, the world wanted to be like us. But now we’re broke and confused. We exhaust our energies fighting each other over nonsense like voter fraud in 2020. We battle critical race theory which has no traction among America’s 14,000 public school districts while ignoring that American public school children can’t perform at nearly the level of their counterparts in dozens of nations that spend far less on schooling. It’s time to let someone else take over the world’s problems.
What’s life like when your country falls from the top slot?
Look at Britain, France, Germany. It’s not bad at all, except that you don’t spend a trillion a year on a global military. You don’t send troops all over the world to scare opponents of the dictator we support. You don’t assume you have to solve every crisis all over the world.
In the last 500 years, Ukraine has been part of Poland, Austria Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, Russia under the Tsars. Until 1991, it was part of the Soviet Union. Taiwan was ruled by various warring kings until it became a Dutch colony and then China took it over in the 17th century. It’s been part of China for most of the last 400 years. Japan took over briefly during its bid for world domination, but we gave it back to China after the defeat of Japan in WW2. When the Communists took over mainland China in 1949, Taiwan seceded under cover of America’s world dominance, declaring that they were the real China and the billion folk just to their west better come to their senses.
How would things be if Russia pulled Ukraine back in? Probably about like it is now, except Russia would continually have to deal with insurrections, ethnic rivalries, poverty, sabotage, and bombings. How about if Taiwan were forced to become a part of China? Like they have been for most of the last 400 years? Well, how badly was your world damaged when China cracked down on Hong Kong? We wouldn’t notice the difference.
1 thought on “USA vs the World: Picking Your Battles Wisely”
interesting thoughts. from a non american perspective just on the Ukraine, I know it’s a far more complex situation than it is painted. Perhaps this is the time the world needs to let what happens happens. Or does it set a dangerous precedent? Certainly Ukraine has found itself parts of different countries, entities and empires over the years, centuries indeed. If the world sits back and lets Putin walk in and take it, where to next for him? Or is that even his goal? Whilst Russia has a list of issues it wants some give from the west on, we never hear much about them. is it a cold war mentality that still exists? The thought of NATO closer and on more borders, an organisation designed to fight the USSR, which in theory has no reason to exist, well it still does and Ukraine, the heartbeat in many ways of the old Soviet Union, taking membership, must play on a certain paranoia. and there are many other issues. whatever the ‘west’ does here may well define world power and politics for the next 50-100 years. I know this wasnt really the principle focus of the article, sorry, it just started a million thoughts lol.