AIBU to think overseas American and UK bases should close?

[Weemammy21]

AIBU for thinking now is the time for overseas American and UK bases to be closed? America has repeatedly abused their overseas bases to start wars with countries just to plunder and steal their natural resources, murder innocent civilians and kidnap and kill leaders of other countries. America is doing what is best for America and not helping the countries they start war with so should a serious discussion not be started about closing down all American and UK overseas bases that are used to hold and torture innocent civilians that they could not legally detain in America? Who voted for America to be the world's policeman with a lunatic running it and using his wars to fill his and his cronies coffers.

@FernandoSorOf course northern Ireland is part of the UK; AKA The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

There are no british bases in the Republic of Ireland.
Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain whether you like it or not.
Try again

I'm no fan of Trump, but without US military bases I think we would see pretty rapidly several of the following:

i) Middle East conflagration (and no, I don't think this is as bad as it can get), as Iran, Saudi and Israel each sensing an existential civilisational threat;
ii) likely leading to a pogrom of Jews, Shia, Sunni, or all three. Pogrom of Jews especially likely if Israel collapses;
iii) Russia incursions or full-blown invasion of neighbouring states, with the Nato threat largely neutered;
iv) Chinese blocades and captures Taiwan, with the risk of US retaliation effectively gone and Xi's clock ticking;
v) possible flaring up of India/Pakistan, by removing a check on Pakistani military and Islamist/Afghan collaboration, leading India to retaliate (or to get its retaliation in first)
vi) disruption of global trade hitting living costs and crucial supplies, with the poorest most exposed (virtually all major powers would see losing the US's freedom of navigation role as a big loss. China, for example, is very happy not to need to police the world's oceans in order to keep its trade routes open).
vii) general nuclear proliferation cascade, with Japan, Saudi, S Korea probably nuclear within a decade, Japan certainly remilitarising fast and potential E Asian war (China and/or Korea and/or Japan) as those countries settle old scores and/or preemptively deal with their fears of each other.

I think the risks of the above are not trivial and none would make the world a safer place.

Are you actually British? Any British person would know that Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom but is NOT part of Britain as you have repeatedly claimed. And there is no sick thing as “the United Kingdom of Grat Britain”. It’s either “United Kingdom of Hreat Britain and Northern Ireland” or, in short form, “United Kingdom”.

I smell a foreign agitator.

@Hoardasurass claimed that NI was part of Britain which is completely incorrect. A British person would not make this mistake.

Loads of British people would make this mistake.

Most of the world would prefer it if the US didn't keep cosplaying as the "world police". Particularly given American standards of policing - shoot first, ask questions later.

They've just bombed a load of school girls in Iran. What have they achieved?

If this is indeed the case shame on them for having such a poor understanding of the constitutional and indeed geographical makeup of their own country.

This feels like nit-picking, as NI is certainly British even if not 'part of Britain', and is also part of (or on, if you prefer) the British Isles.

In point of fact I think lots of British people would be unable to explain the difference between the UK, GB, British Isles. Sad but true.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 yes Northern Ireland is part of Britain though not the same island just like the shetlands are part of Scotland but separate islands
And im very much British i even have an Irish grandmother.
Try again

Many in the Gulf states were questioning whether the US bases are there to protect them or Israel because most of the American military machine was aimed at protecting Israel and the Gulf was left to fend for itself with their own weapons which they used to shoot down Iranian missiles and drones. There’s a lot of people who are looking at those bases there and thinking “time to go”. Sure, the bases boost the economy, but they bring with them lots of crime, sexual assaults and prostitution. There are pros and cons, and people in the Gulf are seeing lots more cons these days.

Doubling down on your lack of knowledge of the constitution of the UK I see. NI is part of the UK but not part of Britain. That’s why it’s called the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

I'm not sure most of the world would prefer that.

I'll say again that I'm no fan of Trump. But if you think the US is a bad 'world policeman', what are you comparing to?

And if you ask 'what have they achieved', I'd say quite likely avoiding the various catastrophes I listed in my recent post.

When the US police role recedes, the middle and smaller powers that now feel threatened won't just sit back. They will make arrangements for their own security. If you are Japan, you remilitarise quick and get nukes. If you are China, you worry about Japan with nukes, and hit them first. And so on and so on in theatres around the world.

A map explaining the difference beyween Great Britain, UK and the British Isles (may take a few mins)

Yes, OP you are completely fucking bonkers absolutely right. The USA and UK should absolutely close all their bases and let China and Russia act as the world's policemen, along with their proxies like India, Qutar and Iran - although the latter are a bit tied up at the moment.

Let peace and love be released throughout the world, and no innocent people will ever be tortured again.

Look at all the countries where CIA-backed coups have replaced democratically-elected leaders with military juntas. The use of chemical weapons which are still affecting populations to this day. Heck, just look at Kissinger's CV if you want a long list of reasons.

Iran wouldn't even be under the thumb of a theocratic regime if it hadn't been for a CIA-backed coup in the 50s.

And now they're backing the Russians and JD Vance is in Hungary to try and keep Orbán in power.

I think this is why it's important to step back and think: "is this actually worse than other hegemons have behaved", "is this worse than what would happen without the US", "if this is how the US can behave, with a relatively democratic system, should we expect, say, Russia or China to behave worse or better?"

We can see how Russia behaves, and we can see that Russia has become completely bogged down by a much smaller country (one for which the US has provided sod all support in the last year, by the way). Russia prodded Turkey and lost an aircraft - they haven't tried since. They're a paper tiger, stand up to them and they back down.

Taiwan is more of a concern but that doesn't mean that it would be easy for the Chinese to take even without US support. The Taiwanese military is not to be underestimated and they'd have a defensive advantage. One diesel-electric submarine can wreak havoc among a fleet, the US Navy is notoriously poor at ASW and I wouldn't be surprised if this is a weakness for the Chinese too. The Taiwanese would also do well to get in touch with the Ukrainians and ask for their drone expertise. I notice that the Arab states are looking to Ukraine for help in that field, not the US.

You do know there's continuous Irish defence force presence abroad?

I agree with standing up to Russia. I also think that was the main point of Nato, which is heavily reliant on the US. Belated, Europe is realising it needs to build military capacity, but it is very little, very late. I'm not sure that Taiwan would fight at all, if it knew it had no US support. Maybe it would, but it could not present a credible threat to hold off China indefinitely.

My main worry though isn't about isolated individual theatres, but that the lack of the US would lead everyone to remilitarise, which be a net loss for almost everyone. Even China would probably see it as a loss: they don't want East Asia remilitarising against them, nor do they want the costs of policing global trade.

We invented police for a reason. Much better have one than not. And if we are going to have one, there isn't a credible alternative to the US. International institutions like the UN play some role, but can't deliver the full package, e.g. global freedom of navigation patrols, the ability to credibly threaten P5 members as well as smaller powers, etc. So we are left with the US. Which, for all its many faults, is still the most humane superpower the world has yet seen. We should be very cautious indeed before we wish it away.

We literally called our UK Olympic team Team GB 😬

I suppose. But we don't make it easy. UK vs GB is table stakes. A British passport can denote six different types of citizenship status, with further subvariants within that (i.e. that's six even if you count UK and Jersey and Guernsey and Manx as the same thing, which they aren't).

Oh cut it out with the victim mentality.

The special relationship and geopolitics is worth much more than one madman in the white house.

B minus, must try harder.