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Charge Nations For Protection?

Should the US charge nations for protection?

  • Yes

    Votes: 7 63.6%

  • No

    Votes: 4 36.4%

  • Other (please state)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    11

Mr. Invisible

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Tonight I was having a discussion with friends about the national debt and the ways to potentially solve it and one of my friends bought up the subject that the US should go and charge nations such as Great Britain, France, and Japan for the US protecting them. I thought about it for a bit and realized that he does in fact have a point. The US has been underwriting the security of Europe, Japan, and several other nations for decades and it may be time that they pay us back.

What do the rest of you think?
 
I say absolutely yes... or just cut all foreign aid completely... except for like Japan, S. Korea and Israel.
 

Protect them from what?

The UK, Japan and France are all quite capable of defending themselves thank you very much.

Iraq never attacked any of these nations :mrgreen:
 

This is just a hypothesis (a poll could be created I suppose to help decide it), however, it is my opinion that the average U.S. citizen is not very worried about protecting other nations right now. I think the only reason this is done is to buy other countries loyalty to our country. Therefore, while we should not necessarily protect other countries for free and they should probably do more self protection, I think the whole protecting thing is diplomatic in nature. We aren't allowed to sit around in the lap of luxury for free. jmo I'd love to hear some other's take on this issue.
 
Nope. It would be too difficult to determine the amount of these "protected" countries owe the US. In addition, an argument could be made that if the countries that the US protected during the Cold War should pay, the US protected them for its own interest as to stop communism from spreading. Also, what if some nations the US charges for "protection" (speaking of that phrase, I'm reminded of extortion) didn't get properly protected? Like Afghanistan?
It's too difficult, and even if any national law gets passed (it would have to be an international law, which would be even more difficult), there will be numerous loopholes.
 
I guess this is what you get when you combine complete ignorance with ridiculous self entitlement. Its pathetic to see members the most powerful country in the world whining like a baby about how we deserve money from the rest of the world. It belies even the most basic concepts about how power defines foreign policy. Our cold war policy was specifically designed to grab as much influence and wealth over the world and it was incredibly successful. Do you think the marshal plan was some altruistic nonsense about helping people? No it was a genius diplomatic move that solidified our power over western Europe.
 


S Korea already does pay for the US military presence there.
 
I would say that they shouldn't pay because we shouldn't be there. I am utterly against being in more than 2 wars simultaneously, and if we're going to be in more than one we should have massive foreign aid in at least one, preferably all. The only time war is healthy for America is when everyone gets into it like with the WW's in which case it helps our economy (the '20s and the '50s). We should pull everything out of Iraq, Iran, Israel, Afghanistan, and Libya, not to mention anywhere else we're parked, except for S Korea. IMO, we should offer Israel to Pakistan in exchange for friendship between our countries. The only thing stopping Israel from being trounced is us- maybe it's time we stop acting like a big brother and let them deal with their own problems. Cutting our military budget in half would also help with the debt.
 

We don't have any troops stationed in Israel or Iran.

However, after thinking about it further, we should just close down all regional commands and pull out our troops.
 
That would only strengthen currents in the political cultures of those countries that argue in favor of great autonomy from the United States.

Whether or not the countries we 'defend' should be grateful for it, they are not.
 
Absolutely if they can afford to pay...but I want to add we need to get out of the business of protecting everyone else..
 
Well... we already do, just not in obvious ways. We have strategic and/or economic power over the places we provide protection to.

It does seem like a bit of a cop out though to go after our protectorates and treaty allies for money because we put ourselves in a risky financial situation.

We can't back out of our treaty commitments.
 
The US has been running a protection racket for years. How would this new extortion scheme be different?
 
The problem would be how to determine what "protection" was in the interest of the defended nation and what was in the interest of the US?

Then it would also come down to how much was the protection needed if at all. Is the US defending France from any real threat for example, or Germany for that matter? South Korea definately faces a realistic threat from NK, but SK should be able to win in any war with NK (at high levels of loses) without aid from US forces. (US forces are an added deterent)

Japan has not faced a realistic threat since the decline of the USSR. Taiwan does gain benifits from its association with the US, but if I am not mistaken US presence in Taiwan is very limited, meaning low actual cost to the US
 
I think we should just cut foreign aide altogether.
 

No, because:

1. The US isn't protecting them out of the goodness of its heart. It's protecting them because it believes that it is in the geopolitical interests of the United States to do so (or in the personal political interests of US politicians). As such, you might as well propose that those nations start charging the US for the opportunity to fulfill its geopolitical ambitions.

2. The US already charges them, in the form of diplomatic/political support. Anytime a national leader reconsiders his position on an issue for fear of pissing off his greatest ally, the United States, the US has charged that nation.

3. Our foreign policy is already disgusting enough as it is. Do we really want to literally get in the business of protecting loathesome regimes in exchange for money? How does that make us any better than the mafia?
 
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