Nor have these interventions, on balance, done very much for global security, democracy or human rights and dignity. While you may be able to name one or two cases over the last fifty or sixty years, for each case of high-minded humanitarian intervention, I can give you at least a handful - more like a dozen - colonial wars aimed at securing the shady dealings of various moneyed interests.
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
You forget Spain before Britain, and the phrase was coined to refer to the Spanish empire. The peak-to-trough part of the business cycle is an outlier. Carnot would have died laughing.
This means that opting to go America-free in terms of international commitments might by the same as becoming trade free regarding the level of external contact outside of the EU that currently exists. Perhaps that's okay and even a desirable outcome, but it might behoove us to look first and see what kinds things that we do actually like in the world today might not exist were it not for the sizable commitment made to international institutions by the United States and that might then have to be replaced by someone else if the US was to reduce its provision (or capability) of providing them.
At the very least, with the threat of expanding additions of carbon and greenhouse gases by non-OECD countries, a means of asserting and compelling international commitment outside of a narrow EU region are probably necessary for the well-being of the EU.
