Because global well-being has blossomed under the protection of The World's Policeman and when the muscle starts to atrophy chaos reigns. See Europe under Claudius vs. Europe under Nero. Just finished Robert Kaplan's "The Revenge of Geography" and am feeling smart.Why do we need a robust military?
What have we done with our military in the past decade that couldn't have been done cheaper and better with less? Limitless money for weapon systems has created a system that constantly over promises and under delivers. A little bit of constraint and we might have had jet plans, carriers and littoral combat ships that weren't total dysfunctional money pits. Afghanistan should have been fought with cruise missiles and pallets of cash and guns, maybe a few special forces actions. Iraq defines fiasco. Respect for American leadership is at an all time low. The War of the Barbary Coast would have been a way better model to work off for Afghanistan, not, oh wait, there was no model for Afghanistan. Despotic regimes get a lot more reasonable when they realize that life is going to be shit if they don't at least pretend to play ball, when they are deposed all bets are off. I was all for putting Saddam back on the leash, instead we put a corrupt Shia government in power that could really give two shits about U.S. interests. We also lost, twice. We just as easily could have caused a lot of havoc, killed some terrorist and not lost if we put nothing of significance on the ground. Sure our pet warlords would have done some terrible shit, but our puppets have been hard at work commuting atrocities and corruption anyway. We might still be feared but we aren't respected. We look dumb and dangerous. We have expanded our robust military system with NATO right into a crisis. Russia may be on the ropes but they still merit a sphere of influence. Would have been no problem and fairly just to pick off a few eastern bloc nations but we got a little too aggressive. In the good old days we understood the value of a nice buffer, instead the idea that any opposition must be opposed with an iron will has taken over the American political/diplomatic psyche. Russia is doing nothing but acting in their own self interest, trying to maintain a thin buffer between themselves and NATO. NATO country defense budgets are for the most part anemic, why the hell are we wasting so much treasure on an alliance who's members refuse to pull their own weight? We'd be overdue to pull back from NATO a bit if we didn't need them to join "coalition of the willing's" to fight in the stupid wars we should even have been fighting. There is robust and there is robust. We are at a point of robustness that looks an awful lot like stupid. Wasting a bunch of blood and treasure doesn't seem like a bad plan when you essentially have limitless resources, I wonder if we would be a bit more careful if we were more constrained.
There's actually a great model for what is likely to happen in Afghanistan.In Fact, I Know of four likely models. Yes, we live in the most peaceful time ever. However, the US is in the worst possible situation: If the US interferes with any conflict anywhere they are seen as belligerents who are doing nothing but attempting to expand the American Empire, the Pax Americana if you will. But if the US does nothing, countries cry out "Why don't you do something?" Perhaps this could be avoided if the US only entered into conflict if explicitly asked for assistance, but then what of American interests? You're stuck, guys. It's a Catch-22 until your military is either subsumed by a larger force, or you lose your reputation as a world military power.
So I've been doing a shit-ton of geopolitical reading lately. And let's set morality aside: we'll steadfastly ignore the fact that drone strikes in Pakistan are a dangerously immoral way to conduct foreign policy, we'll disregard the harm inflicted upon the Middle East by American exceptionalism and focus only on direct financial and strategic benefit to the United States. The PNAC was right. If what you want is a strong America with lots of strategic interests, the invasion of Iraq, the occupation of Afghanistan, this whole pigfuck in Syria is what you want. Terrorism is a sideshow and war is profitable. The British "Great Game" gave them The Charge of the Light Brigade. The American "Great Game" gave us Pat Tillman killed by friendly fire. I protested the Iraq War. I protested the invasion of Afghanistan. I'm not a fan of war. But from a strategic standpoint, the United States has never been stronger. Especially as Russia turns inward and China scrambles to secure mineral rights in Nigeria and Kazakhstan because we have the entire rest of the world sewn up. Water wars? Even if California turns into the Sahara agriculture is 5% of its economy. Oil wars? The US has completely untapped reserves and Alaska is just sitting up there. Iraq is a puppet, Saudi Arabia is a puppet, we're letting the mullahs burn themselves out in Iran (if the US had any strategic interest in furthering our relationship with Iran, that shit would flip faster than the Berlin Wall) and we have Israel as a buffer state between us and the majority of Islamic fundamentalists that serve the dual purpose of destabilizing the region and giving us a boogeyman to rail against that can do us exactly zero strategic harm. It's fuckin' ugly. Empire-building always is. But in amongst the grime and blood, the US won handily.
I agree. Though I think there are places where we have niggling details of disagreement, I'd say we're pretty much on the same page. What I was saying, in essence, is that it's no use complaining when the US goes to war. At the moment, the US is the apex predator, the top of the food chain. Until another world power starts to challenge that, you guys are going to be stuck getting sucked into every middling political issue on the world stage, because it's seen as your JOB. And then, instead of thanking you for doing the job they expect you to do, they're going to give you the middle finger and say "fuck you my friend, have a nice day" with all the pleasantry of a late 70's Punk. You've got a great empire, sure, but you've got everything that goes with it, including complaining vassals, bullshit responsibilities, and the saddle of international scapegoat.
That argument has been made by more than a few people. Stephen Kinzer wrote an entire damn book about it. I think it comes down to this: - US Foreign Policy is largely imagined and carried out by career bureaucrats, not elected officials - Those bureaucrats work for the CIA and the State Department - Iran has been carrying out a successful proxy war against the CIA and State Department across "South Asia" since 1978 It's interesting. Everyone figures that any olive branch thrown at Iran will immediately be smacked down by AIPAC because what's good for Iran is obviously bad for Israel without recognizing that culturally, intellectually, historically and all but rhetorically, Shia Persians are the only muslims in the whole goddamn Middle East that don't give a fuck about Jews. Fuckin' Cyrus the Great was the first ruler to tax the Jews, rather than attempt to wipe 'em out... and all sorts of Jewish sects took refuge in Persia during the Arab conquests.
It's not a catch 22 because you have more options in a conflict than "do nothing" and "go to war". Especially when the conflict really doesn't involve you. Smart actions, like economic warfare and intelligence support can influence a conflict without getting us too drawn in.
tehstone is right on this. If you sit on the sidelines you're told you're not doing enough, even if you're fighting the "smart war".
Well hang on there, cowboy. We don't disagree about a lot. You're kind of going off on a "war is bad" tangent that I have no fight with. But that wasn't your argument. I was simply responding to this part: That's a very different question than "Why should we USE a robust military" (we shouldn't - when you show your hand you go from being a theoretical nightmare to being a practical army and you lose a lot of deterrent force) or "WHERE should we use a robust military" (Kaplan makes a compelling argument that we'd be in much better geopolitical and economic shape if we attempted to pacify Mexico instead of Iraq/Afghanistan). I was simply sharing that I'd recently finished a book that made a compelling argument as to why American militarization was good for the globe at large. Nowhere was I implying that a gun is useless unless fired at someone, and nowhere was I suggesting that Iraq and Afghanistan are the places to do it. I will respond to this, though: Because geopolitically speaking, the United States benefits from keeping Europe as vassal states. The militaries of Europe are the right size for small-scale pacification, which is a very "UN" thing to do, but wholly undersized for any real threat deterrence. As Kaplan points out, clusterfuck that Iraq was, the US lost 5,000 troops out of a half-million deployed. It was expensive, and wasteful, and polarizing, and will likely lead to a resurgent Iran... but we lost a lot more treasure than blood. You don't accomplish that by sending in the Canadians. Asymmetrical warfare is expensive but successful. We've been there for going on a century, though. The United States got to dictate a lot of terms in Paris for the simple reason that we were the biggest military left standing. The United States got to reshape Europe as The Marshall Plan because we were the biggest military left standing (did you know that many factions of the military wanted to extend the Marshall Plan to the USSR?). The US did what the US wanted in Korea because we were the biggest military around. And shit - it was argued in Congress during the Vietnam War that the United States could save money by giving every man, woman and child in North Vietnam $67k a year not to fight. Given my 'druthers, I'd go that way as well - we used up 250,000 bullets for every "insurgent" killed in Iraq. So crazy military spending and crazy military involvement is nothing new.Why do we need a robust military?
why the hell are we wasting so much treasure on an alliance who's members refuse to pull their own weight?
There is robust and there is robust. We are at a point of robustness that looks an awful lot like stupid.
And we would probably do just as well with a Democrat's robust military as the Republicans. We'd still have the 1st and 2nd most powerful air forces in the world, the most carriers, the best tech, the only place we can lose is man power. I'm by no means a peacenik but to be for Republicans because they are for a robust military is sets the bar so far in the favor of flushing money down the toilet that it's absurd. Military spending has been pretty hefty under Obama yet still I know Republicans who constantly bemoan the way Obama is hallowing out the military.
Again - we're on the same page, I'm just making a more limited argument. This is the first "democratic money" vs "republican money" has come up and I would agree that over the past 50 years or so, democratic military engagements tend to be more contained, IF you neglect the Vietnam War (started essentially by Kennedy, blown entirely out of proportion by LBJ). Kaplan would agree with you that forces-on-ground should almost never be used to do anything other than defend your own borders and yes - if you have your choice between a bitchin' army or a bitchin' navy, go navy. Now here's where I'm curious - where'd you get the idea that I'm "for Republicans?" 'cuz I've been voting since 1992 and the only Republican I've ever voted for... ...was George W. Bush... ...in the 2000 Washington State Primary... ...because it was open... ...and because I figured he'd be a much less credible opponent for Al Gore than John McCain. Boy, the universe sure threw us for a loop on that one.
Naw, my whole thing was the parent of being for the Republicans cause they are for a robust military, it's robust no matter what and probably too robust under the republicans. I have no problem with people voting republican, it's a complex world and military spending is just one reason to cast your vote. Not all that eager to see a big republican groundswell on the national level but that is just because they are such nutters at the moment. The candidates put up for election Oregon were just fucking abysmal (How the hell does a lady who's had the police involved in monitoring her stalking of ex boyfriends and husbands get to run for the U.S. Senate?)