Quote:
Originally Posted by BigV
I, too, agree with the tone of Ibram's posts. But I read them differently. Not as a cry for a return to isolationism, but as a call for a more rational use of our (considerable) military might.
We **HAVE** awesome military power, and it is powerfully appealing to want to use the biggest hammer in the toolbox. But it is not always the best option. It is not always the most effective means of achieving a result.
Even when a goal is laudable, it may be a poor use of the military as well. They're soldiers and sailors and marines and airmen and coasties. As part of their job, they may know how to build a bridge or a school. They may know how to talk to a civilian suspect. They're clearly highly competent in their areas of speciality, and their training is excellent. But they're not nation builders. They're not even peace keepers. They're warriors, right? Isn't that what they train for? For war.
During this administration, they've been used and abused as a blunt heavy instrument. Not all our problems, problems we share with others can be bombed into submission.
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I can't agree more. I think 2008 marks the year where the US spending on defense will surpass the spending of the rest of the world combined. We buy new billion dollar aircraft (Joint Strike Fighter) against an air threat that does not exist. We maintain bases in overseas regions that no longer require us to be there, and would frankly like us gone (although it would hurt the local economies to leave). I've always thought we should reduce our force and close most overseas bases. Mostly what we need is a few naval ports, and agreements to use a handful of airfields as required.
President Clinton reduced our forces. This alienated the military from the democrats, combined wth anti-military comments from other democrats. To make it worse, during Clinton's terms the military had more deployments as peace-keepers. Smaller force, more deployments, to areas in which the military's skills weren't in tune with what was needed. Military forces are trained to fight - not to keep peace. Sure, miltary have engineers that can dig wells and schools - but that's not the mission of the military. Protect and defend, not dig wells.
The US was never truly isolationist. If you look at the period when we were so called isolationists we were stilling fight small 'wars' in areas we had an economic interest in.