The main reason for the military is to defend the homeland, deter foreign attacks, and provide some political leverage when negotiating with other countries. However, besides the military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US has troops in Germany, South Korea, Japan, Kuwait, Italy, the UK, Bahrain, Qatar, Cuba (Guantanamo Bay), Spain, Turkey, Iceland, Pakistan, among others. A lot of this is just a residue from the Cold War. Why else then have so many troops in Europe, if the Soviet bear is no longer a threat? Actually, once the USSR disappeared, it is not clear to me what NATO’s mission is.
Once it ended, the world suddenly awakened to just one superpower. The mission creep started. The US fell into the Wilsonian temptation, and decided that they were going to be a military force for good. Down with human rights abuses, down with dictators and absolute monarchs! Viva self determination! The US had to rule the waves, to keep commerce going on, thus a massive navy. It became the arbiter of last resort in regional conflicts, so it developed a highly trained professional army to be easily deployed. The US defense spending dropped, but not by much. September 11, 2001 changed all that. Spending has rocketed again.
In the meantime, our NATO allies felt that there was no threat from the Russians, so they dropped their military spending. Even the new joiners to the EU and NATO, Poland and the Baltic states, with whom I share their deep hatred of communism, felt protected by this pusillanimous NATO alliance, so they haven’t spent in their own defense like they should. Nowadays, the US is now in this uncomfortable position where it is guaranteeing the defense of half of the world, but getting gratitude from almost no one. After all, the world sees the US as an empire, whose works are part of its duty, so no gratitude needed.
Ironically, the only military operations that can be fully justified in national security grounds are those in Iraq and Afghanistan: and those proved to be the most contentious. However, I don’t want to discuss these wars extensively, as it distracts from my current point: the US needs to extricate itself from most of these complex military arrangements and alliances. Even if the US decided to keep the defense spending, it could be directed towards research and intelligence gathering, rather than useless deployments abroad.
Let us take, for example, South Korea. If South Korea cannot create armed forces capable of withstanding an attack from the People’s Republic of Korea, they really deserve to be invaded. Just look at the picture below to see the relative wealth of the two countries. The US keeps 40,000 troops in South Korea to protect it from its famine-prone northern neighbor.
I think that withdrawing all the troops from South Korea and establishing diplomatic relations with the north would be the best policy:
(1) It would force the South Koreans to arm themselves some more and create an additional counterbalance to China
(2) It would take away the threat to North Korea, giving them incentives to abandon their nuclear program
(3) It would force the Japanese to rearm and to seek more cooperation from North and South Korea, creating a further counterbalance to China
(4) It would take away the need for the Chinese to support the PRK’s nuclear program. A nuclear PRK would then become more of a problem to China than to the US.
Now take NATO and the recent situation in Georgia. I really feel for Georgia. It really looks like Czechoslovakia in 1938. If you change the names of Abkazia and South Ossetia for Sudetenland, then the analogy is obvious. However, what possible benefit is there for the United States by defending this Caucasian country, no matter how democratic? Since when did the protection of an ideology, democracy, became a strategic interest? Ideology in the world of the XX and XXI centuries is what religion was to the Europe of the XVI and XVII century.
Lastly, take Taiwan. We have been having, since the Nixon administration, this ambiguity regarding Taiwan: one China, two systems. Over time, this will become unsustainable. Taiwan had many chances to become an independent nation and refused: either because of a hope of a change in the mainland, or because of a fear of China’s reaction. This window is now closed. China will eventually take over this island. Will the US go to war with the future great economy of the world for a Chinese-speaking island that never voted for independence anyway? Will this be the Punic War of our times? If so, I just hope that the US is not Carthage.
The benefits of this new isolationism I hope will be the following:
(1) A more assertive European Union, which will be forced to arm itself fully once it’s bullied an inch too far by the Russians. This will create another counterbalance to the great Chinese threat that will naturally gravitate towards the US, as it ascertains that the US no longer has “imperial” ambitions.
(2) More balance in the Pacific basin, with a rearmed Japan, South Korea, India and the US Pacific Fleet. I would expect North Korea to become a non-player over time, as it becomes the sandwich filling between South Korea and China.
(3) A less hostile Russia, as the US troops leave its "near abroad." However, if lucky, we can get a few more former Soviet satellites getting armed to their teeth and become independent not only by right, but by force. Eventually, this may be the seed of a more effective alliance of Western democracies.
(4) Smaller US defense spending, resulting in, I hope, less deficit spending.
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