Hi M. Frank Greiffenstein; Re: "Blame America First Crowd"
Not at all. I'm a member of that traditional branch of the Republican party that is against foreign entanglements. While the Cold War was on, I was all in favor of more military spending and action then actually was done. Now that peace is at hand, I want to see the U.S. return to its peacetime tradition.
I'm not in favor of China flying military airplanes 65 miles off of our border either. And, in the event, I have no doubt that our fighter aircraft go up to meet them. But I don't think behavior of this sort is suitable for a world supposedly at peace. But while Russia did do such things, I don't think China does now. They may fly 65 miles off the border of Japan, but that's Japan's issue, not ours.
The world's condition is now the best, in pretty much every way, that it has ever been. Arguments against spending less on the U.S. military typically hinge on a comparison to the situation in 1941 when the U.S. found itself in the worst war in history with a 450,000 man Army. But the comparison fails badly. In 1941, most of the world's industrial power was in fascist or communist countries. In 2001, almost all of the world's industrial (and economic) power is in the hands of a dozen very very strong Democracies. This is peace, this is as good as gets.
Sometimes people argue that the U.S. military should be strong enough to defeat any foe, anywhere, with no help from any ally. If every country had this (deluded) attitude (a goal which is impossible to achieve), military spending would go to infinity. Who would want a world like that? I want peace. I lived most of my life under the shadow of a threat of global annihilation, and I'm tired of the cr@p.
The remaining Communist countries are not credible threats. If we really wanted to destroy Communism in Cuba, we should open the trade barriers and let their citizens visit the U.S. openly. The Cubans would throw the guy out just like the Russians dumped their regime when they saw a bit too much of the free market miracle. The same thing is happening in Korea right now. Prediction: within 10 years, the North Korean regime falls without (significant) bloodshed, and gets combined with South Korea similar to what happened in Germany. (Until then, the situation in Korea is a bit unstable, so I'm in favor of leaving U.S. troops there, as well as in Kuwait, but pretty much everywhere else I think we should bring them home.)
Our conflict with the USSR was different. In 1980, one could reasonably suggest that Communism would eventually conquer the world, and the US was in a fight for its life. Our current situation with China is different. They are a backwards country with absolutely no credible threat of world domination.
The nukes are another story. I think we should implement a missile defense, and I hope that Bush is going to do just that. But all indications from history so far is that nuclear weapons are not at all useful in applying force against other humans. That is, you can't make other people do what you want them to do with nukes. Hordes of young men with guns (i.e. armies) can apply force much better than nukes can.
Strangely, the flip side to the above observation on the uselessness of nuclear weapons is that they have turned out to be amazingly useful as defensive weaponry. The Cold War was likely the most peaceful period of recent world history, for a period where there were two more or less equally matched superpowers. (The more or less peace that lasted from Napoleon's demise to WWI was dominated by the presence of only a single super power, Britain.)
The Third World has observed that the United States never bullies (i.e. threatens to or actually performs traditional acts of war, such as blockade, bombing, invasion, etc., against) countries that possess credible nuclear weapons. Because of this (rather common sense) observation, several of the countries that are worried about their future relations with the US are pursuing the manufacture of their own nukes.
The nukes don't matter, at least between us and China. We both have them. Neither of us can realistically use them. But neither of us is going to start a conventional war that seriously threatens the other. (For instance, we might tangle over Vietnam or Korea, but we won't send troops over the border, at least not after China got ICBMs.)
-- Carl |
