by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
Tribune Media Services<\/p>\n
Republicans and Democrats are blaming one another for impending cuts to the defense budget brought about by sequestration. But with serial annual deficits of $1 trillion-plus and an aggregate debt nearing $17 trillion, the United States \u2014 like an insolvent Rome and exhausted Great Britain of the past \u2014 was bound to re-examine its expensive overseas commitments and strategic profile.<\/p>\n
The president’s nomination of Chuck Hagel for defense secretary was a sort of Zen-like way of having a Republican combat veteran orchestrate a reduced military. In fact, Barack Obama has nurtured a broad and diverse constituency for his neo-isolationist vision. Budget hawks concede that defense must suffer its fair share of cuts. Libertarians want back their republic and hate the big-government baggage that comes along with a big military’s involvement overseas.<\/p>\n
Leftists agree, adding that the US has neither the moral authority nor the wherewithal to arrange events overseas. For liberals, a scaled-back military presence abroad means more entitlements at home. For each F-22 Raptor not built, about another 20,000 families could receive food stamps for a year.<\/p>\n
The American public \u2014 exhausted by Iraq and Afghanistan \u2014 is receptive to all the above arguments. If our poorer grandparents thought 70 percent of the annual US budget devoted to defense after the Korean War was about right, we, the more affluent, insist that even the present 20 percent is far too costly.<\/p>\n
The result is that we lead from behind in Libya; France leads from the front in Mali. Syria and Iran shrug off Obama’s periodic sermons to behave. Our reset with Russia was abruptly reset by Russia. American policy in the Middle East could be summed up as “Whatever” — as we become only mildly miffed that distasteful authoritarian allies are replaced by more distasteful Islamist enemies.<\/p>\n
In his first major speech as secretary of state, John Kerry did not worry about radical Islam. Nor did he warn Americans of a rogue North Korea, a soon-to-be-nuclear Iran, or China \u2014 bullying in the Pacific and cyber-hacking the US \u2014 but mostly of the need for collective efforts to address climate change. A shortage of solar panels and windmills, not impending cuts in US ships and planes, is Kerry’s idea of existential danger on the global horizon.<\/p>\n
To the extent that there is a coherent American foreign policy, it is perhaps symbolized by drone assassinations: Every couple of days or so, just kill a terrorist suspect or two \u2014 and as cheaply, as remotely and as quietly as possible.<\/p>\n
What will the world begin to look like as the global sheriff backs out of the world saloon with both guns holstered?<\/p>\n
Japan and Germany, the world’s third- and fourth-largest nations in terms of their gross domestic product, have never translated their formidable postwar economic strength into their past, prewar levels of military power. Yet both in theory could quickly do so \u2014 and make nukes in the same way they make fine cars \u2014 once they sense that there is no longer an unshakeable US commitment and ability to shelter them from regional threats. In fact, an array of allies \u2014 South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines \u2014 would all be frontline garrison states should the US military vacate their bad neighborhoods.<\/p>\n
The world is full of hot spots apart from the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. Shiite majorities in many of the Sunni-ruled and oil-rich Persian Gulf kingdoms believe that a terrorist-sponsoring Iran is more a liberator than rogue nation, and that Gulf oil has not been fully utilized as a strategic weapon.<\/p>\n
The Aegean, Cyprus, the former Soviet Republics, the Falkland Islands, Central America and the Baltic are all deceptively quiet. Potentially aggressive actors in the region don’t quite know how the US military might react \u2014 only that it easily could, and has in the past.<\/p>\n
We lament the terrible American losses in blood and treasure in tribal Afghanistan and Iraq. But privately, radical Islamists acknowledge that the US military killed thousands of jihadists in both countries \u2014 and hope never to see US troops on the battlefield again.<\/p>\n
Of course, a country that can neither budget the necessary money nor maintain the will to oversee the international peace has no business continuing to try.<\/p>\n
But in our relief from the vast costs and burdens of maintaining the postwar global order, we might at least acknowledge the truth, past and present: Just as the world was a far better place after 1945 because of an engaged United States, so it will probably become a much worse place due to an increasingly absent America.<\/p>\n
\u00a92013 Tribune Media Services<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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There will be no more $1 trillion deficits. About $10 trillion will have been added to the national debt\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "America's Future"","block_context":{"text":"America's Future","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/americas-future\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2488,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/is-the-president-in-recovery\/","url_meta":{"origin":1469,"position":1},"title":"Is the President in Recovery?","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 1, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services President Obama does not care much about deficits \u2014 other than worrying that big debt might matter in his re-election campaign. In his first three budgets, Obama borrowed nearly $5 trillion. 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Centrist Democrats up for reelection in 2012 openly worry about inviting a kindred president into their districts, lest the new pariah lose them votes.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Campaign 2012"","block_context":{"text":"Campaign 2012","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/campaign-2012\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3336,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/dreamland-usa\/","url_meta":{"origin":1469,"position":5},"title":"Dreamland, USA","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 18, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Barack Obama just gave a belated but stern warning about escalating debt \u2014 a few weeks after he presented a 2011 budget with a $1.6 trillion annual deficit, the largest shortfall in American history. 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