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Overseas Intervention

1/3/2014

2 Comments

 

US Contemporary Power: The Reality; The Sentiment

Last week the US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel announced proposed cuts to US forces reducing their 'boots on the ground' to pre Second World War levels, the closure of some domestic military bases, redundancy of U2 spy planes and A10 attack jet aircraft . On the face it these reductions sound quite dramatic as at present the US spends around $600 billion per year on hard power; more then the next twelve highest defense spending nations put together. So, what does this proposal suggest ? At a time of numerous 'real time' conflicts in the Middle East and Africa, and the threat of others in Asia and Eastern Europe, why has the executive decided to draw in the wings of the American eagle at this particular juncture ?

Logically, this could just be a decision driven by economic necessities, after all the national debt stands at $17.4 trillion and continues grow in spite of reduced public spending, reduced unemployment and a growing economy. Moreover, after 9/11 defense spending has doubled reflecting the costly engagement in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as maintaining the United States military global reach. The underlining strategy of the US military has long been to finance and equip the armed forces with the ability and facility to fight two major wars simultaneously - this thinking is obviously now under serious political review as I cannot conceive that the Pentagon has willingly bought into this new approach. Finally, the reduction in manpower could also simply be a reflection of greater reliance on technology as the monitoring and intervention into other nation-states affairs is being increasingly undertaken as much by the NSA, CIA and other covert services as it is by the regular army, air force and navy.

However, I feel there could be a further reason for this military reduction that is not so rational but just as powerful - public sentiment. There exists a potent atavistic characteristic that has sat within the US mindset ever since 1776 if not before - the view that much of the behaviour outside of the nation's natural borders is an anathema to the American way of life. Moreover, although the US has to involve itself in foreign affairs to protect its self interests it is more important to insulate the nation from any contagion that this un-American world might contain. This 'small screen' republicanism is not an uncommon sentiment and if you place these feelings alongside a nation-state that been at war for over ten years then no wonder the average citizen has become weary of  conflict, often unsure or unaware as to the reasons why they are fighting and financing in nation-states that have little in common with the American creed.

KK

An after thought...

Barack Obama has been nicknamed the first 'Pacific President' by many, I wonder if this should not be just a nod to geo-politics but a reflection of a nation that just like numerous imperial powers before it is getting tired of having to continually fight its corner to retain its pre-eminent crown.


KK                              
2 Comments
Jens Vermeulen
1/3/2014 05:38:11 pm

I am not a hardcore advocate for American military intervention abroad, but I think there are two important side notes to be made here. First, in psychology there is a phenomenon called ‘bystander effect’. Also called bystander apathy, it refers to situations where individuals do not offer their help to a victim when other people are present. Applied to the international stage, it seems to me that the United States is the only one to offer ‘real’ help in such situations. Agreed, the US has made some (huge) mistakes and miscalculations in the past. Some interventions were also fueled by American self-interests, but part of the reason to intervene must have been to help people in distress. Whether they succeeded in providing security is another question.

Second, you say that ‘small screen republicanism’ and unawareness over the reasons to fight makes Americans think that insulating themselves from issues outside their borders will fix all their problems. The US has used this tactic in the past and it failed. I say that this same unawareness allows the American government to do as it pleases. Military intervention is the last choice of options to solve a problem. The primary method of conflict resolution should always be diplomacy, but if this fails, it seems like the United States is the only one that is even willing to consider military options because its government knows that domestic problems can have international causes. Insulating oneself is therefore not the answer to problems.

To end, it remains to be what impact the situation in Ukraine will have on American policy, especially now that the Russians are involved.

Reply
Bradford Lovett
30/3/2014 11:42:13 pm

Your comment on Obama as the first "Pacific President" is an interesting one.The name is used in two ways to describe Obama: the President to idly sits by and watches world events unfold, his rifle loaded with a gerber daisy, and a president who deliberately plays up his personal relationship with the Asian-Pacific region to justify a military shift as a counter-balance to China. Considering his continued use of drones and the continued operation of Guantanamo, among other things, I'm inclined to take the second version of "Pacific" more seriously.

His unprecedented rhetoric suggests that he has a special relationship to the region (growing up in Hawaii/Indonesia), that the US has "always" been a Pacific power (ironic as the U.S. forced trade upon Japan and South Korea, along with European powers at the time) and, thus, U.S. Asian-Pacific allies need not worry. This is not the rhetoric of a president who is tired of fighting for a pre-eminent crown. Rather, the President is justifying future engagement in the Asian-Pacific on a host of major regional issues: the South China Sea, the Senkaku/Diaoyu Island dispute, and of course perceived U.S. interests in Taiwan and the Koreas. If the President can appear to be the first "Pacific President," he will lay claim to just as much right as Abe, Jinping and all the rest to meddle in the region.

At least in the Pacific, then, U.S. foreign policy appears to be maintaining an energetic, potentially interventionist approach.

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    Dr J Ken Kennard Professor of Politics and History - Master Program in American Studies - Universiteit Gent

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