US Military/Foreign Policy

[IrishHand]

I've been thinking a lot lately about our nation's military - more specifically, what it's proper/appropriate level is (in terms of manning/expenditure) and what its proper/appropriate role is (defense v. force projection/intervention). A friend forwarded me the following article, the conclusion of which fairly accurately summarizes my beliefs about the past and present situation: (Disclaimer: I don't know a thing about the linked periodical nor its authors. I'm merely using it because it reflects my views reasonably well and I'm feeling lazy. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img])

U.S. Military Bases and Empire (link to full article)
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The Globalization of Power
The United States, as we have seen, has built a chain of military bases and staging areas around the globe, as a means of deploying air and naval forces to be used on a moment’s notice—all in the interest of maintaining its political and economic hegemony. These bases are not, as was the case for Britain in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, simply integral parts of a colonial empire, but rather take on even greater importance, “in the absence of colonialism.”* The United States, which has sought to maintain an imperial economic system without formal political controls over the territorial sovereignty of other nations, has employed these bases to exert force against those nations that have sought to break out of the imperial system altogether, or that have attempted to chart an independent course that is perceived as threatening U.S. interests. Without the worldwide dispersion of U.S. military forces in these bases, and without the U.S. predisposition to employ them in its military interventions, it would be impossible to keep many of the more dependent economic territories of the periphery from breaking away.

U.S. global political, economic, and financial power thus require the periodic exercise of military power. The other advanced capitalist countries tied into this system have also become reliant on the United States as the main enforcer of the rules of the game. The positioning of U.S. military bases should therefore be judged not as a purely military phenomenon, but as a mapping out of the U.S.-dominated imperial sphere and of its spearheads within the periphery. What is clear at present and bears repeating is that such bases are now being acquired in areas where the United States had previously lost much of its “forward presence,” such as in South Asia, the Middle East/Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean, or in regions where U.S. bases have not existed previously, such as the Balkans and Central Asia. There can be no doubt, therefore, that the last remaining superpower is presently on a course of imperial expansion, as a means of promoting its political and economic interests, and that the present war on terrorism, which is in many ways an indirect product of the projection of U.S. power, is now being used to justify the further projection of that power.

For those who choose to oppose these developments there should be no illusion. The global expansion of military power on the part of the hegemonic state of world capitalism is an integral part of economic globalization. To say no to this form of military expansionism is to say no at the same time to capitalist globalization and imperialism and hence to capitalism itself.

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Seriously - what do you think would happen if we embraced the notion that our military should purely be for self-defense? Assume we'd close all our military bases and withdraw all overseas forces (excluding Hawaii, naturally) over a period of 10 or so years and reduce our manning appropriately. We could maintain a strong, modern Navy/Marine Corps to defend our shores and give us the means/infrastructure to project our forces overseas in the event of war (one someone else started without our encouragement). We'd probably cut the Air Force in half mostly due to the closing of overseas bases (the average person in the USAF spends half of each year deployed/overseas). The Army would be reduced dramatically - basically it would just be a core of professional soldiers which could, if necessary, form the foundation for a larger military in the event of world conflict. Keep in mind that this proposal doesn't suggest we fall behind in the arms race - all branches except the Army would remain top-of-the-line - just smaller. (Higher quality, lower quantity - pretty basic.)

My other thought was pretty much the opposite - essentially embracing Truman's idea that "we are going to maintain the military bases necessary for the complete protection of our interests and of world peace." (See above linked article.) Internationally speaking, our primary "interest" at this point in history is global capitalism. Given the success we've had at opening up Iraq to capitalism (meaning having a garage sale on Iraq national assets, thereby allowing capitalists to purchase valuable assets at cut-rate prices and reap the profits), shouldn't we wholeheartedly embrace the notion of "Iraqifying" other nations? It certainly can't be argued that this war - like most others - has been a boon for the US economically (the distribution of this increased wealth is another matter entirely). I'm talking about dramatically increasing US military presence abroad. Had we walked into Iraq with twice as many soldiers and Marines, the occupation would surely have proceeded much more effectively with a much lower loss of US life. Essentially - if we're going to follow a foreign policy of spreading democracy and capitalism at the end of a rifle, we should increase our military spending and location to better implement this policy.

Thoughts?