News & Analysis
U.S. Still World's Policeman
America is still the best guarantor of freedom and prosperity ... The U.S. still possesses unprecedented power projection capabilities, and just as important, it is armed with the goodwill of countless countries that know the U.S. offers protection from bullies.Much nonsense has been written in recent years about the prospects of American decline and the inevitable rise of China. But it was not a declining power that I saw in recent weeks as I jetted from the Middle East to the Far East through two of America's pivotal geographic commands — Central Command and Pacific Command. The very fact that the entire world is divided up into American military commands is significant. There is no French, Indian or Brazilian equivalent — not yet even a Chinese counterpart. It is simply assumed without much comment that American soldiers will be central players in the affairs of the entire world. It is also taken for granted that a vast network of American bases will stretch from Germany to Japan — more than 700 in all, depending on how you count. They constitute a virtual American empire of Wal-Mart-style PXs, fast-food restaurants, golf courses and gyms. – LA Times, Max Boot
Dominant Social Theme: America the wanted.
Free-Market Analysis: This is an astonishing and forceful statement by Max Boot, "the Jeane J. Kirkpatrick senior fellow for national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and a contributing editor to Opinion," according to the brief LA Times bio at the bottom of the article. It is notable for a number of reasons, but mostly because it serves as a restatement of an elite dominant social theme, that America is "the necessary enforcer of the world's democracy."
The timing of the article is interesting in the sense that it is an emphatic statement about America's role in the world but does not seem a response to any particular anti-American argument. There is no one single existential challenge – not even North Korea or Iran (in our opinion), nor any specific argument – to America's sprawling "empire" of 1,000 military bases around the world, nor to its incessant warring and serial confrontations.
The article, therefore, exists in a kind of vacuum, dangles in the air like a piñata, ready to be wacked. It is a resounding statement, well written and purposeful, but psychologically, the positioning is a bit odd. Why did Max Boot feel the need to write editorial? Why did the LA Times feel the need to run it? It is as if Boot is responding to a dialogue in his own head, or perhaps a host of unseen "enemies" that he feels are questioning America's foreign policy – ones that are never mentioned however. Here's some more from the article:
South Korea's eagerness to continue subordinating its armed forces to American control is the ultimate vote of confidence in American leadership. What other country would the South Koreans possibly entrust with the very core of their national existence? Not China, that's for sure.
And yet South Korea is not so unusual in this regard. The Persian Gulf emirates also entrust their continued existence to America's benign power. The Kurds, whom we visited in Irbil, are eager to host an American base, because they know that all of the gains they have made since 1991 have been made possible by American protection. Even Arab Iraqi politicians, who traffic in nationalist slogans while running for office, are quietly talking about renegotiating the accord that would bring the U.S. troop presence in Iraq down to zero by the end of 2011. They know what Kosovars, Kuwaitis and countless others have learned over many decades: American power is the world's best guarantor of freedom and prosperity.
This isn't to deny the prevalence of anti-Americanism even in the Age of Obama. Nor is it to wish away the real threats to American power — from external challenges (Iran, China, Islamist terrorists) to, more worrying, internal weaknesses (rising debt levels, decreasing military spending as a percentage of the federal budget, a shrinking Navy). But if my cross-global jaunt taught me anything, it is that those countries that dismiss the prospects for continuing American leadership do so at their peril. The U.S. still possesses unprecedented power projection capabilities, and, just as important, it is armed with the goodwill of countless countries that know the U.S. offers protection from local bullies. They may resent us, but they fear their neighbors, and that's the ultimate buttress of our status as the world's sole superpower.
Leaving aside the oddly truculent tone, the article might appeal to some on a surface level – either jingoistically or logically. But examine the article's premises closely and the logic begins to break down. One has to be clear about the system that the article is defending. One needs, in fact, to go back to World War II and examine the post-war world to determine exactly what structure America is defending overseas. In fact, the allies that seek America's continued military embrace are mostly countries with sociopolitical systems similar to America's. The system, essentially, is one of regulatory democracy driven by central-banks and large financial institutions and funded through increasingly aggressive taxation.
We would argue that such regulatory democracies ultimately grow unpopular with the very citizenry they are supposed to support. The regulations, taxes and inflation become increasingly intolerable. Thus, we wonder if America's military might is not being projected to defend the system rather than the countries themselves. The LA Times article, for instance, mentions Iraq. It is not at all clear that Iraq would have arrived at its current system of regulatory democracy were it not for a nearly 10-year-old internecine war that has seen considerable American involvement.
The argument is made that despite disgruntlement with American involvement, leading Iraq politicians are not eager to see the American presence diminished. "Even Arab Iraqi politicians, who traffic in nationalist slogans while running for office, are quietly talking about renegotiating the accord that would bring the U.S. troop presence in Iraq down to zero by the end of 2011." Perhaps this is so. The question remains however: Is it because of a secret admiration for America freedoms and free-market economy or because the US military has spent perhaps US$1 trillion establishing a system that Iraqi politicians are now free to exploit.
Conclusion: After World War II, the world, with the exception of the USSR was virtually prostrate. Since the alternative press's retelling of secret history in the 20th century shows us that Wall Street helped fund the beginnings of the USSR, one must assume that even the Soviet Union was in part beholden to the West. The victorious Anglo-American axis in our opinion imposed a certain kind of regulatory democracy after the war, one extant even today. That's what being defended by American military might, not necessarily "freedom."
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Posted by Baboot on 06/05/10 01:04 AM
Bam. Bullseye. Pretty darn good. Boot to the boot.
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Posted by Bill on 06/05/10 01:21 AM
It is no surprise that the USA military serves the corporatocracy and the elite who control it. It is keeping the world safe for corporate interests ahead of the interests of the American population at large. However as we neared the brink of economic collapse, even the elite feared the chaos that would ensue following such a collapse. Follow the money and you will find the USA military and/or CIA.
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Posted by Cj Coates on 06/05/10 02:13 AM
Can you imagine if those 700 worldwide US military bases were closed over a ten year period, and never reopened.
All that money the government would save, would be enough to fix
Americas problems.
The world DOES not need a policeman.
I love America, the country the people, but I do not call it free.
Can you imgaine how those young intellegent and brave soldiers, could finish off their studies and or start a new business that would brings jobs to their home towns?
By bringing home the military,it would encourage growth in America, not add to unemployment. (let alone save human lives)
Yes this would hurt the bottom lines of manufacturers of human killing machines.
The amunition manufacturers could instead focus their itelligence on perfecting deep sea oil leak technology. Or perhaps, something else more helpful, hydrogen powered homes.
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Posted by FLR on 06/05/10 03:45 AM
Max Boot is one of the leading Neocon "intellectuals". His real name is not "Boot" but a Russian name. He is of course jewish in the typical neocon tradition.
He usually represents the most extreme neocon positions.
Here is something to laugh at: Click to view link
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Posted by Roger on 06/05/10 03:55 AM
The nationalistic sort of pride about the might of the American Empire that Max Boot is trying to convey is just a little anachronic. When the empire was at its peak, the media used to keep a low profile and never boasted so much about the amount of their military bases. This article gives me the impression that now that the empire is sinking into debt, it is time to gather national support to prevent the anavoidable.
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Posted by Constantine on 06/05/10 05:06 AM
The poeple who run America do not stand for human rights,freedom and free markets.They are more like a mafia of the powerful/wealthy connected government/corporations mixture they would be almost the perfect definition of facsism.The evil empire of Ronald Reagan taken to the next level.
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Posted by Victor Barney on 06/05/10 05:55 AM
Yes, this is true to an extent, but as the Chinese notoriously called it, only a "paper tiger!" As true about Great Britain in World War I to a lesser extend, but especially in World War II, Great Britain generally was weak and powerless, unlike an American, especially with their "backs against the wall!" But things have turned around now! Probably due to our Press and Progressive(Marxist) school system agenda, America is more likely to run away and live to fight another day than to stand with their back against the wall. World War II was our last real victory and it's quite hard to argue that we have won much out of War or Diplomacy since! In fact, All our deaths since the Civil War have been to stop Communism and now we even have a Marxist President, House, Senate, and very soon with the next appointment, Supreme Court! In other words, we have become what every soldier has died for since the civil War to become what we previously died to stop! As Jack Webb used to say: "Just the facts, sir!"
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Posted by Cossack55 on 06/05/10 06:17 AM
Would not a more apt title have been: U.S. Still Supplies World's Bank Guards.
Iceland.... Home of the Free
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Posted by Grekko on 06/05/10 07:07 AM
Roger's reply is correct. With diminishing revenues, budget cuts (austerity) is inevitable. How many times has president Hussein Obama publicly stated that we can't all live as we wish to. I remember his statements about having less heat in the winter and less A/C in the summer. At first, I thought he was off his rocker, but now I know what he means. In order to support his empire, Americans are going to have to make cuts so the savings will support the empire as it exists. I think I'll write a book..."The Fall of Rome, Part Deux". Have a nice day everyone!
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Posted by Grekko on 06/05/10 07:07 AM
Roger's reply is correct. With diminishing revenues, budget cuts (austerity) is inevitable. How many times has president Hussein Obama publicly stated that we can't all live as we wish to. I remember his statements about having less heat in the winter and less A/C in the summer. At first, I thought he was off his rocker, but now I know what he means. In order to support his empire, Americans are going to have to make cuts so the savings will support the empire as it exists. I think I'll write a book..."The Fall of Rome, Part Deux". Have a nice day everyone!
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Posted by Robc on 06/05/10 07:41 AM
To have a world government, the uneven eeconomic geography of the world needs to be 'levelled'. One class of global elite, 300 or so families, ruling over the whole planet, (the rest) divided into workers. Some slightly higher up the socio-economic pyramid, but all classed as 'the owned'. This levelling globally is work in progress, so the first world, second world (former communist) and third worlds will become integrated and homgonized socio-economically, US living standards will drop, and for some people in the third and second worlds standards will rise slightly. The owners will lord it and control the owned with an iron fist, no more velvet golve will be needed to cover it.
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Posted by J Slater on 06/05/10 07:45 AM
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, speaking at the Brookings Institute on May 27, 2010:
"Our approach is to build the diverse sources of American power at home and to shape the global system so that it is more conducive to meeting our overriding objectives: security, prosperity, the explanation and spread of our values, and a just and sustainable international order.....
So in a world like this, American leadership isn't needed less, it's actually needed more. And the simple fact is that no significant global challenge can be met without us."
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Posted by Ernest Kroll on 06/05/10 08:44 AM
The biggest and mightiest of nations by default becomes the world's policeman whether anyone likes it or not.
Today America is still the world's policeman but it is paying a dear price.
America is wrong to 'enforce democratic government' on any foreign nation no matter how repugnant that government may be.
America should not interfere in another nation's political business unless American national sovreignty or the lives of American citizens are imminently and directly threatened.
President Bush was wrong to preemtively strike Iraq. Blaming this action on faulty intelligence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction was wrong. Saddam Hussein's harsh treatment of his country's citizens was wrong and abominable, but Iraq's sovreignty should have been recognized and honored despite the sufferings of its citizens under the thumb of their own government leader.
America's role should not be to replace any foreign nation's government with a democratic-type one unless it is the rational result of the aftermath of a war or conflict with that nation following that nation's aggressive acts against us. A apt example is that of post-WW2 war Japan when MacArthur was given the huge job of replacing a militaristic government with a democratic one.
America should not instigate an act of war with another nation unless it can be proved unequivocally that that nation was actively engaged in a preemptive strike of its own against us or one of our treaty allies (eg, Iran vs Israel).
Having American military based in multiple foreign countries is wrong. Who is threatening the sovreignty of Germany, Spain, U.K., Canada, Japan, Italy, Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Panama, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Kosovo? Is it Russia, or China, or who? Why do we need to continually drain our treasury to support these overseas installations with personnel and equipment, plus the 'rent' we pay the host governments?
I need someone to convince me that our military presence is required on foreign soil in times of peace - not to mention the price we pay in American lives and sacrifices of loved ones.
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Posted by Bob on 06/05/10 09:02 AM
DB wonders why this article would appear now out of the blue.
Might I suggest the recent failure of the establishment to denigrate Rand Paul in Kentucky and the recent resurgence of agitation against the military base in Okinawa.
Ron Paul dialed the Hegelian Dialect and goal post all the way back during his '08 campaign. His book, "A Foreign Policy of Freedom" arguing for non-intervention is there for all to see. Maybe the CFR is starting to feel threatened.
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Posted by Pat Fields on 06/05/10 09:10 AM
Until such time as all Peoples of all countries enact into their legal codes a secure Private Property in their possessions and Individual Determination regarding their dispensation, only brute force can defend those few who do. To contend for anything different is self-destructive ideological fancy. Amsterdam of the 16th to 17th centuries is a good example.
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Posted by Johnny Dangereaux on 06/05/10 09:32 AM
Pride comes before a fall....this guy will be proven so wrong VERY soon..... The time will come when Gold is UP AND the dollar is DOWN. That will be the beginning of the end of "our" empire.
Someday the world will wake up and stop buying US debt. Any news from Spain about the Bilderbergers?
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Posted by Bryan on 06/05/10 10:27 AM
Is most of the world's people too ignorant to prevent places like N. Korean and Cuban style governments? If they are, should not the US focus on education, and quit regulating?
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Posted by Lila Rajiva on 06/05/10 10:51 AM
Foreign born immigrant.
Yours truly cannot get her peace loving voice heard, or even very important stories, because she is a foreign-born immigrant. But if you love empire, then foreign origin no longer matters.
Background at ultra-left Berkeley.
Neocons have more intellectual similarity with the left than with the true right. They love them some theory..
Armchair generals, every last one of them
Boot was born in 1969 in Moscow.[4] His parents, both Russian Jews, later emigrated from the Soviet Union to Los Angeles, where he was raised.[4] Boot earned a Bachelor's Degree in History from the University of California, Berkeley in 1991, and a Master's Degree in Diplomatic History from Yale University in 1992.[1] He started his journalistic career writing columns for the Berkeley student newspaper The Daily Californian.[5] He later stated that he believes he is the only conservative writer in that paper's history.[5] Boot and his family currently live in New York City.[1]
Reply from The Daily Bell
1. You sell yourself short. You have a literate, measured voice and a fine blog.
2. Wonder why he picked the name Max Boot.
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Posted by Chuck on 06/05/10 10:53 AM
It all comes down to the money. We know now that Wall St. has been funding conflicts for a long time. America gets involved to make sure Wall St. gets their money. It's the reason Wilson brokered a secret deal to get us into WWI, and America entered the war to fund the Allies (House of Morgan), and hold the value of British bonds.
I haven't seen much evidence of any US action in the last century being for the sole, or even majority purpose of protecting the citizenry. I mean, I'm not convinced that troops halfway across the globe are making me safer as I sit here in my living room. There are a lot of very sensitive, very valuable assets over there that the Elite need protected. Smedley Butler was right, war is a racket.
Today, a lot of action is laundered through the UN, IMF, World Bank, all US led, mostly US funded bodies. The might and strength of our military is being used to protect a whole lot more than just the people and their rights. Like I said yesterday, not many people are convinced that someone wants kill us (probably themselves) because we use IPods. Through the aforementioned bodies, US action is so dilluted by the time it is taken that people don't even know it's us doing it.
Take Greece for example (I know we don't have troops fighting there, but militarily is not the only way we are the world policeman), understanding is that it's the IMF and EU central bank bailing them out. Little do most know that the largest chunk of money is coming from the US, which means the citizens pay for it through inflation.
One could assume that the same people who really push the buttons here (seems less and less like Obama every day), push the buttons around the world. While I don't quite agree with the referenced article's boastful tone, you do have to have America to have the world. That said, America's involvement, and all the disguises it takes on, is to protect the people we have been talking about the past few days (Rothschild, Rockefeller, Morgan, etc.), and their interests.
The US takes action on behalf of these people, and sits on their hands on behalf of these people (BP). All the while under the disguise of the protection of our liberties.
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Posted by Bud Wood on 06/05/10 11:04 AM
This would sound better to me if I wasn't one (of many) who is paying for it.
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