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Time to reverse course
Posted by: ARegularGuy on June 24, 2008 at 4:25PM CST
Our foreign policy is bloated and totally nonsensical.

 We can pretend that as a antion we can maintain a unified foreign policy by giving out titles such as war Czar, but the fact is our foreign policy is open to change with each and every election.  We were not designed to operate as an empire and protect the globe.  That we made it work for so long as a real testament to the American can-do attitude, but it simply can't last.

I previously provided a long (120+) list of those countries we maintain a presence in.  We claim that with great power comes great responsibility but to allow our debt to climb to nearly 10 trillion is a sign of a total lack of responsibility.  A comunist nation (China) is bankrolling a large part of our foreign policy.  We give a tone of money to Israel, and just so we don't look to be one sided, we give the same amount of money to those that would like
to do Israel great harm.

We currently are occupying Iraq to ensure UN resolutions are followed, but the UN as a whole needed convicing of the merits of the war.

So here's the thing.  Our debt is currently 9.1 trillion, but if you take future promises into account, our debt is closer to 50 trillion. Our labor force is going to get smaller at the same time our debt spirals out of control.    Somehow we need to find a way out of this nightmare before it is too late while still dealing with the coming clash of civilizations.
 

 

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(8) Comments
Posted by: ARegularGuy on June 26, 2008 9:11AM CST
My list comes from the DOD's annual report on Military Base Activity. I would love to link to it, but I have the actual PDF downloaded and am currently unable to find anything specific on that horrific government website.

As the Blog owner correctly pointed out - the word occupation has a specific meaning. We have an occupying force in Iraq (and probably Germany too for some odd reason). I did not mean to imply we our occupying all those nations - only that we maintain a presence in them.

Many nations - South Korea immediately comes to mind - do not want us there any more. It reminds me of a saying from Dr. Milton Friedman ~ "Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.". We could definitely cut some fat, if not totally change our policy.

Posted by: Fly on the Wall on June 27, 2008 8:50AM CST
Mike, it takes a lot of time to move ground forces...keeping some of them forward deployed is the best way to prepare.

Militarily, the U.S. is unopposed, for the most part. There isn't one nation on the planet that could oppose us effectively in a conventional war. (Some could be difficult, like China vs Taiwan). Sure, Russia has nuclear parity, but no longer has dreams of Soviet World Domination.

Bottom line comes down to this: America is more threatened today by failing states than by conquering ones.

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