| Strange Bedfellows |
14 July 2003
|
Imperialists and Pacifist Worry about Over-Extension
One of Washington's buzz words of the season is "over-extension." It would appear that foreign policy would-be thinkers are concerned that America, which spend 10 times more on its military than any other country on the planet, might not have enough troops to shoulder its responsibilities and carry out its goals. The arithmetic
belies
this, and it is a canard of both the hyper-militarists and the pacifists to say so.
Those who oppose US military action everywhere in the world say that this over-extension is the result of trying to dominate the world, and it will lead to angry mobs outside US embassies ultimately destroying the republic. The other argument comes from those who want even more US intervention in the world -- more work means allocating more resources, that is, bigger Pentagon budgets.
Both sides began worrying about Liberia not long ago and the 1,000 troops Mr. Bush is may deploy to support ECOWAS, an African grouping of states that is already sending troops to stabilize the nation. Would the US be able to do this and the many other things it is committed to do?
There are currently 40,000 US troops in Germany, a country that is quite capable of defending itself these days, and almost as many in Japan, also not at risk of invasion by bad guys. It would appear that they could be used elsewhere without much trouble. If soldiers in North Carolina can wind up in Baghdad inside of two months (including the fighting), redeploying 1,000 troops to west Africa is a doddle.
What neither group of worriers sees is the usefulness of putting troops on the ground early and in sufficient numbers to avoid the need to go in full bore later. Vietnam was the result in incrementalism. The Powell Doctrine calls for overwhelming force, and rightly so, as it keeps casualties down. The Kensington Corollary is that force, to be overwhelming, needn't be huge, but it must be big enough and deployed soon enough. "Nipping it in the bud" is a more common term for it, and America has enough to do that the world over if its politicians are smart.