What has Europe got to do with this?
Entropy posted:
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What's at question is Europe's capability to utilize military force in Europe's near-abroad to defend Europe's interests and there European capability is lacking.
As if to order Bob advises all:
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So to prepare for the next 50 years we'd be wise to look back at the past 100; for the next 100 the past 200.
A bit of history first. In 1956 the USA opposed (rightly) the last big external operation by two European nations, the Anglo-French intervention in Egypt, usually called the Suez crisis. If you exclude Bosnia & Kosovo then Europe, which is wider than NATO & the EU, has not mounted any defence of Europe's interests. The only special case that comes to mind is Cyprus, when individual nations under UN auspices contributed and today very few Europeans want to be there - Cyprus going way beyond it's best by date, as boredom set in.
Incidentally I don't think European leaders (within NATO & EU) should be forgiven for their crazy policies over Bosnia and it was a trilateral-only mission that broke the Bosnian Serbs at Sarajevo. The Dutch, French and British with heavy artillery & mortars being placed on Mount Igman.
Given the generally agreed poor state of a European capability to intervene, the best illustration of this comes with maritime border control; yes, often not a military responsibility. It is common knowledge that the Mediterranean is a major route for illegal migration, well illustrated during the Tunisian and then Libyan crises on the Italian island of Pantelleria. Fast forward to Greece and the ten of thousands of known illegals and refugees stuck in limbo there.
Border control is a European issue - using a broader definition of security.
To Bob's point to look back. Europe is no longer the fulcrum of international politics, as a continent it is "drawing in" and shrinking in many measures of power - with military coercion to the fore. It does have many non-coercive instruments of influence and power, but these remain largely used at a national level.
In some respect Europe and I exclude Russia in this - is in a very similar position to the years before 1914. Other powers were advancing, note Russia was the fastest developing economy pre-1914 and these powers were often in competition with the largest European nations: France, Germany, Italy and Great Britain. With the exception of a handful of countries, yes, the Imperial ones with far-flung and nearby colonies, Europe looked inwards and outwards in very similar proportions. Emigration was then a huge factor and remained so until 1939, for e.g. Italians going to Argentina.
Two cents from the peanut gallery.
@Bob's World--
I agree with your core argument that the United States needs to have a an overdue debate over America's role in the world. I also agree that Congress needs to do a better job at checking the executive branch of the federal government.
However, I am not convinced that military policy is both the cause of and cure for the present imbalance. Moreover, I respectfully disagree with your use of American history buttress what is essentially a political argument. A few examples follow.
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Originally Posted by
Bob's World
Our Constitution was a document uniquely written by Americans for Americans. Written by men after much debate as to how to ensure stability in a fledgling country made up of to that point by 13 distinct and sovereign states. Written by men who had grown to maturity as oppressed citizens of a government they deemed as illegitimate to govern them, held in check by the regular army of that government. An army they were forced to house and feed in their very homes; and in an environment where they were denied fundamental rights to gather and express their discontent, and a government that felt no compulsion to hear or respond to their reasonable concerns.
These same men then became rebels and insurgents, and fought to free themselves and this land and these people from such oppression; then in the summer of 1786 with the Confederation crumbling in disarray around them, they came together to design a system of governance that would allow such a diverse mix of sovereign states to work together as one, and to prevent the forms and actions of government that they knew first hand to be so destructive to human dignity and liberty.
Unfortunately, this interpretation of the War of American Revolution and the founding of the United States is greatly out of step with decades of historiography. In brief, the founders did not write the Constitution for all Americans, they wrote it for some Americans while excluding others (in particular, women) and establishing mechanisms that would maintain others--as well as their descendants-- in a state of slavery for the foreseeable future.
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Originally Posted by
Bob's World
But that path is wrong and that path is un-American, and that path ignores the issues, the intentions and the goals of the framers of our system of governance.
Did the framers broadly agree on the direction America should take? The growing cleavages among different cohorts of Americans that saw the country at the edge of ruin by the 1850s suggest otherwise.
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Originally Posted by
Bob's World
America must secure her interests. But as I said at the start, our Ends have come to be defined in far too ideological of terms.
Is the ideologically-driven national security policy of contemporary America really less ideologically driven than the national security policy of nineteenth century America? IMO, a survey of America's entry into the Second Anglo American War, to the Mexican American War, and to the American Civil War suggests that statesmen, given the choice between interests (in a geopolitical sense) and ideology, have frequently favored the latter.
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Originally Posted by
Bob's World
We do not act out as we do because we are in danger, we act out because we have defined our strategy in such outrageous expansive terms of ideological Ends and overly controlling ways that the only way we can get others to conform with what we want them to do is by applying excessive Military Means. That too, I argue, is un-American.
How does this current approach to global affairs differ from America's approach during the nineteenth century? Was James Madison was out of touch with the principles of the founders when he ordered the invasion of Canada during the Second Anglo American War?
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Originally Posted by
Bob's World
Name a single situation, other than the deterrence of the Soviet Union in Western Europe during the Cold War, that has demanded our possession of a large standing peacetime Army in the history of the US. Just one.
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Originally Posted by
Bob's World
Show me where America ever suffered more than a black eye for not having a large standing army ready to fight.
Although this question wasn't directed at me, the clear answer is: Reconstruction. The premature demobilization of the American army not only had catastrophic consequences for freedmen and their descendants, the "Compromise of 1877" set the stage for the metastization of white supremacy on a global scale.
[Additionally, as David F. Trask argues persuasively in The AEF and Coalition Warmaking 1917-1918 (1993), the U.S.'s tradition of wartime mobilization not only hampered the AEF's initial operational effectiveness, it also impacted negatively America's ability to shape the end of the war. Moreover, America's wartime mobilization during the Second World War adversely impacted the U.S.'s ability to shape grand strategy as well as our relationship with the USSR.]
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Originally Posted by
Bob's World
I strongly encourage those who have an interest in this topic to read the two histories of the American Army written by Edward M Coffman. He gives a very detailed account of the peacetime history of our Army and the nature and outcomes of these debates over time.
Are you referring to The Old Army (1986) and The Regulars (2004)? MOO, the works of Russell Weigley and ongoing scholarship of Richard Kohn provide a better starting point for your line of argument.
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Originally Posted by
Bob's World
So, show me where my understanding of our founding is wrong.
MOO, your understanding of the founding--and other chapters of American history--harkens back to a trajectory of historical inquiry that was a by product of the Second World War. This trajectory argued that from the jump, Americans broadly agreed on core values, means, and ends. This "consensus" was, according to many historians, the foundation of American Exceptionalism. However, over time, subsequent generations of historians have demonstrated convincingly that there was no "consensus," and that conflict has always characterized American history. (MOO, they've been markedly less successful at disproving American Exceptionalism.)