Tuesday, April 24, 2018

Our Unsustainable Empire

Pat Buchanan asks all the right questions, but is anyone in DC listening?

How long can this country, with its shrinking share of global GDP, sustain its expanding commitments to confront and fight all over the world?

U.S. planes and ships now bump up against Russians in the Baltic and Black seas. We are sending Javelin anti-tank missiles to Kiev, while NATO allies implore us to bring Ukraine and Georgia into the alliance.

This would mean a U.S. guarantee to fight an alienated, angered and nuclear-armed Russia in Crimea and the Caucasus.

Sixteen years after 9/11 and the invasion of Afghanistan, we are still there, assisting Afghan troops against a Taliban we thought we had defeated.

We are now fighting what is left of ISIS in Syria alongside our Kurd allies, who tug us toward conflict with Turkey.

U.S. forces and advisers are in Niger, Djibouti, Somalia. We are aiding the Saudis in their air war and naval blockade of Yemen.

The last Korean War, which cost 33,000 U.S. lives, began in the June before this writer entered 7th grade. Why is the defense of a powerful South Korea, with an economy 40 times that of the North, still a U.S. responsibility?

We are committed, by 60-year-old treaties, to defend Japan, the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand. Voices are being heard to have us renew the war guarantee to Taiwan that Jimmy Carter canceled in 1979.

National security elites are pushing for new naval and military ties to Vietnam and India, to challenge Beijing in the South China Sea, Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea.

How long can we sustain a worldwide empire of dependencies?

How many wars of this century – Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen – turned out to have been worth the blood shed and the treasure lost? And what have all the "color-coded revolutions" we have instigated to advance "democracy" done for America?

In a New York Times essay, "Adapting to American Decline," Christopher Preble writes: "America’s share of global wealth is shrinking. By some estimates, the United States accounted for roughly 50 percent of global output at the end of World War II. … It has fallen to 15.1 percent today."

You can read the rest @
https://original.antiwar.com/buchanan/2018/04/23/americas-unsustainable-empire/

And you can find Preble's essay here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/21/opinion/sunday/adapting-to-american-decline.html

Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.
Proverbs 16:18 KJV

America's elites don't seem to think there is a problem. What do you think?

No comments:

Post a Comment