Looking ahead at emerging threats

[Peter1469]

Looking ahead at emerging threats (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/12/08/looking_ahead_at_emerging_threats_120868.html)

David Ignatius discusses the mismatch between emerging threats and the American public's unwillingness to fund America as world cop. He looks to a new generation of thinkers to help solve this mismatch.


The chairs of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees stated last weekend that the world was getting more unsafe. A few days later, the Pew Research Center reported that 52 percent of Americans think the U.S. should "mind its own business internationally," the highest such total in the nearly 50-year history of that query. Taken together, these two items symbolize a serious emerging national problem.

The crackup ahead lies in the mismatch between the challenges facing America and the public's willingness to support an activist foreign policy to deal with them. Simply put: There is a splintering of the traditional consensus for global engagement at the very time that some big new problems are emerging.


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[Adelaide]

I think that more nations need to step-up and actively participate in helping to keep 'peace' in their region, at the very least, and that some of the outside countries like Canada, Britain and Australia should be more engaged in helping even if it's not in their region. The US shouldn't have to be the world cop, which seems to be currently the case. I also think this might bring about some change as to how conflicts are dealt with.

[iustitia]

I say good. A larger percentage of the population advocating humility instead of hubris, independence instead of adventurism. I think that's where we should've been for some time. Not to mention the horrors we've caused around the world under the veils of freedom, democracy and anti-communism. I'm no libertarian, but I do believe it's time to scale down our military adventurism and focus on keeping freedom alive here, if there's any left.

[Peter1469]

I think that more nations need to step-up and actively participate in helping to keep 'peace' in their region, at the very least, and that some of the outside countries like Canada, Britain and Australia should be more engaged in helping even if it's not in their region. The US shouldn't have to be the world cop, which seems to be currently the case. I also think this might bring about some change as to how conflicts are dealt with.

Agree 100%.

[Peter1469]

I say good. A larger percentage of the population advocating humility instead of hubris, independence instead of adventurism. I think that's where we should've been for some time. Not to mention the horrors we've caused around the world under the veils of freedom, democracy and anti-communism. I'm no libertarian, but I do believe it's time to scale down our military adventurism and focus on keeping freedom alive here, if there's any left.

There are good arguments that US intervention since the end of WWII has created more peace than had the US pulled back to its own shores. It is probably also true today. But we are out of money and the burden should be shared.

[iustitia]

There are good arguments that US intervention since the end of WWII has created more peace than had the US pulled back to its own shores. It is probably also true today. But we are out of money and the burden should be shared.I don't believe it can truly be called peace if it's done through terrorism, repression and dictatorships. A great example of this would be Operation PBSUCCESS in which we overthrew a freely elected government in the name of anti-communism when we knew there was no Soviet link. The real reason? To protect the banana plantation monopoly of the United Fruit Company. The fears that most people felt during the Cold War were authentic. The actions taken, or rather their reasons, are another story. This is why I always say "follow the money."

[Mini Me]

Looking ahead at emerging threats (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/12/08/looking_ahead_at_emerging_threats_120868.html)

David Ignatius discusses the mismatch between emerging threats and the American public's unwillingness to fund America as world cop. He looks to a new generation of thinkers to help solve this mismatch.

This is comparable to the "isolationists vs. the interventionists" just before WW II.

But in those days the threat from Hitler and the Axis was very real, as Europe was falling to Hitler.

Today the "threat" is from protecting ME oil and mineral hegemony for the benefit of the oligarchs, and to make the Neocon war profiteers richer. Its all about money today.

[Max Rockatansky]

I say good. A larger percentage of the population advocating humility instead of hubris, independence instead of adventurism. I think that's where we should've been for some time. Not to mention the horrors we've caused around the world under the veils of freedom, democracy and anti-communism. I'm no libertarian, but I do believe it's time to scale down our military adventurism and focus on keeping freedom alive here, if there's any left.

Agreed. If the US is going to pull back it's troops and downsize the military, then our allies need to step up to the plate and do their share.

Traditionally, the US has been reluctant to do this because it means sharing control. The old "If you want something done right, do it yourself" maxim. The Europeans screwed the pooch twice in one century, both 1914 and 1939 resulting in the US being drug into two world wars at the cost of almost 600,000 dead Americans for both wars. "Never again" is a large part of the reason the US does it this way. That fact we are the world's largest economy meant we could afford it. Times are changing and it's time both the EU and Japan started hauling their share of the load to maintain world peace.

[Max Rockatansky]

This is comparable to the "isolationists vs. the interventionists" just before WW II.

But in those days the threat from Hitler and the Axis was very real, as Europe was falling to Hitler.

Today the "threat" is from protecting ME oil and mineral hegemony for the benefit of the oligarchs, and to make the Neocon war profiteers richer. Its all about money today.

If the global economy tanked because radical groups blew up the oil rigs, refineries, ports and blocked the Straits of Hormuz, a lot of people across the globe would not only suffer, but die due to a breakdown in the food transportation system. Remember how the price of corn shot up causing starvation in poorer parts of the world when the US passed the biofuel legislation? Multiply that by a 100 if the world's petrol-based economy ended in up in the shitter.


What should a modern-day commission be worrying about? Rep. Mike Rogers and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the chairs of the House and Senate Intelligence committees, respectively, said last Sunday on CNN that the world is not safer today than a few years ago. They were referring to the resurgence of al-Qaeda in Syria, Iraq, Libya and elsewhere. These are not two-bit al-Qaeda franchises anymore; the State Department received an intelligence report recently that 5,500 foreign fighters are operating with al-Qaeda's affiliate, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. How should the U.S. combat this threat? Sorry, no consensus on that.Al-Qaeda is even putting down roots in Egypt's Sinai peninsula, according to Gen. Mohammed Farid el-Tohamy, the head of the Egyptian intelligence service. How can the United States help Egypt, America's most important ally in the Arab world, defeat Islamic terrorism at the same time it moves to restore civilian government and a measure of democracy? No consensus on that one, either.

And then there's the huge foreign-policy challenge of Iran's nuclear program. President Obama has made a bold interim deal with Iran. But to complete the agreement, and ensure that Iran's nuclear program is truly peaceful, Obama will need strong support from Congress and the public. Right now, it's hard to imagine that he will get it. The public doesn't want war, but it doesn't seem to like entangling diplomacy much, either.


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[shaarona]

This is comparable to the "isolationists vs. the interventionists" just before WW II.

But in those days the threat from Hitler and the Axis was very real, as Europe was falling to Hitler.

Today the "threat" is from protecting ME oil and mineral hegemony for the benefit of the oligarchs, and to make the Neocon war profiteers richer. Its all about money today.

You bet.. We are looking at allies who are largely free of turmoil versus oil raging to $600 a barrel.

[snali]

I would figure the world is actually getting more safer thus making a large military increasingly unnecessary
http://hnn.us/article/142159

[Mainecoons]

The biggest threat to the world is the progressivist cancer infection the formerly productive western world and its impact on the world economy and the growing impoverishment of working people in favor of banksters, stock market ballonists, and assorted financial fraudsters.