Should The US Scale Back its Global Presence?

by Peter Huessy, Warrior Maven Senior Nuclear Weapons Analyst, Senior Fellow Warrior Maven, Atlantic Council, Hudson Institute — President of Geo-Strategic Analysis

(Washington D.C.) In both “After the Apocalypse” (2021) and “The Reckoning that Wasn’t” (2023), Professor Andrew Bacevich, one of the founders of the Quincy Institute, wants the United States to give up its “fantasy” of world hegemonic leadership, and adopt the foreign policy principles of “realism, sobriety, and an appreciation of limits.”

If coupled with an emphasis on “purposefulness, discipline”, and an “economy of effort”, the US would adopt the very things Bacevich explains that George Kennan in his “Long Telegram” on Soviet conduct had hoped America would in the post-World War II era embrace. The idea is to use American military power minimally, and as such also keep in check what President Eisenhower warned was a too powerful military-industrial complex.

With the tragic end of US military involvement in Afghanistan, and wars in Iraq and Libya fresh in the minds of millions of Americans, caution and restraint in the use of American military power does not seem like a bad set of recommendations. When added to the equally tragic outcome of the war in Indochina, it is understandable that critics of the US military believe new international rules of engagement would make sense, particularly the idea of jettisoning a hegemonic role for the United States. To me its counter-intuitive, but there has always been a strain in the US public that has embraced as attractive the idea of “peace through retreat.” After all, if the US doesn’t have such a large military and a less than robust network of overseas facilities, maybe the US would be less involved in wars overseas. In pursuit of that goal, Bacevich calls for a nearly fifty percent cut in the US defense budget and a major drawdown of US military bases overseas.

But before we discuss how and when the US should use military force outside the United States, and the cost and size of the US military posture, Bacevich makes a large number of assumptions, including that (1) the wars we fight are often unwinnable, and (2) the greed of the military and defense industry drags us into wars we should not fight. ‘

Bacevich also undergirds his argument with a discussion of Kennan’s containment strategy, the conduct and outcome of the war in Vietnam, the impact of the US policy of détente and peaceful co-existence, the relative wisdom or lack thereof of Eisenhower’s farewell warning, and the actual policies adopted by President Reagan to end Cold War #1.

On all these counts, Bacevich gets things wrong.

For example, Kennan did advocate keeping Moscow within certain geographic borders but then inexplicably opposed President Truman’s use of American military forces to free the Republic of Korea of both communist Chinese, Russian and North Korean forces. (Russians participated in the war but wore North Korean uniforms.) If ever there was a use of American and allied military force that was both necessary and successful, it was here between 1950-53.