Friday, January 12, 2007

The best summary of American foreign policy, ever.

Spencer Ackerman, on the disproportionate size of the US military:
The security threats that we face as a nation have to do primarily with our position as the predominant global superpower. ... If Italy decides tomorrow that it wants to take up America's global commitments, it will find that it needs a vastly larger military to avert the disasters that hegemony tempts.

...The issue has more to do with being the global equivalent of 50 Cent -- a mercurial, violent paranoiac possessing undeniable greatness, intensely loyal to a select few, merciless to most others and determined to remain on top of the heap by any means necessary. We get ours the ski mask way. As a result, we had better stay strapped.
America is the most powerful nation in the world. Therefore, America is feared. Therefore, America is hated. Therefore, America needs to defend itself. Therefore, America is the most powerful nation in the world.

What's so hard to understand?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's just as easy to conclude that militarism happens to be very lucrative for American industry. The psychological fantasies that people create in order to explain what comes from that fact are interesting, but the root cause is what it always is: greed.

Anonymous said...

I agree with both points - as the excellent "Why We Fight" pointed out, there's an entrenched industrial complex in the U.S., who's customer base is the military, and which is set up in such a way as to be spread out over as much of the country as possible, making it difficult to close down any operation without loss of jobs in that area, which any congressperson wants to avoid.

On the other hand, it's undeniable that if the nation wishes to keep direct control over areas of the globe that are hostile to said control, it's going to require increased military presence, especially if they keep doing it in such a ham-fisted way as they have been doing, and racking up the hostilities.