American power is welcome. Other states may have worried that we were squandering our military power in the Iraq War, but rejecting our leadership and power wasn't a consequence of the war:
Security officials in countries as diverse as Japan and Poland, Vietnam and Romania desperately hope that all this talk about American soft power overtaking American hard power is merely that -- talk. For it is American warships and ground forces deployments that matter most to these countries and their officials. Indeed, despite the disappointing conclusions to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, rarely before has American hard power been so revered in places that actually matter.
The conclusions of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are not disappointing unless we allow them to be so. We've beaten down enemies and built up allies in both places to the point where our allies can win if we don't abandon them.
I worry enough about the surge of sectarian violence in Iraq--notwithstanding the good news that we "ended" that war--and now I worry that we will walk away from Afghanistan given that the president has foreseen an end to that war coincidentally taking place as we draw down. Good luck there, eh?
Poland, of course, would like it if we had more hard power available to them and are bulking up their armed forces:
The programme aims to spend about a third of the defence budget over the next decade on modernisation – amounting to about 140bn zlotys. That will buy a new missile defence system, new vessels for the navy fleet, upgraded tanks, new military training aircraft, 70 new helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles and equipment for troops.
Sitting on a big flat plain with no natural defenses will do that. Polish defense spending is still low--but not compared to non-America NATO budgets. And the way Russia's creeping Anschluss with Belorus is going, I don't blame the Poles. I'd like a stronger American Army presence in Europe, but the Bush-era plan to reduce our presence in Europe to two combat brigades will not be reversed by President Obama. I'd still like a REFORPOL program to provide a security blanket for the Poles.
And Iraq and Afghanistan did not wreck our military. Casualties, as tragic as they were, were historically low (foreign militaries are fairly amazed at the low casualty rate) and did not break our ground forces so much as make them combat hardened. As the veterans of these wars spend their careers in the military for another generation, we'll reap benefits if we must fight. I'd hope that we can institutionalize that experience to extend those gains, but I do try to be reality based, so assume nothing of the sort. Still, a generation is good. If our hard power declines, it will be because of choices we are making right now. Remember, you go to war today with the military you wished to have 5-10 years earlier. Clearly, a lot of nations wish we wanted to have a better military a decade from now.
A lot of countries love us. They worry we don't return the love enough.
