How long before influential intellectuals are urging America to simply defend the lower 48 because Alaska and Hawaii aren't really part of America?
Using a wide range of primary and secondary sources, I trace the process by which American plans to retrench from Europe were frustrated in the first decade of the Cold War, finding powerful support for my argument. This analysis suggests lessons for the debate on whether the United States could pursue an orderly military withdrawal from Europe and East Asia.
Can the United States check the expansion of powerful adversaries in distant regions while shedding the military and political costs of doing so? An influential group of intellectuals argues that the answer is a resounding “yes.”
I find this horrifying. One, that intellectuals think there is a free defense lunch. That group spends a lot of time ridiculing our allies for eating the free defense lunch. Yet it's cool and possible for America? And two, that they're influential.
Mind you, the author isn't saying he agrees with those notions. But the idea that this group thinks America should withdraw its military from Europe and East Asia is suicidal. It gets downright delusional when the members insist America can count on other countries to carry the burden of defending American security.
America sent home a lot of forces from Europe after World War II. Perhaps dangerously so given how weakened Western Europe was after being at war for six years. America's military in Western Europe was weak and only recovered when the Soviets prodded North Korea and China to fight us in Korea. Then we got serious and beefed up our forces. To me, rising new threats made the idea of suicidal retrenchment an obviously bad idea. And abandoning Europe was really not likely given that when we walked away from Europe after the Great War it only took about twenty years for it to be called World War I.
I'm perhaps hyper-sensitive to issues of retrenchment that the author raises--not that he's advocating it, to be clear--because amazingly enough some have perpetuated the idea that America didn't largely withdraw from Europe after the Cold War, which is insane:
[If] you think America shouldn't need nearly as much military power to defend Europe from Russia compared to when the threat was the USSR, well ... mission accomplished!
At the height of the Cold War America had lots of troops in Europe with large numbers of tanks, artillery, and aircraft. In the seas around Europe, the American Navy roamed to contain the Soviet navy and keep lines of supply from North America to Europe intact. America's troop level in Europe--even with enhancements to reassure NATO allies while Russia is at war with Ukraine--is a tiny fraction of Cold War commitments. Compare the 100,000+ American troops in Europe now--up from 80,000 in the month before Russia invaded this year--to the 450,000+ Americans in Europe in 1959, the peak year of troop strength there.
[America tries] to keep Russia as far east as possible where it can't harness the resources of Europe. And we try to keep China penned inside the first island chain by supporting allies there, preventing China from organizing the resources of the western Pacific.
And the idea that America can defend its interests by counting on allies to defend our interests--rather than focusing on their own as long as America is skedaddling--is suicidal. How many scams promise great returns on little investment?
I guess some authors are done pretending we're in an endless pivot to nowhere and decided Fortress America will protect us.
Until they argue we don't need much of a military to dominate Canada and Mexico.
And let's not even get into the issue of a possible consequence of that kind of "leading from behind" nonsense. What's the over-and-under line for how many of our abandoned allies don't build nuclear missiles just as fast as they can?
Isn't that fun? And please don't insult my intelligence by saying we'll keep our extended nuclear deterrent umbrella over Europe and East Asia. Who will believe we'll risk our cities to nuclear destruction to defend allies when we wouldn't risk troops in a conventional fight? No ally will believe that. Nor will any enemy.
To be clear, the author is only looking at historical lessons and a framework for evaluating whether retrenchment is a good idea to secure American interests. But influential intellectuals are already convinced America must run across the Atlantic and Pacific. Darn nice of them to save America's enemies the trouble of making the effort to drive us to the Western Hemisphere.
God save us from influential intellectuals.
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
NOTE: I'm adding updates on the Last Hamas War in this post.NOTE: I'm now on Substack, with The Dignified Rant: Evolved.
