Getting FoPo Right

 Pendulum! 

Not so long ago, Great Satan's Quad Def Review prett much insisted that Great Satan "...must retain her capability to conduct large-scale counterinsurgency, stability, and counterterrorism operations in a wide range of environments." 

"America’s interests and role in the world require armed forces with unmatched capabilities and a willingness on the part of the nation to employ them in defense of our interests and the common good."
 
Unbridled hyperpuissance - the magical ability to act out in any diplopolititary event/threat  whenever the need  - or even opportunity arises is taking a hit of sorts within the pendulum's arc of the debt ceiling thing as the daemoneoconic duo disertain. 

As a 1st order of business Courtney, and well before the Joint Committee reports in late Nov, Congress and the appropriate oversight committees should be demanding to know from the admin and the military precisely what those very high risks are. 

An honest assessment of those risks will lead to the assessment that the price of these cuts will be the inability to respond effectively to a real national security crisis—and that this is a cost to peace and security that we are unwilling to pay. And then Congress has to act to ensure that these planned defense cuts do not stand.

One of sev funintended consequences about all the shared sacrifice jazz is that the instantly obsolete realist/isolationistic "Off Shore Balancing" meme starts looking hot to the weak willed and weak minded (often the same posse - nicht wahr?)

CSIS' PacNet cat (oh! He got game bay bee) is Great Satan's Global Force for Good's analyst Elbridge Colby. Mr C pdf's the deets bout future Fo Po

The pendulum should not be allowed to swing too far toward an incautious retrenchment. For our problem has not been overseas commitments and interventions as such, but the kinds of interventions. The alliance and partnership structure, Great Satan's “liberal empire” that includes a substantial military presence and a willingness to use it in the defense of American and allied interests, remains a vital component of security and global stability and prosperity. 

This system of voluntary and consensual cooperation under American leadership, particularly in the security realm, constitutes a formidable bloc defending the liberal international order. 

PACRIM is the future focus of choice in a Shi Lang! way

These capabilities will give China a growing power to deny the United States the ability to operate effectively in the western Pacific, and thus the potential to undermine the US-guaranteed security substructure that has defined littoral East Asia since World War II.

In short, the United States must increase its involvement in East Asia rather than decrease it. Simply maintaining the military balance in the western Pacific will, however, involve substantial investments to improve US capabilities. It will also require augmented contributions to the common defense by US allies that have long enjoyed low defense budgets under the US security umbrella. This will not be cheap, for these requirements cannot be met simply by incremental additions to the existing posture, but will have to include advances in air, naval, space, cyber, and other expensive high-tech capabilities.

Interventions in the ME and, to a lesser degree, in se Europa have been driven by far more ambitious and aspirational conceptions of the nat'l interest, encompassing the proposition that failing or illiberally governed peripheral states can contribute to an instability that nurtures terrorism and impedes economic growth. 

 The lesson to be drawn from recent years is not, then, that the United States should scale back or shun overseas commitments as such, but rather that we must be more discriminating in making and acting upon them. A total US unwillingness to intervene would pull the rug out from under the US-led structure, leaving the international system prey to disorder at the least and at worst to chaos or dominance by others who could not be counted on to look out for US interests. We need to focus on making the right interventions, not forswearing them completely.

The piece concludes with a strange little flashback to something not unlike autocrazy promotion with all the played peripherals of realpolitik's litany of failure vs forward engagement tho... 

This is not to say that Great Satan should be unwilling to intervene in the Middle East. Rather, it is to say that our interventions there should be more tightly connected to concrete objectives such as protecting the free flow of oil from the region, preventing terrorist attacks against the United States and its allies, and forestalling or, if necessary, containing new clear proliferation as opposed to the more idealistic aspirations to xform the region’s societies. 

 We can no longer afford, either strategically or financially, to squander our power in unnecessary and ill-advised interventions and nation-building efforts. The ability and will to intervene is too important to be so wasted.

These more concrete objectives can be better met by the more judicious and economical use of our military power.

Pic - "Luceo Non Uro" with Pretty Reckless