by
Patrick
J. Buchanan

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by Patrick J. Buchanan: Obama
Sandbags the Archbishop

After his fourth-place
showing in Florida, Ron Paul, by then in Nevada, told supporters
he had been advised by friends that he would do better if only he
dumped his foreign policy views, which have been derided as isolationism.

Not going to
do it, said Dr. Paul to cheers. And why should he?

Observing developments
in U.S. foreign and defense policy, Paul’s views seem as far out
in front of where America is heading as John McCain’s seem to belong
to yesterday’s Bush-era bellicosity.

Consider. In
December, the last U.S. troops left Iraq. Defense Secretary Leon
Panetta now says that all U.S. combat operations in Afghanistan
will end in 18 months.

The strategic
outposts of empire are being abandoned.

The defense
budget for 2013 is $525 billion, down $6 billion from 2012. The
Army is to be cut by 75,000 troops; the Marine Corps by 20,000.
Where Ronald Reagan sought a 600-ship Navy, the Navy will fall from
285 ships today to 250. U.S. combat aircraft are to be reduced by
six fighter squadrons and 130 transport aircraft.

Republicans
say this will reduce our ability to fight and win two land wars
at once – say, in Iran and Korea. Undeniably true.

Why, then,
is Ron Paul winning the argument?

The hawkishness
of the GOP candidates aside, the United States, facing its fourth
consecutive trillion-dollar deficit, can no longer afford to sustain
all its alliance commitments, some of which we made 50 years ago
during a Cold War that ended two decades ago, in a world that no
longer exists.

As our situation
is new, said Abraham Lincoln, we must think and act anew.

As Paul argues,
why close bases in the U.S. when we have 700 to 1,000 bases abroad?
Why not bring the troops home and let them spend their paychecks
here?

Begin with
South Korea. At last report, the United States had 28,000 troops
on the peninsula. But why, when South Korea has twice the population
of the North, an economy 40 times as large, and access to U.S. weapons,
the most effective in the world, should any U.S. troops be on the
DMZ? Or in South Korea?

U.S. forces
there are too few to mount an invasion of the North, as Gen. MacArthur
did in the 1950s. And any such invasion might be the one thing to
convince Pyongyang to fire its nuclear weapons to save the hermit
kingdom.

But if not
needed to defend the South, and a U.S. invasion could risk nuclear
reprisal, what are U.S. troops still doing there?

Answer: They
are on the DMZ as a tripwire to bring us, from the first day of
fighting, into a new land war in Asia that many American strategists
believe we should never again fight.

Consider Central
Asia. By pushing to bring Ukraine and Georgia into NATO, and building
air bases in nations that were republics of the Soviet Union two
decades ago, the United States generated strategic blowback.

China and Russia,
though natural rivals and antagonists, joined with four Central
Asian nations in a Shanghai Cooperation Organization to expel U.S.
military power from a region that is their backyard, but is half
a world away from the United States.

Solution: The
United States should inform the SCO that when the Afghan war is
over we will close all U.S. military bases in Central Asia. No U.S.
interest there justifies a conflict with Russia or China.

Indeed, a Russia-China
clash over influence and resources in the Far East and Central Asia
seems inevitable. Let us get out of the way.

But it is in
Europe that America may find the greatest savings.

During the
Cold War, 300,000 U.S. troops faced hundreds of thousands of Soviet
troops from northern Norway to Central Germany to Turkey. But not
only are there no Russian troops on the Elbe today, or surrounding
West Berlin, they are gone from Germany, Hungary, the Czech Republic,
Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia
and Estonia. Between Russia and Poland lie Belarus and Ukraine.
Moscow no longer even has a border with Turkey.

Why, when NATO
Europe has two nuclear powers and more than twice the population
of a Russia whose own population has shrunk by 8 million in 20 years
and is scheduled to shrink by 25 million more by 2050, does Europe
still need U.S. troops to defend it?

She
does not. The Europeans are freeloading, as they have been for years,
preserving their welfare states, skimping on defense and letting
Uncle Sam carry the hod.

In the Panetta
budgets, America will still invest more in defense than the next
10 nations combined and retain sufficient power to secure, with
a surplus to spare, all her vital interests.

But we cannot
forever be first responder for scores of nations that have nothing
to do with our vital interests. As Frederick the Great observed,
“He who defends everything defends nothing.”

February
3, 2012

Patrick
J. Buchanan [send
him mail] is co-founder and editor of The
American Conservative. He is also the author of seven books,
including Where
the Right Went Wrong, and Churchill,
Hitler, and the Unnecessary War. His latest book is Suicide
of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025? See his
website.

Copyright
© 2012 Creators Syndicate

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