America's Dangerous Rush to Shrink Its Military Power

Wall St Journal ^ | dec 27, 2010 | MARK HELPRIN

[The Raven]

From the president on down through his secretary of defense, the service secretaries, and a cast of generals whose decorations would choke an alpine meadow with color, we are told that further reductions in American military power are warranted and unavoidable. This view is supported by the left, the right that unwisely fears accounting more than war, by most of the press, the academy, and perhaps a majority of Americans, and it is demonstrably and dangerously wrong.

Based upon nothing and ignoring the cautionary example of World War II, we are told that we will never face two major enemies at once. Despite the orders of battle of our potential adversaries and the fact that our response to insurgency has been primarily conventional, we are told that the era of conventional warfare is over. And we are told that we can rest easy because military spending is an accurate index of military power, and we spend as much as the next however many nations combined.

...snip

[webstersII]

“As for Europe and the rest of the free world, the USA basically said “Don’t worry about it, WE’LL look after defense against the communist bloc, or anything else that might come up.””

That’s my point. It was idiotic of the U.S. to do that for 50+ years. Those countries should have been cut loose decades ago.

[Flag_This]

"That’s my point. It was idiotic of the U.S. to do that for 50+ years. Those countries should have been cut loose decades ago."

I agree with your point, but it's probably also why western europe has enjoyed it's longest period of peace.

[webstersII]

“I agree with your point, but it’s probably also why western europe has enjoyed it’s longest period of peace. “

True, but if the Western European nations aren’t willing to do what it takes to defend themselves then they don’t deserve freedom. I’m all for helping but we took over too much of the task of protecting Europe.

Europe, Japan, and South Korea have also greatly benefited from the fact that they didn’t have to spend huge amounts of money on their own military, leaving more money to build factories to compete with us.