Time for a new US foreign policy

 

The United States has essentially been pursuing the same foreign policy since about 1950, or even a bit further back to the end of the Second World War if you really want to get technical about it.  Old habits die hard, but when you are twenty plus years into a new century, it might really be a good idea to kick the tires of your foreign policy and maybe get an oil change.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, America was trying to focus on an enemy that was not there.  President Clinton squandered the "peace dividend" after the Cold War, expanding a NATO that was not really needed, taking a confrontational role with anything on the horizon, and trying to shoehorn Saddam Hussein's Iraq into the role vacated by the Soviet collapse.

Then after the horrifying events of 9/11, "Islamic extremism" was used as the villain that was missing and President Bush embarked on a series of events that led to the US floundering in Afghanistan, pursuing mirages in Iraq,  launching missile strikes in Yemen, destroying Libya for no discernible purpose, and utterly failing to remove Assad from Syria. After all of the destruction and misery visited upon people who did nothing to us, the US is trying to recast Russia as the menace to Europe while not really sure what to do about the real threat--China.  And of course, many wonder why American servicemen are spread across the globe on hundreds of bases on every continent except possibly Antarctica.  The US armed forces have no business on the Syrian-Iraqi border while the US-Mexican border remains unguarded. 

Simple geography shows that the United States cannot fight two major wars at the same time while handing a contingency somewhere else, a grand strategy that dates back to the 1960s.  With problems here at home, the task facing the US armed forces proves even more daunting.  Some may use this an excuse to pump up the $800 billion dollar Pentagon budget, but I advise hitting the breaks on that line of thought. 

We shell out $800 billion a year and have yet to decisively win a war this century or at the very least, accomplish some sort of meaningful objective.  Not to mention, redirecting a few billion elsewhere can do wonders for our crumbling infrastructure. Or repair some damage from self-inflicted damage from idiotic COVID lockdowns. 

I suggest maybe not antagonizing Russia since its military has the world's largest nuclear arsenal.  I also think we can reach an accommodation with China while not abandoning our ally Taiwan.  And reducing, or even eliminating, our ground presence in the Middle East will do wonders for America's image there.

North Korea is, well, North Korea.  I can see the reason for leaving some US forces in South Korea.

I am not sure our political leadership is up to any sort of challenge, but the upcoming US-Russian summit in Geneva might be a ray of hope.  After all, Reagan and Gorbachev met there in 1985, leading to more summits in both Moscow and Washington and even led to the reduction of nuclear weapons arsenals on both sides.

And tell our idiot media to try to be optimistic for a change!