These days, it seems that we as Americans can hardly turn around without seeing another reminder that the nation appears to be in some sort of serious decline. Of course, it is hard not to have reminders, when we went from being arguably the most powerful country and influential nation in history culturally, economically, militarily, and politically, to a country that seems to many around the world kind of like a basket case, unable to resolve many of the same problems that other countries seemed to resolve with relative ease (at least by way of comparison), from affordable, universal healthcare, to failing schools and infrastructure, to gun violence, to accepting science as truth, and so on and so forth, etc., etc..
Nowadays, we have seen numerous nations surpass the United States in terms of standards of living, and particularly in terms of equality, upward mobility, education, infrastructure, healthcare costs, childcare costs, and so on and so forth. Plus, China seems well on it's way to completely overtaking the United States as the world's leading economic power, and the richest nation in the world, which it is projected to be in less than a decade now.
With all of this kind of news, perhaps it is no surprise that the bitterness of why this should be the case has been used as a kind of political football by both sides. For example, Donald Trump kept scoring political points by suggesting that the whole world was laughing at the United States, and that he would change that. Meanwhile, many are seeing that it seems that the whole world is now laughing at what is going on in the United States specifically because Donald Trump is now in the Oval Office, which I suspect is much closer to the truth.
Indeed, there are perhaps many reasons for the decline. Some might say that it is a lack of respect for traditional institutions, or perhaps a lack of faith in God, or a lack of family values. Others might suggest that we have grown too greedy, and that our often excessive obsession with budget cuts had led to an increase in poverty and a widening gap between rich and poor, between the haves and the have nots.
However, one sure cause of the American decline has been the military bases that are scattered literally around the world.
It is no secret that the budget for America's military industrial complex is unbelievably enormous, to the point that it seems we have created a monster that just sucks up more and more money every year.
This was not an especially unpopular venture for a long time, and we had no prominent voices questioning the wisdom of this until just recently. It seemed that throughout the 1980's and 1990's, Americans actively and without qualms collectively enjoyed their status as the world's leading military power. It was only with the aggressive pursuit of the Iraq invasion - while we were already fighting a war in Afghanistan - that some people began to question it. As the cost of those two wars - in every sense of the word - mounted, while the headlines in the news every day screamed of bad news, then the enthusiasm for these military ventures finally began to wane. Now, by and large, people on both sides of the political divide seem to accuse each other of carelessly desiring some kind of military conflict amounting to war. This was the case with Obama in Libya, and it is now the case with Trump in Syria. It seems that finally, some Americans have woken up to the fact that the carefully constructed myth of American military invincibility and the notion that we can, and thus should, do whatever the hell we want whenever the hell we want to, was at the very least a great and dangerous exaggeration.
Now, some prominent politicians are questioning the wisdom of having military bases scattered literally all around the globe. We have the world's most powerful navy, and there are ships on virtually every ocean and almost every continent. We have 800 military bases in over 70 countries on six different continents. That is far, far more than any other nation in the world has. In fact, the next three leading countries - Britain, France, and Russia - have far less than half of that combined. This would be a good reminder of another fact that I remember hearing not long ago, that the United States spends more on the military than the next ten nations combined.
Those kinds of facts make me wonder just how much of this is actual defense? I remember debating a fan of George W. Bush in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq, and he stated point blank, apparently as his checkmate move, that Saddam Hussein had amassed such a huge arsenal of Weapons of Mass Destruction, so clearly he intended to use it. I did not bother debating whether Saddam actually had all of those weapons (which he apparently did not have), but rather reversed the question on him, saying that the United States had an even larger arsenal of weapons, and using his own logic, would not those people who made such a point of building the largest collection of deadly, high tech weapons actually want to see them used? In other words, wouldn't the largest, most powerful military in the world actually want to go to war to see just how powerful they were, and how effective all of those high tech weapons can be, regardless of their official denials of wanting war? He had no answer for that one, but the question remains relevant today, does it not?
When a military has that much of a presence around the world, then clearly it intends to use force at some point or another, does it not? And that begs the question of how Americans fail to see that this might build some serious resentment. After all, even centuries later, Americans still get all worked up when they hear about how the British imposed taxation without representation, and required Americans to accommodate British troops while they were here in the colonies. We fought a war to remove the British threat and threw off the yoke of colonialism, and we fought other major military powers, including two World Wars against Germany and allied nations, and the Cold War against the Soviets. We never failed to recognize how unwanted the military presence of these foreign nations were in other countries, whether in occupied Europe or Asia during World War II, or more recently, the Soviet presence in Afghanistan. Yet somehow, we truly believe that other countries, like the Iraqis, are supposed to welcome Americans with open arms? We are actually surprised when they fight back, and when their people, and other people in that region, start to seriously resent us?
This reminds me of something that my father remembers from his childhood in France during the postwar years. Our family home town is Marly-le-Roi, which is approximately 26 kilometers (16 miles, roughly) from Paris. And it was in Marly-le-Roi that there was a large military base there. But for all the stereotypes here among Americans that the French are rude, my father recalls that the American soldiers were actively encouraged not to have anything to do with the local French people. And so despite the presence of this base there, he hardly remembers any serious interaction with the Americans stationed there. How surprising is it, then, that they were not especially missed when France forced the closure of the base in 1966?
While France is a western, and allied, nation, this certainly is not the case in much of the rest of the world. To take one example, certainly throughout the Middle East, there is a lot of resentment towards Americans, particularly the military. They know how the United States strongly and seemingly unconditionally, almost uncritically supports Israel. They know that there have been numerous attacks launched against sovereign nations by American forces, and that for the most part, it is all about profits for major oil corporations. They see the hypocrisy of doing business with Saddam Hussein and supporting his war against Iran in the 1980's contradicted our demonizing him in the 1990's and then leading up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. They see the hypocrisy of supporting the military cause of the mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 1980's, and then demonizing them in the 1990's, then outright going to war against them ourselves in the 2000's. They see the hypocrisy of us selling weapons of mass destruction to military dictators throughout the region, and then going to war against them whenever they happen to displease us. Americans might buy into the arguments put forth by elected officials about freedom and spreading democracy, but the people of the Middle East clearly do not. The same can be said about much of the rest of the world, too, including Africa, South America, and Asia. Americans were clearly hardly welcomed with open arms in Somalia, or in Vietnam, or in Cambodia. And there is much resentment throughout Latin America about the condescending manner in which they are treated, almost like little brothers, by Americans. This has been much the case ever since the Monroe Doctrine, when Americans outright declared their assumption that this Western Hemisphere was and of right ought to be under the jurisdiction of American (the United States, that is) influence and domination. Military ventures in numerous sovereign nations over the course of many decades, from Cuba to the Dominican Republic to Mexico to Haiti to El Salvador to Nicaragua to Grenada to Panama to Colombia, all attests to this presumption on our part. Is it really surprising, then, that serious resentment has sprung up, whether with the Castros in Cuba, or with Allende in Chile, or with Chavez in Bolivia, or Lula da Silva in Brazil, or Morales in Bolivia? Can we really be surprised that Mexicans view the Trump fixation on building a wall and making Mexico pay for it as a hostile and, frankly, condescending mentality, yet which is supported by tens of millions of Americans? And how can they feel now when, not surprisingly, Trump is calling for a military presence along the previously peaceful border between the two nations? How can any Latin American feel when Trump lumped so many Latin American nations into the category of "shithole nations?"
So, these military bases, and our military presence in general, seems to be undermining America's good name. Also, it is so expensive to maintain, that it is clearly seriously contributing to the bankrupting of America.
Perhaps it is time to seriously begin to examine this, and look into the possibility of scaling down a bit, for our own sake?
Just a thought.
Where in the World Is the U.S. Military? By DAVID VINE July/August 2015:
The Military Doesn't Advertise It, But U.S. Troops Are All Over Africa April 28, 20187:01 AM ET Greg Myre - 2016 - square GREG MYRE Facebook Twitter
