Conventional Wisdom
David Sanger of the New York Times represents the establishment a point of view when it comes to national security reporting. He and his colleague Maggie Haberman interviewed Donald Trump yesterday about foreign affairs. You know that I think Trump would be a danger to the Republic, but I find it necessary to call a foul on Sanger for one particular paragraph in the interview report. Trump had just asserted that “he might halt purchases of oil from Saudi Arabia and other Arab allies unless they commit ground troops to the fight against the Islamic State or ‘substantially reimburse’ the United States for combating the militant group.” Sanger and Haberman then editorialize.
At no point did he express any belief that American forces deployed on military bases around the world were by themselves valuable to the United States, though Republican and Democratic administrations have for decades argued that they are essential to deterring military adventurism, protecting commerce and gathering intelligence.
They write this as if to say that it would be obvious to any fool that the 200 foreign military bases we maintain, at the cost of $200 billion a year are “essential” to our national security. We currently have about 151,000 troops stationed overseas. In addition, we have greatly increased our use of private military companies. P. W. Singer author of Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry says “In geographic terms, it operates in over 50 different countries. It’s operated in every single continent but Antarctica.” Singer states that in the 1990s there used to be 50 military personnel for every 1 contractor, now the ratio is 10 to 1.
So Sanger is saying (I am picking on him, because I know this is his point of view) that without these 200,000 Americans stationed overseas there would be more military adventurism, our global commerce would be endangered and we would be unable to gather intelligence. This is nonsense. Let’s break it down, point by point.
Military Adventurism
The main case of adventurism The Times raises are the Chinese placing military airfields on reclaimed islands in the South China Seas, which they claim could threaten American trade routes to Asia. Explain to me why China would want to stop Chinese made goods from being shipped to the West Coast ports of America? Or even why they would want to stop the import of American agricultural products into China? This defies logic.
Protecting Commerce
Can Sanger please explain to my how the 75,000 troops deployed in Japan and Korea protect our commerce to these regions? What about the 40,000 troops in Germany? Do they “protect” our commerce in Europe? I don’t get it.
Gathering Intelligence
This is the biggest howler of Sanger’s assertions. He is saying that a military base is critical to gathering local intelligence in the Mideast or Asia. Any study of the U.S. intelligence business would tell you that military bases are the last place you would want to place your intelligence assets. Sure, you may fly drones out of an airfield in Dubai, but why does that need 40,000 Centcom troops stationed all over the Mideast? Much of what the NSA does is by satellite, telecom and data taps and certainly their human assets would not want to be anywhere near a military base.
Look, it would be stupid of Democrats not to understand that Trump is raising one of the critical issues of our time. When is the U.S. going to stop being played for Uncle Sucker by being the unpaid policeman of the world?
Towards the end of his Presidency, Barack Obama has grudgingly come to the conclusion that we cannot play that role and still repair our broken country. If Hillary Clinton is as accepting as David Sanger, of the braindead conventional wisdom that our bloated foreign military deployments are “essential”, then we will be moving backwards, not forwards.
