In making the case for sustaining a huge defense budget and large ground forces, Nathan Freier argues that the unknowns of the future make it imperative that the U.S. retains the capacity to intervene:
'What options should the United States retain to respond to contagious violence in the Middle East? What might the United States have to do in case of civil war in Mexico or Cuba, regime collapse in nuclear-armed North Korea or Pakistan or the violent disintegration of Russia? Further, what role, if any, might U.S. forces play in containing unfavorable turns in the Arab Spring -- an Egyptian civil war, resurgent violence in Iraq, or an Iranian proxy war against the Gulf Arab states? Finally, what if the Arab Spring itself is only the vanguard of a more generalized global trend where other important governments prove more vulnerable than many expect to sudden social and political unrest.'
OK, what if this happens? Does Freier think the U.S. military is going to start patrolling the streets of Moscow or Berlin if "sudden social or political unrest" occurs?
I think a useful way to think about this is to ask the question from the vantage point of a Chinese, Russian, British, Indian or Scandinavian strategist. Are they worried about these things? Are they building armies capable of inserting themselves into Cuba or Mexico and the like? Probably not. What every other country on Earth is doing is looking at core interests - usually border states and immediate regions - and budgeting accordingly. It's obviously sensible for Washington to plan for contingencies both near and far, but the basic problem for U.S. strategy, as Freier helpfully elucidates, is that it has wrapped its arms around everything.
This is obviously a great business model for those who profit from large defense budgets, but it doesn't make for a sustainable framework for the U.S. in a time when it's drowning in a sea of red ink.
The other issue is having this excess military capacity on hand promotes irresponsibility. What we saw in the previous decade was not simply the use of the U.S. military in an unexpected contingency on 9/11(one which, incidentally, it was unprepared for despite its mammoth budget and for which the CIA took the initial lead in responding to) but the use of the military for an unnecessary war in Iraq. In other words, having a huge military on hand didn't provide the U.S. with a useful hedge against future uncertainty - it gave a free hand to irresponsible bureaucrats to go abroad in search of demons to slay.
In an ideal world, the U.S. would retain decisive military superiority but rarely deploy it. "Starving the beast" is a very irresponsible, indeed dangerous, way to impose a less interventionist policy on Washington, but it's increasingly looking like the only way to provoke a serious discussion about priorities.