Because we can?

I'm no expert on foreign policy, to be sure.  I may have mentioned here before that I was startled to find out that there are American troops in somewhere around 150 countries.  That little fact has been percolating in my brain, mostly unconsciously, and it has prompted me to dimly wonder just what we mean when we talk about national defense.

There is a range of defense stances the most powerful country in the world can take.  The most limited would be to maintain our military at some minimal, but safe level, and be vigilant for signs that our people or our country might be attacked.  The other extreme would be to try to keep the rest of the world so locked down that nobody anywhere could even begin to get the wherewithal to attack us.

So it occurred to me to wonder just what our defense posture really is.

In the March 2013 issue of Harper's, Andrew Bacevich has written a letter to Paul Wolfowitz "Occasioned by the tenth anniversary of the Iraq war," which speaks to this question.

According to Bacevich, Wolfowitz is a disciple of one Albert Wohlstetter, described as a "nuclear strategist," and "the quintessential 'defense intellectual.'"

Bacevich presents Wohlstetter's "precepts" as follows:

First, liberal internationalism, with its optimistic expectation that the world will embrace a set of common norms to achieve peace, is an illusion.

Second, the system that replaces liberal internationalism must address the ever-present (and growing) danger posed by catastrophic surprise.

Third, the key to averting or at least minimizing surprise is to act preventively.

Fourth, the ultimate in preventive action is dominion.  The best insurance against unpleasant surprises is to achieve unquestioned supremacy.

Lastly,  by transforming the very nature of war, information technology--an arena in which the United States has historically enjoyed a clear edge--brings outright supremacy within reach.

Wolfowitz's ambition, says Bacevich, was and is to put Wohlstetter's ideas into practice, thereby preventing "the reemergence of a new rival" (after the crumbling of the Soviet Union.)

The actions taken by the Bush administration in waging war on Iraq are a direct result of Wolfowitz's influence.  The results of the Iraq war, as Bacevich rightly points out, are nothing like the tidy outcome Wolfowitz's ideas predicted.

Indeed, says Bacevich, the question is this:  How did preventive war undertaken by ostensibly the strongest military in history produce a cataclysm?  (Italics his.)

Aside from the question of whether preventive war works, my concern is with its morality.  How much is the United States entitled to tyrannize the rest of the world in order to protect itself?  Our actions remind me of the days of colonialism and the convulsions the world is still going through as a result.  With power comes responsibility, but in ways I don't think the right wingers understand.  The practice of preventive war will give us a lot to answer for.