Can the United States Sustain a Large Overseas Military Intervention?
Rachel Moltz
Mon, 10/17/2022 – 05:30
As with many things regarding the United States and its foreign and national security policies, the answer is “it depends.” It depends upon how the war starts. In 1999 Walter Russell Mead wrote a brilliant essay “The Jacksonian Tradition” in The National Interest in which he explored the character of U.S. foreign policy. He described America as a nation that is slow to anger but when sufficiently provoked the various political divides disappear as the nation manifests an overwhelming, nearly undisciplined, expression of vengeance. Mead explored campaigns against native American populations, Sherman’s march to the sea, and the fire-bombing of Japan even prior to the dropping of the two atomic bombs. When angered the United States can summon the will to fight, but can it sustain it?
The second “it depends” rests upon how long a commitment is expected to endure. When answering this question, it’s important to note that the U.S. maintains forces in Europe, Japan, and South Korea decades after conflicts in those regions were terminated. It also maintained a presence in Iraq for fifteen years, not an inconsiderable amount of time. …read more
Source:: Hoover Institution
