I think that as soon as he invoked “health care” as the thing busting the budget, he lost all credibility. The health care just passed is going to cost about $90 billion/year. That’s a hell of a lot of money, but’s it’s still only a small fraction of the overall federal budget. It’s enormously smaller than the military budget, just to take one not-so-random example.

The same argument could have–and probably was–made in 1938, with lots of fulminating about that Commie stooge FDR and Social Security, unemployment insurance, etc. Shockingly, within seven years, the United States was the dominant global power (the USSR could not project power globally).

From USFFC Blog, “How the United States Lost the Naval War
of 2015″ by James Kraska:

“…by the 2000s, beginning with the worldwide unpopularity of the Bush administration and the apologizing Obama administration, the United States lost the position of the planet’s self-proclaimed tutor. Challengers no longer accepted the U.S.- constructed post-war world, questioning everything from the primacy of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency to U.S. counter-proliferation policy against Iran.”

“History shows how the maritime balance of power can shift suddenly, rearranging global order. ‘‘[i]n 1935, with no armed forces to speak of and an economy in decline, the United States wanted nothing more than for the world to leave it alone. Within ten years, flush with victory, economically prosperous, and in sole possession of the atomic bomb, the United States became the single most powerful nation on earth.”

http://www.fpri.org/orbis/5401/kraska.navalwar2015.pdf

And lastly:

“It follows than as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious.”

President George Washington, 15 November 1781

Nuff-said!

“It follows than as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious.”

President George Washington, 15 November 1781

Now in the eighties, the strategy was to maintain sufficient capability to deal with what was referred to as “two and a half regional contingencies”, meaning wage three of any kind of widely geographically seperated conflicts, from covering a non-combatant evacuation in a bloody revolution to a Korea sized full scale conventional war, with the light hearted assumption that no more than two would be at the larger end of the spectrum. By no means a perfect strategy, open to any number of cricisms not pertinent to this note.

This was yoked with a commitment to rapidly, massively reinforce the NATO army in being maintained in Western Europe “to defend the inter (between east and west) german border against aggressive attack by the forces of the Warsaw Pact.” There was a goal of “X divisions (the entire uncommitted Army) in X days.” Catchy, that.

Then one morning the Army went to morning brief and got asked the question: “What inter-German border, and what Warsaw Pact”.

The problem for the Nav and Corps was more derivative. They had accepted a threat based budget model because it was sufficient for their world wide responsibilies, which while obvious and traditional, were not generally formulated in terms of the existing reality…maintaining Pax Oceana Americana. Or if you prefer, “conduct overseas contingency operations as required while maintaining a sufficient residual fleet in being to “reinforce Nato defense of western Europe with X divisions…” yadda yadda.

The stated rationale for the NATO alliance having popped like a soap bubble, the political powers that were bought into the “history has ended” idiocy and forgot the rest of the world, or anyway the second and third world. Which meant ignorant machine political hacks were free to turn the “threat based” budget paradigm and the NATO defense fixation into a license to loot the Defense (and therefore Dept of the Navy) budget for payback to the special interests that paid for their election campaigns. Or use the “peace dividend” for the American People, if you like with ginger ale and a pink little umbrella.

When the dust settled, they had taken half. Then 9/11 hit. Bush the younger and Rummy-Cheny initiated a “Global War on Terror” (which looks amazingly like two and half regional contingencies) without a Declaration of War (and the explicit and implicit war powers resulting), without full mobilization of the Reserves (implicit in the old 2 and half strategy)and with the force in being without significant expansion.

Bad Idea. The progressive talking pols were in no mood to give back the half a cold war defense budget and fought (dirty) to keep it.

As usual, the peace time “warlords” and generals needed to go and the talent search needed to go into high gear to find the best fitted young Colonels to kick upstairs and run the war. It happened, but it took way too long. Old men, in general, shouldn’t run an oddball war and SECDEF was the oldest man, and among the last to get replaced. The voters got impatient.

Enter the Obama Administration. Not a strategist in the inner circle, much less a naval strategist. FDR, on the other hand, was a “former naval person” and a naval enthusiast.

Rig for heavy weather, stand by for heavy rolls, weather decks are off limits until further notice.

We headed into a typhoon, gentlemen. Navigator, determine the best course to weather the storm and prepare to brief your recommendations to the Captain ASAP.

Navigator…Navigator…WHERE THE HELL IS THE NAVIGATOR!

Isn’t that what I just said err implied, err, imputed? I just compressed the events and left the party names out.

I was thinking the Captain of the good ship USN rather than the ship of state. Maybe we should have put some more money and talent into our own college. You never know when you might need a good strategic thinker to navigate the whole damn Navy.

Do we have one? Turkey trots to water…

The problem with isolationism as a successful concept for national defense is that folks think it means less military expenditure not more. Nothing could be further from the truth.

No overseas basing? You need a fleet train capable of UNREPING everything with everything. You need contingency lift on standby to tranport at least an Army if not an Army group. You need MarAd vessels sufficient to supply that… and the escorts to assure its safe delivery. You need Amphib and Carrier Task Forces to kick in the door anywhere we need to and MAGTF sufficient to seize and hold the lodgement(s) until the transports get the Army and the AF ammo, fuel, and base op and defense hardware to the lodgement to take it over. You need the 1944 Navy’s capabilities updated for modern tech. You need predesignated and at least some advance positioned (Guam, Saipan, Maine, south Florida, Aleutians, Samoa and the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Midway, Wake) consumables and repair parts (ammo, tires, POL, medical stores, combat individual equipage, spare and repair parts for vehicles, sensors, weapons for the Army and AF sufficient for at least 180 days of combat. Then you need to replenish it when it goes out of shelf life. Readiness becomes even more of an issue, as does equipping, training and mobilizing the reserves. And you need a huge number and variety of specialized Auxiliary Commissioned ships, starting with Tenders and hospital ships.

No airfields and hospitals in Europe. Ditto Japan, plus ship repair facilities. Diego Garcia gone, Philipines, not available. Iceland, Bermuda…nope. Okinawa ditto. Plus the expense of seriously fortifying all the overseas territories, commonwealths and states that are US territory.

Back to the 1920′s, except the colonies are nations in their own right, China a major power, Russia rising and the Islamic world, well, who knows.

Costly.

Of course we could just wait to get surprised by an aggressive, vastly culturally different, and recently nuclear power. Then all we have to do is recover from the initial attack and go on to win in half a decade and half a million casualties. That’ll work.

It’s easy. Check out how easy on HBO.

Paul:

“What do we do when a country tells us we’re not wanted there anymore?”

I assume you mean tell us to remove all military presence.

Officially, express regret, pack up in an orderly manner and depart. Stay friends as much as possible. Say nothing bad about the former friend/host.

Try the line: “Gee, I’m sorry, was it something we said. Can we work this out, maybe find something to smooth over some ruffled feelings?”

Unofficially, work the in laws, friends, contacts, sources, local press underbelly, local party out of power, bar girls, madames etc. to figure out why, in detail. Of course you need to have some humint in place the locals don’t keep in a bubble eating cake, or even know about. (Warning: if you don’t want to deal with bad people, move to a small town in central Kansas or Georgia, open a Hallmark card store (hire carefully), join the local independent nondenominational but upscale church and lie to yourself a lot.)

Look for a new friend or a closer relationship with an aquaintance down the block.

Adjust. Treat your new friends very well. Treat your other old friends better. Treat your spies even better. Treat your moles best of all. Stay paranoid about moles in your back garden, it’s cheap insurance.

Watch out for that word “inconceivable” in the future.

Smile. Keep smiling. Once you know why…our fault: fix it; their fault: let ‘em know you know and figure out a way to woo them back or make them regret it, depending on if it’s a tiff or an evil plot or somebody clumsy wants a (bigger) payoff; somebody else’s fault: be sure, SURE you know who and plan a cold cold dinner.

Talk real real nice.

But hey, diplomacy isn’t my strong suit. Suggestions, anyone?

Brits: Tiff, justifiable tiff, but tiff none the less. Flowers, candy, Hallmark card, big slice of humble pie, it can be fixed.

Japanese: Strategic recalculation, China close aboard and rising, USA far away and apparently going through one of her periodic fits of unwisdom.

Perhaps our nation is NOW realigning its global policies with its founders core values … LIFE/HEALTH, Liberty/Safety & pursuit of happiness/environment?

Assuring global “sustainable well-being” for future generations requires major mind-shifting from C4I/Enforcement-Response models to those enabling i4C/Empowerment-Presponse decision-making …

For more background, please preview: http://futurethought.pbworks.com/BSC-inherent-dynamics

I’m not sure if US national security is as simple as letting other countries take their own responsibility. The US is heavily dependent on trade and international economic ties; a lot of cheap consumer goods are imported from overseas. Therefore I’m not sure the US can afford to reduce its overseas military presence more than it already has.

At a bare minimum, I would imagine the US economy would require the US navy to at least maintain peace in the world’s oceans, so the flow of global trade the US economy is so dependent on cannot be easily disrupted.

My own personal opinion is that I still prefer overseas US military installations as its cheaper to have an US air force presence in Germany or Japan than it is to build the required carrier strike forces to substitute for the land based presence.

If it comes down to it, I would like to know what tradeoffs (ie the cost) to the US taxpayer that Britain and Japan would require to maintain an US military presence there.