A glimpse into foreign policy history
| Collective defense or strategic independence?: Alternative strategies for the future, edited by Ted Galen Carpenter This book is based on a conference held in December 1987 by the Cato Institute. The various essays examine the then-current policies regarding the Soviet Union, referred to as a collective defense strategy. This is contrasted with alternative polices centered on strategic independence or global unilateralism. The irony of the book is that the fall of the Soviet Union was just a few short years away, a possibility unconsidered by any of the writers in this volume. The essays cover U.S. NATO commitments, security ties in the pacific basin, U.S. foreign policy in the third world, and the policy of containment. Eugene V. Rostow kicks off the collection with a justification of the current policy of collective defense in an essay entitled, 'A Breakfast for Bonapart'. The title of that essay refers to a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Lieper in 1814, remarking on the possible consequences of Napolean's conquests and how Europe would have been merely breakfast in a menu of further conquests. Rostow is virtually alone in his endorsement of the current policy (not too surprising since the book was put together by a think tank that generally advocates a strict, non-interventionist foreign policy). Reading the essays in this volume gives one a sense of the immortality of bureaucracy. As radical as some of the proposals for downsizing were, as I write this, the U.S. has troops in over 100 foreign countries and its defense commitments continue to be huge, with a massive defense budget that dwarfs all others. There are lessons to be learned here in reference to the current war on terror. It's saddening that over a decade after the fall of the Soviet Union, we are still massively overspending on defense, engaging in commitments that make no sense for our security and that almost certainly make us less secure as resources are diverted from the War on Terror to pointless conquests like Iraq. |
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