Posted on Mar 25, 2015
SGT James Elphick
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This is an interesting article from the blog War on the Rocks about the aspects of our foreign policy. It is well known that we outspend every developed country when it comes to the military. So, while we do get security from our large military and massive spending we have allowed our allies to essentially not defend themselves, and according to this article, have essentially discouraged our allies from having their own strong militaries so that we cannot be challenged by them.

However, with an ever increasing debt and the last 2 wars paid for on credit should we change our foreign policy to encourage military spending from our allies? Should we develop a foreign policy that requires less spending? Can we continue to police the world and not expect blowback? Or should we maintain our position as hegemon?

http://warontherocks.com/2015/03/our-unrealistic-foreign-policy/
Posted in these groups: C842160b Foreign Policy48867433 Military Budget
Edited >1 y ago
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CW4 Vulnerability Assessment Specialist
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Personally, I think our State Department as an institution has a very short memory and can hardly see past the end of its nose, much less anticipate long term goals. To many political appointees that attempt to make the world according to (name your president) who is often second guessed or applauded by politicians interested in their own re-election and the sizes of the donors' checks.
We train freedom fighters whom we later abandon and who become terrorists. We ask allies for support and often discreet help only to leaks the story later to our infotainment industry. And since they are our allies we put their leaders as top priority for our NSA. College students know that armies are good at conquering enemies but will always be defeated, in the long run, by the nations or peoples. The citation can go on for a long time, with some adjustments for occasional albeit short term success.
This is the story that caught my eye because of my personal interest. They were wrong of course to consent to this but nothing serves better our diplomacy than the constant leaks from the beltway.
http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-poland-cia-blacksite-20150510-story.html#page=1
I am sure the second Iraq war was a huge mistake (anyone still believing it was justified response to 9/11 should stop smoking pot now) and that only morally challenged folks still insist that the water boarding was not torture, and if it was, "they deserved it."
Now, I have not spend any time on things that went right in our FP because pretty soon that is all any patriot remembers, forgetting any mistakes, and the circle repeats itself when the next president wants to make the world in his or her image, like say, establish a beacon of democracy in the Middle East. We spend big money on many FP programs. I just think we do not get the return on investment that we uses to.
I think I managed to squeeze five or six "grievances" on how and why our FP is so bad. Do you think it should be more or less?
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CPT Zachary Brooks
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I would like to see us stop sending foreign aid since we are giving that in the form of a world wide military police. Then I would like to see us start collecting aid from other countries to help pay for our military.

Someone has to defend the world and it seems that has fallen to us.
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MAJ Ken Landgren
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The current paradigm is we provide 90% of the fighters, vehicles, and equipment. Our allied countries will provide a few thousand to a few hundred fighters. The cost of the two wars can easily hit 100 a billion a year. They also provide NGOs and billions of dollars. As we fight two wars, China and Russia are showing their imperial powers in the South China Sea and Ukraine respectively. I believe our allies should build up their militaries.
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SGT James Elphick
SGT James Elphick
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I think you are right sir and I think we are starting to see some trends towards having our allies build up their militaries. I would also argue that we need to make some new allies or strengthen our relationships with some of the ones we have (i.e. India).
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MAJ Ken Landgren
MAJ Ken Landgren
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You are right. I don't see why we should have to monitor, defend, slug it out with China or Russia ourselves.
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