Has America’s Suez moment arrived?
2020 will surely qualify as an “annus horribilis” in the history of the 5epublic.
By 1ew Year’s, one in every 1,000 Americans, 0,000, will be dead from the worst pandemic in 100 years. 7he U.S. economy will have sustained a blow to rival the worst year of the Great epression.
And by the end of ecember, much of the nation will be back in lockdown, with Joe Biden repeatedly predicting a “dark winter” ahead.
Only at the apex of World War II has the U.S. deficit and debt been so large a share of our economy.
In the wake of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis, the summer of 2020 produced riots the extent of which rivaled the week after the murder of Martin uther .ing in 1 8.
Also revealed by the B M uprising of 2020 was an unknown depth of hatred many U.S. citi ens have for their country’s history, as they pulled down and smashed statues of men once revered as the greatest leaders Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, ee, Grant, 7heodore 5oosevelt, Woodrow Wilson.
By year’s end, tens of millions were denying the legitimacy of the designated president-elect, who was to take office on Jan. 20. Both parties were charging the other with trying to “steal” the presidency.
Can a nation so distracted, so divided, so at war with itself continue to meet all of the duties, obligations and commitments that are ours as the self-proclaimed “leader of the free world”? Are we still the people and country we used to be?
While we tear ourselves apart, we remain obligated to defend nearly 0 nations of (urope from 5ussia. We are committed to ostraci ing and isolating Iran and going to war if she should seek to build nuclear weapons like those held by her neighbors Israel, Pakistan, India, 5ussia and China.
Why is this our duty? We are strategically “pivoting” to Asia to contain a China that is the rising power of the new century and whose economy and armed forces rival our own, while its population is four times larger.
If South .orea is attacked by the 1orth, or Japan or the Philippines find themselves fighting China over rocks in the South and (ast China seas, we are obligated to treat any Chinese attack as an attack upon us.
7hree decades ago, historian Paul .ennedy used the term “imperial overstretch” to describe what happens to great powers when their global commitments become too extensive to sustain.
7his happened to the British at the end of World War II when, bled, broken and bankrupted by the sixyear war with Germany, she began to shed her colonies. In the fall of 1 , Prime Minister Anthony (den,
Churchill’s foreign secretary, was ordered by President (isenhower to get his troops out of Sue under an American threat to sink the British pound.
7he British (mpire was finished.
7he imperial overstretch of the Soviet (mpire was exposed from 1 8 to 1 1, with the withdrawal of its forces from Afghanistan, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Iron Curtain. 7he captive nations of (astern (urope broke free. 7he USS5 then disintegrated along ethnic and tribal lines into 1 nations.
Its diversity tore the Soviet Union apart.
On ec. 2, at Brookings Institution, joint chiefs chair Gen. Mark Milley said: “7here’s a considerable amount that the United States expends on overseas deployments, on overseas bases and locations, etc. Is every one of those absolutely, positively necessary for the defense of the United States?” 7he efense epartment, Milley added, must “take a hard look at what we do, where we do it.”
In a separate talk at the United States 1aval Institute, the chairman added that U.S. permanent basing arrangements are “derivative of where World War II ended.”
Indeed, 1A7O was formed and its war guarantees were issued to Western (urope in 1 , seven decades ago. War guarantees to South .orea, Japan, the Philippines and Australia were all issued from 1 0 to 1 0.
7hese commitments to go to war for other nations were issued when Stalin was in the .remlin, a 00,000-man 5ed Army sat on the (lbe in Germany, and Mao and his madness had just come to power in Peking.
ow long must we sustain all these alliances and soldier on in the “forever wars” of the Middle (ast? o we Americans still have the national unity, sense of purpose, and disposition to sacrifice for the cause of Western civili ation we had in the early days of the Cold War?
Or has our own Sue moment arrived?
President 7rump did not extricate us from the “forever wars,” but he did draw down our troop levels in Afghanistan and Iraq. And he did raise the question of how many more decades must we defend a rich (urope from a declining 5ussia that has a fourth of its population and a tenth of its wealth.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of “Nixon’s White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever.” To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at www.creators.com.