Too Much Bang, Bang: The Need to Demilitarize US National Security
From Truthout:
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates gave a provocative and even dangerous speech at the National Defense University (NDU) last week that revealed the cold-war thinking of a key holdover from the Bush administration. With language reminiscent of the worst days of the cold war in the 1950s, Gates argued that the “demilitarization of Europe – where large swaths of the general public and political class are averse to military force and the risks that go with it – has gone from a blessing in the 20th century to an impediment to achieving real security and lasting peace in the 21st century.” He concluded that a perception of European weakness could provide a “temptation to miscalculation and aggression” by hostile powers. Gates didn’t name these so-called hostile powers; indeed, it would have been ludicrous to try to do so.
Instead of haranguing the European members of NATO, who don’t share our views about the threat of international terrorism or the need for a counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan (or Iraq for that matter), the United States should be reducing its own global military presence, including its commitment to NATO. For the past several years, under both the Bush and Obama administrations, Gates has been making the case for turning NATO into an instrument for the projection of power abroad, using Afghanistan as an example of an expanded global role. The international coalition did not work well in Iraq; it is not working well in Afghanistan; and the results of these efforts point to the dysfunction of NATO as a military alliance. Did Gates notice that the coalition government in Netherlands collapsed on the eve of his speech because of the controversy over keeping Dutch troops in Afghanistan?
[Read more at Truthout]
