Let me go out on a limb, a limb that includes my 4 children who are in uniform or the Naval reserves as officers in intel, subs, intel, and aviator (Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya). So I have some skin in the game and participated in the game for a time.
We all get to ask the question what is the US doing in Europe, Ukraine, the Red Sea, …, Jordan, …, Syria? My answer is we have bases in Europe and are more or less free to use them to get close, listen, and hop, skip, and a jump to most of Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Diego Garcia is not enough.
So why do we need forward bases? Well, that is where things get sticky. The answer is Energy flow and Trade flow. Aircraft Carriers are important as forward tactical bases, but friendly ground and ports are indispensable to get from here to there.
Energy and Trade are vital to holding global order together — by the improvement in living standards, improved health and diet, education of populations, and building stable regimes. When regimes of third-world countries go awry you have Iran stirring up trouble from the Red Sea to the Levant and the Persian Gulf. You have China making plans to take over the western Pacific. You have NORK’s building nuclear weapons and sending the know-how to Pakistan and Iran. All of these destabilize the world. If a problem breaks out in Kashmir, and Pakistan and Indian armies open fire, and one side pushes the other too far, and a nuke is tossed, … then what?
Well that’s not our problem. We can say that’s Europe’s problem. Maybe it is. And we need to be hard on Europe to either shut up and get in line, or act. Europe likes the blab. And we can’t simply pretend the problem is theirs when they won’t do anything. But, a Europe that opposes the US can make our life complicated. It is OK to say, “Europe, I’m just not that in to you. Ruin your own countries.” But we need locations from which to operate, and they have them.
While the world is not our problem, if it becomes a problem, it can affect enough places that can coalesce into a problem— see how the tiny Houthis re-route global trade flow. Removing these cancers early is best. Removing them over there is best. And, that requires forward deployments and forward bases. It requires projection of force. This is not something I want. But it is important for global stability, which is important for domestic tranquility. Ignore the problems over there, and eventually they coagulate into something ugly.
Russia has its hands full and will unlikely invade much of anything for a while. The IDF has put Iran back on its heels. China lusts for Siberian energy and resource, hegemony over the western Pacific, and also Taiwan by threat of force. We have to restore geopolitical balance, or at least divide it in our favor.
It is our 21st Century version of the 19th Century GREAT GAME between the British Empire and Russia competing over the Central Asia. Once again in Kissinger Style, we want to break the Russo-Sino alliance and that can only happen if we can get Russia to lay down its sword in Ukraine and welcome it into the west again. Putin has to and will eventually go, but he needs to save face if we can turn the page. We should not be fooled, Russia is as powerful as Europe(and it is pretty weak except for its unreliable nukes). But it commands a huge interior landmass from which to threaten the west or check China. It controls, more or less, Siberia. We need Russia on our side — and thus, we need to create suspicion between China and Russia — which will not be easy.
Like it or not, global stability is still as important today for our way of life as it was in 1946.
The US has plenty of domestic energy, and energy next door in Canada, … Mexico, and in Venezuela. However, energy is important for everyone and those who can control its extraction and flow, can control trade, events and ultimately states. Energy is food; it is necessities. It is desirables. It is improved living standards, and that translates into political power and coercive force. Hegemons, even regional ones, even non-state hegemons, can do a lot of damage to the Flows. We need a world that flows and does not become clogged and infected. That leads to regression, failed states and conflict.
An extremely cogent comment, and I'll just reply briefly that the utility of American military presence on the ground in many overseas locations can be entirely consistent with a more Jacksonian foreign policy.
Unless the sand harms our credibility to enforce our vital interests, sand kicking is ineffective. Just don’t kick gunfire or missiles at us — then we strike hard.
Stay focused on the goal. Don’t be distracted. They can call me all the names they wish.
Build our relationships and play the games necessary to increase our defense and ability to project. Friends in the real world are not friends if they are not deriving something from the friendship — but as Trump shows, it goes both ways. Sand kickers hurt themselves when and if they need help. See Europe now that it cannot easily defend Ukraine. They are less interested in kicking sand at us as they sense their weakness.
What is our goal? Isolate China. Allow their domestic, demographic, and systemic problems to catch up to them. How will we do this? Geopolitical balancing. Get Russia to pull back a little, then some more. Strengthen friends. And ignore the sand kicking — leave that to third rate powers and the mouthy Europeans whose opinions matter less and less. The savvy understand that doing business with the Chinese is something approached with hot mittens on. We can continue to help others see that.
And ignore the Maduro’s and Ayatollah’s of the world, but help undermine them at every opportunity.
Explain again, please: why are we spending our money and risking our young people's blood for these people? It made more sense when they were supposed to be free countries threatened by the unfree and communist USSR. Now what?
The biggest reason to leave NATO is European fertility. If they don’t believe in their own future enough to populate it, there is no point in “defending” them.
I recently learned that Europe has spent more on buying natural gas from Russia than they have given to Ukraine to fight the war. The war they are demanding that Ukraine fight against Russia, btw. This is all a big sick fugging joke.
Old Europe is too high and mighty to be responsible for anything but dictating insanity to the world. If its leaders really object to Putin on principle, why are they creating their own authoritarian regimes? This process is already well-advanced. Too many Europeans from the top on down think they're perfect.
Let me go out on a limb, a limb that includes my 4 children who are in uniform or the Naval reserves as officers in intel, subs, intel, and aviator (Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya). So I have some skin in the game and participated in the game for a time.
We all get to ask the question what is the US doing in Europe, Ukraine, the Red Sea, …, Jordan, …, Syria? My answer is we have bases in Europe and are more or less free to use them to get close, listen, and hop, skip, and a jump to most of Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Diego Garcia is not enough.
So why do we need forward bases? Well, that is where things get sticky. The answer is Energy flow and Trade flow. Aircraft Carriers are important as forward tactical bases, but friendly ground and ports are indispensable to get from here to there.
Energy and Trade are vital to holding global order together — by the improvement in living standards, improved health and diet, education of populations, and building stable regimes. When regimes of third-world countries go awry you have Iran stirring up trouble from the Red Sea to the Levant and the Persian Gulf. You have China making plans to take over the western Pacific. You have NORK’s building nuclear weapons and sending the know-how to Pakistan and Iran. All of these destabilize the world. If a problem breaks out in Kashmir, and Pakistan and Indian armies open fire, and one side pushes the other too far, and a nuke is tossed, … then what?
Well that’s not our problem. We can say that’s Europe’s problem. Maybe it is. And we need to be hard on Europe to either shut up and get in line, or act. Europe likes the blab. And we can’t simply pretend the problem is theirs when they won’t do anything. But, a Europe that opposes the US can make our life complicated. It is OK to say, “Europe, I’m just not that in to you. Ruin your own countries.” But we need locations from which to operate, and they have them.
While the world is not our problem, if it becomes a problem, it can affect enough places that can coalesce into a problem— see how the tiny Houthis re-route global trade flow. Removing these cancers early is best. Removing them over there is best. And, that requires forward deployments and forward bases. It requires projection of force. This is not something I want. But it is important for global stability, which is important for domestic tranquility. Ignore the problems over there, and eventually they coagulate into something ugly.
Russia has its hands full and will unlikely invade much of anything for a while. The IDF has put Iran back on its heels. China lusts for Siberian energy and resource, hegemony over the western Pacific, and also Taiwan by threat of force. We have to restore geopolitical balance, or at least divide it in our favor.
It is our 21st Century version of the 19th Century GREAT GAME between the British Empire and Russia competing over the Central Asia. Once again in Kissinger Style, we want to break the Russo-Sino alliance and that can only happen if we can get Russia to lay down its sword in Ukraine and welcome it into the west again. Putin has to and will eventually go, but he needs to save face if we can turn the page. We should not be fooled, Russia is as powerful as Europe(and it is pretty weak except for its unreliable nukes). But it commands a huge interior landmass from which to threaten the west or check China. It controls, more or less, Siberia. We need Russia on our side — and thus, we need to create suspicion between China and Russia — which will not be easy.
Like it or not, global stability is still as important today for our way of life as it was in 1946.
The US has plenty of domestic energy, and energy next door in Canada, … Mexico, and in Venezuela. However, energy is important for everyone and those who can control its extraction and flow, can control trade, events and ultimately states. Energy is food; it is necessities. It is desirables. It is improved living standards, and that translates into political power and coercive force. Hegemons, even regional ones, even non-state hegemons, can do a lot of damage to the Flows. We need a world that flows and does not become clogged and infected. That leads to regression, failed states and conflict.
An extremely cogent comment, and I'll just reply briefly that the utility of American military presence on the ground in many overseas locations can be entirely consistent with a more Jacksonian foreign policy.
Does this entitle any nation to kick sand in our face?
Unless the sand harms our credibility to enforce our vital interests, sand kicking is ineffective. Just don’t kick gunfire or missiles at us — then we strike hard.
Stay focused on the goal. Don’t be distracted. They can call me all the names they wish.
Build our relationships and play the games necessary to increase our defense and ability to project. Friends in the real world are not friends if they are not deriving something from the friendship — but as Trump shows, it goes both ways. Sand kickers hurt themselves when and if they need help. See Europe now that it cannot easily defend Ukraine. They are less interested in kicking sand at us as they sense their weakness.
Or, look at the Philippines. They kicked us out of Subic Bay as part of an independence, sand kicking phase. Now they want us back. We may return, but in smaller presence, https://news.usni.org/2025/03/17/u-s-marines-to-stage-equipment-at-subic-bay-under-new-prepositioning-plan. We have other options.
What is our goal? Isolate China. Allow their domestic, demographic, and systemic problems to catch up to them. How will we do this? Geopolitical balancing. Get Russia to pull back a little, then some more. Strengthen friends. And ignore the sand kicking — leave that to third rate powers and the mouthy Europeans whose opinions matter less and less. The savvy understand that doing business with the Chinese is something approached with hot mittens on. We can continue to help others see that.
And ignore the Maduro’s and Ayatollah’s of the world, but help undermine them at every opportunity.
Explain again, please: why are we spending our money and risking our young people's blood for these people? It made more sense when they were supposed to be free countries threatened by the unfree and communist USSR. Now what?
Its always depopulation and money laundering for these Eurotrash clowns. Its really all they know how to do.
Orwellian indeed. What should the people do when their government is responsible for “the deliberate dissemination of false factual claims?"
The biggest reason to leave NATO is European fertility. If they don’t believe in their own future enough to populate it, there is no point in “defending” them.
I recently learned that Europe has spent more on buying natural gas from Russia than they have given to Ukraine to fight the war. The war they are demanding that Ukraine fight against Russia, btw. This is all a big sick fugging joke.
The Dark Night of FASCISM! Forever descending on America, but somehow only ever landing on Europe…🤡🌎🐂💩🙄
Old Europe is too high and mighty to be responsible for anything but dictating insanity to the world. If its leaders really object to Putin on principle, why are they creating their own authoritarian regimes? This process is already well-advanced. Too many Europeans from the top on down think they're perfect.
Props to the Italians for consistency. Do they still have those WWII tanks with one forward gear, in case the enemy gets behind them?....