Will they succeed in their quest to make us a “Global Cavalry”
In a way, I guess, we have it already; so it might be a moot question. I guess when I first read this article from the America Enterprise Institute in 2003, I knew we had bases all over the world. However, I just never put it altogether into a single unit of thought. The words, Global Calvary, painted a stark picture for me.
From the American Enterprise Institute in 2003:
Defense transformation is turning out to be a far larger project than the Bush administration envisioned when it first embraced the concept during the 2000 presidential campaign. Far from being a “cheap hawk’s” answer to America’s post-Cold War defense needs or a justification for new weaponry, transformation involves a world’s worth of new missions for the U.S. military, which is fast becoming the “global cavalry” of the twenty-first century. Among the most vital components of this transformation is the radical overhaul of America’s overseas force structure, which seeks to create a worldwide network of frontier forts.
The arrogance I see in this article and the sense of entitlement to do as we like with the world has stayed with me since I read it. There is no way to do it justice when only four paragraphs are allowed. It just lays out a plan to move around the world doing as we please. I would like to think that the failure in Iraq will stop these fools, but I doubt it.
I will have to just post a few snips to give a sense. The authors first speak of 9/11 as transforming things.
Toward a Global Cavalry
Overseas Rebasing and Defense Transformation
….what has been transformed is the geopolitical and strategic context in which American military power is exercised. With essentially the same force structure as fifty years ago, the United States has been called upon to fight a new series of campaigns in a new kind of war–a war that has only just begun.
…”As the leader and guarantor of the current liberal international order, it falls to the United States to organize and sustain the defense of the Pax Americana against this threat, to inspire and institutionalize the tools of power needed for a large, diffuse, and potentially long struggle. This is the purpose of military transformation: not simply to contain the enemy–who is, in fact, quite weak, if dispersed–but to close with him, disrupt his plans, preempt his attacks, and destroy him. As Vice President Cheney remarked in the wake of al Qaeda’s suicide bombings in Saudi Arabia last May: “There’s . . . no policy of containment or deterrence that works to deal with this threat. We have to go find the terrorists. . . . The only way to ensure stability . . . is to go eliminate [them] before they can launch any more attacks.”[2] To accomplish this, our military must transform itself not only in a tactical and operational sense, but strategically as well–beginning with the reform of the U.S. global force posture.
This article makes so much more of an impact than it did on first reading. It really is chilling. We have seen that the ones with this mission of the Global Calvary are capable of anything, and then perfectly capable of lying about doing it.
‘Everything Is Moving Everywhere’
Today’s U.S. global force posture is an anachronistic, but entrenched, inheritance of the Cold War. More than 80 percent of U.S. soldiers in Europe are stationed in Germany, waiting for a Soviet invasion that will never happen. In the Pacific, over 75 percent of U.S. troops are bottled up in South Korea and Japan. The Bush administration has recognized that the status quo is no longer acceptable; that the preeminent mission of the U.S. military is no longer the containment of the Soviet Union, but the preemption of terrorism. This is the strategic reality that is driving the realignment of the network of American bases and installations overseas. “Everything is moving everywhere,” said Douglas Feith, under secretary of defense for policy. “There is not going to be a place in the world where it’s going to be the same as it used to be. We’re going to rationalize our posture everywhere.
The article goes on to present the plans for Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. It concludes with these quotes…
Like the cavalry of the Old West, their job is one part warrior and one part policeman–both of which are entirely within the tradition of the American military.
……….”Although countless questions about transformation remain unanswered, one lesson is already clear: American power is on the move.
I have seen many AEI conferences on C-Span this week. They have almost dominated that network lately. As a group they seem not to have diminished in influence, if you judge by presence on the media. I suppose the PNAC, the Pax Americana movement have, or will get, their Global Calvary despite the failure in Iraq.
