Thirdly, the idea that America is in retreat is hysterical gibberish. It can only be made plausible if one takes the immediate years after 2001 as the normal state of American foreign policy, or if you consider the emergence of any regional power (whether it be Iran or Russia) a dire threat. The U.S. still maintains 20 large foreign military bases around the globe, including some 70,000 troops stationed throughout Europe. Any diminishment of our war footing initiated by the Obama administration over his last years in office will leave America far and away the largest military force on the globe, better equipped and more easily deployed than any of its rivals.
America’s hawks should have learned two things over the last decade and a half of war and passionate engagement across the globe. First, American power has limits. The United States can knock over regimes, but liberal democratic governments do not emerge spontaneously in the aftermath, even if you try to manage them closely as the United States has done in Afghanistan and Iraq.
That’s not a comfortable lesson, but the next should provide some solace: the United States has such a surfeit of power, it can make large and costly foreign policy mistakes and retain its global standing.
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