National Security Matters

[old salt]

Recent photo galleries of US military forces in operation around the globe & at home.

https://www.nationalreview.com/photos/d ... 8/#slide-1

https://www.nationalreview.com/photos/c ... /military/

[seacoaster]

I know that Rand...er, Old Salt wanted to keep politics out of this, but this has a national security implication or two....

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/15/us/p ... e=Homepage

"Mr. Mattis has assiduously avoided the limelight during his tenure because he is fearful, aides said, about being put on the spot by questions that will expose differences with his boss. He has batted down multiple requests from the White House to go on “Fox & Friends” to praise the president’s agenda. And he has appeared before reporters at the podium in the Pentagon press room only a handful of times, giving remarkably few on-the-record one-on-one news media interviews — one of which was with a reporter for a high school newspaper in Washington State who had obtained Mr. Mattis’s cellphone number.

“Secretary Mattis lives by a code that is part of his DNA,” said Capt. Jeff Davis, who retired last month from the Navy after serving as a spokesman for Mr. Mattis since early in the Trump administration. “He is genetically incapable of lying, and genetically incapable of disloyalty.”

That means the defense secretary’s only recourse is to stay silent, aides to Mr. Mattis said. While he does not want to publicly disagree with his boss, he is also uncomfortable with showering false praise on Mr. Trump.

But cracks are showing.

In April, John R. Bolton became the White House national security adviser, replacing Army Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, who was long viewed as a subordinate to Mr. Mattis because of his rank as a three-star general compared with the retired Marine general’s four stars. Mr. Bolton is far more hawkish than either Mr. Mattis or General McMaster; administration officials said his deputy, Ms. Ricardel, actively dislikes the Pentagon chief — a feeling Mr. Mattis is believed to return in full.

Ms. Ricardel, a former Boeing executive who worked at the Pentagon during the George W. Bush administration, has a reputation for being as combative as Mr. Bolton.

As the Trump transition official responsible for Pentagon appointments, Ms. Ricardel stopped Mr. Mattis from hiring Anne Patterson as under secretary of defense for policy, one of the department’s highest political jobs. Ms. Patterson was a career diplomat who served as an ambassador under Presidents Bush, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, but administration officials said Ms. Ricardel suspected Mr. Mattis was trying to load up the Pentagon with Democrats and former supporters of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign."

Oh boy.

[ardilla secreta]

I know that Rand...er, Old Salt wanted to keep politics out of this, but this has a national security implication or two....

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/15/us/p ... e=Homepage

"Mr. Mattis has assiduously avoided the limelight during his tenure because he is fearful, aides said, about being put on the spot by questions that will expose differences with his boss. He has batted down multiple requests from the White House to go on “Fox & Friends” to praise the president’s agenda. And he has appeared before reporters at the podium in the Pentagon press room only a handful of times, giving remarkably few on-the-record one-on-one news media interviews — one of which was with a reporter for a high school newspaper in Washington State who had obtained Mr. Mattis’s cellphone number.

“Secretary Mattis lives by a code that is part of his DNA,” said Capt. Jeff Davis, who retired last month from the Navy after serving as a spokesman for Mr. Mattis since early in the Trump administration. “He is genetically incapable of lying, and genetically incapable of disloyalty.”

That means the defense secretary’s only recourse is to stay silent, aides to Mr. Mattis said. While he does not want to publicly disagree with his boss, he is also uncomfortable with showering false praise on Mr. Trump.

But cracks are showing.

I assume you meant butt-cracks are showing.

[seacoaster]

Hah! That is from the article, not from me.

[old salt]

Where are our aircraft carriers ? Our splendid isolation peacetime deployment pattern continues.

-- 4 carriers at sea with embarked air wings in home waters, within 1 week's sailing time of home port.

-- 7 capital ships (4 CVN's + 3 LHA's), with 7 embarked air wings & 3 Marine Expeditionary Units.
6 within 1 week transit to home port. Cocked & ready. Readiness improving.

-- Our Japan based CSG & ESG are both underway in WPac.
Reagan CSG in company with Japan's potent ASW helo (& future F-35B) carrier & AEGIS escorts.
Freedom of Navigation island hopping in the S China Sea.

-- 2 E coast CSG's, operating together in WLant, op testing the F-35C, filming Top Gun II, & keeping Ivan guessing.

-- 1 W coast CSG underway in EPac. 1 E coast ARG operating in WLant.

-- Only 1 US based capital ship (Essex)) deployed to the far side of the world.

The Essex ARG introduces the F-35B (w/ new sensors) into the CENTCOM AOR. It will be interesting to watch where the Essex operates.
She may stay in the Gulf of Aden / Red Sea approaches supporting our special operators in Yemen &/or Somalia,
or move N into the Arabian Sea & Persian Gulf, to play in the sand box. Still no Carrier Strike Group in the 5th Fleet.
SecDef Mattis, as a former CENTCOM Commander, has the chops to tell them they no longer need one.
It plays into Trump's isolation, but it's still Mattis who makes the call.
Home cookin' -- train, maintain, & liberty.

Other than the pre-hurricane sortie of Norfolk based ships, little change in Fleet disposition since last wk.

In WPac, our Japan based battle groups remain at sea :
The Reagan CSG in the S China Sea, the Wasp ESG in the Philippine Sea

The Essex ARG has finished transit & is operating in the Gulf of Aden.

For E Coast ships :
The Truman CSG remained at sea, doing ASW ops with the Canadians, in preparation for transit to the 6th Flt AOR.
The Lincoln CSG & Kerasarge ARG returned to Norfolk, but will be departing again, ahead of the advancing storm.
Lot's of ships (w/ embarked helos) will be at sea to chase Florence as she comes ashore.

Little change to basic Fleet disposition from last week :
https://news.usni.org/2018/09/17/36585

It will be interesting to track the Truman CSG. She just finished ASW exercises with the Canadians in W Lant & has chopped from 2nd Flt to 6th Flt.
For the ASW EX, she had 7 E coast based escorts (6 DDG's + 1 CG). That's more escorts than normal. Getting ping time to prep for hunting Ivan ?
Will the CSG go NE through the GIUK gap, or head for the Med ? How many of the 7 escorts tag along -- lots of ASW helos to hunt Ivan in the NLant or Tomahawks for Syria ?

In WPac, the Wasp ESG with, embarked Marines, is providing typhoon relief to the US N Mariana Island territories.
In W Lant, all the Norfolk based ships who sortied ahead of Florence, are returning to home port, except amphib ships Kearsarge & Arlington, with 800 Marines, 16 helos & 6 MV-22's embarked for Florence rescue & recovery ops.

[tech37]

"Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has unloaded on his Obama-era predecessor John Kerry for “actively undermining” U.S. policy on Iran by meeting several times recently with the Iranian foreign minister, who was his main interlocutor in the Iran nuclear deal negotiations."

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/20 ... gs-mohamm/

Butt out Kerry. What would Sally Yates call it?

[seacoaster]

I think this is the sort of thing Old Salt wanted to keep clear of this forum.

Former Secretaries of State rarely lay down and teach a college class in diplomacy.

[tech37]

I think this is the sort of thing Old Salt wanted to keep clear of this forum.

Former Secretaries of State rarely lay down and teach a college class in diplomacy.

Except when it effects National Security

Nice of you to speak for randy though...

[holmes435]

Yeah you can't really have a discussion about national security without getting political.

[tech37]

Yeah you can't really have a discussion about national security without getting political.

Thanks holmes...agreed

[dislaxxic]

Right, and with that comment in mind, who, after all, is "butting into" the policy more, Pompeo or Kerry??

...and before our rightwingers get apoplectic about this, let's try to remember that the overall policy towards Iran was developed after exhaustive negotiations with NUMEROUS allies in the region and beyond...it was a very carefully crafted policy that Donald promptly blew up with...IMO...uninformed and reactionary responses from our neophyte president...

..

[old salt]

Syrian military shoots down Russian IL-20 surveillance aircraft (losing crew of 15), offshore, mistaking it for Israeli F-16's exiting Syrian airspace, after airstrike on Syrian military facilities supplying Hezbollah attacks on Israel. Russia blames Israel (rhetorically), but responds only diplomatically (so far).

Wrong place. Wrong time. Poor command & control. Poor coordination between Russian & Syrian military commands.
Russia clearly does not want to antagonize Israel or the US. (imho)

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45556290

[seacoaster]

Since we're staring fresh, I'm starting this thread in this forum.

Hopefully we can keep this forum cordial, troll free ,non-political (since there's another forum for that),
& concentrate on substance here -- diplomacy, military matters, overseas conflicts, military history, etc.

In this Forum -- let's attack the bad guys & not each other.

This is all I was referring to; old salt's original post to start this thread. I agree, particularly in this day and age, that it is hard to stay away from the politics when we discuss these issues. I thought Pompeo's comments on Kerry crossed the line that Old Salt tried to draw. Sorry if I offended any tender sensibilities.

[old salt]

Fort Trump, Poland. Naming rights, that should seal the deal.

Poland wants a US Armored Division, permanently based in Poland & is willing to pay $2 billion to build a base.
Russia objects because when NATO expanded, we agreed to not permanently base any forces in former Warsaw Pact nations.
The rest of the EU objects that it would be too provocative to Russia.
US forces presently operating in former Warsaw Pact (now NATO) nations are on rotational deployments from their permanent bases in the US & Germany.

Here's my solution --

Reestablish a full US Armored Division, Aviation Regiment, & support elements back in existing Cold War bases in Germany.
Transfer & reassign personnel, families & equipment from current US bases to re-established permanent (existing bases) in Germany (like Rose Barracks, Vilsek).
Those bases still exist, as do their training ranges.

Spend the $2 billion building a base in Poland to host rotational components, deployed from next door in Germany. (like Camp Humphrey in S Korea, only smaller/cheaper/closer).
Keep 1/3 (or less) of the total rotational combat units in Poland at all times, with the remaining 2/3 back "home" with their families, at their Kaserne in Germany.
The forces in Germany would remain a combat ready, rapidly deployable force, as were their predecessor US forces based in Germany, who deployed to Iraq & Afghanistan during large scale contingencies.

This is the most cost effective way to establish an enduring combat ready US force on NATO's E flank, utilizing existing Cold War bases, reassuring our EU partners of our commitment to NATO, without violating our agreement to not permanently base US forces on Warsaw Pact soil. The US forces permanently based in Germany would be intimately familiar with the terrain, the threat, & be fully integrated with our NATO allies there.

Such an increased US committment to NATO's EU defense should be contingent upon our EU/NATO allies (especially Germany) making a corresponding, proportional commitment to continuously deploy comparable rotational combat forces to the NATO Baltic states.

That should make everyone (except Russia) happy, without increasing US end strength, at minimal added cost to US taxpayers.
We already have 33k troops permanently stationed in Germany, most in HQ & support roles, preparing to support combat units which would fall in from US bases in a contingency. It's now time to permanently station more combat troops in Germany again, increasing the tooth to tail ratio closer to Cold War proportions.

Trump's implying we'd move troops now permanently stationed in Germany to Poland. He's using this threat as a bargaining chip in trade negotiations.
DoD does not want to abandon our remaining infrastructure in Germany. It integrates us into the rest of NATO.
I think the smart move is to increase our forces in Germany, using existing bases there, & build a smaller new base in Poland for our rotating forces from nearby Germany.
Being stationed in Germany (with family) for a full or multiple tours of duty, deploying to nearby Poland (&/or Romania or Bulgaria), for short periods, would be good duty & would yield a very effective US fighting force on NATO's E flank, ...on day one. An effective deterrent, not just a tripwire speed bump.

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your ... in-poland/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/ ... and-russia
https://www.politico.eu/article/poland- ... rzej-duda/
https://www.politico.eu/article/warsaw- ... hout-nato/
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa- ... SKCN1LY2NJ
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/na ... feb73c57d1
https://www.vox.com/2018/9/18/17875518/ ... fort-trump

[old salt]

Since we're staring fresh, I'm starting this thread in this forum.

Hopefully we can keep this forum cordial, troll free ,non-political (since there's another forum for that),
& concentrate on substance here -- diplomacy, military matters, overseas conflicts, military history, etc.

In this Forum -- let's attack the bad guys & not each other.

This is all I was referring to; old salt's original post to start this thread. I agree, particularly in this day and age, that it is hard to stay away from the politics when we discuss these issues. I thought Pompeo's comments on Kerry crossed the line that Old Salt tried to draw. Sorry if I offended any tender sensibilities.

Agreed - seacoaster, tech37, holmes & dis. It's tough to discuss National Security Matters without getting sidetracked into politics, but we seem to be making it work.

Thanks for respecting my request. These are interesting times, notwithstanding the political distractions.

[DMac]

Yes siree, national security matters and the security businesses are cashing in with more and more reasons to search all of you (we) suspects. Get in line to get your ticket, get your $3 clear plastic suspect bag, get in the suspect line to be scanned and searched, then take your smiling (see picture in article...happy, happy), obedient self in to watch the ball game.
"All season ticket holders for football, men’s and women’s basketball, and men’s lacrosse will receive one approved clear plastic tote per two tickets. Approved clear tote bags will be available for purchase at all Syracuse University merchandise locations on the Shaw Quad and inside the Carrier Dome, as well as at the SU Bookstore for $3."
https://news.syr.edu/2018/08/new-clear- ... rier-dome/
Yes, this stuff annoys me, I don't like being treated like a suspect. Been going to the Dome for quite a few decades, never saw a problem in there before all the new security, haven't seen any since the new security measures. Shouldn't be too many more years before all entering will be issued an orange suit with a number on it and an ankle bracelet so their movement can be monitored while in the Dome and they can be easily identified if the security folks deem their behavior suspicious.
Yeah, yeah, I know, it's just what we've got to do (not).

[Typical Lax Dad]

Yes siree, national security matters and the security businesses are cashing in with more and more reasons to search all of you (we) suspects. Get in line to get your ticket, get your $3 clear plastic suspect bag, get in the suspect line to be scanned and searched, then take your smiling (see picture in article...happy, happy), obedient self in to watch the ball game.
"All season ticket holders for football, men’s and women’s basketball, and men’s lacrosse will receive one approved clear plastic tote per two tickets. Approved clear tote bags will be available for purchase at all Syracuse University merchandise locations on the Shaw Quad and inside the Carrier Dome, as well as at the SU Bookstore for $3."
https://news.syr.edu/2018/08/new-clear- ... rier-dome/
Yes, this stuff annoys me, I don't like being treated like a suspect. Been going to the Dome for quite a few decades, never saw a problem in there before all the new security, haven't seen any since the new security measures. Shouldn't be too many more years before all entering will be issued an orange suit with a number on it and an ankle bracelet so their movement can be monitored while in the Dome and they can be easily identified if the security folks deem their behavior suspicious.
Yeah, yeah, I know, it's just what we've got to do (not).

You know what is being treated like a suspect? Being patted down everyday when you leave your summer job......

[old salt]

Interesting perspective on Poland funding Fort Trump

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles ... ato-allies

Two billion dollars is both a lot and not much. It’s a lot compared with the $1 billion the German government has contributed over 10 years toward maintaining the U.S. military’s presence there. It also amounts to a sizable chunk of Poland’s $11.1 billion of annual defense spending.

Marek Swierczynski, a security analyst at the Warsaw think tank Polytika Insight, says the U.S. base can’t be funded from this existing budget — and the government could ask people to pitch in with contributions. He told me the project is that important for Poland, which realizes that it can’t defend itself effectively without inviting U.S. troops. In that context, $2 billion may be a small price for the geopolitical security of a permanent U.S. presence. “It would mean moving the line of defense and the border of the West 1,000 kilometers to the east,” Swierczynski says.

It’s also not a huge amount relative to what the U.S. spends on its military bases. In his 2015 book, “Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World,” David Vine estimated the number of U.S. military bases of all kinds at 800 and their annual running cost at $71.8 billion, not counting the cost of keeping troops and bases in war zones such as Afghanistan and Iraq.

A new big base in Poland would likely increase that figure regardless of Duda’s contribution. But if it takes up the Polish offer, the U.S. could hope to cut spending in future: A precedent for more burden-sharing would be set.

By framing the matter as plainly as he did — “You come, we pay,” in the words of Swierczynski — Duda took the risk of displeasing fellow NATO allies, who may be asked to follow suit or face a wilting U.S. commitment. But they may have little choice but to adopt this transactional approach.

The prospects of a European Union-based security alliance, which both Germany and France would like to establish because of concerns about the reliability of the U.S. military guarantee, are vague. Trump’s demands aren’t, and yielding to them means preserving a status quo that has worked for decades.

Of course, Trump may not be in office long enough to make the decision to station U.S. troops in Poland. But here Duda isn’t taking much of a risk. His country won’t give up on its all-important project after Trump is gone. It will just tailor its pitch for a permanent military presence to his successor.

This is Poland's way to pressure Germany, France, & the smaller EU economies to invest more skin in the game of NATO's fixed defense structure against the threat of a Russian conventional military incursion into sovereign NATO territory (e.g. seizing a corridor to Kaliningrad).

It is obvious that the EU members of NATO want a rapprochement with Russia, so they can continue to buy energy & sell exports to Russia, without having to bear the expense of defending NATO's E border against the threat of a Russian conventional military incursion.

This Cold War stuff is expensive. Our EU allies are happy to have the US continue to bear a disproportionate share of the costs of defending them.
If they're not willing to invest what it takes in their own militaries, they should bear more of the expense of basing US forces in Europe to fill their shortfall.

[old salt]

Our New World (dis)Order. World History since WW-II.
Food for thought as the World comes to NYC for the 2018 UN General Assembly.
Trump's 21st Century Jacksonian NeoIsolationism, in historical context :

https://www.hoover.org/research/trump-b ... orld-order

The present continuance of institutions such as the EU, NATO, UN, and others suggests that the world goes on exactly as before. In fact, these alphabet organizations are becoming shadows of their former selves, more trouble to end than to allow to grow irrelevant. The conditions that created them after the end of World War II, and subsequently sustained them even after the fall of the Berlin Wall, no longer really exist.

The U.S. in 1945, unlike in 1918, rightly stayed engaged in Europe after another world war. America helped to rebuild what the old Axis powers had destroyed in Asia and Europe. At great cost, and at times in both folly and wisdom, the U.S. and its allies faced down 300 Soviet and Warsaw Pact divisions. America contained communist aggression through messy surrogate wars, avoided a nuclear exchange, bankrupted an evil communist empire, and gave Eastern Europe and much of Asia the opportunity for self-determination. New postwar protocols enforced by the U.S. Navy made the idea of global free trade, commerce, travel, and communications a reality in a way never seen since the early Roman Empire.

The original postwar order was recalibrated after 1989, as the Soviet Union vanished and the United States became the world’s sole superpower. On the eve of the First Gulf War, President George H.W. Bush, in a September 11, 1990 address to Congress introduced “the new world order” (the 9/11 date would prove eerie). The Bush administration’s ideal was an American-led, global, and ecumenical community founded on shared devotion to perpetual peace, and pledged to democratic nation-building.

The 1990s were certainly heady times. A year after the fall of the wall, Germany was reunited. A UN-sanctioned global coalition in 1991 forced Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. Francis Fukuyama published The End of History in 1992, suggesting that all the ancient political, economics and military controversies of the past were coalescing into a Western, and mostly American, consensus that was sweeping the globe.
The ensuing world confluence might well make war and other age-old calamities obsolete. The transformation of the once loosely organized and pragmatic European Common Market into a utopian European Union was institutionalized by the Maastricht Treaty of 1993. Fossilized European notions such as borders and nationalism would supposedly give way to a continental-wide shared currency, citizenship, and identity.
For a while these utopian ambitions seemed attainable. America, under the guise of NATO multilateral action, bombed Slobadan Milosevic out of power in 2000. Calm seemed to return to the Balkans at the price of less than 10 American combat deaths. The UN grandly declared no-fly zones in Iraq to stymie a resurgent Saddam Hussein.
President Bill Clinton ushered in a supposedly lasting Middle East peace with the allegedly re-invented old terrorist Yasser Arafat in 1993 at Oslo. Palestinians and Israelis would live side-by-side in adjoining independent nations. Wars would soon give way to economic prosperity that in turn would render their ancient differences obsolete.

Boris Yeltsin’s post-Soviet Russia seemed on the preordained pathway to Western-style consumer capitalism and constitutional government. Hosts of Western intellectuals, academics, and “investors” swarmed into Russia to help speed the inevitable process along.
The former Warsaw Pact nations went from Russian satellites to NATO partners as magnanimous Western statesmen talked glibly of welcoming in Russia to the alliance as well. The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 were considered only a temporary setback for Chinese democracy. Certainly, the commercial arc of retiring reformist Chinese strongman Deng Xiaoping would ultimately bend toward the moral embrace of American ideas like constitutional government and unfettered expression. Everyone just knew that democracy followed capitalism, as day did night.
Western intellectuals bragged of “soft power”. They went so far as to suggest that the moral superiority of Europe’s democratic socialism and its economic clout, fueled by state-aided industries, had overshadowed calcified American ideas of unfettered free enterprise, carrier battle groups, and the resort to military force.
In short, never had the Western world seemed so self-satisfied. The brief calm from 1989 to 2001 was often compared to the legendary 96 years of the so-called “Five Good Emperors” of imperial Rome... In the absence of a cold war, and global chaos, the only crisis that the West seemed to be worried about was “Y2K”, a fanciful notion of a worldwide, computer shutdown at the start of the new millennium. Globalization had delivered 2 billion people out of poverty.

Then the mirage blew away on September 11, 2001, with terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, followed by messy wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria, the spread of radical Islamic terrorism, the 2008 global financial meltdown and decade-long anemic recovery, institutionalized near-zero interest rates and stagnant economic growth, and massive waves of illegal immigration across the Mediterranean into Europe and freely across the U.S. southern border. There were more wars in the Middle East between Israel and a coalition of Hamas, Hezbollah and radical Islamists. Russia made a mockery of the Obama administration reset-button outreach. It annexed the Crimea, absorbed Eastern Ukraine, and in 2012 went back into the Middle East to adjudicate events after a hiatus of nearly 40 years. North Korea ended up with nuclear missiles pointed at Portland and San Francisco.

The United States increasingly found itself isolated and unable to control much of anything. The Obama administration had declared its lethargy a preplanned “lead from behind” new strategy, and contextualized American indifference through the so-called apology tour and the postmodern Cairo Speech of 2009. Certainly, all the old postwar referents were now either impotent or irrelevant.

An increasingly anti-democratic and anti-American European Union started to resemble a neo-Napoleonic “Continental System,” with Germany now playing the imperious role of 19th-century France. Indeed, the EU was soon drawn and quartered. Southern nations resented what they saw as a Prussian financial diktat. Eastern European nations of the EU balked at Berlin’s orders to open their borders to illegal immigrants arriving from the Middle East. The United Kingdom fought Germany over the conditions of Brexit. Its elites soon learned why the people of England wanted free from the German-controlled league.

But it was in the United States that the erosion of the costly postwar order of adjudicating commerce and keeping the peace proved most controversial. An increasing number of Americans no longer bought into the accepted wisdom that an omnipotent, omnipresent U.S., could always easily afford, for the supposed greater good, to underwrite free, but not fair, global trade, police the world, and subsidize the trajectories of new nations into the world democratic community.

In truth, globalization had hollowed out the American interior and created two nations, one of elite coastal corridors where enormous profits accrued from global markets, outsourcing, and offshoring, juxtaposed with a red-state, deindustrialized interior where any muscular job that could be xeroxed abroad more cheaply, eventually was.

Wars were fought at great cost in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, but not won—and often waged at the expense of those Americans often dubbed “losers”. Most NATO members followed Germany’s lead and reneged on their defense spending commitments, despite their greater proximity to the dangers of a resurgent Russia and radical Islam.

Germany itself ran up a $65-billion trade surplus with the U.S. It warped global trade with the world’s largest account surplus, insisted on asymmetrical tariffs in its trade with the US and usually polled the most anti-American nation in Europe—all in the era when the century-old, proverbial “German problem” of Europe was supposedly a long-distant nightmare.

In sum, by 2016 Americans saw the postwar order as a sort of a naked global emperor, about whom all were ordered to lie that he was splendidly clothed.

Then came along the abrasive Donald Trump, who screamed that it was all pretense. What was the worth to America of a postwar order with a $20 trillion national debt, huge trade deficits, and soldiers deployed expensively all over the world—especially when Detroit of 2016 looked like Hiroshima in 1945, and the Hiroshima of today like the Detroit of 1945.

Without regard to the Council on Foreign Relations, the Brookings Institution, or Ivy League government departments, Trump abruptly pulled out of the multilateral Iran Deal. He quit the Paris Climate Accord, bragging that U.S. natural gas did far more in reducing global emissions than the redistributive dreams of Davos grandees. He took up Sarah Palin’s reductive call to “drill, baby, drill,” as the U.S., now the world largest producer of natural gas and oil, made OPEC seem irrelevant.

Trump jawboned NATO members to pony up their long promised, but even longer delinquent, dues—or else. He renegotiated NAFTA and asked why Mexico City had sent 11 to 20 million of its poorest citizens illegally across the border, ran up a $71 billion trade surplus, and garnered $30 billion in remittances from the U.S.

Trump moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, declared the Palestinians no longer refugees after 70 years and thus no more in need of U.S. largess. Likewise, he dissolved US participation with the International Criminal Court, and questioned why the U.S. subsidized a UN that so often derided America.

Both the U.S. and global establishments screamed that Trump had destroyed an ossified postwar order. In its place, Trump’s advisors talked of “principled realism”, a sort of don’t-tread-on-me Jacksonism that did not seek wars, but, if forced, would win them. In a world of multilateral bureaucracies, Trump adopted the of spirit of the Roman general Sulla: allies would find in the U.S. “no better friend”, as enemies learned there was “no worse enemy”. Both trade and war would be now adjudicated through bilateral relations, not international organizations.

In sum, the late 20-century global order of grand illusions had long ago gone comatose, but only now has been taken off life support.
What is next? Perhaps in the 21st century we are returning to the old 19th-century notions of balance of power, reciprocal trade, bilateral alliances, and military deterrence in keeping the peace rather than soft power and UN resolutions.
Trump is blamed for ending the postwar order. But all he did was bury its corpse—very loudly and bigly.

[old salt]

US Army units currently operating in Poland on rotational deployments :