Defending the World isn't Charity

A world that benefits American security and prosperity isn't something that happens by itself. America always has to calculate where the price is right.

We can't do everything to keep the world quiet. And we don’t. But we must do enough in key regions to preserve American national interests. Finding what the right place and the right price is for that effort is a never-ending calculation.

People seem to think this state is a given: 

The U.S. has a vital interest in maintaining a stable world, so leaving some countries to the mercy of others would create long-term pain, even if in the short term it wouldn’t.

America isn't the "world's policeman" in the sense that we are providing a gift of security to the rest of an ungrateful world.

America is defending the post-World War II system that we built out of the wreckage of that war and which benefits America. That system doesn't defend itself like it's a law of nature. The long-term pain would be real and very painful if we allow the instability to grow because we with to avoid too much short-term pain. As I wrote here:

The international "rules-based" system is not some supra-national order that all states abide by. To the extent it exists, it is a system established by America after World War II. It benefits America and those who follow the rules. But it is not globally accepted. And even in the West, raw power often trumps rules.

And we have to pace ourselves both in how much we commit to direct fighting and by limiting ourselves to crucial areas. The latter leaves us open to charges of hypocrisy for intervening in some areas of instability of national interest to us while ignoring others with no national interests threatened. Sorry, but if America intervened everywhere—essentially R2P nonsense that would have dissipated our power and resolve—we actually would be the world's policeman. We would be acting on charitable impulses rather than national interest. Sacrificing too much—whether too much in a non-core area or simply in a non-core area—provokes a domestic backlash. 

Indeed, one reason we are careful with our troops' lives in war in the modern era is that it is difficult to maintain support for war far from our shores when the threat isn't as clear as enemies rampaging through American territory. Making sure it can't get that bad is why we build shields across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

And doing too much would be counter-productive. That is, to defend our security and economic advantages of having a world safer for and contributing to both, we cannot unduly harm our economy, military, alliances, or domestic support because it’s a marathon and not a sprint. 

This kind of backlash has been most noticeable after the Vietnam War and after the War on Terror campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq.

America needs to defend the world. For certain values of “defend” and “world”. It's a delicate balancing act that can swing between doing too little and doing too much. But it is hard to judge. But it is important to keep trying and correcting errors to do the right thing in the right place at the right price. That’s the real “great game” we play.

With a bonus question in that initial article of how fast could America deploy forces to Saudi Arabia to block an Iranian lunge. In case stability there is still important to America. Sorry Kuwait. Prepare now.

NOTE: I made the image with Bing.