Although I qualify as a liberal/progressive I have found The American Conservative magazine a source of wisdom over the years. This article is no exception:12 Reasons America Doesn’t Win Its Wars. Go to the linked article for the 12 reasons but the bottom line is there is no money to be made by winning and lots of money to be made by continuous war. The late great Dwight David Eisenhower tried to warn us about The Militarily Industrial Complex but we didn’t listen and have as a result squandered blood and treasure. Is this about to change? We can hope so.
Ideas to limit Washington’s profligacy of interventions are beginning to break through into the media, though. Fareed Zakaria supported Rand Paul, writing that he was “forcing Republicans and many Democrats to defend what has become a lazy, smug consensus in favor of an ever-expanding national security state.” The very respected Peggy Noonan now writes that “we spend too much on the military which not only adds to our debt, but guarantees that our weapons will be used.” She quotes policy expert Ian Bremmer—“Policy makers will find uses for them to justify their expense which will implicate us in crises that are none of our business.”
We can only hope that sanity will replace greed when it comes to foreign policy but I must admit I don’t have much hope.