Cooperative Security and Primacy

Got out of class a little while ago and was thinking about some of the things we talked about in class. We were talking about different theories for grand strategy. We discussed neo-isolationism; primacy; cooperative security; and selective engagement. Neo-isolationism has its roots in realism, as does primacy and selective engagement. Cooperative security, on the other hand, has its roots in liberalism. When the class was asked which one they preferred by a show of hands, I was the ONLY person who raised a hand for cooperative security. Most of the class leaned towards selective engagement, about 4 or 5 were for primacy, and no one was for neo-isolationism. It appears that I'm the only liberal in the house. My views are simple, democracies, by definition, are liberal. I am a liberal. Our goals are peace and stability within the world is the only option we have as a species. This peace not only exists as an absence of war, but it also implies environmental well-being for the planet and elimination of poverty. That's the goal of liberalism, and the goal of cooperative security. The other strategies focus on, essentially, ensuring American primacy in the world. Unfortunately, I believe that we need to sacrifice part of that primacy for the well-being of the entire world. We make up a fraction of the world's population, yet we consume most of the world's energy and natural resources. Granted, we are prosperous, but what is our prosperity built on? Subjugation of other countries? In reality, if not in name, slavery of citizens of other countries working in sweatshops to provide the products we want so badly--whether or not we need them? We extoll our virtues throughout the world, only to acquire the resources that other countries have. Instead, we need to be more altruistic, we need to share with the rest of the world. We have to have faith in our fellow man, and we all have to work together for what is in the best interest of the world. If that means surrendering some of our primacy, then sobeit--we can't successfully avert terrorism and threats to our own homeland without working with the rest of the world. Unilateral action is not the way to go, neither is scoffing our allies to do what we want to do regardless of how the rest of the world feels about it. That destroys our respectability throughout the world, and erodes that very primacy that we hold. How long before our allies turn their backs on us and say forget you! The EU is in a prime position to end their bickering, unite and outpace the United States. What is to stop them from doing that if we continue to mock them and not listen to them as an equal--as the world power that they are seeking and rapidly becoming. Their Euro is already more valuable than the american dollar, even though just a few years ago we said it would flop. These are serious times and they require serious actions. Those actions cannot be unilateral, nor can they be ascetic. Instead, we have to take a view of the world that allows us all to work together to provide cooperative security to all. It is as we, collectively, institute rule sets that all follow that our disputes will no longer be resolved by bloodshed and the lives of our sons and daughters. Instead, they will be resolved by amiable diplomacy and sometimes lawyers in world courts. If we are to survive as a species without destroying the planet, it is the only way we can go. The only thing primacy leads to is world capitulation to our desires--yeah right! The world isn't going to turn over and do our bidding, and we are not the borg. We have neither the will nor the ability to sugjugate the entire world. The world would rise against us, and with our already overstretched military, we would lose, and the subjugator would become the subjugated. No, we have to work with the world to do what is best for the world. I've babbled enough on that, though.

The training revolution, as you can read in the post prior to this one, has acquired my ire over the past few days. I can't believe how much we say we are for the sailor, yet our actions show otherwise. The training revolution is being driven on flawed premises, and our sailors and our readiness are going to suffer for it. The Fleet Response Plan (FRP), the new way of fighting wars, is, in my opinion, nothing more than parochialism at its finest--the Navy trying to keep a foothold in a world where our services are almost meaningless. Realistically, we provide almost nothing to the war on terrorism. Aircraft carriers as presence, maybe, their battle group in tow for protection, but it's arguable if they even have a real mission in the war on terrorism. Their design was for wars against states and standing armies--not wars against small cells of resistance here and there. We do provide strategic mobility, but that doesn't justify $1Billion ships that have absolutely nothing to do with stratmob. This is showing, too, in the Navy's force reduction of 60k sailors. Sacrificing sailors for money to build a force to perform a mission that the Navy doesn't have. Once the no-fly zone went away, we were, for all intents and purposes, out of a job--other than preventing piracy on the seas as mandated by the Constitution. Again, I am on a soapbox, so I'll call it quits for now.