I don’t know if Mark Steyn would agree with my characterization, but his new National Review column presents a very powerful case for libertarian foreign policy.
As is so often the case with Steyn’s writing, it’s very clever and often funny, but it’s also a remarkable indictment of interventionism and international bureaucracies. It’s only available for subscribers, but here’s an excerpt.
Thanks to American defense welfare, NATO is a military alliance made up of allies that no longer have militaries. In the Cold War, that had a kind of logic: Europe was the designated battlefield, so, whether or not they had any tanks, they had, very literally, skin in the game. But the Cold War ended and NATO lingered on, evolving into a global Super Friends made up of folks who aren’t Super and don’t like each other terribly much. At the beginning of the Afghan campaign, Washington invested huge amounts of diplomatic effort trying to rouse its allies into the merest gestures of war-making: The 2004 NATO summit was hailed as a landmark success after the alliance’s 26 members agreed to commit an extra 600 troops and three helicopters. That averages out at 23.08 troops per country, plus almost a ninth of a helicopter apiece. Half a decade of quagmire later, Washington was investing even larger amounts of diplomatic effort failing to rouse its allies into the most perfunctory gestures of non-combat pantywaist transnationalism: We know that, under ever more refined rules of engagement, certain allies won’t go out at night, or in snow, or in provinces where there’s fighting going on, so, by the 2010 NATO confab, Robert Gates was reduced to complaining that the allies’ promised 450 “trainers” for the Afghan National Army had failed to materialize. Supposedly 46 nations are contributing to the allied effort in Afghanistan, so that would work out at ten “trainers” per country. Imagine if the energy expended in these ridiculous (and in some cases profoundly damaging) transnational fig leaves had been directed into more quaintly conventional channels — like, say, identifying America’s national interest and pursuing it. …Transnational do-gooding is political correctness on tour. It takes the relativist assumptions of the multiculti varsity and applies them geopolitically: The white man’s burden meets liberal guilt. No wealthy developed nation should have a national interest, because a national interest is a selfish interest. …in an era of Massively Applied Desultoriness, we spend a fortune going to war with one hand tied behind our back. The Forty-Three Percent Global Operating Industrial Military Complex isn’t too big to fail, but it is perhaps too big to win — as our enemies understand. So on we stagger, with Cold War institutions, transnational sensibilities, politically correct solicitousness, fraudulent preening pseudo–nation building, expensive gizmos, little will, and no war aims . . . but real American lives.
[…] third item deals with America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, which was the right policy but the wrong […]
[…] can be against war with Russia, against Ukrainian membership in NATO, and even be skeptical about NATO’s continued existence, but still cheer for Ukraine as it defends itself from Putin’s […]
[…] the big savings from defense budget can be achieved by reevaluating whether it makes sense to maintain alliances against enemies that no longer exist, along with reconsidering the wisdom of nation […]
[…] that the big savings from defense budget can be achieved by reevaluating whether it makes sense to maintain alliances against enemies that no longer exist, along with reconsidering the wisdom of nation […]
[…] also don’t seem very fond of nation building, which also pleases me. And I also am somewhat sympathetic to their arguments about national unity – assuming […]
[…] to any potential adversaries, and I also think we shouldn’t squander blood and treasure on overseas nation building). But even if one believes in more defense spending, why add huge increases in domestic […]
[…] to any potential adversaries, and I also think we shouldn’t squander blood and treasure on overseas nation building). But even if one believes in more defense spending, why add huge increases in domestic […]
[…] the right side of some random issues (for all I know, maybe Nazis and commies oppose Trump’s foolish choice to expand U.S. intervention in […]
[…] the right side of some random issues (for all I know, maybe Nazis and commies oppose Trump’s foolish choice to expand U.S. intervention in […]
[…] affairs, but then I point out that I’m not a fan of nation building (see George Will and Mark Steyn on this topic), so I tell people that I’m very sympathetic to the proposition that trillions […]
[…] libertarian approach (illustrated by George Will, Barack Obama (in theory but not practice), and Mark Steyn is based on prudence and a Bastiat-like appreciation for unintended […]
[…] further information, read George Will’s sober analysis and also peruse some writings by Mark Steyn and Steve […]
[…] intervening in the Middle East. I suspect many of them would want to kill us even if we had a perfect libertarian foreign policy of non-intervention and peaceful global […]
[…] Excerpts from some of my other favorite Mark Steyn columns can be read here, here, here, here, here, here, and […]
[…] Excerpts from some of my other favorite Mark Steyn columns can be read here, here, here, here, here, here, and […]
[…] Excerpts from some of my other favorite Mark Steyn columns can be read here, here, here, here, here, here, and […]
…. That averages out at 23.08 troops per country, plus almost a ninth of a helicopter apiece ….
From among the Europeons’ Newo-Soviet’s squalidly fascissocialist on-and-offshore member and satellite states, that is, considerably less a “contribution” than that made by our Australian First Cousins:- who, with the Israelis are – on Earth – one of America’s only two actual allies worthy of the name!
[…] my colleagues from the Cato Institute. You also can’t go wrong by perusing these columns by Mark Steyn, George Will, and Steve […]
[…] already shared some analysis of Mark Steyn’s libertarian-leaning views on foreign policy, so it’s very timely to see what he just wrote about […]
[…] An argument for libertarian foreign policy. […]
[…] To be sure, there are also big picture issues of national security that have to be resolved. Is NATO now an anachronism, as Steve Chapman persuasively argues? Is overseas intervention a pointless exercise, as Mark Steyn explains? […]
[…] they’re at it, that may want to also peruse some writings by Mark Steyn and Steve Chapman. A defense sequester might be an especially good result if it leads to some […]
[…] Mark Steyn and Steve Chapman are correct and it is time to revisit our spending on NATO, an alliance that was […]
[…] still exists. If you read this column and Mark Steyn’s recent National Review article (which I blogged about here), you will have a good grasp of what makes libertarian foreign policy very compelling. Defense […]
Ron, Catell: fair points; but the fault is mine for expressing myself badly. It is true that nobody around here pays as much for defense as the Americans do; but the question is: what incentives do we have to spend more? Frankly, I’d rather spend more because it’s better to be safe than sorry; but our gov.s aren’t going to spend more just because Gates asks us, let alone Mark Steyn.
As for Afghanistan in particular: as I said, help was offered immediately after 9/11, but as I remember, Bush waited to accept it until the Iraq war: not a good time to ask for help, either from those who already sent troops to Iraq or from those who refused to. Also, I get the impression that what help was offered, was appreciated for its absolute size, not relative to what each country can offer; probably not by Gates, but apparently by Steyn: see his calculations of average contributions/country.
Unless you live in the UK, the amount of taxes all other Europeans were forced to contribute per capita for Afghanistan are a pittance compared to what Americans have been forced to pay per capita.
“And what do I get for my tax money?”
Well, that is the question – isn’t it? A question answered very directly by Mr. Steyn’s excellent article.
You. Got. Nothing. You paid taxes that were supposed to be used to support the mission in AF and your leaders delivered nothing but window dressing and ‘non-combatant’ or ‘support’ missions so remarkably inept that they are worse than useless. Political play-toys and little else.
Perhaps the question you should be asking is ‘Where did my tax money go?’.
First of all, I should declare an interest: all the countries in which I lived and paid taxes, supported the Afghanistan mission from the start (and were snubbed by Bush until 2004); all the **European** countries in which I lived and paid taxes, supported the Iraq war.
And what do I get for my tax money? English twits like Mark Steyn sneering at “European” foreign policy. Given these incentives, is it any wonder if I myself sneer at Robert Gates, and sneer even more insolently at Mark Steyn?
The European welfare states have offloaded a major portion of their defense bills to Americans. Also, the European welfare states have the most competent citizens in the world – as individuals. Yet the indolent incentives of their welfare states keep them anchored down to a 1-2% annual economic growth trendline. Imagine how well America will fare as we are now adopting the same incentives to indolence.
Higher production through the indolent incentives of the welfare state. The Krugmanesque dream lives on! and America’s self-destructive decline is now firmly rooted!