Perception: The size and reach of U.S. military power is unnecessary in today’s world.
Reality: As U.S. military power diminishes, the vacuum will be filled by rival military powers, not some mythical democratic international arbitrator.
Robert Kagan – a Romney advisor – points out what isolationists like Ron Paul never seem to acknowledge:
But there is a danger in taking this wisdom too far and forgetting just how important U.S. military power has been in building and sustaining the present liberal international order.
That order has rested significantly on the U.S. ability to provide security in parts of the world, such as Europe and Asia, that had known endless cycles of warfare before the arrival of the United States. The world’s free-trade, free-market economy has depended on America’s ability to keep trade routes open, even during times of conflict. And the remarkably wide spread of democracy around the world owes something to America’s ability to provide support to democratic forces under siege and to protect peoples from dictators such as Moammar Gaddafi and Slobodan Milosevic. Some find it absurd that the United States should have a larger military than the next 10 nations combined. But that gap in military power has probably been the greatest factor in upholding an international system that, in historical terms, is unique — and uniquely beneficial to Americans.
The entire Robert Kagan article in the Washington Post is copied at end of this blog post.

