In an age when U.S. power can be projected through private mercenary armies and unmanned Predator drones, the US military need no longer rely on massive, conventional ground forces to pursue its imperial agenda, a fact President Barack Obama is now acknowledging. But make no mistake: while the tactics may be changing, the US taxpayer – and poor foreigners abroad – will still be saddled with overblown military budgets and militaristic policies.
Speaking January 5 alongside his Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, the president announced a shift in strategy for the American military, one that emphasizes aerial campaigns and proxy wars as opposed to "long-term nation-building with large military footprints." This, to some pundits and politicians, is considered a tectonic shift.
Indeed, the way some on the left tell it, the strategy marks a radical departure from the imperial status quo. "Obama just repudiated the past decade of forever war policy," gushed Rolling Stone reporter Michael Hastings, calling the new strategy a "[s]lap in the face to the generals."
Conservative hawks, meanwhile, predictably declared that the sky is falling. "This is a lead from behind strategy for a left-behind America," cried hyperventilating California Republican Buck McKeon, chairman the House Armed Services Committee. "This strategy ensures American decline in exchange for more failed domestic programs." In McKeon’s world, feeding the war machine is preferable to feeding poor people.
Unfortunately, though, rather than renouncing empire and endless war, Obama’s stated strategy for the military going forward just reaffirms the US commitment to both. Rather than renouncing the last decade of war, it states that the bloody and disastrous occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan – gently termed "extended operations" – were pursued "to bring stability to those countries."
