The Heritage Foundation can always be counted on to shill for more wars.
In a tweet posted last month, the Heritage Foundation declared “These days, the term “endless wars” is being employed more as political sloganeering than as a serious critique of continued U.S. involvement in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Somalia.”
https://mobile.twitter.com/Heritage/status/1325438678668341250
The foundation tweeted about an article by Dakota Wood, The Heritage Foundation’s Center for National Defense senior research fellow, titled “The Myth of Endless Wars.” Wood justified his argument by making the case that in many countries the U.S. government has military assets parked in, there are “threats to U.S. interests involved, and the larger geopolitical story that shapes policy toward each are unique.” U.S. interests are vaguely defined. Is it in the U.S. interest to police every corner of the world when we have a failed state in Mexico across our border? The Middle East will always be unstable and in no way will become a bastion for liberal democracies anytime soon.
Even if these areas are incredibly unstable, domestic actors in that region and stronger actors should be the ones tasked with stabilizing those regions by putting their blood and treasure on the line. Maintaining close to 9,000 troops in Afghanistan, a country marked by religious fanaticism and dysfunctional governance makes no sense. It makes more sense to let Iran, China, or Russia waste their time and energy in that region. Similar cases exist with Iraq, Somalia, and Syria where the U.S. still has a military presence under the ostensible purpose of conducting counter-terrorist operations.
Although troop numbers have been reduced in the Middle East, the U.S. government still maintains an oversized military presence abroad. As Wood observed, there are “2.1 million active and reserve uniformed military is engaged abroad in active operations.” Outside of securing trade routes on the seas, there seems to be very little use for having that many troops stationed abroad. This rings especially true when we realize that many countries where American military personnel are stationed are more than capable of furnishing their own military forces and building a security apparatus independent of the U.S. We’re living in the 21st century, not the prior century. Thus, we need a foreign policy that reflects that.
Whatever good the Heritage Foundation does on economics, it is totally erased by its constant warmongering. This has been a perennial problem with Conservatism Inc., which has a major blind spot for foreign adventures and world policing.
Any proper American nationalist movement, should ignore the foreign policy prescriptions of the Heritage Foundation. They’re America Last through and through and only serve to advance the interests of the defense industry.
