Ten years ago the United States was ruthlessly attacked by Muslim extremists operating from bases in a stone-age country on the other side of the world. Almost 3,000 innocent Americans lost their lives to a fanatical version of a religion that is bent on killing our citizens, destroying our country and ending our way of life.
Since then, American military and security personal have engaged this enemy all across the globe. This long war has tested our resolve to press on and not surrender to the easy but false security of isolationism.
Bad men in the past were armed with clubs then armies of men with clubs then more and more sophisticated ways to kill their enemies, but always in the past bad people killed primarily for profit, or plunder, or territory. We now face an enemy that kills for no other reason than we are different, we are a different religion, we support freedom for all people. Now our enemy could be armed with weapons that give them the ability to kill thousands, or tens of thousands at one time.
We must maintain the ability to fight this long asymmetric war while maintaining the ability to defeat a large conventional force. You can’t call close air support from a drone, you can’t have a Bosnia or Libyan type operation without conventional forces. You can’t mobilize a modern military like you did during WWII, we are not going to build an F-22 every hour like we did B- 17’s. What you start a conventional war with - is what you will fight the war with. Presently China has a military twice the size of ours. They have 6000 military aircraft, about equal to the US. China just finished their first aircraft carrier and is rapidly building more. Their front line fighters are as good as or better than ours. Yes, we have stealth fighters and they don’t, but they are working at perfecting it and we have less than 170 operational stealth fighters at this time. General Hackett in his excellent book “WWIII” demonstrated how we quickly run out of things like front line fighters and tanks because our ability and our enemies ability to destroy them is faster than our ability to replace them.
We can’t solve all the world’s problems, and every problem cannot be solved with military power but the tyrants of the world should always be afraid that we might act.
Many people have said to me “we can’t afford to be the world’s policeman”
I am not sure we can afford not to. We cannot retreat to our boarders and maintain our economy and security, the world it too connected. Let a person like Saddam run wild and he will take over the middle east, don’t keep Korea and China in check and they will control Asia. Let murderous dictators attack their neighbors or kill their citizens and that just encourages more dictators. It is in our own interest to promote economic freedom throughout the world. The world must know there is a line and if you cross it your dead body ends up dumped in the sea, people like Bin Laden, Saddam and Hitler only understand overwhelming force. If we are going to be the world’s police I would rather stop the crime in the neighborhood one block over, not wait until it is in my neighborhood.
President Reagan said it best “no one ever attacks you because you are too strong”
Someone has to do it and our allies have deserted us by eliminating any ability they had to fight an offensive war. Believe me, I wish it wasn’t so, I wish my boy was home, but I truly think we, the citizens of the United States of America and our military are the last best hope for civilization. The dark ages are only kept at bay by the US Military and our ability to support it.
