Thread: America The worlds police

This global policeman is an euphemism for translating geo-strategic necessities.

In another thread there was lament about the US not intervening in Rwanda. The unfortunate part is that Rwanda is not in the vista of US geo-stategic interest and therefore there was no necessity for the US to intervene. Yet, if it is true that the US did not allow it to be declared a genocide, then there must have been great compulsion in the strategic spectrum for the US to do so.

Morality, sadly, is not a facet of geopolitical or geostrategic realities.

My personal view is as follows:

The collapse of the USSR literally pitch-forked the USA as the sole global superpower.

Given the global geo-strategic realties, this lifetime opportunity for global supremacy was too lucrative to pass. Quite naturally, therefore, the Grand Strategy was to extend this advantage (as the only superpower) as far into the future as feasible.

The danger to this paramountcy was the nations inimical to the USA that harboured ambitions as alternate power centres and the US apprehension that the supremacy might not be in perpetuity. Therefore, rightly, it became essential to re-engineer the world political and strategic physiognomy in favour of the US, or, neutralise antagonism to US interests. This dictated arraigning world strategic resources within the ambit of US control.

However, translating this parametric maze had one lacuna – finances to concretise the ‘coercive infrastructure’ essential.

The impact of U.S. budgetary deficits on the world economy in the next 15 years is contained in the IMF Report issued on 14 April 2004. It postulated that increased U.S. government borrowing, owing to soaring deficits will reduce America's output by 3.7 percent and global economic output by 4.2 percent in the next 15 years. This would leave a legacy of the largest deficits in U.S. history and global economic contraction. After the booming economy of the 1990s, and the cyclical nature of the world economy, it was inevitable that a contraction would take place, impacting a global contraction. Thus, the challenge for any US administration is one of prudent fiscal management and of the world economy through the IFIs. Though this is not the only factor in the budgetary deficits, increasing defence spending pressures and supplemental spending for Iraq in the next 10-15 years will impact policies . However, the fiscal reality indicates that the defence budget would remain the same, with a possibility of diminishing.

The gap between resources and strategy could be resolved not by increasing resources but by short changing strategy. The option was either to prepare for the future by abdicating from the role as the guarantor of the global security order, or take care of current business but be unprepared for tomorrow’s threats and tomorrow’s battlefields.

Keeping the actual geo-strategic and fiscal reality in view, it resulted in the Cheney inspired Defence Policy Guidance of 1992 (DPG) in 1992. Given the near similarity of events currently unfolding in consonance with the postulations of the DPG, it appears too much of a coincidence that the policy being executed is not the 1992 DPG itself.

The DPG aims at ensuring global US supremacy, shaping the world as per US interests and principles and simultaneously preventing alternate power centres.

It essentially encompasses:

• Four Core Mission for the US military, namely:

Defend the US homeland;
Fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theatre wars;
Perform the ‘constabulary’ role associated with shaping the security environment in critical regions;
Transform the US Forces to exploit “revolution in military affairs”;

To achieve these missions, it was incumbent that US:

• Maintain nuclear strategic superiority worldwide.
• Maintain a ‘Base Force’ (as visualised in the strategic perspective), with active duty increased strength of 1.4 million to 1.6 million.
• Configure the quick reaction capability, based on 21st Century strategic realties, via permanent bases in Southeast Europe and Southeast Asia and engineering the naval deployment matrix to be responsive to US strategic concerns in East Asia.
• Selective modernisation of US Forces, proceeding with the F-22 program while increasing purchases of lift, electronic support and other aircraft; expanding submarine and surface combatant fleets; purchasing Comanche helicopters and medium-weight ground vehicles for the Army, and the V-22 Osprey “tilt-rotor” aircraft for the Marine Corps.
• Cancelling “Roadblock’ Programmes (the Joint Strike Fighter, CVX aircraft carrier, and Crusader howitzer system) since it would absorb exorbitant amounts without commensurate payoffs.
• Develop and deploy Global Missile Defence that would protect the US, it allies, as also assist in the global projection of the US power.
• Control The New “International Commons” Of Space And “Cyberspace,” and pave the way for the creation of a new military service – U.S. Space Forces – with the mission of space control.
• Capitalise on ‘Revolution in Military Affairs’ and ensure long term superiority of the US military by:

Applying advanced technologies to maximise current weaponry efficiency;
Inject profound improvements in military capabilities; encourage competition between single services and jointmanship experiments.

• Achieving the goals through gradual increase in defence expenditure to a minimum level of 3.5 to 3.8 of the GDP (gross domestic product), adding $15 billion to $20 billion to the total annual defence spending.
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The above alone could retain US long term dominance; failing which it could pressure some strategic retreat vis a vis the current defence budget which short-changes the long-term strategic dominance and US global leadership since it pressures force withdrawal from strategic areas and abdicating the gains in terms of both economic and strategic influence, to forces inimical to the US.


The keynote to US policy is a paradigm shift from containing the Soviet Union of the Cold War era to ‘expanding democratic zones of peace’ and has transmogrified from a single are of interest (i.e. USSR) to global threats that are strewn in penny packets around the world. The US interventions worldwide no longer will be temporary but will focus on strategy holistically to prevent inroads of force inimical to the US.

To this end, it has become essential for the USA to have bases in the areas of US interest to project a ready response. The invasion of Kuwait by Iraq before the Gulf War I indicated that US global presence was essential to ensure no dramatic drawdown in US strategic eminence leading to negative payoffs.

This view is also in consonance with the NEP.

The US being the World's policeman is a nice phrase coined I think by Lady Thatcher during her time as PM and when she was trying to ensure Ronnie was "focussed" and George didn't "wobble" by getting the rest of the world to buy intos interventions that made poltical US nervous of ending up with another Vietnam.

It isn't so much that the US is patrolling a beat around the world, sorting out the local hoodlums. It is responding to calls from its allies, or proactively looking after its interests.

EricTheRed - your thread should really be entitled "America The world's security company". The US is an extremely interventionist nation, but that gains the US benefits. If you don't agree with that intervention then it has implications on trade, on travel, on security and so on.
If America was the world's policeman, or perhaps "World's Emergency Service" to indicate the other elements of its world role (that of humantiarian aid) - then it would actually be involved more forcefully in places usch as Rwanda.

The US is in a similar position to Victorian Britain. The power to do things anywhere in the world and a genuine belief that it has the moral leadership and responsibility to do so. The Victorians did it through overt imperialism. The US is accused of subtle imperialism. Probably because of how interventinsim used to be conducted (hence why you have to look outside your own lifetime).

Currently the indiscriminate nature of terrorism is slightly clouding, I think the targets and i think our political leaders are happy for that clouding.