Must the U.S. Disengage?

A NEW round of questioning has begun in a very old debate: Should the United States continue to deploy military forces globally? The context of this debate—the first U.S. presidential election of the post-cold-war era—is the only new factor, although it is also the critical one, raising the second question: Does the end of the cold war vitiate the need for a substantial American combat presence in Europe?

Put simply, the absence of a serious military threat from the former Soviet Union appears to delegitimize the very foundation of the postwar security structure. Add to that the increased support among key European governments for a supra-European collective security structure (where the role of the United States is at best unclear), and powerful arguments that American budgetary pressures and urgent domestic priorities require substantial reductions in spending on defense and foreign assistance, and the historic American desire to disengage becomes nearly irresistible.

JS

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Jed C. Snyder

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A NEW round of questioning has begun in a very old debate: Should the United States continue to deploy military forces globally? The context of this debate—the first U.S. presidential election of the post-cold-war era—is the only new factor, although it is also the critical one, raising the second question: Does the end of the cold war vitiate the need for a substantial American combat presence in Europe?

Put simply, the absence of a serious military threat from the former Soviet Union appears to delegitimize the very foundation of the postwar security structure. Add to that the increased support among key European governments for a supra-European collective security structure (where the role of the United States is at best unclear), and powerful arguments that American budgetary pressures and urgent domestic priorities require substantial reductions in spending on defense and foreign assistance, and the historic American desire to disengage becomes nearly irresistible.