The End of America's Time

A supposedly smart person recently remarked to me that the United States, in many ways, resembled England after World War II. She spoke of England groaning under her war debt after 1945, and her final realization, during the Suez crisis, that the empire was finished. All this is true, but it may not correspond that well to the United States' current position. All the above is true, but England was really done after World War I. She had a great fleet in being, and a remarkable empire that was at or near its maximum reach. Her traditional enemy, Germany, was prostrate, and on the verge of experiencing revolution and inflation that is still the example of what to most fear in economic policy.

England had crushing war debts, much of it to the United States. She repudiated much of them, which earned her no new friends across the Atlantic. But the final, crushing blow was the League of Nations, whose mandates gave England sway over former Ottoman provinces that were nothing but trouble. Elie Khedouri, in “The Chatham House Version,” describes how England desperately wanted to be free of these mandates well before they were scheduled to expire, for they were costing her dearly, at a time when she could ill afford the cost. One result of England's burden was her inability to rearm in the face of a rearming Germany. In fact, even before Germany began rearming, the British Parliament had passed the secret Ten Years Rule, or Pernicious Law (as its opponents called it). The Ten Years Law stated that England could count on ten years warning for a major war, hence, there was no need to further arm or modernize the military until such warning was received. The law was renewed each year (also in secret), pushing the ten year window one more year into the future. That didn't work out too well for them.

The United States has no mandates such as England had, but we do have active and serious military commitments throughout the world. These commitments are crushing. Additionally, every world wide humanitarian crisis demands US attention, both in terms of direct aid, and broad (and expensive) logistics support. It's possible that most of the world doesn't realize the magnitude of the task to move thousands of tons of supplies, whether munitions or food aid, from one point to another in rapid order. The United States has done this frequently, during humanitarian crises going back to 1947. The expense is immense; the cost comes right out of the defense budget. The great expense of flying large quantities of material is lost on most people, but it's not just a matter of money. You must have the equipment and expertise, as well. Owning and maintaining the equipment to do all this is, in itself, remarkably expensive. Even if we are reimbursed for the costs of transporting such aid, the wear and tear on our transport capability shortens the service life of equipment, creating additional hidden costs.

Given our debts, our hollowed out industrial infrastructure, and our appetite for more and more domestic spending, there will come a point when, even pictures of starving, beaten women and children on the nightly news will be insufficient to bring forth US aid.

Then, who will be the pillar of the free world.