It would be a wonderful thing if we could reign in the politicians and 'bring the boys back home'. Who's gonna do that though? You heard Gore the other night, he isn't in favor of 'isolationism', if anything he is more in favor of global intervention than Bush is.

The problem is we have treaty obligations all over the world....umm this is what I meant about needing 12 carriers to maintain the commitments we have without adding new ones; it takes three carriers to hold one station...there is one at sea on active duty, one at home undergoing repair and refit, and one either coming home or heading out. To meet our treaty obligations we have to keep one on station in the Indian Ocean, one for the Sea of Japan/South China Sea (that one is more or less pulling double duty), one in the Mediterranean, and one in the Persian Gulf. 12 carriers sounds like a lot but when you look at how they are deployed, it ain't.

I would love to bring home the thirty thousand troops in Korea. If the North ever decided to take another whack at the South, those thirty thousand men aren't even going to slow them down much....they are just under-strength for the job. But...there are enough of them that the casualties would be high enough to seriously piss off the American public and drag us into the war. They are human landmines....personally I think it is wrong to use American service men (and women) like that.

But the population has been conditioned to believe that we are the world's policemen. If Gore decided to make bringing them home part of his platform, the Republicans would be all over him (weakness in the face of the international communist/terrorist threat, leaving our allies out to dry, etc.). The same goes for Bush....you know if he proposed it the Democrats would eat him for breakfast (Buchanonite isolationist, retreating from our position as leader of the world, etc.). It is a viscious circle.

Also if we were to pull back and limit our global meddling to things that DIRECTLY affect the US, we are going to have to get used to seeing terrible things on TV. We would not even be able to consider rolling into places like Bosnia or Kosovo.

The Europeans would have an absolute cow. They have spent 50 years building their social democracies. They have been able to do this by living under the US nuclear umbrella and by diverting money that they would have to put into defense spending into social programs. They have lived with the happy assurance that if things go to hell in Europe the US will definitely step in. You take away that guarantee and they will panic.

It's a bitch ain't it.....