The Last of America’s Wars!

A striking and important phenomenon became apparent in 2011 and was lost amidst a clamor and is a precursor of what is going on in our region. It has not gotten the coverage and interest that it deserves. This phenomenon is represented in a retreat on the international level in terms of America’s role, presence and position, and this has several causes. This is despite the presence of some American researchers and writers who doubt the American retreat and still affirm that America is and will remain the strongest and most influential country on the international stage and that the retreat and atrophy remain partial. This may be true, but reality confirms also that America in 2012 is not the America of years ago in terms of its capabilities, position, prestige, the respect it earns, and its ability to implement and realize what it wants, whether by desire or terrorism.

We clarified throughout the recent past — in this realm — the American role and position, especially in 2011. As we clarified, 2011 was truly a year of historical change, the ramifications and important transformations of which still shape our lives. Thus, in addition, a year has now passed since the Arab Spring — its revolutions and revolutionary movements — and the fall of the first dominoes on the (Arab) chessboard; the tsunami of great change throughout which four Arab heads of state fell and disappeared, including Zein al Abadein in Tunis, Mubarak in Egypt, Gadhafi — who was liquidated in Libya — and the last of them, Ali Abdullah Salih — who after all his postponement and deception and buying of time — went to America for treatment and to return as president of the conference’s party. Likewise, the powerful role of the traditional great nations retreated and the star of the Islamists rose to form an Islamic crescent stretching from Morocco to the Gulf. At the same time, the role and presence of the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council advanced. There was a retreat of a great and influential power in the world order, and at the head of this power was Europe, along with a loss in confidence in the position of the Euro. The most important in this was the appearance of the beginning of the strategic retreat of the most important global superpower, the United States of America. We also recorded, hung and took this distancing, and the evidence of this is in several quotes on this issue throughout the past year.

For decades, the United States remained the primary focal point at the international level, and especially after World War II. America monopolized every kind of power, including a representative soft power, and monopolized its political system and its existence as the first country to engage in a revolution, write a constitution and establish a pluralist Federal system. This is what we clarified in our pronouncements on this subject in the past week. Furthermore, because of America’s wars throughout the past decade that drained America’s financial and human abilities, and the preoccupation in the region stretching from Afghanistan to the Mediterranean, it came to overlook important strategic regions in Asia — overlooking its issues, its nations and its growth, especially China, India, Japan, South Korea and the rest of the Asian Tigers, including North Korea’s nuclear rebellion. There are lively American interests that the U.S. ignored in Europe, Africa and Latin America. Thus, the United States began to ignore these important regions in light of the immersion in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, as well as the war on terrorism.

On Jan. 5, President Barack Obama — who is fighting to win a second term — presented the U.S. defense strategy for the next decade. In summary, it includes a $50 billion trimming of the defense budget over the next 10 years, as well as cuts in the size of America’s armed forces (the military) from 1.5 million to 1.4 million, so that the Defense Department budget will reach $553 billion in 2012. Despite this great decrease in the American defense budget, the U.S. nevertheless remains the country that spends the most on defense and security in the world; spending by itself more than the next 10 biggest countries combined.

The change in America’s defense and security strategy comes in light of fears of America’s shrinking role and a change in its traditional priorities. Likewise, the strategy Obama declared was clarified: U.S. priorities changed from America’s traditional European allies to Asia, specifically China and East Asia. Clear priorities persisted in the region of the Arab Gulf and its neighbors because of energy security, the Arab-Israeli conflict, Iraq, Iran, and the Arab Spring and what accompanies it in the rise of political Islam, especially in light of the American military withdrawal from Iraq and the preparation for withdrawal from Afghanistan. Furthermore, in light of the data, truths, and geo-strategic changes on a regional and international level, the U.S. began to need a new approach, especially with the increase in the public debt, which is the largest in U.S. history, as well as the inability to manage the dangerous budget shortfall, which is described as a threat to American national security. Likewise, the changes in the global system confirm its movement in the direction of multi-polarity and what comes with it in terms of the rise of other centers of state and non-state power.

With dependence on a new American defense strategy, the United States has terminated a strategy which remained a military doctrine throughout the past two decades in the wake of the Cold War, as manifested in its great expenditures on armament and on the armed forces, which depends on ground forces, long wars, spending, and on Washington’s ability to delve into two wars at once, on two separate continents, in order to achieve victory in two theaters of military operation. This has changed into a new military doctrine concentrating on delving into a single short war, on a single operational stage, with an allowance for limited operations on another stage.

With America’s cuts in the armed forces and the defense budget, America’s coming wars will be wars of “necessity” and wars of “shared effort” for a wide front of countries allied with America. Likewise, these wars will be characterized as speedier, with greater reliance on aerial weaponry and less reliance on ground forces and mobile naval forces. Furthermore, America’s future wars will be a decision of last resort, the example for which is the Libyan war wherein “America led from behind”, leaving the leadership to NATO and the European powers. All this will surely — for the reasons that we clarified — make America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan its last large, long and costly wars. And this, consequently, makes Obama the last of the presidents to wage long and costly wars for America the great!