A new British think tank report urges the United Kingdom to have
more modest military aspirations.
Reports the National Newspaper: "Britain
should stop trying to be 'a mini-United States' and give up
maintaining armed forces capable of policing world trouble spots,
a report from an influential think tank said yesterday."
Business as usual simply won't work in today's world,
especially in the midst of economic crisis. Added the
National:
Lord Paddy Ashdown, joint chairman of the panel and a former
international high representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina,
told the BBC yesterday: "One conclusion we arrive at is that we
can no longer afford to maintain a museum of Cold War
armaments.
"We can no longer afford to maintain full-spectrum armed forces
capable of operating anywhere in the globe like a mini-United
States."
Lord George Robertson, co-chairman of the panel and a former
Nato secretary general, added: "In the post-9/11,
post-financial crisis world, we must be smarter and more
ruthless in targeting national resources as the real security
risks.
A more realistic military policy centered more on genuine
national defense? I don't know about Britain, but it sure
sounds like a good idea for America!
About the Author
Doug Bandow is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and the Senior Fellow in International Religious Persecution at the Institute on Religion and Public Policy. A former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is author of Beyond Good Intentions: A Biblical View of Politics (Crossway).
