Joel Mathis

The former national security advisor writes this morning about how to confront and accomodate China's rise: By making allies with everybody else! A successful U.S. effort to enlarge the West, making it the world's most stable and democratic zone, would seek to combine power with principle. A cooperative, larger West—extending from North America and Europe through Eurasia (by eventually embracing Russia and Turkey), all the way to Japan and South Korea—would enhance the appeal of the West's core principles for other cultures, thus encouraging the gradual emergence of a universal democratic political culture. I could be wrong, but Brezezinski seems to want to enlarge the West to include ... everyplace but China and Africa. And I could be wrong, but that seems to be far too large a coalition to actually be effective. As we're seeing in Europe, it's tough to hold continental coalitions together—there are just so many competing interests. Growing the "West"—ev

A few weeks ago I pondered what America would look like if Andrew Bacevich ran the country . Though Bacevich rejects the term "isolationism" to describe his worldview, it's a term that'll do in a pinch: He essentially envisions the United States divesting itself of overseas military commitments and bringing troops home so that A) the defense establishment can concentrate on defending the United States, instead of projecting power around the world and B) the United States can start to live, fiscally, within its means. Turns out Bacevich's vision has some fans inside military circles. The latest issue of Military Review -- one of the Army's intellectual journals, published at Fort Leavenworth -- contains an article retired Navy Commander John Kuehn , an associate professor of military history at the Army's Command and General Staff College for rising career officers at Leavnworth. His piece references and echoes Bacevich. Prior to the outbreak of World W