Don't Believe the 'Indispensable Nation' Hype
The U.S. can afford to do a lot less militarily around the world, and the rest of the world will manage well enough without the U.S.
Hal Brands indulges in the more of his usual fearmongering:
At best, the consequence of US retrenchment would be greater international disorder. At worst, it would be the liberation of aggressive impulses that consigned the world to terror 85 years ago. America can have the comfort of retrenchment, or it can have the global stability, prosperity and democratic supremacy it created in the aftermath of history’s worst war. It probably can’t have both at the same time.
All of this hinges on the very questionable belief that the continued pursuit of U.S. dominance is essential to the maintenance of international peace and security. This has been the faith of hegemonists since the 1990s when Robert Kagan was talking about America’s “benevolent empire.” Because hegemonists take for granted that U.S. “abstention” in the interwar period was a critical error, they also assume that only bad things can come from U.S. retrenchment today. It is an article of faith that the believers now recite mechanically, but it seems more absurd with every passing year. One need only look at the world that the hegemonists have dominated for the last thirty years to see what they have done with that power and how destabilizing and destructive they have been.