A Republic, Not an Empire: on Defense

US hegemony will backfire to create a less secure world

Our hegemonists our confident that America’s power is too great for any to resist. History teaches otherwise. Every attempt to establish hegemony incites resentment and hostility. Weaker nations instinctively seek security in each other, creating the very combinations the hegemonists most fear. It is a law of history: The thesis calls into being the antithesis; the weak collude to balance off the strong. Source: “A Republic, Not an Empire,” p. 24

Stalin & USSR caused Cold War; not Truman & US

Historians who charge America & Truman with causing the Cold War by abandoning FDR’s policy of cooperation with Stalin do both the nation and the man an injustice. The charge that America exploited its power and sole possession of the atom bomb to bully the USSR is propaganda. Truman was not the father of the Cold War, Stalin was. His betrayal of war-time pledges and outrages across Soviet-occupied Europe opened America’s eyes to the character of our ex-ally and turned the nation toward confrontation. Source: “A Republic, Not an Empire,” p.307-8

NATO was conceived as a temporary alliance

Did America’s Cold War alliances -- NATO, CENTO, SEATO, the ANZUS and Rio pacts, and security treaties with Korea, Japan, Taiwan -- violate George Washington’s “great rule” against permanent alliances? No. When created, these were to be temporary alliances to endure only as long as the crisis endured. US troops would remain in Europe only until Europe could rise to its own feet to man its own defenses. Eisenhower estimated that would take ten years. Source: “A Republic, Not an Empire,” p.310

We lost Vietnam because we fought on THEIR terms

[Vietnam] was an attempt to defeat the enemy on the enemy’s terms, a concept that ran counter to every strategic principle of warfare, but appealed to the academic-minded “best and the brightest.” Although the US had more than adequate power to defeat Hanoi, it never had a strategic plan for final victory or the will to pursue such a strategy. Johnson picked the most expensive war option, and then pursued it incrementally to avoid the higher costs--a formula for failure that produced failure. Source: “A Republic, Not an Empire,” p.313-4

US never committed to Vietnam victory; as Great Power must

Vietnam was a legitimate war of containment that could have been won... if the US had used its full conventional power and refused to set geographic limits on the use of that power. There was, and is, an argument for Vietnam; there was never an argument for fighting it as we did. It is the mark of a Great Power that when it commits itself to war, it commits itself to victory, and all the force necessary to prevail. We did not. America lost because of a collapse of will of its political elite. Source: “A Republic, Not an Empire,” p.321

No Pax Americana for post-Cold War

A 1989 forum on a new foreign policy for an era in which no great enemy threatened [elicited] calls for imposing a “Pax Americana” or “global hegemony.” Columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote that we should “integrate” America, Europe, and Japan in a “supersovereign” entity. This “new universalism,” he wrote, “is not as outrageous as it sounds.” Not to Krauthammer, but surely to the Patriot Fathers. The Krauthammer superstate would be a betrayal of everything for which the Republic stood. In a rebuttal piece titled “America First -- and Second, and Third,” I wrote that Krauthammer’s vision was un-American, and failed “the most fundamental test of any foreign policy: Americans will not fight for it.” A nation’s purpose, I added, is to be “discovered not by consulting ideologies, but by reviewing its history, by searching the hearts of its people.” Urging adoption of a policy of “enlightened nationalism,” I wrote [that we should pursue] “total withdrawal of US troops from Europe.” Source: “A Republic, Not an Empire,” p.325

New World Order ties down US without vital interests

[With the collapse of the USSR], all that America had ever sought had come to pass. Yet rather than seize the opportunity to pull up our “trip wires” around the world and shed unwanted commitments -- to recapture our freedom of action and restore a traditional foreign policy -- internationalists joined with globalists to tie down America like Gulliver in some “New World Order” where US wealth and power would be put at the service of causes having nothing to do with the vital interests of the US. Source: “A Republic, Not an Empire,” p.327

Soldiers volunteer to defend US, not UN

The men and women of the US military volunteer to defend America -- its honor, citizens, and vital interests -- not to serve as Hessians of a New World Order. Not every beast needs to be hunted down and killed; some are best left alone to live and die in their part of the forest. No “world community” can ever replace the patria. Ultimately, men fight and die for the “ashes of their fathers and the temples of their gods”, not some New World Order. Who would give his life--for the United Nations? Source: “A Republic, Not an Empire,” p.362

Annex Greenland

As for Greenland, the last great empty space in the Western Hemisphere, this huge island should remain permanently inside the US defense perimeter, and eventually be formally annexed by the US. Greenland lacks the requisites of nationhood. Source: “A Republic, Not an Empire,” p.370

UK, France, & Germany should defend Europe

With the Cold War won, it is time that Europe re-assumes full responsibility for its own defense. Western Europe has never been more secure. France & Great Britain, with nuclear weapons, are capable of defending themselves. A united and democratic Germany is fully capable of resuming its historic role of defending Central Europe. How long should 260 million Americans have to defend 360 million rich Europeans -- from 160 million impoverished Russians? Source: “A Republic, Not an Empire,” p.384-5

Transfer NATO Army to Germany & Navy to France

The US should withdraw all its ground troops from Europe and amend the NATO treaty so that involvement in future European wars is an option, not a certainty. Transfer command of NATO ground forces to a German general, and, after detaching the US Sixth Fleet, transfer NATO’s southern command to a French admiral. The role of America in Europe should not be as a frontline fighting state, but as the arsenal of democracy and strategic reserve of the West. Source: “A Republic, Not an Empire,” p.385-6

*The above quotations are from A Republic, Not an Empire, by Pat Buchanan.* Click here for definitions & background information on Defense. Click here for more quotes by Pat Buchanan on Defense.
*Other candidates on Defense:*
Pat Buchanan George W. Bush Al Gore Ralph Nader Harry Browne Dick Cheney Joe Lieberman *2002 Candidates:* Elizabeth Dole Janet Reno Jeb Bush Robert Reich	*Withdrawn Candidates:* Lamar Alexander Gary Bauer Bill Bradley Steve Forbes Orrin Hatch John Kasich Alan Keyes John McCain Dan Quayle Bob Smith Donald Trump Paul Wellstone
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