Quote Originally Posted by Furunculus View Post
history can be a prison, my friend.

the last 250 years have been the atlantic centuries, where european geopolitics touched the world.
We are now a backwater.

The next 250 years will be the pacific centuries, where asian geopolitics will touch us.
Any european nation that see's itself as a do-er (rather than a taker) will be going there.

That list of european do-er's can be summed as; Britain and France.
As long as we maintain useful expeditionary capability, relative to that offered by the rest of the world (and the will to use it), then will be of interest to those asian nations.
We're continuing to downsize our military. Our economy is also going down, even relative to where we were a couple of years ago. How are we going to be a doer? If you really want us to be a doer, you should have been looking to maintain our economy at as high a level as possible.