Understanding the role alliance systems play in international politics is a basic requirement for any successful statesmen.  Judging by the administration’s impartial treatment of other nations (both allies and adversaries), it appears as though this important fact is lost on the president and his senior advisors.  Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War communicates not only the centrality of military power in the conduct of international politics but the critical role of alliance systems.  While its primary actors were the city-states of Athens and Sparta, the story of the Peloponnesian War is a tale of alliance systems.  In the end, it was the Spartan-led Peloponnesian League that defeated the Athenian-led Delian League.

Now consider President Obama’s treatment of Egypt (a U.S. ally) and Libya (a U.S. adversary).  The Obama administration was more than eager to push former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak from power.  The president held two major press conferences and issued numerous statements through White House channels urging, albeit in sometimes veiled language, for Mubarak to step aside.  Mubarak, a benign dictator and strong U.S. ally, received no support from the White House during the crisis, whose message was based more on platitudes than substantive and thoughtful policy.  Now a military dictatorship has supplanted Mubarak and it appears that elections may follow at a later date.  The risk, of course, is that an Islamist government assumes power democratically and then proceeds to turn Egypt into a one-party state.

Now take Libya and its flamboyant and repressive leader, Muammar Gaddafi, who has masterminded and been linked to numerous terrorist attacks over the last four decades, many of which have led directly to American deaths.  Some of Gaddafi’s terrorist bona fides include:  the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre, the 1986 bombing of the German discotheque, and Pan Am Flight 103.  During the recent protests, Gaddafi has used tanks, helicopters, and fighter aircraft to attack civilian protesters (one report puts the death toll at 560); Mubarak did no such thing in attempting to maintain civil order during the protests in Egypt.

One would reasonably assume that Gaddafi’s regime should be on the receiving end of much more critical rhetoric from the White House.  However, it was Egypt—a U.S. ally—which received more pointed criticism from the White House, along with the de facto request that Mubarak step aside so that another dictatorship could assume the reins of power.  Gaddafi—a longtime adversary with American blood on his hands—has received virtually the same treatment afforded Mubarak.  What type of message does this send to U.S. allies?  Certainly not a message of consistency, credibility, or reassurance.

During the 2009-2010 popular uprisings in Iran following the Iranian presidential election, the White House was mostly reticent as the regime violently suppressed the protests.  Again, President Obama’s reticence is difficult to understand; the protesters were standing in opposition to the brutally repressive and staunchly anti-U.S. regime in Tehran.  Washington should have been more vocal in its support of the protesters.  The Obama administration’s inconsistency in dealing with Egypt and Libya highlights its poor understanding of the role alliances play in international politics.  The president and his senior advisors need to re-read Thucydides.

Either you’re serious about cutting spending or you’re not.  Despite his tough talk, Cantor let down the voters of Virginia.  We have no money.  We’re broke.  This isn’t the first time that Cantor has failed voters.  In 2009, Cantor and 84 other Republicans voted to support the unconstitutional AIG bonus tax.  These firms shouldn’t have been bailed out in the first place but passing a law taxing individuals only added insult to injury. 

Has the Republican leadership forgotten about the elections of November 2010?  The Tea Party movement should be angry.  Republicans who talk tough about spending cuts and then fail to deliver on critical votes are no better than their liberal-progressive counterparts.  This was an important vote.  Even if the measure had passed, $100 billion doesn’t even big to scratch the surface.  If the Republicans are going to accomplish any of their objectives they need strong conservatives in leadership positions.  Cantor should step aside.

Liberals and Democrats are split into two camps:  There are those Democrats who remember the Left’s shameful behavior during the Vietnam War and are reluctant to propose cuts out of fear for appearing weak.  Then there are liberals and Democrats who can’t cut enough from the defense budget and have lost sight of the important fact that one of the few constitutional responsibilities of the federal government is to provide for the “common defence.”

Then there is a third category which includes liberals and Democrats, conservatives and Republicans:  politicians with defense contractors in their states.  These politicians are reluctant to cut defense programs even when they’re no longer needed in order to protect jobs in their districts and states.  The F-22 is a case in point.

So what did President Obama do with the Fiscal Year (FY) 2012 defense budget?  He did what was politically safe and made no cuts to the baseline budget but slightly reduced funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  As a liberal Democrat, he is extra sensitive to being perceived as weak and can’t afford the political risks associated with larger cuts to the defense budget; he does want a second term so why stoke the Jimmy Carter comparisons?  Justin Fishel writing at FoxNews.com provides a good snapshot of the FY 2010, 2011, and 2012 budgets:

In 2010 there was a base budget of $531 billion, with an additional $130 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, known as OCO (Overseas Contingency Operations) funding. President Bush called it Global War on Terror or GWOT funding, a term dropped by Obama. Later in 2010 President Obama added another $33 billion in supplemental spending to fund the 30,000-man troop surge in Afghanistan.

2010 grand total: $694,000,000,000

The proposal for FY 2011 asked for a $549 billion base, with $159 in OCO spending.

2011 proposed grand total: $708,000,000,000

The FY 2012 defense budget asks for $553 billion in base spending, with $118 billion for the wars. That significant decrease in war spending is directly related to heavy troop withdrawals in Iraq.

2012 proposed grand total: $671,000,000,000

In January Secretary Gates announced a plan to cut $78 billion in defense spending over five years.  The largest savings would come from shrinking the size of the Army by 27,000 soldiers and the Marines by 15 – 20,000 in the year 2015.  That assumes the war in Afghanistan will be over for the U.S. by the end of 2014.

If you’re going to cut defense spending it makes sense to slash ineffective pet programs, of which the Pentagon has many, rather than funds for ongoing operations in Iraq and, especially, Afghanistan.  I don’t agree with our current strategy in Afghanistan, but if we have troops in harm’s way we have  a moral obligation to fully fund them.  Anyone who has worked in the Pentagon has seen these pet programs and inefficiencies, though Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has made some significant progress in streamling Pentagon operations.

Thinking about the defense budget in a vacuum is strategically unsound but a common practice in Washington.   A budget is required to help an organization achieve its objectives; a budget is a means to an end.  So this begs the question:  what is our grand strategy?  Rather than reflexively opposing cuts to the defense budget, conservatives should not cower from reasonable cuts to the defense budget.  Any analysis should consider the following four questions:

• For what reasons does America engage in foreign affairs?
• What are America’s national interests?
• What are the threats those interests?
• What is America’s grand strategy?

The answers to these questions will determine what kind of military is required to support these ends and how much it will cost.  I believe that our current grand strategy is too costly and disconnected from the national interest and Constitution.  I recently laid out my vision for a conservative foreign policy in the Washington Examiner in a piece entitled, “It’s time to end big government internationalism.” In it I argued:

Since the end of the Cold War, American statesmen have defined the national interest in far too broad of terms, squandering taxpayer dollars in support of a foreign policy that does not clearly advance America’s core national interests.  In FY 2008, Washington provided foreign aid to about 154 countries.  Today, the U.S. military has a presence in about 150 countries.  The majority of these aid packages and military deployments do little to promote America’s national interests; still, this type of big government internationalism has become unquestioned convention for the Washington foreign policy establishment and conservatives are as guilty as their liberal counterparts in pushing the global welfare state.

Many Republican and Democratic policymakers conflate American diplomatic, economic, and military primacy with omnipotence.  As a result, they have consistently failed to reconcile America’s desired end states with its available means—eschewing important economic realities such as the $14 trillion national debt while failing to make the difficult tradeoffs often required of effective statesmen.  In order to avoid the fate of previous great powers, the United States should adopt an economically sustainable grand strategy that advances a set of more narrowly defined national interests, encourages burden-sharing among its allies, and is consistent with the Constitution.  More specifically, Washington should reduce its global footprint, keep its military power in abeyance, and discharge that power only in defense of the national interest.

The sole aim of Washington’s international engagement should be the preservation of American political and economic liberty—not to remake the world in its image.  In his book, A Foreign Policy for Americans, former U.S. Senator Robert Taft argued, “I do not believe it is a selfish goal for us to insist that the overriding purpose of all American foreign policy should be the maintenance of the liberty and peace of our people of the United States…”

So where would I cut?  I would do a few things right off the bat.  I would redeploy the 50,000 military personnel we currently have in Europe (it costs serious money to train, equip, and sustain forces in a foreign country).  Correspondingly, I would scale back our commitments to NATO.  NATO is a military alliance without a clear mission.  It achieved its Cold War-era objectives, but it is no longer useful in the 21st century; it should be replaced with bilateral or smaller multilateral alliances to increase burden-sharing and reduce the stress on the U.S. force.  The alliance’s biggest test in recent years–Afghanistan–has yielded disappointing results.  The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)–the NATO military organ in charge of operations in Afghanistan–places the vast majority of the burden on the U.S.  Some troops have quipped that ISAF really stands for “I saw an American fight.”

I would also adopt a new strategy in Afghanistan, one that significantly reduces our land (conventional ground forces) commitments and emphasizes special operations forces and airpower.  In terms of major acquisition programs, I would initiate a sweeping program review to weed out costly programs which are not required to achieve our military and defense policy objectives.  Each military service has pet programs which continue to exist more because they embody the service culture (read U.S. Air Force and the F-22) than actual military requirements.  Weapons acquisition must be driven by military requirements, not service cultures or Capitol Hill politics.

Defense is one of the few legitimate responsibilities of the federal government.  There are many other programs, which are well beyond the scope of the government’s responsibilities, which should be eliminated all together to address our dire fiscal situation.  Conservatives need to realize, however, that there is nothing unconservative about reasoned and rational cuts to the defense budget.  The fact remains that there is waste in the Pentagon and part of that waste stems from an overly costly grand strategy, one that is disconnected from America’s core national interests.  Republicans in Congress must think very carefully about this nation’s involvement in foreign affairs and whether our current strategy is appropriate.  The Tea Party movement should take this opportunity to extend its limited government message to U.S. foreign policy.  Without pressure from the Tea Party movement, many Republicans will shrink from this challenge.

For whatever reason, the talk radio giants have elected to mischaracterize Mitch Daniels’s record when it comes to the “social issues,” seizing on Daniels’s “truce” comment from last year.  Sound bites aside, as Indiana blogger Josh Gillespie notes, the governor’s ”record on pro-life issues has been immaculate.”  Mike Fichter of Indiana Right to Life further testifies to the governor’s steadfastness in supporting pro-life legislation (see sound clip “Gillespie on FTRradio.com”).

Daniels’s record is one of a firmly pro-life politician.  Gillespie notes that one critic of Daniels’s “truce” comment concedes, “Few would claim that Gov. Daniels is a social liberal.  In fact, he has a good track record on social issues.”  The “truce” comment is really a matter of rhetorical emphasis.  Daniels is pro-life and his record proves that.  But Daniels is not Gary Bauer.  He is going to spend the bulk of his time talking about this nation’s fiscal crisis and proposing serious, albeit sometimes politically unpopular, solutions.  What do you get with Mitch Daniels?  A competent executive with a proven record as a governor who has a laser beam focus on the national debt.

Will he support pro-life legislation?  Will he re-institute the Mexico City policy?  Will he appoint strict constructionists to the bench?  His record gives me confidence that he would do all of these things as president.  I urge my fellow conservatives to look at the record before making knee-jerk judgments based on 10-second sound bites.

Below is a map of the 2008 presidential election.  As we all painfully recall, Obama captured several states that voted for George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004 including Colorado, Indiana, North Carolina, Nevada, Virginia, and, of course, Florida.  Obama also captured Iowa, New Mexico, and Ohio which voted for Bush in 2004.   At the end of the day, Obama captured 365 electoral votes to McCain’s 173.

To defeat Obama in 2012, the Republican candidate will need 270 electoral votes.  This will require the Republican candidate to hold every state McCain won in 2008 and pick up Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, Nebraska, and win either Colorado, Nevada, or Iowa.  This is certainly not any easy task but it is very possible and reinforces the fact that, with the right candidate, Obama is beatable.  Republicans have a good shot of picking up Colorado, Nevada, or Iowa; New Hampshire may even be in play based on Obama’s margin of victory in 2008.  Here are a few plausible scenarios in which the Republican candidate would defeat Obama in 2012 (I used the great site 270toWin.com to explore these ”what-if” scenarios). 

• Win all of McCain’s states plus Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, Nebraska, and Colorado = 275/263
• Win all of McCain’s states plus Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, Nebraska, and Nevada = 272/266
• Win all of McCain’s states plus Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, Nebraska, and Iowa =272/266
• Win all of McCain’s states plus Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, Nebraska, and New Hampshire =270/268

The good news for Republicans and conservatives is that Obama will be playing defense in 2012, especially considering the largely favorable reapportionment figures.  The bad news is that Obama can hemorrhage 95 electoral votes from his 2008 totals and still win a second term.  So the question for conservatives is which candidate can hold the states McCain won in 2008 and pick up Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, Nebraska, and either Colorado, Nevada, Iowa or New Hampshire?  This is the question conservatives need to ask themselves as the Republican nominating process begins.  It makes no sense to nominate a candidate who has no chance of getting to 270 electoral votes in the general election.    

Sarah Palin is an incredibly effective fundraiser and has an impressive ability to rally conservatives.  However, as I mentioned earlier, when it comes to independent voters her numbers are not favorable, and you absoutely need to win independents in order to win the presidency.  Unfortunately, the media has done such a number on her favorability ratings that a major reversal is no longer realistic at this point.  Looking at the electoral map it is unclear to me how she could win enough states to get to 270.  I think there are several prospective candidates who have a realistic path to 270 including Mitch Daniels, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Tim Pawlenty, and possibly Haley Barbour.  Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, and Ron Paul do not seem to have viable paths to 270.

Palin could, however, do well in some of the early Republican primary and caucus states.  While I don’t believe that she has a clear path to the nomination, she could win or do very well in some of the early states including Iowa and South Carolina.  The objective of this article is to prompt conservatives to think about the general election now.  Nomination contests are ugly as passions always run high.  Everyone believes that their candidate is the one.  We can’t lose focus, though, of our ultimate objective:  to make sure that Barack Obama is a one-term president.  To realize this objective, we need to put up a candidate who can get to 270.  This doesn’t mean that we have to compromise our principles of limited government, but it does mean that we need to nominate a candidate who is conservative and electable at a national level.