Recommended: United States Is Enabler of Global Irresponsibility

Scott Rasmussen , writing in RealClearPolitics yesterday, has a thought-provoking article entitled United States Is Enabler of Global Irresponsibility. He argues that over the past half century the United States has played the role of the world policeman, thereby allowing friend and foe alike to stand aside from their own responsibilities and just posture for the world press and their own people.

And Syria, he argues, is a case in point. Yes, something ought to be done about the appalling slaughter going on there, and the use of chemical weapons, but it doesn't follow that the US has to be the one to intervene.  Syria's neighbors are much more at risk here, and so it ought to be Syria's neighbors that take on the task. Or failing that, Europe. But the willingness of the Americans to do it lets them all off the hook.

It is an interesting thesis, worth considering.We spend a lot more on our military than other nations (more, in fact, than the next 14 nations combined), and part of that is because our allies depend on us for a lot of their military needs (like logistics and air-to-air refueling), letting them cut their own defense budgets while we increase our to pay for them.