WPR's The New Rules: For U.S., Abandoning the Middle East not a Solution

America's successful assassination of Osama bin Laden, long overdue, naturally renews talk across the country about ending the nation's military involvement in Afghanistan-Pakistan. Coupled with the ongoing tumult unleashed by the Arab Spring, Washington is once again being encouraged to reconsider its strategic relationship with the troubled Middle East. The underlying current to this debate has always been the widely held perception that America's "oil addiction" tethers it to the unstable region. Achieve "energy independence," we are told, and America would free itself of this terrible burden.

Read the entire column at World Politics Review.

Comments

[Louis Heberlein]

The New Rules problem with its being accepted, until recently, by military and political bureaucracy was a problem and process that field leaders had to deal with after their experience in the Philippine-American War.

When WW I was a big war / big enemy classic struggle with new technology, the DC establishment put the lessons learned in Philippine struggle at the back of education/learning file cabinet. Both military and college education establishments just made it a footnote. An easy to read summary of our earlier learning experience can be found at:

"Philippine–American War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine–American_War

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia"

Began February 1899
Ended 1934

Opposition to the war inspired Mark Twain to found the Anti-Imperialist League on June 15, 1898. British poet Rudyard Kipling wrote The White Man's Burden, about colonialism. The war and occupation by the United States would change the cultural landscape of the islands, as the people dealt with an estimated 34,000 - 1,000,000 casualties, disestablishment of the Catholic Church as the state religion, and the introduction of the English language as the primary language of government and some businesses.

US Commanders and leaders

William McKinley
Theodore Roosevelt
Arthur MacArthur
John Pershing

Filipino civilian dead: ~200,000 to 1,500,000