The GOP and Its Militarism...

by: Les Carpenter
Rational Nation USA
Purveyor of Truth

GOP war hawkism is experiencing a revival. No doubt driven by circumstances in the Middle East, old time "militarists" and warriors like Sen. John McCain, and the ever influential MIC with its insatiable appetite. Plan on hearing a lot of rhetoric supporting increased military presence and an expanding role for the military again. Of course expect the push for renewed growth in defense budgets.

Can hardly wait for the 2016 presidential election campaigns to get started. Just imagine all the fertile fodder it will provide for pundits and bloggers on all sides of the issue(s).

One thing we must do at all times is maintain an effective and mobile defense, whatever the cost. Visability has its cost and they are indeed high.

the weekly Standard The Republican flirtation with dovish noninterventionism is over. It wasn’t much of a fling.

For five years, we’ve been hearing that foreign policy and national security issues would split the Republican party. The new noninterventionists, we were told, buoyed by war-weariness and deep concern over government spending, would mount a serious challenge to the more hawkish, internationalist traditions of the Republican party.

The supposed paradigm shift was always much more about big personalities and media hype than substantive change. That’s not to say there was nothing to the speculation. Some Republicans celebrated the automatic cuts in defense spending required by the sequester, and others contributed to the misinformation about the terrorist surveillance programs. But whatever the real temptations of a GOP return to Robert Taftian isolationism and permanent cuts to national security budgets, they’re pretty much gone.

Republican Senate candidates in North Carolina, Alaska, New Hampshire, Iowa, Arkansas, and elsewhere are running with a heavy emphasis on their hawkishness. New Jersey governor Chris Christie is hitting Barack Obama on his handling of ISIS. Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal will deliver a speech on October 6 at the American Enterprise Institute on rebuilding U.S. defenses—three weeks after Marco Rubio gave a speech entitled “American Strength: Building 21st Century Defense Capabilities.” Rand Paul, the most outspoken of the new noninterventionists, and a man who has spent much of his time in the Senate railing against hawks like John McCain and Lindsey Graham, is now echoing their calls for airstrikes on terrorists in Iraq and Syria.

“The conservative coalition has always been hawkish,” says Brad Todd, a Republican strategist involved in several campaigns this cycle. “The few doves in the Republican coalition like Rand Paul always get exposed for not being conservative on foreign policy in times of crisis. The doves believe in a false premise—that disengagement brings peace instead of chaos. The same theory has failed in every era of American foreign policy since the 1800s, and it will fail again.”

He adds, “I do think the mess Obama is creating overseas will be a major factor—and a disqualifier—in the 2016 primaries.”

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