[Colonel Kangaroo]

This article is silliness. No rational Conservative opposed the containment policy during the Cold War, only liberals did. The implication is that there is less need for foreign involvement now, but how can this view be justified? Are we in less peril now because its a bunch of radical islamists and Chinese imperialists that hate us, as opposed to the Russkies?

The difference is that the Soviet Union was a monolithic expansionist power with the capability and opportunity to become a continental hegemon. Had we not intervened in Europe they would have attained it with negative results for us.

China is not yet to that point. But I fear that if we follow the neoconservative path, we will be exhausted as a nation when the time comes that we have to do serious balancing against China as we did against the USSR.

Radical Islam and the Middle East is not a monolith but a mix of often competing groups. Between Israelis, Persians and Arabs, Sunni and Shiite, the locals of the Middle East are quite capable of finding and sustaining a balance of power while requiring a whole lot less intervention from the USA.

[dinoparty]

You make some good points. I would dispute your last paragraph especially, though. How can Israel, for instance, create a workable balance with its regional enemies when those enemies are irrational and developing nukes? Imagine Iran without a US presence in Iraq and Afghansitan currently.

Also, one cannot forget that during the Cold War not only did we contain from a military/strategic standpoint, but we also contained an idealogy — or perhaps more accurately — we introduced and buttressed freedom in regions that previously had not had it, and in so doing developed long term allies.