[ArtDodger]

Our military should be used for defense, not to police the world.

A bit oversimplified. Sometimes the best defense is a good offense.

[Olog-hai]

If we don’t police the world, someone else will. The power to police the world is also the power to colonize and subjugate it.

[tanknetter]

The question is, where is the line between policing and defense.

For example, is having a substantial military force in the Persian Gulf to act as a check on Iran and maintain the flow of oil to major trading partners policing, or defense? Is maintaining a substantial military force in the Western Pacific as a deterrent to China’s territorial claims policing or defense? Is maintaining a substantial military force in the Horn of Africa to protect the free flow of commerce from piracy policing or defense?

[Bulwyf]

Yes, sometimes it’s better to punch the bully in the face, before he knocks you out.

[hinckley buzzard]

The use of the concept of "policing" has a long history in the media and usually in a negative context, but is a very misleading metaphor. More appropriate is to consider the use of the military to project our strength and protect our interests in a world that is ultimately governed by force.

Nature abhors a vacuum, and that includes political power vacuums. If we don't make a serious footprint, someone else will, and most likely not by a friendly nation.

Military power is necessary to achieve this aim, for without it all the "diplomacy" in the world is just talk. But lacking the political will to project power, all the military power in the world means nothing. It takes both, because if, as Clausewitz observed, "war is the continuation of politics by other means," then the power to potentially wage war is necessary to achieving political goals without actually having to do it.