What WOULD Dr. Paul's foreign policy look like? Clarification please?

phill4paul

phill4paul

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In the last 24hrs/N.H. debates Santorum has challenged Ron Paul by saying that the 5th Fleet would not have been in the waters to help the Iranian fishermen or to maintain commerce in the Straits of Hormuz. On Sat. evenings debate Ron did not get a chance at rebuttal. However, on Sunday this accusation came up yet again. I think his answer was less than assuring to most Americans.
I believe most Americans understand that we cannot continue to be the 'worlds policeman.' However, Santorum was correct in stating that there would be power vacuums that might be filled with less than desirable entities.
I would like to hear clarification concerning the pull back of Armed forces. Are we to believe that every fleet would be pulled back to American shores? Would we just abandon bases in Japan without first allowing Japan a chance to build their armed forces up to facilitate the change over. How about Germany? Or would it be transitional much like S.S. and medicare?
Clarification is needed on this issue as it is one that the public does have concerns with.
 
I would hate to have the ATF remove our firearms because they thought we might use them.
 
A few points:

First and most importantly: If we are acting as the world's policeman, engaging in wars of aggression and threatening various regimes while propping others up, and if we instead tried to lead by example and give *moral* support to the people in the world we consider our friends, we wouldn't have the overwhelming animosity towards us. So we may not have rescued the Iranians, but we wouldn't have the Iranians hating our guts either.

Secondly: It is not the mission of the United States military to protect citizens of foreign countries. It costs tons of money and puts us in jeopardy to act like we have to be the saviors of the world. If we're there, and we can help, we should - but it is not a mission that we should specifically engage in.

Thirdly: Pirates are criminals, and we've successfully dealt with piracy in the past without having massive overseas military commitments. We could go after the pirates as a matter of defending American interests. We could offer to help other countries with their piracy problems. Back in the early 19th century we issued letters of marque and reprisal against pirates, we engaged them with the American Navy, and we hired privateers. Saying that "we would not have been there to help the Iranians" is lunacy. We may have been there, or we may not have been there. Nothing about Ron's foreign policy makes it certain that we wouldn't have helped out.
 
phill4paul said:
However, Santorum was correct in stating that there would be power vacuums that might be filled with less than desirable entities.
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Santorum's response was completely ignorant. There are power vacuums now, that is why there is piracy in the South China Sea, the Straits of Malacca, and the Gulf of Aden. He is clueless on the devil he thinks he knows, and scared sh*tl#ss of the devil he doesn't know.

Are we to believe that every fleet would be pulled back to American shores?
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Answered that in the Iranian rescue thread.

Would we just abandon bases in Japan without first allowing Japan a chance to build their armed forces up to facilitate the change over. How about Germany? Or would it be transitional much like S.S. and medicare?
Click to expand...

The Japanese Maritime Self Defence Force is currently adequate to act as a regional naval power (hardware speaking), what needs to change are policies that allow it to do so. That's an internal Japan political issue. The same goes for the Bundeswehr in Germany.

XNN
 
Paul said he would have nuclear submarines on international waters. I guess that means he's also for having carriers out there?
 
You cannot withdraw troops immediately. It's a process that takes a very long time. I don't think the U.S. military has the capacity to draw all troops in one year. The pentagon would have to build more transportation vehicles to handle this situation. We're talking about over 200,000 personnel. If one airplane can take 250 people, you can imagine how many times you would have to fly back and forth.

However, I do think President Paul would simply begin with areas that are dangerous to troops that are being deployed right now. He would certainly put focus on Africa and the Middle East, Asia pacific and then the Western Hemisphere.

When Ron Paul is talking about bringing the troops home. He's referring to troops that are currently at harm's way. After all, they're the ones being suffered the most.
 
Thanks to all that have posted so far. Still checking out the related threads. XNavyNuke, which specific rescue thread was that there are several in an immediate search?
 
Middle Eastern countries as a whole have interests in keeping Hormuz open. They will do so.

Pirates off the Horn of Africa, Straits of Malacca, etc can be dealt with using Letters of Marque.

Hormuz is also international waters. That means any interferance with shipping would be piracy. Again, Letters of Marque.
 
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phill4paul said:
I have no idea how that pertains to my original question.
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Sorry about that. My comment was about sovereignty. In re-reading your OP, I see your concern was the rate of withdrawal, not the justification for withdrawal.
 
During the Cold War nuclear submarines were right off the American coast.

I had a teacher in high school tell me that at 6 a.m. every Sunday morning in the mid to late 80's, two F-4s would go hauling ass out of base around Virginia. He said he was always wondering what they were doing so early and what the big deal was. It turns out a Soviet submarine would surface just right off of United States coast in international waters and the F-4s would circle it.

We knew the Soviets were there and the Soviets knew we knew they were there.

I tell this story to ask, did the Soviets need a million bases all over the planet? No they did not.
Do you think your average person in D.C. or on the East Coast around Virginia knew a Soviet sub was sitting out there ready to launch a bunch of nuclear missiles at them? I'm sure some thought it but most people probably didn't have a clue.

The Soviets had ships right off our coast and I'm sure we had ships right off their coast as well.

We have the greatest navy in the world and our submarines and carriers are second to none. If there were a problem in the Persian Gulf, we send some Ohio submarines and park a few Nimitz class carriers out there.

If I remember reading correctly, close to half of our nuclear arms are in submarines and most of those are not parked but constantly out in highly classified locations. I think even the crew of the Ohio class, except for the captain and a few others know where they are at any given time.
 
More good responses. I appreciate this. I merely put this out there because I have not heard a comprehensive Paul plan. I had heard Paul talk about subs before. For myself I am a bit concerned about simply parking our navies in ship yards. Constitutionally we were meant to have a strong STANDING navy (as opposed to Army). The world is a big place and unfortunately ships do not travel the speed of war planes. If we were to abandon our land bases I would like to think that our 'forward projection' would be the positioning of the navy in international waters. Good points to consider from all. Thank you for your input.
 
The ONLY bad thing I see is that our navy will need a constant stream of supply ships running all over the world due to a lack of bases. I think a Nimitz carrier can be supplied for three days before it needs re-supplied. It'll be hard to defend those supply lines if you're halfway around the world.

Also, our air force will need to be refueled and it'll be costly to run missions all the way from the United States. Of course many of the big bombers wouldn't be needed unless you're doing heavy warfare. A small strike can be carried out from a carrier if need be or with cruise missiles.
 
Brick-in-the-Wall said:
The ONLY bad thing I see is that our navy will need a constant stream of supply ships running all over the world due to a lack of bases. I think a Nimitz carrier can be supplied for three days before it needs re-supplied. It'll be hard to defend those supply lines if you're halfway around the world.

Also, our air force will need to be refueled and it'll be costly to run missions all the way from the United States. Of course many of the big bombers wouldn't be needed unless you're doing heavy warfare. A small strike can be carried out from a carrier if need be or with cruise missiles.
Click to expand...

Well I suppose warfare is changing. It looks like the air war is transferring much to unmanned drones. So possibly an even smaller carrier capable of deploying drones.
 
Providing naval security for major trade routes has always been part of the mission of the US Navy... what do you think the Barbary Wars were about?
 
Brick-in-the-Wall said:
The ONLY bad thing I see is that our navy will need a constant stream of supply ships running all over the world due to a lack of bases.
Click to expand...

no reason we couldn't dock at a friendly port - the original USS Enterprise in the First Barbary War did not need to return to Baltimore for every resupply.
 
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