Since the outgoing Secretary of Defense took his post, the world has changed quite a bit. As it stands, the US engineered a ‘New Cold War’ against Russia, is piling its forces back into Iraq, and hunkering down 12,000 NATO troops in Afghanistan. Amidst all of this, Senator Rand Paul is calling for Congress to issue a formal declaration of war against ISIL, meaning that American troops could literally be involved in yet another Mideast war (as if there weren’t enough since 9/11). With all of these concerns swirling around, Obama is poised to appoint someone way more aggressive than Hagel to oversee America’s military presence abroad.
Right Under Our Nose
It might seem like these problems appeared out of nowhere, but they were actually there all along. The US policy of encircling and provoking Russia with NATO expansion and Color Revolution regime change in Eastern Europe was the main spark for the so-called ‘New Cold War’, and these policies were in place long before Hagel’s appointment. As for ISIL, the US had already been supporting all manners of anti-government fighters (called “moderates” by the Western media) in Syria by early 2013, which directly encouraged the rise of the extremists there and in Iraq. Shifting to Afghanistan, many analysts had correctly predicted that a new security agreement would be signed by Karzai’s successor, which would leave a sizeable Western contingent in the country to “support local forces” and counter the rising Taliban. Therefore, the near-simultaneous onset of all these crises may have caught some off guard, but adept observers knew that one or the other was bound to happen soon enough.
The Dogs Of War March On
This brings the world to Senator Paul’s insistence that the US officially go to war against ISIL. A supposedly ‘defensive’ leader like Hagel, who was tasked with keeping American troops out of the Mideast, obviously isn’t the right type of guy to head any kind of offensive in the region, and with the winds of war blowing ever more aggressively, it’s little wonder that he wasn’t replaced earlier. Regardless of whether Paul’s initiative succeeds, this much is clear – the US is drummed up and ready to launch another war in the Mideast, and the transnational ISIL terrorist group is the primary target.
This means that the US will likely be deepening its presence in Iraq with combat-ready boots on the ground, conducting more strikes and special forces operations in Syria (a conventional land invasion would be costly, ineffective, and might trigger a larger war), and could even possibly intervene in Libya, where an ISIL affiliated just claimed the ‘Caliphate’s’ first Mediterranean territory. ISIL is also growing in Jordan, and unnamed US officials said in June that any destabilization there might result in US and Israeli military action to restore order. Then there’s Afghanistan, and nobody knows if ISIL will find an affiliate there like it did in Libya or strike a direct deal with the Taliban. It seems that wherever one looks, the dogs of war are marching on in the Mideast, and Hagel is clearly not capable of adapting to this reality.
From Hot to Cold And Back Again
But the US isn’t just fighting hot wars, since the ‘New Cold War’ is in full effect, too. This means that America and the NATO military alliance that it de-facto leads are once more officially at odds with Russia. Effectively, the ‘Reset’ turned out to be nothing more than a way to lower Russia’s guard as the US moved as far over Russia’s red line as it could before being confronted. It’s kind of like what’s happening half way across the world in Asia with Obama’s “Pivot” there. The US stepped as hard on China’s toes as it could with its announcement of a massive redirection to the region and the reinvigoration of its military alliances there. Obviously, when the US is siding with countries that have territorial disputes with China (and trying to include many of them into the same anti-Chinese trading organization), it’s not going to be taken lightly in Beijing, hence what amounts a softer but still equally real ‘Cold War’ in Asia against China.
So stepping back, the US is strongly engaging the entirety of Eurasia at the end of 2014. From two ‘Cold Wars’ on the Western (Russian) and Eastern (Chinese) reaches of the supercontinent, it’s also expanding its hot wars in Mideast. Thus, the new Secretary of Defense will have some very complex realities to deal with if they are to retain America’s power grip into the future.
