For neocons, the worst war is better than the best peace. From Andrew J. Bacevich at responsiblestatecraft.org:
Reevaluation apparently risks the possibility of retrenchment which ostensibly implies isolationism which inevitably leads to bad people like Nazis trying to take over the world. As everyone knows, history itself definitively proves this. Needless to say, in a collection like this, opportunities to quote Winston Churchill abound.
The prescriptions contained in “Defending Forward” tend to be tiresome, derivative, inflammatory, and at times simply dishonest. Proponents of a more restrained approach to policy, one contributor writes, “believe that an overly powerful United States is the principal cause of the world’s problems.” He offers no evidence to support this charge.
Another contributor poses the faux question: “What happens after the United States goes home?” In fact, Americans have never gone home in any meaningful sense, choosing even before independence to engage the world in various ways, some successful, others less so. The imagery of cowering citizens hunkered down in their basements while the Gestapo bangs on the door substitutes fear mongering for reasoned analysis.
