In the summer of 1983, during the depths of the cold war, US president Ronald Reagan surprised the Pentagon by ordering a show of ground force in Honduras that was intended to deter leftists in Nicaragua and Cuba. The Joint Chiefs of Staff had to scurry to execute the president's order, cutting exercises, postponing maintenance, and delaying war games. 'We're stretched thin,' one senior staff officer sighed.
Today, US forces are smaller and stretched even further around the world. The US base at Bagram, Afghanistan, for instance, is halfway around the world from the centre of the 48 contiguous states near Lebanon, Kansas. On any given day, about one-third of the armed forces are deployed abroad.
Moreover, on Independence Day, America's military stretch was aggravated by national political and economic turmoil. On the 233rd birthday of the United States, it would seem that the nation was badly in need of retrenchment - not a retreat into the isolation, but to step back, take a deep breath, reflect a bit and sort out priorities.
A debate over how deeply the US should be engaged with the rest of the world has been running off and on since the second world war left it as the world's most powerful nation. Perhaps nowhere were opposing views better expressed than in the visions of presidents John Kennedy, a Democrat, and Richard Nixon, a Republican.
In 1961, Kennedy proclaimed: 'Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.'
In contrast, Nixon in 1970 declared: 'America cannot - and will not - conceive all the plans, design all the programmes, execute all the decisions and undertake all the defence of the free nations of the world.' The Nixon Doctrine called on other nations to provide their share for the common defence.
