Thanks minty green. You beat me to it.
Chumpsky, you are plainly wrong on this fact, which makes me not trust your opinions much. Do you have any better data than that from the war resisters?
I could as easily say that we’re paying today for the wasteful social programs of the past. Deficit spending isn’t exactly a recent invention.
Well, good heavens! We have declined from the single most powerful military power in the world all the way down to…the single most powerful military power in the world.
A worrisome trend, to be sure.
Oops. I’d thought our guys arrived in early 2000. My bad.
On the other hand, Bush has still kept the American peacekeepers in Kosovo for even longer than Clinton, with no sign at all of a withdrawal. Yet the military loves the current deserter-in-chief much more than the previous draft-dodger in chief. Passing strange, eh?
Now, that’s hardly fair, Minty After a valiant stint protecting Texas skies from Viet Cong air raids, the Man Who Fell Up continued his military career in other venues. Its just that, by an astonishing set of coincidences, all record of his military activities have vanished! Hey, shit happens. It just doesn’t happen to the rich and powerful.
Thats a good point, but many people (or at least some Republicans like me 
) do worry about it. Its always good to keep your military alert, strong, well equipped, and well trained. Fortunately, we haven’t lost expertise, and could readily reaquire it if need be.
I have nothign against a leaner armed forces, but I’d rather see the military handle the reduction, not politicians (or at least, not those outside the DoD).
As I recall, and I was following this with more than a passing interest, the resistance to the US originally providing the cruise missiles and air power to the situation over there could be summed up as this: You cannot stop ethnic cleansing from 30,000 feet, it takes boots in the mud to do this. By entering this civil war/genocide fighting, we will be eventually comitting ground forces. There is no Exit Strategy. There is no “Winning”. These guys have been at each other’s throats for 1000 years, somebody has to stand between them to keep them from fighting. This means an occupation force. Our miltary has trained as Warriors, not Peacekeepers (true at the time, that has shifted to keep up with the expanding role of the miltary).
Previous to the comittment of ground forces, the Allied air campaign had poor results due to poor weather and troop dispersions. To stop the genocide, we DID need boots in the mud.
Bosnian Serbs are credited with 12,000 dead before the Bosnian air campaign was begun in 1995. In February, 1998, the Milosevic-backed Serb forces in Kosovo forced ethnic Albanias from their homes, which brought the ire of the KLA, an ethnic Albania guerilla militia. Serb-KLA Peace Talks in France failed, and the air campaign against Serb targets in Kosovo began again in March, 1999. Milosevic had popular support and began a rampage against the ethnic Albanians, with estimated 789,000 refugees escaping. The Clinton Administration HAD to put troops in, after beginning to get involved in this. We couldn’t very well pull out and let all the Serbs kill all the ethnic Albanians. The fact that they are still there has little to nothing to do with the current Bush Administration, he can’t pull out of there any more than Clinton could. That was the problem with going in there in the first place. There was no exit strategy then, and there still is none now.
Well golly gee, since so many Republicans opposed putting American troops in Kosovo as peacekeepers in the first place, which refusal would inevitably have led to lots and lots of dead people, what’s wrong about pulling out now? The end result would be roughly the same, wouldn’t it? If they weren’t worth saving then, why are they worth saving now?
Except that pretty much is what happened in Bosnia and Kosovo. The troops went in after the fighting was mainly over. The other part of your argument, that the NATO bombing and on-ground involvement caused more genocide, is the kind of thing the Serbs were saying as self-justification later.
You do acknowledge the difference between fighting in combat and peacekeeping operations, before mixing the concepts. I would humbly suggest that stopping genocide is a form of “winning”.
True 'dat. Got one to offer? Or a reason why there should be one, for that matter?
The OP asked if Clinton weakened the military. It was clarified by SuaSponte to ask “During the Clinton Administration, was the strength of the United States military appropriate to the actual and reasonably foreseeable threats to America and its interests during that period?”
The force drawdown was appropriate for the reduced threat. Bosnia/Kosovo was not a threat. It is an unending use of US military forces. The OpTempo (frequency of a given unit being deployed over time) went way up under Clinton, partly due to the reduced number of people in uniform, and partly because of the Nation Building Operations and the Diplomacy by Tomahawk.
In “winning” the game is over. Time to go home. It ain’t over if the referee cannot leave the field of play, for fear of the combatants going at it again. Genocide was halted, yes, that is a good thing. But the forces and the problems still exist, and will flare up as soon as the KFOR pulls out.
mintygreen, I am not aware of the politics of those who thought Bosnia would be a quagmire. I wouldn’t assume they were only Republicans.
And why the Balkans? There were worse atrocities in Rwanda, with 800,000 killed in just over three months.
Of course they weren’t “only” Republicans. But they were “primarily” Republicans, as I recall.