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THE DEATH OF AMERICAN SECURITY
The slow erosion of American presence overseas
by H. David Blalock
copyright 1999
On December 31, 1999, an era will come to an end: the era of America's security.
When the fledgling United States was experimentally stretching its boundaries in the heady days of the Louisiana Purchase, America did not need to officially pronounce its expansionist policies. It was expected that the new country would lay claim to the "uncivilized" portion of the continent west of the original thirteen colonies. In fact, it was considered inevitable. The Monroe Doctrine defined the attitude that the new country had toward its sovereignty and the lengths it would go to for protection of that independence from the Old World. The American frontier inexorably pushed westward until it began encroaching on Spanish territories of California and Mexico. Like a juggernaut, the United States rolled over Spanish opposition in two wars, worked out its own internal problems in a bloody civil war, and pushed its presence into Central America, the Caribbean, and as far away as the Pacific.
One of the pivotal factors in the extension of American influence worldwide was the Panama Canal. Becoming an American venture after the French were unable to complete the job, the Canal typified what it meant when American money and political influence were inserted into an overseas venture. Laborers were brought in from outside, money was poured in by the truckload, and, in spite of a terrible toll in human life, the project was completed within a few years. The Panama Canal is truly one of the most amazing feats of engineering of the last two centuries. Through its locks passed ships of all nationalities in peacetime, ships of friendly nations in wartime. The Nazi U-Boats and Axis navies of World War II, which did travel the Caribbean and harried shipping there, knew that if they wanted to get to the Pacific to support the Japanese they would have to brave the hostile waters of the Indian Ocean or take the long way round South America.
The Panama Canal has been called outdated and obsolete because the larger tankers and liners cannot fit in its locks. Based on this argument, some politicians insist that control of the Canal does not constitute a significant military necessity. They maintain that the Zone is more pariah than boon. It doesn't seem to occur to them that passage of friendly forces through the Canal is not the major concern. It is uncontested access of potentially hostile forces to the southern US seaboard, the Caribbean, and Central America that should concern them.
The current administration has denied that growing Chinese influence in Panama represents a threat to American security. This from an administration that fed heavily at Beijing's trough for campaign funds, supports favored nation status for the last bastion of hard-core communism, and repeatedly skirts the edges of ethical behavior at home.
The Panamanian authorities are already expressing doubts about the complete removal of American influence from Panama. Columbian, Chinese, and Cuban influences are poised to fill the void, none of whom can be considered even neutral in their disposition toward the United States. Negotiations are underway to maintain a token American presence, one that might do little more than observe the paralysis of American shipping as it becomes buried in sudden bureaucratic red tape when all vestige of US influence in Panama is withdrawn.
The sacrifice of the Panama Canal is the first real evidence of the end of the American civilization as we know it --- the end of an empire of freedom and idealism -- the end of democratic hope for the rest of the world, a casualty of ignorance and political expediency.
END
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