Why The U.S. Cannot Be The World's Policeman -- A Commentary

The aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan travels through the Pacific Ocean with other ships assigned to the Rim of the Pacific 2010 exercise, north of Hawaii, July 24, 2010. U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Dylan McCord

The Realist Prism: Rising Security Tab Strains U.S. Commitments -- Nikolas K. Gvosdev, World Politics Review

On the surface, the NATO summit meeting in Lisbon, the North Korean artillery barrage against Yeonpyeong island, and the unmasking of the "fake" Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour in Afghanistan would appear to be separate and unconnected events. But there is a common theme that ties these three news stories together.

In his WPR column column on Monday, Thomas P.M. Barnett summed up the problem: The United States cannot "close the gaps" in the global security system. The end of the Cold War and the rise of new power centers around the world have not led to any appreciable shift in who takes on the burdens of that system. In fact, as Alan Dowd's WPR Briefing earlier this week pointed out, America's share of the defense expenditures in NATO has risen over the past decade. Europe today has the larger economy, but Washington accounts for 73 percent of NATO's spending, up from roughly half of the alliance's total in 2000.

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My Comment: This is my must read commentary for the week.