The Obama Pentagon.

• Author: Rothschild, Matthew
• Position: Comment - Military policy

President Obama began 2012 by unveiling a new military strategy, and he elaborated on it during his State of the Union address. This strategy, while denounced by Republicans as making America weak and welcomed by Democrats for reducing troop levels, actually extends the U.S. empire. It relies more brazenly on nuclear weapons. It is belligerent toward Iran. It escalates tensions with China. And it incorporates the military more than ever into domestic law enforcement.

The Pentagon blueprint is called "Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense." The title itself is none too subtle about America's hegemonic goal. Nor is the main text: "The United States must maintain its ability to project power in areas in which our access and freedom to operate are challenged," it states. That means the Pentagon will flex its muscle everywhere, including "in cyberspace and space." As Obama himself put it in an introductory letter, the strategy ensures that the United States will be "prevailing in all domains."

The document still sees the Pentagon as the advance team of U.S. corporations and the enforcer of free trade. "To enable economic growth and commerce, America, working in conjunction with allies and partners around the world, will seek to protect freedom of access throughout the global commons," the doctrine states. Note the usurpation of the term "commons." The Pentagon won't be protecting the world's waters so everyone can go fishing or swimming or sailing in them but so our naval ships can patrol them for the sake of multinational corporations.

The new Pentagon doctrine is also interesting for the way it looks back on the reasons for the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Gone are the lurid descriptions of the human rights abuses under Saddam Hussein and the Taliban. Gone, too, are the images of mushroom clouds and existential threats. Instead, this is what it says: "Over the last decade, we have undertaken extended operations in Iraq and Afghanistan to bring stability to those countries and secure our interests."

It would have been hard to rally Congressional or public support for wars that were justified so frankly.

For a Preside, it who has said he favors a world without nuclear weapons, Barack Obama sure is comfortable with them. "As long as nuclear weapons remain in existence, the United States will maintain a safe, secure, and effective arsenal," the Pentagon document states. These weapons "remain in existence"...