Michael Mandelbaum, U.S. Deficits, and a "Frugal Superpower"

Foreign Affairs recently interviewed Michael Mandelbaum. He was introduced this way:

Partisan squabbling on U.S. spending priorities continued following the release of the White House's deficit-reduction commission report on December 1. Some Democratic lawmakers lamented proposed cuts to entitlements such as Medicare and Social Security and an increase in the retirement age from 67 to 69, while Republican lawmakers objected to suggested tax increases and cuts to military spending. Though the report is unlikely to garner political agreement on needed cuts, says SAIS foreign policy professor Michael Mandelbaum, it drives home the message that "everybody will have to take a hit." Mandelbaum, author of the book The Frugal Superpower: America's Global Leadership in a Cash-Strapped Era, says an inevitable result of deficit reductions for U.S. foreign policy will be fewer U.S. interventions abroad. Still, he stresses the need for continued military presence in Europe, East Asia, and the Middle East. U.S. presence in East Asia is especially vital to economic growth, says Mandelbaum, since U.S. naval forces protect international trade routes. He says the greatest threat likely to emerge from a reduced U.S. presence abroad is Iran, which could attempt to "control the supplies of oil on which the global economy depends."

See the full interview here. The Wall Street Journal recently quoted the author as well; here is his "unpopular" notion:

“The U.S. could improve by weakening its adversaries by reducing revenues they receive to make trouble,” Mandelbaum said. “The way to do that is to raise the price of gasoline through a gasoline tax. It’s one way to compensate for the fiscal problems.” He said that while he realizes this is probably one of the most unpopular policy proposals in the U.S., he hopes to see this policy transpire through a “backdoor” through proposed carbon taxes in current deficit reduction proposals.

See that WSJ piece here. The author was recently on NPR's Weekend Edition as well. See the webpage for that feature story on U.S. deficits here. On the NPR webpage, you'll see this about the author:

According to Haass, a Chinese banker could be more of a threat than China's military. It's not that experts are worried that China will take America's place, though. "There's nobody else to take our place," says Michael Mandelbaum, professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. "China is certainly becoming richer and will become more powerful and will become more influential in East Asia, but I don't see China becoming a global power or assuming the kind of global responsibilities that the U.S. bears anytime soon," Mandelbaum says. But the U.S. also won't be able to play the kind of role it has in the past, as Mandelbaum points out in his latest book, The Frugal Superpower. "I believe the kinds of military interventions that the U.S. has conducted over the last two decades — in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan — are going to be discontinued. Because those military interventions, although initiated under two administrations for differing reasons, they all landed us with the expensive, difficult and frustrating task of nation-building."