by Pat Buchanan

About the author: Pat Buchanan, who sought the Republican nomination for president in 1992, is a nationally syndicated columnist.

We may pay a heavy price for ignoring the wise counsel of our most famous generals.

As Richard Reeves relates in President Kennedy: Profile of Power, “Dwight Eisenhower told his successor it was time to start bringing the troops home from Europe. ‘America is carrying far more than her share of free world defense,’ he said.” We are creating dependencies, said Ike; and our trade balance is suffering.

Previous Doctrines Ignored

In his 1951 farewell address, Douglas MacArthur counseled America to erect her Pacific defense perimeter on the “islands extending in an arc from the Aleutians to the Marianas, held by us and our free allies.... From...