Larison pushes back against Yglesias's view of the "regime change ratchet" illustrated by Eric Martin:
Where Yglesias goes wrong here is in attributing [US intervention] mostly to excess military capacity. … Yglesias greatly underestimates the importance of ideology and specifically the belief that the nation has a mission and a responsibility to the rest of the world. The U.S. military could be reduced to a tenth of its current size, but until we rid ourselves of the idea that the internal conflicts of other countries are legitimately our concern our government will keep looking for and finding ways to intervene.
The British government’s behavior in the last year is instructive.
Cameron’s government engaged in deep austerity cuts in its military budget. Given British deficits, this was an understandable move provided that they didn’t intend to keep launching major military expeditions. Unfortunately, Cameron and many of his Cabinet ministers continued to believe that Britain had to “punch above its weight” after having put Britain on a diet, and some of them were ideologically committed to the idea that Britain must intervene for humanitarian and democracy-promoting reasons.
The Dish 