National interests redefined

As we have been witnessing and experiencing the free fall of our economy, there is few discussions about what are national interests are? We keep on hearing from Politicians that this or that is our national interests especially in the realm of international affairs. Before we could have afforded to carve out a broad area under which we could have defined our national interests but with the economy in a sorry state and everybody worried about the Federal debt, this issue needs to be tackling head on especially internationally. First of all we need to stop acting like we have all the money in the world to protect every corner of the world. We should stop acting like the World's policeman simply because we don’t have the money to be on call if something happens in all the parts of the world.

What are our national interests anyway? Every time something happens anywhere in the world, we invoke these words and then everybody is behind it without knowing the facts or questioning how are national interests are affected by that area. We have security interests in the Middle East, In Europe, in Latin America, in the Far East, in Africa and now our troops are going to be stationed in Australia. Even in a remote place called Antarctica, we have carved our share of national interests and on water and in space we have our national interests. Do we really have the money to protect all these areas. The answer is obviously and absolutely NO.