On February 20, 2024, Cliff Maloney, the CEO of Mobilize The Message and the founder of The Pennsylvania Chase, made an appearance on Timcast IRL to discuss breaking news. When the topic of foreign policy came up, Maloney instantly made the case for “Defend the Guard” legislation as a way to rein in the United States government’s foreign policy of endless wars

.Under this legislation, Defend the Guard would ban a state’s National Guard units from being sent to an active combat zone without Congress formally declaring war, as the US Constitution outlines. This legislation is being pushed by an activist group called “Bring Our Troops Home” which is led by Dan McKnight and Diego Rivera, both who are military veterans. 

Maloney noted that there is “complete agreement” among the “uniparty” in Washington, DC. He added that in the current political environment it is “sacrilegious  to  say,  hey,  maybe  we  shouldn’t  have  all  these  wars  going  on.”

The founder of Pennsylvania Chase gave former President Donald Trump credit for changing the conversation on foreign policy by calling for the end of never-ending wars. 

Indeed, changing foreign policy at the federal level is a tall order due to the power of the neconservative/neoliberal foreign policy consensus in DC and special interest groups like the military-industrial complex. 

However, Maloney believes there is a “state angle to push back” against never-ending wars. 

In his view, only a few states are needed to pass this legislation in order to create a groundswell of support for bringing a close to the dangerous US’s foreign policy ventures. 

Currently, the US has military troops on every continent. 

As of September 2022, 171,736 active-duty military units are stationed across 178 countries. Japan (53,973), Germany (35,781), and South Korea (25,372) have the highest number of US forces on their soil. 

In a similar vein, these three countries have the largest number of US military bases – 120, 119, and 73, respectively.  

In total, there are about 750 US military bases worldwide. This is what imperial overstretch looks like and it will need to be properly addressed if the US is to remain a free polity.

 The good news is that Defend the Guard legislation is one way to tackle this problem. Hopefully, more states can lead the way in establishing foreign policy sanity by passing said legislation. 

If reforms can’t come from the top, they will have to come from below.