Betraying yet again their geopolitical and military reactionism, the sorts of critics with whom CNN leads its reports are aghast that the President of the United States would acknowledge the end of the Cold War less than fifteen years later. The highly partisan New York Times and Washington Post editorial boards have done their worst. Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry and his advisors have marched in, decrying at the fiddler on the roof. A retired Army officer, excerpted by Glenn Reynolds, recently made an op-ed out of a painful non sequitur, connecting the failure of "traditional" — that is, sixty-year-old — alliances and world bodies in confronting the free world's next challenge to American isolationism as the new vogue. Ignoring obvious examples of progressive, results-based multilateralism like the Proliferation Security Initiative and the Caspian Guard, the author filtered news of large-scale military redeployment through his grey-colored glasses and referenced them as if they were to simply be discharged from service.

He's not alone. Detractors have slapped so much alarmist paper-mâché on the announcement that it's startling how simple a matter lies underneath. American troops as a regular presence in Europe are a legacy of the Second World War and the Cold War. First as a pacifying, democratizing and reconstructive elements; then as guardians against the Soviet menace. Our military bases went up in Japan during the Occupation and became permanent with the Cold War-spurred San Francisco system; one look to the north half of the Korean Penninsula explains America's 1953 mutual defense treaty. But what a difference five decades make: the Soviet Union has crumbled and Eastern Europe is free or liberalizing, Red China has learned the importance of being polite, and both South Korea and Japan are gradually accepting the responsibility of their own defense, Japan in the midst of a spectacular coming of age.

You'd think consigning talk of Russian tanks, neutron bombs, staredowns across the 38th Parallel and Japanese garrison blues to history would be welcomed by everyone. Or that non-interventionalists could at least celebrate democratic countries beginning to accept an invitation to protect themselves and their own corner of the world; that the United States might not end up the world's lonely constable but a global police chief with a fully manned department standing proudly behind him.

For parties who lose from the end of status quo, that's not to be. But the whining is worth accepting what has, post-September 11th, gone from unuseful to detrimental. Simply put, President Bush has confronted the internationalists and parochialists with their midlife crisis. Convinced that no medium for international cooperation lies outside the flawed, morally sterile United Nations or relationships that hardly go beyond ceremony, reactionaries can't help but see the walls falling around them. It's too bad. Those who are adjusting to reality — who are actively involved in democratizing Iraq, another challenge to the zeitgeist — praise the White House's plan:

Japan has welcomed President Bush's decision to redeploy U.S. troops overseas, saying the changes will better suit the global security environment. The statement from Japan's foreign ministry also said the move will further contribute to international peace and stability. Monday Mr. Bush announced redeployment plans that would bring up to 70,000 U.S. troops home from Europe and Asia over the next decade. The plan would close a number of U.S. overseas bases, and include realignments in Japan and South Korea.

In South Korea, Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon says officials were told about the plans in advance and do not believe there will be any big changes on the peninsula. Australian officials also welcomed the announcement, saying the realignment from a defensive Cold War stance to a more agile posture is a plus for global security.

The sweetest part about President Bush's forward thinking is its inevitability. For all his opponents' hysteria, he and his domestic allies are very likely to see the transformation through as successfully as they have other doctrinal evolution. The real question becomes whether the great American backwards, led by candidate John Kerry, want to be dragged kicking and screaming.