Clinton bashes Pentagon's America First reset as a 'disaster'
As President Donald Trump redirects U.S. resources toward operations closer to home, former Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and Mike Pompeo warned that America’s adversaries could benefit from a reduced...
By Fox News · Fox News
As President Donald Trump redirects U.S. resources toward operations closer to home, former Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and Mike Pompeo warned that America’s adversaries could benefit from a reduced global footprint. Clinton told an audience Wednesday that she'd heard of internal Pentagon discussions advocating a "spheres of influence" model that would focus U.S. power in the Western Hemisphere while allowing Russia to dominate Eastern Europe and China to control much of East Asia. "There seems to be a group within the Pentagon who are advocating for these spheres of influence … I think that’s a disaster. And I think it weakens us vis-à-vis our principal problem, which is… the Chinese Communist Party," she said during a discussion at Columbia University. The remarks come as the Pentagon increases counter-narcotics and maritime security missions across the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, expanding the U.S. military presence in the Southern Command region to its largest level in decades — a shift that reflects Trump’s renewed emphasis on prioritizing the Western Hemisphere. PUTIN AND XI DEEPEN TIES AS IRAN, NORTH KOREA LEADERS VISIT BEIJING The U.S. last week said it would withdraw a rotational infantry brigade largely based in Romania, with some forces in Slovakia, Hungary and Bulgaria. Clinton, who was an early architect of the Obama administration’s "pivot to Asia" strategy during her 2009–2013 tenure at the State Department , said any retreat from the Indo-Pacific would invite instability and signal weakness to U.S. adversaries. Pompeo largely agreed, saying the United States should strive for global "American hegemony" rooted in Western values and must never concede leadership to rivals. "I agree with almost everything Secretary Clinton said there," Pompeo said. "I want American values to dominate the world for the next 250 years … I want to influence every sphere of influence." Even as the War Department has prioritized a focus on the western hemisphere…