The United States should pursue the following policy if it ever enters into a situation where it feels that maybe it should station a large number of troops in a foreign country to help keep order while that country's political institutions strengthen (for example, in Afghanistan or Iraq, after we overthrew their previous governments in the 2000s):
- As soon as reasonably practical, a referendum should be held in the target country as to whether or not the people of that country would like U.S. troops to stay. This referendum shall be monitored by international observers. The U.S. should declare that it will leave the country unless such a referendum is held and declared relatively clean by the observers, and the result of the referendum is that the people want U.S. troops to stay. If a clean referendum does not take place within a reasonable amount of time, or if the result is that U.S. troops should leave, then the U.S. should completely pull out ASAP. This referendum should be repeated every 5 years or so. Personal appeals of the head of government of the target country shall not substitute for a referendum. If the legislature of the target country passes a motion asking the U.S. to delay the referendum for a short while, this might be a reason to delay, but only for a year or two.
- After the first two years, the U.S. should have a policy of spending more on public works in the target country than on security/defense/etc in the target country (including defense personnel protecting public works projects).
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