In July, Defense Secretary Robert F. Gates approved a new national defense strategy that formally made the war against terrorists the overriding priority. It emphasized the role of allies and partners in a
world in which, as many have said, the United States is still the most powerful country but no longer overwhelmingly powerful by itself. The sort of large-war projects that currently occupy much of the defense budget will have to be cut. To the extent that such projects are insurance against a future collision with China or Russia, the document reportedly recommends cooperation to reduce competition.
Mr. Gates also argues that while military power is vital, what many now call "soft" power will be extremely important in this fight. Although no central policy document written so late in the current administration can survive the coming election intact, the new strategy will probably help shape any defense debate that develops early in the next administration, and so will likely have lasting impact.
Readers of the recent maritime strategy will recognize the argument that the United States must promote world prosperity to overcome the forces that support current terrorism. Detractors argue that the war on terrorism is hardly the only threat the United States will face over the next 20 or 30 years, and perhaps not even the most significant. Cutting back on high-end systems will encourage potential enemies to push ahead with their own military modernization.
What Are We Fighting?
The central question remains, exactly what we are fighting? On one level, that is obvious: Osama bin Laden ordered the 9/11 attacks. His allies are fighting in Afghanistan. On a deeper level, the U.S.-led operation in Iraq can be seen as an attempt, which may yet succeed, to create a successful, decent Middle Eastern government that will inspire others in the region. The more subtle message is that homicidal hatred of the United States is generated not by what we do, but by local tyranny in the Middle East. At least on the Asian rim, prosperity has generated pressure for democracy that in turn, we think, leads to stability. It may not lead to happiness, but at least those who are unhappy generally understand that their grievances are local rather the result of U.S. behavior.
It is also possible that we are seeing a surface manifestation of something much larger. The end of the Cold War may have coincided with a feeling of fluidity in the Muslim world that encouraged some, like bin Laden, to think that they could seize pan-Muslim power. An explosion of intra-Muslim religious warfare (bin Laden has killed many more Muslims than Westerners) would not be much affected by greater prosperity. It would be a hurricane we would try to ride out. Our main military roles might be to protect those few Muslim governments that did not go under, to protect enclaves in the Muslim world, and, often, to protect or evacuate Westerners.
A hurricane in the Muslim world would severely damage what is left of Russia (and may now be doing so in Chechnya). The Muslim insurgency already affects China in Sinkiang, but to a lesser degree than it is likely to affect Russia. Whether either the Chinese or the Russian leadership is ready to understand that it has a common cause with us is, of course, open to question. If they do not, then Secretary Gates may find that he is prescribing what amounts to appeasement, and history will see his stewardship as a disaster. If he is right, then his prescription may be the only intelligent way for us to focus on what matters.
Some history may be relevant. If by soft power we really mean the power to boost world economies, then the obvious historical example is the Marshall Plan to rebuild Western Europe after World War II. There is no prospect of a new Marshall Plan, but it might be argued that the recent collapse of the Doha round of talks on cutting tariff barriers was a direct threat to prosperity in much of the world. Some have blamed U.S. and European agricultural protectionism. Would the next administration have the political courage to take on the farm lobby in the interest of national security? Would that be a valid exercise in soft power? Would Europeans understand that a parallel sacrifice was in their own interests? Would it be?
Some have argued that the United States of the 21st century is something like Britain in the 19th. Then, many in the United Kingdom saw their country much as Americans see the United States now, as the leading power but no longer the overwhelming one. The one area in which the British retained dominance was sea power. The question was how to use that potential leverage. We are the only truly global power. In both cases, it is easy to take our use of sea power for granted and to focus on the details of land operations in places like Iraq.
However, sea power is the reason we could operate in Iraq in the first place. We may well find that the military end of the current war is overwhelmingly a hunt for enemy leaders. We are already learning that it is much easier to carry on that hunt using long-endurance UAVs (and the associated reconnaissance assets) than using troops on the ground. Ultimately that would mean that we would prefer to base the UAVs at sea. If we are fighting an enemy whose main advantage is being spread out, then our ability to deal with that enemy on a global basis is uniquely valuable. Moreover, the smaller the footprint we seek to place ashore, the more local powers will believe that our goals do not include subjugating them.
British Empire Redux?
There is a darker side to this history. Just as British imperial power seemed to be at a peak, the British found themselves fighting an insurgency in South Africa. Their heavy naval investment, the high technology of that day, did them little good, and their army found itself ill-prepared to deal with an enemy better trained and armed than those it usually faced in colonial warfare. Is Iraq our Boer War? The British won, but they discovered that they were far weaker than they had imagined and realized they needed allies. They considered an alliance with Germany, their rising rival, and found that the conditions offered were unacceptably onerous. Within a few years they were turning to the French. The course of World War I can be read as an example of how expensive alliances can be, in that the British found themselves helping defend France at all costs. Is China our Germany?
What of soft power? In the years leading up to World War I, London was the financial center of the world economy, much as New York is now. Like the current U.S. Navy, the Royal Navy realized that it was associated with the global economy. Historian Dr. Nicholas Lambert has found that, to a far greater extent than has been imagined, the Royal Navy's leaders looked to economic attack as a means of winning. This was much more than the usual naval weapon of blockade; it was a novel and comprehensive approach to national strategy. Leading British economists showed that attacks on German credit could quite possibly cause rapid national collapse. However, they soon also realized that the British and German economies were so closely linked that an all-out economic attack on Germany would cause a British crash. The British government therefore rejected this approach. In effect the British realized that globalization had created what amounted to mutual assured destruction, a point often raised before 1914 by those who argued that major war was no longer possible.
Tragically the German General Staff, which guided German national policy, was economically illiterate; it did not understand the nature of the deterrent threat. There was no effective civilian government that could veto war on such grounds. Worse, the German leadership seems to have seen war as a way of buttressing itself against a rising demand for power by the German population, as reflected in the Reichstag, the German parliament (whose power was strictly limited). The nuclear weapons that provided deterrence during the Cold War were a lot easier for national leaders to understand.
As for current soft power, many have remarked that the Chinese and U.S. economies are so tightly joined that no sane U.S. administration will calmly contemplate war. This is a 1914 situation. How well does the ruling Chinese Communist Party understand that its country's prosperity underlies its power and that it in turn depends on the United States? If it does, then it will be open to Secretary Gates' cooperation. If not . . .