Prisoners of Geography

by Tim Marshall

  There were now only three places from which a challenge to American hegemony could come: a united Europe, Russia and China. All would grow stronger, but two would reach their limits.

  The dream of some Europeans of an EU with ‘ever closer union’ and a common foreign and defence policy is dying slowly before our eyes, and even if it were not, the EU countries spend so little on defence that ultimately they remain reliant on the USA. The economic crash of 2008 has left the European powers reduced in capacity and with little appetite for foreign adventures.

  In 1991 the Russian threat had been seen off due to Russia’s own staggering economic incompetence, military overstretch and failure to persuade the subjected masses in its empire that gulags and the over-production of state-funded tractors was the way ahead. The recent push-back by Putin’s Russia is a thorn in America’s side, but not a serious threat to America’s dominance. When President Obama described Russia as ‘no more than a regional power’ in 2014 he may have been needlessly provocative, but he wasn’t wrong. The bars of Russia’s geographical prison, as seen in Chapter One, are still in place: they still lack a warm-water port with access to the global sea lanes and still lack the military capacity in wartime to reach the Atlantic via the Baltic and North seas, or the Black Sea and the Mediterranean.

  The USA was partially behind the change of government in Ukraine in 2014. It wanted to extend democracy in the world, and it wanted to pull Ukraine away from Russian influence and thus weaken President Putin. Washington knows that during the last decade, as America was distracted in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Russians took advantage in what they call their ‘near abroad’, regaining a solid footing in places such as Kazakhstan and seizing territory in Georgia. Belatedly, and somewhat half-heartedly, the Americans have been trying to roll back Russian gains.

  Americans care about Europe, they care about NATO, they will sometimes act (if it is in the American interest), but Russia is now, for the Americans, mostly a European problem, albeit one they keep an eye on.

  That leaves China, and China is rising.

  Most analysis written over the past decade assumes that by the middle of the twenty-first century China will overtake the USA and become the leading superpower. For reasons partially discussed in Chapter Two, I am not convinced. It may take a century.

  Economically the Chinese are on their way to matching the Americans and that buys them a lot of influence and a place at the top table, but militarily and strategically they are decades behind. The USA will spend those decades attempting to ensure it stays that way, but it feels inevitable that the gap will close.

  The concrete costs a lot. Not just to mix and pour, but to be allowed to mix and pour it where you want to. As we saw with the ‘Destroyers for Bases Agreement’, American assistance to other governments is not always entirely altruistic. Economic and, equally importantly, military assistance buys permission to pour the concrete, but much more as well, even if there is also an added cost.

  For example, Washington might be outraged at human rights abuses in Syria (a hostile state) and express its opinions loudly, but its outrage at abuses in Bahrain might be somewhat more difficult to hear, muffled as it has been by the engines of the US 5th Fleet which is based in Bahrain as the guest of the Bahraini government. On the other hand, assistance does buy the ability to suggest to government B (say Burma) that it might want to resist the overtures of government C (say China). In that particular example the USA is behind the curve because the Burmese government only recently began to open up to most of the outside world and Beijing has a head start.

  However, when it comes to Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and others, the Americans are pushing at a door already open due to those countries’ anxiety about their giant neighbour and keenness to engage with Washington. They may all have issues with each other, but those issues are dwarfed by the knowledge that if they do not stand together they will be picked off one by one and eventually fall under Chinese hegemony.

  The USA is still in the opening phase of what in 2011 the then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called ‘the pivot to China’. It was an interesting phrase, taken by some to mean the abandonment of Europe; but a pivot towards one place does not mean the abandonment of another. It is more a case of how much weight you put on which foot.

  Many US government foreign policy strategists are persuaded that the history of the twenty-first century will be written in Asia and the Pacific. Half of the world’s population lives there, and if India is included it is expected to account for half of global economic output by 2050.

  Hence we will see the USA increasingly investing time and money in East Asia to establish its presence and intentions in the region. For example, in Northern Australia the Americans have set up a base for the US Marine Corps. But in order to exert real influence, they may also have to invest in limited military action to reassure their allies that they will come to their rescue in the event of hostilities. For example, if China begins shelling a Japanese destroyer and it looks as if they might take further military action, the US Navy may have to fire warning shots towards the Chinese navy, or even fire directly, to signal that it is willing to go to war over the incident. Equally, when North Korea fires at South Korea, the south fires back, but currently the US does not. Instead it puts forces on alert in a public manner to send a signal. If the situation escalated it would then fire warning shots at a North Korean target, and finally, direct shots. It’s a way of escalating without declaring war – and this is when things get dangerous.

  The USA is seeking to demonstrate to the whole region that it is in their best interests to side with Washington – China is doing the opposite. So when challenged, each side must react, because for each challenge it ducks, its allies’ confidence, and competitors’ fear, slowly drains away until eventually there is an event which persuades a state to switch sides.

  Analysts often write about the need for certain cultures not to lose face, or ever be seen to back down, but this is not just a problem in the Arab or East Asian cultures – it is a human problem expressed in different ways. It may well be more defined and openly articulated in those two cultures, but American foreign policy strategists are as aware of the issue as any other power. The English language even has two sayings which demonstrate how deeply ingrained the idea is: ‘Give them an inch and they’ll take a mile’, and President Theodore Roosevelt’s maxim of 1900, which has now entered the political lexicon: ‘Speak softly, but carry a big stick.’

  The deadly game in this century will be how the Chinese, Americans and others in the region manage each crisis that arises without losing face, and without building up a deep well of resentment and anger on both sides.

  The Cuban Missile Crisis is generally considered an American victory; what is less publicised is that several months after Russia removed its missiles from Cuba, the United States removed its Jupiter missiles (which could reach Moscow) from Turkey. It was actually a compromise, with both sides, eventually, able to tell their respective publics that they had not capitulated.

  In the twenty-first-century Pacific there are more great power compromises to be made. In the short term most, but not all, are likely to be made by the Chinese – an early example is Beijing’s declaration of an Air Defence Identification Zone requiring foreign nations to inform them before entering what is disputed territory, and the Americans deliberately flying through it without telling them. The Chinese gained something by declaring the zone and making it an issue; the USA gained something by being seen not to comply. It is a long game.

  It is also a game of cat and mouse. In early 2016, for the first time, China landed a plane on one of the runways it has constructed on the artificial islands it is building in the Spratly Islands area of the South China Sea. Vietnam and the Philippines made formal protests as they both have claims on the area, and the USA described the move as threatening ‘regional stability’. Washington now watches each construction project, and flig
ht, and has to pick and choose when and where it makes more vigorous protests, or sends naval and air force patrols near the disputed territory. Somehow it must reassure its allies that it will stand by them and guarantee freedom of navigation in international areas, whilst simultaneously not going so far as to draw China into a military confrontation.

  The US policy regarding the Japanese is to reassure them that they share strategic interests vis-à-vis China and ensure that the US base in Okinawa remains open. The Americans will assist the Japanese Self Defence Force to be a robust body, but simultaneously restrict Japan’s military ability to challenge the US in the Pacific.

  While all the other countries in the region matter, in what is a complicated diplomatic jigsaw puzzle, the key states look to be Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. These three sit astride the Strait of Malacca, which at its narrowest is only 1.7 miles across. Every day through that strait come 12 million barrels of oil heading for an increasingly thirsty China and elsewhere in the region. As long as these three countries are pro-American, the Americans have a key advantage.

  On the plus side, the Chinese are not politically ideological, they do not seek to spread Communism, nor do they covet (much) more territory in the way the Russians did during the Cold War, and neither side is looking for conflict. The Chinese can accept America guarding most of the sea lanes which deliver Chinese goods to the world, so long as the Americans accept that there will be limits to just how close to China that control extends.

  There will be arguments, and nationalism will be used to ensure the unity of the Chinese people from time to time, but each side will be seeking compromise. The danger comes if they misread each other and/or gamble too much.

  There are flashpoints. The Americans have a treaty with Taiwan which states that if the Chinese invade what they regard as their 23rd province, the USA will go to war. A red line for China, which could spark an invasion, is formal recognition of Taiwan by the USA, or a declaration of independence by Taiwan. However, there is no sign of that, and a Chinese invasion cannot be seen on this side of the horizon.

  As China’s thirst for foreign oil and gas grows, so that of the United States declines. This will have a huge impact on its foreign relations, especially in the Middle East, with knock-on effects for other countries.

  Due to offshore drilling in US coastal waters, and underground fracking across huge regions of the country, America looks destined to become not just self-sufficient in energy, but a net exporter of energy by 2020. This will mean that its focus on ensuring a flow of oil and gas from the Gulf region will diminish. It will still have strategic interests there, but the focus will no longer be so intense. If American attention wanes, the Gulf nations will seek new alliances. One candidate will be Iran, another China, but that will only happen when the Chinese have built their Blue Water navy and, equally importantly, are prepared to deploy it.

  The US 5th Fleet is not about to sail away from its port in Bahrain – that is a piece of concrete it would give up reluctantly. However, if the energy supplies of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE and Qatar are no longer required to keep American lights on, and cars on the road, the American public and Congress will ask, what is it there for? If the response is ‘to check Iran’ it may not be enough to quash the debate.

  Elsewhere in the Middle East, US policy in the short term is to prevent Iran from becoming too strong whilst at the same time reaching for what is known as the ‘grand bargain’ – an agreement settling the many issues which divide the two countries, and ending three and a half decades of enmity. With the Arab nations embarking on what may be a decades-long struggle with armed Islamists, Washington looks as if it has given up on the optimistic idea of encouraging Jeffersonian democracies to emerge, and will concentrate on attempting to manage the situation whilst at the same time desperately trying not to get sand on the boots of US soldiers.

  The close relationship with Israel may cool, albeit slowly, as the demographics of the USA change. The children of the Hispanic and Asian immigrants now arriving in the United States will be more interested in Latin America and the Far East than in a tiny country on the edge of a region no longer vital to American interests.

  The policy in Latin America will be to ensure that the Panama Canal remains open, to enquire about the rates to pass through the proposed Nicaraguan canal to the Pacific, and to keep an eye on the rise of Brazil in case it gets any ideas about its influence in the Caribbean Sea. Economically, the USA will also compete with China throughout Latin America for influence – but only in Cuba would Washington pull out all the stops to ensure it dominates the post-Castro/Communist era. The proximity of Cuba to Florida and the historic (albeit mixed) relationship between Cuba and the USA, combined with Chinese pragmatism, should be enough to pave the way for the USA to be the dominant power in the new Cuba. President Obama’s historic visit to the island in the spring of 2016 went a long way towards ensuring that. He is the first sitting US President to visit Havana since Calvin Coolidge in 1928. The former Cuban leader Fidel Castro huffed and puffed about the event, and the state controlled media dutifully reported his negative remarks, but there was a sense that this was only to keep the old man happy; the collective decision had been made, the new era had begun. America’s proximity, power and number of Cuban Americans should cement this new relationship over the next decade.

  In Africa, the Americans are but one nation seeking the continent’s natural wealth, but the nation finding most of it is China. As in the Middle East, the USA will watch the Islamist struggle in North Africa with interest but try not to get involved much closer than 30,000 feet above the ground.

  America’s experiment with nation-building overseas appears to be over.

  In Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, the USA underestimated the mentality and strength of small powers and of tribes. The Americans’ own history of physical security and unity may have led them to overestimate the power of their democratic rationalist argument, which believes that compromise, hard work and even voting would triumph over atavistic, deep-seated historical fears of ‘the other’, be they Sunni, Shia, Kurd, Arab, Muslim or Christian. They assumed people would want to come together whereas in fact many dare not try and would prefer to live apart because of their experiences. It is a sad reflection upon humanity, but it appears throughout many periods of history, and in many places, to be an unfortunate truth. The American actions took the lid off a simmering pot which had temporarily hidden that truth.

  This does not make American policymakers ‘naive’, as some of the snootier European diplomats like to believe; but they do have a ‘can do’ and a ‘can fix’ attitude which inevitably will not always work.

  For thirty years it has been fashionable to predict the imminent or ongoing decline of the USA. This is as wrong now as it was in the past. The planet’s most successful country is about to become self-sufficient in energy, it remains the pre-eminent economic power and it spends more on research and development for its military than the overall military budget of all the other NATO countries combined. Its population is not ageing as in Europe and Japan, and a 2013 Gallup study showed that 25 per cent of all people hoping to emigrate put the USA as their first choice of destination. In the same year Shanghai University listed what its experts judged the top twenty universities of the world: seventeen were in the USA.

  The Prussian statesman Otto von Bismarck, in a double- edged remark, said more than a century ago that ‘God takes special care of drunks, children and the United States of America.’ It appears still to be true.

  CHAPTER 4

  WESTERN EUROPE

  ‘Here the past was everywhere, an entire continent sown with memories.’

  Miranda Richmond Mouillot, A Fifty-Year Silence: Love, War and a Ruined House in France

  THE MODERN WORLD, FOR BETTER OR WORSE, SPRINGS from Europe. This western outpost of the great Eurasian land mass gave birth to the Enlightenment, which led to the Industrial Revolution, which has resulted in what we now see
around us every day. For that we can give thanks to, or blame, Europe’s location.

  The climate, fed by the Gulf Stream, blessed the region with the right amount of rainfall to cultivate crops on a large scale, and the right type of soil for them to flourish in. This allowed for population growth in an area in which, for most, work was possible all year round, even in the heights of summer. Winter actually adds a bonus, with temperatures warm enough to work in but cold enough to kill off many of the germs which to this day plague huge parts of the rest of the world.

  Good harvests mean surplus food that can be traded; this in turn builds up trading centres which become towns. It also allows people to think of more than just growing food and turn their attention to ideas and technology.

  Western Europe has no real deserts, the frozen wastes are confined to a few areas in the far north, and earthquakes, volcanoes and massive flooding are rare. The rivers are long, flat, navigable and made for trade. As they empty into a variety of seas and oceans they flow into coastlines which are, west, north and south, abundant in natural harbours.

  If you are reading this trapped in a snowstorm in the Alps, or waiting for flood waters to subside back into the Danube, then Europe’s geographical blessings may not seem too apparent; but, relative to many places, blessings they are. These are the factors which led to the Europeans creating the first industrialised nation states, which in turn led them to be the first to conduct industrial-scale war.

  If we take Europe as a whole we see the mountains, rivers and valleys that explain why there are so many nation states. Unlike the USA, in which one dominant language and culture pressed rapidly and violently ever westward, creating a giant country, Europe grew organically over millennia and remains divided between its geographical and linguistic regions.