Defenders of U.S. foreign policy might also argue that other countries have done even worse. U.S. officials may have mishandled the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, walked open-eyed into quagmires in Afghanistan and Iraq, and failed to build constructive relations with Russia, etc., but they still did a lot better than Muammar Gaddafi of Libya (who was overthrown by a foreign intervention and eventually killed), Saddam Hussein of Iraq (who lost three wars and was eventually executed by his successors), or Recep Erdogan of Turkey (whose country went from “zero problems with neighbors” a decade ago to problems with virtually all of them today). America’s foreign policy mandarins may stumble with some frequency, but maybe that is because they keep trying to solve so many difficult problems.
This line of argument sounds compelling at first, but it does not stand up to close scrutiny. If a nation’s foreign policy is judged by whether it makes that country safer and richer, and whether it promotes certain core values, then there are plenty of countries that have been doing at least as well as the United States and some that have done considerably better. By remaining aloof from most quarrels and concentrating on economic development, for example, China has improved the lives of its people dramatically and gained substantially more international influence than it had thirty years ago. Iran is hardly the regional colossus depicted in some hard-liners’ alarmist fantasies, but it has taken full advantage of America’s missteps to shore up its regional position, even in the face of powerful opposition from the United States and others. Russia may be a declining power for both economic and demographic reasons, but it is not the basket case it was in the 1990s, and Vladimir Putin has played a weak hand well over the past fifteen years.1
Similarly, America’s many wealthy allies have enjoyed considerable “free” security over the past few decades, largely because Washington bore a disproportionate share of global security burdens and allowed its allies to spend their money on other goals. Nor should we forget the thousands of foreign and American lives lost as a result of Washington’s recent missteps. A few states have caused more harm to others in recent years than the United States has, but not very many.
Moreover, even if U.S. foreign policy had consistently outperformed all other countries, that is not the real issue. The real question is whether U.S. foreign policy is as good as one might reasonably expect, or whether the choices U.S. leaders have made forced the American people to bear costs or run risks they could have avoided. Being better than some other countries is not a compelling defense when there’s still enormous room for improvement.
Skeptics might also concede that key foreign policy institutions were not performing very well yet still maintain that military, diplomatic corps, intelligence services, and other parts of the foreign policy community outperform other public policy sectors. U.S. foreign policy might be inept, but does the government do a better job of educating the public, preventing crime, managing the economy, or maintaining the nation’s public infrastructure? If not, perhaps the indictment offered in this book is too harsh and we should judge those responsible for America’s relations with the outside world more gently.
This excuse misses the point as well. There are no benchmarks or performance measures available to rank different government sectors, making precise comparisons among them largely meaningless. But it is not hard to identify areas of public policy—such as Social Security, Medicare, inoculation campaigns, or federal support for scientific research—that are more successful and popular than many recent foreign policy initiatives.2 And even if the federal government was in fact better at conducting foreign policy than it was at maintaining infrastructure, policing, or controlling firearms, it might still be pursuing the wrong goals and thus failing to make Americans as safe or as prosperous as they could be.
Lastly, one could argue that my indictment of recent U.S. foreign policy depends on a small number of events—especially the failures in Iraq and Afghanistan—and that the overall record is actually quite positive. Were it not for those missteps, some defenders of liberal hegemony now argue, U.S. global leadership would be looking pretty darn good. For them, the obvious lesson is to maintain U.S. “deep engagement” and continue to pursue liberal hegemony while avoiding stupid blunders such as the Iraq War.3
There are two obvious problems with this line of defense. First, the failures of liberal hegemony are not confined to Iraq, but also include the fallout from NATO expansion, the consequences of regime change in Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya, and elsewhere, the open-ended “war on terror,” the mismanagement of the Middle East peace process, the continuing spread of weapons of mass destruction, and the antidemocratic backlash that has occurred since the 2008 financial crisis. The United States would undoubtedly be in a better position today if it had “kept Saddam in a box” in 2003 and after, but other aspects of U.S. foreign policy would still have been disappointing.
Second, pinning the blame on the Iraq War overlooks how liberal hegemony makes mistakes of this sort far more likely. Once the United States is committed to spreading its values, turning dictatorships into democracies, and disarming autocrats who seek WMD, and once it declares itself to be the “indispensable power” whose leadership is essential for international stability, it will inevitably be drawn toward the use of force whenever other tools fail to achieve these ends.4 Americans may be reluctant to repeat the Iraq experience at the moment, but as we saw in chapter 5, that lesson is already being challenged by those who now defend the decision to invade and maintain that the United States should simply have stayed there longer.
In sum, none of these alibis can absolve recent U.S. leaders from responsibility for the recent parade of foreign policy failures or vindicate the strategy of liberal hegemony that Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama all pursued, albeit in slightly different ways, and that Donald Trump has been unable to abandon. U.S. foreign policy is unlikely to improve, therefore, until U.S. leaders adopt a new approach—a new grand strategy—for dealing with the outside world. What should that strategy be, and what might convince the country to adopt it?
AN ALTERNATIVE: OFFSHORE BALANCING
Given the repeated failures of the past two decades, it is hardly surprising that Americans are more receptive to the idea of a different grand strategy than at any time in recent memory.5 As noted at the beginning of this book, Trump’s triumph in November 2016 was itself evidence of considerable discontent. The American people want their country to maintain a “shared leadership” role, but far fewer want it to be a “dominant” world power, and there is only modest support for using military force in a wide array of scenarios.6 Indeed, a survey in early 2018 found that more than 70 percent of Americans would support legislation that required “clearly defined goals to authorize military action overseas, including what constitutes victory or success, and a clear timeline.”7
Furthermore, the “millennial” generation now entering active political life sees engagement with the outside world very differently than prior generations did. Millennials perceive fewer foreign dangers, are less reflexively patriotic, and are decidedly less supportive of military solutions to contemporary global problems.8 In the 2016 campaign, both Trump on the right and Bernie Sanders on the left found receptive audiences on the campaign trail whenever they questioned the U.S. penchant for promoting democracy, subsidizing its allies’ defense, and intervening with military force, leaving only Hillary Clinton—whose foreign policy “brain trust” was the living embodiment of the mainstream foreign policy community—to defend the status quo.9
Fortunately, a superior alternative is available—offshore balancing—which is America’s traditional grand strategy. Instead of trying to remake the world in America’s image, offshore balancing is principally concerned with America’s position in the global balance of power and focuses on preventing other states from projecting power in ways that might threaten the United States. Accordingly, it calls for the United States to deploy its power abroad only when there are direct threats to vital U.S
. interests.
In particular, offshore balancers believe that only a few areas of the globe are of vital importance to U.S. security or prosperity and thus worth sending Americans to fight and die for. The first vital region is the Western Hemisphere itself, where America’s dominant position ensures that no neighbor can pose a serious threat to the U.S. homeland. This fortuitous situation is a luxury no other major power has ever enjoyed.10
But unlike isolationists, offshore balancers believe that three distant regions also matter to the United States: Europe, Northeast Asia, and the Persian Gulf. Europe and Asia are vital because they contain key centers of industrial power and military potential. The Persian Gulf is also important—at least for now—because the area produces roughly 30 percent of the world’s oil and holds about 55 percent of its proven reserves, and oil and gas are still critical for the world economy.
For offshore balancers, the primary concern would be the rise of a local hegemon that dominated one of these regions in the same way that the United States now dominates the Western Hemisphere. Such a state in Europe or Northeast Asia would have considerable economic clout, the ability to develop sophisticated weaponry, and the potential to project power and influence around the globe. It might eventually control greater economic resources than the United States and be able to outspend it in an arms race. If it wished, such a state could even ally with countries in the Western Hemisphere and interfere close to American soil, as its own homeland would not be in serious danger from its immediate neighbors.
Thus, America’s principal aim in Europe and Northeast Asia should be to maintain the local balance of power so that the strongest state in these regions has to worry about one or more of its neighbors and is not free to roam into the Western Hemisphere, or any other area deemed vital to the United States. A hegemon in the Persian Gulf would be undesirable, for example, because it might interfere with the flow of oil from that region, thereby damaging the world economy and threatening U.S. prosperity. The United States does not need to control any of these regions directly, however; it can achieve its core strategic aims merely by helping to ensure that these regions do not fall under the control of another major power, especially not a peer competitor.
HOW WOULD OFFSHORE BALANCING WORK?
Under a strategy of offshore balancing, the proper role and size of the U.S. national security establishment depends on the distribution of power in the key regions. If there is no potential hegemon in sight in Europe, Northeast Asia, or the Gulf, there is little reason to deploy U.S. ground or air forces there and little need for a national security establishment that dwarfs those of the major powers.
If a potential hegemon does appear, the United States should turn to local forces as the first line of defense. It should expect them to uphold the regional balance of power out of their own self-interest and to deal with local security challenges themselves. Washington might provide material assistance and pledge to support certain regional powers if they were in danger of being conquered, but it should refrain from deploying significant U.S. forces under most conditions. In some circumstances it might be prudent to maintain small military contingents, intelligence-gathering facilities, or pre-positioned equipment overseas, but in general Washington would “pass the buck” to local powers because they have a greater interest in preventing any state from dominating their region.
If local actors cannot contain a potential hegemon on their own, however, the United States must deploy enough military force to the region to shift the local balance in its favor. American forces might be needed before war broke out, if the local actors could not uphold the balance by themselves. The United States kept large ground and air forces in Europe throughout the Cold War, for example, because U.S. leaders believed the countries of Western Europe could not contain the Soviet Union on their own.11
At other times, the United States might intervene after a war starts if one side seems likely to emerge as a regional hegemon. American intervention in both world wars fits this pattern. The United States came in late both times, when it appeared that Germany might win and end up dominating Europe.
In essence, this strategy aims to keep U.S. forces “offshore” for as long as possible while recognizing that sometimes the United States will have to come onshore even before a conflict starts. If that happens, the United States should get its allies in the region to do as much of the heavy lifting as possible and go back offshore once the threat has been defeated.
THE VIRTUES OF OFFSHORE BALANCING
Offshore balancing has a number of obvious benefits. First and foremost, it reduces the resources Washington must devote to defending distant regions and allows for greater investment and consumption at home. And by limiting the areas of the world the United States is committed to defend, this strategy puts fewer Americans in harm’s way.
Second, offshore balancing would prolong America’s current position of primacy, as it avoids costly and counterproductive crusades and allows for greater investment in the long-term ingredients of power and prosperity: education, infrastructure, and research and development. The United States became a great power in the nineteenth century by staying out of distant wars and building the world’s largest and most advanced economy, much as China has been attempting to do over the past three decades. And as China has built power at home, the United States has wasted trillions of dollars pursuing liberal hegemony, placing its position of primacy at risk. Returning to offshore balancing would help remedy that problem.
Offshore balancing would also reduce the tendency for other states to “free-ride” on U.S. protection, a problem that has grown in scope since the end of the Cold War. U.S. GDP is less than 50 percent of NATO’s total, for example, yet it accounts for about 75 percent of the alliance’s military spending.12 In Asia, local efforts to strengthen defense capabilities remain modest, with key U.S. allies such as Japan—the world’s third largest economy—and Australia spending less than 2 percent of GDP on defense. As MIT’s Barry Posen observes, America’s willingness to subsidize its allies’ defense often amounts to “welfare for the rich.”13
America’s terrorism problem would be less worrisome under offshore balancing as well. Liberal hegemony commits the United States to spreading democracy in unfamiliar places, which sometimes requires military occupation and always involves trying to dictate local political arrangements. Such efforts invariably foster nationalist resentment in these societies and sometimes trigger violent resistance, including terrorism.14 At the same time, trying to spread American values via regime change undermines local institutions and creates ungoverned spaces where violent extremists can operate. Thus, liberal hegemony both inspires terrorists and facilitates their operations.
Offshore balancing alleviates this problem by eschewing large-scale social engineering and minimizing the U.S. military footprint. U.S. troops would be stationed on foreign soil only when a given state is in a vital region and threatened by a potential hegemon. Under these conditions, the potential victim will be grateful for U.S. protection and will not view its military forces as occupiers. And once the threat is gone, U.S. military forces would go back over the horizon and not stay behind to meddle in local politics. By respecting the sovereignty of other states, offshore balancing is less likely to foster the nationalist anger that is a powerful source of anti-American extremism. It would not eliminate the terrorism problem overnight, but it would almost certainly reduce it over time.
A REASSURING HISTORY
Offshore balancing may seem like a radical idea today, but it provided the guiding logic for U.S. foreign policy for many decades. During the nineteenth century, the U.S. government was preoccupied with building a powerful state and establishing hegemony in the Western Hemisphere. It achieved these goals around 1900 but continued to let the great powers check each other, and Washington intervened militarily only when the balance of power broke down in one or more of the key strategic regions, as it did during the two world wars.
The same
logic drove U.S. policy during the Cold War, but circumstances required a different response. Because its allies in Europe and Northeast Asia could not contain the Soviet Union by themselves, the United States had no choice but to go “onshore” in Europe and Northeast Asia. Accordingly, Washington forged alliances and stationed significant military forces in both regions, and it entered the Korean War to preserve the balance of power in Northeast Asia and prevent the Soviet Union from posing a greater threat to Japan.
In the Persian Gulf, however, the United States stayed offshore. Until 1968, Washington relied on Great Britain to prevent any state from dominating that oil-rich region. As Britain withdrew, America turned to the shah of Iran and to Saudi Arabia to achieve that same end. When the shah fell in 1979, Washington built the Rapid Deployment Force (RDF) to keep Iran or the Soviet Union from dominating the Gulf. The Reagan administration also helped thwart an Iranian victory in the Iran-Iraq War (1980–88) by giving Saddam Hussein military intelligence and other forms of assistance.
The United States kept the RDF offshore until 1990, when Saddam Hussein’s seizure of Kuwait threatened to increase Iraq’s power and place Saudi Arabia and other Gulf oil producers at risk. Consistent with offshore balancing, the Bush administration assembled a large coalition and sent a powerful expeditionary force to liberate Kuwait and smash Saddam’s military machine.
For nearly a century, in short, offshore balancing prevented the emergence of dangerous regional hegemons and preserved a global balance of power that maximized U.S. security. Moreover, whenever Washington abandoned that strategy and tried a different approach, the result was a costly failure. The Vietnam War was a clear violation of offshore balancing, for example, as Indochina was not a vital strategic interest and Vietnam’s fate had no impact on the global balance of power.15
The Hell of Good Intentions Page 29