U.S. Grand Strategy.org

Our Grandest Strategy

2009-12-31T13:43:00.003-05:00

America rose from colonial backwater to unprecedented superpower by pursuing the grandest of grand strategies: attainment. Conceived in high ideals and conscious of its own potential for greatness, the United States was born allergic to the cold embrace of pure power politics. Americans demanded their leaders implement a grand strategy based on the notion that the United States remained fundamentally a different, better system of government.

Having grown to strength and defeated all serious challengers to primacy, this is the American moment. It is our time to lead the world, and America has floundered a bit from the awesome responsibility of rare historical potential. The giddiness has passed; it is time for a serious settlement of the issue of what this nation wants to accomplish in the world.

I believe U.S. grand strategy only functions well when it adheres to American traditions and values. This means our goal ought to be to create the conditions in which the American system can furnish security and prosperity for its citizens and free them to do great things. It must also shine as an example of the notion that great power and high ideals are not mutually exclusive.

American grand strategy rests on a precondition of a stable American international primacy. No other nation can do or will do what the United States must do in the next century to advance human civilization. Therefore our grand strategy must rest on the notion that America must remain the world’s preeminent power. Here is how to accomplish that:

1. Restore America’s image. The new administration has made great strides here. Keep going. Take the lead on matters of international interest. End the perception of inevitable American decline and alleviate the international fear that we will go down swinging. The world will resist U.S. primacy and leadership with full force if it does not accept the fundamental benevolence of American power.

2. Keep growing the population. The preferred way is for Americans to have more babies. Failing that, the United States must encourage strategic immigration. In the next century the price of labor will soar while the world flattens (somewhat). Our available labor pool will play a dramatic role in our economic performance. The United States has a tremendous advantage here in its ability to assimilate immigrants. Growing the domestic workforce is tremendously expensive, but provides a solid foundation for labor sustainability. Which leads directly to…

3. Drastically reduce the costs of raising children and caring for the elderly. When our ratio of labor to non-labor shrinks, America’s ability to do great things evaporates. Productivity gains cannot close the gap. The United States cannot long remain a great power if every child costs more to raise than he or she will someday produce. Nor can it do so if its workforce strains under an obligation to pay for its seniors to play twenty years of golf while requiring enormously expensive medical care. Education, retirement, and health policies must serve dual goals of national interest and individual dignity. Currently they serve the latter at the expense of the former.

4. Choose our conflicts more wisely. If an adversary could point to areas on the map in which it would most like to see American power engaged, it would look very much like the map of American military involvement in the last several decades. Primary among these are Vietnam (graveyard of great powers), Afghanistan (graveyard of empires), and Iraq (cradle of civilization, but now a persistent gadfly with no resources that cannot also be found in friendlier terrain). Although we must rise to meet challenges to our security, the United States must find a way to avoid ill-defining threats and spending power for limited gains.

5. Devote significant resources to developing renewable energy. Whoever becomes the Saudi Arabia of cheap, renewable energy will have a significant economic, political, and military advantage for many, many years. Alleviating dependence on petroleum imports will open new vistas for diplomacy and investment in areas where the United States chooses, rather than where it must. The United States is uniquely positioned to push forward in multiple areas, including biomass, solar, wind, lunar collectors, and geothermal. We should use this opportunity to develop several different sources of renewable energy and create sustainable dominance in multiple new energy markets.

Many of these policies are elements of domestic strategy, rather than classical grand strategy. I contend that good grand strategy presumes good domestic strategy, for the foundations of power are largely domestic. Beyond this list of top priorities are other, also important tasks required for long-term American primacy and security. Taken together, they form a guideline for a successful U.S. grand strategy.

Strategies of Attainment

2009-06-05T21:14:00.007-04:00

Ask your average foreign policy expert to name a grand strategy and the answer is almost invariably, “Containment. It's the strategy that won the Cold War.” If so, then with the Cold War era that containment served barely visible in the rearview mirror, America appears to need a new grand strategy.

Finding that new strategy is a career maker -- a guarantor that the smart or lucky person who proposes it will be remembered with the likes of George Kennan and Paul Nitze. So the search commenced for a successor strategy. It shows plenty of creativity, zeal and trial balloons. However, no one has calculated or stumbled on the winning formula yet. Perhaps it's time to revisit our assumptions.

Let's assume that containment alone did not win the Cold War. That means containment was merely a holding action against an aggressive and expansionist enemy while something else significant took place. Checking Soviet expansion did help keep much of the world, especially areas of strategic interest, either free or nonaligned. But playing defense alone does not and cannot win. Trying to prevent the rise of potential challengers is exhausting, morally bankrupt, unworthy of a nation conceived in greatness, and almost certain (if history is any guide) doomed to fail. There was another strategy at work, a much older one, that finally came to fruition while containment kept our primary adversary at bay.

The United States won the Cold War by outperforming the USSR. Its military jumped a generation ahead of the Soviet military. Its capitalist economy created vastly more individual and collective wealth than Soviet communism. Its liberal political system held far greater philosophical legitimacy and provided a richer political experience for its citizenry. The United States government behaved more honorably in its foreign relations and held far greater moral authority than the evil empire could hope achieve with its propaganda. The Soviet Union could not compete with American performance and collapsed from the effort. When the dust settled, the United States stood alone as the world's only superpower.

America won the Cold War by pursuing the grandest of grand strategies: a longstanding strategy of attainment. This strategy was in place from the Founding Fathers through manifest destiny into and through the twentieth century and it proved wildly successful. Seeing the danger, Soviet leaders quickly sought peaceful coexistence, but a segment of American society disagreed vehemently. However, ingrained reluctance to strain national budgets for international aims such as the defeat of communism reflected America's preoccupation with its own growth and initially restricted enthusiastic pursuit of rollback. So the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations practiced containment as a holding action. For a few years Nixon and Ford sought stable balances of power, but these strategies soon proved insufficient because something was amiss in the thinking underlying them.

The social upheavals of the late 1960s and early 1970s brought this insufficiency to the fore. While most accounts of this era examine changes in American domestic life, the effect on U.S. grand strategy was no less transformative. American society rejected the amorality of realpolitik and stopped turning blind eyes to the dirty business of Cold War sub-war maneuvering. Americans demanded something better from their government. They sought a grand strategy based on the idea that the United States remained fundamentally a different, better system and destined for something greater than shady subterfuges and endless superpower stalemate.

The decision by the Carter and Reagan administrations to capitalize on American moral, military, and economic strength and compete vigorously turned the tide of the Cold War. Refusing to accept peaceful coexistence, moral equivalence, and stable balances of power, they pushed for confrontations designed to undermine Soviet strength: the Afghan conflict, export controls on vital petroleum technologies, arms races, and the strategic defense initiative. Confronted directly by American power, the Soviets were unable to compete at the same level and ultimately conceded the contest.

This strategy of attainment capitalized on the United States' significant advantages, including its educated and innovative population, access to international trade, geographic position, and ingrained ingenuity. The residents of other systems found something compelling about the American system and way of life. They concluded the Americans were on to something good and forced radical change upon their own governments to emulate the United States.

Misguided by the notion that containment alone won the Cold War, in the days following the Soviet collapse our American strategists got it wrong. They needed to account of the fundamental changes brought about by the loss of a credible competitor to American primacy. However, the strategy that needed to be discarded in addressing challenges of the new era was not that of winning by outperforming America's adversaries, but the strategy of containing them. The environment in which the United States could attempt great things in international politics evolved at precisely the moment in which American strategists stopped prescribing them.

Fortunately, this situation can be corrected. The American moment can still become an era of great attainment. It simply requires acceptance of a single proposition: the current superiority of the American model. Throughout American history, we have not had much difficulty thinking ourselves different and somehow better, the world's exceptional nation. However, our academic training teaches us that this kind of thinking is dangerous. Presuming one’s own systemic superiority is arrogant and somehow “unscientific.” To accept the superior performance of the American system requires accepting that international politics is not a science. The units of measure –- states -- are not and can never be fundamentally equivalent, nor can the conditions of international politics ever be repeatable. Therefore strategy making based on the belief that one is being scientific will be flawed. The academic treatment of systems as morally, functionally, and qualitatively equivalent prevents good strategy. Different systems are different, some perform better than others, and the evidence indicates the American system currently outperforms all others.

American strategists must swallow their training, accept that we’re either very right or very lucky, and keep going with our winning strategy. There are other governmental and societal systems out there, and some of them are pretty good at performing for their citizens. The United States' post-Cold War grand strategy should be to continue to create the conditions of fair competition in which the superiority of the American system can prevail. If a better model arises in a rising power and threatens American superiority, then we’ll discover it, learn from it, and adapt our strategy as necessary. Until then, the challenge for American grand strategists is to concentrate on fine-tuning the American system and have the courage and faith to see their grandest grand strategy through to new heights of greatness.

The next article will focus on ways to continue to implement this strategy.

Strategies of Atonement

2009-02-26T15:41:00.000-05:00

Reputations are not derived on what something is or has been, but what people know about it. This holds as true for nations as it does for individuals. For most of its history, the United States has been the world's exceptional nation, the one that did things differently. Through its statements and actions the United States stockpiled a reserve of international goodwill. As a result, much of the world welcomed American international leadership during and immediately after the Cold War. However, memories are notoriously short in international relations and the pages continue to fly off the calendar.

Grand strategies are meant to last many years, so they require the support of future generations of leaders and policy makers. They will be implemented and followed during the careers of today's 30 year olds, who will then, at the ends of their careers, design these grand strategies' successors before moving into retirement. As such, grand strategies must be made with today's 30 year olds in mind or risk being abandoned by them as illegitimately derived by outdated mindsets.

If we mark the beginnings of a person's political awareness somewhere around 16 years old, we find that the average 30-year-old in the world today has roughly fourteen years of personal recollection of American foreign policy. He or she does not remember very much about the strategies and policies of Bill Clinton's first term (14-18 years old), and likely has no recollection of George H.W. Bush's prudence (10-14 years old) or Ronald Reagan's steadfastness (2-10 years old). Within his or her perspective, the idealism of Jimmy Carter, the social upheavals of the sixties, and the heroism of the Second World War are half-remembered history lessons and occasional Jeopardy! questions. What the average 30-year-old learned most clearly about American foreign policy happened during the second Clinton term and the George W. Bush presidency. So what do these fourteen years say about America in the world?

America got some things very right. It put terrorist organizations throughout the world on notice and, in many cases, on the run. It signed far-reaching trade agreements to improve the world trading system. It pushed peace in Ireland and peaceful pursuit of civilian nuclear energy, most notably with India. America also provided disaster aid for natural catastrophes and HIV/AIDS and malaria assistance for biological ones, and increased education support for millions in Africa.

However, America also got some things very wrong. It spent more than seven of the last fourteen years fighting an inconclusive war in Afghanistan and perhaps five of the previous six years doing so in Iraq. American missiles bombed tents in Central Asia and an aspirin factory in Sudan. Some of its most respected and trustworthy leaders provided public and incontrovertible testimony about Iraqi WMD that turned out to be false. The United States imprisoned foreign nationals without due process, tortured at least some of them to protect its own, and claimed throughout to be unconstrained by such niceties as the Geneva Convention. American exceptionalism in these years was more descriptive of the United States' bold claim that it was above the rules of international order than an honorific earned by its unusual greatness.

Finally, in many ways America failed to make good on the potential of these important years. The United Nations at sixty looked very much like the United Nations at forty. NATO gained new members, but not new purpose. American foreign policy continued its long transformation from military intervention in major contests with vital interests (First and Second World Wars) to medium- and small-scale conflicts with increasinly moderate interests (Korea, Vietnam, Nicaragua, Lebanon, Panama, First Gulf War, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Rwanda) and, finally, to staying completely out of things completely regardless of interest (Rwanda, Sudan, and Georgia) unless faced with direct or perceived near-term attack (Afghanistan and Iraq). The United States failed to create new security arrangements to address important international problems such as nuclear proliferation (North Korea and Iran), smuggling, drug trafficking, slave trafficking, resource depletion, global climate change, and international piracy. It also failed to build international consensus around important concepts such as the legitimacy of peaceful Islamic governance, the viability of international law, and superior reliability of liberal economics.

America's history is full of greatness, but the sum of recent memories is not a powerful argument for the credibility of American international leadership. The past few years have shown an increasing difficulty in generating support for American initiatives among the international community, and American policy makers have become well aware of the effects of a tarnished reputation on overall American international power. Imagine, for example, the enormous task the current administration would face in creating an American-led international financial stability institution or building support for an international coalition of sanctions and/or military force to remove even obvious threats such as Iran's growing nuclear weapons capabilities. America needs its good reputation back so it can lead the world in meeting the next set of challenges effectively.

Appropriately, the new President's immediate actions represent its strategies of atonement. Recognizing that a lowered internal and external opinion of American moral authority weakened the United States, he moved to end some of the most damaging practices of the previous administration. He ordered the closing of the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, a ban on interrogation practices that constitute torture, and began work on a final plan to withdraw American forces from Iraq. These were strong and necessary first steps toward restoring America's stockpile of international respect, the kinds of actions I described in many of my previous posts. Reinforcing them with other, larger actions in the coming months will do much to restore the world's high opinion of American values. This will set the stage for the presumed follow-up strategy, one aimed at reestablishing the world's acceptance of American leadership for vital international issues.

A Jeffersonian Path to Leadership

2008-11-25T19:34:00.000-05:00

The “simile du jour” in today’s discussions of President-elect Obama’s actions is that he is organizing is cabinet as described by Doris Kearns Goodwin’s fantastic work, Team of Rivals. Choosing the strongest primary opponents for his team proved a wise tactic for Abraham Lincoln, and presumably it will do so for Obama. Lincoln faced the task of restoring the country to wholeness; Obama must restore it to greatness. Once his team of power players is in place, the President-elect would do well to emulate Thomas Jefferson when choosing at least one of the components of his grand strategy.

As British rule over American colonies came to an end, pirate ships and crews from the North African states of Tripoli, Tunis, Morocco, and Algiers (the Barbary Coast) ravaged Mediterranean commerce. American efforts toward independence from Britain ended British protection of American merchant ships and sailors from the Barbary pirates. France guarded American ships in the Mediterranean during the war, according to the terms of their 1778 Treaty of Alliance. However, the end of the war in 1783 meant the United States had to protect its own commercial interests in the Mediterranean.

Paying ransoms and bribes to Barbary rulers sounded like a cheaper solution than raising an international navy to defeat them. Deep in debt from its war for independence, Congress appropriated funds for tribute payments and directed the American ministers in Europe (Thomas Jefferson and John Adams) to begin negotiations. Jefferson opposed this plan, arguing that paying ransom and bribery demands only leads to further demands. Instead he tried to put together a coalition of affected powers that would, in his words, “compel the piratical States to perpetual peace.” Jefferson got quite a few European nations interested in his proposal, but he was unable to persuade Britain and France to sign on, so nothing came of it. The United States began sending ships laden with tribute to the Barbary rulers, and it received little beyond insult and further demands. Ransom and tribute payments to the Barbary states rose to 20% of United States government annual revenues in 1800.

When Jefferson assumed the presidency in 1801, the Pasha of Tripoli, weakest of the Barbary powers, congratulated him by demanding an immediate tribute payment of $225,000 and a further annual payment of $25,000. Jefferson refused, and the Barbary states declared war. Although the American naval fleet then consisted of just a few frigates, Jefferson ordered American vessels to the Mediterranean to protect American shipping. The United States Navy and the Barbary pirates each won bold victories and suffered humiliations during the two wars that ensued. In 1815 American naval forces finally defeated Algiers and signed treaties with the Barbary states that ended all ransom and tribute payments by the United States. Freed of their own internal warfare, European nations accomplished the same within fifteen years, effectively ending the problem of Mediterranean piracy.

Today piracy remains a serious international problem. Pirate vessels operate with impunity off the coasts of Bangladesh, Brazil, Indonesia, Kenya, Nigeria, Somalia, and elsewhere. The November 15 hijacking of the MV Sirius Star while carrying oil from Saudi Arabia to the United States gained international headlines for its audacity and the enormous value of its prize. However, this problem of today can be an opportunity for tomorrow.

Providing an international environment in which global trade can flourish is the responsibility of all nations, but particularly so for the great trading states. As the world’s preeminent trading state, the United States can make significant gains in its power and prestige by spearheading an international effort against piracy. President Obama can do what Ambassador Jefferson could not -- create an international coalition of affected and interested nations to address the global piracy problem.

The world is ready for such a step. In 1982, Articles 101-107 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea defined international piracy and set forth the rights and obligations of nations. In 1992, the International Maritime Organization created the Piracy Reporting Centre in Malaysia for monitoring and alert purposes. Today the subject of international piracy has traction from columns of The New York Times to the corridors of the Pentagon. The time is ripe for the United States to call for creation of an enforcement mechanism of international maritime law that can bring together sufficient force to drive piracy into extinction. Such an effort would do much to restore confidence and a sense of legitimacy to American international leadership.

The Power of Hope

2008-11-15T14:15:00.000-05:00

On 27 July 2007 I wrote a blog entry entitled “Moral Power, Leadership, and American Strategy.” It traced the United States’ current weakness to its long neglected reserve of moral authority. Beginning with a worldview that includes moral authority as a source of international power, I used a modified version of dynamic differentials theory to foresee a course correction in American grand strategy. The data indicated the United States was in the first stage of the cycle: vague recognition of a problem. Next the American citizenry would develop a deep sense of insecurity and dissatisfaction with the leaders who allowed the problem to develop. This would culminate in the election of political leaders capable of transformational diplomacy that promises to restore this critical component of power. I offered that this moment in history is a time for such leaders, noted that history has a habit of producing them when needed, and hoped it would do so again.

All this has come to pass. What’s next?

Primary among the tempting pitfalls of electoral mandate is the ease of policy oversteer. Just as a car skidding in an icy turn will crash into one side of the road if the driver does not take corrective action, it will just as surely crash into the other side if the driver overreacts. Precipitous, poorly gauged change could be just as disastrous as no change at all. Great challenges tempt grand solutions, yet the creation of international structures and signing of international treaties must remain consistent with American interests. High-level talks must end in far-reaching accords, not petty positioning, geopolitical stalemate, and self-serving propaganda.

The choices the new administration will make in the next six months are of enormous importance to long-term national security, the preeminence of American power, and the continuation of American primacy. I laid out several prescriptions in "How to Extend American Hegemony: A Strategy Guide" on 13 July 2007. Numerous potential missteps beckon, while uncounted golden opportunities lie undiscovered. Distinguishing the paths to success from the roads to misfortune will require clear-eyed prescience and steeled resolve.

The new administration’s most pressing task in foreign relations: defining a clear vision of America in the world. As I noted previously, American grand strategy has lacked a set of unifying goals since failed efforts at creating a New World Order following the Cold War. Once regarded as a city on a hill and a shining beacon of freedom, the United States has tarnished its image in the eyes of the world with a series of policies and actions that contradict these values. American unwillingness to lead on global issues such as genocide in Darfur, climate change, and the development of international society and law have contributed significantly to this perception.

The next administration must set forth a clear and detailed plan for restoring American exceptionalism. This requires a clear articulation of the reasons the world has shown a preference for American-style democratic, republican, and free-market values. This must be followed by a series of confidence-building measures that demonstrate a renewed American commitment to the principles and policies that placed the United States atop the international system. These measures must incur a cost to short-term American power in order to be credible.

The time has come for transformational diplomacy. Concepts such as "the homeland is the planet" and "national security requires international security" can change the way Americans and their foreign brethren identify their basic interests. President Obama can take clear and concrete steps to demonstrate the United States is worthy of international trust. Closing Guantanamo Bay’s detention centers and ending the practices of warrantless wiretapping and quasi-legal detainment are good ways to start. They send a clear signal that the world’s most powerful nation remains answerable to its own laws and treaties. At the same time, the United States must decide once and for all if terrorism is an international crime, an act of war, or some third, possibly hybrid, sphere of jurisdiction. Until it does so, it cannot provide credible – or even comprehensible – international legal leadership.

Renewed international confidence in America’s respect for the rule of law can lay the basis for an American-led reform of international legal structures. Rather than wrangle over signing onto the World Court, the United States would have an opportunity to recreate international law as something tangible, effective, and in U.S. interests to have and obey.

The rebuilding of the American brand is only one part of the strategy. The U.S. military has been decimated by chronic overreach. Extended deployments and unwillingness by the successive administrations and Congress to expand its size significantly to meet them have strained and exhausted military personnel and equipment. Shortfalls in readiness strength and projection capability are coupled with a lack of international support for American military actions. The time to correct these problems is evaporating quickly. Absent major changes to the federal entitlement system, within the next several decades the Federal government will have little left to spend on improving the U.S. military. Substantial investments to repair and strengthen the U.S. military must be made now, for they will become impossible at a later date.

Finally, none of this will be possible if the United States does not invest wisely in sustainable domestic economic growth. U.S. economic output will vary significantly according to the willingness of government and corporate leaders to create the conditions for productivity. The availability of educated workforces, mid-career training, favorable tax policy and regulations, finance, and business infrastructure will dictate the level of investment and growth. American economic strength will depend on the effectiveness of its economy in developing these factors. Investment in the conditions for economic growth must be made in areas where they will take advantage of American competitiveness, while maintaining a sufficient mix of factors to prevent against single-factor vulnerability.

America has seen the projected path of decline and despondency, decided it was insufficient for so great a nation, and elected to chart a new course. The new path of American history is uncertain, but those who have chosen it believe it will take their country to new heights of prestige and security. Opportunities and pitfalls await the new administration. I can’t wait to see what happens next.

A Legacy of Failure

2008-06-26T20:58:00.000-04:00

“Fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again.” Today the United States announced the current administration will ignore the principles of its own misstated maxim and bet much of its legacy on the trustworthiness of North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il. Somewhere John Bolton must be pulling his moustache off. No other world leader has a history of breaking agreements with U.S. administrations to match that of Kim Jong-Il. He is the master of what is known as “selling the same horse twice” – the practice of taking payment for a good or service and then demanding a second payment before rendering what is due. North Korea has sold the international community on nuclear transparency and disarmament more times than one can count, but never has delivered. And yet, once again, the United States is reaching for its wallet.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice set forth the foundations of the administration’s decision in a Wall Street Journal op-ed entitled, “Diplomacy is Working on North Korea.” She asked, “What if North Korea cheats? The answer is simple: We will hold North Korea accountable.” Doing so would surprise everyone, for the United States has not yet held North Korea accountable for any of its promise-breaking or treaty violations. She continued, “We will reimpose any applicable sanctions that we have waived – plus add new ones.” In strategy terms, this means the United States will allow North Korea to replenish its stores of many of the items denied under sanctions, build stockpiles, and then break the agreement again when it feels ready to accept the pain of sanctions. Finally, she offered, “And because North Korea would be violating an agreement not only with us, but also with all of its neighbors, those countries would take appropriate measures as well.” In other words, the United States has failed to take “appropriate measures” for such a long time that its own threats to do so are no longer credible. They must be backed instead by the enforcement of other Great Powers.

This is a disgraceful admission from the world’s remaining superpower. Combine the new policy with the emergence of an Iranian nuclear program and it becomes clear that post-Cold War administrations have utterly and abysmally failed to deter nuclear proliferation in two of the world’s most dangerous nations. This says much about the limits of unilateralism, the absence of effective U.S. leadership, and the realities of an international community that has been largely content with allowing the United States to take on the tough post-Cold War challenges while refusing to follow its lead or lend substantial assistance to its efforts. There are, of course, notable exceptions such as the United Kingdom and Australia, but honorable exceptions do not excuse the complacent majority.

The post-Cold War period began with comparisons to the post-Second World War years, in which the United States addressed emerging challenges with large-scale multilateral structures (the United Nations and NATO), clear ideals (liberty v. totalitarian oppression), and hard-headed realism (containment and nuclear agreements). The fall of the Berlin Wall represented the promise of a New World Order earned by the triumph of a global liberal international society and its superpower champion. The post-Cold War period is coming to an end, and the comparisons have shifted to the frustrations of an ineffective League of Nations, the weak-willed appeasement of Germany at Munich, and unwillingness to fully recognize that the debate over isolationism and neutrality is over. The United States is fighting two shooting wars (Afghanistan and Iraq), one ideological war (fundamentalist terrorism), and one nascent and unrecognized cyberwar with a nation that holds the potential of someday challenging and perhaps surpassing the United States in overall international power (China). Domestic economic comparisons have switched from measuring the heights of the Roman and British empires to recalling the 1970s “days of malaise.” Once again the United States finds its economic power hobbled by the world energy market and its people fretting over their personal financial futures. U.S. leaders continue to borrow heavily from foreign nations and their children and grandchildren to try to shore up the nation's crumbling economy.

All of this adds up to a United States that no longer appears to have the ability to deter smaller powers from pursuing nuclear ambitions. Today’s announcement on North Korea is an admission of the dangerous overall frailty of U.S. international power. Diplomacy backed by weakness is the surest route to policy failure. The United States needs to rebuild its power and do so quickly, or accept a world in which its legacy of failure places its citizens, and the world at large, in grave peril.

Terrorism: Ending the War/Crime Ambiguity

2008-06-19T19:21:00.000-04:00

The United States has a long history of ambiguity over its responses to acts of terrorism. At times U.S. policy defines terrorism as a form of armed conflict that falls into the category of non-traditional wars such as guerilla warfare, insurrections, revolutions, rebellions, and insurgencies. These call for a military response. At other times it regards terrorism as a law enforcement issue that falls into the category of international crimes such as slavery and piracy. These call for law enforcement, prosecution, and penalty.

Some critics argue the back-and-forth shifts in U.S. policy are the result of changes in administration. Different leaders choose different interpretations. Others criticize the United States for seeming to apply each view according to no principles other than the dictates of interest and convenience.

Such critiques stand on a false assumption that terrorism falls neatly into one of these two approaches. Dividing into camps and arguing that the other side is wrong does not good for U.S. policy. Besides, taking either position would be incorrect, for terrorist acts are acts of war and international crime. They blur the line between war and law enforcement. Any response to be taken, whether preventative or punitive, must recognize terrorism’s dual nature and also be willing to blur the line.

Today’s debate on the nature of terrorism reveals the evolving nature of the international system. The growth of a common international identity and the devolution of capability from nation-states to other entities have eroded the previously firm distinctions between war and crime. For example, collective security, as a concept, is the recognition that sometimes acts of war are acts of crime, with great and small powers acting in concert and very much in a law enforcement capacity, with the goal of deterring and punishing major violations of the norms of international society.

Terrorism poses a challenge to the traditional sense of order. It combines the use of violence for political purposes – traditionally the right of nations – with the targeting of innocent civilians – traditionally the activity of criminals. Terrorism is a war crime in the truest sense of both words.

Recognition of this opens the door to asking, “Is not all war then an international crime?” The answer is, of course, no. Just as the use of violence in the protection of self, others, property, and principles can be justified in individuals, so with nations. It is the aggressive, the grasping, and the purposeless war that is moving toward recognition as an international crime. The ability to recognize the difference and restrain war to defensive purposes earns a nation great respect and, subsequently, increased international power.

The next administration has an opportunity to regain much of the presently waning U.S. moral authority by articulating a clear definition of terrorism as a crime against humanity, punishable by U.S. warfighters. The President must lead development of structural responses to terrorism and other forms of international crime. This includes giving jurisdiction to the International Criminal Court to refer cases of terrorism to the United Nations Security Council for a collective security response. The United States must then solidify this effort by negotiating modifications of the Court’s procedures to protect American soldiers from being prosecuted as war criminals, and then finally becoming a signatory. By taking the lead in defining terrorism as both war and crime, the United States will take its place at the forefront of developing international society and regain some of its status as the world’s leading and most powerful nation.

U.S. Grand Strategy and the Press (A Tribute)

2008-06-14T07:32:00.000-04:00

A nation’s greatness is not measured by the amount and kinds of power it holds. National greatness can be known by looking at how the nation contributes to the greatness of its people and the larger greatness of humanity. Taking its measure is not easy. People define these things differently, and rarely deviate from their belief that their own ideas and actions are the most likely to achieve them. How is one to know which path is right, when so many are touted as such?

U.S. grand strategy has a process of quality control unique in history. Nearly every aspect of public behavior – from the most meaningless off-hand comment to the grandest of strategies – is available for public debate. Every nation has forums for discussing strategy and policy, but only the United States makes such frequent and noisy use of them. The United States has always been awash in opinions about the quality of its policy. This process takes place largely through the vigorous exercise of its free press.

The American press created its own role in political quality control through the efforts of early publishers such as Benjamin Franklin. When the Founding Fathers codified this in the Bill of Rights, they did not simply guaranteeing a right essential to liberty; they assigned a duty understood to be essential to national greatness. The American press has a Constitutional obligation to inspect the quality of U.S. strategy and policy. And no one met this obligation more fully than Tim Russert.

Tim Russert was made of this country’s best stuff. Tough, fair, thorough, and relentless, he reached into the river of political information to draw forth handfuls of truth and animate them for all to see. He strengthened his community, embodied his faith, and enriched the lives of those who knew him. He made the United States a better country and its citizens a better people. U.S. grand strategy lost a vital member of its team yesterday. The nation is weaker at the moment for his loss, but remains stronger for the contributions he made and the extraordinarily high standards he set. Goodbye, Tim, and thank you.

Asymmetries of Power

2008-06-04T19:22:00.000-04:00

The new “U.S. lesson learned” one hears regarding the most recent wars Afghanistan, Iraq, and Lebanon is that today’s conflicts are fought through asymmetries. One side has conventional strength and the other guerrilla tactics. One has satellite and drone surveillance and the other informants and tunnels. Smart bombs versus improvised explosives. Tactics and strategies supposedly are being rewritten to account for the new world of warfare.

Except this lesson is far from new. Unless one resided in eighteenth- or nineteenth-century Europe, wars almost always have been fought through asymmetries of power. Naval powers blockade land powers. Land powers sweep and hold territory. Cavalry destroys infantry, longbowmen decimate crossbowmen, and siege towers meet not other siege towers, but burning oil and dropped stones. Historic exploitation of asymmetries applies equally well to grand strategy. Trading states use their resources and networks to induce and coerce. Military giants move their forces within striking range to deter and compel. Terrorist networks use their flexibility, creativity, and ruthlessness to injure and frighten. Pillars of moral outrage stand fast against tanks, jails, and uncomprehending enemy arguments about “acting in your own best interest.”

Leaders are chosen in large part because of their ability to recognize which tactics and strategies favor their bodies politic and which favor those of their opponents. It is a rare – and even more rarely successful – leader that fights square battles with similar tactics. Such an endeavor ends in mutual stalemate or mutual destruction. In IR theory this kind of situation is recognized as systemic stability (except in rare instances where offensive power so overwhelms defensive strength that each side has an incentive to strike first and very low expectations of an effective counterstrike). Fighting against a superior opponent where that opponent is strongest is even more foolhardy. David didn’t swap punches and wrestle with Goliath – he slung a stone instead.

Yet this lesson is not only not new, it also has not been learned. If it had, the question that would rise above the debate over current U.S. strategy is, “What asymmetries of power exist today and how do they threaten American and international security?” Check the platforms of the major candidates and you’ll find statements regarding strategic implications of everything from ethanol and veterans education to flag pins. Listen to the 24-hour news networks and count the number of “expert analyses” of American strategic vulnerability that results from asymmetries of power. Send me an email when you reach three.

So what asymmetries of power exist today, which are evolving or likely to evolve, and how do they potentially threaten long-term American and international security? Here is one to consider: energy. Plenty of breath warms the airwaves about the world’s current energy problems, but none sounds the tocsin about how the imbalance between net energy exporters and net importers creates enormous potential to bypass American strengths (military, economic, moral) and strike at or coerce over a serious American weakness. How, for example, would the United States respond to another oil embargo? How sluggishly will its economy function on gasoline that suddenly costs $8/gallon? Or, taking a long-term approach, what happens when the best oil and natural gas contracts go to those firms whose headquarters are not located in a nation held in contempt by key Muslim populations and whose CEOs can do business with men like Hugo Chavez? The United States once denied the Japanese access to the petroleum they required for their strategic goals, and Japanese leaders reluctantly chose to attack Pearl Harbor and start the war in the Pacific, even though they reckoned there was little chance of success. How will American leaders respond from the other side of that situation?

Moral Power, Leadership, and American Strategy

2007-07-27T11:16:00.000-04:00

A nation's political leaders must show they are effective in dealing with perceived vulnerabilities. Each election cycle candidates and their advisers search the landscape of American power for weaknesses. Successful identification of weaknesses, when combined with the viable solutions, usually provides a successful path to power. Therefore this regular self-examination is healthy both for the Republic and its potential leaders.

The list of questions changes in terminology, but remains fairly static in overall form. Are the armed forces capable of defending the country and its interests abroad? Is there a missile gap? Can the economy compete and win? What threats loom over the horizon and how does the United States prepare for them?

Today's great weakness is the long neglected reserve of American moral authority. The United States, a superpower unlike any other, has been acting very much like every other superpower in history. It has grown both arrogant and fearful, while its international involvement has oscillated according to interest between imperial and isolationist. (Understanding this, al Qaida has been playing on this oscillation, attempting to swing the pendulum toward isolationist through violence and propaganda. The goal is American retreat from the painful conflicts of the world and, given the overwhelming support for withdrawal from Iraq and recent debates in Congress, this strategy is working just fine.)

As the election cycle hits its stride, aspirants to American political power are beginning to recognize and trumpet the neglect of U.S. reserves of moral power. The United States is losing the competition for the hearts and minds of much of the planet, especially those in the Islamic community, by forgetting the importance of ensuring its actions and strategies are consistent with a strong moral purpose.

This is an unconscionable oversight. Moral authority is hardly a new or even newly understood form of power. Its importance has been disputed only rarely, and never successfully. On page one of The Art of War Sun Tzu listed moral influence first among his five factors for appraising war. Machiavelli wrote extensively on the importance of moral authority for successful governance. America's founding fathers cited King George III's abandonment of morality and justice as an abdication of the right to rule his American colonies. Losing sight of the importance of moral authority in any form of politics is inexcusable.

Dynamic differentials theory and the concept of policy oversteer indicate the time is coming in which American political leaders will take bold moves to correct the situation. Their populace will demand it, and any leader who is not equal to the task will not be tolerated much longer.

The ways in which this correction takes place are of enormous importance. Precipitous change could be just as disastrous as no change at all. The creation of international structures and signing of international treaties must remain consistent with American interests. High-level talks must end in something other than stalemate and propaganda.

However, amidst all the caveats and protections that will be hitched to any vehicles for change, whoever leads the restoration of American moral authority must be capable of and prepared for transformational diplomacy. It is a time for emerging concepts such as "the homeland is the planet" and "national security requires international security." Concepts can be embodied successfully, such as transatlantic partnership and international trade. They can stagnate, such as has been the case with European union and the creation of an "empty chair" international criminal court. Or they can fail dangerously, as demonstrated by the League of Nations and Russian democracy.

America is in the first stage of course correction: vague recognition of the problem. The next stages will be crucial to prospects of long-term national security and the continuation of American preeminence. It is a time for leaders. History has a habit of producing them. Let's hope it does so again.

Restructuring American Intelligence

2007-07-19T17:55:00.000-04:00

Leaders need the best information they can get to make decisions. They turn to their intelligence communities to supply it. Ideally their organizations mold themselves to whatever shape is most effective in providing significant and timely intelligence. In reality, they also are built around the experiences and goals of their principals, who struggle to adapt their models of how to run effective intelligence organizations to the contemporary environment of international relations. In general their performance is pretty good, but in today’s world “pretty good” is not nearly good enough.

In the early to mid-twentieth century American security required information about the capabilities, intentions, and actions of closed societies. For such adversaries the information that is most valuable, such as strategic intent, sources, and methods, is almost always the most closely guarded. So the “very best of men” who created the U.S. intelligence community from the 1930s to the 1950s placed, quite correctly, a strong emphasis on obtaining and analyzing highly protected information.

This approach worked well in the United States’ competition with closed societies like Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. Furthermore, despite the myriad revolutions of the early 1990s, a number of closed societies remained and others have resurged. Some of these retain or are developing sufficient power to threaten American interests. In approaching these societies, the current organization remains effective. However, the predominance of competitors with closes societies in the area of overall American security faded along with the appeal of their models of government. Today’s range of threat is much broader and requires a much broader approach to intelligence gathering and analysis.

The National Security Act of 1947 that organized the U.S. intelligence community along its present lines turns 60 this year. In human terms, it is old enough to receive Social Security checks. The time has come to make plans for its honorable retirement and to have a serious discussion about what its successor Act should look like.

The analytical side of the U.S. intelligence community as we know it began as a group of academic experts working from carrels, sorting through the open source material in the Library of Congress. Over time these scholars largely opted out due to objection over the way the intelligence community conducted its business or were pushed out by the need for security clearances. The result was a divide between many of the experts who could do the work of open source analysis and the community whose need for it has mushroomed.

The information age pushes open source material into unprecedented prominence. Those who would threaten the United States leave an ever-larger open source footprint – personal histories, manifestos, internal and external communications, and their entire online presence are increasingly available. The consensus among intelligence professionals is that open source material now comprises the overwhelming majority of the data needed for analysis, and that volume of material available is growing at an unprecedented rate. Enormous amounts of information are easily obtained, but proving difficult to digest. Turning this information into solid intelligence requires a community structured around the concept of high data volume, rather than a few choice pieces of difficult-to-obtain data.

Penetrative capability will always be an important aspect of intelligence. Highly guarded secrets tend to be highly valuable. It is an indispensable area of intelligence gathering, but it is also insufficient and increasingly so in the intelligence environment of the twenty-first century. The intelligence community must restructure to reflect the realities of today’s intelligence challenges and prepare for those of the future. This means recognizing open source intelligence (OSINT) as the preponderant source of data and embracing those technologies and process that are most efficient in dealing with it.

Unfortunately, the approach taken by the intelligence community toward information technology is reminiscent of import substitution industrialization. According to this economic policy, governments attempt to erect domestic industries that produce what it imports from foreign competitors. The result is an expensive project that creates plenty of jobs, but produces inferior or obsolete products at a much higher expense.

Private sector needs drive the creation of new information technology, while intelligence organizations attempt to replicate existing products internally or purchase and adapt their limited versions. Watching a demonstration of Intelink and Intellipedia after using software like Silobreaker gives one the sense of watching a demonstration of V-2 rocket technology after a shuttle launch. This intelligence community’s approach to information technology is foolhardy, for it ensures the private sector stays one or two generations ahead, and also that the development of new information technology is driven almost entirely by the needs of the open market. The result is that the intelligence community creates a costly, obsolete, and inferior information technology product and becomes an ever-smaller and less sophisticated consumer. It is time to abandon this effort.

The next National Security Act should not create organizations that replicate, compete with, or substitute for the private sector, which has been shown to be far more capable of collecting and analyzing vast amounts of open source data. It should instead make collaboration the primary model for OSINT. It is interesting that few have noted the similarities between the private sector and media’s contributions to open source intelligence and the open source software movement. The private sector can and will do much of the work of OSINT for its own purposes. Unable to fight or control this wave, the intelligence community has little choice but to ride it. Collaborating with the private sector for those parts of open source intelligence gathering and analysis that can be done securely and efficiently is the central part of any model of future intelligence competitiveness.

How to Extend American Hegemony: A Strategy Guide

2007-07-13T10:00:00.001-04:00

The previous post offered a set of strategies that America's competitors could be using to shorten its preeminence and usher in an era of multipolarity. This post offers the counterpoint: a set of strategies that could lengthen its tenure as the world's hegemonic power.

Continued American preeminence is not inevitable, but neither is American decline imminent. American grand strategy can create the conditions for long-term primacy. The following strategies form the core of an American grand strategy of creating the conditions for its sustained global leadership.

Define a clear vision of America in the world.

American grand strategy has lacked a set of unifying goals since failed efforts at creating a New World Order following the Cold War. Once regarded as a city on a hill and a shining beacon of freedom, the United States has tarnished its image in the eyes of the world with a series of policies and actions that contradict these values. First and foremost is its abandonment of Geneva Convention principles of humane treatment of prisoners. However, American unwillingness to lead on global issues such as genocide in Darfur, climate change, and the development of international society and law have contributed significantly to this perception.

Rebuild military power.

The U.S. military has been decimated by chronic overreach. Extended deployments and unwillingness by the successive administrations and Congress to expand its size significantly to meet them have strained and exhausted military personnel and equipment.

Shortfalls in readiness strength and projection capability are coupled with a lack of international support for American military actions. The second Gulf War took place in the midst of lukewarm international opposition, and attempts to quell sectarian violence in the years that followed worsened have international opinion of the American military presence in the region. U.S. armed forces have gained little international credibility for their efforts to improve the lives of foreign citizens by building infrastructure and providing security. The consensus view of the American military is “generally good soldiers implementing almost universally bad policy.”

The period in which the ability of American leaders to rest, strengthen, expand, and equip U.S. armed forces will not last for more than a few decades at best. The Federal budget regards social programs such as Medicare and Social Security as mandatory and unalterable, while the supporting the U.S. military falls under discretionary funds. Entitlement programs already form the majority of the Federal budget and will grow significantly in the near and long term, reducing the discretionary funds available for military spending, as well as other programs. Absent major changes to the entitlement system, within the next several decades the Federal government will have little left to spend on improving the U.S. military. Substantial investments to repair and strengthen the U.S. military must be made now, for they will become impossible at a later date.

Invest for economic growth.

U.S. economic output will vary significantly according to the willingness of government and corporate leaders to create the conditions for productivity. The availability of educated workforces, mid-career training, favorable tax policy and regulations, finance, and business infrastructure will dictate the level of investment and growth. American economic strength will depend on the effectiveness of its economy in developing these factors.

The development of a global economy began with development of transportation methods that opened foreign markets to American raw materials and finished products. Following upon this was accessibility of foreign labor markets and investment capital, and, subsequently, the growth of foreign competition and trade deficits. The global economy now has the ability to transfer not only finished goods and finance between nations, but services, infrastructure, education, and innovation as well. American economic policy must recognize that it is not protection of any particular factor of economic potential that matters, but whether the United States provides an overall combination of factors that is attractive to economic growth. Investment in the conditions for economic growth must be made in areas where they will take advantage of American competitiveness, while maintaining a sufficient mix of factors to prevent against single-factor vulnerability.

Redefine terrorism as an international crime.

The United States has a long history of ambiguity over its approach to the issue of terrorism. At times it has defined terrorism as a form of armed conflict that falls into the category of non-traditional wars such as guerilla warfare, insurrections, revolutions, rebellions, and insurgencies. At other times it has regarded terrorism as a law enforcement issue that falls into the category of international crimes such as slavery or piracy. This has resulted in a policy that falls somewhere between the two approaches. The United States has been vulnerable to criticism that it applies each view haphazardly, according to the dictates of interest and convenience.

The next administration has an opportunity to gain international moral authority by articulating a clear definition of terrorism as a crime against humanity. The President must lead development of a structural response to terrorism, including giving jurisdiction to the International Criminal Court to refer cases of terrorism to the United Nations Security Council for a collective security response to breaches of international peace and security. The United States must then solidify this effort by becoming a signatory, which will require negotiating modifications of the Court’s procedures to protect American soldiers.

Develop and implement a final settlement of Iraq.

The Bush administration has placed weight behind the importance of improving the security situation in Iraq. Any actual or apparent success in the area can be leveraged to call for a regional peace conference to settle the political future of Iraq. Preparations for calling the conference must seek involvement by the leadership of all major factions in Iraq, including Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and Muqtada al Sadr, and major regional powers, including Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Every effort should be made to create the sense among invited parties that this will be the sole and authoritative conference, and it will create the documents upon which the political future of Iraq will be based. Regardless of the success of the conference in meeting its objectives, its conclusion will set the stage for a drawdown of the American military presence.

Conclusion.

The continuation of American international supremacy is unlikely without significant course corrections to the currently adrift American grand strategy. Implementing these strategies will avert prevailing trends toward American long-term decline and help sustain American preeminence in the international system.

How to End American Hegemony: A Strategy Guide

2007-06-28T11:35:00.004-04:00

This post is in the spirit of Edward Luttwak's Coup d'etat: A Practical Handbook. It is an NSC-68 for America's competitors and is intended as a warning that the lack of coherent grand strategy from Washington is creating the conditions for American decline.

Continued American predominance is not inevitable. American grand strategy, or more precisely the lack thereof, is working to ensure the decline of long-term relative and absolute U.S. international power. The following strategies for its competitors will aid this process.

Be Patient.

Long-term trends among the great powers show the United States is declining relative to the two major rising states, China and India, while Europe continues to ebb.

This situation shows prevailing dynamic differentials are unfavorable to continued American predominance. The first rule of a grand strategy for American decline is to do nothing that would disrupt these projections. Avoid at all costs major wars with neighboring states, grand attempts at internal restructuring, and, most importantly, direct provocation of the United States that could lead to full-scale war.

The declining power, once it recognizes the situation above, almost always initiates drastic actions to preserve the status quo. History has shown such measures are unlikely to be successful. There are two exceptions, both of which are important to note. The first was Athens' initiation of preventative war with its rising neighbor, Sparta. The second was American rebuilding of military might, economic strength, and moral authority vis-à-vis the Soviet Union from 1977 to 1991. To ensure American decline, prepare for both strategies, beginning with attempts at American renewal and, should they fail, American preparations for major war.

Invest.

The United States is borrowing heavily to finance its entitlement system and foreign ventures. These two areas alone will require substantially more funds in the decades to come than can be raised through revenues. Assist in every way possible this process, while luring away its revenue-generating industries, especially those involving future products and services. Build research facilities, high-tech infrastructure, and a highly educated class of workers that will be irresistible to American companies. Provide them tax and policy incentives to relocate to your soil. This will also create the conditions for domestic growth of companies that will collaborate and compete with American multinationals.

This strategy should be conducted in unison with a plan to attack the U.S. economy through the weaknesses of its energy sector. The rise of broader international demand for petroleum and shortages in refining capacity combine to push the price of oil and natural gas ever higher. Hurricane Katrina inflicted severe damage on an already aging U.S. refining infrastructure. The development of replacement biofuels, while politically attractive in campaign seasons, will not ameliorate these problems because they cannot be shipped via domestic petroleum pipelines and, therefore, lack an effective distribution network.

Secure rights to petroleum fields and facilities. Quell disturbances and threats in petroleum producing areas, especially in the Caspian basin. Make long-term agreements with governments that have an interest in opposing the United States (e.g., Russia, Iran, and Venezuela). Develop petroleum-drilling and pipeline technology and market it as an alternative to American products, which at present can be leveraged via American export controls.

Free-ride.

Allow the United States to drain its power by doing the heavy lifting of maintaining international peace and security. This is especially important for expensive and unpopular chores, such as trying to pacify an increasingly violent Iraq, confronting an Iranian regime intent on acquiring nuclear weapons, and paying huge sums to a North Korean government that is going produce nuclear weapons regardless of the agreements it signs. Sit on the sidelines and take every opportunity to criticize the United States for its mistakes. When the time is right (i.e., the American costs have been ruinous), condemn the failure of American leadership and offer to be an "honest broker." This will provide much-needed moral authority.

Stall.

Bury all attempts to reform the structures and institutions of the international community. At present these attempts must be led by the United States and will result in an international community that reflects American values and interests. By preventing reform now, American influence on the process will be reduced in line with its declining overall international power and appeal. Take care of any necessary unpleasantness to maintain authority (e.g., Tibets, Chechnyas, and Tiananmen Squares) now. Then condemn American foreign policies as historically immoral, tracing a line of evil from the Bay of Pigs and My Lei to Abu Graib and Guantanamo Bay. This will undermine American influence when a future administration realizes it needs a strong international community to protect itself during the rise of the East and attempts to build one at the eleventh hour.

Conclusion.

Indications for a decline in long-term American international power are highly favorable. Implementing these strategies will hasten prevailing trends away from American hegemony and toward a more balanced multipolar international system.

Avoiding the Trap: Iran's Nuclear Program

2007-06-21T09:49:00.000-04:00

Entanglement in unpopular foreign wars is one of the fastest ways to drain long-term national power. This is especially true when the conflict in question is widely unpopular, of dubious moral grounding, and offers little prospect for advancing grand strategy.

This is not a warning about Iraq. This is about Iran. As Mahmoud Ahmadinejad continues down the path to nuclear capability, the United States finds itself increasingly maneuvered into a choice it does not want to make.

There are no good options when it comes to Iran. The United States and the world community cannot possibly provide enough incentives to convince President Ahmadinejad to abandon the program. Iran is not pursuing nuclear capabilities for mere security. Acquisition of nuclear weapons would provide Iran the prestige it needs to cement its place as a regional hegemon. Its penalty-free and successful defiance of the West on the nuclear issue also would encourage its leadership to enlarge its destabilizing activities in region.

The United States cannot provide sufficient deterrent either. Unilateral sanctions would be ineffective. Even if Condoleezza Rice can pull the miracle of getting Europe to agree to and enforce Western sanctions, they will also be largely ineffective – the Far East would be thrilled to increase its trade and influence in the region. Global sanctions are therefore highly unlikely.

The military option is not available. The resolve and resourcefulness of U.S. armed forces are unquestioned, but their personnel are already engaged and increasingly exhausted. Rotating our soldiers from an unfinished Iraq to an energetic Iran would almost certainly ruin America’s warrior class. Building a more robustly international coalition for Iranian intervention would be preferable, but it will be difficult for the administration to ask the global community to go into harm’s way after six years of telling it to get out of America’s way.

The remaining deterrent options are objectionable and counterproductive. A limited strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities would be unlikely to end its nuclear program, or even set it back very long. It would certainly galvanize the Iranian people, and possibly Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in support of completing the nuclear program.

This leaves regime change. The international community will not support another American invasion to overthrow a ruler in the region, especially when the justification offered for it is that ruler’s defiance of U.N. resolutions and pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. Lacking a viable insurgency in Iran, the United States would need to look for an ambitious underling. Concealing the American hand in such activities when the whole world is looking for it is nearly impossible. Such an undertaking, whether known or successfully hidden, runs counter to what the United States is as a nation. Its discovery would be ruinous to our already suffering moral standing in the world.

So what is to be done? Zbigniew Brzezinski offered one possible escape clause in a recent address. He suggested that Iran may be pursuing nuclear capability as a negotiating point. Once it achieves a measure of success, it will offer the Israelis a deal: We’ll give up ours if you’ll give up yours and make the region a nuclear weapons-free zone. This is a highly attractive scenario, but also highly unlikely. Iran’s fear of Israeli nuclear weapons is not so high to push it into such a strategy and forego the security and prestige it will have as a nuclear power. Furthermore, it is hard to imagine a verification regime that could create sufficient trust in the region to make this a viable option, without it becoming so intrusive as to be rejected by all parties.

The United States is approaching a place in history where it will have to make a choice between the ineffective (sanctions), the impossible (armed invasion), the immoral (covert action), and the unlikely (negotiation). Cover action holds the highest likelihood of success, but will also be the most ruinous to long-term American power.

If one assumes all four options hold little likelihood of working, the United States should choose the most moral course and call for negotiations to make the region a nuclear weapons-free zone in exchange for provision of nuclear power by the international community. These negotiations must begin before Iran conducts its first nuclear explosion and must include all great powers with history and significant interests in the region, including Europe, China, and Russia. The security lost by a nuclear Iran can be gained back in limited measure by increases in American moral authority, which it needs right now much more than it fears a nuclear armed Iran.

The American Moment

2007-06-19T09:39:00.003-04:00

The United States has been a nation of great things in international relations. President Monroe drew a line against European involvement in the Americas. The American nation as a whole intervened in two world wars. Its people paid to rebuild Europe. Its diplomats built the United Nations, NATO, and the World Trade Organization. Japan and Germany became strong allies. Space opened and became a peaceful domain. China opened and became a member of the international community. The Soviet empire stopped, reversed, and crumbled.

These great events were guided by American grand strategy. Associated with our successes have been words like containment, rollback, and victory. These broad ideas of national security and how to pursue it gave the United States what every leader and strategist wants: global preeminence. By the late 1980s it stood alone as the lone superpower, the global hegemon, the “indispensable nation.”

Achieving such rarefied objectives can cause confusion, like a dog that chases cars and catches one. What does he do with it once he catches it?

International relations theory provides an appreciation of the forces and structures guiding effective grand strategy. As the reality of victory in the Cold War became apparent, the United States was led by a group of statesmen that had extensive experience in dealing with the structures and forces of international relations. Accordingly, President George H.W. Bush and his advisors began crafting the next American grand strategy for a New World Order. Unfortunately, they so immersed themselves in their designs that they neglected some of their more routine political chores, and the American people fired them for it.

What followed was a complete absence of American grand strategy. President Clinton achieved great political success following Dick Morris’ advice of piling up small victories. His administration performed the chores that its predecessor had not, and in many cases performed them admirably. Small victories, however, cannot make up for a lack of grand strategy.

President George W. Bush did not attempt to pick up where his father's administration ended. He sought his own path, which at first led in several directions at once. 9/11 gave him focus, but that focus was on war. Fighting terror is not a grand strategy. Neither is exporting democracy.

In 2007 the United States is nearing its moment of clarity. The grand strategies of containment, rollback, and victory required a successor strategy, one that secures the benefits of preeminence. Absent any credible competitor, the United States ought to have spent the years 1990 – 2030 building the international order in ways that reflect and reinforce American values. This is the period in history during which the United States has the opportunity to lead the world in community building – restructuring and strengthening international organizations, retooling existing alliances and building new ones, forging conventions that improve the human condition, signing treaties that begin the process of turning enemies to friends, and codifying all of this as international law.

Sometime around 2030 this opportunity will be gone. The Far East will have risen to occupy the center of American strategic thinking. Great powers will dominate the international landscape again, and international community building, if it happens at all, will resemble take place in a context similar to the Congress of Vienna, with American interests and ideals regarding the international order competing with those of China, India, and a host of other great powers and groups of smaller powers.

Of the roughly forty years the United States has to follow a grand strategy of community building, seventeen have passed. The moral authority necessary to implement such a strategy cannot be restored for at least several more. The moments at which success would have been most likely – 1991 and 2001 – have passed, but all is not lost.

Much of what the United States needs to achieve in these years can still be achieved, if the next administrations are willing to do what is necessary for long-term American security interests. Winston Churchill, possible the most accurate observer of American political culture since Alexis de Tocqueville, once declared that the Americans will always do the right thing... after they have exhausted all the alternatives. The United States has exhausted all the alternatives. It is time to do the right thing.

The Decline in U.S. Moral Authority

2007-06-13T12:14:00.001-04:00

Yesterday I attended a conference on America in the World: Forging a New Vision for Foreign Policy and International Security. Madeleine Albright gave a stirring set of opening remarks. In them she noted that teenagers worldwide today do not remember the Chinese crackdown in Tiananmen Square, but do know about the abuses that occurred at Abu Graib prison and the detention of foreign nationals in Guantanamo Bay.

I believe this is similar to the situation in the 1970s, when teenagers and young adults did not remember the American heroism of the Second World War, but were well-informed about shady efforts by the Intelligence Community at regime change in Latin America (especially the Bay of Pigs disaster) and the My Lei massacre.

This has enormous implications for long-term levels of American moral authority. It is part of a sense of deep decline in American moral authority since the end of the Cold War. This translates to both an absolute and a relative decline in American international power.

A deep decline in one of the components of international power causes severe insecurity and often induces rigorous corrective actions. If the speed and depth of the decline are particularly strong, the strategies chosen to resolve it will vary from simply "policy oversteer" to outright panic.

When the decline is the result of weakened armed forces capabilities, it usually presages a surge in military rebuilding. When economic, nations choose protectionism and reinvestment. In 1976 the American people responded to their country's moral decline be embracing a Presidential candidate who made the restoration of moral authority the centerpiece of his campaign. Will they do so again in 2008?

It is too early to tell. John Edwards invoked moral authority several times during the New Hampshire debate, but dropped several points in subsequent polls. Yet there is a general agreement among all candidates this nation unlike any other has been acting much like any other great power. There is also a consensus that this is a bad idea, but at this early stage no candidate has put forth an agenda in the way that Governor Carter did in 1976.

Nor is there a sense that one of the candidates has come to the full realization that the loss of moral authority has direct implications for long-term American security. The sense that America must sometimes be unsavory in order to be safe must be replaced by the realization that American can only be safe when it rejects the temptations of the quick and easy path it has chosen more recently.

Opening Post

2007-06-03T11:46:00.005-04:00

Today I launch my blog on grand strategy. This will be an ongoing presentation of my thoughts about the long-term development of world affairs. Your feedback will be welcomed. Please email me at patrick.magee@irtheory.net.

Paul Nitze wrote that grand strategy can be understood to be any national strategy “in which all factors bearing on the evolving situation – including economic, political, and psychological factors as well as military – are taken into account over long periods of time, including times both of peace and war.” His definition is as good as any, and better than most. It will serve as the definition of grand strategy used in this blog, although I will modify its parameters as my thoughts on the matter unfold.

The importance of having a strong grand strategy cannot be overstated. Effective policy flows from grand strategy and never contradicts it. Even truly brilliant policy and tactics cannot make up for strategic flaws -- it does not matter that you increase your speed toward your destination if it is the wrong destination. In fact, highly effective policy in pursuit of a flawed grand strategy is tragic.

A lack of grand strategy or the pursuit of a flawed one leaves a nation adrift, exhausted, and vulnerable. The leader who does this to his citizens will inevitable face one of two ends: either he leads them to disaster or they toss him overboard and choose a new course. A failure to define and pursue effective grand strategy is ultimately a failure of leadership.