I understand that many people think that the USA's priority should be the Indo-Pacific and its rivalry with China. But I think it would be a mistake to divest ourselves of other regions, especially Europe, in order to devote the bulk of the resources solely to this region. But of course my knowledge of geopolitics is rather limited.
I rather think that the USA should find a subtle and delicate balance between their absolutely considerable security, economic and political interests represented by the Indo-Pacific, and the other regions where their interests are not minor either.
My question is, how can the USA achieve this result?
How can the USA strike a balance between its interests in the Indo-Pacific and other regions of the world?
Well, the answer is written, at least in part, in the history books. The USA, after all, fought two world wars, the second of which was definitely - in military terms - global in scope. Not to mention the Cold War which, although more of an ideological/diplomatic/economic contest, had its' military dimensions.
In fact, the history of the USA teaches fairly conclusively that the suggestion of an either/or in the USA's strategic relationship between Europe and the Indo-Pacific regions is really the fallacy of the false alternative. In truth, the USA has been, and will continue to be, the sloganeering of the moment notwithstanding, an artful balancing act.
There is no easy answer. There are no pat answers. It is part a reading of the USA's long term strategic interests as defined by history, in part a reading of the strategic imperatives of the era, and in part a reaction to the immediate needs of the moment. History is a guide to how those sometimes conflicting priorities ought be resolved, but there are, again, no pat answers and the answers will change to some degree circumstantially. Albeit they will be enduring with no final ultimate solution.
The bottom line is that the USA cannot accept a single dominant power in either region. To do so - as World War I, interestingly, demonstrated - would be to put a direct challenge to the USA in its' own hemisphere. That, as President Monroe recognized in his doctrine nearly two centuries ago, would end the USA's freedom of action and its' security at the most fundamental level.
The problem at the moment is that the USA has both a direct competitor in the Far East in which she has also massive investment. This has posed a dilemma that the USA has yet to resolve and that has divided both its' foreign policy establishment and indeed even its' political parties at a more basic level. (Thus, for example, the divide in the Republican party over Ukraine.)
Be that as it may, the problem for the USA right now is extremely serious. The USA cannot defeat a China-Russia alliance. This would be the first alliance in almost 200 years with greater resources and economic potential than the USA has the capacity to resist.
Yet because the USA won two wars - the Second World War and the Cold War - that were ideological contests, its' instinct is to treat the rivalries with Russia and China as ideological rivalries. Thus the USA has, in effect, driven together two countries that have a long history of themselves being rivals of each other. (Even when Russia and China were both communist at the height of the Cold War, they fought a brief - though undeclared border war and were fierce rivals.)
The problem for the USA is its' habit - itself being a creedal nation - of defining conflict in ideological terms. "When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail." Even World War I, which began as a realpolitik contest, became ideological because of the combination of the effects of the Russian revolution and American entry into the war.
What the USA will have to do - and it is by no means certain that it can do it - is define its' strategic priorities less as questions of ideology - freedom vs. tyranny, free markets vs. controlled economies - and more in terms of realpolitik and power relations. To repeat, to be sure, there have been eras of ideological conflict - the Napoleonic Wars, World War II, the Cold War. However, the USA needs to recognize that this is not such an era and adapt its' policies accordingly.
The USA also needs to recognize that it is, itself, a nation rooted in ideology. The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Federalist Papers, the Gettysburg Address. Even the USA's capitalist economic system - as Adam Smith said, "The merchant has no country."
So the USA must balance its' own creedal origins with the imperatives of a world that has, post-Cold War, reverted to a realpolitik mode. It has done it - see again the Monroe Doctrine, see also in the early 20th century Theodore Roosevelt - but it is not in the USA's cultural DNA to do so, so to speak.
To strike the balance of its' interests globally, the USA needs policymakers - and to some extent an electorate - that is more self-aware and aware of the global arena it faces. To be sure, this is the beginning of wisdom and much analysis must follow. However, at the moment at least, due in part, by the way, to the technology of the era, it remains an open question if the USA can recognize the nature of the international arena it is now, post-Cold War, operating in.
So if I understand correctly, the USA can't let any nation dominate or become dominant, whether in Europe or in the Indo-Pacific, because that would threaten their own security, right?
But aren't there also economic/commercial reasons for not letting a single power dominate one of these regions? And political, because the USA, thanks in large part to its military power, can have a direct political influence on these various regions of the globe, and if a single power were to dominate one of these regions, the USA's political influence would be reduced to very little?
@BaronReagan Yes, the nature of global affairs is not only military. It is economic and diplomatic and in certain periods of history - as noted - ideological. I did not mean to suggest, and had not thought that I had, that this is only a military balance.
These quotes define the nature of international relations:
From Lord Palmerston: "We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow."
From Theodore Roosevelt: "World peace comes not from human kindness or moral restraint, but from balanced power; equilibriums of force restraining the selfish aims of nation-states."
From John Quincy Adams: "It is the inevitable tendency of a direct interference in foreign wars, even wars for freedom, to change the very foundations of our own government from liberty to power... Erroneous moral principle is the most fruitful of all the sources of human calamity and vice. The leaders of nations... are generally but accomplished sophists, trained to make the worse appear the better reason."
&
"Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own."
Camillo di Cavour: "Astonish them with my ingratitude." (His response when asked by a reporter what he would do for the Italian liberals who helped him unite Italy.)
Victor Davis Hanson (paraphrasing Thucydides): "Power, not justice... is always the final arbiter of state relations; self-interest, not morality, is what guides and must guide the behavior of states. Appeals to mercy or hope for reprieve are misguided, not rooted in logic or a realistic understanding of human behavior."
From Henry Kissinger (from his book p. 139 - "Leadership: Six Studies in World Strategy"):
"While Nixon reiterated his postwar vision of U. S. global leadership, he challenged the prevailing American foreign-policy assumptions. Then, as now, an important school of thought maintained that stability and peace were the normal state of international affairs, while conflict was the consequence of either misunderstanding or malevolence. Once hostile powers were decisively overcome or defeated, the underlying harmony or trust would reemerge. In this quintessentially American conception, conflict was not inherent but artificial.
The problem for the USA at the moment is that it cannot reconcile its' ideological origins, its economic interests and its military capacities with the realities of the hour. This it must do.
That said, we have faced such dilemmas in the past so there is no reason to believe that we cannot face them again. My only caveat being that, as I suggested above, given the nature of our current technologies, that may be far harder, if not impossible, to achieve.
The technologies of the past were homogenizing forces. Newspapers and magazines, movies, radio, television. Whatever our individual viewpoints, we were all seeing the world through more or less the same prism. The technologies of the new age - Internet, Facebook, Twitter (X), etc., - allow everyone to see the world through their own narrow corner of it, thus making the forging of a national consensus that much harder, if not outrightly problematic.
Thank you for sharing. No, that's not what you suggested. But when I asked whether it was also a question of political influence (exercised in large part by military power with power projection in particular) I wanted to know if I was making a mistake.
To sum up, if I've understood correctly, it's impossible to let any one of these regions be dominated by a single state, for reasons of national security, economy/trade and political/military influence.
In effect, yes. Even with allies, the USA to some degree played them off - or at least accepted - their rivalries with one another.
Of course, where those rivalries conflicted with higher US priorities, we have stepped in to find acceptable compromises. (It does not get much attention, but for example, relations between Japan and South Korea, whom you might - looking at a map - see as natural allies, do not get along well. In effect, the USA acts as a balancer between them to get both weighed in on the larger rivalries with China and Russia.
Suffice to say, international relations is a subtle game of ten dimensional chess.
I have to admit that international relations are far too complex for me, and I'm glad that qualified people are dealing with these issues. I have to say that I wouldn't have any confidence if these issues had to be managed by citizens.
Let me ask you a question. What determines a nation's military power, and therefore its influence on the international stage, are its resources, demographics and economy. Given these criteria, it's not surprising that the United States is the world's leading military power. But given these criteria, how is it that Russia has always managed to maintain more or less the same level of military power? I mean, even before the war in Ukraine, Russia didn't have an economy capable of sustaining such military power, so how does it manage that?
@BaronReagan Well, think of Japan pre-1941. An economy about 1/5th the size of the USA in a country that geographically is only a bit larger than the state of California.
Yet, they invested a disproportionate share of their GDP in their armed forces while the USA - suffering from the Great Depression and distracted by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy - was not spending as much of its' GDP on defense and what it was as diverted to the Atlantic. Long story short, it was not just the raw material potential, but the where and when that potential was being allocated.
Thus why Yamamoto was so reluctant to make the strike a Pearl Harbor. (".. I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve...") He recognized that Japan could seize a short term advantage but that advantage would evaporate if the USA had time to mobilize its' greater resources. (He also hoped that the USA's emphasis on Europe first would give Japan some breathing room.)
The point is that Russia is simply more willing to devote more of its' resources to its' armed forces as a proportion of its' GDP than the states of the West - including the USA. The result has been a net balance.
Going forward, though, China and Russia, historical rivals, have enormous potential as allies. Russia as a supplier of food and raw materials and technologically advanced armed forces and a massive nuclear arsenal. China with a large population, thus a large economy, and huge armed forces.
Thus Russia and China are a natural market for one another and if they can suppress their rivalries, they would dwarf the USA. In effect, making the USA's position strategically roughly analogous to Japan circa 1941. (This of course leaving out the potential for nuclear mutual destruction.)
That is the answer in short summary. Hope that helps.
P. S. Just to add, also recall that from the end of WWII until the disbanding of the USSR, the Soviet Union had the world's second largest economy behind only the USA. After the USSR fell, then Russia dropped to 11th place globally.
Today, China is second. Followed by Germany, which just overtook Japan, then Britain, France, India, and Italy. The USA still ranks number one, though the margin over China has shrunk somewhat.
@nightdrot Thank you for your excellent answers. So if I understand correctly, if Russia had to face another great power, in the long term it could not hold the war?
I'm not worried about the U. S. Our economic superiority allows us to maintain our military power, and above all we control the trade routes, so we could stifle Chinese trade, it would be terrible for the Chinese economy and therefore it would block any possibility of continuing the war.
Your understanding about Russia is essentially correct. Russia - by itself - could not likely win a conventional war against another great power. It does not have the economic resources. (Indeed, even the war in Ukraine - a war against a relatively minor power - has strained Russian resources.)
As to China, you may be a bit optimistic. By itself, China has vulnerabilities that would make a contest against it winnable. However, China is a continental country - NOT a maritime country. It is more reliant on overseas trade than it used to be, but still has considerable domestic resources that it can bring to bear.
Further. recall that the USA IS a maritime power. If China takes Taiwan, a key strategic link between for the USA between Japan and South Korea in the north and Australia and New Zealand in the south would be cut. That has all sorts of strategic and economic implications for US power projection capabilities.
Further, I would add again that a China-Russia alliance would have deeply serious consequences. Such an alliance - China as a massive modern economy, Russia as a supplier of raw materials and foodstuffs and BOTH with significant armed forces - would be likely unbeatable.
Of course, none of this takes into account the nuclear aspect. All of the above assumes a prolonged conventional war. Nuclear weapons throws all these calculations into a cocked hat.
Fortunately, Russia and China have been historical antagonists - even when both were communist. (Now neither is communist. As someone said of China, it is "less interested in Marx in theory than Lenin in practice.")
The aim of US policy must be to counter both without pushing them together. Suffice to say, not an easy thing to pull off.
Thank you for all these clarifications. I saw a question from Julie where she thought that trade was not essential for the USA because we have a huge domestic market and that trade as such, does not represent much of the U. S. GDP. So if I understand correctly it "s a mistake to think that, because as you explain the usa is a maritime power...
If I may. I would say that the geopolitical objectives pursued by the United States are quite similar to those of the United Kingdom.
In the past, the UK's objective was to maintain a balance of power in Europe, to avoid any threat to its security and to keep the European market, essential for its trade, free. Moreover, a country dominating the continent alone would have had sufficient resources to build a powerful navy that could have threatened the UK's global position, both economically and politically.
In short, these are pretty much the objectives pursued by the United States.
@BaronReagan Yes, in a wartime situation, the USA could live - as it did in both world wars - with limited global trade. However, over the long term the USA - no just for military reasons - needs global trade. (Both for itself and the stability and security of its allies.)
Indeed, recall the two reasons the USA entered WWI. The immediate cause was the Zimmerman Telegram - publication of which revealed German violations of the Monroe Doctrine. However, before that, German-USA relations had foundered over German unrestricted submarine warfare, which violated freedom of the seas and thus trans-oceanic, specifically Atlantic, trade.
Nope. You are essentially correct. However, right now, the problem is that American policymakers were educated and trained in the ideological era of the Cold War.
Thus they tend to treat opponents of the USA as a bloc. This is a problem as while opposition to China and Russia makes sense from a USA perspective, America's strategy has been ham handed and tended to draw Russia and China - again, historically adversaries - together.
This again placing the USA in the position of facing a continental bloc that would be almost invulnerable to the USA's maritime power projection capabilities.
Well, I don't have the impression that China is rushing to support Russia, despite the words expressed by China, concretely the Chinese are not doing much, I believe that Iran has done more to help Russia than China, wouldn't China cynically have a slight interest in having Russia not defeated but slightly weakened by this war because that would make Russia even more dependent on China? I'd say that in this respect, the USA still has a slight advantage.
But perhaps after the triumphalism of the Cold War, the USA could have tried to get a little closer to Russia, to distance itself from China. In fact, despite all Putin's anti-Western rhetoric, it would have been in his interest to move closer to the West.
So far the relationship between Russia and China is far from an alliance. That said, recall that Presidents Putin and Xi have met and the discussions were cordial.
China does indeed have an interest in a slightly weakened Russia. However, to the extent that Russian activities in Ukraine and eastern Europe harm the USA, that aids China too. So here, much as the USA does, China has a balancing act to play.
The USA could get a little closer to Russia. The problem is that this would alarm the states of eastern Europe and that would tend to also antagonize Germany. Suffice to say, then, the USA has to play its' cards carefully.
Moving closer to Russia is fine, but as Russian and US interests do no necessarily correspond, even here the USA's freedom of action is limited and its' moves need to be carefully calibrated. In this case, the USA, in improving ties with Russia would have to take care not to divide NATO.
You seem to suggest that there is some schematic formula that can be applied. There is not one. Some of what we have done has been reasonably effective. Some not. This is a game measured in inches.
That said, I will say - and I say this as no fan of the former President - Mr. Trump seemed to have a surer sense of how to play the game. He was less beholden to an ideological view of foreign policy than is the current President.
Although I would add that Mr. Biden's foreign policy seems to be driven more by the impulses of the moment and the divides in his own party. He does fall back on the rhetoric of democracy and populism. However, he does not seem to bring to the table any wider vision.
In my dreams, I would conjure up an American Disraeli, or Palmerston, or Bismarck or Cavour. Those were leaders with a surer sense of how to play the international chess game.
That said, we are where we are and must make the best of it.
Very briefly, you cannot deny his skills as a diplomat and certainly he was a French nationalist. However, he was a bit too close to the revolutionaries for my taste. By the same token, you have to admire his - for lack of a better term - ambivalence toward Napoleon.
Honestly, for me, Talleyrand is a bit of an ambiguous figure. There are aspects of him I admire, others not so much. Between Richelieu and Talleyrand, I am more in the former camp.
That said, I can say honestly that right now US foreign policy would profit from having a diplomat of either of their caliber.
Anyhow, I have spent way more time on this site today than I had planned, so I had better get back to the family. At this point, I am not sure they remember who I am.
There were lot of interesting observations. I guess the US being cursed with a friendly country to the North and South and oceans to the east and west would tend to think peace is the normal state and war an anomaly.
In Australia, we tend to think history happens elsewhere other than football grand finals.
The first point, to me, is that any Eastern conflict will be quite different. Taiwan is an obvious target. North Korea might go for South Korea. Elsewhere, including Japan, I'd expect missile strikes.
Tanks have value in Europe but not so much in Taiwan as the objective would be to stop naval forces reaching Taiwan.
Potentially US strike war planes could fly to Europe from USA as F15s flew to Saudia Arabia during Desert Shield with tankers. Carriers might not be so essential in Europe. This speculation is way above my level of course.
Carriers would be essential to support Taiwan. F16's are Taiwan's top aircraft. They'd need F35 help I would think. A lot will depend on relative aircraft and missile performance between US/China.
The second point to me is if the Chinese invasion fleet is destroyed then it is all over red rover. China has about 30 days of oil reserves so a blockade of Malacca straits would bite quickly and it could be done from Australian mainland.
So I think it would be short duration whilst Europe could be a long conflict because Russia has a land border.
Naively pontificating well above my abilities & knowledge, I think essential differences enable balancing. I hope so.
As an ancillary, China is being highly aggressive and attacked an Australian warship transiting Japan's exclusive economic zone to a Japanese port. It was on patrol duties wrt North Korea sanctioned by the UN.
HMAS Toowoomba caught fishing nets in it's propellers and had divers over the side to clear after notifying nearby shipping. A Chinese warship thought this an ideal time time to harass an invited vessel in Japanese waters and approached using it's sonar as a weapon.
Sonar can kill divers. Fortunately our guys are OK after a few days of recovery.
China's covert aggression is likely to lead to overt aggression.
The main fatality is our Prime Minister with many adverse reflections on his ability to have erections. He kept the attack hidden for 10 days. He is a dead man walking now
If our European allies weren't so worthless, and our Middle Eastern "allies" not backstabbing cucks every time they think we aren't looking, we could easily devote the bulk of our attention to the Pacific.
That kind of ignores the fact that a huge chunk of our government in both parties appear to be in China's pocket and actively preventing us from fortifying our interests in that region, however. There appears to be a large chunk of politicians and lobbyists who are keen to profiteer and exhaust the US on anything but China in order to later use the excuse that we aren't equipped to defend Taiwan and let China invade it, and foolishly fall back on decades old historical timelines to argue a verifiable falsehood that we could replenish our munitions for war and early losses at the drop of a hat.
It could not, even if the current US administration wasn't trying to weaken the US, which it is.
Most NATO members don't spend the 2% of GDP that all of them agreed to do back in 2015. If these countries want the US involved in Europe, they'd better start acting like allies and spend enough on their militaries.
“Made in the XYZ”. Whoever XYZ is gets most of the attention.
We need to make sure we both have something we offer one another. We also need to be made sure it doesn’t guilt trip us to produce and consume what we wish exclusive to our regions. That’s what comparative advantage and globalism was about. Countries that specialize producing goods or services. Culture falls under a service.
Europe? i disagree both for a, business, because Europe has industry and b, defense because Europe has plenty of army. especially considering what avic wrote here.
The goal of the current administration in the United States, is to undermine US influence around the globe. There is no way currently to accomplish what you suggested.
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