News

Foreign policy, Walter Lippmann wrote, entails “bringing into balance, with a comfortable surplus of power in reserve, the nation's commitments and the nation's power." If a statesman fails to balance ends and means, he added, "he will follow a course that leads to disaster."

Today, America is hurtling toward such a disaster. Since the end of the Cold War, Washington has possessed uncontested military dominance and enjoyed it at bargain-basement prices. Now, however, America confronts military challenges more numerous and severe than at any time in decades—just at the moment its military resources are showing the effects of prolonged disinvestment in defense. American politicians boast that the nation has the finest fighting force in the history of the world. But the brutal truth today is that the United States is slipping into what Samuel Huntington—building on Lippmann's ideas—termed "strategic insolvency." American military power has become dangerously insufficient relative to the grand strategy—and international order—it must support.

But another speaker, retired colonel turned thinktanker David Johnson, downplayed the risk of friendly fire. Given how well enemy air defenses may keep our aircraft out, Johnson said, “frankly, in early stages of some of these conflicts, you won’t have to worry about shooting down blue air. It won’t be there.”

Beyond conventional warfare, US think tank strategists are discussing what it would take to “win” a nuclear war. The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) recently put out a 140-page report, “Preserving the Balance: A US Eurasia Defense Strategy,” which discusses this issue in detail.

From the mid-1930s through the Cold War, Europe was critical to U.S. strategic thinking, which developed around the assumption that foreign domination of Europe was inimical to U.S. national security. With the end of the Cold War, the United States sought to forge a Europe that was “whole and free.” However, since Putin has returned to office, he has launched a determined effort to reassert Moscow’s influence in areas formerly under Soviet control. Russia’s objective is to overturn the European security order that emerged after the end of the Cold War. As Russia continues to invest aggressively in modernizing its military, many NATO countries continue to pursue policies of disarmament, divest themselves of key capabilities, and struggle to meet NATO’s 2 percent of GDP defense spending requirement. Europe’s political disunity, lack of leadership, and absence of appetite for confrontation with Russia, as well as the weakest United States military presence in Europe since World War II, allow the Kremlin to exploit its growing military capabilities along its periphery. The dwindling presence of NATO forces is now running the risk of failing to deter Russian aggression.

How can the silent service stay in tune with the times? First and foremost, by acknowledging the danger posed by foreign navies toting gee-whiz gadgetry. Clark hints at how hard adapting to more transparent seas could prove: “unless U.S. forces adapt to and lead the new competition, the era of unrivaled U.S. undersea dominance could draw to a surprisingly abrupt close.” That’s a grim prognosis in itself. Abrupt change begets major traumas in big institutions like navies. It’s hard to get ahead of the process.

Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments said — using the seizure of Crimea as an example — sending forces in later “would look like we’re trying to change the facts on the ground.” This makes the response look like an act of aggression. “We’re going to have to prevent those things [from happening] in the first place,” he said