The U.S. can’t afford to end its global leadership role
Ivo Daalder, U.S. ambassador to NATO from 2009 to 2013, is president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Robert Kagan is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a contributing columnist for The Post.
What these politicians don’t say, perhaps because they don’t understand it themselves, is that the price of ending our engagement would far outweigh its costs. The international order created by the United States today faces challenges greater than at any time since the height of the Cold War. Rising authoritarian powers in Asia and Europe threaten to undermine the security structures that have kept the peace since World War II. Russia invaded Ukraine and has seized some of its territory. In East Asia, an increasingly aggressive China seeks to control the sea lanes through which a large share of global commerce flows. In the Middle East, Iran pursues hegemony by supporting Hezbollah and Hamas and the bloody tyranny in Syria. The Islamic State controls more territory than any terrorist group in history, brutally imposing its extreme vision of Islam and striking at targets throughout the Middle East, North Africa and Europe.
None of these threats will simply go away. Nor will the United States be spared if the international order collapses, as it did twice in the 20th century. In the 21st century, oceans provide no security. Nor do walls along borders. Nor would cutting off the United States from the international economy by trashing trade agreements and erecting barriers to commerce.
Instead of following the irresponsible counsel of demagogues, we need to restore a bipartisan foreign policy consensus around renewing U.S. global leadership. Despite predictions of a “post-American world,” U.S. capacities remain considerable. The U.S. economy remains the most dynamic in the world. The widely touted “rise of the rest” — the idea that the United States was being overtaken by the economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China — has proved to be a myth. The dollar remains the world’s reserve currency, and people across the globe seek U.S. investment and entrepreneurial skills to help their flagging economies. U.S. institutions of higher learning remain the world’s best and attract students from every corner of the globe. The political values that the United States stands for remain potent forces for change. Even at a time of resurgent autocracy, popular demands for greater freedom can be heard in Russia, China, Iran and elsewhere, and those peoples look to the United States for support, both moral and material. And our strategic position remains strong. The United States has more than 50 allies and partners around the world. Russia and China between them have no more than a handful.
The task ahead is to play on these strengths and provide the kind of leadership that many around the world seek and that the American public can support. For the past two years, under the auspices of the World Economic Forum, we have worked with a diverse, bipartisan group of Americans and representatives from other countries to put together the broad outlines of a strategy for renewed U.S. leadership . There is nothing magical about our proposals. The strategies to sustain the present international order are much the same as the strategies that created it. But they need to be adapted and updated to meet new challenges and take advantage of new opportunities.
For instance, one prime task today is to strengthen the international economy, from which the American people derive so many benefits. This means passing trade agreements that strengthen ties between the United States and the vast economies of East Asia and Europe. Contrary to what demagogues in both parties claim, ordinary Americans stand to gain significantly from the recently negotiated Trans-Pacific Partnership. According to the Peterson Institute for International Economics, the agreement will increase annual real incomes in the United States by $131 billion . The United States also needs to work to reform existing international institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund, so that rising economic powers such as China feel a greater stake in them, while also working with new institutions such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank to ensure that they reinforce rather than undermine liberal economic norms.
The revolution in energy, which has made the United States one of the world’s leading suppliers, offers another powerful advantage. With the right mix of policies, the United States could help allies in Europe and Asia diversify their sources of supply and thus reduce their vulnerability to Russian manipulation. Nations such as Russia and Iran that rely heavily on hydrocarbon exports would be weakened, as would the OPEC oil cartel. The overall result would be a relative increase in our power and ability to sustain the order.
The world has come to recognize that education, creativity and innovation are key to prosperity, and most see the United States as a leader in these areas. Other nations want access to the American market, American finance and American innovation. Businesspeople around the world seek to build up their own Silicon Valleys and other U.S.-style centers of entrepreneurship. The U.S. government can do a better job of working with the private sector in collaborating with developing countries. And Americans need to be more, not less, welcoming to immigrants. Students studying at our world-class universities, entrepreneurs innovating in our high-tech incubators and immigrants searching for new opportunities for their families strengthen the United States and show the world the opportunities offered by democracy.
Finally, the United States needs to do more to reassure allies that it will be there to back them up if they face aggression. Would-be adversaries need to know that they would do better by integrating themselves into the present international order than by trying to undermine it. Accomplishing this, however, requires ending budget sequestration and increasing spending on defense and on all the other tools of international affairs. This investment would be more than paid for by the global security it would provide.
All these efforts are interrelated, and, indeed, a key task for responsible political leaders will be to show how the pieces fit together: how trade enhances security, how military power undergirds prosperity and how providing access to American education strengthens the forces dedicated to a more open and freer world.
Above all, Americans need to be reminded what is at stake. Many millions around the world have benefited from an international order that has raised standards of living, opened political systems and preserved the general peace. But no nation and no people have benefited more than Americans. And no nation has a greater role to play in preserving this system for future generations.
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I couldn't agree more! Isolation to one extent or another has been broached by mostly the two outsider candidates on each side of the Presidential race. Yes we have many problems here at home and it would be tempting to reduce our footprint militarily around the world and it is certainly something we can look into like we closed unneeded bases in the United States after the Cold War. However the talk of charging our allies more for protection or threatening to withdraw support if they do not meet our demands amounts to extortion and protectionism of the very worst kind and equally as bad is the idea of just plain shutting down bases or reducing or naval or Army or Air missions around the world, especially in the troubled waters of the Arabian Gulf or the South China Seas, just to save money.
Like it or not w won the Cold War and with that comes certain responsibilities. Certainly it is not up to be the world policeman as our ignorant and ill advised military adventurism in places like Iraq have shown (and which have succeeded in nothing more then increasing our foreign policy military problems), however a general pull back would be disastrous for many of our allies who are not prepared to take over their own defense at this time. We can not draw down our forces because they our allies won't pay a greater amount of money because those areas of the world have immense strategic importance to us also.
There are some allies who could shoulder an even greater burden of their own defense (though many already are), such as some of our NATO allies like Britain, France, German, etc. and there are some nations that we can help toward defending themselves better, such as in South East Asia. There are not however any who are ready to do so without the proper diplomatic and military negotiation needed to make it happen properly and safely.
If we want to decrease of defense budget to help increase domestic spending, which I think is a great idea, then w need to take a stronger look at some terrible purchasing agreements we have made lately (F35), investigating if there was any fraud or corruption in some of those agreements and cutting waste, without cutting benefits for our serving troops.
Wow, I'm on the horns of a dilemma.
Most of what your saying Randy, in your comment, I agree with.
Most of what is in the article, I disagree with, some of it strongly.
I see your comment and the article as polar opposites.
Pardon me, but I am confused. (and that is not easy to do)
I don't see the conflict. Especially as I point out that, while we can not afford to reduce our military footprint in the world now, there is no doubt that we can help many of our allies increase their own abilities to defend themselves, while always understanding that having them defend themselves, does not mean the United States military will not be available to back them up if need be. That they will not be under our umbrella of safety (and I don't mean just nuclear). It's just that the transition over to many of our allies being able to defend themselves and us being able to reduce our military presence around the world is not (to my knowledge) even in the planning stages and may take generations to accomplish. However there are politicians and other Americans who seem to think this is something we should do immediately or almost over night, when in fact it would take several decades to accomplish if we are going to do it right and without causing major disruptions and wars while accomplishing it and that's supposing there are no major wars over other issues in between.
And even after it's done the U.S. should maintain a military presence in various parts of the world and a strong military at home to continue being the major global influence and leadership in the world.
There is a BIG HUGE IF in there.
IF they want to defend themselves. I mean they really have to want to don't they?
The state of Germany's military is sad, a shadow of it's former self. France's is unreliable and besides doesn't want our help. Poland is still in the process of switching over it's military standards over to Nato and England is a second military command under the joint chiefs (so tied into our defense it's like another branch) On the asian front, Japan is the only reliable ally militarily with the capability to do more than demand greater involvement. S Korea has a great military better than most but they have a 600,000 man communist army led by an insane person to confront. (who they are still at war with) The rest of SE Asia in many ways view themselves as competing with us for a space at the table and eye us with distrust. Australia and New Zealand are just like England but then again their capabilities are somewhat limited.
WE just don't have it to be the worlds defender or policeman anymore. I agree that those nations need to step up, but if they don't what are we to do?
We CAN'T stay there forever. It's not isolationist to back off a bit and not get as involved as we have been. and it might have a bit of positive effect in getting those other nations that they cannot lean on us as much as they have been.
It's nice to be a superpower, but does that mean we get to be the shield so they can live their lives in peace and comfort? What about our lives and peace and comfort?
The next war is going to be an aerial war much more than the last one was. cause it takes time to mobilize a large army (almost a year for any sized army over 500,000 men) at the weapons current tech levels there won't be any armies to deploy cause they will be wasted before they can actually do anything. That's why most world military's are downsizing. (including China's) Right now our full involvement capacity for boots on the ground hovers somewhere around 300-400,000 in six months, anything beyond that is going to take massive effort. (and three months to get them where they need to be)
Massive maneuver operations like in WWII are a tactic of the past. Today's war is both brutal and FAST, not much room for second guessing and no time for logistics or deployment. One of the obvious lessons of the first Iraq War that has been missed by most.
We need some pullback. but not an entire withdrawal.
We don't have to be the world's policemen, but we can't just pull the rug out from under them. There must be political negotiation and diplomacy and it must be done slowly. The nations that don't go along will be left behind, but they must be given the chance to accept our help first, before just saying "We're out of here, Good luck." Also I don't believe that being the superpower we are and providing for the safety and comfort that we have been for some of our allies so far has left our nation in any danger whatsoever. There is not another country or group of countries in the world that would even begin to think of attacking the United States directly in force. We are more secure against a war now then we have ever been since The Cold War and there is no sign of it changing.
We have the security and time at home to take our time helping our allies overseas. Certainly we can not stay there forever, but the withdrawal has to be gradual enough and with enough help from us that the allies that do want our help building there own defenses get it before we remove our bases and we must never completely remove our bases from strategic places in the world, such as South Korea, German, the middle East and the South China sea, at least for now. We can draw down our forces in some of those areas (Japan, Germany, Italy, etc.) considerably and save some money, but we have to accept the fact that we are the world's only superpower and if we surrender that role completely it'll be filled by someone else and they may end up being a superpower that actually can threaten or peace and security of our home land again.
Our eventual main objective should be to stop maintaining large numbers of troops around the world and instead maintain smaller, easier to run Air Force bases and mobile Naval forces. Keeping the bulk of our manpower (Army and Marines) here at home where it is less expensive. Still, as I said, it can and will take decades to accomplish.