Rules: Slouching Toward Great-Power War
By Thomas P.M. Barnett | 06 Feb 2012
Arguably the greatest strategic gift offered by America to the world over the past several decades has been our consistent willingness to maintain a high and hugely expensive entry barrier to the “market” that is great-power war: first by deterring outright war with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and then by maintaining a lopsided and unipolar military superiority in the post-Cold War period. However, a case can be made that in recent years, the greatest threat to this enduring component of global stability arises from within the United States itself -- namely, a national security establishment intent on pressing the boundaries of this heretofore rather sacrosanct responsibility.
The origins of this dangerous rethink stretch back to Ronald Reagan’s original championing of strategic missile defense.
Back then, Reagan sold “Star Wars” as a way of making
America, and by extension the world, “safe” from the scourge of nuclear war.
But, of course, most of the world -- the Soviets included -- suspected a
stealthy attempt by America to free only itself from the strictures of mutually
assured destruction, the doctrine that underpinned Cold War-era nuclear
deterrence. (Unsurprisingly, Moscow still holds that opinion regarding the
United States’ expanding missile defense facilities in Eastern
Europe.)
Such fears resurfaced in the early years of the George W. Bush administration, with the rise to power of many national security thinkers who had advocated for the U.S. to pursue “primacy” vis à vis any potential near-peer rivals as the centerpiece of its grand strategy. However, any initial anxiety was subsequently tempered by the world’s recognition that America was far too busy in its role as “global cop” to seriously re-engage the competitive space of primacy in such a way as to make a return of great-power warfare conceivable. If anything, America’s post-Sept. 11 exuberance in fulfilling its global cop role delighted both the free-riders and risers among the great-power ranks -- count China among both -- because it simplified their strategic planning and kept the American military from darkening their doorsteps in any undue manner.
But when you consider the developments of the past three years under President Barack Obama, several of which admittedly represent continuity from the Bush-Cheney period, it is clear that the current administration is guilty of resuscitating and even accelerating this disturbing trend along several lines.
Obama’s massive downgrading of nation-building and managing the conflicts of developing regions comes as no surprise. As a candidate in 2008, he ran on the platform of winding down the large-scale military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he has certainly been a man of his word. But pairing that development with the aggressive ramping up of targeted assassinations by drones and special forces, along with the just-announced strategic “pivot” to East Asia -- a region of stunning strategic stability despite the simultaneous rise of multiple great powers -- raises some questions about where Obama is going with all this.
If any other great power killed its enemies around the world at will, it would be called a “state-sponsor of terrorism” of the most destabilizing sort. Imagine how unrestrained our domestic political dialogue would be, for instance, if China carried out such an assassination campaign, in addition to basing troops permanently all over the world, while announcing that its new strategic focus involved increasing its ability to wage high-end sustained warfare in the Western Hemisphere.
Given how little the Chinese actually complain about the totality of U.S. national security operations around the globe, it’s fair to ask which great power is acting more “provocatively.”
So much for the big picture. The pattern revealed from a more granular look is no more reassuring.
In a world relatively freer of conflict than at any other point in human history, and while otherwise reducing military spending, the Pentagon is busy gearing up its AirSea Battle Concept, with China as its obvious target. Meanwhile, our new national cyber-security strategy equates Chinese military-industrial snooping with an act of war and advocates the right to strike back kinetically at equivalent Chinese facilities -- in effect, pre-approving China for immediate state-of-war conditions. The parallel with America claiming the right to summarily execute anyone, anywhere in the world, after unilaterally deciding it is at war with them is striking.
In another critical domain, the picture is similarly disturbing. China and Russia have repeatedly asked for a treaty banning the weaponization of near space. America has declined, even as the U.S. Air Force openly pursues Prompt Global Strike, whereby long-range ballistic missiles will be used to deliver non-nuclear ordnance anywhere on the globe within minutes. Thankfully, next-generation “boost-glide” hypersonic missiles have replaced regular intercontinental ballistic missiles as the planned delivery vehicle, because Congress rightly feared that the Russians or Chinese might confuse an ICBM launch with the outbreak of World War III. Such a capability could conceivably come in handy the next time we’re looking to take out a wanted terrorist in a far-off mountain lair, but in truth, the only plausible use for them is to knock out Chinese anti-satellite weapons early on in any lightning-strike war.
Again, it might seem easier simply to ban such space-domain weapon systems, and if our real desire was to avoid great-power war, one would imagine we’d do that. Instead, the Obama administration has set its sights on a “world free of nuclear weapons,” in which, presumably, we’d be even freer to wage such “prompt global strikes.” This is the logic openly articulated by Obama’s just-released strategic military guidance, which is tailor-made for a world where counterinsurgency and nation-building have little utility, and where America must rebuild its “big war” forces long-neglected by the “long war” against violent extremists.
Make no mistake: The need to hunt down bad actors and kill them has been a staple of my strategic vision for U.S. national security for more than a decade, one that I’ve preached far and wide across the professional community involved in formulating and implementing U.S. grand strategy. And in truth, with the exception of ending the use of torture, the U.S. under Obama has waged its undeclared war on terrorists with an extrajudicial zeal that profoundly surpasses that of Bush-Cheney. But the only way that approach doesn’t come off like a cynical dodge is if the U.S. takes responsibility for the regional and local conditions it creates with these operations. Instead, Obama has combined the precision strikes with a clear diminution of follow-up stabilization capabilities, while simultaneously trying to militarily box in China in East Asia by ramping up our strategic-blinding capabilities for the first minutes and hours of the next great war.
Here the question becomes, To what end? Why simultaneously exacerbate a rising China’s worst security nightmares -- namely, its growing resource dependencies on unstable regions -- and then act like any Chinese attempt to move in the direction of securing those far-flung national interests is threatening?
What puzzles me most is why no one else is asking these questions, because it’s happening right under all of our noses.
Thomas P.M. Barnett is chief analyst at Wikistrat and a contributing editor for Esquire magazine. His eBook serial is "The Emily Updates: One Year in the Life of the Girl Who Lived" (September-December 2011). His weekly WPR column, The New Rules, appears every Monday. Reach him and his blog at thomaspmbarnett.com.
Such fears resurfaced in the early years of the George W. Bush administration, with the rise to power of many national security thinkers who had advocated for the U.S. to pursue “primacy” vis à vis any potential near-peer rivals as the centerpiece of its grand strategy. However, any initial anxiety was subsequently tempered by the world’s recognition that America was far too busy in its role as “global cop” to seriously re-engage the competitive space of primacy in such a way as to make a return of great-power warfare conceivable. If anything, America’s post-Sept. 11 exuberance in fulfilling its global cop role delighted both the free-riders and risers among the great-power ranks -- count China among both -- because it simplified their strategic planning and kept the American military from darkening their doorsteps in any undue manner.
But when you consider the developments of the past three years under President Barack Obama, several of which admittedly represent continuity from the Bush-Cheney period, it is clear that the current administration is guilty of resuscitating and even accelerating this disturbing trend along several lines.
Obama’s massive downgrading of nation-building and managing the conflicts of developing regions comes as no surprise. As a candidate in 2008, he ran on the platform of winding down the large-scale military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he has certainly been a man of his word. But pairing that development with the aggressive ramping up of targeted assassinations by drones and special forces, along with the just-announced strategic “pivot” to East Asia -- a region of stunning strategic stability despite the simultaneous rise of multiple great powers -- raises some questions about where Obama is going with all this.
If any other great power killed its enemies around the world at will, it would be called a “state-sponsor of terrorism” of the most destabilizing sort. Imagine how unrestrained our domestic political dialogue would be, for instance, if China carried out such an assassination campaign, in addition to basing troops permanently all over the world, while announcing that its new strategic focus involved increasing its ability to wage high-end sustained warfare in the Western Hemisphere.
Given how little the Chinese actually complain about the totality of U.S. national security operations around the globe, it’s fair to ask which great power is acting more “provocatively.”
So much for the big picture. The pattern revealed from a more granular look is no more reassuring.
In a world relatively freer of conflict than at any other point in human history, and while otherwise reducing military spending, the Pentagon is busy gearing up its AirSea Battle Concept, with China as its obvious target. Meanwhile, our new national cyber-security strategy equates Chinese military-industrial snooping with an act of war and advocates the right to strike back kinetically at equivalent Chinese facilities -- in effect, pre-approving China for immediate state-of-war conditions. The parallel with America claiming the right to summarily execute anyone, anywhere in the world, after unilaterally deciding it is at war with them is striking.
In another critical domain, the picture is similarly disturbing. China and Russia have repeatedly asked for a treaty banning the weaponization of near space. America has declined, even as the U.S. Air Force openly pursues Prompt Global Strike, whereby long-range ballistic missiles will be used to deliver non-nuclear ordnance anywhere on the globe within minutes. Thankfully, next-generation “boost-glide” hypersonic missiles have replaced regular intercontinental ballistic missiles as the planned delivery vehicle, because Congress rightly feared that the Russians or Chinese might confuse an ICBM launch with the outbreak of World War III. Such a capability could conceivably come in handy the next time we’re looking to take out a wanted terrorist in a far-off mountain lair, but in truth, the only plausible use for them is to knock out Chinese anti-satellite weapons early on in any lightning-strike war.
Again, it might seem easier simply to ban such space-domain weapon systems, and if our real desire was to avoid great-power war, one would imagine we’d do that. Instead, the Obama administration has set its sights on a “world free of nuclear weapons,” in which, presumably, we’d be even freer to wage such “prompt global strikes.” This is the logic openly articulated by Obama’s just-released strategic military guidance, which is tailor-made for a world where counterinsurgency and nation-building have little utility, and where America must rebuild its “big war” forces long-neglected by the “long war” against violent extremists.
Make no mistake: The need to hunt down bad actors and kill them has been a staple of my strategic vision for U.S. national security for more than a decade, one that I’ve preached far and wide across the professional community involved in formulating and implementing U.S. grand strategy. And in truth, with the exception of ending the use of torture, the U.S. under Obama has waged its undeclared war on terrorists with an extrajudicial zeal that profoundly surpasses that of Bush-Cheney. But the only way that approach doesn’t come off like a cynical dodge is if the U.S. takes responsibility for the regional and local conditions it creates with these operations. Instead, Obama has combined the precision strikes with a clear diminution of follow-up stabilization capabilities, while simultaneously trying to militarily box in China in East Asia by ramping up our strategic-blinding capabilities for the first minutes and hours of the next great war.
Here the question becomes, To what end? Why simultaneously exacerbate a rising China’s worst security nightmares -- namely, its growing resource dependencies on unstable regions -- and then act like any Chinese attempt to move in the direction of securing those far-flung national interests is threatening?
What puzzles me most is why no one else is asking these questions, because it’s happening right under all of our noses.
Thomas P.M. Barnett is chief analyst at Wikistrat and a contributing editor for Esquire magazine. His eBook serial is "The Emily Updates: One Year in the Life of the Girl Who Lived" (September-December 2011). His weekly WPR column, The New Rules, appears every Monday. Reach him and his blog at thomaspmbarnett.com.
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