LAST RESORT

In my previous column titled ‘INNER STRENGTH’, I reviewed Ian Bremmer’s book ‘Superpower, Three Choices for America’s Role in the World’ and I endorsed his pick of foreign affairs strategy for the United States, a strategy Bremmer called the ‘Independent America’.

In this strategy America declares its independence from the responsibility to solve other people’s problems and turns its attention to putting its own house in order so that it can build inner strength and lead the world by example, as a truly exceptional nation, rather than solely by economic and military supremacy.

Following this strategy would require from our political decision makers an extraordinary effort to extract America from the role of the global policeman charged with making sure that every nation in the world plays nice and observes the rules that we set for good behavior in the global sand box. It would also require super human discipline to stay on strategy if other players on the scene don’t play by our rules.

As much as I advocate with Ian Bremmer the strategy of an ‘Independent America’, I make myself no illusion that the decision makers in Washington DC will agree with this pick. After all, what is more tempting than showing what you are made of on the international stage? We are a Superpower and should assert and reassert our claim to global leadership and dominance at every turn in the road by sitting at every negotiating table and intervening in every conflict. But, assume for a moment that the improbable happens and the Beltway decides to concentrate all of its muscle strength on the domestic scene. How far would that go and how would that change America’s involvement in world affairs?

While we ponder these questions, let’s remember that the U.S. tried very long and very hard to stay out of the two big wars of the twentieth century, World Wars I and II. Woodrow Wilson did not enter the First World War until 1917, after it had been going on for almost three years and then only because Germany torpedoed the Lusitania in the Irish Sea, causing the death of 1,195 passengers, including 123 Americans.

Similarly, it took the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor for the U.S. to enter the Second World War in 1942, while the war had been going on for well over two years. While we now think of the Republicans as the most hawkish, belligerent, party, it befell on a Democrat to get Congress to declare war both in 1917 and in 1941. Given the gravity of the transgressions of the Germans and their allies in both World Wars, this reluctance on the part of America to get involved stands in sharp contrast with America’s willingness to use its military might in more recent times when, by just about any yardstick, the world order was threatened to a much lesser extent.

The evidence shows that in the first half of the twentieth century, America looked at the use of its military might as the very last resort to end conflicts and—other than under Theodore Roosevelt’s reign— it consistently stayed away from interventionist adventures in foreign affairs.

The twentieth century is now commonly called ‘the American Century’ in spite of, or—maybe—just because of this hesitancy to pull the coals out of the fire for other nations. Especially in the second half of the twentieth century America climbed to the pinnacle of world dominance as it decided the outcome of the Second World War and also prevailed in the Cold War that followed. So, apparently, America can prosper and grow without being the policeman of the world. But memory is short and, particularly come election time (which in the U.S. is almost permanent), Republicans and Democrats outdo each other in talking tough about perceived adversaries like China, Russia and Iran. In the current campaign for the White House, only the Independent Bernie Sanders comes close to underwriting the strategy for an ‘Independent America’.

For the reasons explained in my previous column ‘INNER STRENGTH’, I believe that America’s best course of action going forward is to focus laser-like on making America strong again from the inside out and resolve to use its military might only when the security of its borders and its people is directly threatened and then only as a matter of last resort after all other efforts have been exhausted.

The one question I cannot resolve in my own mind (and I have asked Ian Bremmer to address and answer) is if adopting the strategy for an Independent America would automatically have to lead to the annulment of the security commitments it has made to protect its allies like Israel, South Korea, Japan and the member countries of NATO against attacks on their territories and people. How should and will the ‘Independent America’ respond if North Korea invades South Korea, Iran attacks Israel, China takes over Taiwan or Russia occupies Latvia, Lithuania or Estonia?

That is the hardest question. When is America’s security interest directly involved? What criteria should be in place to decide these life or death questions? Does it matter if only conventional weapons are used or aggressors resort to the use of weapons of mass destruction? Development of a foreign affairs strategy requires that these questions are asked and answered in advance rather than in the heat and emotion of the moment when they are forced upon us. The answers should, of course, be kept secret and kept under lock and key as much as the key to the nuclear button. Whatever strategy America embarks on, it should never signal to the world that whatever happens outside of the U.S. borders is of no concern to America and will never trigger a military response. The military option can never be taken off the table, whatever foreign affairs strategy America choses, but it should only be used in the very last resort.