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Listened to the latest Net Assessment podcast (https://warontherocks.com/2019/12/the-looming-end-of-pax-americana/ …), about NATO and the end of the Pax Americana, and...I have thoughts.
I think it's a great discussion by @profmarlowe , @capreble and @ConsWahoo, but... 1/20
The focus of the discussion was on NATO rather than the Pax Americana of the title, and as a result I think focused extensively, perhaps unduly, on the European context. For a discussion of NATO, obviously the European context makes a lot of sense. That's where NATO is. 2/20
But in my view, the American vision of NATO's role has to be as a single component of a much larger strategy. It is no longer true that a conflict between great powers - or regional ones - must be staged in Europe. It will be less true every year. 3/20
That dovetailed with the second problem, which was, I think, a focus on what NATO causes to be in terms of military preparedness (thus Preble's focus on smaller, unprepared countries weakening the alliance); but the real value of NATO is in what it causes *not* to be. 4/20
Under any kind of normal circumstances, the presence of a power like the United States, particularly post-1991, ought to cause 'balancing' behaviors all the world over - states banding together to limit American influence, presumably around a Russian or Chinese nucleus. 5/20
That hasn't really happened - the band of major economic and global players just below the US/Russia/China have largely *not* balanced against the USA and continue to show serious skepticism about doing so, even as they are pushed in that direction by POTUS. 6/20
Why? I think it is because the old Cold War American alliance system - of which NATO is a crucial component - leaves an insufficient pool of real power to balance *against* the United States. China and Russia struggle to find friends, because all the good friends are taken. 7/20
Going by the IMF rankings, of the top 10 economies in the world (by raw GDP), 7 are in the US-NATO-and-Friends (henceforth, 'the West' for convenience) camp. Of the top 20, at least 12 are (one might quibble the figure as high as 14, I think). 8/20
A lot of those US-aligned countries are 'under-militarized' sure. Some of them may not enhance American military power or projection much. They may effectively be liabilities (of course some are very much not)... 9/20
...but their US alignment takes that GDP - and thus that potential military capacity, if those economies were ever militarized - off of the table. That, in turn, effects the balancing calculus... 10/20
...because it leaves too few pieces on the board for a direct challenge. The classic example of this must be the Reinsurance Treaty (1887) - by essentially taking Russia 'off the table' Bismark could ensure France would struggle at best to pull together enough allies... 11/20
...to revisit the verdict of 1871 (until they blew it) I'd contend the Romans managed the same thing in Italy from 295 to 218BC and again from 202 to 91BC; it sure wasn't that none of the Italian allies didn't want to break free (see Fronda, Between Rome&Carthage (2010)...12/20
...but absent Hannibal stomping around, after Sentinum, there wasn't enough capacity to band together around the usual discontents (Gauls, Samnites) to make balancing feasible. Roman missteps created a situation in 91BC where that was no longer true - like we're doing now 13/20
The value of NATO - of most of the US-aligned security agreements, formal and informal - is thus less what they do for us, as what they are *not* doing, in our interest. By taking so many potential powerful potential disruptors 'off the table'...14/20
...and binding their interests (to continue to prosper without undue conflict or security burdens) to our interests (to continue to manage the broad sweep of global affairs), we inhibit balancing, and ideally close the door to increased peer-competition. 15/20
NATO, which essentially takes a fifth of the global GDP 'off the table' in this way, obviously serves a purpose within that framework, even if it did nothing else (and it can, in fact, do other things for all its members)... 16/20
None of which is to say that the USA, NATO and the USA's other security partners shouldn't be having a hard rethink about what the relationship is for and how it should best be structured for that new reality. Of course we should.... 17/20
But I'd say that NATO provides value worth the cost even when it does *nothing at all.* Now that's a hard sell for the American voter, to be sure. But I don't think it is an impossible sell - should someone want to sell it, and I'd like to see it tried... 18/20
Alternately, we can stick with the current plan, which is 'under/mis-inform the American public, conduct security policy in obscurity wherever possible, and act surprised when we get a fool-isolationist who objects to policies we never bothered to build public support for.' 19/20
...a plan on vivid display with the recent Afghanistan papers. Or, maybe we can try coming up with a overall strategy, explaining it *clearly* to the voters and congress, getting approval for it, so that regular folks understand what something like NATO is for. end/20
I come off harsher than I mean to sound to the Net Assessment podcast folks - their discussion is, I think, well informed and very useful - I am heartbroken that @ConsWahoo is leaving the podcast. Do give it a listen, link at the top of the thread.
end+1/20.
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