By Thomas P. M. Barnett
Faced with irreversible long-term fiscal pressures to reduce the U.S. defense budget, late last week the Obama administration began unveiling its supremely focused rationale behind future cuts. The result is an elegantly slim strategic statement (.pdf) that indirectly names its deepest fear in its title: “Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense.” According to the document, over the past decade the U.S. military force structure has been “by necessity” dangerously skewed by “today’s wars.” Now America must start “preparing for future challenges” arising from a frightening and apparently imminent “inflection point” in East Asia’s military balance of power. As such, “we will of necessity rebalance toward the Asia-Pacific region.” In sum, not only are these choices being forced upon America, they are the only path we can take if we are to maintain our global leadership.
You have to hand it to President Barack Obama, who is nothing if not direct in naming our nation’s primary future enemy -- one so dangerous to our strategic interests that our entire defense budget must be organized around it. If this declaration doesn’t warm the heart of every pre- or post-Sept. 11 neocon and believer in the primacy of U.S. military power, then nothing will. This is basically the primacists’ old dream of taking on the Chinese indirectly through a technological arms race -- albeit one tempered by “our changing fiscal circumstances.”
What that means in practical terms is that the parts of the defense budget not focused on the Chinese threat will be significantly reduced.
First, our war against “al-Qaida and its affiliates” will continue to be downsized from the extravagances of the Bush-Cheney era. No more invading countries or rebuilding them. Instead, it is all “counterterrorism and irregular warfare,” meaning we will hunt terrorists down individually, “directly striking” wherever we may find them. As for winning hearts and minds, that’s over with. Counterinsurgency and stability operations now rank far down the list of capabilities.
Second, the Army and Marines will suffer significant personnel reductions, as “U.S. forces will no longer be sized to conduct large-scale, prolonged stability operations.” By this logic, the U.S. Navy and Air Force will suffer disproportionally smaller cuts, so that America can “rebuild readiness in areas that, by necessity, were de-emphasized over the past decade.”
Third, America will maintain a “global presence” in name only. In this “resource-constrained era,” we will reduce our presence in Europe considerably, because most European countries “are now producers of security rather than consumers of it.” As for Latin America and Africa, everything we do will emphasize “low-cost and small-footprint approaches,” An approach that should dovetail nicely with China’s lavish investment strategies in considerably reducing U.S. influence in both regions. As for the Middle East, it will remain second in importance to East Asia, but since every reference to that troubled region eventually narrows down to the threat of Iran getting the bomb, expect our presence to be suitably concentrated along those lines. Finally, Russia and Central Asia are complete afterthoughts in this document, as well they should be. In sum, “with reduced resources, thoughtful choices will need to be made regarding the location and frequency of these operations.”
Fourth, the driving focus on future procurement and R&D -- and thus sustainment of the all-important “industrial base” -- will be on making sure that “the United States, its allies, and partners are capable of operating in A2/AD [anti-access/area-denial], cyber and other contested operating environments.” Which country constitutes the primary A2/AD challenge? That would be China, naturally, with Iran a distant second. China’s rising “asymmetrical” capabilities are having an unsettling influence on East Asia’s balance of military power, upon which, in turn, will depend the “maintenance of peace, stability, the free flow of commerce, and . . . U.S. influence in this dynamic region.” America either stays ahead of China in this technological arms race or risks being shut out of the fastest-growing portion of the global economy.
At the very least, the Obama administration should be congratulated for eschewing the usual vague nonsense about a world of “complexity” and “uncertainty.” Instead, we are presented with a fairly straightforward picture of what matters: the Asia-Pacific and America’s ability to access it by every means necessary to ensure some sustained influence in its internal affairs.
The document cites China’s lack of “clarity” about its “strategic intentions” as the primary evidence of a perceived threat. Toward that end, the U.S. will “emphasize our existing alliances . . . expand our networks of cooperation with emerging partners,” and -- most intriguingly -- invest “in a long-term strategic partnership with India to support its ability to serve as a regional economic anchor and provider of security in the broader Indian Ocean region.”
Therein, however, lies the document’s fundamental weakness: Given how clearly we are transmitting our strategic intentions, it is all but certain that Beijing will subsequently define its own as avoiding military encirclement by the United States and its allies.
In fact, it is only natural that a “rising” China naturally reaches for military might to define itself vis-à-vis the region’s most dominant external player, with particular attention to the U.S. capacity to project profound power right up to China’s shoreline. After China’s “century of humiliation” at the hands of foreign colonial navies, does such a response lack “clarity”? Hardly. Now, however, thanks to our openly avowed commitment to countering all such Chinese efforts, the People’s Liberation Army would be crazy not to budget primarily with the Pentagon in mind, given that the Pentagon will be doing the converse from now on.
Mutual clarity achieved.
Why must it be this way?
The Pentagon faces severe cuts and will do whatever it takes to protect its “big war” force -- primarily the Air Force and Navy -- in this high-tech age. On the surface, this is a laudable goal. But choosing the global economy’s main engine of growth as your primary target? To whom you owe several trillion dollars’ worth of public debt? Whose accumulated wealth will not only determine the emerging global financial order, but will be needed to finance the West’s aging demographics and the South’s booming middle-class consumption patterns? Is that really the choice America wants to make at this point in history?
It is not up to the Pentagon to discipline itself intellectually in these matters. That is the executive branch’s job. The problem is that Obama is in the fight of his life for re-election, and therein lies the rub. Facing an incredibly angry populism, the president must deflect some of that passion, and naming names in international security affairs is one subtle way of accomplishing that.
However, it is surprising how open the White House is being about scapegoating China for the economic mess we find ourselves in, because this is exactly the sort of strategic nonsense that could conceivably turn the ongoing “great contraction” into another “great war.”
Frankly, a second Obama term is not worth all that. Cooler heads, though hard to come by these days, must prevail.
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 atthomaspmbarnett.com
Courtesy: World Politics Review
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