Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s recent interview with NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelly offered a glimpse into the malaise of American grand strategy. When pressed on the administration’s plan for preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, America’s chief diplomat simply offered the repeated phrase, “We’ll stop them.” Although the Trump administration has greatly exacerbated the incoherence, the secretary’s defensiveness is not solely a Trump administration problem. Rather, the American approach to international affairs has drifted slowly toward discontent, becoming heavily militaristic, with little to no political persuasion and congressional involvement, disconnected from fiscal realities, and lacking a clear connection to a long-term vision for the country’s role in the world. In its essence, as scholar Hal Brands warned, America is backing away from grand strategic principles in favor of conducting its foreign policy from crisis to crisis.
Mike Pompeo, 70th U.S. Secretary of State (State Department/Wikimedia)
In succinctly defining grand strategy, Rebecca Friedman Lissner explains that grand strategy rises above “its narrower cognates—strategy and military strategy—as well as from foreign policy and statecraft.” As Nina Silove writes, grand strategy has the characteristics of something that is “long-term in scope, related to the state’s highest priorities, and concerned with all spheres of statecraft (diplomatic, information, military, and economic).” Across all definitions, three pillars of grand strategy remain constant. A grand strategy must:
be long-term in vision,
reconcile desired ends with national means—political and fiscal, and
use all facets of national power.
How are American strategists and foreign policy thinkers performing with regard to these grand strategy principles?
Long-Term in Vision
It is hard to identify America’s long-term vision for its role in the world and how it sees itself vis-à-vis geopolitically important regions such as the Middle East, the Indo-Pacific, and Europe. Yet, if one looks at America’s peer competitors, long-term visions are present in their planning. China has been aggressively pursuing a long-term strategy for decades, in which it seeks to supplant U.S. hegemony and remake the international order. Russia under Putin has desired a return to Soviet-era power and influence, and besides invading Georgia in 2008 and Crimea in 2014, the country is asserting itself strategically in the Middle East, Africa, and even aggressively toward the United States in the form of election meddling.
The United States, by contrast, struggles to identify Russia as a threat, as an entire segment of American society believes Russian election meddling to be a hoax. America has backed away from strategic interests in the Middle East (Syria) and in Central Asia (Afghanistan) and has made unstable the foundation of North Atlantic security cooperation, all as Russia moved into the Levant and signaled further disruption in Eastern Europe. Regarding China, where there is at least unity in the U.S. that the country is a geopolitical competitor, there is less agreement on how to respond. While the Obama Administration rightly—if not effectively—began to pivot focus to the Indo-Pacific region, the signing of another trade agreement such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) possibly endangered more American jobs at the expense of overall gross domestic product growth. Upon taking office in 2017, the Trump administration immediately killed the agreement, leaving a void filled first by the remaining signatories and now, expected in 2020, by a more comprehensive regional trade agreement headed by China. The United States is absent in both deals.
American leaders cannot seem to agree on how to confront the rise of China and the important role that trade initiatives play in maintaining power and influence. More importantly, the United States does not have a coherent outline of the future of American power in the Pacific. Are we simply going to try to stay as long as we can, or are we going to use diplomatic and economic influence—backed by military posturing—to peacefully manage China’s rise on more favorable terms? The questions of America’s role in the Middle East, the response to Russian aggression, and the managing of China’s rise are all linked to a disappearing vision for America’s role in the world.
Reconciling Desired Ends with National Means
All grand strategies must rise above the conduct of military action, diplomatic initiatives, or the execution of economic trade wars. Grand strategies, by nature, consider the national means to achieve desired international ends. Thus, true grand strategists do not ignore but rather embrace the economic components of waging a military campaign and secure domestic public opinion for drawn out confrontations. In this regard, the record appears bleak regarding post-Cold War ends and means reconciliation.
In conducting its post-9/11 wars throughout the greater Middle East, the United States has relied on borrowing to pay for the conflicts still in progress. As Brown University has diligently compiled, almost the entirety of the cost for the post-9/11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has been paid for by borrowing and deficit spending, currently at $6.4 trillion through Fiscal Year 2020. Even after the completion of these wars, the country will still continue to pay for these wars in the costs of veterans’ benefits and wounded care. The lack of war bonds or additional revenue measures—such as increased taxation, as practiced in previous wars—has passed on the costs of these conflicts to later generations. American leaders still have not adequately assessed the means for paying the cost of America’s 21st-century war obligations.
Henry Morgenthau, 52nd U.S. Secretary of the Treasury (Wikimedia)
These massive war costs come as America’s over-spending continues its upward trajectory. Continued tax cuts and high federal spending have maintained yearly deficits and increased the federal debt to over $16 trillion. As an example of how to provide public funding to meet times of crisis, by contrast, President Franklin Roosevelt and Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau worked with Congress in 1940 to pass two revenue bills that increased taxes on citizens and corporations to help fund the country’s large preparedness program. Yet today a growing income gap between wealthy and poor Americans unsustainably piles onto the burgeoning debt while many in America’s middle class struggle to make ends meet. Grand strategies of war and peace must take into account the fiscal means to accomplish strategic goals. America’s current debt status and borrowing posture is not sustainable to counter true peer competitors in the years to come.
In addition to the economic means to pay for continued conflict, America’s internal politics are fractured, and there is a widening divide between viewpoints and a lack of strong consensus on what America’s role in the world should be. Scholars and practitioners of foreign policy understand the need for international cooperation. Yet, to many citizens, it is no longer clear that the country gains by being deeply networked within international organizations and multilateral agreements. While the economy as a whole benefits from free trade agreements, many American employment sectors suffer from the consequences of comparative advantage in international economics. And decades-long troop commitments in Europe, Asia, and the wars of the Middle East make many Americans uncomfortable that the nation has an empire. As such, American voters do not have a consensus on how the nation needs to position itself in the world.
George C. Marshall, 50th U.S. Secretary of State (State Department/Wikimedia)
But, as Congress has continued to cede more and more foreign policy and war-making powers to the executive branch in favor of political expediency and party politics, leaders have sidestepped the important measure of public opinion gauged by Congressional oversight and approval. Yet, public opinion is an important and necessary component of any grand strategy. General George Marshall was quoted in 1946 as saying, “A democracy cannot fight a seven years’ war,” alluding to the difficulty of maintaining public support in wartime and the importance of the voting public to the country’s strategic interests. Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger understood this dynamic as they sought to end America’s involvement in Vietnam. Nixon skillfully announced timed troop withdrawals to help quell major antiwar backlash, balancing the need to continue fighting a controlled withdrawal with satisfying the public’s desire to quickly bring the troops home. The blame for limited public consensus is not solely on politicians in Congress or the executive branch, but on the lack of a centralized and dedicated public opinion effort by the policymaking establishment. Plans necessitate public approval, and they can accomplish little without it.
Using All Facets of National Power
The United States has become increasingly militaristic in its foreign policy, resulting in the degradation of the country’s other-than-military grand strategic assets, including a recent decimation of the State Department, in exchange for an over-reliance on the military as the premier tool for American foreign policy. The Central Intelligence Agency also has become heavily reliant on paramilitary drone operations in an era of increased militarization. America seems to no longer appreciate its soft economic, political, diplomatic, and information powers and focuses much of its foreign policy on the gains it can reap from military action.
James A. Baker III, 61st U.S. Secretary of State (State Department/Wikimedia)
Importantly, this trend is recognized among some foreign policy professionals. Former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis importantly reminded lawmakers that cutting funding for the State Department meant that the Pentagon would need to “buy more ammunition.” Yet, non-military options continue to take a backseat to the political benefits from an easy and strong military response. This starts in the budgetary process. The Trump administration’s initial 2020 budget proposal had a $650 billion difference between funding for the Defense Department and the State Department. By contrast, as George H. W. Bush contemplated a war to remove Iraq from Kuwait, he used his valued Secretary of State, James Baker, and worked with National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft to ensure America used the tools of military might, regional diplomacy, and United Nations backing to end the crisis. Grand strategy is, by nature, all-encompassing of a state’s strengths and assets leveraged toward the nation’s long-term goals. The militarization of American foreign policy has increased for years, and there does not appear to be major thinking in other directions at the top, presenting fewer options for policy-making strategists to consider.
America’s Grand Strategic Outlook
Do American strategic thinkers conceptualize at the grand strategic level anymore? The country seems to be led more and more by near-sighted, narrowly-focused policymakers who do not think broadly and deeply about strategy. Even the most recent 2017 National Security Strategy focused more on near-term crisis response than any long-term strategic vision. By contrast, Americans following World War II demonstrated strategic foresight by recognizing the importance of Europe and the level of commitment in dollars, diplomacy, and military might needed upfront to sustain an extended era of peace.
The United States has a multitude of problems in the grand strategic arena. The country needs to begin rethinking where it wants to see itself in ten, twenty, thirty, or fifty years, and how specific key relationships such as those with China, Russia, Europe, and the Middle East—and key issues such as climate change, international trade agreements, and cyber conflict—should be developed over that time. The country should expect its national security establishment and non-government stakeholders to be deep thinkers in America’s strategic vision in addition to being able to respond to crises. Instead, the country continues to have a disjointed, fiscally neglected, highly polarized, and heavily militaristic foreign policy that lacks a view of the important strategic horizon. It is time for the United States to rediscover its national and international grand strategic goals.
Alex J. Beckstrand is a Ph.D. student in diplomatic and military history at the University of Connecticut and an infantry officer in the Marine Corps Reserves. The views expressed are the author’s alone and do not reflect the views of the U.S. Marine Corps, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.
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Header Image: American Grand Strategy (Barbara Kelley/Hoover Institution)