“Our
frontiers are the coasts of the enemy and we should be there five minutes after war is declared.”
Admiral
Lord Fisher, First Sea Lord, 1902
Alphen, Netherlands. 8
July. What is interesting about the new US military strategy is what it implies
not what it says. Over the past week I have torn apart, “The National Military
Strategy of the United States of America 2015”.
The more I read it the more my historian’s mind cast me back to the
early years of the twentieth century, the Anglo-German naval race and the end
of the Two Power Standard which established
the mighty Royal Navy at at least twice the size and power of the next two most
powerful navies combined.
My assessment of the Strategy
is thus; an America on the cusp of precipitate relative military decline and a
world on the brink of a new and very dangerous geopolitical competition. It is relative decline exacerbated critically
by Europe’s retreat from strategic engagement, most notably Britain. Europe’s retreat is contributing to the rapid
rise of the illiberal challenge to America’s liberal ‘empire’ of the seas.
America’s splendid military isolation when allies were nice to have but at best a luxury, at worst a hindrance has now been brought decisively to an end. America will need really capable allies with powerful capable militaries if America’s leadership of the liberal preponderance is to persist. But where are those allies? Tiny Australia (current military flavour of the month in Washington)? Forget it.
America’s splendid military isolation when allies were nice to have but at best a luxury, at worst a hindrance has now been brought decisively to an end. America will need really capable allies with powerful capable militaries if America’s leadership of the liberal preponderance is to persist. But where are those allies? Tiny Australia (current military flavour of the month in Washington)? Forget it.
This brings me to the essential
problem of the Strategy; it only hints at the strategic reality it is in fact describing
and forecasting. At times Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs General Martin E. Dempsey sounds as if he is going through the
motions with more of an eye on telling the White House and the Hill what they
want to hear than properly confronting America’s growing military dilemma. For example, “Today’s global security
environment is the most unpredictable I have seen in 40 years of service….global
disorder has significantly increased whilst some of our comparative advantages
have begun to erode”. In fact, a look at
relative military investment statistics the world over and it is apparent
American military preponderance is eroding fast and has been for some time.
The Strategy focuses on
three dynamics of strategic erosion: the rise of “counter-revisionist states”; the
emergence of “violent extremist organizations”; and the prospect of decisive
technology and/or counter-technology shift in military affairs.
The Strategy cites revisionist
Russia, competitive China, irritating but dangerous Iran, mad North Korea, and
of course the insanity of ‘ISIL’, as the five main sources of challenge to the
US military. However, in terms of the required response the Strategy at times
sounds hollow echoing Admiral Lord Fisher’s hubristic
attempt to reassure early twentieth century Britian and to justify the enormous
cost of the Royal Navy: “The supremacy of the British Navy is the
best guarantee for peace in the world”.
Contrast Fisher’s dictum with the Strategy. “The United States is the
world’s strongest nation, enjoying unique advantages in technology, energy,
alliances and partners, and demographics.
However, these advantages are being challenged”. And?
The central dilemma the
Strategy (sort of) addresses concerns the balance to be struck between US capabilities,
capacity, military readiness and what the British called back in pre-WW1 days “the
burden of armaments”. It is a balance
that Britain is about to finally abandon in its forthcoming Strategic Defence
and Security Review 2015 (strategic pretence and impecunity review) and which
Continental Europe gave up long ago, much to America’s strategic loss. However, the Strategy offers no real vision
as to the future balance the US military will need to strike.
Critically, the
Strategy in no way links that balance to any real assessment of what the stated
strategic challenges will mean for the geographical range and functional scope
of an American military task-list that could expand exponentially over the
coming years. This is especially so as the US military finds itself having to prepare for major wars
and strategic insurgencies the world over and at one and the same time.
Being an optimistic
nation the Americans place great store on the transformative properties of
technology as the spear-tip of comparative strategic advantage and its
maintenance. However, technology
breakthrough works both ways. In 1906
the British built the superb HMS
Dreadnought in one hundred days. The
first all big-gun battleship equipped with revolutionary Parsons turbines she combined
firepower, speed and armoured protection.
At a stroke she rendered every other battleship in the world obsolete,
most notably those of the German peer competitor. However, even more notably
the massive (and it was truly massive) bulk of the Royal Navy’s battle fleets
were also rendered obsolete.
Like Britain in 1906
America is relying on its military-technological defence industrial base to
ensure the US military continues to lead the world. However, when I read the May 2015 Chinese
Military Strategy alongside the US military strategy I could not but recall a
quote by Admiral von Tirpitz, the architect of Germany’s naval challenge to
Britain, “All policy hostile to England must wait until we have a fleet as
strong as the English”. Germany never
achieved that and went to war in 1914 with only 24 dreadnoughts and
super-dreadnoughts against Britain’s 49…and lost.
Here’s the rub of this ‘Strategy’; it only hints at the worst case scenario for which the US military
must prepare which goes something like this.
Some year’s hence America faces simultaneous (planned or opportunistic)
challenges in Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and Europe from the likes of China,
Iran, Russia (with ISIL still in the mix).
Strong enough to prevail in any one, possibly any two of the three, but
not all three Washington finds itself in the worst of all the worlds the
Strategy predicts.
Instead, as I read the Strategy
I could not also help but recall my Oxford thesis on British policy and the
coming of war 1933-1941. One of the major
debates the British had in the 1930s concerned a war in which Britain
simultaneously faced Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and the militarists in
Japan. The Chiefs of the Imperial
General Staff were clear; Britain could just about fight Germany and Italy in
an around Europe, but only with the Indian Army could Britain possibly hope to
fight Japan at the same time. In effect,
the ‘Chiefs’ said that to prevail in Europe, Britain had to effectively abandon
the Pacific Empire. The rest, as they
say, is history!
The bottom but
under-stated line of this Strategy is that for it to work America needs capable
military allies on both its Asia-Pacific and European strategic flanks allied
to an organisation that promotes strategic military coherence and
interoperability that would look not unlike NATO.
Ouch!
