Revisionist states such as Russia and China seek to rewrite the rules of the international order through subthreshold conflict, territorial expansion, weapons research, or grand strategies (i.e., Belt and Road Initiative) that run counter to the interests of the United States. Unfortunately, the U.S. government does not have a long-term solution to these emerging issues despite increasingly hostile actions from these revisionist states. Instead, the U.S. maintains a National Security Strategy (NSS) that projects short term strategies for current issues in the era of great power competition. The 2017 NSS, the nation’s guiding document on strategy, does not prepare for great power competition because it is myopic, overly focused on military threats by revisionist states, and overuses the U.S. military to achieve its strategic goals. To properly prepare for a new era of great power competition, the NSS must implement a three-pronged strategy that pursues offshore balancing, cooperation among rising great powers, and an emphasis on diplomacy, information, and economy to properly enable all instruments of national power in conjunction the military.

The 2017 NSS explicitly states that it will pursue an “America First foreign policy.” According to the NSS, this policy guides everything from developmental assistance to developing countries and competitive diplomacy involving coalitions. This Hobbesian foreign strategy of “America First” is myopic, because it pursues foreign relations that demonstrate the strength of the United States at the expense of its allies. From 2017 to 2018, the United States decreased the cap on displaced people it would accept within its borders from 304,849 to 178,585. This decrease is a signal to the world that the United States is less than willing to participate in humanitarian relief because it provides few benefits to an America First foreign policy. Regarding NATO, President Trump revealed he felt it is “unfair” that Article 5 (collective defense) of the NATO Treaty can be enacted by a country that fails to provide at least 2 percent of their gross domestic product (GDP) towards defense. This statement causes some states to doubt America’s commitment to NATO. In 2018, the U.S. government unilaterally withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran because of perceptions that the plan failed, despite the majority of the world and the IAEA supporting the deal. In line with America First foreign policy, the U.S. government renegotiated terms with NAFTA, the EU, China, and Japan so that the “United States will not be taken advantage of any longer.” The these policies reverse decades of cooperation and diminish the credibility of the U.S. government.

The second issue with the NSS is that it focuses on revisionist threats to the status quo of U.S. hegemony. The power transition theory (PTT) argues it is natural for declining hegemons to be wary of rising states who challenge the status quo.[1] However, the theory also indicates that conflict can be deterred through communication if rising powers are satisfied with the status quo. Yet, the U.S. government currently operates with the belief that both Russia and China are now great power competitors who seek to “reassert their influence both regionally and globally.” The 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS) echoes this assessment by stating that “[t]he central challenge to U.S. prosperity and security is the re-emergence of long-term strategic competition” by both Russia and China. Both the NDS and NSS make these conclusions because Russia represents an imminent military threat to the security of Europe, and China poses a long-term threat to the regional stability of East Asia due to its aggressive trade policies and increasing military.[2] However, this belief that Russia and China are rising great power competitors is actually due to America’s waning relative power advantage. Therefore, if we accept the PTT to be true, the real threat to global stability is the U.S. government’s fixation on maintaining hegemony, not the rise of China or Russia.

The third issue with the NSS is that it overemphasizes the use of the U.S. military as a tool of national power. All the problems that occur around the world appear to be solvable with the U.S. military because that is the only tool well-maintained and well-funded. The 2017 NSS seeks to modernize the military with weapons that over-match adversaries, invest more into the defense industrial base, upgrade nuclear weapons, and secure new domains. Since 2013 these goals are actively pursued with annual increases in defense spending with no signs of slowing down. While defense spending is on the rise, other instruments of national power, such as diplomacy, are being funded less. Regarding diplomacy, the NSS states that “effective diplomacy requires the efficient use of limited resources,” essentially signaling to the State Department that they must do more with less. According to a Congressional Research Service report, the Fiscal Year 2020 (FY20) budget for the Department of State decreased by 21 percent compared to its previous FY19 budget. Furthermore, the most recent budget reveals a significant difference in spending between America’s military and its diplomatic corps. For the FY19 budget, Congress allocated the State Department $42 billion, compared to a $689 billion for the Department of Defense.[3] The disparity between the defense and diplomacy budget emphasizes the propensity of the United States to use its military over its diplomatic corps to solve issues around the world. If your primary tool is a hammer, most problems appear to be solvable through force.

The U.S. government can reverse the effect of an America First foreign policy by implementing a grand strategy that pursues long-term global stability. A hypothetical grand strategy that can lead the United Staets and the world towards prosperity in the future is one that accepts it is a declining global power relative to competitors, builds up its allies, and enforces a policy of offshore balancing. In Paul Kennedy’s Rise and Fall of Great Powers, he boldly predicted in 1987 that the U.S. hegemony will eventually erode as all other great powers have before it, but that “short-term advantages” would accelerate the erosion.[4] Implementing an “America First” foreign policy is precisely the type of policy declining powers implement as they struggle to accept a multipolar world. Second, the U.S. must empower and invest in its allies, so they rely less upon the might of the U.S. military. Instead of using the U.S. military to “prevent the rise of peer competitors” overseas, this policy enables allies to prevent the rise of peer competitors through their military capabilities.[5] Finally, a gradual implementation of offshore balancing (a strategy that utilizes regional allies to counter the rise of great powers) will encourage states to maintain their defense against rising great power threats along with cooperation across the whole of U.S. government. At the same time, the U.S. must slowly retract its Army from the world stage and invest in a stronger Navy to patrol the seas and secure its economic interests. According to Christopher Lane, an effective strategy of offshore balancing prevents the U.S. from entering a great power war, avoids wars of credibility, “reduces vulnerability to of the American homeland to terrorism,” and maximizes the United States’ relative power position and strategic freedom of action.[6] A policy of offshore balancing could ease the transition from a unipolar to a multipolar system. If a great power does arise and go to war with its neighbors, the United States can “offshore balance” its allies by supplying them with military equipment and economic assistance.[7]

To resolve potential conflict amongst great power competitors, both the NSS and NDS must set aside fears of a great power competition by recognizing that the United States remains a powerful nation, even though other countries are also becoming powerful. Historical evidence of the PTT reveals that international orders (i.e., Concert of Europe and League of Nations) tend to fail and lead to conflict if competition arises due to disagreements about the “norms and principals upon which the international system is based.”[8] Though they are few, history also reveals that peaceful transitions are possible. In the late 19th century, the United Kingdom chose not to check the rising economic and military power of the United Staes; and at the end of the 2oth century, Germany’s political influence caused no conflict between itself, France, and the UK. In both instances, the transitions occurred peacefully due to open dialogue amongst both nations about their intentions. Therefore, instead of overemphasizing the threat of great powers to the security of the United States and its allies, the NSS ought to promote an open dialogue with Russia, China, and its allies with changing the international order to reflect the realities of the world. This open dialogue allows both revisionist and status quo states to participate in the development of the international order, instead of revisionist states being merely subject to the current global order. Promoting open dialogue about restructuring the international order can effectively secure peace because states satisfied within the international order will find that there is nothing to be gained through conflict.[9] Restructuring the international order starts with inviting Russia, China, and other great powers to discuss the future of the international order. It will take years to agree on a new international order effectively, but this issue highlights the need for a grand strategy that anticipates a multipolar world and a budget that reinvigorates all instruments of national power.

Through a gradual reduction of defense spending, it is possible to sharpen the three other instruments of national power. This claim does not seek equitable budgeting amongst all devices of national power. Instead, it is an argument to allocate money towards the tools that receive the least attention. This redistribution of funds requires expanding the institutional capacity of the U.S. government to pursue new diplomatic initiatives by funding a more capable State Department. To improve information as an instrument of national power, the U.S. government must consolidate the strategic communications of its various departments into a new Department of Strategic Communication. Creating this new department will allow the U.S. government to promote a common message throughout all of its agencies. Furthermore, by rejecting the “America First” foreign policies that place the economic interests of the U.S. before all others, it is possible to improve the economic tool of national power. The U.S. must push for more free trade agreements that benefit not only its economy at home but also the economies of countries across the world. Unlike the effect of tariffs, free trade is a policy with the potential to strengthen alliances. Although improving each instrument of national power may appear expensive, it is merely a reshuffling of money away from the defense. It is possible to double the State Department budget while still spending more money on security than any other country in the world.[10] Improving all instruments of national power provides the U.S. with more options to respond to emerging challenges.

Developing a new grand strategy that pursues a three-pronged approach towards global stability through offshore balancing, cooperation amongst rising great powers, and sharpening all tools of national power does not come without its critics. Critics claim that grand strategy does not have the flexibility to adapt and change to new and emerging challenges. This inability to adapt to changes, critics argue, provides a degree of credence to emergent strategy being a more successful strategy because it comes from “learning and adaptation.”[11] In other words, grand strategies fail because they remain inflexible towards creating a new end in the face of new challenges. Professor Williamson Murray, a critic of most grand strategies, argues that history yields few successful grand strategies and that the most successful strategists are those who adapt to political, economic, and military conditions as they are rather than as they wish them to be.”[12]

However, to continue with the strategy set forth within the NSS is to reject the current political, economic, and military conditions as they currently exist to maintain an eroding Pax Americana. The proposed grand strategy put forth in this essay carefully considers emerging threats to long-term global stability. The end state of this grand strategy is more flexible than emergent strategists may admit. Pursuing global stability as an end state with no end year and no definition of “stability” permits future policymakers the flexibility to adapt to new and emerging challenges while still pursuing global stability.

With states such as Russia and China quickly closing in on the United States’ relative power and effectively challenging the status quo, the U.S. government must seriously consider how its current strategy can maintain global stability. U.S. citizens and allies across the world do not deserve a mercurial strategy framed inside of an America First foreign policy. Great power competition necessitates that the U.S. government create a strategy not born from trial and error. To ensure long-term global stability in a competitive environment, the U.S. must develop strategies within its NSS that accepts the United States’ relative power on the world stage is gradually declining, that cooperation with rising revisionist powers is acceptable, and that there are other tools of national security to be utilized than just the military. Establishing a three-pronged grand strategy to ensure global stability will not be an easy undertaking; then again, nothing worthwhile comes easy.

Endnotes

[1] Jacek Kugler and A.F.K. Organski, “The Power Transition: A Retrospective and Prospective Evaluation,” in Handbook of War Studies, ed. by Manus I. Midlarsky (Milton Park: Routledge, 2011), 175.

[2] James Dobbins et al., Russia is a Rogue, Not a Peer; China is a Peer, Not a Rogue: Different Challenges, Different Responses, (RAND Corporation, 2018), 7-10.

[3] Michael J. Meese et al., American National Security. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018), 277.

[4] Paul M. Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000. (New York: Vintage Books, 1989), 534.

[5] John J Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2014), 265-266.

[6] Christopher Layne, The Peace of Illusions: American Grand Strategy from 1940 to the Present, (Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press, 2007), 160.

[7] Layne, The Peace of Illusions: American Grand Strategy from 1940 to the Present, 162.

[8] Mazarr, Michael et al., Understanding the Emerging Era of International Competition: Theoretical and Historical Perspectives, (RAND Corporation, 2018), 12.

[9] Douglas Lemke, “The Continuation of History: Power Transition Theory and the End of the Cold War,” Journal of Peace Research 34, no. 1 (February 1997): 24.

[10] Lemke, “The Continuation of History: Power Transition Theory and the End of the Cold War.”

[11] Ionut C Popescu, Emergent Strategy and Grand Strategy: How American Presidents Succeed in Foreign Policy, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017), 19.

[12] Williamson Murray et al., The Shaping of Grand Strategy: Policy, Diplomacy, and War, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011) 27.