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Ikenberry’s ‘Liberal Leviathan’ and American Grand Strategy in the Age of Trump

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by Paakhi Bhatnagar

The American President Donald Trump during his inauguration speech in 2017 (Image Credit: Pool)

 

America’s world leadership is in crisis. Amidst a trade war with China, an unprecedented withdrawal of forces from the Middle East, and an increasingly hostile attitude toward international alliances and institutions, Donald Trump has exacerbated the crisis of America’s authority in the international system. We live under a zeitgeist where the American grand strategy is progressively becoming inward-focusing and lacking a coherent external vision. Perhaps now is a better time than any to go back to the theoretical literature on internationalism and what it can tell us about America’s grand strategy despite, in an endeavour to counter the international detriment of its global retreat.

In Liberal Leviathan, published in 2011, G. John Ikenberry unpicks the crisis of authority and governance prevalent in the liberal international system by arguing for America to adopt a grand strategic vision of liberal internationalism. The title of the book in itself is quite intriguing as it invokes significance to the Hobbesian conception of ‘Leviathan.’ The United States’ hegemony was based on Hobbesian grounds in the sense that other states had consensually handed the ‘reign of power’ to America. For Ikenberry, it is this very consensus that is now in crisis.

The book’s core argument is substantiated by theoretical underpinnings as Ikenberry commits the first half of the literature to liberal institutionalism and what this particular mode of organization has to offer for US grand strategy going forward. Although superfluous at times, this theoretical foundation of liberalism provides a logical premise for him to then make policy suggestions for America. In fact, the key strength of the book comes from Ikenberry’s ability to uphold his thesis throughout the dense literature, ensuring the reader is never in doubt about the author’s advocation for a liberal internationalist policy.

Ironically, Ikenberry’s heightened focus on the liberal theory of the international system also constitutes his key weakness. By holding liberal internationalism on a pedestal, Ikenberry formulates a parochial vision of the system, effectively removing other theories, such as the balance of power, from the narrative. The concept of rising powers is one example that poses a challenge to Ikenbery’s central argument of liberal internationalism. As highlighted by John Mearsheimer, a famous critic of Ikenberry, it is inevitable that rising powers will turn against the liberal international order. Ikenberry has been careful in conceding to the fact that it is the very nature of the liberal order that accommodates and encourages rising powers. But, in contrast to Mearsheimer, he believes that the liberal order would facilitate cooperation and stability through multilateral treaties and institutions instead of creating instability in the system. To do this, America would need to adopt a liberal internationalist grand strategy and actively engage itself in the rebuilding of international institutions. This, however, does not seem to be the direction towards which Trump’s foreign policy is heading.

Written during the aftermath the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, the sense of anxiety around the American position in the international system is very apparent in the book. This anxiety can now very well be translated into the current dilemma faced by the American government: whether to reclaim its position as a natural hegemon and project its policies internationally, or whether to focus inwardly to sustain its domestic voters. This dilemma is especially relevant in Donald Trump’s America.

The current American President Donald J. Trump’s policies have prescribed to what Walter Russel Mead has termed the ‘Jacksonian tradition’ after American President Andrew Jackson. Trump’s disengagement from multilateral institutions and his incessant focus on America’s domestic voters is comparable to Jackson’s populism and bilateralism in World War II. Trump has steered the country’s grand strategy to a very different trajectory from what Ikenberry had prescribed. For Ikenberry, the US has strong incentives to sustain its hegemony in a liberal international order by renegotiating its position and establishing multilateral agreements. In fact, he goes on to say that multilateral agreements and rules provide a foundational basis for states to interact within the liberal system. While the US has remained a key player in global politics since this book was written, its international presence in the system has been relatively declining. In this sense, the US does seem to be renegotiating its place in the international system, but not on the terms Ikenberry had proposed. The reason for this, is the rise in nationalism both externally in other states, and, more importantly, internally in America.

Nationalism is an important phenomenon that cannot be undermined by internationalism. Although after the Cold War the ideology of liberal democracy upheld by the US became the driving force for political organization, nationalism in the country continued to brew. This gave voice to the concerns of many about the cost America had to pay for maintaining its hegemonic position. This phenomenon of nationalism highlights the key weakness of Ikenberry’s argument as he fails to engage with the prevalence of different ideologies within and outside of America that would reject a renewed American hegemony. This is especially conspicuous in Trump’s ‘America First’ policy. Trump has not only questioned the utility of long-standing alliances like NATO but has also implemented a foreign policy that has been responsible for America’s retreat from the international system.

Moreover, Ikenberry stands quite strongly on the issue of China, viewing it as ‘one of the great dramas of the twenty-first century’. He maintains the belief that China should be acclimatised to the liberal world order and not left out of it. This would not only maintain stability but also make China’s international presence contingent on its compliance with the liberal international order. Thus, an important aspect of US grand strategy according to Ikenberry would be to engage with China through multilateral trade institutions. Previous presidencies, like those of Obama and Clinton, had made it clear that they were trying to enroll China in the international order. Trump, on the other hand, is engaging with- or rather, disengaging from - China in a very different way. Waging a trade war and imposing bilateral sanctions goes starkly against Ikenberry’s advice.

While the debate on whether Trump actually has a grand strategic vision for America remains heated, there is no denying that if there is a grand strategy it is definitely not one of liberal internationalism. What, then, should formulators of American grand strategy take away from Liberal Leviathan? Ikenberry proposes quite succinctly that America should adopt a ‘milieu’ based grand strategy where it strives to structure the international environment in ways that are conducive to its own long-term security. This is, perhaps, the strongest policy advice laid out in the book.

The ‘brave new world’ that America finds itself in now is one where newer threats like global warming, jihadist terrorism, the rise of the far-right, etc. proliferate. Therefore, it is increasingly important for America to adapt its grand strategy to encompass all these global forces. Moreover, great power competition, as spurred by the rising power of China in the international system, has become an imperative issue for US foreign policy. Although there are several paths that America could take in its role in the international system, Ikenberry does quite clearly lay out the foundations for America’s liberal internationalist role. Whether American grand strategy is heading in the direction advised by Ikenberry or not, readers and budding grand strategists can certainly benefit from his argument on one particular trajectory that America could assume amidst the crisis of the liberal world order.

Paakhi Bhatnagar is an undergraduate International Relations student in her penultimate year at King’s College London. She is especially interested in the securitization of migration issues along with socio-economic policies and their impact on the working class. In addition to being a Copy Editor at Strife blog, she is also the Editorial Assistant at International Relations Today and the City News Editor at London Student. You can find her on Twitter at @paakhibhatnagar.

Event Review - Raison d’Etat: Cardinal Richelieu’s Grand Strategy during the Thirty Years’ War

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by Daria Platonova

A Triple Portrait of Cardinal de Richelieu, probably 1642 (Image Credit: Wikimedia)

The lecture on Cardinal Richelieu’s Grand Strategy during the Thirty Years’ War took place on 4 December 2019 at the War Studies Department. It was given by Dr Iskander Rehman, a Senior Fellow for International Relations at the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy and an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security. The article on which this lecture was based, can be consulted here.

Richelieu’s policies during this phase of the conflict generated resentment at court and in the wider public, as Rehman demonstrates. Historians’ and politicians’ opinions on Richelieu are divided. At the same time, there exists a cohort of Richelieu enthusiasts. German historians compared Richelieu’s prudence and diplomatic dexterity to that of Bismarck. Henry Kissinger has characterised him as a “genius of realist foreign policy based on the balance of power”.

“All too often,” Rehman argued in his closing remarks, “when contemporary security studies students or political scientists draw on history, they tend to do so in a limited and self-serving way, retroactively selecting case studies that seem to confirm parsimonious theories. As a result, vast spans of military history from late Antiquity to the early modern era are often considered less relevant to contemporary concerns and almost uniformly ignored”. In this review, I seek to outline the main arguments made in what was an exceedingly rich lecture packed with facts.

As someone whose knowledge of Richelieu’s period did not extend beyond that conferred by the illustrious likes of Charlie Sheen and Tim Curry, I found the intensity of this lecture a bit of a shock to the system. Dr Iskander Rehman sought to outline the intellectual underpinnings and content of the grand strategy of one of the more complex, polarising and intellectually fascinating figures in the history of Western statecraft: Cardinal Richelieu.

Firstly, Rehman sought to position Richelieu against the background of a country ravaged by decades of civil strife and in continuous decline on the international stage. He argues that, as a child, the chief minister was most probably aware of the decline of the royal authority across the country against the rise of Protestant enclaves, the bloody pogroms against and suppression of the French Huguenots, especially during the Saint Bartholomew Massacre of 1572, and the untimely demise of French kings at the hands of religious fanatics.

He was also most probably aware of Philip II of Spain’s constant interference in the domestic affairs of France. Hence Rehman likens France of the late 16th century to today’s Syria, “a nation crisscrossed by foreign soldiers, mercenaries and proxies and a spectacle of almost unremitting misery and desolation”.

Richelieu was a staunch and ruthless authoritarian statist. Upon the ascension to his position as King Louis XIII’s chief minister in 1624, Richelieu’s vision was, according to one of his letters, “first, to ruin the Huguenots and render the king absolute in his state; second, to abase the house of Austria (meaning both the Monarchs of Spain and Austria), and third to discharge the French people of heavy subsidies and taxes”.

Secondly, Rehman roots the intellectual underpinnings of Richelieu’s grand strategy in the ideas prevalent at the time. He shows how the French nobility or “politique,” which surrounded Richelieu, from the medieval times onwards, held strong views of France’s exceptionalism, messianic nationalism, and viewed it as a country predestined for continental leadership. The French king complementarily was viewed as God’s lieutenant on earth. Indeed, Richelieu was so devout to the French monarchy that, as the legend has it, on his deathbed in 1642, he was said to respond to the question of whether he wished to forgive the countless enemies that he had no enemies apart from the enemies of the state.

Such ideas of French exceptionalism were continuously frustrated by the rise and consolidation of Spain, which displaced France as the most formidable military power on the continent by the early 17th century. Therefore, Richelieu’s approach to counter-hegemonic balancing against Spain and the Habsburgs was firmly rooted in a raison d’etat (reason of state). It was also rooted in the French nobility’s view of France’s continental rivals, the Spanish and Viennese Habsburgs, as inferiors.

Rehman shows how the early baroque thinkers on raison d’etat, on whose ideas Richelieu’s vision was built, bypassed the controversial writings of Machiavelli to seek inspiration in the writings of Tacitus and neo-Stoics, with their emphasis on prudence, patriotism, public service, and not the least, the lessons derived from the study of history. Machiavelli’s writings, by contrast, were an affront to the views of Catholic thinkers and seen as examples of atheism and republicanism. He also demonstrates how Richelieu’s vision moved with the times “to increasingly transition from the vision of order structured around precisely delineated hierarchies to one revolving around the idea of balance, flexible, continuously self-adjusting equilibriums”. France was therefore to become both a balance on the scale, that is a key participant in the struggle for hegemony and the holder of said balance.

Rehman shows how during the early phase of the Thirty Years’ War, Richelieu’s foreign policy was undergirded by “the assumption that, first of all, France and its underdeveloped army were not yet ready to engage in direct confrontation with their battle-hardened Spanish counterparts and the weary fractious French political establishment was unlikely to support any drawn-out military effort”.

As a result, France sought to buy time. “A strategy of delay and protraction,” Rehman argues, “was not only required to muster France’s martial strength but also to forge the necessary elite consensus. Provided that France would continue to buy time and bleed the Habsburgs via a League of well-funded and militarily capable proxies, Richelieu was convinced that France’s demographic and economic resources would allow it to eventually gain an upper hand in its protracted competition with Spain”.

Consequently, Richelieu put alliance politics at the heart of his grand strategy. During the period of the guerre covert before 1635 at least, Richelieu worked hard to foster alliance structures with the Italian League (Savoy and Venice), German princes and sponsored campaigns by allied Protestant powers such as Sweden and Denmark that did the most damage to the Habsburg interests. He also sponsored secessionist movements in Portugal and Catalonia as well as “of [those] liberty-starved princes in Germany”.

Above all, Richelieu was aware of the risks of entanglement and the entrapment, that is when a patron suddenly loses the capacity to control its client, which was inherent in the asymmetric alliance structure. In the “Political Testament,” Richelieu warns future statesmen “not to embark voluntarily on the founding of a league created for some difficult objective unless they surely can carry it out alone should their allies desert them”. Indeed, Rehman alludes to “the difficulties familiar to any modern student of security studies, which is the fact that proxies and client states rarely share similar objectives to those of their sponsors and generally the stronger a proxy is the less dependent and politically beholden it is to its patron”. This proved to be true in France’s relations with Sweden, in particular.

Daria is a PhD student at King’s College London. Her research focuses on violence and the unfolding of conflict across several regions in eastern Ukraine, 2013 – 2014. She also leads one of the Causes of War seminars in the War Studies Department. Prior to joining King’s, she worked as a teacher. She graduated with a degree in History from the University of Cambridge in 2011. Her broader interests include European history, war studies, and interdisciplinary methods.

EU Foreign Policy: More Grand Delusion than Grand Strategy

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by Eliz Peck

24 May 2019

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron after the signing of a new Germany-France friendship treaty at the historic Town Hall in Aachen, Germany on Tuesday, 22 January 2019. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner).

Henry Kissinger once said that “no foreign policy – no matter how ingenious – has any chance of success if it is born in the minds of a few and carried in the hearts of none”. With the EU divided not just between – but within – its member states, a united EU foreign and security policy seems less likely than ever to succeed, regardless of the strength of its leaders.

The job title ‘High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy’ sounds important. And yet, relatively few everyday people living in the EU have probably heard of Federica Mogherini, or her job. In June 2016, Mogherini’s office published a European Union Global Strategy. It projected its vision of the EU’s grand strategy. In its introduction she urgently called for a united EU foreign and security policy in the face of “increasingly fractured identities.” Her calls came following the crises in Libya, Syria and Ukraine, where the EU proved itself an inadequate foreign policy actor, incapable of coordinating amongst its member states an effective and timely response to international crises.

It is misguided to simply attribute these foreign policy failures to weak political leadership. At state-level, leaders of the larger European countries have been as pro-active as domestic contexts have allowed in seeking to combat international crises. Chancellor Merkel sacrificed her political longevity when she threw open Germany’s doors in 2015 in response to the migrant crisis, asserting Wir Schaffen Das (‘We Can Do This’). The growth of the far-right, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party can be traced back to Merkel’s ambitious open-door refugee-policy. This domestic backlash pushed her to back-peddle on a liberal policy, instead striking a deal with Turkey in March 2016 that would curb the number of refugees arriving in Europe.

Although countries can cooperate in certain foreign policies, grand strategy is typically the preserve of an individual state. Hal Brands, Professor of Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, sees grand strategy as “a purposeful and coherent set of ideas about what a nation seeks to accomplish in the world”. At their very core, grand strategy and foreign policy are a projection of the values and identity of the state. We see this clearly in President Truman’s policy of ‘containment’ between 1945 and 1953, which Brands describes as ‘the golden age of grand strategy’. First articulated in George Kennan’s so-called Long Telegram, the strategy of containment sought to mobilise the military, economic and diplomatic resources of the American state during the Cold War in order to mitigate the rise of their ideological and strategic rival, the USSR. Viewed from this perspective, the Marshall Plan not only aimed for a peaceful post-war economic reconstruction of Europe but sought to promote capitalist notions of liberty and prosperity that lie at the very heart of the American Dream.

Launching a coordinated European grand strategy for multiple states and multiple identities was always going to be tough. What is more, the EU is vast. Individual strategic priorities differ because of the way that they are shaped by historical context and the geo-political landscape. Russian aggrandisement is a pressing concern for Eastern European countries like Poland, but not for Southern European countries like Italy who are struggling with the flow of migrants crossing the Mediterranean.

No issue more clearly illustrates the failure to coordinate a single EU grand strategy than the rise of China. Despite the recently published EU-China document deeming China a ‘systemic rival’ and calling for ‘full unity’ in EU responses, the member states have nevertheless prioritised national interests over falling in line with Brussels. This is seen in the growing bilateral links between China and the Central and Eastern European states – the so-called 16+1 group, eleven of whom are in the EU – who are hungry for Belt and Road investments. In March 2019, President Macron tried to show a united front when he invited Chancellor Merkel and European Commissioner Jean-Claude Juncker to his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. He triumphantly claimed “The face of a Europe that speaks with one voice on the international scene is emerging.” Only days later, this claim was undermined when Italy became the first G7 partner to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with China, endorsing the Belt and Road.

The new critical focus on EU foreign and security policy comes in the wake of the radically changed geopolitical landscape. Before 2016, there was little desire for a coordinated EU foreign policy as outlined in the EU Global Strategy. After plans for a European Army were abandoned in 1954, the European integration project was first economic and later political. Secure in their defensive NATO alliance, and on American support for individual foreign policy, the larger EU countries felt an officially coordinated foreign policy with their non-NATO neighbours was not a priority.

Yet Trump’s erratic ‘America First’ policies have thrown doubt on the previously steadfast NATO pact. In a somewhat frantic response, EU countries have had to look to each other for support. The 2017 formation of the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) – an EU defence union – and Macron’s proposal of a European Intervention Initiative (E2I) at Sorbonne can be viewed in this light.

But this comes too little, too late. The time for establishing the groundwork for a common foreign and security policy was when times were good, not now. Euroscepticism dominates today’s political landscape. The rise of the far-right in Hungary and Poland, the populism of Brexit and Italy’s Five Star Movement and the domestic turmoil facing Macron and Merkel are calling into question certain values – multilateral cooperation and human rights, to name a few - that are the founding assumptions of EU cooperation. What we see now is a crisis of identity that goes to the very heart of the European project.

Collaboration between these countries is not impossible. The success of Europol and the European Counter Terrorism Centre show that states unite against a common-enemy. EU foreign policy has been even more effective in coordinating maritime missions aimed to disrupt acts of Somali-piracy based off the Horn of Africa, which threaten trade routes off the Gulf of Aden. But arguably, this success traces to the clear economic incentive for participation; most other foreign policy issues do not have such direct economic benefits. Without a wholehearted commitment to the European project, states will run into difficulty.

The last time the European territories’ foreign and security policies were coordinated under one single grand strategy was under Charlemagne, the ‘Father of Europe’ who died in the year 814 and was buried in Aachen. President Macron and Chancellor Merkel symbolically met there at the start of this year, in a show of solidarity and mutual commitment more than half a century after the Élysée Treaty was signed. Designed as a show of strength and renewed commitment, the limited progress made at the meeting only reinforced just how difficult foreign and security coordination is in the context of the current European disharmony.

Eliz Peck is an MA candidate in Conflict, Security and Development at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. You can follow her on Twitter @PeckEliz

Image source: https://www.apnews.com/02d7f1384f454f09b31a7c852d275e4e

Event Review — The Future of UK Grand Strategy

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By Harrison Brewer

4 January 2019

Georgina Wright, Cllr. Peymana Assad, and Dr. Charlie Laderman spoke at a Strife-PS21 event, which was moderated by Peter Apps (left to right). (Image credit: Kayla Goodson)

 

Strife and PS21 joined forces to present a fascinating panel discussion on the future of the UK’s grand strategy. We live in an uncertain world that gets more uncertain by the minute, as the United Kingdom flails around Brexit, Trump’s America turns away from Europe, and Europe looks to redefine what it means to be in the Union. All the meanwhile, the UK avoids the aging imperialist elephant in the room: who are we, what are we doing, and how can we do it? PS21 brought in an expert, an academic, and a practitioner to help disentangle the UK’s approach to grand strategy in the 21st Century.

Dr. Charlie Laderman, a lecturer in International History at King’s College London, first explained his definition of grand strategy, believing it to be the intellectual architecture that forms foreign policy. It is a historically British concept — although Dr. Laderman questioned whether Britain ever got it right — and is predicated on balancing peacetime goals with war and using limited resources to achieve a state’s goals. Dr. Laderman suggested that British foreign policy experts have a ‘maddening pragmatism’ that is borne out of Britain’s historical pole position in global politics but argued that it is imperative for the UK to break out of this mould and to reassess.

The UK has long been perceived as the facilitator and bridge between the US and Europe, but this relationship is at risk. Trump’s de-Europeanisation policy and Merkel’s and Macron’s attempts at firming the bonds of European fraternity leave the UK out of the loop post-Brexit; therefore, Dr. Laderman believes the UK must engage in the business of trade-offs. Britain must consider how it can use its limited yet still formidable capabilities in defenCe, soft power, and international development to continue to be a reliable partner, as well as a global player. Lastly, Dr. Laderman noted that the UK needs a stable EU in order to thrive. Therefore, despite leaving the union, the UK must look to fortify it relationships with EU states and support the EU as best as it can.

Cllr Peymana Assad, a defence and international development expert, as well as a local councillor in the London Borough of Harrow, discussed how the UK must address its relationship with its imperialist and colonialist past to improve its foreign policy. Assad underlined the need for the UK to champion equality in its foreign policy, acknowledging that the UK could use soft power to correct some of its mistakes made under colonialism. Assad referenced her work in Afghanistan and recalled a conversation she had with Afghan tribal leaders about the Durand Line, the internationally accepted border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Afghan people were absent in this international decision-making process, she noted, which showed a disregard for the people directly affected by this decision. She argued that the UK’s grand strategy needs to be founded on principles of equality for all actors, both international and local, and it needs to address Britain’s imperial history and the suffering it caused.

To summarise, she stated the focus should be on the following points:

1) The key to establishing ourselves in the world is seeing all as equals. In order to do this, we must understand the real impact of colonisation and imperialism on the countries we left behind, and we must understand how some of those actions of the past haunt us today.

2) The UK needs to consider and seek opportunities with non-western powers like China and India, but also continue to facilitate between European and other allies, such as the United States — it’s too important not to do both. We should not solely focus on Europe.

3) Britain must use its soft power and understand that the world has changed; we can command more influence through art, culture and education by way of exchange and scholarships. India currently leads through music, film and education, for example in the South Asian region.

Finally, Assad stated that in order to achieve this, we need to bring the British public with us, on the ride and convince them, that engaging with Europe and the non-western world, brings us benefits and also stops us being swallowed up in a world of constant changing super powers.

Georgina Wright, a research associate in the Europe Programme at Chatham House, began by stating that British foreign policy must be separate from the Brexit process. Britain has a privileged position in global affairs — it is both one of the leaders in official development assistance and a strong partner of both the US and the EU — and the UK should not forgo this position as a consequence of Brexit. Rather than turning further inwards, the UK should take the opportunity to engage more meaningfully and extensively with its allies. This change, however, must be managed carefully and swiftly to prove the UK’s commitment to the international community.

Wright outlined three risks the country faces post-Brexit: a more inward-looking Britain that is fully consumed by Brexit; incoherent external policy that is driven commercially rather than politically; and a failure to grapple with the changing international context, evidenced by the rise of China and Russia, as well as rising levels of inequality and popular insurgency. Wright then proposed five areas the foreign office should focus on to form its foreign policy. First, the foreign office needs to clearly articulate the vision for Global Britain. Second, the UK must figure out how to do more with less and avoid commitment without impact. Third, without the stage of European Union politics for alliance building, the UK must prioritise how it uses the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and where. Fourth, the government must mobilise the entire British population, not just London, behind any grand strategy to ensure its success. Finally, the foreign office needs to be consistent. Wright ended by pointing out that Brexit will only become more intense with trade negotiations on the horizon and a plethora of actors and interests that will need to be balanced at home and abroad. Above all, the UK needs to ensure that it builds a strong, deep partnership with the EU despite its departure.

Editor’s note: This event review was also published by PS21.

Harrison Brewer is pursuing an MA in Conflict, Security, and Development. He recently graduated from McGill University in Montréal, Canada with a degree in Classics, Political Science, and Art History. Harrison has previously worked for Deverell Associates, a security consultancy firm in London, specialising in crisis preparedness and leadership training. He is now working for Boxspring Media, a tech-driven learning disruptor for corporate firms. Harrison’s interests include strategic analyses of paramilitary violence in the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa with a focus on gendered violence, insurgency patterns, and conflict simulation. Harrison has designed and produced a simulation modelling the urban warfare of the Iraqi Army’s campaign for Mosul in 2016-2017 that is being developed for commercial use. You can follow Harrison on twitter at @_HarrisonBrewer.

Strife Series on Grand Strategy, Part II: Is Trump saying “Sayonara” to U.S. Grand Strategy in East Asia?

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By Andrea Fischetti

This photo illustration shows extra editions of Japanese newspapers reporting the victory of Donald Trump in the US presidential election in Tokyo on November 9, 2016. AFP PHOTO / TORU YAMANAKA
This photo illustration shows extra editions of Japanese newspapers reporting the victory of Donald Trump in the US presidential election in Tokyo on November 9, 2016. AFP Photo / Toru Yamanaka

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s statements on foreign policy often contradict both his own past statements and those of his national security advisers. However, one thing has remained consistent over time, and that is Trump’s view of East Asia. Accordingly, the new Republican administration will likely call for decreased U.S. involvement in East Asia and a revision of its alliances in the region—this will be a major change in U.S. grand strategy. In the past few years, the Obama administration’s “Pivot to Asia” has focused on rebalancing within the East Asian region - engaging with emerging powers, bolstering already established partnerships, and supporting regional institutions as a means of demonstrating American capability to project power on a global scale [1].

Maintaining a regional presence in East Asia is particularly important due to security arrangements with U.S. allies such as Japan and South Korea, the high concentration of rising economies, territorial disputes, a nuclear North Korea, and the growing threat of Chinese aspirations to establish regional hegemony. U.S. interests and credibility are at stake in the region, and should the opportunity arise, China will likely challenge a weaker (or withdrawn) America, giving rise to potential flashpoints. Already, the sovereignty of American allies is being challenged owing to territorial disputes. One of America’s closest post-war allies - Japan - has been involved in the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands dispute with China in the East China sea and is increasing military activities in the South China Sea as well. In fact, Japan and other American allies in the region have adopted a proactive behaviour in recent years, taking advantage of the limited “window of opportunity” in the last decade, when U.S. military supremacy in the region remained unmatched by China’s naval capabilities[2]. This behaviour involved smaller actors advancing territorial claims in the South China Sea and other neighbours reinforcing already established national positions such as the Japanese nationalisation of the Japan-administrated Senkaku/Diaoyu islands. However, this window is rapidly closing and previous measures like the U.S.-led Maritime Security Initiative for Southeast Asia suffer from a potential lack of continuity and encouragement by the American government. Therefore, it will become increasingly difficult for U.S. allies to be assertive in responding to China’s moves.

Foregoing the American grand strategy in Asia

Domestic economic challenges, coupled with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, have left the United States with a national debt of almost US$ 20 trillion. As an immediate consequence, U.S. military spending will reduce by US$ 500 billion over the next few years[3]. However, East Asian politics is ripe for hegemonic and revisionist tendencies. Given China’s assertive behaviour and increasing maritime aggression, U.S. involvement could arguably get more expensive over time. Despite such costs, the U.S. would undoubtedly benefit from preserving an American naval presence in East Asia. In the event of conflict breaking out, an American naval presence would provide a vital regional base that could reduce response time and stem operational inefficiency among the allies. As U.S. Naval War College Professor Toshi Yoshihara states: “a shrinking fleet will nullify our attempts to pivot to Asia”. Furthermore, retrenching from the current American grand strategy would significantly diminish U.S. influence in the region. Scholars argue that retrenchment would also undermine the current peaceful order created by U.S. hegemony[4].

However, Trump has been very clear about the future of U.S. grand strategy in East Asia. As he has reiterated, America will come first in any case and national and domestic interests will be prioritized. The impact of such an approach will be widely felt in the region and particularly so for Japan. Hillary Clinton was the first Secretary of State to reassure Japan about the Senkaku Islands, stating that they are covered by article 5 of the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty. However, U.S. obligations could change with a Trump administration. In Trump’s words: “They [Japan] are going to have to defend themselves with whatever they are going to have. We, right now, defend Japan. . . Japan pays us a small fraction of the cost, a very small fraction. . . We’re talking about billions of dollars. . . Our country is stone cold broken. . . So whenever I talk about Japan I say, if they don’t make us whole, they are going to have to defend themselves. . . It’s up to them. . . You have to be prepared to walk from a deal. . .They have been ripping us off for a long time”[5].

We cannot yet predict what American grand strategy in Asia will look like under Trump. If he chooses to compromise U.S. alliances in East Asia and underestimate the importance of the region from a security perspective, the power hierarchy in the area will be shaken and the current political order would be greatly altered. The uncertainty surrounding U.S. leadership could also destabilise regional power structures. At present, the ‘hub and spokes’ or ‘San Francisco’ system of alliances[6] established by the U.S. continues to define the East Asian security architecture. Nevertheless, with a possible U.S. retrenchment under Trump, multilateral alliances may be formed, and some countries may fall into Beijing’s orbit. Therefore, the American “power-play” strategy will be challenged by either multilateralism or an increasingly influential China. It will be up to Donald Trump and his advisers to assess whether this will fall within America’s national interest.

Andrea Fischetti (@A_Fischetti ) is an MA Candidate in War Studies at King’s College London specialising in East Asian Security and Japan. He recently earned a BA with First Class Honours in International Relations, Peace and Conflict Studies and worked for a year in the House of Commons. He was a visiting student at the Hiroshima Peace Institute of Hiroshima City University and studied Japanese at SOAS and King’s College London.

Notes:

[1] Parameswaran, P. 2014. Explaining US Strategic Partnerships is the Asia-Pacific Region: Origins, Developments and Prospects. Contemporary Southeast Asia: A Journal of International & Strategic Affairs; August 2014, Vol. 36 Issue 2, p. 262.

[2] Pugliese, G. 2016. Japan 2015: Confronting East Asia’s Geopolitical Game of Go. Asia Maior 2015, Vol. XXVI, M. Torri and N. Mocci eds., The Chinese-American Race for Hegemony in Asia, Roma: Viella, 2016: 93-132.

[3] Drezner, Daniel W. “Military Primacy Doesn’t Pay (Nearly As Much As You Think).” International Security 38, no. 1 (Summer 2013): 52-79

[4] Brooks, S., Ikenberry, G. J. and Wohlforth, W. C. 2012. Don’t Come Home America: The Case against Retrenchement. International Security, Vol. 37, No. 3 (Winter 2012/13). Pp. 7-51.

[5] Diamond, J. and Jokuza, E. 2016. Trump and Japan’s Abe meet for ‘very candid discussion’ in New York. Video interview of Donald Trump. Available at http://edition.cnn.com/2016/11/17/politics/abe-trump-japan-meeting/index.html?sr=twCNN111816abe-trump-japan-meeting1135AMStoryLink&linkId=31305792

[6] Cha, V. D. 2010. Powerplay: Origins of the US Alliance System in Asia. International Security, Vol. 34, No. 3, pp. 158-196

Image Credit: Japan Times, available at: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/n-analysis-z-20161110.jpg