President Biden has repeatedly made it clear that he won’t send U.S. troops to defend Ukraine from invading Russian forces, and the White House is reluctant to implement more limited measures such as a no-fly zone out of fear of sparking a catastrophic world war.
Washington may be obligated to respond much differently in dozens of other theoretical instances in Asia, Europe, and South America.
U.S. troops could be thrust into a combat zone in virtually any corner of the world under a collection of mutual defense and security agreements forged over the past 75 years. Those agreements are drawing renewed attention during Russia’s war in Ukraine and the rise of China as a major military peer. Beijing is looking to expand its power and influence across the Pacific, which could lead to a confrontation with the U.S.
A growing anti-interventionist streak within the Republican Party has sparked a deeper look at how thin the U.S. military has spread itself with apparent promises to act in the event of attacks on other nations around the planet.
The exact number is difficult to pin down, but some foreign policy specialists say the U.S. has security commitments in one form or another with at least 140 countries. They include staunch allies in the Pacific such as Japan, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea, though the U.S. has a policy of “strategic ambiguity” for direct military intervention on behalf of Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack.
The clearest, best-known example is a commitment under Article 5 of the NATO charter, which considers an attack on one member to be an attack on all. Although the charter doesn’t explicitly require the U.S. to immediately go to war, Secretary of State Antony Blinken made clear Tuesday that the U.S. will join the fight if Russian troops invade Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia or any other Eastern European NATO member.
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“We will defend every inch of NATO territory with the full force of our collective power,” Mr. Blinken said at the conclusion of a visit to the Baltic states.
Some call that hubristic overstretch, but many analysts say clarity is the right course when dealing with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Generally speaking … we tend toward being too timid for fear of provoking the aggressor,” said Bradley Bowman, senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
“If you’re too vague, in some cases, you can invite the very thing you don’t want to invite,” he said.
Global commitments
The U.S. also has seemingly strong commitments closer to home. Under the 1947 Rio Treaty, signed in the immediate aftermath of World War II, the U.S. vowed to “assist in meeting the attack” on any of the other 21 signatories. That includes Venezuela, which has had a deeply hostile relationship with Washington for years under longtime strongman Hugo Chavez and current socialist President Nicolas Maduro. Both Venezuelan leaders cultivated ties with other U.S. adversaries such as Iran and, ironically, Russia.
Along with Article 5, the Rio Treaty, the Southeast Asia Treaty and other commitments, the State Department lists on its website at least 55 nations with which the U.S. has a formal collective defense agreement. In reality, the number is much higher.
In a detailed 2016 analysis, researchers with the Rand Corp. said that “altogether, the United States has significant security commitments to approximately 140 nations, roughly half of which are highly formalized through treaty obligations.”
“Most nations in the contemporary international system can therefore be said to possess a security commitment, in one form or another, from the United States,” they wrote.
Indeed, many nations without a formal commitment have the implicit guarantee of military assistance from the U.S. in the event of a major attack. Israel does not have a formal defense treaty with the U.S., but the close military alliance has served as a deterrent for would-be aggressors such as Iran.
Multiple nations across the Middle East — Iraq, Bahrain, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and others — host U.S. military personnel. The presence of American assets provides some level of collective security, even if the U.S. has never signed a formal defense treaty.
In the geopolitical reality of the 21st century, it’s difficult to know whether and to what degree the U.S. would act militarily to aid an ally in South America, Asia or elsewhere. Although the Biden administration says it is willing to go to war if Russia invades NATO territory, there are questions about the circumstances in which the U.S. is willing to risk worldwide conflict and nuclear exchanges to repel a Russian border incursion in, say, Estonia.
Some specialists say it’s difficult to know exactly how the U.S. would respond until a specific wartime situation and its potential consequences come into focus.
“We are committed by treaty to protecting a large swath of the world’s nations: most of Latin America through the Rio Treaty, NATO states, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Australia and New Zealand. We informally committed to various other countries, starting with Israel and maybe including Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, UAE and more,” said Benjamin Friedman, policy director at Defense Priorities, a Washington-based think tank that advocates a more restrained U.S. military role abroad.
“How much of this is really serious is anyone’s guess. The Rio Treaty doesn’t seem to mean much anymore. Because there has been such long-lasting peace among big powers and U.S. deterrence capability is so profound, its limits are never really tested,” he told The Washington Times. “The war in Ukraine doesn’t show that we wouldn’t defend all our treaty allies, but it is a reminder that it’s always been a bit doubtful that, when push comes to shove, we’d risk nuclear war for allies like Estonia or Montenegro. Even in the Cold War, there was always that nagging question of whether we’d trade New York for Berlin. We spent a great deal trying to escape that question and never did.”
‘The beginning of World War III’
Indeed, each U.S. commitment contains significant wiggle room. Even the oft-cited Article 5 states that NATO members will assist in the event of an attack through “action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force.” The 1951 security agreement with Australia and New Zealand states that each signatory would “act to meet the common danger in accordance with its constitutional processes.”
Other agreements contain similar language. Even if the Rio Treaty is invoked, it’s not clear that an American administration would interpret the phrase “assist in meeting the attack” to mean the involvement of U.S. troops, ships and fighter jets.
Nowhere is that ambiguity more evident than Taiwan. President Biden has continued a long-standing policy of leaving open the question of how the U.S. would respond to an attack on the island, which China considers to be a breakaway province.
Mr. Biden made waves last year when he told an interviewer that the U.S. would, in fact, use its military to defend Taiwan from the Chinese. The White House quickly contradicted Mr. Biden’s words and said American policy remains the same: to provide military assistance to Taiwan but offer no clear-cut answer on whether U.S. troops would enter the fight.
That policy has frustrated those in the foreign policy establishment who have clamored for a more concrete commitment. Some specialists, however, say ambiguity has worked.
“Even though the Taiwan situation looks like this stupid compromise that doesn’t make a lot of logical sense, it’s actually stood the test of time,” said Michael Beckley, an author and international relations professor at Tufts University who writes extensively on U.S. security commitments. “It’s kept peace in the Taiwan Strait, which is not a foregone conclusion by any stretch. It walks that fine line.”
The crisis playing out in Ukraine and any potential Chinese move on Taiwan are much different, but they have one fundamental similarity: a fear that any direct U.S. military involvement could quickly spiral out of control and lead to a major world war that perhaps includes the use of nuclear weapons and millions of civilian casualties.
Those fears are on full display in Washington, where even some traditionally hawkish lawmakers warn that instituting a no-fly zone in the skies over Ukraine would carry significant ramifications.
“I think people need to understand what a no-fly zone means. … It’s not some rule you pass that everybody has to oblige by,” Sen. Marco Rubio, Florida Republican, told ABC’s “This Week” program on Sunday.
“It’s the willingness to shoot down the aircrafts of the Russian Federation, which is basically the beginning of World War III,” he said.
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.
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