OPINION:
As the U.S. gets acclimated to the new year, it’s easy to assume danger lurks around every corner. Russian forces continue to pummel Ukraine with drones, artillery strikes and missiles nearly a year after the invasion. North Korea is a de facto nuclear weapons state that tested a record 95 missiles last year and whose leader, Kim Jong Un, ordered his country’s military-industrial complex to redouble the production of nuclear warheads. China is conducting large-scale military drills near Taiwan with growing frequency, and former CIA Director Michael Morell predicts a terrorist attack against Western interests somewhere in the world over the next 12 months.
The United States, however, enters 2023 in a secure and strong position, notwithstanding its difficulties with inflation and the chaos that unfolded on the House floor in the first week of January. With two vast oceans to the east and west and friendly neighbors to the north and south, the U.S. doesn’t have to worry about irredentist adversaries committing an attack. Unlike Russia, which is hemorrhaging talent and experiencing an economic contraction, the U.S. remains a formidable economic, diplomatic and military power. Unlike China, the U.S. isn’t projected to see as many as 900 million coronavirus cases this year.
Butt this doesn’t mean the U.S. is in the clear. U.S. foreign policy leaves much to be desired. Despite the global transition into multipolarity, Washington continues to insist that it lives in a unipolar world, where the U.S.-backed rules-based order is the only legitimate playbook through which states should act.
At $858 billion, the U.S. spends half of its discretionary budget on defense-related programs, a consequence of an oversized force posture overseas that treats U.S. troops as security guards keeping the proverbial peace. The baseline assumption that more interventionism and defense spending will magically produce more security for the U.S. and greater victories for the American people is still left unchallenged in much of the discourse.
But there is such a thing as doing too much — and doing too much can have unforeseen consequences on U.S. strategic priorities. China’s military and nuclear modernization plans, for instance, are often driven by what it sees as a U.S. campaign to form a strong, unified and cohesive anti-China bloc in East Asia. Justified or not, Beijing increasingly views the U.S. as a power willing, if not eager, to challenge its core security interests (then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s substance-free trip to Taiwan in August being one example). China and Russia are collaborating more closely militarily and economically, not due to a shared interest in spreading authoritarianism globally but rather as a way to balance Washington’s attempt to undermine their power.
The U.S., of course, isn’t responsible for all the destabilizing conduct coming out of Moscow and Beijing. But U.S. policy is, at the very least, a contributing factor to why these states behave the way they do.
A reformed U.S. foreign policy would not only recognize this development but also act to mitigate it. In so doing, the U.S. could also shift much of the security burden to where it belongs: to allies and partners that have a vested interest in promoting stability in their own neighborhoods.
In Europe, the U.S. has increased the number of military personnel on the continent to well over 100,000. These deployments sought to reassure Washington’s allies in NATO that the U.S. takes its defense obligations seriously.
But if anything, Russia’s pitiful performance in Ukraine, underscored most recently in a Jan. 1 Ukrainian missile attack against a makeshift Russian garrison that may have killed hundreds of Russian troops, has shown just how weak the Russian army is. Far from being the all-powerful, stealthy force many analysts in the West assumed, the Russian army has exposed itself as demoralized, poorly equipped, unwilling to admit mistakes, and unable to adapt to various situations. In terms of economics, demographics and military capacity, the balance of power is firmly to Europe’s advantage. The U.S. could afford to draw down if it wanted to.
In Asia, the U.S. should prioritize its relations with China, the continent’s largest economic and military power. It’s an article of faith in U.S. foreign policy circles that China represents America’s most urgent national security threat. Indeed, the Pentagon labeled China its “pacing challenge” in the 2022 National Defense Strategy, much of which was devoted to combating Beijing’s aggressive conduct and territorial claims.
It would be easier to manage the challenges posed by China if dialogue and diplomacy became an integral component of the U.S. strategy toward Beijing. To his credit, President Biden has said this on numerous occasions — his first face-to-face summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in November in Bali, Indonesia, served as the beginning stages of putting a floor underneath a deteriorating bilateral relationship. The U.S. should spend 2023 proceeding with similar engagements at the senior and working levels, testing the proposition that the U.S. and China can, in fact, work together on mutual problems or at least minimize the prospects of escalation.
Like all New Year’s resolutions, such changes in policy will require strength, patience and determination to see them through. The U.S. has the means, situational advantage and room to pursue this change. All it lacks is the vision and will to do so.
• Daniel R. DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a foreign affairs columnist at the Chicago Tribune and Newsweek.
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