Diplomacy and Capability
I believe if we are going to achieve our desired goals with long term, patient diplomacy, America needs the capability to defend our interests worldwide.
I believe the use of this capability should be as limited in scope as possible.
Last week I introduced George Kennan. I wrote I believe long term, patient diplomacy is the prudent direction for America.
Some additional context important for this piece is that Kennan and his contemporary, Paul Nitze, were both considering how to mitigate the influence of the Russians (Soviets) following World War II. Kennan and Nitze were lifelong friends with strong fundamental disagreements. Kennan was more liberal, Nitze more conservative.
In 1947 Kennan wrote The Sources of Soviet Conflict, published in “Foreign Affairs.” Kennan detailed his thoughts how the US could contain the spread of Soviet communism. Subsequent discussion included opinions that the US should withdraw troops from Europe to ease the self imagined paranoia of the Soviet leaders.
From The Hawk and the Dove, by Nicholas Thompson, pp. 81: “Kennan’s thesis in these lectures was that the United States needed to find a midpoint between war and peace and that it should bring to bear economic, political, and psychological “measures short of war.”” Kennan opposed NATO and other force measures in Europe.
During this time of debate in the late 1940s and early 1950s, President Truman had some rough years. Soviet blockades resulted in the Berlin Airlift. The Chinese communist party rose to power. The Soviets detonated their first nuclear weapons. Truman (and others) faced political witch hunts at home.
In early 1950 Truman ordered a review of the nation’s national security policy. Paul Nitze was the primary author of this review, later named National Security Council Paper Number 68 (NSC-68). If you would like to read details about NSC-68 here’s a good piece, and here is a link to the declassified original.
NSC-68 identified four courses of action/options for addressing the Soviets in the future (found on pg. 44). They were (copied word for word):
a. Continuation of current policies, with current and currently projected programs for carrying out these policies
b. Isolation
c. War
d. A more rapid building up of the political, economic, and military strength of the free world than provided under a, with the purpose of reaching, if possible, a tolerable state of order among nations without war and of preparing to defend ourselves in the event that the free world is attacked.
President Truman rejected isolationism and war. Further, he originally balked at the proposed military buildup as outlined in NSC-68 in April 1950. He didn’t care for the potential high cost and he wanted to minimize additional spending. In June 1950 a Soviet-backed North Korea invaded South Korea. Truman signed NSC-68 to expand military capability into policy in September 1950.
70 years later, the debate between Kennan and Nitze is still with us. Not the debate regarding the Soviets, but this question:
Can America achieve our goals with long term, patient diplomacy, without overwhelming capability to defend our interests worldwide?
It’s a pretty broad question. Kennan, Nitze, Sun Tzu, Clausewitz, and many other brilliant minds have considered this same question, all with some great thoughts. Instead of attempting to answer the question, I posit we focus on the desired end state, or main point.
I believe we should consider—why? Why do we need diplomacy? Why do we sometimes feel the need to use force? The answer to the question of American influence is an end state goal to: Achieve world conditions beneficial to the United States and our allies.
In order to achieve a challenging goal in life, business, or anywhere else, you need to break it down into achievable smaller objectives. If your smaller objectives are still too broad, you need to just keep breaking it down. When you arrive at achievable, measurable objectives, you can see the whole picture start to develop.
World conditions beneficial to America and our allies need to include the following two core efforts:
Ensure the safety and security of the American people and our allies
Establish and maintain economic conditions supporting business interests and growth
I believe those are our two core efforts. If we cannot achieve safety and security, all efforts at diplomacy and force failed, and we failed. If we lose our ability to maintain beneficial economic conditions for business and growth, the world trade relationship became controlled by autocrats, fascists, and anarchists, and we would have failed.
A third effort America should consider as ancillary (not core) is:
When needed, hold in check the tyranny of oppression. In some (but not all) cases this could mean support to other democracies.
Would we risk the safety and security of America and our allies to address tyranny elsewhere? No. As a result, this is probably not a core effort. But it is important, and arguably the reason we most often exercise military force.
Let’s refocus.
Our question:
Can America achieve our goals with long term, patient diplomacy, without overwhelming capability to defend our interests worldwide?
Our Why: Achieve world conditions beneficial to the United States and our allies.
Our two core efforts:
Ensure the safety and security of the American people and our allies
Establish and maintain economic conditions supporting business interests and growth
A third, ancillary effort:
When needed, hold in check the tyranny of oppression.
Where we can achieve our aims with diplomacy and partnership, we should exercise diplomacy. Long term, patient diplomacy is better than military force. It supports improved trade and economic conditions, where military force is both destructive and has a temporary effect (certainly less than 50 years).
As an example, consider peace in Europe. Did World War I address security in Europe? No—it had less than a 25 year impact. World War II? Temporarily, but also no.
In the same timeframe, has any European Union (EU) nation gone to war with another nation in the EU? No. Now, that’s not necessarily a causal relationship. Does that mean all European nations should be admitted to the EU? Not necessarily. But diplomacy seems to be working where two world wars failed.
At the same time, diplomacy has limits. We can (and should) participate in diplomatic efforts towards addressing climate change, world hunger, and other huge challenges, but in most of those challenges world players not influenced by American policy have huge votes. What happens if diplomatic efforts towards America’s best interest fail in these areas? Would we consider the use of military force to address another country’s emissions that affect climate change? That would be ridiculous.
Further, diplomacy does not prevent North Korea from invading its neighbor to the south, Iraq from invading Kuwait, or the Russians from invading Ukraine.
Because diplomacy has limits America needs a force capability to ensure the safety and security of ourselves and our Allies, and needs a force capability to maintain economic conditions that support business interests and growth.
The best case example of military capability supporting safety and security of America and our Allies is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Though NATO is a military agreement and not directly diplomacy, it certainly requires diplomacy.
However, NATO joins together allies from Europe, the Atlantic, and North America. We are partners in assuring our mutual safety and security. While some argue Europe doesn’t shoulder enough of the burden for their defense, I would argue that even if that is the case, we can’t abandon our military allies. Diplomatically, we can strongly encourage NATO members to boost their defense spending. (As an anecdote, NATO has only once activated the Joint Defense Act, and that was to come to the aid of the United States.)
The second best case of the use of military force is with limited objectives, to achieve specific short-term effects. Used in this way military force can both ensure security and maintain established economic conditions.
For example, the US Navy traversing the South China Sea is an important use of military force. America and our trade partners in the region have long set precedent establishing this area as international waters. The US military must continue to keep these shipping lanes open for both ourselves and our partners. I suspect diplomacy will not achieve these aims.
Another note—persistent military capability is required in some areas we often don’t consider, such as defense of the homeland (nuclear strike), and space/satellite and other worldwide enabling capabilities. If anyone questioned the need for these capabilities, we should just try and think about life with no Global Positioning System (GPS) time standard for ATMs, banks, commercial airplanes, cell phones, radios…
Like diplomacy, military force has limits. Military force does not govern foreign nations well. Servicemembers spent many days in the last 50 years in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, with little to show for their effort. In cases such as these, we need to reduce the scope of our national objectives and rely more heavily on diplomacy.
I believe if we are going to achieve our desired goals with long term, patient diplomacy, America needs the capability to defend our interests worldwide.
I believe the use of this capability should be as limited in scope as possible.
Thanks for considering my perspective.
May God bless the United States of America.
Postscript:
A quote from The Hawk and the Dove, pp. 108.
“According to Georgi Kornienko, who helped translate “The Sources of Soviet Conduct” for Stalin, when a copy was prepared for the tyrant, “containment” was rendered not as the accurate sderzhivanie, but as udushenie: “strangulation.”