U.S. Foreign Policy: Restraint Without Retrenchment

U.S. foreign policy since the end of the Cold War has come under growing criticism for its expansive, even aggressive, character. Despite its name, “liberal hegemony” often seems illiberal, belligerent, even militaristic. The U.S. has used force regularly over the last 30 years, often with dubious results. Iraq 2003 is the most obvious example, but Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, and (through its Saudi proxy) Yemen also spring to mind. The current U.S. President Donald Trump has also threatened force against North Korea, Venezuela, and Iran.

The primary argument is that the United States does far too much overseas, especially when it does not need to. The U.S. faces no existential threats. Its geography – its distance from the contentious theatres of Eurasia – is generous. It is the wealthiest country in the world, with an unmatched military. Before the First World War, it restricted itself mostly to the Western hemisphere. Its expansion in the 20th century was driven by threats emanating from Eurasia, first fascism, then communism.

U.S. military interventions have often taken far longer than the public is led to expect (Photo: U.S. Central Command/Flickr)

The policy response to this sprawl is some mix of retrenchment and restraint. A U.S. grand strategy of “offshore balancing” would husband American resources at home. Intervention would only occur when facing a genuine hegemonic challenger – most obviously China. But the “small wars” which have characterised U.S. intervention in recent decades would stop, for we now know that they do not stay small. Diplomacy would be properly funded; U.S. foreign policy would be de-militarised. Multilateralism and international organisations would be given a chance where the U.S. today disdains them.

From an American point of view, it is hard to argue with a lot of this. The country is pretty clearly exhausted with “forever wars” such as Afghanistan or Iraq. Trump openly ran against “dumb wars” in America’s traditionally hawkish party and still won easily. That is a powerful signal for change from the public.

It is also hard to see wars with Iran, Venezeula, or North Korea staying “regional contingencies”, because as with other U.S. ground conflicts, they would almost certainly explode in size and duration. Similarly, it is hard to argue against U.S. allies doing more. U.S. presidents have complained for decades about allied free-, or more accurately cheap-, riding. Trump has unfortunately tarnished this concern with his otherwise reprehensible conduct, but the notion of a more balanced, less hegemonic American alliance network is rather appealing.

So restraint – fewer wars, less “omni-directional belligerence”, more diplomacy – is not too controversial. I imagine most U.S. allies would actually like this, too. Many U.S. partners were dismayed at getting chain-ganged into the Iraq war, for example, agreeing to it only to retain U.S. friendship. Similarly, Trump was nearly alone in pushing for war with North Korea in 2017.

Donald Trump openly ran against “dumb wars” (Photo: U.S. Central Command/Flickr)

It is important to distinguish this restraint from retrenchment though, which I do not think this literature does well. Restraint ultimately means better U.S. judgment – less paranoia, less worst-case-scenario thinking, less willingness to describe every unfriendly government or far-off region as “strategic” to the U.S., less activism and jumpiness. No one disagrees with greater U.S. perspicacity, except perhaps America’s most irresponsible partners such as the Saudi royals or Israel’s Likud party.

Give a child a hammer,
and everything is an
upraised nail – give a
superpower a massive
military and global
basing, and threats
become an easy recourse.

Retrenchment is more than this though. It is actual withdrawal of U.S. forces back to the Western hemisphere from forward bases in Eurasia, specifically from Europe, the Persian Gulf, and East Asia. Given China’s rise however, retrenchment would like fall on Europe and the Middle East first. Europe, most observers would agree, has the wealth and state strength to do far more for its own security, while U.S. policing of the Middle East is simply beyond even its superpower reach.

Restrainers’ argument for retrenchment is temptation. It is formally possible, as I am arguing, that U.S. forces could stay forward – that is, in Eurasia – without fighting more unnecessary wars. But as long as they are there, as long as there are U.S. forces near countries such as Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela, it will be hugely tempting for U.S. policy-makers to militarily threaten those states. This is akin to the “law of the hammer” – give a child a hammer, and everything is an upraised nail. Give a superpower a massive military and global basing, and threats become an easy recourse. A full-blooded restraint argument would claim greater U.S. foreign policy discipline is possible only when the U.S. is physically out of the way.

Ideally though, the U.S. could stay where it was wanted – eastern Europe, Australia, South Korea, Japan – without actually leaping therefrom into wars. The advantages of staying forward are clear. U.S. presence bolsters alliances. It helps solidify liberal democracy in places which might otherwise backslide. It builds democratic solidarity around the world among otherwise disparate states to push back concertedly on authoritarians such as Russia or China. It builds interoperability with local partners should future military needs arise and gives the U.S. a location from which to operate should local geopolitics worsen.

Even a small U.S. presence can reinforce positive trends, such as democratisation or the deterrence of Sino-Russian meddling, without, hopefully, being large enough to invoke the law of the hammer. And the financial assistance from allies could offset the cost of U.S. forward stationing. In South Korea and Japan, the U.S., Japanese, and South Korean governments frequently repeat that is actually cheaper to keep U.S. forces there than bring them home. Allied support, plus the costs to the U.S. to build new facilities back in the U.S., offsets the expense – although hard data to substantiate these claims is not forthcoming.

Eastern Europe is an obvious example. U.S. retrenchment from Europe would almost certainly encourage more Russian meddling from Vladimir Putin and worsen democratic backsliding in those new democracies. Those would be moral and strategic costs to the United States.

In response, could the U.S. keep a small local presence that both provides the “reinforcement effects” described above without so much combat power as to encourage unnecessary war-making? Can we have restraint without full-blown retrenchment? Or would even small U.S. presences encourage so much allied free-riding or intervention temptation that they are not worth it? “Places not bases”, in which the U.S. retains “lily pads” for possible operations in the future without large contingents of men and material, are one possibility to square this circle.

Robert E. Kelly is a professor of international relations in the Department of Political Science and Diplomacy at Pusan National University. More of his work may be found at his website, AsianSecurityBlog.wordpress.com.

This article appeared originally at Lowy Institute's the interpreter.