End State

“End state — The set of required conditions that defines achievement of the commander’s objectives” (DoD Dictionary Jan 2024)

The U.S. is entering un-chartered waters in that it now pays more on servicing the national debt than on national defense for the first time. Should Ferguson’s Law (1767) continue to prove accurate, the U.S.’s days as the world’s superpower are numbered. Against this backdrop, President Trump’s statements about Greenland, the Panama Canal, and Ukraine rare earth mineral deal make greater sense. At Riyadh, both the U.S. and Russia had Arctic experts in attendance, and this looks to be another area of potential economic partnership. Trump’s rhetoric is not simply a money grab but an attempt to stave off Paul Kennedy’s prediction in The Rise and Fall of Great Powers that overreach "leads to the downward spiral of slower growth, heavier taxes, deepening domestic splits over spending priorities, and weakening capacity to bear the burdens of defense.” Currently the U.S. remains the world’s most powerful country by almost any metric. To remain such, the U.S. needs to attend to its financial health and maintain its alliances and friendships: Trump outwardly appears to be laser focused on one but dismissive of the other.

Trump prides himself on being a deal maker and deals may result in short-term gains, but what the U.S. needs is a long-term strategy to achieve the desired end state. The U.S. is not a unitary entity; it is comprised of the people, the bureaucracy, the administration and the executive. All have a role in strategy development, but the individual can remain incredibly important with strategy execution. In WWII, strategy for the U.S., the UK, the USSR, Germany, and Italy, was largely dependent on the heads of state: FDR, Churchill, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini. Even with his military and political background, Churchill ultimately proved an inadequate strategist and failed to predict and accommodate for the British Empire’s decline. Inattention to strategy has enabled the Axis of Upheaval to strengthen under Pax Americana; with China’s rise inadvertently abetted by U.S. support. The U.S. should think long and hard on strategy going forward; an update to the National Security Strategy would be a good first step. One should expect Trump to be a visible driver of foreign policy and national defense strategy. National goals and alignments are fluid, but interests remain. Until the 20th Century England and France were long-term antagonists, with England favoring the German states. But when Germany began its naval build-up and challenged Britannia’s rule of the seas at the turn of the century, the England-German relationship turned deadly and England aligned with its traditional enemy, France. Yet today, all three are close NATO partners.

Any deal over the future of Ukraine is important yet isn’t. Ukraine, for the U.S., is a sub-set of U.S.-Russia and U.S.-Europe relationships. As U.S. Presidents since Obama recognized, Ukraine is more important to Russia than to the U.S.. A ceasefire to prevent further bloodshed should be sought but enduring peace should be the goal. For the U.S., George Kennan’s advice in 1948 “to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security.” should be the U.S.’s end state; a sound strategy get us there. (The “disparity” is that the U.S., with less than 5% of the world’s population, has accounted for approximately 25% of global GDP for over a century). The “patterns of relationships…” would logically include the main global actors: China, Russia, and the EU/NATO, at a minimum. The U.S. cannot again turn toward isolationism, it did not work last time, nor will it work in the future, no matter the U.S.’s ability to sustain itself. To turn a phrase, the U.S. may not care much about the world, but the world certainly cares about the U.S..’

Multiple factors lead to the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, but the division of the Empire into western and eastern halves, largely for managerial reasons, and subsequent failure for the two halves to render support, either due to unwillingness or inability, significantly precipitated the decline. Today’s trans-Atlantic Alliance, established in the wake of WWII, is somewhat analogous to the ancient Roman Empire. The U.S. would be well advised to avoid repeating past mistakes. A “deal” over Ukraine with Russia, should not come at the cost of the trans-Atlantic Alliance, strengthened by fairer burden-sharing. For consideration are forecasts that could result from current deal-making; worst-case scenarios, rather than the usual rainbows and unicorns, follow:

The U.S. should establish improved relations with Russia, regardless of the Ukrainian situation, but not at the expense of established European Allies, with whom the U.S. has historical linkages and mutually beneficial leverage over.

Abandonment of the trans-Atlantic Alliance may have negative repercussions for the U.S. in the Indo-Pacific theatre as well. The U.S. does not want to drift into the position of facing an array of Europe, Russia-Europe, Russia, China, challengers or any combination thereof. Both the U.S. and Europe need careful deliberations rather than react to current pressures.

An isolated U.S. would highly likely follow the arduous path of the eastern (Byzantium) Roman Empire, prolonging its demise by what Edward Luttwak assessed as a combination of diplomacy, pitting adversaries against each other then turning on the weakened victor, coupled with military innovation and adaptation. Yet all these only delayed the inevitable.

The current rules-based world order does impose some limitations but also allows for greater freedoms, that in many aspects benefits the majority. Deals between autocrats, such as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (Nazi-Soviet Pact) don’t often turn out that well. Let the U.S. make a better ‘deal’ to achieve our end state.

“Foreign policy consists in bringing into balance, with a comfortable surplus of power in reserve, the nation’s commitments and the nation’s power. The constant preoccupation of the true statesman is to achieve and maintain this balance. . . [H]e must . . . bring his ends and means into balance. If he does not, he will follow a course that leads to disaster.”  Walter Lippman

Mike “Kiwi” Kelly is a currently an associate professor at the U.S. Navy War College. A retired U.S. Marine infantry officer, Mike also has sixteen years of experience in NATO, in planning, special operations; his last position was senior intelligence analyst/SOSA at the joint force command (operational) level. These thoughts are the author’s and do not reflect official positions of the U.S. Naval War College, Department of the Navy or Department of Defense.