I am not reassured by Senator Hagel's protest that he is not weak on defense. Given our history, promising to maintain the strongest military in the world is a retreat from the world in practice:
"My overall world view has never changed: that America has and must maintain the strongest military in the world."
That is not as comforting as the administration wants you to think.
The fact is, we have a dominant military right now. We've done this on purpose because it provides us with many advantages that we will lose if we merely have the strongest military in the world.
Most obviously, we have to let enemies get away with evil when we decide we can't afford to commit our military to that fight lest we be occupied when a greater threat arises. All you Responsibility to Protect fans out there will be out of luck.
We also will have to endure and inflict greater casualties to win a war we do fight--and take longer to win. Remember, with little margin of error, we couldn't afford to risk operations that might win quickly because our military could not afford to lose enough to drop below an enemy in strength.
Take Taiwan, for example. Right now, we could probably reach the theater in time with sufficient strength to help Taiwan defeat a Chinese invasion. But if we are merely the strongest nation in the world, it will take us so much time to gather our strength to defeat China that we will need to amphibiously assault Taiwan to liberate the conquered island. We could still win with the "strongest military in the world," but I hope it is obvious that we would pay a price for that. Not to mention the Chinese and Taiwanese added deaths.
A war that drags on results in more casualties than a war won quickly, remember. It's the difference between the First and Second Gulf Wars, no? We had dominant power compared to Iraq in 1991 and took 100 hours to smash their military after a month of aerial bombardment. Our losses were trivial and Iraq's severe but not nearly as great as they endured in eight years of war needed to defeat Iran in the 1980s. With Iran losing many more than Iraq in that war.
Assuming China's nuclear arsenal doesn't deter us from liberating Taiwan.
And that's also assuming we don't take a pass on that liberation option because we think North Korea might lash out or if Iran times some adventure to take advantage of our Pacific concerns.
And for real strategic fun, if we are merely stronger than an enemy, that enemy has an incentive to launch a surprise attack on our forces to shift the balance of power in their favor right off the bat. When our power is dominant, an enemy first strike just risks pissing us off without harming our ability to smash them up in turn.
I also noted in that post that we risk losing allies who are no longer confident that we can help them in time to matter:
Once we reduce our sights to just being stronger than our enemies rather than far ahead, we risk being unable to keep allies in our camp. Lose allies and our combined power declines, which then feeds on itself as even loyal allies are forced to recalculate the balance of power.
And even being equal in power compared to a potential foe does not mean balance. Consider what it would mean if America and China were equally balanced in power. In theory, that would mean that in a battle fought in the middle of the Pacific, the outcome would be in balance. Fight closer to our shores, and we'd have more power since we'd be closer to our bases and reinforcements.
But fighting closer to China would give China the advantage. And you know what is closer to China? Our allies who give us a collective power advantage over China. If we lack the power to fight China in the western Pacific, South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and Australia would all have to reconsider which camp they align themselves with.
If that happens, more alliance power is peeled away as states adopt neutral policies. Or worse, power is added to our potential foe if these former allies side with China.
I noted back when we had a 2 (ground)-war standard (that assumed we'd have to hold in one theater while we won in the other theater and then shifted forces to the holding theater in order to win that one) that being second in line for our military help wasn't as comforting as you might hope.
And if we fail to defend an ally, not even being second on our list of nations we will defend will be a worry for allies.
How much worse will it be when we are simply stronger than the second-strongest power? Here's Victor Hanson on that question:
Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, and Taiwan all have the wealth and expertise to become nuclear to deter Chinese aggression, but so far they have not — only because of their reliance on a previously engaged and militarily omnipotent United States.
Not only do we risk losing allies who may go neutral or switch sides, but we risk nuclear proliferation because even friends lose faith that we can prevail on a conventional battlefield and--with our own nuclear arsenal--deter the losing aggressor from escalating to nuclear war. Our allies have trusted that we would use nuclear weapons in response to an enemy use of nukes on our allies. Will they trust us to escalate to nuclear weapons--and risk a nuclear response on our shores--should we lose a conventional fight with an enemy?
How much more money will it cost us to fight a single major war we can win at great cost over a long period of time than it costs to deter anyone from thinking they might win?
But what the Hell. Under Barack "Von Clausewitz" Obama, our global strategy has brilliantly neutralized Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and al Qaeda so much that we can actually see the tide of war receding. Why would we possibly need the most powerful military in the world let alone the dominant military?
And after all, slashing our defense and avoiding blame are the only reasons Hagel is the nominee for Defense Department. Yes, we are truly and royally bucked.
On the bright side, many enemies will be greatly reassured by our new policy of superiority. It's strategery at its best.
