Oh?
The decline of US power has become a trope in discussions of global affairs. But its ability to contribute to the domestic problems of its adversaries—and an ally with which it is increasingly at odds—is a sign that the US can still exercise substantial soft power, even as its military is overcommitted and limited in its ability to deploy force to new theaters. [emphasis added]
The article focused on how the currencies of Russia, Iran, and Turkey are being hurt by America's economic soft power. This power is felt just from the size of America's economy apart from whether anything is deliberate. Which is interesting.
But I just don't see American influence declining--at least not in the sense of America pulling back from the world which is what that claim seems to rely on.
Certainly, as other powers like China rise in power, American relative power decreases. That's normal. And math.
Yet rising Indian power is helpful rather than a problem despite its role in diluting American power.
But our power remains huge even when we aren't aiming it anyone. Small countries dependent on a single export might flounder because their product is no longer trendy in Manhattan or is removed from the shelves in Whole Foods Market.
But what really confuses me is the idea that American military power is overcommitted.
Yes, American forces are abroad in significant numbers. Although this is greatly reduced from either the Cold War or the peaks of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But America has zero Army combat brigades or Marine regiments involved in combat. Our Navy is not fighting more than pirates or occasionally firing missiles at ground targets or ballistic missiles. Our Air Force is bombing only irregulars for the most part, in smallish conflicts (although airlift is certainly overcommitted).
I certainly no longer hear about how our special forces are burning out despite their crucial role in the war on terror.
During the heights of the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns, American ground power was surely so committed to those campaigns that deploying ground forces to a new theater was virtually impossible. So air and naval power would have had to hold the line in a new theater until brigades could be mobilized or redirected.
But I just don't see the overcommitment.
If the overcommitment is from the idea that we need everything we've got and more to face Russia in Europe, Iran in the Middle East, China in the Pacific, North Korea in northeast Asia, and jihadis all over, that's true enough. But that is a factor that has existed since World War II (even in the post-Cold War era after Soviet power collapsed and before Chinese power rose, as I worried about here) as we balance allocating forces for various contingencies. We simply can't afford to build a military capable of facing all conceivable threats.
If the overcommitment is based on what is deployable because of years of readiness problems, that's a separate issue from the force structure. By all means, that needs to be fixed.
