A volume in the seriesCORNELL STUDIES IN SECURITY AFFAIRS

edited lYy Robert]. Art, Robert feruis, and Stephen M. WaltA full list of the titles in the series appears at the end of the book.

Also by Robert J. ArtThe TFX Decision: McNamara and the Military. Boston: Little, Brown, 1968.Edited with Vincent Davis and Samuel P. Huntington, Reorganizing America'sDefense. Washington: Pergamon-Brassey's, 1985.Edited with Seyom Brown, U.S. Foreign Policy: The Search for a Ne-w Role. NewYork: Macmillan, 1993.Edited with Patrick Cronin, The United States and Coercive Diplomacy.Washington, D.G.: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2003.

~

A Grand Strategyfor America

Robert J. Art

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A GRAND STRATEGY FOR AMERIGA

Thus, it is the last three developments-loss of America's economicmight, loss of its military technology edge, or the rise of a counter-coalition-that would most threaten the feasibility of selective engagement. Fortunately,they are the factors over which the United States has a greater degree ofcontrol. For selective engagement to work, therefore, the United States mustmaintain its economic and technological prowess and must actively workto prevent either a global counter-coalition or a set of regional counter-coalitions from emerging.

As this brief analysis shows, we can achieve an economy of effort andclarity in analysis if we interpret the many contemporary international devel-opments in light of their effects on the five international features discussedin this chapter. In this fashion, we can best separate what is insignificant forthe United States from what is truly worrisome or potentially beneficiaL

FROM CONDITIONS TO INTERESTS

There is another reason for dwelling on the five international featuresenumerated above. We can use them to identify America's national interestsreadily.

These conditions did not materialize by happenstance. To the contrary,in one way or another, they are the result of prior American policies. Theabsence of a peer competitor, the growth of economic interdependence,and the prevalence of democracy should be seen as successes of deliberateAmerican policies, while the emergence of grand terrorism and the increasein global warming should be seen as its unintended products. The contain-ment of the Soviet Union helped contribute to its breakup and broughtabout the current situation in which the United States faces no peer com-petitor. The organization of the free world to contain Soviet power helpedto create a democratic zone of peace and deep economic interdependenceamong the mature democracies of Western Europe, North America, andJapan. The spread of democracy to parts of the First and Third Worlds wasundertaken in part to fight communism and to bolster America's power andideological appeal relative to the Soviet Union. In pursuit of its three suc-cesses, the United States also unintentionally helped produce its two failures.The emergence of grand terrorism directed against the United States, espe-cially its Islamic fundamentalist manifestation, resulted in part fromAmerica's global role, its covert war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistanduring the 1980s, its Middle Eastern policies, and its military presence inthe Persian Gulf. Global warming and its associated threat of climate changeprimarily result from the profligate use of fossil fuels by the First World, espe-cially by the United States, to sustain high living standards. Intended or not,these five features of contemporary world politics are, in one way or another,partially due to prior American actions.

42

THE INTERNATIONAL SETTING

If that is the case, what stance should the United States now take towardthese conditions? The answer is clear: preserve those that benefit the countryand change those that do not. The first, third, and fourth features are stillworth protecting. Simply because the Cold War is over does not mean thatthe United States should ignore new military threats to its homeland, beindifferent to the spread and consolidation of democracy, or cease its effol·tsto deepen and extend economic interdependence. Americans today areenjoying the three fruits of their Cold War labors, and it should be the goalof American foreign policy to keep things that way.The second and fifth fea-tures are not fruits to be enjoyed but poisons to be neutralized. Grand terrorcould do catastrophic harm to the United States, and global warming coulddegrade the quality of life Americans enjoy; consequently, it makes sense totake corrective steps.

The goals of preserving the beneficial features of the contemporary era,and redressing the adverse ones, set America's national interest agenda,as shown in Table 1.8. With the absence of a peer competitor, the greatestmilitary threats to the United States come from grand terror attacks on theAmerican homeland, especially those executed with nuclear, biological, orchemical weapons. Consequently, preventing such weapons from falling intothe wrong hands, especially terrorist hands, is the most important thing thatthe United States can do today to protect itself. To preserve the deep eco-nomic interdependence that obtains among Europe, North America, andJapan, as well as to extend it to other states, the United States should workto preserve a deep peace among the Eurasian great powers, to assure a stablesupply of oil at reasonable prices by maintaining access to Persian Gulfreserves, and to maintain and extend international economic openness.Because intense security competitions and great-power wars would disrupt

TABLE 1.8. International Conditions and America's Interests

International Conditions America's Interests

1. No imminent or severe state militarythreats

2. Emergence of grand terrorist threats3. Deep economic interdependence

1. Defense of the homeland

2. Deep peace among the Eurasiangreat powers

3. Secure access to Persian Gulf oil ata stable, reasonable price

4. International economic openness5. Democracy's consolidation and

spread, and the observance ofhuman rights

6. No severe climate change

4. Prevalence of democracy

5. Increase in global warming

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A GRAND STRATEGY FOR AMERICA

trade and promote economic closure, not openness, the United Statesshould help prevent them. Until the world takes the steps necessary to weanitself from heavy dependence on fossil fuels for energy, the United Statesmust help secure access to oil supplies (nearly two-thirds of which are in thePersian Gulf) at reasonable cost. Because international economic opennesslowers the barriers to trade, capital, and technology flows, and because itfacilitates the deepening and extension of economic interdependence andthe generation of middle classes so central to the stability of democracy, itshould be preserved. To keep the gains of democratic spread, the UnitedStates should help consolidate democracy in the recent democratic statesand, in addition, seek to spread it to other states, because mature democ-racy is one of the most effective ways to make certain that human rights areprotected, mass murders avoided, and civil and interstate wars averted.Finally, to prevent severe climate change, the United States should act toreduce carbon emissions and their equivalents in order to slow down andultimately stop global warming.

Thus, there exists a strong connection between the five salient featuresof the contemporary international era, on the one hand, and the sixAmerican national interests posited in the introduction, on the other. Theexistence of such connections, however, does not alone constitute the casefor America's pursuit of these interests. Therefore, the next steps in formu-lating an American grand strategy are to demonstrate conclusively why thesesix goals make good sense for the United States and to identify which deservepriority. These are the tasks for Chapter 2.

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TWO

America's National Interests

The most fundamental task in devising a grand strategy is to deter-mine a state's national interests. Once they are identified, they drivea nation's foreign policy and military strategy: they determine the

basic direction that it takes, the types and amounts of resources that it needs,and the manner in which the state must employ them to succeed. Becauseof the critical role that national interests play, they must be carefully justi-fied, not merely assumed. In this chapter, I make the case for the sixinterests postulated at the end of Chapter I-those advocated by selectiveengagement. I begin by ranking them according to their importance; thenI layout the merits of each; and lastly, I enumerate the threats to them.

RANKING INTERESTS

We need to rank interests because they often conflict with one another, andbecause resources to deal with them-including the time and attention oftop-level decision makers-are limited. Accordingly, I posit that the UnitedStates has one vital interest, two highly important ones, and three importantones (see Table 2.1).1 I base this on the following criteria: the benefits if theinterest is protected, and the costs if it is not; the sequence in which theseinterests can be achieved; and the manner in which military power can beused to support them.

According to the first criterion, a vital interest is one that is essential andthat, if not achieved, will bring costs that are catastrophic or nearly so. Secu-rity is the one vital interest of a state; it means protection of the state's home-land from attack, invasion, conquest, and destruction. To protect a state'ssecurity is to ensure its physical safety and its political sovereignty. Protect-ing the United States from nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) attacks,especially by terrorists, clearly qualifies as a vital interest.

A highly important interest is one that, if achieved, brings great benefitsto a state and, if denied, carries costs that are severe but not catastrophic.The United States has two such interests. First, a large-scale Eurasian great-

45

A GRAND STRATEGY FOR AMERIGA

TA BLE 2 1. Ranking America's National Interests

Interest Ranking

1. Defense of the homeland2. Deep peace among the Eurasian great powers3. Secure access to Persian Gulf oil at a stable, reasonable

price4. International economic openness5. Consolidation of democracy and spread and observance

of human rights6. No severe climate change

VitalHighly ImportantHighly Important

ImportantImportant

Important

power war could bring severe economic loss to the United States; undercertain circumstances it could even increase the threat to the Americanhomeland. It is therefore a highly important interest and under some sce-narios could be a vital one. Second, loss of access to Persian Gulf oil, or anexorbitantly high price for oil, could bring severe economic loss to theUnited States; for this reason it, too, qualifies as a highly important interest.

An important interest is one that increases a nation's economic well-beingand perhaps its security, and that contributes more generally to making theinternational environment more congenial to its interests, but whose poten-tial value or loss is moderate, not great. There are three such interests.First, while international economic openness enhances America's prosper-ity, Americans would not become destitute if the international economyunderwent a significant degree of closure. Nearly ninety percent of whatAmericans consume is produced at home, not abroad; economic closurewould mean, not a total loss of imports or exports but protectionism thatwould increase the prices of America's imports, reduce the volume of itsexports, and thereby lead to some decline in the standard of living. Theseverity of the decline would depend on the degree of closure. Second, thespread of democracy might well make the world more peaceful; however,failure to protect democracy and human rights in the Third World wouldnot have an immediate effect on either America's security or its prosperity.Third, climate change will be costly to the United States, but the costs arebearable unless the change becomes severe or catastrophic.

The second way to rank interests concerns their sequence: the vital andhighly important interests are the essential prerequisites to the importantones, whereas the reverse is not the case. If the United States is not secure,and if its prosperity is at risk, its ability to help maintain Eurasian peace willdiminish. If Eurasia is at war or locked in intense security competitions, NBCweapons spread is more likely, and American prosperity will also likely suffer.If Persian Gulf oil is held hostage by a Gulf hegemon, then both openness

46

AMERICA'S NATIONAL INTERESTS

and prosperity will be at risk, because affordable energy is central to each.On the other hand, openness, greenhouse gas cooperation, and democraticspread, by themselves, cannot make the United States secure and prosper-ous, although they can certainly enhance its security and prosperity. Thus,the causal arrow runs from the vital and highly important interests towardthe important ones.

The third criterion concerns the use of force. American military powercan directly advance the vital and highly important interests, but it can onlyindirectly advance the merely important ones. In general, military powercannot be efficiently and effectively employed to force states to lower theirbarriers to trade, to create democracy in states that have never experiencedit, or to force others to limit their emissions of greenhouse gases. America'smilitary power can, however, be used directly to retard the spread of nuclear,biological, and chemical weapons by providing protection to states that donot have such weapons so they will choose not to obtain them, by destroy-ing the stocks in those states that do have them, and by rooting out terror-ists who have or intend to acquire and use them. Military power can bedirectly used to prevent aggression against the Persian Gulf oil sheikdoms,or to reverse aggression should it occur. American power can also be usedto preserve Eurasian great-power peace, by deterring would-be adversariesand reassuring America's great-power allies.

I now examine each interest in turn.

HOMELAND SECURITY

Homeland security-the prevention of attack, invasion, conquest, ordestruction of a state's territory and its residents, and the maintenance ofits political sovereignty-is the prime directive of any grand strategy. Con-ventional attacks from states and NBC threats from most states pose littlerisk for the foreseeable future to the American homeland. The two greatestthreats to the security of America's homeland today are grand terror attacks,especially NBC ones, and the acquisition of NBC weapons by state actors whoare hard to deter.

A conventional weapons attack by a state against the American homelandis a low probability event and relatively easy to handle. No other great power,and certainly no middle-rank or small power, could hope to defeat America'shighly proficient and technologically sophisticated conventional forces, norcould such a power inflict much damage on American territory. The firstreason is U.S. technological prowess. With its space-based intelligence assets,its long-range ground-based airpower, and its formidable naval forces, theUnited States could deal swiftly with any state-directed conventional threatcoming from overseas. The second reason is that the United States would be

47