U.S. Alliances: Crucial Enablers in Great-Power Competition Andrew A. Michta, PhD

he United States today is at a geostrategic depleted the capabilities of the U.S. military, Tdisadvantage that is significantly great- and the demands of these theaters have driven er than the “correlation of forces” (as Soviet a large portion of defense systems acquisition generals put it) that the U.S. confronted during programs and contracting.1 the Cold War. Unlike in the era of great-power competition with the Soviet Union when the The Grand Strategic Challenge U.S. faced a single geopolitical foe, today Amer- Meanwhile, the Russian Federation has ica is confronted by two great powers—one re- undergone two cycles of military moderniza- visionist, the other transformational—aligned tion. The scope of this effort may pale in com-  ,in the common goal of displacing the United parison to expenditures by the United States States from its dominant position as the hub but two decades of de facto disarmament by of the liberal world order. our European allies have allowed Moscow to Three decades of unequivocal and mis- change the balance of power along NATO’s guided commitment to globalization and the eastern flank. internationalization of our manufacturing More important, China’s investment in its have left America’s power significantly deplet- military—especially qualitative improvements ed. The post–Cold War era has seen persistent facilitated by massive technology transfers budget and trade deficits, deindustrialization from the United States and increasingly from and the attendant radical centralization of Europe, as well as the rapid expansion of its supply chains in China, and an overall decline navy—has begun to tilt the balance of power in the competitiveness of the American labor in the Indo-Pacific region against the United force, with U.S. STEM (science, technology, States, with the People’s Liberation Army Navy engineering, and mathematics) programs at (PLAN) staking an exclusive claim to the South premier universities increasingly catering to China Sea. While the PLAN is already challeng- foreign students, fewer of whom are choosing ing the sovereignty of Taiwan and putting Ja- to remain and work in the United States after pan on notice that its security can no longer be graduating. At the same time, two decades of taken for granted, it is also increasingly oper- low-intensity wars-cum-“state building” proj- ating in the Mediterranean, entering the Baltic ects in Afghanistan and the Middle East have Sea, and—with its tenders to buy 33,000-ton

Andrew A. Michta, PhD, is the Dean of the College of International and Security Studies at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies. The views presented are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, the Department of Defense, or the United States Government.

The Heritage Foundation | heritage.org/Military 89 nuclear-powered icebreakers—preparing to pandemic, with the United States learning the punch through the Arctic Ocean. hard way how vulnerable it had become to its Last but not least, China’s Belt and Road principal adversary, China, on account of Bei- Initiative (BRI), with some 50 “special eco- jing’s radical centralization of supply chains nomic zones,” and its “17+1” initiative are for products critical to dealing with the crisis. critical steps toward tying the economies of The pandemic has made it imperative that Europe, Russia, and Africa to China as part of the United States relearn the lesson of the China’s larger effort to form a single Eurasian importance of allies who can provide diffuse supply-chain network. Once in place, centered and redundant supply chains in critical ar- on the yuan as the new reserve currency and eas while also serving as key enablers for the defended by Chinese military power, the BRI United States when it comes to its foreign and will be poised to effect a “grand inversion” in security policy. which the maritime supremacy over the land domain that for half a millennium has favored NATO the West would effectively be reversed. In such No alliance proved more essential to the a scenario, the European Rimland would cease United States’ victory in the Cold War than to be the transatlantic gateway to Eurasia, be- the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and no coming instead the terminal endpoint of a other alliance is in greater need of repair today. China-dominated Eurasian empire. In the first few decades following the Cold War, In short, the grand strategic challenge that NATO devolved into an essentially political this round of great-power competition poses structure used to integrate post-Communist​ for American security and for the democratic states into the transatlantic system and, al- West (as well as democracies in Asia) cannot be though membership in the European Union overstated. Consequently, the role of alliances was never expressly conditioned on NATO

as a fundamental enabler of American power membership, to help lay the groundwork for will be critical in the next decade and beyond. the EU’s acquis communautaire.4 In the first The Trump Administration’s realignment decade of the 21st century, the alliance became, of U.S. national security and defense priorities on the one hand, a growing source of friction toward great-power competition is encapsu- between the United States and the largest Eu- lated in the 2017 National Security Strategy2 ropean allies while, on the other hand, old al- and the 2018 National Defense Strategy.3 Both lies such as the United Kingdom and new ones, documents (the latter’s unclassified 12-page including Poland, enabled the United States’ summary having been released by then-Secre- global war on terrorism after 9/11. tary of Defense James Mattis) were long over- The process of deconstructing NATO into due, as changes in the balance of power world- a collective security organization of sorts con- wide have only accelerated following the 2008 tinued unabated through the 2014 Russian “great recession” that exposed deep structural seizure of Crimea and the invasion of eastern imbalances in the United States economy. Al- Ukraine. By then, NATO’s military capabil- though the United States government man- ities, including the residual forces deployed aged to stabilize the situation by flooding the by the United States to Europe, had become markets with liquidity in the aftermath of that a pale shadow of its once-formidable armies. crisis, the structural deficiencies of the U.S. Furthermore, logistical infrastructure across economy—especially our excessive reliance NATO had become degraded to the point that on foreign supply networks for ever-greater even moderate-scale joint exercises were portions of the economy, including military problematic. Recent efforts to reverse the contracting—were not addressed. trend—the DEFENDER-Europe 20 exercise, This weakness was exposed during the dev- for example, was to be the largest such exer- astating aftershocks of the Wuhan coronavirus cise along the eastern flank of NATO since the

90 2021 Index of U.S. Military Strength end of the Cold War, combining some 20,000 foundational obstacle to properly resourcing U.S. forces and 18,000 European forces—were NATO and may in fact cause continued spikes effectively stopped by the “shelter-in-place” in disagreement within NATO like the one orders triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, triggered by reports that the Trump Admin- with only a portion of the troops exercised istration planned to remove 9,500 U.S. troops across the theater. from Germany.6 In addition to the fact that NATO’s forces The United States will continue to draw are inadequate to the task at hand, an even great benefit from its leadership role in the greater challenge may be that the alliance’s NATO alliance, which serves both as an effec- political consensus concerning the overarch- tive force multiplier and as a source of political ing strategic threat is fractured. I call the latter influence in Europe and Eurasia more broadly. problem the “regionalization of security op- NATO’s contribution to American security in tics,” whereby the nature and degree of threat an era of resurgent great-power competition perception morphs as one moves from east to rests on its ability to offset Russian and, in- west. Countries along the front line such as creasingly, Chinese pressure on and in Europe, Norway, the Baltic States, Poland, and Roma- especially the two powers’ ongoing efforts to nia see Russia as a clear and present danger, reduce U.S. influence on the continent and ad while countries in the middle of the continent extremis to separate European defense from such as Germany have an attenuated view of America’s. The critical importance of the the risk. France sees the principal pressure NATO alliance as a force multiplier and path- points as being in the Mediterranean and way to lowering the overall price tag for Amer- North Africa, and the Russian threat registers ican defense worldwide cannot be overstated. only remotely in Spain or Portugal. The question, however, that continues to This fractured threat perception—rather polarize the U.S. security community is the  -than the oft-discussed resentment against practical scope of what NATO should be con the alleged “transactionalism” of the Trump tributing to the common defense and how such Administration—is the key reason why the contributions address the challenges facing majority of the European NATO allies have the United Sates not only in the European consistently failed to meet their agreed-up- theater, but also in the Indo-Pacific region. on 2 percent of GDP defense spending tar- Some analysts have gone so far as to suggest gets, which have been in place since the that NATO has an important role to play in Warsaw summit of 2016.5 The much-touted Asia and that it should plan accordingly.7 Such argument that NATO is not just about shared a strategy would be yet another permutation interests but also about shared values (Pres- of the “burden sharing” that has been much ident Trump’s critics point to his alleged debated throughout NATO’s history, except de-emphasis of the latter) is a false binary that this time, the burden would be extended because NATO, as the most effective military to a theater that historically has not been part alliance of like-minded democracies in history, of NATO’s strategic domain, making such a has always been about both. strategy likely to fail. What has fueled the current turmoil in the What NATO needs is not more “burden alliance is the inability of key governments to sharing” but “burden transferring,” a term I see eye-to-eye with the United States on the use to indicate that the greatest contribution nature of the threat to the West that is posed NATO can make to the defense of the transat- by Russia, which wants to revise the post–Cold lantic community is for its European allies to War political settlement, and by the People’s resource their defense properly. This is nec- Republic of China (PRC), which wants to re- essary if the Europeans (with U.S. enablers in place it. The absence of a policy consensus place and a modernized core strategic nuclear on Russia in particular is likely to remain the deterrent) are to be able to deter and, if need be,

The Heritage Foundation | heritage.org/Military 91 defend Europe against a revisionist Russia in consensus on defense-spending formulas that the event that the United States is pulled into does not include the United States. The cur- an emergency in the Indo-Pacific region. rent tenor of the European defense and secu- The imperative of “burden transferring” to rity debate—punctuated by occasional injudi- Europe reflects the twin dilemmas facing the cious outbursts by European leaders that the United States when it comes to collective de- NATO alliance is “brain dead”—only further fense: The geostrategic challenge we confront undermines the ability of the alliance to come is orders of magnitude greater than in the Cold together around a common strategy. War, but the size of the United States military is simply too small to meet the requirements Alliances in the Asia–Pacific Region in both theaters, deter aggression, and win Asia is fast becoming the principal area of decisively. The United States should main- concern for U.S. defense strategy. The expo- tain a significant component in Europe. U.S. nential growth of Chinese economic power Army Europe, as currently structured, serves over the past decade in particular has given a critical role as both an enabler and a fighting rise to military capabilities that increasingly force, with exercises on allied territory along challenge the United States Navy’s ability to NATO’s eastern flank essential to developing dominate the theater. China has one-fifth of the warfighting capability of U.S. troops and the world’s population, and its military bud- ensuring that they are fully interoperable with get is second in size only to that of the United our allies. The same goes for continued exer- States.8 Moreover, financial reserves accumu- cises that serve to demonstrate the ability of lated over decades of predatory trade practic- the United States to reinforce the European es will allow it to continue buying companies, theater in a crisis. technologies, and expertise unless the United However, these will never fully replace the States and its allies impose severe restrictions

manpower and resources that the Europeans on China’s access. As many as 200 million Chi- must bring to bear if deterrence in Europe is to nese citizens travel the world as tourists and hold. This is especially the case should a crisis work, study, and live abroad, and this number arise elsewhere, as the United States military could increase significantly when the current is no longer structured as it once was to fight pandemic restrictions are lifted. two major theater conflicts plus one smaller The Indo-Pacific theater is also dramatical- engagement in a secondary theater; rather, we ly different from Europe: It rests on a series of are—and are likely to remain—able to engage bilateral alliances between the United States in only one major theater and one smaller op- and its key partners, not on one bureaucratized eration if we want to prevail. structure like NATO’s. The region is increas- The key variable in a workable “burden ingly being transformed by China’s abandon- transferring” approach as NATO’s strategy ment of its former reticence and its growing in the unfolding era of great-power competi- geostrategic assertiveness, and the leadership tion is an urgently needed political consen- of the People’s Republic of China under Xi Jin- sus within the alliance. In this context, the ping sees the PRC as having effectively caught ongoing efforts, driven principally by France, up with the United States. to establish “strategic autonomy” for Europe China is a Communist neo-Confucian state in NATO—exemplified by programs such as marked by repression and rigidity at home, Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO), and its foreign and military policy is marked Coordinated Annual Review on Defense by political and military mobilization and the (CARD), and the European Defense Fund as putting forth of ever-bolder claims, its claim to currently conceived—are counterproductive “exclusivity” in the South China Sea being per- and likely to fail because the divergent security haps the most visible example. The leadership optics mentioned earlier will block any such in Beijing seems certain that its path to global

92 2021 Index of U.S. Military Strength economic dominance will soon be accompa- the center of the global system. The immediate nied by expanding military influence that, as targets of this expansion drive are Hong Kong, the PLAN’s power projection capabilities grow, where the process of dismantling its auton- will allow it to dominate militarily. omy is already near completion, and Taiwan, With this in mind, Beijing has been building which will face increased pressure once Beijing its hard power arsenal at a rapid pace, with the has bent Hong Kong to its will. This pattern expansion of the nuclear, conventional, space, of expansion targeting the three key U.S. al- cyber, and information components at an un- lies in Asia can be seen in the proliferation of precedented pace, posing a truly multi-domain Chinese port investments; the development of challenge to the United States military. Aided PRC naval capabilities (including tenders for by four decades of unprecedented freedom of several nuclear-powered aircraft carrier battle access to America’s technology, research, and groups); and the exponential investments in knowledge economy, Beijing is poised to com- anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) capabilities by pete for supremacy in the Pacific within the the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and PLAN. next decade. China’s overarching strategy is to break When it comes to China, Europe is unlikely out of a territorially based defense strategy, to become a close ally of the United States any harden its defenses of transcontinental and time soon. Although the devastation wrought overseas transportation routes, and leverage by the Wuhan coronavirus on EU economies its decades-long access to America’s research and Beijing’s aggressive information cam- and development (R&D) base and—even more paigns targeting Europe could change elite at- important—its manufacturing and materials titudes to some extent, Germany, France, and technologies to bring about a qualitative leap especially Italy (but also a number of other in PLA and PLAN capabilities vis-à-vis the countries, including some in Central Europe) United States. This is especially the case when  -see China principally in economic terms, with it comes to command, control, communica opportunities still outweighing risks, especial- tions, computers, intelligence, surveillance, ly for smaller, capital-starved European econ- and reconnaissance (C4ISR); strategic support omies outside the European Union and hence forces; cyber and information; and unmanned not eligible for recovery assistance funds. systems in space. The pivotal allies for the United States in Asia are Japan, South Korea, and Australia— Interlocking Alliances the Asian “troika”—whose continued alliance The United States continues to derive with the United States stands in direct con- great benefit from its leadership position in tradiction to Xi Jinping’s “China Dream” of the NATO alliance and its close bilateral al- a globally dominant PRC to be established liances with the troika in the Western Pacif- through a purposeful strategy of expansion ic. Our naval, air, and ground troop basing in across Eurasia and into the Pacific. The United Europe as well as in Japan, South Korea, and States also has formal alliances with the Phil- Australia continues to give us flexibility and ippines, Thailand, and New Zealand, but their supportability in power projection across both overall strength is derivative when it comes to the Atlantic and the Pacific with the ability to our core alliances with the troika. The future rely on the military resources of our allies as a of the troika depends on the future of each of force multiplier. its members: If China should succeed in isolat- In Europe, the effectiveness of NATO de- ing one of them, the risk to the security of the mands a strategy of “burden transferring” others would grow exponentially. with continued U.S. nuclear strategic guar- Chinese expansion is already well underway, antees and continued coordination with our though Beijing continues to face considerable enablers. This must be combined with a small obstacles to displacing the United States from but effective, trained, and integrated Joint

The Heritage Foundation | heritage.org/Military 93 Force component that both provides strategic Asia–Pacific region. The second element of Bei- linkage for the United States and Europe and jing’s strategy, which entails its close coopera- reinforces the credibility of the larger transat- tion with Moscow, is to accomplish the decou- lantic defense strategy. pling of the United States from Europe, with Arguably, the greatest challenge facing the long-term economic and population trends United States and its European allies, more favoring China in its de facto alliance with the than the interminable debates about the per- Russian Federation against the United States. centage of GDP to be allocated as a sign of These two trends inextricably connect commitment to the alliance, will be the im- America’s alliances in Europe and in the Asia– perative need to rebuild Europe’s real usable Pacific region: They mutually reinforce one military capabilities. This strategy of “burden another if successfully consolidated and con- transferring,” whereby the Europeans take versely contain within themselves the seeds core responsibility for the continent’s defense of each other’s destruction. Preserving and across multiple domains—not as an exercise in strengthening the two as part of a coherent “strategic autonomy” but as a clearly defined global defense strategy should be a key U.S. and agreed-upon task within NATO—will be policy priority. key to preserving European security and en- suring that the transatlantic bargain holds as Conclusion we enter arguably the most dangerous period Grand, bureaucratized alliances do not sim- of great-power competition. ply unravel. They become hollowed out over In Asia, the Western Pacific is also critical time as threat assessments change and po- to the security of the Eurasian landmass, with litical will atrophies. This is the risk if NATO continued close U.S. alliances with the troika continues along its current path of “burden presenting a direct challenge to Beijing’s mil- sharing” amid ongoing allegations of American

itary planners. Coupled with U.S. bases on its “transactionalism.” The preservation of NATO territory, in Guam, and in Hawaii, the United is vital to both Americans and Europeans be- States has the ability to develop a successful cause the alliance continues to serve both as strategy to contain, deter, and if need be de- a deterrent to Russia and as a values-based feat China in a future conflict in the Pacific, framework with which the West can confront provided it retains the flexibility to move its China. NATO offers the best existing format forces in the region in a crisis. We must there- for common defense and effectively ensures fore ensure that the troika can withstand direct that the North Atlantic remains the internal pressure from China and that its members do waterway for Western democracies. not become vassalized over time. Continued The preservation of America’s alliances close alliance with the United States will allow in Asia is essential to our ability to contain the three countries to exercise effective coun- and deter China, for without them we cannot terpressure against the advancing militariza- ensure that our rethinking of the U.S.–Chi- tion of great-power competition in Asia and na relationship will take place on American respond with effective force if deterrence fails. terms. If NATO were to unravel or the troika There can be little doubt today that the to fall out of its close alliance with the Unit- PRC’s primary goal is to reestablish itself as ed States, or if both were to occur, the entire a dominant power in eastern Eurasia and the Pacific Ocean west of Hawaii would become a Western Pacific, absorbing Taiwan, isolating contested space with the United States direct- and ultimately vassalizing Japan, and pushing ly exposed to the risk of being pushed into its the United States back to the margins of the own hemisphere.

94 2021 Index of U.S. Military Strength Endnotes 1. Thomas P. Ehrhard, “Treating the Pathologies of Victory: Hardening the Nation for Strategic Competition,” in 2020 Index of U.S. Military Strength, ed. Dakota L. Wood (Washington: The Heritage Foundation, 2020), pp. 24–26, https://www.heritage.org/sites/ default/files/2019-10/2020_IndexOfUSMilitaryStrength_ESSAYS_EHRHARD_0.pdf. 2. National Security Strategy of the United States of America, The White House, December 2017, https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp- content/uploads/2017/12/NSS-Final-12-18-2017-0905.pdf (accessed June 17, 2020). 3. James Mattis, Secretary of Defense, Summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy of the United States of America: Sharpening the American Military’s Competitive Edge, U.S. Department of Defense, https://dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/ pubs/2018-National-Defense-Strategy-Summary.pdf (accessed June 17, 2020). 4. “The Acquis Communautaire is the accumulated body of European Union (EU) law and obligations from 1958 to the present day. It comprises all the EU’s treaties and laws (directives, regulations, decisions), declarations and resolutions, international agreements and the judgments of the Court of Justice. It also includes action that EU governments take together in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice and under the Common Foreign and Security Policy. ¶ New EU Member States must accept all the existing acquis—some elements of it during a transitional period—and put in place mechanisms to adopt future elements of the acquis. ¶ The Court of Justice has ruled that the EU acquis takes precedence over national law if there is a conflict, and that the acquis may have direct effect in the Member States.” Vaughne Miller, “The EU’sAcquis Communautaire,” British House of Commons Library Research Briefing, Standard Note SN/IA/5944, last updated April 26, 2011, p. 1, https://researchbriefings.files. parliament.uk/documents/SN05944/SN05944.pdf (accessed July 25, 2020). 5. Press release, “Warsaw Summit Communiqué Issued by the Heads of State and Government Participating in the Meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Warsaw 8–9 July 2016,” North Atlantic Treaty Organization, last updated March 29, 2017, https://www. nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_133169.htm (accessed July 28, 2020). See esp. para. 34. 6. Hans Binnendijk, “The Folly of a NATO Troop Withdrawal Decision,” Defense News, June 10, 2020, https://www.defensenews.com/ opinion/commentary/2020/06/09/the-folly-of-a-nato-troop-withdrawal-decision/ (accessed June 10, 2020). 7. See, for example, Ian Brzezinski, “NATO’s Role in a Transatlantic Strategy on China,” Atlantic Council, New Atlanticist Blog, June 1, 2020, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/natos-role-in-a-transatlantic-strategy-on-china/ (accessed June 17, 2020).  8. Lucie Béraud-Sudreau, “Global Defence Spending: The United States Widens the Gap,” International Institute for Strategic Studies Military Balance Blog, February 14, 2020, https://www.iiss.org/blogs/military-balance/2020/02/global-defence-spending (accessed July 28, 2020).

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