U.S. in the 21st Century: The Case for a Continental Commitment

November 24, 2014 By Williamson Murray and Peter Mansoor Williamson Murray is Professor Emeritus of History at Ohio State University. Peter Mansoor is the Raymond E. Mason Jr. Chair of Military History at Ohio State University. He is a Colonel, U.S. Army (Retired). This article is adapted from a chapter in the authors’ forthcoming edited volume on grand strategies and alliances from the ancient world to the present.

Abstract: The history of great power conflicts waged by maritime/island powers clearly shows the criticality of supporting continental allies with a ground force commitment. Now is the time to establish a credible series of alliances in and Asia—even though it is a moment of economic retrenchment and great power peace. These alliances need not be costly, but will provide deterrence in the near term and a hedge in the long run against future great power conflict—conflicts that will be waged not just in the air, on the seas, and in cyberspace, but on land as well.

s U.S. policymakers consider the formulation of a grand strategy to guide the fortunes of the American people in the twenty-first century, they should A examine the fate of other great maritime/island powers which have wrestled with similar challenges. Of primary concern to Washington are the rise of China and the impact of its nascent power, both regionally and globally. The recent and ongoing rebalancing of U.S. military capabilities towards Asia is a response to those challenges. The United States, however, lacks the economic and military power to contain a potentially belligerent China without the assistance of allies. For a brief period at the end of the Cold War, U.S. strategists enjoyed a “unipolar moment” which seemed to allow them the latitude to determine their foreign and defense policies without significant input from partner states. After two lengthy wars and the worst economic turndown since the Great Depression, those heady days are over. The United States now confronts an uncertain future in an increasingly multipolar global environment that is changing rapidly. Any viable grand strategy demands restoration of the economy at home and the strengthening of alliances abroad. Recent debates concerning U.S. military capabilities in Asia, however, have largely focused on anti-access/area denial challenges to the projection of power abroad. More to the point, discussions of “Air-Sea Battle” and the development of U.S. air and naval capabilities to project power into contested areas fail to explain how such an operational concept—even if successful—could achieve victory in a

© 2015 Published for the Research Institute by Elsevier Ltd.

Winter 2015 | 19 doi: 10.1016/j.orbis.2014.11.003 MURRAY & MANSOOR potential conflict with China.1 Experts usually mention America’s allies in Asia, if they are discussed at all, in the context of basing for air and naval units. U.S. strategy seemingly has ceded land power on the Asian mainland to Chinese dominance. Indeed, proponents of offshore balancing and maritime strategies believe U.S. ground forces should not play a major role in future conflicts, leaving messy ground fighting to regional allies absent a wholesale breakdown in the balance of power.2 “America’s comparative strategic advantages rest on naval and air power, not on sending land armies to fight ground wars in Eurasia,” states one proponent of offshore balancing. “Thus the United States should opt for the strategic precepts of Alfred Thayer Mahan (the primacy of air and sea power) over those of Sir Halford Mackinder (the primacy of land power).”3 History suggests otherwise. In particular, it provides a crucial context largely lacking at present from the debate over U.S. grand strategy.

The Whale versus the Elephant

Alliances have proven an essential and integral element in the approach to grand strategy for maritime/island powers. Because such powers are not directly threatened by ground invasion, they do not have to engage continental powers and their armies unless they choose to do so. However, throughout history maritime/island powers may find alliances with continental powers particularly useful. While maritime states can use sea and air power to defend themselves from attack, they cannot afford to allow a hostile hegemonic continental rival to arise, one that could potentially isolate and then challenge them for dominion of the seas through control of the continental domain, either through alliances or conquest. Nevertheless, within maritime/island powers there has arisen considerable tension historically between those who have advocated alliances with continental land powers, along with their provision of financial and economic support as well as ground forces, and those who have urged a “blue-water” strategy of isolation from continental commitments. The latter position is designed to focus almost exclusively on control of the maritime (and from the twentieth century onward, the air) dimension. Because of this tension, maritime/island powers are a particularly good example of the role that grand strategy plays in the complex nature of alliances, as

1 For a brief presentation of the U.S. joint force concept for Air-Sea Battle, see Air Sea Battle Office, Air-Sea Battle: Service Collaboration to Address Anti-Access & Area Denial Challenges (Washington, D.C.: May 2013), http://www.defense.gov/pubs/ASB- ConceptImplementation-Summary-May-2013.pdf. 2 For a discussion of a grand strategy based on offshore balancing, see Christopher Layne, “From Preponderance to Offshore Balancing: America’s Future Grand Strategy,” International Security, Summer 1997, pp. 86-124 and , “A Return to Offshore Balancing,” Newsweek, Dec. 30, 2008, http://www.newsweek.com/return-offshore- balancing-82925. 3 Christopher Layne, “The (Almost) Triumph of Offshore Balancing,” The National Interest, Jan. 27, 2012, http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/almost-triumph-offshore-balancing- 6405.

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