Texas National Security Review

VOLUME 1, ISSUE 2 MARCH 1, 2018 OF STATECRAFT

THE GUESSWORK OF STATECRAFT

THE GUESSWORK Volume 1 Issue 2

Print: ISSN 2576-1021 Online: ISSN 2576-1153

MASTHEAD TABLE OF CONTENTS

Staff: The Foundation

Publisher: Managing Editor: Copy Editors: Ryan Evans Megan G. Oprea, PhD Autumn Brewington 04 Introducing TNSR’s Second Issue: The Guesswork of Statecraft Sara Gebhardt, PhD Frank Gavin Editor-in-Chief: Associate Editors: Katelyn Gough William Inboden, PhD Van Jackson, PhD Stephen Tankel, PhD Celeste Ward Gventer The Scholar

08 Choosing Primacy: U.S. Strategy and Global Order at the Dawn of the Post- Era Editorial Board: Hal Brands 34 The Meaning of Strategy, Part II: The Objectives Chair, Editorial Board: Editor-in-Chief: Lawrence Freedman Francis J. Gavin, PhD William Inboden, PhD 58 Defied the Theoretical Odds: What Can We Learn from its Successful Nuclearization? Nicholas L. Miller and Vipin Narang Robert J. Art, PhD Beatrice Heuser, PhD Patrick Porter, PhD 76 Assessing Soviet Economic Performance During the Cold War: A Failure of Intelligence? Richard Betts, PhD Michael C. Horowitz, PhD Thomas Rid, PhD Marc Trachtenberg John Bew, PhD Richard H. Immerman, PhD Joshua Rovner, PhD Nigel Biggar, PhD , PhD Brent E. Sasley, PhD Philip Bobbitt, JD, PhD Colin Kahl, PhD Elizabeth N. Saunders, PhD The Strategist Hal Brands, PhD Jonathan Kirshner, PhD Kori Schake, PhD Joshua W. Busby, PhD James Kraska, JD Michael N. Schmitt, JD Robert Chesney, JD Stephen D. Krasner, PhD Jacob N. Shapiro, PhD 104 The International Order and Nuclear Negotiations with Eliot Cohen, PhD Sarah Kreps, PhD Sandesh Sivakumaran, PhD Michael Singh Audrey Kurth Cronin, PhD Melvyn P. Leffler, PhD Sarah Snyder, PhD 116 Changing Course: Making the Case (Old and New) for American Seapower Theo Farrell, PhD Fredrik Logevall, PhD Bartholomew Sparrow, PhD Michael Gallagher Peter D. Feaver, PhD Margaret MacMillan, CC, PhD Monica Duffy Toft, PhD 128 U.S. Engagement in the Western Hemisphere Rosemary Foot, PhD, FBA Thomas G. Mahnken, PhD Marc Trachtenberg, PhD Taylor Fravel, PhD Rose McDermott, PhD René Värk, JD Sir Lawrence Freedman, PhD Paul D. Miller, PhD Steven Weber, PhD James Goldgeier, PhD Vipin Narang, PhD Amy Zegart, PhD Michael J. Green, PhD Janne E. Nolan, PhD The Roundtable Feature Kelly M. Greenhill, PhD John Owen, PhD

138 Trump’s National Security Strategy: A Critic’s Dream Emma Ashford and Joshua R. Itzkowitz Shifrinson Policy and Strategy Advisory Board:

Chair: Adm. William McRaven, Ret.

Hon. , JD Hon. , PhD Dan Runde Stephen E. Biegun Hon. James Jeffrey David Shedd Hon. Brad Carson Paul Lettow, JD, PhD Hon. Kristen Silverberg, JD Hon. Derek Chollet Hon. Michael Lumpkin Michael Singh, MBA Amb. Ryan Crocker Hon. William J. Lynn, JD Adm. James G. Stavridis, Ret., PhD Hon. Eric Edelman, PhD Kelly Magsamen Hon. Christine E. Wormuth Hon. John Hamre, PhD Gen. David Petraeus, Ret.

Designed by We are Flint, printed by Linemark 4 The Foundation 5

The academic study of strategy and statecraft dwells Introducing awkwardly in the space between art and science. For decades, if not centuries, analysts have tried to develop general principles TNSR’s Second Issue: about the important activities that surround war and diplomacy, with the hope that we might better anticipate the future and The Guesswork avoid repeating the disasters of the past. As the excellent articles in our second issue of the Texas National Security Review reveal, of Statecraft this is an extraordinarily daunting task. Global policy is made in the face of radical uncertainty about the future, while confronting a multitude of often inscrutable actors who are driven by complex, deeply intertwined, and often indecipherable factors.

As the world’s leading scholar on the subject, that the scholarly and intelligence worlds did not Lawrence Freedman reminds us that the very recognize the deep, long-term structural flaws in the meaning of the term strategy has changed over Soviet economy, is flat out wrong. In fact, it was an time. The role of politics and emerging technologies exemplary case of the experts getting it right — a — crucial topics we now take for granted — were history policymakers and the public largely missed. virtually absent from strategic conversations during As always, the Texas National Security Review is the 18th and 19th century in Great Britain. Hal Brands proud to pair original scholarship in international reveals this challenge through the lens of more recent affairs with the thoughts of policymakers. Rep. Mike history, reconstructing the development and role of Gallagher advocates for the renewed importance of the George H.W. Bush administration’s controversial seapower as a critical tool of American strategy and Defense Policy Guidance. Facing a world transformed statecraft, while Michael Singh recounts the George by the end of the Cold War and the decline of the W. administration’s efforts to confront Iran’s nuclear Soviet Union, U.S. strategists and statesmen balanced program in the context of an ever-shifting global order. the euphoria surrounding emerging American Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s speech laying out unipolarity with fear and worry about a global order interests and policies in Latin America in flux. The legacy of this document remains deeply is also presented here. contested, but thanks to Brands’ scholarship, is now We hope you enjoy and learn from these articles. We far better understood. also urge you to consider writing for us. While the first Few questions vex contemporary international two editions have included familiar, more established relations more than nuclear proliferation, and in names, we are eager to hear new voices and fresh particular, the nuclear weapons program of North scholarly perspectives on the enduring questions of Korea. Nicholas Miller and Vipin Narang confess war, peace, strategy, and statecraft. that, despite an extraordinary renaissance in nuclear studies in recent years, our best theories did a less Francis J. Gavin is the Chairman of the Editorial than stellar job of predicting the speed and breadth of Board of the Texas National Security Review. He is North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. Their article the Giovanni Agnelli Distinguished Professor and the is an admirable exercise in humility and stock-taking, inaugural director of the Henry A. Kissinger Center for all too rare amongst academics, but crucial if we are Global Affairs at SAIS- University. His to do better. writings include Gold, Dollars, and Power: The Of course, even when researchers and analysts Politics of International Monetary Relations, 1958- do get hard questions right, they often don’t get the 1971 (University of North Carolina Press, 2004) credit they deserve. Marc Trachtenberg’s revealing and Nuclear Statecraft: History and Strategy in Francis J. Gavin study demonstrates that the conventional wisdom America’s Atomic Age ( Press, 2012). 6 The Scholar 7

The Scholar

This section is dedicated to publishing the work of scholars. Our aim is for articles published in this journal to end up on university syllabi and policy desks from Washington to , and to be cited as the foundational research and analysis on world affairs. 8 The Scholar 9

Newly declassified U.S. government records shed some light Choosing Primacy: onto U.S. strategic thinking about the post-Cold War era and the infamous Defense Planning Guidance.

In early 1992, the Pentagon’s primary policy office the document as a radical assertion of American U.S. Strategy and 3 — the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense hegemony — “literally a Pax Americana.” Patrick for Policy — prepared a draft classified document Buchanan, a prominent conservative pundit and known as the Defense Planning Guidance (DPG).1 In Republican presidential candidate, alleged that the Global Order at the late February and early March, that document was DPG represented “a formula for endless American leaked to and the Washington intervention in quarrels and war when no vital Post, both of which published extensive excerpts. interest of the United States is remotely engaged.”4 Those excerpts, which highlighted the most striking More than a decade later, the episode still Dawn of the Post- language and themes of the document, detailed a smoldered. Writing after the U.S.-led invasion of blueprint for American strategy in the post-Cold in 2003, Craig Unger described the War era. The United States would not retrench DPG as the product “of a radical political movement dramatically now that its superpower rival had led by a right-wing intellectual vanguard.” Another Cold War Era been vanquished. Instead, it would maintain and assessment labeled the DPG a “disturbing” extend the unchallenged supremacy it had gained manifestation of a “Plan…for the United States to when the Soviet empire collapsed. Washington rule the world.”5 More recently, the DPG has received would cultivate an open, democratic order in less breathless treatment from insightful academic which it remained firmly atop the international observers and former U.S. officials.6 But even from hierarchy. It would discourage any competitor from some scholars, the DPG has continued to draw challenging for global leadership. It would prevent sharp invective. One leading diplomatic historian emerging or resurgent threats from disrupting a has critiqued the DPG as a radical rejection of broadly favorable environment. And to protect this and a plan for Washington to serve advantageous global order, America would retain as the world’s policeman.7 Another has termed it unrivaled power. In essence, the DPG a program to “remake the world,” “exterminate outlined an unabashed program for perpetuating the evil-doers,” and forge “the Second American U.S. primacy.2 Empire.”8 As former Undersecretary of Defense For this reason, and also because it immediately for Policy Eric Edelman observes, “Probably no became caught up in election-year politics, the DPG defense planning document since the end of World ignited controversy when it was leaked, drawing War II, with the possible exception of NSC-68…has harsh appraisals from critics on both the left and received as much attention and discussion.”9 right. Democratic Sen. Joseph Biden condemned Yet if the DPG has long been a fount of

1 This article significantly expands on arguments first made in the author’s recent book. See Hal Brands, Making the Unipolar Moment: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Rise of the Post-Cold War Order (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2016). 2 See Draft of FY 94-99 Defense Planning Guidance (DPG), in Vesser to Secretaries of Military Departments, CJCS, et al., Feb. 18, 1992, Electronic Briefing Book (EBB) 245, National Security Archive (NSA). 3 Barton Gellman, “Keeping the U.S. First,” Washington Post, March 11, 1992. 4 Quoted in Joshua Muravchik, The Imperative of American Leadership: A Challenge to Neo-Isolationism (Washington: American Enterprise Institute Press, 1996), 136. 5 Craig Unger, The Fall of the House of Bush: The Untold Story of How a Band of True Believers Seized the Executive Branch, Started the , and Still Imperils America’s Future (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007), 148; David Armstrong, “’s Song of America: Drafting a Plan for Global Dominance,” Harper’s, October 2002, 76, https://harpers.org/archive/2002/10/dick-cheneys-song-of-america/. 6 See Melvyn P. Leffler, “Dreams of Freedom, Temptations of Power,” in The Fall of the Berlin Wall: The Revolutionary Legacy of 1989, ed. Jeffrey A. Engel (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 132-69; Eric S. Edelman, “The Strange Career of the 1992 Defense Planning Guidance,” in In Uncertain Times: American Policy After the Berlin Wall and 9/11, edited by Melvyn P. Leffler and Jeffrey W. Legro (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2011); Paul Wolfowitz, “Shaping the Future: Planning at the Pentagon, 1989-1993,” in In Uncertain Times, edited by Leffler and Legro, 44-62; Zalmay Khalilzad, The Envoy: From Kabul to the , My Journey Through a Turbulent World (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2016), Chapter 7; James Mann, Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet (New York: Penguin, 2004), 198-215. 7 Lloyd Gardner, The Long Road to Baghdad: A History of U.S. Foreign Policy From the 1970s to the Present (New York: The New Press, 2008), 98-100. 8 Richard Immerman, Empire for Liberty: A History of American Imperialism From Benjamin Franklin to Paul Wolfowitz (Princeton: Press, 2012), 218-20. 9 Edelman, “Strange Career,” 63. There is also a smaller body of literature arguing that the DPG was not as important as all this attention might make it seem. See, for instance, Ionut Popescu, Emergent Strategy and Grand Strategy: How American Presidents Succeed in Foreign Policy Hal Brands (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017), 123-25. 10 The Scholar 11

controversy, only now is declassification of relevant ways, the logical culmination of that thinking. From opportunities to lock in its Cold War victory many critics alleged — exploited America’s postwar U.S. government records making it possible to fully the outset, Bush and his advisers had believed that and shape a uniquely favorable international largesse and was poised to displace Washington as understand the document’s role in the development America should not pull back geopolitically as the environment, but they also raised the specter of global economic leader. “The Cold War is over,” of U.S. strategic thinking about the post-Cold War Cold War ended. Rather, they insisted that America upheaval and instability. In these circumstances, one common saying went. “ and era during the administration of George H.W. Bush. should lean forward to advance its interests and the administration concluded that a grand strategy won.”12 Moreover, given that many features of That development actually began before the Cold based on consensual and preeminent American America’s globalism had emerged in the context of War ended, as the administration pondered the leadership offered the best — indeed the only — the superpower contest with Moscow, the winding requirements of U.S. security and global order in approach for grabbing hold of great possibilities, down of that competition produced calls for a a remarkably fluid environment. It subsequently while also ensuring that one period of great danger reassessment of Washington’s global role. continued amid profound international crises did not simply lead to another. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, commentators in Europe and the Persian Gulf, which led Third, the choice of a primacist strategy was, on as varied as Jeane Kirkpatrick and Patrick Buchanan the administration to refine key aspects of its the whole, a reasonable one. That choice was based on the right, and Bill Clinton and Al Gore on the geopolitical thinking. That thinking was brought on a plausible and intellectually defensible reading left, argued for greater strategic restraint, based on into more comprehensive form with the DPG, of what the end of the Cold War meant for the the idea that America lacked the ability or the need which outlined a holistic approach to post-Cold world and for U.S. policy. Moreover, the problems to carry on such an ambitious global project after War strategy and which was — despite the public of American primacy over the past 25 years should the Cold War. There was “a widespread awareness furor sparked by its disclosure — broadly affirmed not obscure the fact that some key premises of the that we have come to the end of the postwar era,” by the administration during its final months. strategy devised by the Bush administration held Clinton said in 1988. “We don’t dominate as we once The DPG, then, did not stand alone. It was one up relatively well over time. Whether American did.”13 Likewise, Kirkpatrick argued in a prominent important piece of the larger process by which the primacy and the international system it supports article in 1990 that “it is time to give up the dubious Bush administration crafted a strategy of American will continue to endure amid the growing challenges benefits of superpower status” and again become primacy. values and ward off new or resurgent dangers. In the United States confronts today remains to be “a normal country in a normal time.”14 This essay re-creates that process, examining the their view, the United States should double down seen. But with a quarter-century of hindsight, the As the 1980s ended, calls for retrenchment were evolution of Bush-era strategic thinking. It explores on the globalist endeavors of the post-World War Bush administration’s strategic thinking — with often accompanied by demands for dramatic the more formal planning and strategy processes II era in the favorable but uncertain climate of the the DPG as its most candid articulation — seems reductions in America’s alliance commitments, the administration undertook, as well as the ways post-Cold War world. These core themes were fairly incisive. overseas presence, and military spending. that key crises, long-standing beliefs, and other reinforced by two international crises — Analysts with respected think tanks such as the influences shaped official views of America’s place the collapse of the Berlin Wall and reunification of , and even former secretaries in the post-Cold War world. It does so primarily Germany, and the Persian Gulf crisis and war — Early Thinking About Post- of defense such as Harold Brown, suggested that by examining newly declassified documents that which underscored the logic of American primacy. Cold War Strategy the United States could reduce defense spending illuminate the administration’s strategic outlook In this context, the DPG served primarily to weave by as much as half if the Soviet threat continued and offer a more detailed portrait of how America together the various intellectual threads of U.S. In retrospect, the choice of a primacist grand to fade.15 Democrat Charles Schumer, then a U.S. selected a unipolar strategy for a unipolar order. strategic thinking. The document’s sharp language strategy can seem overdetermined or even representative from New York, talked about This is an important subject for historians. and undisguised ambition provoked concern inevitable, given the many influences that “deep reductions in the defense budget.”16 Other Although political scientists widely agree that the and criticism (including from some within the ultimately pushed the Bush administration in that respected congressional observers, such as Sen. United States pursued a strategy meant to sustain administration), but its basic content represented direction. But as the Cold War ended, there was a Sam Nunn and Rep. Les Aspin, called for lesser its geopolitical preeminence after the Cold War, merely the most unvarnished and coherent wide-ranging public debate over what international but still significant cuts.17 These arguments were and historians have begun to analyze how key articulation of an assertive approach to post-Cold role America should play. Paul Kennedy’s 1987 contested by defense hawks and analysts, such as initiatives such as German reunification served War geopolitics. best-seller, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, the neoconservative pundit Charles Krauthammer, this objective, there has yet to be a comprehensive Second, this primacist strategy flowed from had popularized the notion that America risked who argued for a more muscular approach to the examination, based on the archival record, of how a potent mix of influences. It had its deepest succumbing to “imperial overstretch” brought post-Cold War world.18 But throughout the late that strategy emerged.10 This essay not only puts roots in ingrained beliefs about the imperative on by excessive global commitments.11 These 1980s and early 1990s, demands would persist the DPG in its proper context; it also traces the of promoting American values abroad and the arguments were often reinforced by the rise of for a substantial “peace dividend” and a more origins of America’s approach to the post-Cold War long-standing U.S. role in upholding the liberal economic competitors such as Japan, which had — circumscribed U.S. foreign policy. world. international order that had emerged after World Three arguments emerge from this analysis. War II. As Bush’s presidency unfolded, these firmly 11 Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (New York: Vintage, 1987); Peter Schmeisser, “Taking Stock: Is America in Decline?” New York Times, April 17, 1988, http://www.nytimes.com/1988/04/17/magazine/taking-stock-is-america-in-decline.html?pagewanted=all. First, the DPG was not, as is commonly believed, held ideas were reinforced by strong perceptions of 12 Quoted in Homer A. Neal, Tobin Smith, and Jennifer McCormick, Beyond Sputnik: U.S. Science Policy in the Twenty-First Century (Ann Arbor: a radical document or an outlier from Bush both opportunity and danger. Events of the Bush University of Press, 2008), 81. administration strategic thinking. It was, in many years made clear that America had tantalizing 13 Schmeisser, “Taking Stock: Is America in Decline?”; Patrick Buchanan, “America First — and Second, and Third,” National Interest 19 (Spring 1990): 77-82. 10 Political scientists differ considerably on whether that strategy has been wise. See, variously, Barry Posen, Restraint: A New Foundation for 14 Jeane Kirkpatrick, “A Normal Country in a Normal Time,” National Interest 21 (Fall 1990): 40-44. U.S. Grand Strategy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2014); John Mearsheimer, “Imperial by Design,” National Interest 111 (January/February 2011): 15 See Patrick Tyler, “Halving Defense Budget in Decade Suggested,” Washington Post, Nov. 21, 1989. 16-34; Peter Feaver, “American Grand Strategy at the Crossroads: Leading From the Front, Leading From Behind, or Not Leading at All,” in America’s Path: Grand Strategy for the Next Administration, eds. Richard Fontaine and Kristin Lord (Washington: Center for a New American Security, 2012), 16 Alan Murray and Jeffrey Birnbaum, “Post-Cold War Budget Is Here, So Where Is the Peace Dividend?” Wall Street Journal, Jan. 29, 1990. 59-70. On German reunification and NATO expansion, see Mary Elise Sarotte, “Perpetuating U.S. Preeminence: The 1990 Deals to ‘Bribe the Soviets 17 Patrick Tyler and Molly Moore, “Soviet Defense Spending Cut As Promised, CIA Reports,” Washington Post, Nov. 15, 1989; Helen Dewar, “Nunn Out’ and Move NATO In,” International Security 35, no. 1 (2010): 110-37; Joshua Shifrinson, “Deal or No Deal? The End of the Cold War and the U.S. Warns Pentagon to Fill Blanks in Budget,” Washington Post, March 23, 1990. Offer to Limit NATO Expansion,” International Security 40, no. 4 (Spring 2016): 7-44. 18 Charles Krauthammer, “Universal Dominion: Toward a Unipolar World,” National Interest 18 (Winter 1989-1990): 46-49. 12 The Scholar 13

This was not, however, the approach that the War. They believed that U.S. engagement had been Bush administration chose. Amid the erosion and essential to defeating and communism, to eventual collapse of the Soviet bloc in Eastern reconciling former enemies and taming historical Europe, Bush and his top aides were consumed antagonisms in Europe and after 1945, and to with superpower relations and crisis management providing the climate of security and prosperity almost from the outset of his presidency, and key in which the West had thrived.22 And just as the officials — Bush included — sometimes seemed drafters of NSC-68 had written that U.S. leadership wary of declaring the bipolar competition over would be needed “even if there were no Soviet during much of 1989.19 Even so, during the first threat,” the Bush administration believed that the 18 months of Bush’s presidency U.S. officials imperative of maintaining and advancing a stable, frequently discussed — in forums both public and liberal world environment would outlast the Cold private, in ways both systematic and not — what War. “America has set in motion the major changes sort of international environment might follow the under way in the world today,” Bush asserted in Cold War and what strategic approach Washington 1988. “No other nation, or group of nations, will should take in that environment. And even when the step forward to assume leadership.”23 Or, as a senior outlines of the post-Cold War world were but dimly National Security Council staffer put it in early apparent, these discussions converged around an 1990, “it’s not as though somehow our postwar unmistakable theme: that the United States should responsibilities have ended and our mission is at not retrench geopolitically, but should lean forward a conclusion” even though the Soviet threat was to exploit advantageous change, repress incipient waning.24 dangers, and mold the new international order. From the time Bush took office, these ingrained From the start, the sources of this idea were ideas were reinforced by perceptions of prevailing ideological as well as geopolitical. Like countless international trends. In some ways, these changes U.S. officials before him, Bush believed that seemed all to the good. The ebbing of superpower America had a distinctive moral calling to advance tensions was removing long-standing threats to human freedom and well-being and that this American interests and raising the possibility that responsibility required a self-confident, assertive the Cold War would soon end decisively, on U.S. foreign policy. “We just must not lose sight…of terms. “Containment is being vindicated,” an early our own raison d’etre as a nation,” he had written classified directive signed by Bush stated, “as the in his diary in 1975. “We must be Americans. We peoples of the world reject the outmoded dogma of must be what we are.”20 Indeed, while Bush was Marxism-Leninism in a search for prosperity and generally not considered a highly ideological figure, freedom.”25 Looking beyond superpower relations, he was certainly part of a long-standing ideological the rapid spread of democracy and free markets consensus on the moral necessity of U.S. power. over the previous decade had rendered the America had been the “dominant force for good international environment more reflective of U.S. in the world,” Bush declared during his 1988 values and created openings to advance American campaign, and would remain so in the future.21 security and influence. In the coming years, Robert The administration’s early thinking was equally Zoellick, then State Department counselor, wrote framed by another enduring idea: that American in 1989, “we must concentrate on building a new power was indispensable to the preservation of a age of peace, democracy, and economic liberty.”26 stable, prosperous, democratic world order. Bush Bush himself asked in a major speech in May of and key aides such as Brent Scowcroft and James that year: Baker were products of World War II and the Cold

19 Michael R. Beschloss and , At the Highest Levels: The Inside Story of the End of the Cold War (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1993). 20 Bush Diary, Feb. 15, 1975, in George H.W. Bush, All the Best, George Bush: My Life in Letters and Other Writings (New York, 1999), 215. 21 “Bush: ‘Our Work Is Not Done; Our Force Is Not Spent,’” Washington Post, Aug. 19, 1988. 22 Jeffrey A. Engel, “A Better World…but Don’t Get Carried Away: The Foreign Policy of George H.W. Bush Twenty Years On,” Diplomatic History 34, no. 1 (2010): 25-46. 23 Andrew Rosenthal, “Differing Views of America’s Global Role,” New York Times, Nov. 2, 1988; “A Report to the National Security Council by the Executive Secretariat on United States Objectives and Programs for National Security,” April 14, 1950, https://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/ study_collections/coldwar/documents/pdf/10-1.pdf. 24 “Foreign Press Center Background Briefing,” March 20, 1990, CF00209, Peter Rodman Files, George H.W. Bush Library (GHWBL). 25 National Security Review-3, “Comprehensive Review of U.S.-Soviet Relations,” Feb. 15, 1989, NSR File, GHWBL. 26 RBZ (Robert B. Zoellick) Draft, “Points for Consultations with European Leaders,” Nov. 27, 1989, Box 108, James A. Baker III Papers, Mudd Library, Princeton University. 14 The Scholar 15

What is it we want to see? It is a growing these concerns might eventually grow into first- Strategy also looked past the Cold War, arguing envisioning eventual cuts of approximately 25 community of democracies anchoring order security challenges in their own right. that America must “help shape a new era, one percent in personnel levels, reductions in carrier international peace and stability, and a From the earliest months of the Bush that moves beyond containment and that will battle groups and other power-projection tools, dynamic free-market system generating administration, there was thus a consensus that take us into the next century.” Change — “breath- and withdrawal of portions of the American prosperity and progress on a global scale.27 reduced Cold War tensions did not imply a dramatic taking in its character, dimension, and pace” — contingent in Europe. Yet as Pentagon officials U.S. retrenchment. In January 1989, Secretary of was certain and the United States was likely to stressed, unchallenged U.S. military power At the same time, administration officials also State reminded a Cabinet meeting confront a range of emerging or resurgent threats. underwrote global security commitments, argued that Washington must remain vigilant. that the “U.S. is both an Atlantic and Pacific power But U.S. global interests were enduring and so In early 1989, Bush and his national security with allies in both regions.”32 In July, Bush privately Washington would sustain its core alliances and adviser, Scowcroft, were particularly concerned reassured the South Korean defense minister that forward military deployments in Europe and East that positive changes in Soviet policy under “the U.S. will continue to be a Pacific power with Asia, and it would encourage the further spread Mikhail Gorbachev might ultimately be reversed, many friends in the region.”33 Similarly, he made of democracy and markets, while also taking the confronting Washington with a revived challenge. clear that whatever changes occurred in Europe, lead in addressing new sources of international Bush wrote in an early study directive on U.S. the United States would remain strategically and tension. “The pivotal responsibility for ensuring defense policy: militarily engaged so as to discourage a resurgence the stability of the international balance remains of historical tensions. “West European countries ours,” the National Security Strategy affirmed, It would be reckless to dismantle our see the U.S. presence as stabilizing,” Bush “even as its requirements change in a new era.”35 military strength and the policies that have explained in a conversation with Vaclav Havel of The counterpart to the National Security Strategy helped to make the world less dangerous Czechoslovakia. “Our view…is that we shouldn’t was a major defense review carried out from 1989 dampened long-standing rivalries in key regions, and foolish to assume that all dangers have withdraw and declare peace.”34 The end of the Cold to 1990, largely under the leadership of Gen. Colin and gave Washington immense diplomatic disappeared or that any apparent diminution War might mark a radical break with the past, U.S. Powell, the new chairman of the . leverage. Moreover, while there was now less is irreversible.”28 officials believed, but it should not usher in radical The need for such an exercise was obvious as the chance of war with Moscow, the potential for change in U.S. grand strategy. Rather, Washington easing of superpower tensions exerted downward conflict remained in the Korean Peninsula; the Looking beyond the Soviet Union, there were should essentially double down on its successful pressure on the defense budget. “We know it will Persian Gulf; and even Central America, where other potential threats. “Security threats were not postwar initiatives — the maintenance of alliances get smaller,” said Powell. “That is inevitable.”36 U.S. forces had recently toppled Panamanian invented by the Communist Party of the Soviet and favorable geopolitical balances in key regions, Bush himself argued to resist efforts to “naively dictator Manuel Noriega. The Base Force thus Union,” Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney said, the commitment to playing a leadership role in key cut the muscle out of our defense posture,” but as preserved large-scale overseas deployments in “and threats will remain long after that party’s international institutions, the efforts to shape a early as by late 1989 Cheney was conceding that the Europe and ; maintained the critical gone out of business.”29 Studies commissioned global environment ideologically and economically administration might have to cut as much as $180 air, naval, and logistical capabilities necessary to by the Defense Department in the late 1980s congenial to the United States — in the more billion (out of a total defense budget of roughly dominate the global commons and project power emphasized the potential proliferation of ballistic favorable climate that was emerging. $300 billion) over a period of six years.37 The task, overseas; and preserved intensive research and missiles and weapons of mass destruction (WMD), These themes were ubiquitous as the then, was to fashion a new defense concept that development efforts to sustain America’s military- the eruption of crises and wars in the Middle administration initiated more systematic planning could reconcile the realities of coming budget cuts technological edge, particularly at the higher East or South Asia, the growth of international for post-Cold War strategy. Bush’s first National with the enduring requirements of global stability ends of the conventional spectrum.39 “America terrorism and drug trafficking, and even resurgent Security Strategy was drafted by Scowcroft’s and American influence. “Our challenges,” the must possess forces able to respond to threats economic or political frictions in Europe and East staff in late 1989 and early 1990. It represented 1990 National Security Strategy explained, were in whatever corner of the globe they may occur,” Asia.30 If anything, the breakdown of bipolarity the administration’s first opportunity to offer a to adapt America’s military strength “to a grand Bush said in unveiling the Base Force concept in might encourage such disorder by removing the comprehensive assessment of America’s role in a strategy that looks beyond containment, and to 1990; it must “protect the gains that 40 years of geopolitical constraints that had long structured rapidly evolving world, and it was written as the ensure that our military power, and that of our peace through strength have earned us.”40 world politics. As Peter Rodman, counselor to the administration grappled with momentous changes allies and friends, is appropriate to the new and The logic of the Base Force prefigured a great National Security Council, put it in a background in the Soviet bloc. Unsurprisingly, then, the report more complex opportunities and challenges before deal of post-Cold War strategic thinking. Its key briefing for reporters in early 1990, “We see a dealt at length with those changes, arguing that us.”38 architects — Powell, Lt. Gen. Lee Butler, and new era of uncertainties, new possible sources of they vindicated the containment strategy pursued The result of this process — which emerged others — rooted their recommendations in the idea instability, new concerns.”31 If allowed to fester, since the late 1940s. Yet the National Security after significant bureaucratic and inter-service that the declining Soviet danger might simply be wrangling — was the “Base Force” concept for replaced by the “rise of new hegemonic powers” in sizing the U.S. military. The Base Force accepted regions of strategic importance. They believed that 27 Remarks at U.S. Coast Guard Academy, May 24, 1989. non-trivial reductions in U.S. military power, “the United States was the only power with the 28 NSR-12, “Review of National Defense Strategy,” March 3, 1989, NSR File, GHWBL. 29 Cheney Remarks to American Society of Newspaper Editors, April 4, 1990, Federal News Service transcript. 35 The White House, The National Security Strategy of the United States, March 1990, http://nssarchive.us/national-security-strategy-1990/. 30 See The Future Security Environment: Report of the Future Security Environment Working Group, submitted to the Commission on Integrated 36 Powell Remarks to National Press Club, June 22, 1990, Federal News Service transcript. Long-Term Strategy (Washington: Government Printing Office, October 1988). 37 Alan Murray and David Wessel, “Bush Is Likely to Seek Defense Increase For ’91, Despite Reduction in Tensions,” Wall Street Journal, Nov. 28, 31 “Background Briefing by Senior Administration Official,” March 20, 1990, CF00209, Peter Rodman Files, GHWBL; also Michael Hayden to 1989; David Hoffman, “Bush Cautions Against Big Defense Cuts,” Washington Post, Jan. 13, 1990. Scowcroft, March 15, 1990, CF00209, Peter Rodman Files, GHWBL. 38 National Security Strategy, 1990, 23. 32 “Talking Points: Cabinet Meeting — January 23, 1989,” Box 108, Baker Papers, Princeton. 39 Lorna S. Jaffe, The Development of the Base Force, 1989-1992 (Washington: Joint History Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 33 Memorandum of Conversation (MemCon) between Bush and Lee Sang Hoon, July 20, 1989, OA/AD 91107, Presidential MemCon Files, Brent 1993); Wolfowitz, “Shaping the Future,” 48-54; Michael Gordon, “Pentagon Drafts Strategy for Post-Cold War World,” New York Times, Aug. 2, 1990. Scowcroft Collection, GHBWL. 40 Remarks in Aspen, Colorado, Aug. 2, 1990. Coincidentally, this speech was delivered less than 24 hours after Saddam Hussein’s forces had 34 MemCon between Bush and Vaclav Havel, Feb. 20, 1990, OA/AD 91107, Presidential MemCon Files, Brent Scowcroft Collection, GHBWL. invaded Kuwait. 16 The Scholar 17

capacity to manage the major forces at work in the opening of the Berlin Wall in November. That event sense, the breakdown of Soviet rule in Eastern the administration encouraged Kohl to move world.” And so they concluded that a high degree raised the prospect of German reunification, which Europe provided a breathtaking demonstration of briskly toward reunification, while also pressing of military dominance was critical to preserving the then proceeded via an internal track made up of just how immense the possibilities might be in this Moscow to accept reunification within NATO and international stability and geopolitical gains offered rapidly increasing ties between the two German emerging era. “We were witnessing the sorts of decisively rejecting Soviet proposed alternatives by the end of the Cold War. In fact, the “Base Force” states, and an external track of multilateral changes usually only imposed by victors at the end such as a neutralized Germany. As they did so, label was meant to make clear that there was a diplomacy primarily involving the United States, of a major war,” Scowcroft later wrote in his memoir. American officials treated Gorbachev with great minimum level of military primacy below which , Britain, and the Soviet Union. By the fall Reunification on Western terms, he had observed respect in their bilateral dealings, and Bush and America “dare not go” (as Powell put it) if it were of 1990, Germany was reunified within NATO, and contemporaneously, in November 1989, would “rip Kohl arranged for concessions — especially to maintain and expand the stable, liberalizing the Warsaw Pact was disintegrating as countries the heart out of the Soviet security system” in German financial assistance to Moscow — to ensure international order that Washington had built in the throughout Eastern Europe initiated democratic Eastern Europe and mark a “fundamental shift in Soviet acquiescence. Yet the guiding assumption West after World War II. “What we plan for,” Powell and free-market reforms and requested withdrawal the strategic balance.”47 Moreover, the transitions remained that Washington and its allies must move subsequently explained of the strategy, “is that of Soviet troops. In roughly a year, the bipolar underway in Eastern Europe were underscoring decisively to lock in epochal changes. “There is we’re a superpower. We are the major player on the order in Europe had been transformed.42 the possibility for further advances by free markets so much change in Eastern Europe,” Bush said in world stage with responsibilities around the world, U.S. policy played little role in initiating those and free political systems. “We are witnessing January 1990. “We should seize the opportunity to with interests around the world.” All of these ideas transformations. Bush admitted to Gorbachev the transformation of almost every state in make things better for the world.”50 would figure prominently in subsequent Pentagon in December 1989, “We were shocked by the Eastern Europe into more democratic societies, The process of German reunification thus offered planning efforts under Bush and later.41 swiftness of the changes that unfolded.”43 As events dominated by pluralistic political systems matched tantalizing opportunities to ensure American Early in Bush’s presidency, then, there was broad raced ahead, however, the administration became to decentralized economies,” Scowcroft wrote in a dominance in post-Cold War Europe. At the internal agreement that America would continue to deeply engaged, endorsing and actively pushing for memo to the president.48 same time, that process also reinforced the idea act as guarantor and stabilizer of the international German reunification under Western auspices. “No This prospect was a principal driver of U.S. policy that such strategic assertiveness was necessary system. It would encourage favorable trends, hold approach on our part toward Germany is without in 1989 and 1990. U.S. officials studiously engaged to manage emerging dangers. Reunification was back threatening ones, and keep the unequaled hard risk,” Scowcroft wrote in a memo to Bush, “but at Moscow in the multilateral diplomacy surrounding deeply worrying to Poland, France, the United power necessary to do so effectively. This mind-set this point the most dangerous course of all for the reunification, and they carefully avoidedKingdom, and the Soviet Union, which feared that would influence how the administration approached United States may be to allow others to set the humiliating Gorbachev over the catastrophic a united Germany might once again dominate key crises in 1989-1990. Those crises, in turn, would shape and character of a united Germany and or retreat of Soviet influence. Privately, however, Bush Europe. As NATO Secretary General Manfred sharpen official views on America’s global role. the future structure of European security.”44 By and Scowcroft intended to exploit U.S. strength Wörner privately warned Bush as the diplomacy mid-1990 and after, the administration was even surrounding reunification heated up, considering eventual expansion of NATO further “The Old Pandora’s box of competition The Collapse of the Bloc into the former Warsaw Pact area to discourage and rivalry in Europe” might be and German Reunification post-Cold War instability and foster political and reopened.51 More broadly, there were economic reform.45 widespread fears that the collapse of The first such crisis involved the collapse of the Existing scholarship has explored the contours Soviet authority in Eastern Europe could Soviet empire in Eastern Europe and the redrawing of U.S. policy on these issues.46 More salient here is unleash ethnic violence or resurgent of the region’s political map. This crisis began in that events in Europe in 1989 and 1990 powerfully nationalist rivalries within that region. mid-1989, with the accelerating breakdown of interacted with the main currents in American “The outlines of ancient European the Communist regimes, and intensified with the thinking about the post-Cold War world. In one antagonisms are already beginning to emerge,” Scowcroft wrote in late 1989. A 41 Don Oberdorfer, “Strategy for Solo Superpower: Pentagon Looks to ‘Regional Contingencies,’” Washington Post, May 19, 1991; Jaffe, “power vacuum is developing” as Soviet Development of the Base Force, 7-8, 29. For a similar assessment, see Joint Chiefs of Staff, National Military Strategy of the United States (January influence receded.52 1992), http://history.defense.gov/Portals/70/Documents/nms/nms1992.pdf?ver=2014-06-25-123420-723. and Soviet weakness to remake the European For the Bush administration, these concerns 42 See State Department Bureau of Public Affairs, “Movement Toward German Unification, March 1989-July 1990,” Box 2, Zelikow-Rice Files, , . order on American terms. “The Soviets are not in powerfully underscored the need not to retract U.S. 43 Excerpts from Soviet Transcript of Malta , Dec. 2-3, 1989, EBB 296, NSA. a position to dictate Germany’s relationship with influence but to maintain and expand it. By this 44 Scowcroft to Bush, undated, CF00182, Robert Blackwill Files, GHWBL. NATO,” Bush said at a meeting with West German logic, keeping a reunified Germany within NATO Chancellor Helmut Kohl in early 1990. “To hell with would preclude resurgent instability by tying the new 45 The debate over what, precisely, the Bush administration promised Moscow regarding future NATO enlargement during 1989 to 1990 has 49 generated a substantial literature of its own. What can briefly be said here is that Washington never provided the Soviets with a formal pledge that. We prevailed and they didn’t.” Accordingly, German state to the West and thereby eliminating the that NATO would not expand further into Eastern Europe, and U.S. policymakers certainly did not believe that they were constrained from doing so. During negotiations with Gorbachev in February 1990, Baker did float — as a trial balloon — the idea that Moscow might accept reunification of Germany within NATO in exchange for NATO not expanding its military structures into the former East Germany. But even that more limited 47 Scowcroft to Bush, Nov. 29, 1989, OA/ID 91116, Chron Files, Brent Scowcroft Collection, GHWBL; George Bush and Brent Scowcroft, A World assurance was overtaken within days as it quickly became clear that a reunified Germany could not sit half inside and half outside of NATO. The Transformed (New York: Vintage, 1999), 230. argument that the United States subsequently violated an agreement not to expand NATO is, therefore, inaccurate. Some Russian observers, however, may have believed that there was some type of informal understanding on NATO expansion (in part because, in early 1990, West German 48 Scowcroft to Bush, undated (late 1989), OA/ID 91116, Chron Files, Brent Scowcroft Collection, GHWBL; also Bush to Kohl, undated, CF00717, officials sometimes floated this idea publicly), and theperception that such an assurance had existed played some role in the subsequent souring of Files, GHWBL. U.S.-Russian relations. Moreover, in the early 1990s, the Clinton administration appears to have told Russian officials that expansion was not being 49 Bush and Scowcroft, World Transformed, 253. contemplated, which led to increased Russian annoyance once expansion unfolded. See Mark Kramer, “The Myth of a No-NATO-Enlargement Pledge to Russia,” Washington Quarterly 32, no. 2 (2009): 39-61; Mary Elise Sarotte, “Not One Inch Eastward? Bush, Baker, Kohl, Genscher, Gorbachev, 50 MemCon between Bush and Douglas Hurd, Jan. 29, 1990, OA/ID 91107, Presidential MemCon Files, Brent Scowcroft Collection, GHWBL. See and the Origin of Russian Resentment Toward NATO Enlargement in February 1990,” Diplomatic History 34, no. 1 (2010): 119-40; James Goldgeier, also Sarotte, “Perpetuating U.S. Preeminence”; Joshua Shifrinson, “Deal or No Deal?” “Promises Made, Promises Broken? What Yeltsin Was Told About NATO in 1993 and Why It Matters,” War on the Rocks, July 12, 2016, https:// 51 MemCon between Bush and Wörner, Feb. 24, 1990, OA/ID 91107, Presidential MemCon Files, Brent Scowcroft Collection, GHWBL; also warontherocks.com/2016/07/promises-made-promises-broken-what-yeltsin-was-told-about--in-1993-and-why-it-matters/. Gorbachev-Mitterrand TelCon, Nov. 14, 1989, EBB 293, NSA; Thatcher-Gorbachev Conversation, Sept. 23, 1989, EBB 293, NSA; Meeting between Kohl 46 See Mary Elise Sarotte, 1989: The Struggle to Create Post-Cold War Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009); Philip Zelikow and and Walesa, Nov. 10, 1989, Cold War International History Project. Condoleezza Rice, Germany Unified and Europe Transformed: A Study in Statecraft (Cambridge: Press, 1995). 52 Scowcroft to Bush, Dec. 22, 1989, OA/ID 91116, Chron Files, Brent Scowcroft Collection, GHWBL. 18 The Scholar 19

competitive security dynamics that might otherwise simply does not make sense.”56 Even the Soviets and emerge. As Baker warned, “Unless we find a way their erstwhile allies agreed. Although he initially to truly anchor Germany in European institutions resisted German reunification within NATO (and we will sow the seeds for history to repeat itself.”53 Moscow would later object to NATO expansion during Moreover, integrating a reunified Germany into NATO the 1990s and after), Gorbachev ultimately concluded would ensure that the alliance remained relevant after that a united Germany tied to Washington was the Cold War, thereby also ensuring a continued role preferable to an independent, neutral Germany. “The for U.S. power in Europe. The alternatives, Scowcroft presence of American troops can play a containing warned Bush in a key memorandum, were dangerous: role,” Gorbachev acknowledged in a conversation with “Twentieth century history gives no encouragement Baker.57 And as early as the spring of 1990, Warsaw to those who believe the Europeans can achieve and Pact countries such as Poland and Hungary were sustain this balance of power and keep the peace inquiring about eventual NATO membership as a without the United States.”54 guarantee of their own security.58 From late 1989 onward, this perspective propelled The United States did not immediately undertake efforts not simply to bring a reunified Germany into NATO expansion in the early 1990s, largely for NATO but also to adapt that alliance to preserve its fear of antagonizing Moscow at a time when Soviet utility after the Cold War. Amid German reunification, troops had yet to be fully withdrawn from Eastern the Bush administration secured alliance reforms Europe, and because U.S. officials had yet to study or meant to make a strong and vibrant NATO more debate the issue in sufficient detail to reach internal acceptable to a retreating Soviet Union. The alliance consensus.59 But even in 1990 and 1991, the Bush adjusted its force posture to take account of the administration was tentatively taking exploratory decreasing Soviet threat, deemphasized the role of steps, such as extending NATO military liaison nuclear weapons, and stressed NATO’s political (as relationships to the bloc countries, and the basic opposed to strictly military) functions. Likewise, the geopolitical logic of expansion was starting to take administration took steps to accommodate European hold. The Office of the Secretary of Defense and the desires for greater influence over their own security State Department Policy Planning Staff believed, as affairs in the post-Cold War era, while reaffirming the National Security Council’s director for European NATO’s primacy on European defense. “Our essential security affairs, Philip Zelikow, put it in October 1990, goal,” noted one administration strategy memo from that it was important “to keep the door ajar and not 1990, was “a viable NATO that is the foundation for give the East Europeans the impression that NATO Atlantic cooperation on political and security concerns is forever a closed club.”60 Internal documents argued In several respects, then, the European crisis of an equally pronounced impact on U.S. views of and maintains the position of the United States as a that expansion would help avoid nationalist frictions 1989 to 1990 underscored and helped to clarify key the post-Cold War order. On Aug. 2, 1990, Saddam European power.55 and security dilemmas in Eastern Europe. Moreover, elements of Bush administration thinking. This Hussein’s forces invaded Kuwait in a bid to bring What made this goal achievable was that there as one State Department official subsequently wrote episode reinforced the idea that U.S. ascendancy that oil-rich kingdom under Iraqi control and was widespread European support for a strong and in 1992, and the weakening of traditional rivals had created thereby redress the Baathist regime’s desperate perhaps expanded U.S. role. Although the French did a moment of transition in which Washington could financial and domestic plight. The United States, seek a more independent European security identity Democratization and economic development act decisively to achieve lasting structural changes. however, promptly spearheaded a decisive as the Cold War ended, neither they nor any other ally have a better chance of succeeding if national It affirmed the notion that American influence response. The Bush administration mobilized a sought the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Europe. As security concerns in the Eastern democracies and U.S.-led institutions could serve a critical diverse diplomatic coalition against Iraq while also British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd would say in were reduced by credible, multilateral security stabilizing purpose amid geopolitical uncertainty. coordinating a multinational military deployment 1990, “European security without the United States guarantees.61 Finally, this episode offered evidence for the idea used first to protect Saudi Arabia and then to evict that insofar as U.S. power promoted stability in Saddam from Kuwait. Washington would ultimately

53 Bush and Scowcroft, World Transformed, 273. the international system, its maintenance and deploy nearly 550,000 personnel, 2,000 tanks, even expansion after the Cold War might be more 1,990 aircraft, and 100 warships to the Persian 54 Scowcroft to Bush, Dec. 22, 1989, OA/ID 91116, Chron Files, Brent Scowcroft Collection, GHWBL. welcomed than resisted. Many of these ideas Gulf. Its coalition partners would contribute 55 Zelikow to Gates, Nov. 28, 1990, OA/ID CF00293, Heather Wilson Files, GHWBL; also “President’s Intervention on the Transformation of the North Atlantic Alliance,” July 1990, CF00290, Heather Wilson Files, GHWBL. would soon reappear in the American reaction to a 270,000 troops, 66 warships, 750 combat aircraft, 56 to State, Dec. 11, 1990, CF01468, Philip Zelikow Files, GHWBL. second major international crisis. and 1,100 tanks. When, after several months 57 Gorbachev-Baker Meeting, Feb. 9. 1990, in Masterpieces of History: The Peaceful End of the Cold War in Europe, 1989, eds. Svetlana of military preparations and crisis diplomacy, Savranskaya, Thomas Blanton, and Vladislav Zubok (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2010), 683; also USDEL Secretary Namibia to Saddam refused to withdraw, the U.S.-led coalition State, March 20, 1990, Department of State FOIA Electronic Reading Room. The Persian Gulf Crisis and War prosecuted a brief but punishing war to force him 58 “Summit Intervention Statement,” undated (1991), CF01693, Summit Briefing Books, NSC Files, GHWBL; also Sicherman to Ross and Zoellick, out. That conflict did not ultimately oust Saddam March 12, 1990, Box 176, Baker Papers, Princeton; MemCon between Baker and Mr. Balladur, June 3, 1991, Box 110, Baker Papers, Princeton. The Persian Gulf crisis and war of 1990 to 1991 from power, as some U.S. officials had hoped, but 59 “Points to Be Made for Working Dinner With Prime Minister Mulroney in ,” undated, CF01010-CF01010-009, Briefing Books/Briefing Materials, European and Soviet Directorate Files, GHWBL. followed hard upon German reunification. It had it did liberate Kuwait and leave Iraq far weaker and 60 Zelikow to Gates, Oct. 26, 1990, OA/ID CF00293, Heather Wilson Files, NSC Files, GHWBL. 61 Stephen Flanagan to Ross and Zoellick, May 1, 1992, OA/ID CF01526, Barry Lowenkron Files, GHWBL; also “Rome Declaration on Peace and Cooperation,” Nov. 8, 1991, CF01526, Barry Lowenkron Files, GHWBL. 20 The Scholar 21

more isolated than before.62 to maintain globe-spanning military power, capable U.S. bill of $61.1 billion.70 This historic multilateral other administration planning documents. In If German reunification primarily demonstrated of “rapid response” to crises.66 Similarly, officials support for U.S. policy was partially a function the meantime, the war underscored just how the opportunities of the new era, the Gulf continually reiterated that U.S. engagement was of easing Cold War gridlock in the U.N. Security pronounced that primacy was. Saddam’s roughly crisis primarily highlighted the dangers. Most essential to ensuring that the end of bipolarity Council and partially reflected the heinous nature million-man army was eviscerated by U.S. forces, immediately, Saddam’s invasion threatened ushered in something better and not something of Saddam’s aggression. Yet it also showed that which had built advanced, high-tech weapons and the security of critical Gulf oil supplies. It also worse. “We did not stand united for forty years the energetic use of U.S. power was widely seen capabilities for use against the Soviets in Central highlighted larger post-Cold War perils. The crisis to bring the Cold War to a peaceful end in order as vital to upholding stability and safeguarding Europe and were now deploying them against a showed, as Bush noted in a speech on Aug. 2, that to make the world safe for the likes of Saddam public goods such as global oil flows in the post- weaker regional adversary. In particular, the Gulf “threats…can arise suddenly, unpredictably, and Hussein,” Baker said in late 1990. America should Cold War era. “We are protecting their interest as War showcased American dominance in high- from unexpected quarters.”63 More specifically, defend the position of strategic advantage that its well as ours,” one administration memo explained, intensity conventional conflict, made possible by the invasion raised the prospect that aggressive Cold War victory had enabled.67 “and it is only fair that they share the burden.”71 unparalleled strengths in capabilities ranging from dictatorships, armed with unconventional The Gulf crisis further affirmed that belief by Foreign officials acknowledged this dynamic. “The precision-guided munitions to infra-red technology. weapons, might exploit the fluidity of the post- revealing, far more starkly than before, that only Japanese people, in the last 45 years, have been It further demonstrated how the training and Cold War world to make bold plays for hegemony Washington could play the crucial stabilizing used to peace provided by you,” Prime Minister doctrinal reforms made since Vietnam had allowed in crucial regions. Saddam “has clearly done what role. For all the talk during the 1980s about the Kaifu Toshiki told Bush at a meeting in September U.S. forces to utilize these capabilities with he has to do to dominate OPEC, the Gulf and the economic rise of Japan and Germany, when the 1990. The Gulf crisis showed that this reliance had astonishing lethality. As one postwar assessment Arab world,” Cheney said at a National Security Gulf crisis broke only America was uniquely hardly ended.72 noted, Operation Desert Storm revealed that Council meeting on Aug. 3.64 capable of spearheading a decisive multilateral The realization that Washington had a chance America had achieved “a revolutionary advance in This fear of incipient chaos and destabilizing response. U.S. diplomacy was central to mobilizing to establish a model of assertive but consensual military capability.”75 Combined with the fact that aggression pushed U.S. officials toward a strong the coalition by providing subsidies for primacy was at the forefront of U.S. policy in the the Soviet Union, consumed by internal turmoil, response. “This is the first test of the post [-Cold] key members such as Egypt, offering diplomatic Gulf crisis. The administration’s multilateralism had largely been left on the sidelines, the result was war system,” Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence cover to vulnerable participants, and persuading and talk of a “New World Order” sometimes to display just how significant the emerging post- reluctant actors such as gave the impression that Bush believed that the Cold War power disparity was between Washington the Soviet Union and United Nations would be the primary provider of and any potential rival. “The U.S. clearly emerges not to stand in the international security in the 1990s.73 Yet in reality, from all of this as the one real superpower in the way.68 U.S. power was even that multilateralism rested on a growing belief that world,” Cheney observed in April 1991.76 more central in the military the end of the Cold War was making it possible to Ironically, this military dominance did not arena: No other country gain broader international support — including secure quite the result U.S. officials had sought, as had the forces necessary to through institutions such as the United Nations Saddam Hussein survived the war in power, with confront Saddam in his own — for energetic American leadership in pursuit of a much-reduced but still-threatening military. The backyard. “It’s only the United both U.S. interests and global security. As Bush and Bush administration declined the opportunity to States that can lead,” Bush noted Scowcroft later acknowledged, their diplomacy was double down on operational success by pursuing in his diary in September. “All meant to give “a cloak of acceptability to our efforts Saddam’s forces to Baghdad or otherwise explicitly countries in the West clearly have and mobilize world opinion behind the principles seeking regime change. In part, this was because to turn to us.”69 we wished to project.” Scowcroft expanded on the administration hoped — and had, from What the Gulf crisis equally this idea. “The United States henceforth would intelligence sources, some reason to believe — demonstrated was robust global be obligated to lead the world community to that the historic drubbing Saddam had suffered demand for such U.S. leadership. an unprecedented degree,” he wrote. It should would cause the Iraqi military to overthrow him. Eagleburger commented. “If [Saddam] succeeds, Twenty-seven nations ultimately provided military therefore “pursue our national interest, wherever “We genuinely believed…that the magnitude of the others may try the same thing. It would be a bad forces for the coalition effort. Coalition partners possible, within a framework of concert with our defeat was so overwhelming that the army would lesson.”65 As early as Aug. 2, Bush framed the crisis also provided $53.8 billion in monetary support friends and the international community.”74 take out Saddam when the war was over,” Robert as an illustration of why the United States needed and in-kind contributions, nearly covering the total This concept of enlightened American Gates, Bush’s deputy national security adviser, primacy would soon reappear in the DPG and later recalled.77 Bush also mistakenly believed, as 62 Max Boot, War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History, 1500 to Today (New York: Penguin, 2006), 337-38; “Sharing of Responsibility for the Coalition Effort in the Persian Gulf (Feb 8 Update),” OA/ID CF01110 to CF01362, Lampley Files, Box 53, FOIA 1998- 0099-F, GHWBL. Other helpful sources include Lawrence Freedman and Efraim Karsh, The Gulf Conflict, 1990-1991: Diplomacy and War in the New 70 Office of Management and Budget, “United States Costs in the Persian Gulf Conflict and Foreign Contributions to Offset Such Costs,” Report World Order (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993); Kevin Woods, The Mother of All Battles: Saddam Hussein’s Strategic Plan for the Persian No. 20, October 1992, in Darman to Bush, Oct. 15, 1992, Department of Defense FOIA Electronic Reading Room. Gulf War (Annapolis: U.S. Naval Institute Press, 2008); , Circle in the Sand: Why We Went Back to Iraq (New York: Doubleday, 71 “Talking Points” for Bush’s meeting, undated, Box 1, CF00946, Files, GHWBL; also “Executive Summary,” Aug. 27, 1990, Box 1, 2006); Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor, The Generals’ War: The Inside Story of the Conflict in the Gulf (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, CF00946, Robert Gates Files, GHWBL. 1995); and many others. 72 Bush-Kaifu MemCon, Sept. 29, 1990, Digital National Security Archive (DNSA). 63 Remarks in Aspen, Colorado, Aug. 2, 1990, APP. 73 Address Before a Joint Session of Congress on the Persian Gulf Crisis and the Federal Budget Deficit, Sept. 11, 1990. 64 NSC Meeting, Aug. 3, 1990, Richard Haass Files, Box 42, FOIA 1998-0099-F, GHWBL. 74 Bush and Scowcroft, World Transformed, 491, 400. 65 NSC Meeting, Aug. 3, 1990, Richard Haass Files, Box 42, FOIA 1998-0099-F, GHWBL. 75 William J. Perry, “Desert Storm and Deterrence,” Foreign Affairs 70, no. 4 (1991): 66-67, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/iraq/1991-09- 66 Remarks in Aspen, Colorado. As noted previously, this was the same speech in which Bush publicly introduced the Base Force. 01/desert-storm-and-deterrence; also Department of Defense, Conduct of the Persian Gulf War: Final Report to Congress, April 1992, Department 67 James Baker, “America’s Strategy in the Persian Gulf Crisis,” Department of State Dispatch, Dec. 10, 1990, http://dosfan.lib.uic.edu/ERC/ of Defense FOIA Electronic Reading Room. briefing/dispatch/1990/html/Dispatchv1no15.html. 76 Cheney Remarks to American Business Council Conference, April 9, 1991, Federal News Service; also “America’s Postwar Agenda in Europe,” 68 James A. Baker III, The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, War, and Peace, 1989-1992 (New York: Putnam, 1995), 1-16, 275-99. March 1991, CF01468, Zelikow Files, GHWBL. 69 Bush Diary, Sept. 7, 1990, in Bush, All the Best, 479. 77 Robert Gates Oral History, 59, Presidential Oral History Program, Miller Center, University of Virginia. 22 The Scholar 23

he told French officials at the time, that Saddam’s presence in the Gulf — where it had previously Union unraveled, calls for a post-Cold War peace power position. Moreover, the United States led “armor was so decimated that they no longer relied on a light-footprint, “over the horizon” dividend intensified; many observers, including a “system of collective security and…democratic constitute a military threat to their neighbors.”78 approach — as a way of keeping Saddam’s regime most candidates for the Democratic presidential ‘zone of peace’” that bound the developed West Yet from a broader perspective, this restraint owed contained. “Saddam Hussein is sanctioned forever,” nomination, advocated cuts significantly beyond tightly to it. All this amounted to what Cheney to the fact that an administration fully committed Bush told European officials in April 1991.83 And in what the Base Force envisioned. Clinton advocated publicly described as unprecedented “strategic to perpetuating American leadership in the post- general, the Gulf War further set the stage for an cutting military spending by one-third over depth” — a dearth of existential threats, combined Cold War era was also wary of going too far. Bush ambitious post-Cold War strategy. The imperative five years. Former California Gov. Jerry Brown with tremendous leeway and influence in shaping did not want to fragment the Gulf War coalition by of unmatched U.S. military power; the need for advocated a 50 percent cut over the same period; global events.89 exceeding its U.N. mandate. He and his advisers decisive action to head off emergent upheaval; The core aim of U.S. strategy, then, should be to also worried that ridding Iraq of Saddam might the sense that there was no good alternative to extend this situation well into the future. As the require a full-scale military occupation for which American leadership; the evidence that leadership The strategic vision DPG stated: there were no existing plans. “We do not want employed for the collective good could enjoy broad to screw this up with a sloppy, muddled ending,” international acceptance: All of these components conveyed by the Our first objective is to prevent the re- Bush said.79 of the administration’s strategic paradigm gained emergence of a new rival…that poses a This restraint was later criticized, for contrary to strong support from the crisis. As administration DPG was based threat on the order of that formerly posed what Bush and his commanders had expected, a officials subsequently attempted a more systematic by the Soviet Union. This is a dominant significant portion of Saddam’s forces — including expression of post-Cold War policy, they would on an unvarnished consideration…and requires that we elite Republican Guard divisions and Iraqi armor draw heavily on this mind-set. endeavor to prevent any hostile power from — had escaped destruction. Moreover, the war reading of global dominating a region whose resources would, was followed not by a Sunni military coup but by under consolidated control, be sufficient to Shia and Kurdish uprisings that caused Saddam’s To the Defense Planning Guidance power dynamics. generate global power. generals to rally around him as the only figure who could preserve a unified Iraq.80 The Bush Official thinking about such a policy statement Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa called for 50 percent cuts Washington must therefore prevent any adversary administration declined to intervene in this bloody occurred in the context of two key developments over ten years.86 In these circumstances, it seemed from commanding Europe, East Asia, or the Persian civil war, fearful that doing so might fracture the in 1991 and 1992. The first was the terminal decline essential to identify a persuasive paradigm for Gulf; it should prevent a new hostile superpower Iraqi state and bring Iranian-backed Shia groups of the Soviet Union. As scholars have noted, the global engagement after the passing of the Soviet from reasserting control over the territory of the to dominance. The concern, one State Department administration’s policy toward Moscow in 1991 threat. That task fell to the Pentagon — particularly former Soviet Union. The goal, in other words, was adviser recalled, was that “this was going to create a was often hedged and tentative, in part because Wolfowitz’s Office of the Undersecretary of Defense to avoid a return to bipolarity or multipolarity, and new Lebanon.”81 As a result, Saddam clung to power of internal disagreements between the State and for Policy — which attempted to offer a coherent to lock in a U.S.-led unipolar order.90 and remained capable of threatening the Gulf. Defense Departments. Partially as a result, U.S. statement of American purpose in its classified The United States should also seek to sustain and “Even in its presently weakened state,” Assistant policy played only a marginal role in the Soviet Defense Planning Guidance. Wolfowitz’s staff took even improve this unipolar order by thwarting other Secretary of Defense Henry Rowen told the Senate disintegration.84 Yet that disintegration further the drafting of the report as an opportunity to emerging threats and further transforming global Foreign Relations Committee several months after clarified America’s global position. America’s long- assess the “fundamentally new situation” in global politics to American advantage. According to the the conflict, “Iraq is still much stronger than any of standing competitor had collapsed and Washington affairs and to “set the nation’s direction for the DPG, America would “limit international violence” its neighbors to the south.”82 was now without military or ideological peers. “We next century.”87 Preparatory work began as early as by confronting dangers such as regional conflict, In fairness to Bush — and in light of later were suddenly in a unique position,” Scowcroft later mid-1991 and, after the disintegration of the Soviet international terrorism, and the proliferation of U.S. experience invading and occupying Iraq wrote, “without experience, without precedent, Union, Wolfowitz’s staff (led by adviser Zalmay nuclear arms as well as other advanced weapons. — prudence may still have been the better part and standing alone at the height of power.”85 The Khalilzad) drew up a nearly final version by mid- It would also make the international environment of wisdom in 1991. In any event, the somewhat need to articulate a strategy for this new situation February 1992.88 still more congenial by advancing “the spread muddled outcome of the Persian Gulf War simply took on greater salience. The strategic vision conveyed by the DPG of democratic forms of government and open increased the tendency to expand U.S. activism That imperative was strengthened by issues at was based on an unvarnished reading of global economic systems,” particularly in key regions after the Cold War. In particular, it ensured home. The Gulf War had, in many ways, shown the power dynamics. With the “collapse of the Soviet such as the former Soviet Union and Eastern that Washington would retain a sizable military value of U.S. military dominance. Yet as the Soviet Union,” “the discrediting of Communism as an Europe. The Kremlin had “achieved global reach ideology with global pretensions and influence,” and power” because a totalitarian regime had 78 Bush-Dumas MemCon, Feb. 28, 1991, GHWBL. and the success of American arms in the Gulf, consolidated control of the former Soviet Union and 79 Herbert S. Parmet, George Bush: The Life of a Lone Star Yankee (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 2001), 483. See also Gates Oral the United States had established an enviable Eastern Europe. Preventing another such threat History, 59; Richard Cheney Oral History, June 21, 2006, 27, Box 7, Baker Oral History Collection, Mudd Library, Princeton; Alfonsi, Circle in the Sand, 172-76. 86 Alan Murray, “Growth Formulas: Democratic Candidates Offer Host of Proposals to Spark the Economy,” Wall Street Journal, Jan. 6, 1992; 80 See Gordon and Trainor, Generals’ War, 416-29, 444-46. These issues were compounded by the decision of Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf — who “Differences Among the Democratic Candidates,” New York Times, Feb. 16, 1992; Norman Kempster, “U.S. Candidates’ Stand on Foreign Issues,” Los handled the cease-fire negotiations in the absence of detailed instructions — to permit Iraqi forces to fly helicopters in the struggle against Angeles Times, March 17, 1992. rebellious forces. 87 Draft of FY 94-99 DPG; Barton Gellman, “Keeping the U.S. First; Pentagon Would Preclude a Rival Superpower,” Washington Post, March 11, 81 Dennis Ross Oral History, Aug. 2, 2001, 42-43, Presidential Oral History Program, Miller Center, University of Virginia. 1992. The version of the DPG quoted here consists of the text that was released to the National Security Archive through the FOIA process as well 82 Rowen Statement to Senate Foreign Relations Committee, June 6, 1991, CF01391, Virginia Lampley Files, GHWBL. as the text that earlier became available through media leaks. 83 Bush-Santer-Delors MemCon, April 11, 1991, GHWBL. 88 On the process and context, see Wolfowitz, “Shaping the Future”; Edelman, “Strange Career”; see also Popescu, Emergent Strategy and Grand Strategy, 123-25. 84 James M. Goldgeier and Michael McFaul, Power and Purpose: U.S. Policy Toward Russia After the Cold War (Washington: Brookings Institution Press, 2003), 18-40. 89 Draft of FY 94-99 DPG; Cheney Remarks to Senate Budget Committee, Feb. 3, 1992, Federal News Service. 85 Bush and Scowcroft, World Transformed, 564. 90 Draft of FY 94-99 DPG. 24 The Scholar 25

from arising entailed extending the “democratic competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional pursue the DPG strategy? The document was Yet the February 1992 DPG was also still a draft zone of peace” into the former Soviet empire and or global role,” the DPG stated. Finally, given the somewhat fuzzy regarding specifics, but it left no document, and for a time it appeared to be dead on beyond.91 enduring uncertainty of global affairs, unrivaled uncertainty that Washington needed a superiority arrival. Late that month the document leaked to the The DPG was a Pentagon document, but it was military primacy would provide the ability to that was not just unmatched but unrivaled. An New York Times and Washington Post. Reacting to not blind to the fact that achieving these ambitious address emerging threats and dangers before initial draft of the document, from September 1991, the DPG’s more striking language and ideas — which goals would require more than military power. they fundamentally disrupted the post-Cold War had stated that “U.S. forces must continue to be were emphasized in the media reporting — critics Proactive diplomacy and economic statecraft would system. America would not be “righting every at least a generation ahead.”97 The February 1992 lambasted the Pentagon’s blueprint. Biden declared be essential to promoting democracy and markets, wrong,” the document stated, but: version emphasized the imperative of winning that “what these Pentagon planners are laying out is countering terrorism, and impeding proliferation. decisively in confrontations with Saddam-like nothing but a Pax Americana.”100 Sen. Alan Cranston Most important, maintaining American primacy We will retain the preeminent responsibility challengers — who might be armed with nuclear or memorably accused the administration of seeking would require convincing other leading nations to for addressing selectively those wrongs other weapons of mass destruction — as well as the to make America “the one, the only main honcho support rather than oppose it. As Khalilzad wrote, which threaten not only our interests, but role of vast technological superiority in upholding on the world block, the global Big Enchilada.”101 The those of our allies or friends, or which could deterrence. Furthermore, the document affirmed Washington Post editorial board lamented the DPG’s We must account sufficiently for the seriously unsettle international relations.93 that the United States would act on a multilateral “muscle-flexing unilateralism” as a rejection of Gulf interests of the advanced industrial nations basis when possible but that it must be able “to War-era multilateralism.102 Sen. Edward Kennedy to discourage them from challenging our To be clear, the DPG did not advocate act independently when collective action cannot be leadership or seeking to overturn the unrestrained interventionism, for such a view orchestrated or when an immediate response is… established political and economic order. would have been badly out of step with the necessary.”98 The DPG was instincts of key administration leaders. Bush had In its totality, the DPG expressed a strikingly The United States should thus promote a declined to intervene militarily amid the bloody ambitious vision for American strategy. Yet nonetheless basically positive-sum global economy that would help breakup of in mid-1991, on grounds that it was nonetheless basically aligned with the other countries prosper. It should provide there was no vital U.S. interest at stake. “We don’t Bush administration’s broader perspective as aligned with the Bush international security, leadership in addressing want to put a dog in this fight,” he wrote in his expressed to date. So many core themes of the critical challenges, and other common goods diary.94 Similarly, Cheney and Wolfowitz had long document — the promotion of democracy and administration’s that would persuade key second-tier nations to understood that any perception that Washington market economics, the need for globe-spanning welcome American preeminence. In essence, the was going about in search of monsters to destroy and preponderant military power, the idea that broader perspective as DPG made a version of the argument that would would drain public support for an assertive post- Washington could pursue an enlightened sort of later gain currency among international-relations Cold War policy. “One of the reasons the [Gulf] leadership that would invite support rather than expressed to date. scholars: that unipolarity need not invite concerted operation was so successful was that its purposes opposition — were reiterations or refinements of counterbalancing so long as Washington used its were very clear and it had public support,” earlier ideas. Nor was the idea of precluding the power to support a benign and broadly beneficial Wolfowitz had commented in 1991. “That doesn’t rise of a new hostile superpower particularly novel. charged that the DPG “aimed primarily at finding global system.92 translate into a blank check to go around the world It drew on the same logic that had impelled Bush new ways to justify Cold War levels of military The DPG, then, was a more nuanced document using force.” Powell, for his part, had argued that to prevent Saddam from dominating the Persian spending.”103 Other observers noted that the DPG than some critics later claimed. Yet there was no same year that America should use force only in Gulf, and thereby amassing dangerous levels of seemed focused on stymieing the rise not only of mistaking another core message: that unrivaled cases where U.S. forces could win decisively and geopolitical power, and the basic concept of using American adversaries but also of traditional allies American military might was the hard-power then exit the scene, avoiding the sort of open- the Cold War’s end to lock in a more favorable such as Germany and Japan and non-hostile powers backbone of the post-Cold War order. U.S. force ended, indecisive missions that had led to such a international order. (It also drew on an older such as India.104 deployments and alliance commitments provided fierce domestic backlash in Vietnam. “If…military U.S. strategic concept, dating to World War II, of Blindsided by the leak and subsequent chorus of stability and influence in key regions from East force regrettably turns out to be” necessary, he preventing rivals from controlling key regions of boos, the Bush administration wavered. National Asia to Europe to the Persian Gulf; the DPG said, “I think it should be used in a decisive way.”95 the world.99) In effect, the DPG drew together the Security Council talking points encouraged Bush to even raised the prospect of extending security Both halves of the DPG’s formulation regarding administration’s core post-Cold War concepts and play down the DPG in an upcoming meeting with guarantees to former members of the Soviet bloc. the role of American military power were thus linked them to a more explicit overall ambition of German officials. “Kohl may express displeasure American military dominance fostered a peaceful important. “The world order,” the document stated preserving U.S. international supremacy. It was not about the leaked Pentagon paper suggesting that the international environment in which open markets forthrightly, “is ultimately backed by the U.S.”96 But a sharp break with the administration’s strategic U.S. wants to block the rise of any new superpower, and open political systems could prosper; it preserving domestic support for such a strategy thinking; it can more properly be seen as the including German-led Europe,” NSC officials wrote would also dissuade potential rivals from seeking required avoiding unnecessary interventions and culmination thereof. in March 1992. “You should explain that we want to challenge American leadership. “We must using American power selectively. maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential So how much military power was required to 97 Dale Vesser to Libby, Sept. 3, 1991, EBB 245, NSA. 98 Draft of FY 94-99 DPG. 91 Draft of FY 94-99 DPG. 99 See Melvyn P. Leffler, A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992). 92 Ibid.; also William Wohlforth, “The Stability of a Unipolar World,” International Security 24, no. 1 (Summer 1999): 5-41; G. John Ikenberry, Liberal Leviathan: The Origins, Crisis, and Transformation of the American World Order (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011). 100 Melissa Healy, “Pentagon Cool to U.S. Sharing Its Power,” Los Angeles Times, March 9, 1992. 93 Draft of FY 94-99 DPG; Patrick Tyler, “U.S. Strategy Plan Calls for Insuring No Rivals Develop,” New York Times, March 8, 1992. 101 Barton Gellman, “Aim of Defense Plan Supported by Bush: But President Says He Has Not Read Memo,” Washington Post, March 12, 1992. 94 Diary entry, July 2, 1991, in Bush, All the Best, George Bush, 527; Bush-Wörner MemCon, June 25, 1991, GHWBL. 102 “The New Pentagon Paper,” Washington Post, May 27, 1992. 95 Quotes from Don Oberdorfer, “Strategy for Solo Superpower: Pentagon Looks to ‘Regional Contingencies,’” Washington Post, May 19, 1991. 103 Barton Gellman, “Pentagon War Scenario Spotlights Russia,” Washington Post, Feb. 20, 1992. 96 Draft of FY 1994-1999 DPG; Patrick Tyler, “U.S. Strategy Plan Calls for Insuring No Rivals Develop,” New York Times, March 8, 1992. 104 Gellman, “Aim of Defense Plan Supported by Bush”; also Tyler, “U.S. Strategy Plan.” 26 The Scholar 27

to see a stronger, more united Europe.”105 In the entire world,” he wrote in a note to White House was both dependent on, and a means of advancing, important parts of the world, and could even public, Bush explained that he had not formally aides that month. “We must not only have the American leadership. But the DPG’s blunt advocacy threaten the physical security of the United States.” approved — or even read — Khalilzad’s draft. convictions about democracy and freedom, but we of preserving American primacy seemed likely to It stressed the importance of promoting free Cheney and Wolfowitz subsequently called upon must have a strong National Defense posture.”109 As dispel the warm feelings Washington had earned markets and free political institutions. Above all, it a top Pentagon aide, Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, to discussed subsequently, Bush would also strongly through its reliance on the U.N. Security Council argued that no one else could lead in these tasks: rewrite the February 1992 draft. The redraft toned endorse many key tenets of the report in his final during the Gulf crisis, and to present the image of a down the language of the earlier version while also National Security Strategy. Likewise, at the State superpower determined to maintain hegemony for The bottom line is that in this time of playing up the importance of alliance relationships Department, James Baker implicitly affirmed other its own narrow purposes. This was presumably why uncertainty, the United States has a unique and multilateralism. By May, leading newspapers aspects of the DPG. He noted in early April that Scowcroft termed the DPG “arrogant” (as he later role to play — as a provider of reassurance were reporting that the administration had pulled although multilateralism would always be the first put it) and likely to cause diplomatic headaches.113 and architect of new security arrangements; back from its radical vision. “Pentagon Drops Goal preference, America would never relinquish the Yet these concerns pertained mainly to language, as an aggressive proponent of economic of Blocking New Superpowers,” the New York right to act unilaterally when necessary. “We can process, and atmospherics, and not to core strategic openness; as an exemplar and advocate of Times proclaimed.106 hardly entrust the future of democracy or American content. Put differently, it would have been hard democratic values; as a builder and leader The reality, however, was different. The DPG was interests exclusively to multilateral institutions,” to identify any leading officials who did not think of coalitions to deal with the problems of a not, after all, some great substantive departure from he said.110 that the United States should maintain unrivaled chaotic post-Cold War world.115 administration views on post-Cold War strategy. This is not to say that there was no internal debate military capabilities, favorable power balances As noted earlier, many of the key military concepts or controversy over the DPG. State Department in key regions, and a global network of security In sum, there was far more consensus than debate expressed in the document — the imperative of officials — still smarting from intense internal alliances, while also working to promote a stable about the basic merits of the strategy described in maintaining military primacy based on high-end debates over how to handle the breakup of the international environment in which democracy the DPG.116 technological superiority and the need to head Soviet Union — offered some anonymous critiques and markets were prevalent and U.S. influence As all this indicates, efforts — whether at the off the emergence of new regional hegemons — of the DPG, terming the language overblown and was unsurpassed. Scowcroft, for instance, may time or later — to sharply distinguish between the had played key roles in the development of the counterproductive to the goal of maintaining have criticized the DPG after the fact (and after primacist strategy embodied by the DPG and the Base Force. Similarly, a document finalized by the positive relationships with rising powers such as the Iraq War of 2003 had soured his relationship liberal internationalist approach favored by other Joint Chiefs of Staff in January 1992 significantly India.111 The DPG also leaned further forward than with Cheney), but at the time his NSC staff does observers rest on a false dichotomy. For the DPG foreshadowed the DPG, arguing that America must some U.S. officials would have liked with respect not seem to have objected to the basic ideas — did advance a strategy of liberal internationalism. It “preserve a credible capability to forestall any to the potential future expansion of NATO. At the as distinct from the language — conveyed in the emphasized maintaining U.S. leadership of alliances potential adversary from competing militarily with NSC, Scowcroft, a stickler for good process, was report. Indeed, when a revised version of the and other institutions, promoting liberal norms, the United States.”107 During early 1992, moreover, displeased that the document had leaked and that document — which was substantively quite similar and fostering an open and inclusive international Powell and Cheney had publicly advocated some the debate had played out publicly as opposed to — was subsequently submitted for clearance, the order, in part by ensuring that America retained of the core themes of the DPG in speeches and privately. Similarly, Bush and those around him White House approved it with only minor edits.114 the preponderant military power and strategic congressional testimony. “We are…the world’s sole understood that the muscular language of the And though State Department officials would influence needed to accomplish these goals. In remaining superpower,” Powell had said. “Seldom document was likely to cause political problems for later offer, in an end-of-administration review, a the same way, the State Department papers just in our history have we been in a stronger position leaders of allied countries, such as Germany and vision of post-Cold War policy that placed greater referenced recognized that American leadership relative to any challengers we might face. This is a Japan, that the DPG seemed to identify as potential emphasis on international economics and other and power were essential components of promoting position we should not abandon.”108 future competitors. “I know the leak of this draft non-military challenges (as was appropriate in a a cooperative, stable international environment, These views were not held solely by Pentagon Pentagon report didn’t help,” read Bush’s suggested State Department document), the core premises of just as Bush and Scowcroft had recognized during officials. The president himself largely kept quiet talking points for the aforementioned meeting with the analysis were not dramatically different from the Gulf War that any “New World Order” would about the DPG in public. But Bush did nonetheless Kohl.112 Finally, administration higher-ups were those of the DPG. ultimately have to rest on the unrivaled might and convey that he “was broadly supportive of the clearly nonplussed that the rhetoric of the DPG One collection of State Department papers unequaled exertions of the United States. The thrust of the Pentagon document” once he learned occasionally seemed to undercut the emphasis noted, for instance, that “for the first time in fifty Bush administration recognized, in other words, of it following the leaks, one reporter noted in on multilateralism that had characterized U.S. years we do not face a global military adversary” what some scholars would subsequently become March, and his private statements confirm this policy during the Gulf War. The administration and stressed the remarkably advantageous nature prone to ignoring — that liberal internationalism assessment. “We must remain the active leader of had always recognized that such multilateralism of that situation. It spoke of the need to prevent and U.S. hegemonic leadership were two sides of proliferation of WMD to authoritarian regimes, for the same coin.117 105 See Scowcroft, “Meeting with Chancellor Kohl of Germany,” March 19, 1992, OA/ID CF01414, Hutchings Country Files, GHWBL. “such a development would dramatically destabilize Yet if all this is true, then what caused the 106 Patrick Tyler, “Pentagon Drops Goal of Blocking New Superpowers,” New York Times, May 24, 1992; “Pentagon Abandons Goal of Thwarting U.S. Rivals,” Washington Post, May 24, 1992; Memo to Cheney, March 26, 1992, EBB 245, NSA; “Issues in the Policy and Strategy Section,” April 14, 1992, EBB 245, NSA. 113 On Scowcroft’s views, see Bartholomew Sparrow, The Strategist: Brent Scowcroft and the Call of National Security (New York: Hachette, 2015), 485-86. 107 Joint Chiefs of Staff, National Military Strategy of the United States, January 1992, http://history.defense.gov/Portals/70/Documents/nms/ nms1992.pdf?ver=2014-06-25-123420-723. 114 See Memo from Don Pulling, April 23, 1992, in EBB 245, NSA; also Wolfowitz to Cheney, May 5, 1992; Wolfowitz to Cheney, May 13, 1992, EBB 245, NSA. 108 “The Future of U.S. Foreign Policy in the Post-Cold War Era: Hearings Before the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives” (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1992), 367; also Cheney and Powell Remarks to Senate Budget Committee, Feb. 3, 1992, Federal News 115 See Lawrence Eagleburger to , Jan. 5, 1993, Freedom of Information Act, in author’s possession. I thank Jim Goldgeier for Service. sharing this document with me. 109 Bush note to speechwriters, March 14, 1992, in Bush, All the Best, George Bush, 551; Gellman, “Aim of Defense Plan.” 116 Partially in response to the DPG saga, there was a wider-ranging academic debate over the value of U.S. primacy. Robert Jervis, “International Primacy: Is the Game Worth the Candle?” International Security 17, no. 4 (Spring 1993): 52-67; Samuel P. Huntington, “Why International Primacy 110 Baker Remarks to Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, April 2, 1992, Box 169, Baker Papers. Matters,” International Security 17, no. 4 (Spring 1993): 68-83. 111 Patrick Tyler, “Senior U.S. Officials Assail Lone-Superpower Policy,” New York Times, March 11, 1992; also Edelman, “Strange Career.” 117 On this debate, see G. John Ikenberry, “The Future of the Liberal World Order: Internationalism After America,” Foreign Affairs 90, no. 3 (May/ 112 “Chancellor Kohl of Germany,” undated (March 1992), OA/ID CF01414, Country Files, Hutchings Files, GHWBL. June 2011): 56-68; vs. Robert Kagan, The World America Made (New York: Vintage, 2012). 28 The Scholar 29

public blowup when the DPG was leaked? Much the document recommended. of any new hostile superpower.124 Yet this was a aggression; that international coalitions can of that furor stemmed from the same factors that Contrary to what the New York Times reported, distinction without a difference because the goal be forged, though they often will require had caused insiders some discomfort. Because in fact, the DPG was quietly affirmed by the of preventing hostile nondemocratic powers from American leadership; that the proliferation the administration had used such high-flown Bush administration in its final months in office. dominating key regions — which ran throughout of advanced weaponry represents a clear, multilateral rhetoric during the Persian Gulf War Wolfowitz and Cheney accepted Libby’s revised the document — amounted to the same thing. present, and widespread danger; and that — albeit as a way of asserting American leadership draft, which was then approved (notwithstanding At the close of Bush’s presidency, the the United States remains the nation whose — the DPG’s unembarrassed support for U.S. minor edits) by the White House. A public version administration found other ways of conveying strength and leadership are essential to a geopolitical superiority was unavoidably jarring to was published in January 1993 as the Pentagon’s this basic commitment to a primacist strategy. In stable and democratic world order. many outside observers. “I was a little surprised Regional Defense Strategy.121 Although the revised late 1992, Bush dispatched U.S. troops to provide somebody would put this kind of thing down on paper had tamer language, Wolfowitz assured humanitarian assistance to starving civilians in To this end, the document endorsed the retention paper,” the diplomatic historian John Lewis Gaddis Cheney, “It is still a rather hard-hitting document Somalia. He had done so reluctantly, out of fears of critical power-projection capabilities and told a reporter.118 which retains the substance you liked in the that this deployment would result in the sort of overweening military power; it called for the United February 18th draft.”122 open-ended mission he had earlier resisted in the States to promote the forces of global “integration” Indeed, the Regional Defense Strategy Gulf and the Balkans. As a result, while humanitarian against threatening “fragmentation.” The National fully committed to preserving American concerns ultimately drove Bush to approve the Security Strategy made clear that post-Cold War primacy in support of an open and mission, he sought to define it as narrowly as stability would ultimately rest on “an enduring congenial order. “America’s strategic possible — to limit it to the delivery of aid and global faith” in America, and it left little doubt that position is stronger than it has been the creation of infrastructure for future deliveries. the United States intended to leave behind an era for decades,” it averred; Washington He made clear in two major policy addresses that of balanced power and geopolitical divisions, and must “maintain the strategic depth Washington should always be wary of “running off to shape a unipolar order in its own image. “Our that we won through forty years of on reckless, expensive crusades.” But Bush also policy has one overriding goal: real peace — not the the Cold War.” Likewise, the Regional used these addresses, in December 1992 and January illusory and fragile peace maintained by a balance Defense Strategy reaffirmed the value 1993, to further spell out his now-familiar vision for of terror, but an enduring democratic peace based The political context simply fanned the flames. of U.S. alliances and forward deployments, global strategy, a vision that was premised on using on shared values.”126 On the right, the DPG landed in the middle of a and it made clear that America must be able to unrivaled U.S. influence to promote geopolitical That vision, it turned out, long outlasted Bush’s surprisingly competitive Republican presidential “preclude hostile nondemocratic powers from stability, avoid a return to the more threatening presidency. There was initially some indication primary, in which Buchanan was calling for dominating regions critical to our interests.” The climate of earlier decades, and “win the democratic that the Clinton administration might undertake a geopolitical retrenchment and a more narrowly document emphasized protecting the post-Cold peace…for people the world over.”125 more effacing approach to world affairs, and on the nationalistic approach to foreign affairs.119 The leak War order by confronting terrorism and weapons Bush’s final National Security Strategy put stump Clinton had pledged to pursue defense cuts of the DPG also occurred amid heated debates proliferation, and by extending “the remarkable forward much the same idea. The 1993 iteration far greater than those made by Bush. Yet, as the about military spending levels and as Democratic democratic ‘zone of peace.’” While paying due was Bush’s foreign policy valedictory, issued in Clinton administration found itself facing largely presidential candidates sought to outdo each regard to American alliances and international the name of the president himself. It represented the same global panorama as its predecessor, it other in their critique of Bush’s foreign policy. It institutions, the Regional Defense Strategy also his concluding effort to enshrine a prudent yet ultimately embraced a strategy very similar to was hardly a coincidence that key players in these left no doubt that Washington would use force — ambitious post-Cold War strategy. Lest there be that charted during the Bush years. As early as debates were among the harshest critics of the DPG. alone, if need be — to defeat serious threats to its any thought that the Regional Defense Strategy September 1993, National Security Adviser Anthony Paul Tsongas publicly blasted the administration interests. Finally, the strategy made explicit the did not reflect administration policy, or that it Lake gave a major address noting that the defining for ignoring the United Nations; Clinton’s deputy idea that America should “dominate the military- was issued simply as a sop to Cheney’s Defense “feature of this era is that we are its dominant campaign manager, George Stephanopoulos, technological revolution” as a means of sustaining Department as Bush’s tenure expired, the National power” and arguing that Washington must use that labeled the DPG exercise “an excuse for big its preeminence and deterring current or potential Security Strategy explicitly endorsed the approach dominance to promote continued global stability, budgets.”120 The controversy’s intensely political rivals. The Regional Defense Strategy, in other laid out in that document, and even echoed — to prevent aggressive dictators from menacing nature would become clear after Clinton won the words, was simply the DPG in another guise.123 verbatim — concepts including the importance the post-Cold War order, and to aggressively presidency — and proceeded to follow a national Admittedly, the document did not explicitly restate of “strategic depth” and the democratic “zone of promote free markets and democracy. “We security policy that tracked fairly closely with what the idea that Washington should prevent the rise peace.” The lessons of the new era, the National should act multilaterally where doing so advances Security Strategy argued, were already clear: our interests,” Lake added, “and we should act unilaterally when that will serve our purpose.”127 that we cannot be sure when or where the Likewise, the Pentagon committed to retaining the 118 Peter Grieg, “Hot Debate Over U.S. Strategic Role: Draft Pentagon Paper Stirs Up Controversy on How, and Why, Military Funds Are Spent,” Christian Science Monitor, March 16, 1992. next conflict will arise; that regions critical capacity to defeat two major regional aggressors 119 On Buchanan’s views, see, for instance, Robin Toner, “Buchanan, Urging New Nationalism, Joins ’92 Race,” New York Times, Dec. 11, 1991. to our interests must be defended; that nearly simultaneously, and in 1996 the Joint Chiefs 120 Patrick Tyler, “Lone Superpower Plan: Ammunition for Critics,” New York Times, March 10, 1992. the world must respond to straightforward of Staff released a document advocating “full 121 Dick Cheney, Defense Strategy for the 1990s: The Regional Defense Strategy, January 1993, EBB 245, NSA. 122 Wolfowitz to Cheney, May 5, 1992; also, Wolfowitz to Cheney, May 13, 1992; Memo from Don Pulling, April 23, 1992, all in EBB 245, NSA. In his own account, Wolfowitz recalls that the Department of Defense could not get the revised version approved by the White House or other interagency actors. In fact, the revised DPG (which was subsequently published as the Regional Defense Strategy) was approved by the White 124 On this point, see Popescu, Emergent Strategy and Grand Strategy, 123-24. House in the spring of 1992. And as Wolfowitz himself notes, “Far from being an extreme strategy developed by a small group of Defense 125 Remarks at Texas A&M University, Dec. 15, 1992; remarks at West Point, Jan. 5, 1993. Department officials, the DPG not only reflected the consensus thinking of the first Bush administration but became generally accepted defense policy under President Clinton.” See Wolfowitz, “Shaping the Future,” 59, 206. 126 The White House, The National Security Strategy of the United States, January 1993, ii, 1, 6, 13 http://nssarchive.us/national-security-strategy-1993/. 123 Dick Cheney, Defense Strategy for the 1990s: The Regional Defense Strategy, January 1993, EBB 245, NSA. 127 Anthony Lake, “From Containment to Enlargement,” Sept. 21, 1993, https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/lakedoc.html. 30 The Scholar 31

spectrum dominance” to mold the international The continuity of basic strategy, moreover, became a theme of fundamental, bipartisan rhetoric was sharper than many officials would environment and constrain potential rivals.128 All was more than rhetorical. U.S. military spending continuity throughout the post-Cold War era. This is have liked. Even before the superpower conflict of these concepts could have been ripped straight would decline somewhat under Clinton, to around not to say that there was no change in U.S. strategy ended, Bush and his advisers had argued that from the 1992 DPG. 3 percent of gross domestic product by the late from the early 1990s onward, for particular policies the United States must lean forward in shaping a Indeed, the outcome of the Pentagon’s Bottom 1990s (although this decline was partially due to and rhetorical and diplomatic styles did shift promising but potentially perilous post-Cold War Up Review, undertaken in 1993, demonstrates the the robust economic growth of that decade). But considerably over time — witness the approaches world. The logic of American primacy was then strength of the lineage between Bush-era planning because most other countries reduced their defense of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and reinforced by crises in Europe and the Persian Gulf. efforts and those that followed. Clinton’s first spending faster than Washington did, the United to Iraq, for instance. Similarly, which of the three After the Soviet collapse, the DPG drew together secretary of defense, Les Aspin, had initiated a States still accounted for roughly 35 to 40 percent key regions of Eurasia would receive the greatest the key elements of a coalescing strategic mind- thoroughgoing review of U.S. military strategy of global defense spending, and it preserved military attention from U.S. policymakers also shifted during set and made the case for American primacy in its as part of an effort to further reduce defense capabilities far in excess of those of all U.S. rivals this period. But the first-order judgments about starkest and most explicit terms. The DPG thus spending. But as his Pentagon considered the combined.130 American strategy remained remarkably consistent, encapsulated the Bush administration’s choice of opportunities and imperatives of the post-Cold Like the Bush administration, the Clinton and many core objectives and initiatives persisted as an ambitious post-Cold War strategy, one that was War world, it ended up embracing its predecessor’s administration also repeatedly proved willing to use well.133 Long after the initial firestorm touched off by reaffirmed by subsequent administrations. strategy. The final report of the Bottom Up those capabilities to face down threats to stability the leak of the DPG had been mostly forgotten, the Interestingly, then, a review of Bush Review emphasized the importance of preventing in critical regions, such as when it dispatched basic ideas and policies the document propounded administration strategic planning makes the DPG aggressive authoritarians from dominating key additional troops to the Persian Gulf in 1994 after remained quite relevant. appear both more and less important than it regions. It concluded that America “must field Saddam Hussein once again threatened Kuwait, or was often seen to be at the time. The document forces capable, in concert with its allies, of fighting when it dispatched two carrier strike groups to the was arguably more important in the sense that it and winning two major regional conflicts that occur Western Pacific after China sought to use military Conclusion represented the earliest, most comprehensive, nearly simultaneously.” This “two MRC” construct exercises and missile tests to intimidate Taiwan in and most candid statement of American strategy was deemed crucial because, as Aspin wrote, 1995 and 1996. That latter episode represented a Twenty-five years after it was drafted, the DPG after the Soviet collapse, and in the sense that its “We do not want a potential aggressor in one deliberate display of American primacy. As Secretary remains a source of controversy in some circles. core concepts would endure. Yet it was arguably region to be tempted to take advantage if we are of Defense announced, “ should While some historians and other analysts have less important than sometimes thought in the already engaged in halting aggression in another.” know, and this [U.S. fleet] will remind them, that begun to better understand the content and nature sense that its basic content was not particularly Moreover, maintaining a two-MRC capability would while they are a great military power, the premier controversial within the administration and that serve as insurance against the prospect that any military power in the Western Pacific is the United it was only one element of a much larger process major power might seek to compete militarily with States.”131 by which Bush and his advisers came to identify Washington. It would More broadly, the Clinton administration would and articulate a post-bipolar approach to global undertake a range of policies that fit squarely within statecraft. provide a hedge against the possibility that the framework laid down by the Bush administration: The Bush administration’s choice of that strategy, a future adversary might one day confront retention and updating of U.S. alliances in the Asia- in turn, drew on a mix of important factors. There us with a larger-than-expected threat, Pacific, expansion of NATO in Europe, promotion of were, certainly, the long-standing beliefs — both and then turn out, through doctrinal or democratic concepts and market reforms in countries ideological and geopolitical — about America’s role technological innovation, to be more capable from Haiti to Russia, active containment of Saddam’s in the world, which influenced the administration’s than we expect, or enlist the assistance of Iraq and other aggressive authoritarian regimes, outlook from the outset. More immediately, there other nations to form a coalition against our and efforts to stymie nuclear proliferation on the was the potent cocktail of optimism and wariness interests. Korean Peninsula and elsewhere. And rhetorically, that shaped U.S. strategic thinking at the dawn of the Clinton administration embraced the idea of a new era. Bush and his aides clearly perceived Maintaining this dominant force, in turn, was America as the “indispensable nation,” the country of that document, critics have continued to see it that Washington had a historic opportunity to necessary so that with a unique responsibility for upholding global as “unsettling” and even “Strangelovian.” Likewise, solidify a post-bipolar order in which U.S. interests peace and security — and the unique privileges that some scholars persist in deeming the DPG an and values would be far more privileged than we can replace the East-West confrontation came with that role.132 Administrations changed, but unprecedented assertion of American hegemony.134 before; they also worried that any lack of assertive of the Cold War with an era in which the the basic logic of post-Cold War strategy endured. As a review of the declassified record demonstrates, American leadership would open the door to community of nations, guided by a common In fact, as scholars have now extensively however, the reality was more prosaic — but multipolar instability and tumult. The result was commitment to democratic principles, free- documented, a commitment to maintaining also, perhaps, more interesting. The DPG offered to push the United States toward an expansive market economics, and the rule of law, can American primacy, and to using that primacy to a program for the retention and improvement approach meant to reap the benefits while avoiding be significantly enlarged.129 shape an eminently favorable global environment, of America’s post-bipolar primacy, but it was the dangers of the post-Cold War world. hardly unique in its arguments. Rather, the DPG If nothing else, the emerging record of the 128 Report of the Quadrennial Defense Review, May 1997, Section 3, “Defense Strategy”; Joint Chiefs of Staff,Joint Vision 2010, 2; also Alexandra Homolar, “How to Last Alone at the Top: U.S. Strategic Planning for the Unipolar Era,” Journal of Strategic Studies 34, no. 2 (2011): 202-12. fit comfortably within the dominant strategic Bush administration’s approach to global strategy paradigm of the Bush administration, even if the indicates that some interpretations of the forty-first 129 Les Aspin, Report on the Bottom Up Review, issued by Defense Department, October 1993, iii-iv, 7-8. 130 For military spending figures, consult the data available through the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s annual reports and 133 See, on this continuity, Leffler, “Dreams of Freedom, Temptations of Power”; Brands, Making the Unipolar Moment; P. Edward Haley, Strategies military spending database, available at https://www.sipri.org/databases/milex; also Homolar, “How to Last Alone at the Top.” of Dominance: The Misdirection of U.S. Foreign Policy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006); Posen, Restraint. 131 Art Pine, “U.S. Faces Choices on Sending Ships to Taiwan,” Los Angeles Times, March 20, 1996. 134 Eugene Jarecki, The American War of War: Guided Missiles, Misguided Men, and a Republic in Peril (New York: Free Press, 2008), 12; also Joan 132 On Clinton-era statecraft, see Andrew J. Bacevich, American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of American Diplomacy (Cambridge: Hoff, A Faustian Foreign Policy From Woodrow Wilson to George W. Bush: Dreams of Perfectibility (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), Harvard University Press, 2002); Patrick Porter, “The American Way: Power, Habit, and Grand Strategy,” International Security, forthcoming. 138. 32 The Scholar 33

president’s statecraft need to be revised. For years, widespread international support for Washington remained largely content to be part of the strategic States has periodically succumbed to the temptation the standard depiction of Bush’s foreign policy, to play this role. In these circumstances, it was and economic community led by the United States. to overuse its tremendous power. Today, moreover, offered by eminent scholars such as Jeremi Suri hardly surprising or unreasonable that the Bush Front-line states in Eastern Europe and other regions the United States faces more serious challenges to as well as former policymakers such as Zbigniew administration chose a form of consensual but have often seemed to fear American abandonment its primacy and global interests than at any other Brzezinski, was that Bush was an adept crisis assertive American primacy as the best approach to more than American domination. As Zachary Selden time in the post-Cold War era, from a rising China, manager but lacked the vision to identify a new protecting international security and U.S. interests. has argued, the dominant tendency has been to a resurgent Russia, and an international rogues’ global role for America. Yet in light of the evidence Nor was it surprising that subsequent presidents balance with the United States against threats to gallery that is more empowered and better armed presented here — as well as recent assessments by affirmed this basic concept. the international system — like those now posed by than at any moment since Saddam Hussein’s scholars such as Jeffrey Engel — this interpretation And in retrospect, many key judgments and Russia and China — rather than to balance against defeat in 1991. Not least, there is some uncertainty is no longer persuasive.135 Over the course of his premises of that approach have fared passably well the preeminent power that America has wielded.141 as to whether American leaders and the body presidency, Bush and his advisers did establish a with time. Bush administration decision-making was, Finally, there is now significant scholarship to politic still support such an engaged and assertive clear and relatively coherent vision for post-Cold for instance, based on a fairly accurate assessment support the idea that a primacist strategy indeed strategy, and the policies and mannerisms of the War strategy. That vision was quite ambitious; it of the durability of American primacy. At the dawn of accomplished some of the most important goals Trump administration may well pose their own was readily apparent in administration strategy the post-Cold War era, leading academic observers the Bush administration initially set out. In a recent challenge to U.S. effectiveness and leadership documents and key policies. And it would persist, often predicted that unipolarity would rapidly book, Stephen Brooks and William Wohlforth on the global stage.145 Yet when one considers the in its broad outlines, long after Bush left office. give way to a multipolar system in which Japan, provide a robust body of evidence and analysis more constructive effects that a primacist strategy But was this a wise strategy? Since the early Germany, or a united Europe balanced against the demonstrating that the persistence of assertive has arguably had, and the fact that some of its 1990s, there has developed a substantial literature United States.139 Yet for more than a quarter-century American engagement did have the effect of foundational premises have proven fairly solid over critiquing the U.S. decision to pursue a primacist after the Cold War, the United States remained suppressing security competitions and instability time, one does, perhaps, gain a greater degree of strategy, and thus critiquing — implicitly or by far the most powerful and capable actor in in key strategic theaters while also providing appreciation for the logic of America’s post-Cold explicitly — the Bush administration’s role in international affairs. Today, the ongoing rise of China the overall climate of reassurance in which the War strategy, and for the Bush administration’s making that choice.136 A full assessment of post- has narrowed America’s lead but not nearly erased international economy could continue to thrive.142 role in shaping that strategy at a moment of great Cold War strategy would require more extensive it. As the most systematic assessment of global Other scholars have noted the role of America’s promise and uncertainty in international affairs. analysis than is possible here.137 With the power dynamics today concludes, “Everyone should post-Cold War policies in assisting the continued perspective of a quarter-century, however, a more start getting used to a world in which the United spread of democracy and market institutions, and Hal Brands is a Henry A. Kissinger Distinguished positive view of the Bush administration’s strategic States remains the sole superpower for decades in limiting nuclear proliferation in East Asia and Professor of Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins decision-making seems warranted. to come.”140 The Bush administration believed that Eastern Europe.143 Not least, even consistent critics University School of Advanced International For one thing, that decision-making was American preeminence could last for some time; the of America’s post-Cold War strategy, such as John Studies (SAIS). He is the author or editor of several rooted in a generally reasonable assessment of trajectory of international politics over the course Mearsheimer, have acknowledged that a persistent books, including Making the Unipolar Moment: U.S. the international environment and America’s of a generation affirms that judgment more than it U.S. presence in key regions such as Europe and Foreign Policy and the Rise of the Post-Cold War role therein as the Cold War ended. As Bush-era undercuts it. East Asia helped to avoid the major interstate wars Order (2016), What Good is Grand Strategy? Power officials were acutely aware, this was indeed a The trajectory of international politics also that characterized many earlier historical eras, and and Purpose in American Statecraft from Harry S. moment when the geopolitical tectonic plates affirmed a second belief, which was that assertive to avert a rapid return to the more unstable and Truman to George W. Bush (2014), Latin America’s were shifting more rapidly and disruptively than American leadership would attract more countries violent climate that many observers feared when Cold War (2010), From Berlin to Baghdad: America’s at any time since World War II. Many leading than it repelled. Today, of course, rivals such as the Cold War ended.144 All of these points could, Search for Purpose in the Post-Cold War World international relations scholars were predicting Russia and China are contesting American primacy, surely, be debated at length. Yet if a key premise of (2008), and The Power of the Past: History and that the post-Cold War world would be a nasty as part of an effort to assert their own prerogatives. a primacist strategy was that assertive American Statecraft (co-edited with Jeremi Suri, 2015). place characterized by multipolar instability, Yet what is remarkable is that the post-Cold War engagement would help produce a more stable rampant nuclear proliferation, and great-power era has not, at least so far, produced a concerted, and liberal international order than one might He was a Council on Foreign Relations revisionism by Germany and Japan.138 Moreover, multilateral counter-balancing campaign against otherwise have expected, then there is a defensible International Affairs Fellow from 2015 to 2016. He the major international crises of this period the dominant country in the international system, argument to be made that this premise, too, looks has also consulted with a range of government demonstrated that the United States did have a and that many key second- and third-tier states fairly good twenty-five years later. offices and agencies in the intelligence and national unique capacity to provide stability and leadership have continued to align with Washington. Japan, A primacist strategy has never been without its security communities. amid profound uncertainty and that there was fairly Germany, and other major industrial countries have problems, from the economic costs associated with a global military presence to the fact that the United 135 Jeremi Suri, “American Grand Strategy From the Cold War’s End to 9/11,” Orbis (Fall 2009): 611-27; Zbigniew Brzezinski, Second Chance: The Presidents and the Crisis of American Superpower (New York: Basic Books, 2007). For another early interpretation that has been overtaken, see Hal Brands, From Berlin to Baghdad: America’s Search for Purpose in the Post-Cold War World (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2008). For a 141 Zachary Selden, “Balancing Against or Balancing With? The Spectrum of Alignment and the Endurance of American Hegemony,” Security more positive recent take, see Jeffrey Engel, When the World Seemed New: George H.W. Bush and the End of the Cold War (New York: Houghton Studies 22, no. 2 (2013): 330-64. Mifflin, 2017). 142 Stephen Brooks and William Wohlforth, America Abroad: The United States’ Global Role in the 21st Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 136 For instance, Posen, Restraint; Mearsheimer, “Imperial by Design”; Stephen Walt, “The End of the American Era,” National Interest 116 (2011): 2016). 6-16. 143 See Paul Miller, “American Grand Strategy and the Democratic Peace,” Survival 52, no. 2 (2012): 49-76; John Dumbrell, Clinton’s Foreign Policy: 137 But see Hal Brands, American Grand Strategy in the Age of Trump (Washington: Brookings Institution Press, 2018), Chapter 1. Between the Bushes, 1992-2000 (New York: Routledge, 2009), 41-61; Mark Kramer, “Neorealism, Nuclear Proliferation, and East-Central European 138 John Mearsheimer, “Why We Will Soon Miss the Cold War,” Atlantic Monthly, August 1990, 35-50. Strategies,” in Unipolar Politics: Realism and State Strategies After the Cold War, edited by Ethan Kapstein and Michael Mastanduno (New York: Press, 1999), 385-463. 139 Kenneth Waltz, “The Emerging Structure of International Politics,” International Security 18, no. 2 (1993): 44-79; Christopher Layne, “The Unipolar Illusion: Why New Great Powers Will Rise,” International Security 17, no. 4 (1993): 5-51. 144 John Mearsheimer, “Why Is Europe Peaceful Today?” European Political Science 9, no. 2 (2010): 387-97. 140 Stephen Brooks and William Wohlforth, “The Once and Future Superpower: Why China Won’t Overtake the United States,” Foreign Affairs 95, 145 See Hal Brands, “Is American Internationalism Dead? Reading the National Mood in the Age of Trump,” War on the Rocks, May 16, 2017, https:// no. 3 (2016): 91-104. warontherocks.com/2017/05/is-american-internationalism-dead-reading-the-national-mood-in-the-age-of-trump/. 34 The Scholar 35

In discussing the subject of “the objective” in war it is essential The Meaning to be clear about, and to keep clear in our minds, the distinction between the political and military objective. The two are different of Strategy but not separate. Nations do not wage war for war’s sake, but in pursuance of policy. The military objective is only the means to a political end. Part II: — Basil Liddell Hart, Strategy: The Indirect Approach (1967) The Objectives Liddell Hart’s famous book, which includes this which one strives) plus ways (courses of action) observation, was first published as The Decisive plus means (instruments by which some end can Wars of History in 1929.1 Here was found the early be achieved).” In making the case for this definition, version of his much-quoted definition of strategy as Lykke argued that: the “art of distributing and applying military means to fulfill the ends of policy.”2 André Beaufre later Military strategy must support national recalled the impact the book made on him as a young strategy and comply with national policy, French officer after World War I, disillusioned with which is defined as “a broad course of action the state of French strategic thinking.3 Before the or statements of guidance adopted by the war, Ferdinand Foch, who became commander in government at the national level in pursuit chief of Allied forces, had made his name directing of national objectives.” In turn, national the École de Guerre, formulating what Beaufre policy is influenced by the capabilities-and described as a “Prussian school.” Foch insisted limitations of military strategy.5 upon the necessity of a “decisive battle” achieved through “bloody sacrifice” and this had resulted Here he used the Liddell Hart quote with which in a “systematically extreme strategy.” After the this article opens as his authority for his contention war, a new school, led by Marshal Philippe Pétain, that military means must serve political ends. dismissed strategy as irrelevant to modern warfare That strategy has something to do with and concentrated instead on assessing “tactics and translating political requirements into military matériel.” This was the context in which Beaufre plans now appears to be self-evident, yet for picked up his French translation of Liddell Hart’s the period from the Napoleonic Wars up to the book. He found it a “breath of fresh air” and vital aftermath of World War I, it played no part in to the “rediscovery of strategy.” Later in his career discussions of the meaning of strategy. Instead Beaufre became an acclaimed strategic thinker, prevailing definitions concentrated on how best to with his own definition that followed Liddell Hart prepare forces for battle, with tactics coming into in accepting the centrality of politics. For Beaufre, play once battle was joined. In a previous article, strategy was the “the art of the dialectic of two I considered the origins of this earlier approach, opposing wills using force to resolve their dispute.”4 demonstrating that while strategy first entered the Liddell Hart continues to be cited whenever modern European lexicon in 1771, the word itself strategy is being defined. Arthur Lykke is would not have posed any difficulty to an audience responsible for a definition popular in military schooled in the classics of Greek and Roman circles: “Strategy equals ends (objectives toward military literature and already familiar with cognate

1 I am grateful to Beatrice Heuser and Hew Strachan for their comments on an earlier draft of this article. 2 Basil Liddell Hart, Strategy: The Indirect Approach (London: Faber, 1967), 351. In the original version published in The Decisive Wars of History (London: G. Bell and Sons, 1929), strategy was defined as the art of “the distribution and transmission of military means.” 3 Général d’Armée André Beaufre, “Liddell Hart and the French Army, 1919-1939,” The Theory and Practice of War: Essays Presented to Captain B. H. Liddell Hart on his 70th Birthday, ed. Michael Howard (London: Cassell, 1965). 4 André Beaufre, Introduction à la stratégie (Paris: Libraire Armand Colin, 1963). Published in English as Introduction to Strategy (New York: Praeger, 1965) [Introduction à la stratégie, Paris, 1963)]. Lawrence Freedman 5 Col. Arthur Lykke Jr., “Strategy = E + W + M,” Military Review LXIX, no. 5 (May 1989): 2-8. 36 The Scholar 37

terms such as stratagem.6 The early use of the profoundly conservative approach to strategy. The This is not surprising, as the basic focus was on no more than etymological false positives. In other term reflected the stratagem tradition, referring to accepted Jominian view was expressed in the mid- the need to prepare officers to lead troops into words, these usages meant something different ruses and other indirect means of avoiding pitched 19th century in a moderately influential book by a battle. The starting point for the debate on strategy from our current understanding of the term.11 battles. The term also helped to fill a gap in the Swiss general with French training. Gen. Guillame- (or grand tactics) was how to raise the sights of Only the British maritime strategist Julian Corbett lexicon, distinguishing the higher military art from Henri Dufour explained how strategy looked back those who were normally preoccupied with the saw the possibilities in the run up to World War the more mechanical requirements of tactics. The while tactics must look forward. Strategy, he drills and maneuvers necessary for battle, but also I. After the war, the combined efforts of John meaning shifted during the first decades of the suggested, was subject to timeless principles, while needed to understand the challenges involved in Fuller and Liddell Hart not only established grand 19th century under the influence of the Napoleonic tactics was changing all the time and so varied with getting forces in the optimum position when the strategy as essential to thinking about war, but also wars and the theories of Baron Antoine-Henri de the “arms in use at different periods.” This meant moment for battle came. At a time when symmetry redefined strategy so that it was no longer linked Jomini as well as Carl von Clausewitz. This is how that: in the composition and capabilities of armies was directly to battle. Strategy could now address many strategy became linked with battle, stressing the assumed, as was the convention that the decision contingencies and so became an arena for intense importance of defeating the enemy forces in order Much valuable instruction in strategy may of battle would be accepted, tactical competence theorizing. to achieve a decisive result. therefore be derived from the study of could make all the difference. This practical focus In this article, I show how little the general history: but very grave errors would result if came at the expense of the theoretical. With such meaning of the term changed during the 19th we attempt to apply to the present days the a sharp focus there was little interest in exploring The British Consume Strategy century. Throughout Europe, discussion about tactics of the ancients. 8 alternatives ways of resolving differences by force. strategy and tactics continued to be shaped by In order to demonstrate the stagnant nature of In Part I of this article, I drew attention to the the sharp focus on battle and what this required Leaving aside the question of whether the 19th century writing on military strategy, I first 18th century belief that classical authors provided of commanders. Whereas the early discussions principles of strategy were really timeless when new turn to the British discourse of the period. At this vital keys to military wisdom.12 This was reflected concerning strategy in the late 18th century technologies were transforming the practice of war, time, the British were largely consumers of foreign in the reading habits of British officers. During opened up new possibilities for thinking about the this view helps explain why there was far more focus concepts. The definition of strategy that initially had the course of that century, there was a growing changing art of war, later discussion shut it down on tactics than strategy. It reflects the practical nature the most influence, and that lingered for the rest interest in foreign — in particular French — and thus constrained thinking. Despite the strong of the literature, which was full of detailed advice, of the century, was that developed by the Prussian authors. This included the Chevalier de Folard, nationalist sentiments that shaped thinking about illustrated with diagrams, on how to cope with all Dietrich von Bülow. He distinguished between Marshal de Saxe, Frederick the Great, and Comte war, the participants in this debate were normally battlefield contingencies. Accepting the limitations strategy and tactics largely in terms of whether de Guibert.13 The sensitivity to foreign publications senior military figures who were still serving or of Google N-gram,9 the graph below is illustrative in the operations in question were undertaken within meant that the arrival of the concept of strategy were recently retired and were primarily concerned terms of the relative importance attached to military sight of the enemy.10 Conceptually, Jomini was the in France and Prussia was also noted in Britain. with officer education. They read each other’s tactics and military strategy over the past couple of larger influence. His works were required reading A 1779 article in the Critical Review, for example, books, if necessary in translation, and studied the centuries in the English language (a French version for the officer class of Europe and the United discussed the introduction to the German edition same great battles of history from which they drew produces a similar result). It demonstrates that, States. Bülow’s contribution was not acknowledged of Leo’s Taktiká by Johann von Bourscheid.14 This similar lessons.7 until World War II, tactics appeared far more often because his core theories were so dated. Although is where the French distinction (from Guibert) The stress on the importance of military history, than strategy in books on military matters. Regular Clausewitz’s work was known, it took until late in between greater and lesser tactics was reported which meant careful study of the great battles of the discussion of strategy only really began in the run up the century before his ideas began to have a strong along with a complaint that the “ancients” were past, taken out of their wider context, encouraged a to World War I. and palpable influence. better at finding great commanders. Was this, I then examine the challenge that came from two the anonymous author asked, because there was major conflicts — the Civil War and the Franco- once a “comprehensive and systematical theory Prussian War — noting how the largely apolitical of instruction while our modern generals merely view of strategy was not dislodged by reflections on confine themselves to mechanical exercises?” The these experiences. By the start of the 20th century, answer from Bourscheid was that this “defect” the idea that strategy and policy represented two could only be addressed by a “systematical distinct competencies was being challenged, in instruction in strategy.” This is why he had part as a delayed reaction to these wars, but also translated a “didactic work on that subject.”15 because of the looming prospect of another great A couple of years later, however, when the same European war. Up to this point, the occasional journal reviewed translations of Guibert and Joly references to grand strategy in the literature were de Maizeroy,16 there was no reference to strategy.

10 Dietrich Heinrich von Bülow, The Spirit of the Modern System of War, trans. Malorti de Martemont (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2013). 11 Lukas Milevski, The Evolution of Modern Grand Strategic Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016). 12 Freedman, “The Meaning of Strategy, Part I”. 6 Lawrence Freedman, “The Meaning of Strategy, Part I: The Origins,” Texas National Security Review 1, no. 1 (October 2017), https://tnsr. 13 Ira Gruber, Books and the in the Age of the American Revolution (University of North Carolina Press, 2010), Part I. org/2017/10/meaning-strategy-part-origin-story. 14 Johann W. von Bourscheid, trans. Kasier Leo des Philosophen Strategie und Taktik in 5 Bänden (Vienna: Jospeh Edler von Kurzboeck, 1777-1781). 7 Beatrice Heuser, The Evolution of Strategy: Thinking War from Antiquity to the Present (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 15 “Foreign Articles,” The Critical Review, or, Annals of Literature 48 (October 1779): 310, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/ 120-121. pt?id=mdp.39015071095007;view=1up;seq=23. 8 Guillame-Henri Dufour, Strategy and Tactics, trans. William Craighill (New York: Van Nostrand, 1864), 8. 16 Joly de Maizeroy, A System of Tactics, Practical, Theoretical and Historical, trans. Thomas Mante (London: Cadell, 1781); Comte de Guibert, 9 The Google Books N-gram Viewer displays a graph showing how those phrases have occurred in a corpus of books over the selected years. A General Essay on Tactics, trans. Lt. Douglas (London: J. Millar, 1781). 38 The Scholar 39

The review of Guibert opened with a complaint that also advertised its adoption of French terminology. about The Treatise in 1821, focusing on Jomini’s would appear regularly over the next century: The In the first edition, in 1802, there was no mention of consideration of the vital importance of directing principles of tactics, “or the art of war in general,” strategy, but it did define tactics as the “knowledge the mass of the army against a decisive point. had “hitherto hardly been established with any of order, disposition, and formation, according to the Napier also reaffirmed the importance of military tolerable degree of certainty or precision.”17 exigency of circumstances in warlike operations.” genius. “It is in strategy,” he wrote, “that the great It is also important to keep in mind when The item on tactics referred to a higher branch — qualities with which a general may be endowed evaluating the British debate that during the la grande tactique — that should be thoroughly will have ample room to display themselves: fine Napoleonic years, while the French were understood by all general officers, although it was perception, unerring judgement, rapid decision, demonstrating the possibilities of new forms of sufficient for more junior officers to look at the less and unwearied activity both of mind and body, are warfare, this was not matched by any advances demanding minor tactics. There was also, following here all requisite.”27 Thereafter, his own approach in the concept of “strategy.” One of the most the practice of other dictionaries, a lengthy to strategy was largely based on the maxims of important French texts during this period was Gay discussion of stratagems, described as one of the Napoleon as interpreted by Jomini. He endorsed de Vernon’s Traité élémentaire d’art militaire et de “principal branches of the art of war,” related to a book by a civilian, Edward Yates, who sought to fortification, which gained its authority from being surprise and deception, plus the obligatory minor produce a treatise on the military sciences “on the approved by the emperor himself. Vernon did not reference to stratarithmometry.21 model of the best treatises on the Mathematical write of strategy or even of grand tactics but of “la In 1805, strategy made an appearance as “the sciences.”28 tactique générale.”18 In the translation available art or science of military command.” The editor Mitchell29 was an avowed follower of Georg from 1817, this appeared as “grand tactics” and observed that the term did “not exist in any of Heinrich von Berenhorst and familiar with the related to the rules of “attack and defence of two our English lexicographers,” and there was no work of Clausewitz. He wrote that Clausewitz hostile corps d’armée acting on uniform ground.”19 agreed view. “Neither the dogmatic authors nor contributed “a very able, though lengthy, and often Over the first years of the 19th century, there the military [agree] unanimously of its nature and obscure book on War.” Clausewitz was destined was little discussion of the concept in Britain, definition; Some give too much, and the others too to be represented as something of an intellectual and even then it appeared as part of an effort to little extended and the whole consonant with the of this relatively early translation. Clausewitz’s challenge. For the rest of the century, whenever introduce an apparently parochial English military strategy.” Strategy was the “art of knowing how On War was not translated until 1873, although a he was mentioned, it came with a warning that he audience to current debates in countries where the to command, and how to conduct the different review did appear in the Metropolitan Magazine was difficult to follow. Mitchell deplored the lack discussion of these matters was more advanced. operations of war.” The readers were introduced in 1835.24 Jomini’s Precis was published in English of a British contribution to the “science of arms” Thus, the British Military Library described itself to Nockhern de Schorn’s distinction between translation in 1862 (in a U.S. edition), before his despite the country’s accomplishments in other as “comprehending a complete body of military grande and petite strategie, the higher and the Treatise in 1865, although sections of the Treatise fields. The idea that “generals, like poets, must knowledge,” including selections “from the lower, the one for the “officer of superior rank, had become available in an English translation as be born such; and that learning and knowledge most approved and respectable foreign military whose mind is well stored with military theory,” early as 1823.25 are but secondary objects to a military man” he publications.” The editors had “spared no expense and the second that “appertains to the staff and This did not mean that their work was ignored dismissed as “excuses for ignorance.” When it to procure the most respectable Military Journals to a certain proportion of the subaltern officers.”22 in the English debate. Officers were often fluent in came to strategy and tactics, he added what had and other works published upon the Continent.” In 1810, however, preceding the entry for strategy French and occasionally in German. Moreover, two also become a standard comment, that In 1804, it included extensive excerpts from Bülow, in the New Military Dictionary was strategics, of the most influential commentators, both former without attribution and excluding his discussion using Malorti de Martemont’s translation of Bülow, major-generals, William Napier and John Mitchell, no two writers have in our time, agreed about of how best to define strategy, but with lots of distinguishing between what was in and out of were au fait with the continental literature. Napier, the exact meaning of either; a fact which diagrams and formulae. Strategy was described as the visual circle. Tactics was now defined as “the an accomplished military historian, was one of the already tells against modern pretension, for commencing with establishing a base, and tactics distribution of things by mechanical arrangement few in Britain at the time who could have written an no science ever made any great progress so as commencing with the unfolding of the line of to make then subservient to the higher principles original book on strategy; but, though he was asked long as its most important technical terms order of battle.20 of military science, i.e., of strategy.”23 to do so, he declined.26 He introduced Jomini to a remained vague and undefined.30 Another publication, The New Military Dictionary, Bülow was the first in the field largely by virtue British audience in a lengthy, anonymous article

24 Unsigned review of Carl von Clausewitz, “On War,” Metropolitan Magazine (May and June, 1835): 64-71, 166-176; this was also published in 17 It is notable that the reviewer clearly found the section of Guibert dealing with politics more interesting than that on the purely military the Military and Naval Magazine of the United States V and VI (August and September issues, 1835): 426-436, 50-63. Clausewitz’s The Campaign issues. It did refer to elementary and “great,” rather than “grand” tactics. The Critical Review: Or, Annals of Literature 52 (December 1781). Another Of 1812 In Russia, trans. Francis Egerton (London: John Murray, 1843) was translated into English in 1843, so he was appreciated at first largely review of Maizeroy [The Monthly Review, Or, Literary Journal: Vol. 71: From July to December, Inclusive, 1784 (London: R. Griffiths, 1785)] noted as a military historian more than theorist; Christopher Bassford, The Reception of Clausewitz in Britain and America, 1815-1945 (New York: Oxford his enthusiasm for classical texts and wondered whether these could provide guidance of tactics under modern conditions, and regretted the University Press, 1994). concentration on the higher tactics while taking the knowledge of the elementary for granted. 25 J. A. Gilbert, An Exposition of the First Principles of Grand Military Combinations and Movements, Compiled from the Treatise upon Great 18 Simon-François Gay de Vernon, Traité élémentaire d’art militaire et de fortification: à l’usage des élèves de l’École polytechnique, et des élèves Military Operations by the Baron de Jomini (London: T. Egerton, 1825). des écoles , 2 vols. (Paris: Libr. Allais, 1805), 79. 26 Jay Luvaas, The Education of an Army: British Military Thought, 1815-1940 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1964), 18. The proposed 19 John Michael O’Connor, A Treatise on the Science of War and Fortification (New York: J. Seymour, New York, 1817), 104. title was “The Philosophy of War.” 20 British Military Library, 2 vols. (London: Richard Phillips, 1804). 27 William Napier, “Review of Traité des grandes opérations militaires,” Edinburgh Review XXXV (1821): 377-409. 21 Charles James, New and Enlarged Military Dictionary, Part I (London: T Egerton, 1802), https://books.google.com/ 28 Edward Yates, Elementary Treatise on Tactics and on Certain Parts of Strategy (London: Boone, 1855), 1. His distinction between strategy and books?id=pixOAAAAYAAJ&q=stratarithmetry#v=onepage&q=stratarithmetry&f=false. The now lost word “stratarithmometry,” which was spelled in tactics owes much to Bülow: “Strategy is that division of the science of war, which superintends the direction of all operations and the construction a number of different ways, was concerned with drawing up an army or any part of it in a geometric figure. of all combinations, except during the intervals of action; the instant at which the opposing forces, of whatever magnitude, come into sight of one another.” At this point, strategy left “its presidency,” until the two armies lost sight of one another, and then it would return. Tactics was what was 22 Charles James, New and Enlarged Military Dictionary, 2nd ed. (London: T Egerton, 1805), 915-916. Milevski notes its appearance, but not the left over; it was “that division of the science of war which presides over all operations over whatever strategy does not preside.” fact that this was borrowed directly from Nockhern de Schorn. Milevski, Evolution, 15. 29 Luvaas, Education, Chapter 2. 23 Charles James, New and Enlarged Military Dictionary, 3rd. ed. (London: T Egerton, 1810), https://books.google.com/books?id=-l0UAAAAQAAJ &printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. 30 John Mitchell, Thoughts on Tactics (London: Longman et al., 1838), https://archive.org/details/thoughtsontacti00mitcgoog. 40 The Scholar 41

He then went on to offer his contribution, strategical in their direction, and tactical separation, the objects as well as the principles a position that it enjoyed critical advantages. essentially by delineating the tasks that went in the execution, such as landings, march of both being identical.” The distinction between Otherwise, too much would be left to tactics. Yet, under each heading. Tactics was the “science manoeuvres, passage of rivers, retreats, strategy and tactics was “arbitrary,” because in like McDougall, he was not convinced of the need that instructs us in the choice, power, effect, and winter-quarters, ambuscades, and convoys, both cases “the aim was to place a body of troops for a sharp separation of tactics and strategy. His combination of arms.” It was about “how the might take the denomination of Strategy, in the right position at the right time in fighting concern was that an officer untrained in strategy individual soldier is to be trained” so that the so long as they are executed without order superior to that body which your enemy can would rely simply on the routines of military “thousands” could be instructed “to execute the the presence of an enemy prepared for there oppose you.” Nonetheless, “such distinction affairs. Strategy meant moving beyond precedent, commands of the one with exact and simultaneous resistance; for then they become Tactics. having been made, it is better to preserve it.” Here that is, beyond existing scripts, to be able to “meet uniformity.” It therefore included “everything that he displayed the (unacknowledged) influence new circumstances with new combinations.” This is, or should be, taught on the drill-ground, in order Here strategy would be comparable to grand of Bülow, distinguishing between strategy and was why it deserved careful study.39 Gen. Francis to render the soldier, whether acting individually tactics. He set out essentially Jominian principles, tactics according to whether one was in the “actual Clery’s book, Minor Tactics, first published in 1875, or in mass, as formidable a combatant as may be adding that: presence or eyesight of an enemy, however great went through many editions (the 13th in 1896) and consistent with his moral and physical powers.” or small the distances which separate them.” was based on a “course of lectures delivered to sub- Strategy, by contrast, was the “art [not a science] The study of all past wars, ancient and McDougall approached the issue largely in terms of Lieutenants studying at Sandhurst.” In this work, of marching with divisions, or with entire armies.” modern, the systems of war of Frederick the demands on a commander’s time. Tactical activity Clery distinguished strategy and tactics largely on It was about Great, of the French Revolution, of Napoleon, was quite rare, despite handling troops in the the basis of size, though as always, “The issue, to and, finally, of the Duke of Wellington, will all presence of the enemy being the most “prominent which all military operations tend, is a battle.”40 employing the tactical soldier to the best be found to have derived their success and and showy quality in a commander.” By contrast, The lack of a fixed view about the terminology, advantage against the enemy; and, therefore, glory by conducting the armies in harmony the preparation of troops for battle, as opposed though not the underlying issue, can be illustrated presupposes in the strategist a perfect with these principles ; and the loss of battles, to directing them in battle, was “called forth and by Col. G. F. R. Henderson, considered one of knowledge of tactics; it is generalship, in failures in campaigns and entire wars, will exercised in the ratio of twenty to one.” That was the ablest military historians of his time and a fact, and includes of course what has lately be seen to originate in the non-observance why he was so preoccupied with looking after charismatic teacher at the Staff College, Camberley. been termed the science of battles.31 of them, either through the prejudices the army, marching, bivouacking, provisions, and His concern was that officer education was failing to raised by ignorance or routine, political movement.36 develop the skills necessary for great generalship. This did not catch on. interference, or unavoidable geographical Col. Edward Hamley’s The Operations of War While this was a consistent theme, Henderson’s From 1846 to 1851, a committee of officers from causes.32 became the core British Army text for much of the approach to terminology evolved rapidly. In a the Royal Engineers produced three volumes for an rest of the century. It was much more substantial lecture to the United Services Institute in 1894, he Aide-mémoire to the Military Sciences in order “to This was the “clearest general strategic than McDougall’s book and earned an international noted that officers learned about minor tactics to supply, as far as practicable, the many and common statement likely to be known to British officers” reputation.37 Until 1894, his was the sole text used pass examinations for promotion.41 He complained wants of Officers in the Field, in the Colonies, and in the early 1850s.33 The Crimean War (1853-56), in the entrance examination for the Camberley that “the higher art of generalship, that section remote Stations, where books of reference are conducted incompetently by the British army, still Staff College. In 1907, it was revived as an on military science to which formations, fire, and seldom to be found.” In the first volume, Lt. Col. C. “failed to initiate much serious thought … about essential primer on strategy for the army, though fortifications are subordinate, and which is called Hamilton Smith provided a “Sketch of the Art and its strategic role or tactical doctrine.”34 Military not readopted at the Staff College.38 Hamley — a grand tactics, has neither manual nor text-book.” Science of War.” This contained an early reference history was viewed as “a great quarry of principles professor of military history, strategy, and tactics Henderson regretted that he could not find an to “great operations” (the French concept of and examples to be judiciously selected to bolster at the Staff College, and its commandant from 1870- exact definition of the difference between minor grande tactique) and then a reference to strategics, pre-conceived idea or traditional doctrines.”35 1878 — was a clever and versatile writer, yet still and grand tactics. He offered his own: “a term to which it has been vainly endeavored to looked back to the practice of the Napoleonic Wars. affix a strict definition” from Folard to Klausewitz Unlike McDougall, he stressed the importance of Minor Tactics includes the formation and [sic], Dufour, and Jomini. A “dialectician,” noted The Unchanging Meaning of Strategy actual fighting. There was no point in getting an disposition of the three arms for attack and Smith, “might hint that a distinction might be army into “situations which it cannot maintain in defence, and concern officers of every rank; pointed out between Strategics and Strategy, or The debate, such as it was, often concerned the battle.” His view of strategy was that it did its job whilst Grand Tactics, the art of generalship, Strategique and Strategie; but no inconvenience boundary line between strategy and tactics. In by reducing the need for actual fighting. The aim, includes those stratagems, manoeuvres, seems to have arisen from the promiscuous use 1856, Lt. Col. Patrick McDougall, superintendent of which was pure Jomini (whose influence pervades and devices by which victories are won, and of both.” He attempted to distinguish between studies at the Royal Military College and Napier’s the book), was to “effect superior concentrations concern only those officers who may find Jomini making war upon a map as strategics, while son-in-law, noted wearily that although the on particular points,” getting the army into such themselves in independent command. 42 activities that are then “science of war” had been divided into these two branches, “no very cogent reason exists for such 36 Lt. Col. P. L. McDougall, The Theory of War: Illustrated by Numerous Examples from Military History (London: Longmans, 1856), 2-3. 37 Edward Bruce Hamley, The Operations of War: Explained and Illustrated (London: William Blackwood, 1866). It was read by Moltke. 31 Mitchell, Thoughts. Brian Holden Reid has emphasized the anti-intellectual culture of the army over the 19th century in Brian Holden Reid, Studies in British Military Thought: Debates with Fuller and Liddell Hart (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996), 67, 70. 38 Luvaas, Education, 151. It stayed in print until 1923. 32 Committee of the Corps of Royal Engineers, eds., Aide-memoire to the military sciences, 3 vols. (London: John Weale, High Holbern, 1846-52), 39 Hamley, The Operations of War, 55-7. Hamley struck a modern note with his stress on the need to “read the theatre of war” and references to 5-7. For another example of guidance on strategy involving repetition of Jomini, see Hon. F A Thesiger, Strategy, A lecture delivered at the United the “narrative of campaigns” — essentially a way of thinking through the demands of strategy. Services Institute of West India, Poona, 1862 (Bombay, Alliance Press, 1863). 40 Maj. Gen. C. Francis Clery, Minor Tactics, 13th ed. (London: Kegan Paul, 1896), 1. 33 Hew Strachan, “Soldiers, Strategy and Sebastopol,” The Historical Journal 21, no. 2 (1978): 307. 41 Here Henderson had Clery in mind. 34 Brian Bond, The Victorian Army and the Staff College, 1854–1914 (London: Eyre Methuen, 1972). For a less damning verdict see Hew Strachan, 42 Col. G. F. R. Henderson, “Lessons from the Past for the Present,” Lecture at the United Services Institution, May 25, 1894, published in a From Waterloo to Balaclava: Tactics, Technology, and the British Army 1815-1854 (Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press, 1985). collection of his essays: Col. G. F. R. Henderson, Science of War: A Collection of Essays and Lectures 1891-1903, ed. Neill Malcom (London: 35 A. W. Preston, “British Military Thought 1856–1890,” The Army Quarterly 89, no. 1 (October 1964), 60. Longmans, Green & Co.: 1906), 168. 42 The Scholar 43

Minor tactics were more or less mechanical, field of battle.” 45 observation in his published maxims that this level Jominian framework.50 while grand tactics were less predetermined, that In 1902, Henderson wrote the entry on strategy required the study of military history) was telling. Yet little time was spent by West Point cadets is they could not be identified by following the for the Encyclopedia Britannica. Here he observed actually studying strategy, and there was a general standard scripts. that civilians continually confounded strategy with distrust of the learned professional soldier as tactics.46 Despite his earlier complaint that grand The Impact of the Civil War opposed to the inspired military genius. Col. Henry They are to Minor Tactics what Minor tactics lacked definition, when it came to strategy, L. Scott’s Military Dictionary simply expanded the Tactics are to drill, i.e. the method of the problem was the opposite: “Almost every The most likely challenge to the established standard definitions to provide a reminder of the adapting the power of combination to the military writer of repute has tried his hand at it, frames of reference for thinking about war and topics that might come under the headings: requirements of battle; they deal principally and the only embarrassment is to choose the best.” strategy was a major conflict. The Napoleonic Wars with moral forces; and their chief end is the As such, he adopted the definition employed by the had set the frames for the century. The wars that The art of concerting a plan of campaign, concentration of superior force, moral and official text-book of the British infantry. Strategy followed this set of great and iconic battles lacked combining a system of military operations physical, at the decisive point. was “the art of bringing the enemy to battle, while the unexpected and distinctive features sufficient determined by the end to be attained, the tactics are the methods by which a commander to challenge these frames. The Civil War, by virtue character of the enemy, the nature and Henderson’s thinking was influenced by his seeks to overwhelm him when battle is joined.” of its length and ferocity, posed more of a challenge, resources of the country, and the means of studies of the Civil War. As a company officer, he This meant that “while the two armies are seeking yet its impact on how strategy was conceptualized attack and defense. wrote The Campaign of Fredericksburg: A Tactical to destroy each other it remains in abeyance, to was also limited, even in the United States. Russell Study for Officers, the focus of which was indicated spring once more into operations as soon as the Weigley notes that “the experience of the Civil Having quickly disposed of strategy, Scott’s next by the subtitle. In 1898, now at the Staff College, he issue is decided.” Thus, the end of strategy was War failed to inspire any impressive flowering entry on “street-fighting” was far longer as this was wrote an admired biography of Stonewall Jackson.43 “the pitched battle,” and the aim was to gain every of American strategic thought.” The output from clearly a more enthralling topic. An earlier entry Grand tactics was forgotten, and strategy came “possible advantage of numbers, ground, supplies, West Point reflected stagnation. American writers on battle discussed at greater length the views of to the forefront. His descriptions still combined and moral” to ensure the “enemy’s annihilation.” stuck to unimaginative concepts of European-style “Professors of Strategy” on how battle was best elements of Bülow (what was and was not in the Thus, throughout the 19th century, British war, not even exploring whether the Indian wars approached.51 enemy’s sight) with Jomini (with references to definitions encouraged the view that there was no had much to say about strategy.47 Whether Jomini’s ideas as interpreted by his strategy being worked out on the map).44 sharp distinction between strategy and tactics, for American strategic thought had a strong French American followers influenced the conduct of the In 1898, Henderson lectured on how strategy the same unit would be involved in one and then influence from the start. The first textbook at Civil War has been questioned, not least by Carol should be taught. As I note below, this lecture was the other. At issue were the requirements of officer the U.S. Military Academy at West Point was a Reardon.52 Carl von Decker’s Tactics of the Three interesting for its observations on the interaction education, and in particular the balance between translation of Gay de Vernon’s Traité élémentaire Arms53 was considered better for instruction, while of strategy and policy, but it also reflected mechanical drills, with their fixed scripts, and the d’art militaire et de fortification, which included another writer who had fought with Napoleon, Henderson’s conviction that the status of strategy need to move beyond those scripts. This required a separate section on grand tactics written by the Marshal Marmont, had not only reached a far needed to be elevated. The tactician, he noted, was a flexibility of mind and imagination to be able to translator.48 A key position at West Point was the higher rank but also had a more dynamic style.54 the “more popular personage than the strategist, handle the larger challenges that would be faced chair of civil and military engineering (a focus which Nor did Jomini play much of a role in the lively poring over his map, and leaving to others the perils in a campaign. This occurred at the strategic level, itself says something about the practical nature of debate that lasted the course of the Civil War in the and the glories of the fight.” The strategist only but the demands of strategy also involved paying officer training). Dennis Mahan occupied it from North on how that war should be best conducted. really came into his own when looking beyond the attention to very practical matters for which the 1832-1871. One of Mahan’s protégés was Henry My concern, however, is with definitions of principles of warfare — “which to a certain extent texts offered clear guidance: how to move forces Halleck, who became known as a cautious Union strategy. As with most definitions (including that are mechanical, dealing with the manipulation of over long distances, paying attention to medical general during the Civil War. In 1846, he published of Clausewitz), Jomini’s definition alluded to a armed bodies” — to what he called the “spirit of needs, as well as food and accommodation. When a series of lectures, entitled the Elements of Military wider theory, but was not dependent upon it. warfare.” This involved the moral element that it came to the very highest levels of command, Art and Science. In this work, he observed that Despite the experience of the war, in its aftermath could inspire troops, the elements of “surprise, knowledge of military history — looking back strategy could be “regarded as the most important, no other work commanded the same authority. The mystery, strategem.” Henderson criticized Hamley rather than forward — was seen as the best form of though least understood, of all the branches of the war highlighted the importance of political context for his neglect of these elements, for they were not instruction. The effect was to reinforce the fixation military art.”49 Mahan’s writings adopted a similar and showed how it affected strategy, but not to “mere manoeuvres,” but in practice were “the best with battle in military discourse, which continued weapons of the strategist.” The published version throughout the 19th century. The fact that 47 Russell F. Weigley, “American Strategy from Its Beginnings through the First World War,” Makers of Modern Strategy, ed. Peter Paret (Princeton: of his lecture included an appendix on “strategical Henderson could make exactly the same points Princeton University Press, 1986), 438-9. See also Brian McAllister Linn, The Echo of Battle (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2009). procedure,” which began: “The object of the talking about grand tactics in 1894 and then strategy 48 This was unusual as a key text first translated into English by an American (see footnotes 18 and 19). Michael Bonura, Under the Shadow of Napoleon: French Influence on the American Way of Warfare from Independence to the Eve of World War II (New York: NYU Press, 2012), 76. strategist is to concentrate superior force on the in 1902 (using the same reference to Napoleon’s 49 Henry Hallek, Elements of the Military Art and Science (New York: 1846). See Azar Gat, The Development of Military Thought: The Nineteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 16-22. Halleck did note the importance of the “Policy of War,” or “the relations of war with the 43 Lt. Col. G. F. R. Henderson, Stonewall Jackson and the , 2 vols. (London: Longman Green, 1898). For an appreciation of affairs of state.” Henderson, see Jay Luvaas, “G. F. R. Henderson and the American Civil War,” Military Affairs 20, no. 3 (Autumn 1956): 139-15. Also, see Luvaas, Education, Chapter 7. 50 Dennis Mahan, Elementary Treatise on Advanced Guard, Outposts, and Detachment Service of Troops (New York: Wiley, 1847; revised, 1862). 44 He noted that “strategy, unfortunately, is an unpopular science, even among soldiers, requiring both in practice and in demonstration constant 51 Col. H. L. Scott, Military Dictionary (New York: Van Nostrand, 1861), 574. This had not been prepared “in view of the existing disturbances.” and careful study of the map, the closest computation of time and space, a grasp of many factors, and the strictest attention to the various steps 52 Carol Reardon, With a Sword in One Hand and Jomini in the Other: The Problem of Military Thought in the Civil War North (Chapel Hill: in the problems it presents … the determining factor in civilised warfare …trained common sense.” University of North Carolina Press, 2012). 45 Lt. Col. G. F. R. Henderson, “Strategy and its Teaching,” Journal of the Royal United Services Institution XLII (July 1898), 761. 53 Carl von Decker, The Three Arms or Divisional Tactics, Maj. Inigo Jones, trans. (London: Parker, Furnivall, and Parker, 1848). The translator, Maj. 46 Strategy, from the Encyclopedia Britannica supplement 1902. Reprinted in Henderson, Science of War. While strategy was clearly the higher Inigo Jones, had improved the text, however, by interspersing Decker’s thoughts with some from Jomini. art Henderson was strongly of the view that this did not mean that strategy was “the province of the few” while “tactics of the many,” so that only 54 Interestingly there was both a Union translation and edition: Marshal Marmont, The Spirit of Military Institutions, trans. Henry Coppee those expecting high command “need trouble about what is perhaps the most important branch of the art of war.” Yet soldiers could not know if (Philadelphia: J P. Lippincott, 1862); and one from the Confederacy: Marshal Marmont, The Spirit of Military Institutions, trans. Col. Frank Schaller circumstances would push them into command at a critical moment. Those without this knowledge would be “terribly one-sided creatures.” (Columbia, S.C.: Rvans and Cogswell, 1864). Marmont worked with established definitions of strategy. 44 The Scholar 45

even discussed what would now be called the magazine article with the intriguing but, to modern “security dilemma.”58 The organization of armies eyes, misleading title of “The Grand Strategy of may “constantly suggest an early conflict, and the Wars of the Rebellion.” Despite the fact that thus produce an irritation which may soon lead his Georgia campaign challenged assumptions to open hostility.” He observed that when it came about how wars should be fought — with the to choosing when to accept or avoid conflict morale of the adversary’s population the target as “statesmanship becomes strictly strategical.” Yet much as the adversary army — he stressed that after that promising opening, the analysis became the principles of war were fixed and unchanging. entirely orthodox, with the “hostile army” selected They were “as true as the multiplication table, as the strategic objective.59 Mercur’s book was only the law of gravitation, or of virtual velocities, or used as a text for a short period and is now largely any other invariable rule of natural philosophy.” forgotten. He found that his best guide was a treatise by The only book-length study of any note, France J. Soady, which was actually a compilation according to Weigley, was Capt. Bigelow’s Principles of thoughts extracted from major texts, although of Strategy: Illustrated Mainly from American it did refer to Sherman as a “man of genius” and Campaigns.60 Bigelow was amongst those who gave a favorable account of his Georgia campaign.62 took the view that a grasp of strategy was essential The lack of progress in the American debate for officers of all grades, writing that, “A lieutenant is illustrated by an article published in 1908 in charge of a scouting party may be confronted titled, “The Conduct of War.” In it, the author, with problems which nothing but generalship will Capt. Matthew Steele, argued that it was better enable him to solve.” Although his basic definition to read military history than military textbooks. of strategy — the art of conducting war beyond the Military writers undertook to define strategy, yet presence of the enemy — was entirely conventional, it resulted in “definitions as various as the writers he sought to redress the balance between tactics were numerous.” With each, the term meant what and strategy, complaining that too many writers favored tactical skill at the expense of strategic skill. Most importantly, he divided strategy into three kinds: “regular, political, and tactical.” Tactical strategy was about getting “better men than the enemy’s the extent of forcing a reappraisal of strategy’s of the other branches its limitations could not be upon the field of battle,” while political essentially military character. understood. Mercur opened his discussion of strategy focused on “undermining Cornelius J. Wheeler, who took over at West Point strategy by setting as its first goal taking “advantage the political support of the opposing from Mahan in 1865 and held the position until of all means for securing success.” The second army, or at effecting recall from the 1884, showed more interest in war as a political aim was to “cause the greatest benefits to result war.” These forms of strategy were phenomenon, but the stress was still on following from victory and the least injury from defeat.” The normally practiced in combination. He Jomini.55 Only with his successor, James Mercur, do first involved “questions of statesmanship and was not proposing a new hierarchy, we start to see new possibilities. The first object of diplomacy.” Mercur’s list of what this entailed would and his discussions suggested that the the “art of war,” he explained was “to determine the feature in later considerations of grand strategy, tactical and political forms of strategy time, place and character of battles and conflicts such as “managing the military resources of a were all, in the end, geared toward the so that the greatest benefit may result from victory nation”; and “conducting international intercourse purpose of regular strategy, which was to destroy most suited the author’s treatise. Steele adduced and the least injury from defeat.” This was to be that when war becomes necessary or desirable, the hostile army. Yet in his discussion of Gen. that the term could not be defined. Instead, “its accomplished by strategy, including logistics. The favorable alliances may be made with strong power, William T. Sherman’s campaign, Bigelow was at meaning must be arrived at by [a] sort of process second objective was “[t]o make one’s self stronger and hostile combinations of nations may be avoided.” least starting to assess variations on the standard of absorption.” According to him, there was only than the enemy at the time and place of actual He urged that due weight be given to “financial scripts.61 one principle of strategy that has “undergone no combat.” This required “Logistics, Discipline, Grand and commercial considerations” including when Sherman wrote a war memoir published as a alteration either real or apparent.” In the end, it and Minor Tactics, and Military Engineering.”56 choosing campaign objectives, and when deciding Strategy took priority, but without knowledge on how to organize and train military forces.57 He

58 Ken Booth and Nicholas Wheeler, The Security Dilemma: Fear, Cooperation and Trust in World Politics (London: Palgrave, 2007). 55 Junius Wheeler, A course of instruction in the elements of the art and science of war. For the use of cadets of the United States military 59 Mercur, The Art of War, 272. academy (New York: Van Nostrand, 1878), 11. He defined strategy as “the science of directing, with promptitude, precision and clearness, masses of troops to gain possession of points of importance in military operations.” 60 Russell F. Weigley, “American Strategy from Its Beginnings through the First World War,” in Paret, ed., Makers of Modern Strategy, 438-9. Linn also accepts that Bigelow was “insightful and original.” 56 James Mercur, The Art of War: Prepared for the Cadets of the United States Military Academy (New York: John Wiley, 1898), 16, 140. Grand tactics referred to “planning battles, perfecting the preliminary arrangements, conducting them during their process and securing the results of 61 John Bigelow Jr., Principles of Strategy: Illustrated Mainly from American Campaigns (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1894). victory, or avoiding the consequences of defeat.” 62 Gen. W. T. Sherman, “The Grand Strategy of the Wars of the Rebellion,” The Century Magazine (February 1888): 582-597. Lt. Col. Frances Soady, 57 Mercur, The Art of War, 272. Lessons of war as taught by the great masters and others; selected and arranged from the various operations of war (London: W. H. Allen, 1870). 46 The Scholar 47

all came down to being “strongest at the decisive arguments a remedy for past mistakes” had sought was “to ensure that one wins the battle.”69 lacked declarations of war or a concluding peace point.”63 new theories. He continued: The German debate was more substantial, treaty, or when fighting occurred when there was although established definitions of strategy no actual war. This raised in his mind whether other Others have denied that remained intact. The architect of the Prussian ideas might one day be held “upon what we now there is such a thing as victory in the wars of German unification, Field describe as Peace and War, Policy and Strategy.”72 strategy, and attributed all Marshal Moltke, was more cautious in drawing One vital question addressed in the German the results of war to tactics. lessons from his successful campaign, and had a debate was whether the second phase of the 1870- For a small number strategy subtle understanding of strategic practice. As a 1871 Franco-Prussian War represented the future is the conception, and tactics is follower of Clausewitz, he shared the view that more than the first. After the French army had the execution. According to some tactical successes drove strategic outcomes. That is been comprehensively defeated in a conventional writers strategy is the science of why, to him, strategy was a “system of expedients.” battle at Sedan, there followed a period of irregular operations; tactics, that of battles. Preparations for battle must be meticulous. But French resistance. Moltke remained troubled for whereas Clausewitz saw the completion of battle as the rest of his life by the thought that the 1866 war Derrécagaix concluded that it was a task for strategy, it was Moltke’s view that once against Austria marked the end of Kabinetskrieg, a best to stick with Jomini. Strategy was battle began strategy became “silent” as tactics Cabinet War — one decided upon and settled by about maneuvering armies in the theater of took over. Only once battle was over could strategy governments and fought by professional armies. operations, while tactics was about disposing come back into play.70 A number of those who Instead, future war would take the form of a them upon the battlefield. His contribution worked closely with Moltke wrote their own books Volkskrieg, with the whole nation engaged in the was to identify the principles of Napoleon’s on strategy, including Wilhelm von Blume and military effort, rendering it bloodier and harder to The Impact of the Franco- system and note that Field Marshal Helmuth Graf Gen. Bronsart von Schellendorf.71 They followed conclude. Any peace negotiations would be less Prussian War von Moltke had achieved victory through their established definitions of the term. Blume warned straightforward than those following the complete sound application.67 against disregarding “the nature of strategy to elimination of the enemy army. Yet he did not see The other great conflict that might have been This debate, therefore, reaffirmed the importance seek to transform it into a learned system exactly any alternative strategic objective. This theme was expected to have a major influence on thinking of eliminating the enemy army as a fighting force. determined,” and stressed the importance of picked up in one of the most influential books of about warfare was the Franco-Prussian War. The The intellectual and emotional effort went into tactics as dealing with the “proper ordering” of the the period. Colmar von der Goltz, a rising star in the shock to the French led to urgent efforts to reform demonstrating how offensive élan could contribute action of troops “towards the object of fighting.” German army, explored the implications in Das Volk the army and restore an interest in strategy. To to a weaker force overcoming a stronger. While still He asserted that all that was “not embraced under in Waffen.73 The logic pointed to the exhaustion of the fore was Gen. Jules Louis Lewal, who became instructing young officers at the start of the 20th the head of tactics is strategy.” This included the the belligerent nations rather than victory through director of the revived École de Guerre and at century, Ferdinand Foch stressed the importance “decision as to when and for what object battle a few great decisive battles, until the exhaustion one point became minister of war.64 His project of tactics over strategy. “Following a study which shall be joined, the assembly of the necessary itself created the conditions for one side to make included developing a professional general staff has led to so many learned theories,” he asserted forces, and the reaping of the proper result.” a breakthrough. The entire resources of the nation and encouraging a hitherto dormant interest in that “fighting is the only means of reaching the One of the more thoughtful contributions was would be engaged, and conscript armies would be Clausewitz. A new translation of Clausewitz’s work end.” Strategy was “not worth anything without Prince Kraft’s Letters on Strategy. Kraft, who had formed. Battle would still be necessary, however, was published in French in 1886.65 Lewal, according tactical efficiency.”68 The stress elsewhere in the held more junior roles during the wars of 1866 and that remained the business of strategy. The to Luvaas, “was reluctant to admit the existence of military literature was also on battle: According and 1870 but now had access to Moltke’s papers, counter to Goltz’s pessimism was to put the strategy as such,” and eventually came to see it as to Gen. Jules Lewal, the objective in warfare “was observed how the strategist, while not at personal effort into developing an even bolder plan for the little more than mobilization, doubting that there to win, overwhelm the adversary materially and risk, must decide “whether a battle is to be fought opening stage of a war so that it could be won on would be much choice as to where a battle would morally, to oblige him to ask for mercy,” while for or not; on his fiat depends the lives of thousands.” conventional lines before it was allowed to turn actually be fought.66 Gen. Adolphe Messimy, “Victory is not achieved Although he took the accepted line that “it must into such a titanic struggle. This was the approach The debate was substantial, but the inclination through the possession of a town or territory, but always be the aim of strategy to unite the greatest taken by Moltke’s successor, Count Alfred von was still to look backward rather than forward, through the destruction of the adversarial forces.” possible strength for the tactical blow,” and that Schlieffen, who worked on a plan to ensure the returning to the Napoleonic era and the spirit of For Lt. Col. Léonce Rousset, “One has to think it was impossible to be too strong for a decisive “annihilation” of the French Army in the event of that time. Victor Derrécagaix summarized the exclusively of battle. All efforts, all thoughts, all battle, he also allowed that there were occasions a war, warning that failure to do so would mean an debate on strategy in the late 1880s by observing preparations have to pertain to its success.” Lt. when actions might have to be taken for purely “endless war.”74 that some who were “desirous of finding in new Col. Hippolyte Langlois added that the main aim political reasons, such as storming a particular In 1879, a young historian, Hans Delbrück, fortress. He was also aware of campaigns that reviewed Frederick the Great’s Military Testament

63 Capt. Matthew Steele, “The Conduct of War,” Journal of the Military Service Institution of the United States XVII (1908): 22-31. Here he was quoting from Colmar Freiherr Von der Goltz, The Conduct of War, trans. Maj. G. F. Lereson (London: Kegan Paul et al., 1899), whose work is discussed below. Steele noted that strategy could “not even be held to a military sense; there is a political as well as a military strategy, and they 69 Cited in Heuser, Evolution, 144-5. both fall within the scope of the conduct of war.” 70 Antonio Echevarria II, After Clausewitz: German Military Thinkers Before the Great War (Lawrence: University of Kansas, 2000), 142. 64 J. L. Lewal, Introduction à la partie positive de la stratégie (Paris: Librarie Militaire Baudoin, 1892). See Gat, The Development of Military 71 Wilhelm von Blume, Strategie (Berlin: E.S. Mittler und Sohn, 1882); Gen. Bronsart von Schellendorff, The Duties of the General Staff, 4th ed. Thought, 123. (London: H.M.S.O., 1905), 2 vols. (London: Kegan Paul, 1877-1880). 65 Published as Théorie de la Grande Guerre, trans. Lt. Col. De Vatry. See Beatrice Heuser, Reading Clausewitz (London: Pimlico, 2002), 15. A much 72 Kraft fought in the wars of German unification, but did not exercise senior command. Gen. Prince Kraft zu Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen, Letters on earlier edition was out of print. Strategy, 2 vols. (London: K. Paul, Trench, Trubner &​ Co., Ltd., 1898), 1-2, 11. 66 Jay Luvaas, “European Military Thought and Doctrine,” in Howard, ed., The Theory and Practice of War, 78. 73 Colmar von der Goltz, Das Volk in Waffen (Berlin: R. von Decker, 1883). Published in Britain in 1905 (based on 5th edition in 1898), trans. Philip 67 Victor Bernard Derrécagaix, Modern War, Vol. 1 Strategy, trans. C. W. Foster (Washington: James Chapman, 1888), 3-4. Ashworth (London: Hugh Rees, 1906). 68 Marshal Foch, The Principles of War, trans. Hilaire Belloc (New York: Henry Holt, 1920). This was first published in French in 1903. 74 Robert T. Foley. ed., Alfred von Schlieffen’s Military Writings (London: Frank Cass, 2003), 172 48 The Scholar 49

and concluded that Frederick had been no fan of forward to an age of decisive battles, he was “never itself lay down the purpose by fixing at will retreat. The generals needed to get that idea out battle. For him, it had been at most an occasional looking back to a war of positions.78 Caemmerer did the military object,” he was clear that politicians of “their heads,” he complained, for the “whole and necessary evil. This was a provocative claim, not entertain the thought that the same mistake should not “interfere in the conduct of war itself country is our soil.” The enemy was “within your for Frederick had been portrayed as setting the was being repeated, by assuming that the great and attempt to order to take a particular course to easy grasp,” he wrote to Meade, “and to have closed path that Napoleon followed, thus pointing to the encounters of the previous century were setting the actually reach the military targets. Attempts to do upon him would, in connection with our other late modern way of warfare. Goltz was one of the first to terms for 20th century wars. He failed to consider so put at risk military success.”81 successes, have ended the war. As it is, the war respond. The debate over Frederick’s philosophy of the possibility that some equally transformational The sentiment of political non-interference was will be prolonged indefinitely.”84 A biography of war and its implications for strategy continued for changes were underway. universal across European armies. The regularity Lincoln by his two secretaries published in 1890 the next three decades. As Foley notes, Delbrück and insistence with which it was expressed observed that “talk of military operations without succeeded in uniting an otherwise fragmented betrayed an underlying anxiety that it was not the the direction and interference of an Administration officer corps against him.75 He also came up with Strategy and Policy is as absurd as to plan a campaign without recruits, another heresy: He suggested that Clausewitz pay, or rations.”85 himself had seen the possibility of an alternative The argument between Chancellor Otto von Yet in his review of the evident tensions between to winning through decisive battle (based on his Bismarck and Moltke about the best approach to the generals and the political leadership on both reading of Clausewitz’s notes about revising On take toward French resistance after September sides during this war, British commentator G. War). Delbrück set out his challenge to established 1870 raised the issue of the extent to which F. R. Henderson reasserted the importance of German views in an 1889 article arguing that it military operations should be shaped by political preventing politicians from interfering in military was possible to win wars by maneuver as well as considerations. Moltke insisted that while policy decision-making: great battles.76 Here came the distinction between must set the goals “in its action, strategy is Niederwerfungsstrategie, a strategy of annihilation independent of policy as much as possible. Policy That the soldier is but the servant of the that would eliminate the enemy’s army as a fighting must not be allowed to interfere in operations.”79 statesman, as war is but an instrument of force through battle, and Ermattungsstrategie, a The evident flaw in Moltke’s argument, which diplomacy, no educated soldier will deny. strategy of exhaustion (or attrition) in which battles Bismarck pointed out, was that the political Politics must always exercise a supreme would not be decisive, but there would instead considerations then in play, including the influence on strategy; yet it cannot be an accumulation of pressure that would wear possibility of other states coming to the aid of be gainsaid that interference with the the enemy down. The implication of Delbrück’s France as irregular French resistance continued, commander in the field is fraught with the argument was that, whatever the general staff’s had little to do with preparing to fight a pitched gravest danger.86 preferences, the conditions might not fit the plans battle. Bismarck confessed that he had not read easiest position to defend. In addition, the more and war might take a quite different form to the one Clausewitz, but he saw clearly the continuing role Clausewitz was read, the more the relationship At the same time, Henderson was acutely aware intended. At issue was also a definition of strategy. of politics once war had begun. He wrote: between strategy and policy came to the fore. of the growing importance of the contextual The military’s view was that there was a “single, However, this was a slow process, and did not get factors that would determine whether it would be correct and legitimate form of strategy,” geared To fix and limit the objects to be attained beyond the formula that, though the statesman set possible to get into an optimal position for battle. toward battle, such that Delbrück’s exploration of by the war, and to advise the monarch in the objectives, the general must have independence In his lecture “Strategy and its Teaching,” for all how, employing Clausewitz’s schema, a different respect of them, is and remains during the when deciding on action.82 This was also the its concluding conformity, Henderson underlined policy might lead to a different strategy missed the war just as before it a political function, and position reached in the British debate, although how much good strategy depended on good point. 77 the manner in which these questions are influenced more by the Civil War than the Franco- statesmanship. “It is difficult, if not impossible, to Looking back over the strategic thinkers of the solved cannot be without influence on the Prussian War.83 President Abraham Lincoln, after divorce soldiering and statesmanship. The soldier 19th century, Lt. Gen. Rudolf von Caemmerer of the conduct of the war.80 all, had not only hired and fired generals according must often be the adviser of the statesman.” German Army mocked Bülow for having claimed to their strategic competence, but also had engaged Strategy should be “concerned as much with at its start to be writing in the spirit of the age. This remained the view of the German army. directly on what needed to be done to win the war. preparation for war as with war itself.” He spoke In practice, argued Caemmerer, Bülow completely While the militarist Gen. Friedrich von Bernhardi In a classic example of the inseparability of strategy of these preparations as the “Peace Strategy” failed to understand the century’s new spirit, accepted that war was a means to an end that and policy, when Gen. George Meade, the victor of (that is, strategy pursued at a time of peace as as exemplified by Napoleon. Instead of looking existed “entirely outside its domain” and so could Gettysburg, spoke triumphantly of driving “the opposed to one geared toward achieving peace). 87 invaders from our soil,” Lincoln was distressed This aspect of strategy was given more attention, 75 Robert J. Foley, German Strategy and the Path to Verdun: Erich von Falkenhayn and the Development of Attrition, 1870–1916 (Cambridge, UK: that the Confederate States Army had been able to as the state of alliances became more salient in Cambridge University Press, 2005), 39-40; Gat, The Development of Military Thought; Echevarria II, After Clausewitz. 76 Hans Delbrück, “Die Strategie des Perikles erläutert durch die Strategie Friedrichs des grossen,” Preußische Jahrbücher 64 (1889). 81 Friedrich von Bernhardi, Vom heutingen Kriege (Berlin: Mittler, 1912); Friedrich von Bernhardi, On War of To-day, trans. Karl von Donat, 2 vols. (London: Hugh Rees, 1912-13), vol. 2. 77 Arden Bucholz, Hans Delbrück & the German Military Establishment (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1985), 35. Delbrück’s magnum opus, Geschichte der Kriegskunst im Rahmen der politischen Geschichte, was published in 4 vols. from 1900 to 1920. A further 3 vols. in the series were 82 See, for example, Commandant Mordacq, Politique et stratégie dans une démocratie (Paris: Plon-Nourrit, 1912); Benoît Durieux, Clausewitz en completed by other writers by 1936. Delbrück had a limited influence on British and American debates. His significance was first identified in France: Deux siècles de réflexion sur la guerre (1807-2007) (Paris: Bibliothèque Stratégique, 2008). Gordon A. Craig, “Delbrück: The Military Historian,” Edward Mead Earle, ed., Makers of Modern Strategy; Paret, ed., Makers of Modern Strategy. His 83 In Luvaas, Education, 109, he notes that MacDougall was the first European to include lessons from the Civil War into a military text. Hamley work did not begin to appear in English until 1975: Hans Delbrück, trans. Walter J. Renfroe, Jr., History of the Art of War within the Framework of was criticized in a Spectator article for his inaccuracies on the American war: “Hamley’s Operations of War,” The Spectator 39 (June 23, 1866), 695- Political History, 4 vols. (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1975-1985). 696. 78 Lt. Gen. Rudolf von Caemmerer, The Development of Strategical Science During the 19th century (Berlin: Baensch, 1904), trans. Lt. Gen. Karl von 84 Eliot Cohen, Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002), 40-41. Donat (London: Hugh Rees, 1905). 85 John G. Nicolay and , Abraham Lincoln: A History IV (New York: The Century Co., 1890), 359-360. 79 Daniel Hughes, Moltke on the Art of War: Selected Writings (Novato, Calif.: Presidio Press, 1995), 35. See also Barry Quintin, Moltke and his Generals: A Study in Leadership (Solihull, Helion & Co., 2015). 86 Henderson, Stonewall Jackson, Vol. 1, Chapter 7. 80 Lawrence Freedman, Strategy: A History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 105-7. 87 Lt. Col. G. F. R. Henderson, “Strategy and its Teaching,” Journal of the Royal United Services Institution XLII (July 1898): 761. 50 The Scholar 51

assessing the likely character of a future war. Thus The established view depended on a clear abundance of literature describing war on land — as during their progress.” T. Miller Maguire, a barrister, who was a regular division of labor between the statesman and here he mentioned Hamley — but little attention Yet there was one sense in which Mahan did commentator on international affairs, referred to the commander. This would only work if they had been given to naval war: “Of writers of naval accept a difference between naval and military “international strategy” in a lecture he gave at the understood one another. A debate at the Staff strategy there were absolutely none; writers on strategy. Military strategy tended to be confined to a Royal United Services Institution in 1906.88 College among senior officers in 1911 indicated naval tactics were few and far between.”94 He did “combination, either or wholly distinct or mutually The poor performance of the British army in the not offer his own definition of strategy, other than dependent, but always regarded as actual or Boer War led to introspection as well as respect for to refer in passing to the standard distinction immediate scenes of war.” This could be considered Germany’s growing strength and the leading role between strategy “determining the locality of too narrow for the naval sphere. Here there were of its general staff, and interest in German military battle,” and tactics its “conduct.”95 positions that could be occupied at times of peace thinking. This interest resulted in the translation In his introduction, Colomb expressed his that would be of value at times of war. From this of key German texts into English. Maguire, quoted pleasure at the recent publication of what he came his definition of the goals of naval strategy: above, even complained about the unwarranted described as a work complementary to his own, “to found, support, and increase, as well in peace influence of German ideas in British military written by an American, Alfred Thayer Mahan, as in war, the sea power of a country.”99 This was doctrine: the son of Dennis Mahan. The younger Mahan somewhat circular, as the purpose of strategy developed his theories at a relatively late age after was to increase the power that made the strategy We are overwhelmed with translations of being put in charge of the new U.S. Naval War possible. Nevertheless, the stress on peacetime the literary labours of German generals; College in 1886.96 He focused on the importance of was significant. If the opportunity could be taken our tables groan beneath the ponderous control of the sea to Britain’s rise as a great power, to establish naval bases at critical points across and dreadfully dull tomes of a generation thus providing a broad and historical context the globe, for example, then wartime operations of writers who seem to thrive on knowledge to naval operations. By advocating that America should be much easier. In fact, as with Henderson, of the minutest details of two campaigns — follow the British example, he can be seen as a the importance of peacetime preparedness as an 1866 and 1870 — and of these only. 89 the extent to which questions of politics kept on pioneer of grand strategy, although this was only aspect of strategy was already being picked up by intruding into strategic matters. The received by implication. It was not a term he used.97 army theorists. As Mahan noted, the importance The greater awareness of Clausewitz brought view was that the education of officers required In 1911, Mahan published his original lectures in of certain geographical points as “strategic” in with it his insistence on war as a continuation of that they write “strategical papers, referring to a revised and expanded form under the title Naval their importance went back to early 19th century politics, although as much, if not more, interest military operations in which they might one day Strategy, but the revisions did not extend to his strategists such as the Archduke Charles. In was shown in his discussions of friction and be engaged,” but as they did so they should keep definition of strategy, which he had developed in his Colomb’s work, great stress also was placed on the the interaction of the offense and the defense.90 clear of political matters. Yet one officer, Col. first book. When he began, Stephen Luce, the first importance of advantageous strategic positions. Stewart Murray, who provided a short guide to Launcelot E. Kiggell, observed that when studying president of the Naval War College, urged him to Mahan worked with a narrow definition of Clausewitz, insisted that “during actual operations and teaching war “politics were at the back of all follow Jomini, although he appears to have required strategy while emphasizing the potential political the statesman should exercise the greatest possible strategical problems.”93 little persuading to do so. In his introduction to and economic consequences of naval operations. restraint, and avoid all interference, except when The Influence of Sea Power, Mahan identified the This stress on the wider context and the importance demanded by overwhelming political necessity.” If point of contact between armies or fleets as “the of peacetime dispositions pushed naval thought to pre-war preparations were inadequate, that would The Naval Contribution dividing line between tactics and strategy.” He a more expansive definition of strategy. This was clearly be a political failure more so than a military shared Jomini’s belief in the permanence of the an opportunity to build upon Clausewitz’s view of one. Politicians were responsible for the war as The period beginning in the late 1880s also saw general principles that came under the heading politics and war, which his disciples in the German much as the peace policy, for “preparing, ordering, a growing influence of naval thinking on wider of strategy. This is why they could be deduced general staff had found awkward, but Mahan guiding, and controlling of war.” 91 Moreover, as strategy. It was surprising that it took so long, from history. Tactics, by contrast, were more came to Clausewitz late, and his works had little Lt. Col. Walter James observed, it was, at times, given the well-established importance of the subject to the “unresting progress of mankind.”98 evident influence on Mahan’s thinking. This was advantageous to follow a more political than purely Royal Navy to Britain’s international standing. When it came to battle, the organized forces of not the case with the British maritime theorist Sir military strategy to bring home to an enemy the Introducing a book published in 1891, Rear Adm. the enemy provided the strategic objective, just Julian Corbett, an influential civilian who studied futility of resistance.92 Philip Columb observed that there had been an as they would do on land. His definition of grand Clausewitz.100 Corbett believed that naval and tactics was taken directly from Jomini: “the art of military strategy should be considered in relation making combinations preliminary to battle as well to each other, and that both needed to be released 88 T. Miller Maguire, “International Strategy Since 1891 and its Present Condition,” Journal of the Royal United Services Institution 50, no. 1 (1906): 637-655. 89 T. Miller Maguire, Our Art of War as Made in Germany (London: Simpkin, Marshall, 1900), 2. The timing suggests he had Goltz particularly in 94 Rear Adm. P. H. Colomb, Naval Warfare: Its Ruling Principles and Practice Historically Treated (London: W. H. All, 1891), v-viii. mind. Maguire was unusual in seeing strategy as a way for the weaker power to avoid battle on unfavorable terms. Geoffrey Demarest, T. Miller 95 Rear Adm. P. H. Colomb, Naval Warfare, 76. Maguire and the Lost Essence of Strategy (U.S. Army War College, Strategy Research Paper, 2008). 96 Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660–1783 (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1890) and The Influence of Sea 90 See Bassford, The Reception of Clausewitz. For example, Henderson described Clausewitz as “the most profound of all writers on war,” but Power Upon the French Revolution and Empire, 1793–1812 (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1892). Robert Seager, Alfred Thayer Mahan: The Man “geniuses and clever men have a distressing habit of assuming that everyone understands what is perfectly clear to themselves.” As Henderson was and His Letters (Annapolis: U.S. Naval Institute Press, 1977). For a collection of his writings, see Alfred Thayer Mahan, Mahan on Naval Strategy: thinking of instructing officers, he observed the Prussian’s uselessness for men of “average intelligence.” Selections from the Writings of Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan, with an introduction by John Hattendorf (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1991). 91 Stewart Murray, The Reality of War: A Companion to Clausewitz (London: Hugh Rees, 1914), 128-133, https://archive.org/details/ 97 Jon Tetsuro Sumida, Inventing Grand Strategy and Teaching Command: The Classic Works of Alfred Thayer Mahan Reconsidered (Washington, realityofwarcomp00murruoft. DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1999). Milevski, Evolution, 29, describes Mahan as implying grand strategy. 92 Lt. Col. Walter James, Modern Strategy: An Outline of the Principles Which Guide the Conduct of Campaigns (London: Blackwood, 1903), 17, 98 Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power, 8. 18. Though James had a conventional view of strategy as being “concerned with the movement of troops before they come into actual collision,” his description of what this involved indicated just how broad the discussion was becoming. It included “the selection of the country in which to fight” 99 Alfred Thayer Mahan, Mahan on Naval Strategy, 22. and “the objects against which the armies should be directed.” 100 J. J. Widen, Theorist of Maritime Strategy: Sir Julian Corbett and His Contribution to Military and Naval Thought (Abingdon; Routledge, 2016); 93 Bond, Victorian Army, 266. Donald M. Schurman, Julian S. Corbett, 1854–1922 (London: Royal Historical Society, 1981). See also Azar Gat, Development of Military Thought. 52 The Scholar 53

from the fallacy “that war consists entirely of political vision” of the soldiers was “matched by was dangerous to lay down a strict and rigid rule of a strategical act.” As soon as there was contact, battles between armies and fleets.” He went back the remarkable military ignorance of the political non-interference by the civil power.106 tactics would “begin to shape themselves.”109 to the assumption of the pre-Napoleonic period leaders,”104 the interaction of strategy and policy The views of Col. John “Boney” Fuller and Capt. It is important to note that, although grand that the main objective was territory and not the was still being viewed as it had been prior to the Basil Liddell Hart had both been shaped by the tactics has been compared to contemporary enemy armed forces, whose destruction was at war. One widely read book by Maj. Gen. Wilkinson fighting on the Western Front and they originally descriptions of the “operational level,” for Fuller most a means to an end. Thus, he defined strategy Bird still kept the political and military aspects of made their names by developing ideas for the it does not appear simply as an intermediate as “the art of directing forces to the ends in view.” war-making separate. He defined strategy “as the mechanization for the Army. In 1923, Fuller, the stage between strategy and minor tactics. Minor In 1906, in his “Strategical Terms and Definitions direction or management of war” and divided his senior and more original of the two, picked up tactics, he explained, reflected a “different Used in Lectures on Naval History” pamphlet, definition into a peace strategy so “that should war on Corbett’s reference to grand strategy.107 Once expression of force.” Whereas grand tactics were Corbett divided strategy into “major” (or “grand”) take place it may be waged with every prospect of it was accepted that the effectiveness of the concerned with the “mental destruction” of the dealing with ulterior objects and “minor” dealing success.” This would involve questions of funding military instrument had to be discussed in the enemy, minor tactics came into play when it was with “primary objects,” which were essentially and alliances, as well as describing the interests context of the other instruments of state policy, necessary to move into physical destruction concerned with war plans and operational plans to be protected and the “localities where the then it was clear that a military victory was no (“when the mind of the enemy’s commander respectively. The vital feature of major/grand enemy may be struck.” In the event of war, “the longer adequate. The focus of war, insisted Fuller, can only be attacked through the bodies of his strategy was that it involved the “whole resources primary purposes of military strategy are to allot should be “to enforce the policy of the nation men”).110 As Milevski notes, Fuller’s use of the of the nation for war” and not just armed force. and dispose the forces so that the victory in battle at the least cost to itself and to the enemy and, term strategy is often “odd.” Fuller admitted In 1911, when he revised these notes, he left it will be probable, and if gained will be decisive.” He consequently, to the world.” The grand strategist to Liddell Hart that “‘I find it most difficult to as a distinction between major and minor.101 The expressed concern with the fact that “non-military had to understand commerce and finance, as suggest a suitable definition of strategy.’”111 distinction, however, represented a breakthrough considerations” formed “a large item in the well as politics, culture, and history, in order to On strategy, Liddell Hart, though more derivative in thinking about strategy. The ends of major or broader aspects of policy” and would encourage “form the pillars of the military arch which it is in his ideas, produced sharper and, in the end, grand strategy were a matter for the statesman “the tendency to meddle with the conduct of his duty to construct.” more lasting language.112 The key conceptual while the army or navy was responsible for the operations which some statesman appear to have Fuller offered a completely new approach to breakthrough came in a short piece written in June minor strategy, whose purpose was how to achieve found difficulty in resisting.”105 warfare in his 1926 book, The Foundations of the 1924 titled “The Napoleonic Fallacy,” which was those ends. The ulterior and primary objects had Even by 1927, the diplomat, politician, and Science of War.108 The ambition and complexity published in a relatively obscure journal, although to be kept in mind when planning operations. With military historian, Sir William Oman, recognized he of the book’s arguments limited its appeal. In it was eventually reworked (as was Liddell Hart’s major strategy, there was a tension between the use was being controversial when he urged the need the book, Fuller argued that the aim of military habit) in his first theoretical book, Paris; Or the of the army and navy as instruments in war while for “the directing classes in any nation” to “have a operations was to encourage a form of nervous Future of War113 and in subsequent books. There keeping in view the -diplomatic position certain general knowledge of the history of the Art breakdown on the enemy side rather than to was no new definition of strategy, but, following of the country, along with the commercial and of War” and not feel “bound to accept blindfold emerge victorious from battle. With grand Fuller, he established that the objective of war financial. This led to the “deflection of strategy by the orders of their military mentors.” He was strategy, “the political object” was to win the was a good peace — an “honourable, prosperous, politics” and was “usually regarded as a disease.” aware that he was ignoring warnings of “amateur war, while with grand tactics the object was the and secure existence.” This set as the military’s This was, however, “inherent in war:” Neither strategy.” Still, he could not accept the view that “destruction of the enemy’s plan.” The object of aim to subdue the enemy’s “will to resist, with the strategy nor diplomacy ever had a clean slate. This once a political leader set down the political ends of strategy was “to disintegrate the enemy’s power least possible human and economic loss.” On this interaction had to be accepted by commanding war, it could “wash his hands of the whole matter, of cooperation” and of tactics “to destroy his basis, and in contrast to “The Napoleonic Fallacy,” officers as part of the inevitable “friction of war.”102 and make no comment, criticism, or interference activity.” Yet while this was a bolder conceptual the “destruction of the enemy’s armed forces is on what the military authority may do.” It was not framework, Fuller’s actual understanding of but a means and not necessarily an inevitable good enough to see the political role as simply strategy remained orthodox. In lectures given in or infallible one to the attainment of the real After the Great War making sure that the military had “whatever men, the early 1930s, he was still describing strategy in objective.” It was “the function of grand strategy money and munitions as required.” The military terms of battle: “the advance to the battlefield is to discover and exploit the Achilles’ heel of the There was no evident need to reappraise the were as fallible as anybody else. However sparingly concept of strategy after the end of World War I.103 used, the civilian leadership “must retain some

Despite the fact that at the war’s start the “narrow power to comment, to criticize, even to quash.” It 106 Sir Charles Oman, “A Defence of Military History,” The Study of War for Statesmen and Citizens, ed. Sir George Aston (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1927), v-vi, 40-1. The former Foreign Secretary, Viscount Grey of Fallodon, introduced the volume observing that civilians who may play a part in government in time of war should study the principles of war, and particularly the great mistakes that civilian governments have made in military and naval strategy (adding he must share responsibility for some of those in the recent war). 107 J. F. C. Fuller, The Reformation of War (London: Hutchinson and Co, 1923), 214. On Fuller, see Gat, Fascists and Liberal Visions of War (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998) and Brian Holden Reid, Studies in British Military Thought. 108 J. F. C. Fuller, The Foundations of the Science of War (London: Hutchinson, 1926). 101 In an earlier work, he had referred to “higher” strategy. Milevski, Evolution, 37. 109 Reid, Studies in British Military Thought, 107-8, 154-5. 102 Julian Corbett, Some Principles of Maritime Strategy (Longmans, Green & Co., 191), 308. The “The Green Pamphlet” of 1909 appears as an appendix. 110 J. F. C. Fuller, Foundations, 110. 103 See for example William Keith Naylor, Principles of Strategy with Historical Illustrations (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: General Services School 111 Milevski, Evolution, 51. Press, 1921): ‘‘The division between strategy and tactics is generally known and everyone fairly knows under which head to place any single act, 112 His first effort at definitions was unsuccessful. In 1923, he distinguished between tactics as the “domain of weapons” and concerned with without knowing distinctly the grounds on which the classification is founded.” Naylor stuck with Jomini. German military writing kept the old destruction, while strategy was the “the science of communications,” largely concerned with movement. B. H. Liddell Hart, “The Next Great War,” definitions. Royal Engineers Journal XXXVIII (March 1924). An excellent source on the development of Liddell Hart’s concepts is Lt. Col. Richard M. Swain, B. 104 Hew Strachan, The First World War, Vol. I: To Arms (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 99. H. Liddell Hart; Theorist for the 21st Century (Fort Leavenworth, KA: Advanced Operational Studies School for Advanced Military Studies, U. S. Command and General Staff College, 1986). See also Swain’s “B. H. Liddell Hart and the Creation of a Theory of War, 1919-1933,” Armed Forces & 105 Gen. W. Bird, The Direction of War: A Study of Strategy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1920), 14, 27, 43. The list of authorities he Society 17, no. 1 (1990): 35-51 and Brian Bond, Liddell Hart: A Study of his Military Thought (London: Cassell,1977). provides are largely those mentioned in this study based on the Napoleonic wars. He does not include Corbett. This was, however, part of a series of which Corbett was the general editor. 113 B.H. Liddell Hart, Paris: Or, The Future of War (London: Dutton, 1925). 54 The Scholar 55

enemy nation; to strike not against its strongest whole package. The key shift was to accept that published in 1970 titled Problems of Modern The boundary problem between strategy bulwark but against its most vulnerable spot.”114 there were a number of ways to use armed force, Strategy, Michael Howard opened his essay and policy went to the heart of civil-military In a letter in late November 1927, Liddell and that the most advantageous way in a given observing that Liddell Hart’s definition was “as relations and by the start of the 20th century Hart denied that he was offering a “one-sided scenario depended on a keen understanding of good as any, and better than most.”121 was increasingly hard to play down. The refutation of battle as a means of victory,” but the political context. proper relationship was supposed to involve more an argument “to remedy the lopsidedness During the interwar years, references to grand the government setting policy which would be which has arisen through over-emphasis on strategy became increasingly frequent. This Conclusion handed down as the objectives of the war to the battle as the all-important means to victory.” was the combined result of more thought being military commanders responsible for strategy. Here he identified for the first time his theory given to World War I and the rise of aggressive In the same volume as Howard’s essay, the They would then turn them into war plans. The of “The Strategy of the Indirect Approach,” militarism in the 1930s. In a book published French political theorist Raymond Aron noted basic problem, perhaps more in theory than in according to which “the dislocation of the during World War II, the historian Cyril Falls that the appropriate contrast for strategy was practice, was that war plans were always expected enemy’s moral, mental or material balance is the did not seem to understand that the term grand tactics, but that “modern authors” tended to to come down to the elimination of the enemy vital prelude to an attempt at his overthrow.”115 strategy was of comparatively recent origin. contrast it instead with “policy.” The result army as a fighting force. That is how strategy This was the theme of his most lasting book, The He considered strategy to be a matter for the was that there was “now no difference between was presented for purposes of officer education. Decisive Wars of History,116 in which he rejected “commander-in-chief”, and described tactics as what was once called a policy and what one now Without such a sharp focus on defeating the Clausewitz’s definition — “the employment the “art of fighting,” beginning where strategy calls strategy.”122 In 2005, Hew Strachan made a enemy army, discussions of strategy would have of battle as a means to gain the object of war” ended. This left the demarcation point between similar point. The view of strategy developed by opened up earlier. In that case, however, the need because this took for granted the necessity of the two hard to identify. This was an observation the early 20th century was “based on universal to cover a great variety of types of engagement battle. He preferred a definition he attributed to that could have been made a century earlier. Or principles, institutionalized, disseminated, and would have undermined all efforts to provide Moltke: “the practical adaptation of the means else, Falls suggested, perhaps strategy referred at ease with itself.” Strategy was only one of detailed advice on standardized operations. placed at a general’s disposal to the attainment of to what was done on a great scale and tactics on the components of war, but it was “the central The narrow approach therefore facilitated the the object.”117 From this definition, he formulated a minor scale, or else strategy was “the province element sandwiched between national policy on military curriculum but at the expense of failing his own: “the distribution and transmission of the virtuoso, tactics that of the artisan.” In the one hand and tactics on the other.” If there to prepare officers for contingencies other than of military means to fulfill the ends of policy.” practice, the strategic choices were usually was a problem it “lay not in its definition but in those of a pitched battle. Much later, “transmission” was replaced by limited, and so it was the slog of tactics that got its boundaries with policy.”123 This was a natural After World War I, a narrow approach to “employment.”118 He limited tactics to matters results.119 Also during the war, Field Marshall consequence of the decline of the soldier- strategy appeared inadequate. Historian Edward concerned with “the fighting.” Grand strategy Lord Wavell, who had begun his military career sovereigns and the need to manage relations Mead Earle brought scholars interested in the was about the coordination and direction of all in the Boer War and ended it as commander-in- between the civil and military spheres, each with increasingly pressing questions of national the resources of the nation to the attainment chief for India, challenged Liddell Hart’s view its distinct role and responsibilities. security to a seminar in Princeton, where a of the political object of the war. Unlike Fuller, that strategy was gaining in importance: “I hold As this article has shown, there was a boundary broader view of the subject emerged. In his Liddell Hart saw no need for a separate concept that tactics, the art of handling troops on the problem on the other side as well. Numerous introduction to his landmark collection of essays, of grand tactics. His definitions were part of a battlefield, is and always will be a more difficult writers observed that the distinction between Makers of Modern Strategy, published in 1943, package of propositions geared to the promotion and more important part of the general’s task strategy and tactics was hardly clear-cut. It was Earle explained that, narrowly defined, strategy of his indirect approach so as to avoid desperate than strategy, the art of bringing forces to the difficult to separate out the preparations for was “the art of military command, of projecting frontal assaults. In his wariness of battle, he was battlefield in a favorable position.”120 It was after fighting and actual fighting, or to distinguish and directing a campaign,” where tactics was looking back to the 18th century and some of World War II that Liddell Hart’s definition began activities according to the responsible level of “the art of handling forces in battle.” But war the ideas that animated the earliest discussions to stick, helped by his growing reputation as a command. This was why ideas of grand tactics and society had “become more complicated,” of strategy. But the advantage of his definitions prophet of limited war and the publication of kept on intruding. It was also the area in which and so “strategy has of necessity required was that they did not require accepting the his classic book on strategy in 1967. In a volume writers on colonial wars saw the most significant increasing consideration of nonmilitary factors, difference with regular warfare. The impact of economic, psychological, moral, political, and

114 B. H. Liddell Hart, “The Napoleonic Fallacy; The Moral Objective in War,” Empire Review 1 (May 1925), 510-520. For the date of composition, see colonial wars, which was the main preoccupation technological.” Strategy, therefore, was not “an B. H. Liddell Hart, Memoirs, 2 vols. (London: Cassell, 1965), I, 75. of the army, was more ambiguous because these inherent element of statecraft at all times.” His 115 Swain, “B. H. Liddell Hart,”42. The extent to which Liddell Hart’s ideas derived from Corbett and Fuller is well-known. Less appreciated, wars tended to be seen as special cases.124 This definition tended toward grand strategy: perhaps, is his debt to Sun Tzu, which he read for the first time in 1927. He later attested to Sun Tzu’s impact upon him and quoted him liberally. “In particular boundary problem, unlike that with one short book,” he observed, “was embodied almost as much about the fundamentals of strategy and tactics as I had covered in more than twenty books.” B. H. Liddell Hart, “Foreword” in Sun Tzu, The Art of War, trans. Samuel B. Griffith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963), vii. See also Derek policy, was manageable because all the activities In the present-day world, then, strategy M. C. Yuen, Deciphering Sun Tzu: How to Read the Art of War (London: Hurst & Co, 2014). The links between Sun Tzu’s formulations and his own are were military responsibilities. is the art of controlling and utilizing the pronounced. 116 B. H. Liddell Hart, The Decisive Wars of History (London: G. Bell and Sons, 1929). 121 Michael Howard, “The Classic Strategists,” Problems of Modern Strategy, ed. Alastair Buchan (London: Chatto & Windus for the Institute for 117 Robert Foley has been unable to trace this quote and notes that Liddell Hart’s source is unclear, and is possibly a poor translation. “Can Strategic Studies, 1970), 47. He also opened with Liddell Hart in Michael Howard, “The Forgotten Dimensions of Strategy,” Foreign Affairs(Summer Strategy be Reduced to a Formula of S=E+W+M?” Defence in Depth (November 2014), https://defenceindepth.co/2014/11/03/can-strategy-be- 1979), 975-986. A reader for the National Defense University published in 1980, while including a rather long-winded definition of strategy from reduced-to-a-formula-of-s-e-w-m. the Joint Chiefs, opened with Howard’s essay and a number of extracts from Liddell Hart’s book. Col. George Holt Jr. and Col. Walter Milliken, Strategy: A Reader (Washington, DC: National Defense University, 1980), iii. The Joint Chiefs’ definition was: “the art and science of developing and 118 “Transmission” was removed in the 1954 version, published as “Strategy: The Indirect Approach” (always his preferred title). The 1967 edition using political, economic, psychological, and military forces as necessary during peace and war, to afford maximum support to policies, in order to has the definition now generally used. increase the probabilities and favorable consequences of victory and to lessen the chances of defeat.” 119 Cyril Falls, Ordeal by Battle (London: Methuen, 1943), vol. 5, 74. He mentions Fuller in passing but not Liddell Hart, although there is a slighting 122 Raymond Aron, “The Evolution of Modern Strategic Thought,” in Buchan, Problems of Modern Strategy, 14-15. reference to the indirect approach: “the neophyte may imagine that the ideal procedure would be to march straight round the enemy’s flank and get astride his communications. … But it would only serve against an army which could be relied upon to submit tamely to the process.” 123 Hew Strachan, “The lost meaning of strategy,” Survival 47, no. 3 (2005), 36. 120 Lord Wavell, Soldiers and Soldiering (London: Jonathan Cape, 1953), 47. Cited in Bernard Brodie, Strategy in the Missile Age (Princeton: 124 “It is a singular feature of small wars that from the point of view of strategy the regular forces are upon the whole at a distinct disadvantage Princeton University Press, 1959), 12-14. as compared to their antagonists.” Col. C. E. Callwell, Small Wars: Their Principles and Practice (London: HMSO, 1896). 56 The Scholar 57

resources of a nation — or a coalition of battle, it was a chapter heading, a set of practical nations — including its armed forces, to the issues that any commander would need to address end that its vital interests shall be effectively when moving large bodies of men, properly promoted and secured against enemies, equipped and provisioned, into position for the actual, potential, or merely presumed.125 coming encounter. Once battle was no longer the certain objective and the relationship between As Strachan pointed out in another article, the military means and political ends was opening up category of grand strategy was not always helpful a range of operational possibilities, the topic of because it suggested that it was in some way strategy became more challenging for purposes comparable to military strategy.126 The original of officer education. But for the same reasons it concept was closely connected to war and could also became much more interesting for theorists. be taken to refer to all of those things, including Instead of looking to the past to help deduce the military preparations and action, required to unchanging principles of war, strategy came to prosecute war effectively. This included peacetime mean looking to the future to explore new ways preparations for conflict, such as allocating in which changing political circumstances might military budgets and forming alliances. But these interact with new forms of armed force. There is an preparations might be undertaken in such a way unavoidable tension between strategy as theory, a that they made war unlikely (deterrence) and way of thinking about the interplay of political and so, over time, could be hard to distinguish from military affairs, and strategy as guidance, a way of a more general foreign and defense policy. Thus, preparing for likely contingencies. The first breaks just as strategy lost its specificity when it became down boundaries. The second requires boundaries unhinged from battle, so too did grand strategy to keep the task manageable. By the end of the lose its specificity as it became detached from 19th century, the study of strategy had become war. Instead of discussions on strategy staying routine for practitioners, but of little interest close to those on tactics they moved to a much for theorists. By the end of the 20th century, it higher plane. had become a matter of endless fascination for In the period under discussion, an “operational theorists, but a puzzle for practitioners. level” was not identified.127 A number of theorists did write about grand tactics, largely referring Lawrence Freedman is professor emeritus of to the more demanding actions needed prior to war studies at King’s College London. Freedman actual battle, at which point ordinary tactics became professor of war studies at King’s College in would come into play. Strategy itself best covered 1982. In 2002, he became head of the School of Social what is now considered the operational level, and Sciences and Public Policy at King’s College. In June the introduction of the latter can be seen as a 2009, he was appointed to serve as a member of the response to the loss of a purely military definition official inquiry into Britain and the 2003 Iraq War. of strategy.128 These different categories — grand Before joining King’s College, Freedman held strategy/policy, strategy, grand tactics/operations, research appointments at Nuffield College Oxford, tactics — could be seen as representing different the International Institute for Strategic Studies, levels of command, and so serve as a way of London, and the Royal Institute of International delineating the responsibilities of each. But the Affairs, London. Elected a fellow of the British issue was always the dynamic interaction between Academy in 1995, he was appointed official historian these distinct concepts, and the more categories, of the Falklands Campaign in 1997. the more complicated that interaction became. His most recent books are Strategy: A History When strategy only entailed preparing for (2013) and The Future of War: A History (2017).

125 Edward Meade Earle, “Introduction,” Makers of Modern Strategy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1943), viii. On Earle see Michael Finch, ‘‘Edward Mead Earle and the Unfinished Makers of Modern Strategy,” Journal of Military History 80, no. 3 (2016): 781-814; David Ekbladh, “Present at the Creation: Edward Mead Earle and the Depression Era Origins of Security Studies,” International Security 36, no. 3 (Winter 2011/12): 107–141. 126 Hew Strachan, “Strategy and Contingency,” International Affairs 87, no. 6 (2011): 1281-1296. Strachan’s writing on these issues were collected together in The Direction of War: Contemporary Strategy in Historical Perspective (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2013). 127 Justin Kelly and Mike Brennan identify a reference in the 1982 Field Manual 100-5 to an “operational level of war,” which involved “planning and conducting campaigns” as the source of what they consider to be a major confusion. Alien: How Operational Art Devoured Strategy (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2009). The idea, however, had already been introduced by Edward N. Luttwak, “The Operational Level of War,” International Security 5, no. 3 (Winter 1980-1981): 61-79. 128 Jean Colin saw grand tactics as having a place between strategy and tactics. Strategy was about the general control of operations. It “concerns itself with the combining of movements regulated so as to obtain a predetermined result.” Grand tactics concerns itself with the combined movements which prepare battle, and also organizes the march of divisions up to the point where they become engaged. Jean Colin, The Transformations of War, trans. Bvt. Maj. L.H.R. Pope-Hennessy (London: High Rees, 1912). 58 The Scholar 59

How well do the existing theories about nuclear proliferation North Korea Defied predict North Korea’s successful nuclearization? According to most theories of nuclear various moments when it began, halted, and could proliferation, North Korea did not stand much of a have been potentially stopped, and then, finally, the Theoretical Odds: chance of successfully acquiring nuclear weapons. taking a look at its final sprint to the nuclear As an economically backward, neopatrimonial weapons finish line. We then take stock of how regime subject to the threat of preventive strikes various theories of nuclear proliferation fared and war, North Korea should have failed. Few in predicting North Korea’s success in acquiring What Can We Learn theories gave it a sporting chance of successfully nuclear weapons. Few fare well, particularly those nuclearizing. Yet here we are, staring down an theories that focused on North Korea’s security intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM)-sized environment, access to technology and foreign barrel at the world’s 10th nuclear weapons power.1 supplies, and regime type. Theories examining from its Successful 2017 was a banner year for the North Korean North Korea’s orientation toward the international nuclear weapons program, as Kim Jong Un economy and the United States fare better, but even sprinted to develop a range of missile capabilities these do not provide full explanations for North — including a credible ICBM capability — and a Korean behavior. Next, we discuss how to move Nuclearization? thermonuclear weapon. A program that was once forward as a research program, given that nuclear derided as a joke, especially after its first purported proliferation is both a rare event and not a fully nuclear test in 2006, is now anything but that. Why predictable process. This is not a call to abandon did academic theories of nuclear proliferation so current theories of proliferation by any means, but seriously underestimate North Korea, and how is instead intended as a wake-up call — academic should we adjust our theories to better account theories underestimated North Korea, and they for future nuclear proliferators, so that we do not therefore need to be adjusted to take into account repeat that mistake? what we have learned from this failure. Specifically, Understanding why academic theories failed we argue that academic theories should reconsider to forecast North Korea’s acquisition of nuclear the role of threats of military force, economic weapons is important for reasons of both policy and development, foreign technological support, and scholarship. From a policy perspective, theories regime type, and place greater emphasis on the of proliferation ideally would help governments ability of proliferators to prevent or withstand the forecast the most probable future proliferators, pressure of coercive nonproliferation measures. such that decision-makers could design effective We conclude with a discussion of the implications policy interventions ahead of time, either to help of our findings for nonproliferation policy, arguing forestall acquisition or prepare for its consequences. that the North Korea case underlines the limits of The fact that academic theories generally failed export control policies and unilateral sanctions, to predict North Korean acquisition calls into the importance of timely policy intervention question whether they can reliably serve this sort of and inducements, and the vulnerability of role. From a more parochial scholarly perspective, nonproliferation bargains to domestic political identifying why academic theories failed to forecast dynamics. North Korean acquisition of nuclear technology is important, particularly in the context of the recent “renaissance” of nuclear security studies.2 Given A Brief History of North Korea’s the large sums of money and human effort that Nuclear Weapons Program have gone into studying nuclear proliferation in the last decade, the academic community needs to be The Early Years: clear and accountable in identifying not only our January 1960 – January 1992 advances, but also our failures and blind spots. We begin this article by tracing North Korea’s North Korea’s efforts to acquire nuclear weapons nuclear program through time, discussing the began in the early 1960s, when it requested Soviet

1 Although there are only nine nuclear-armed states today, North Korea is the tenth to acquire. South Africa acquired nuclear weapons in the late 1970s and gave them up in the early 1990s. 2 See Stephen Walt, “A Renaissance in Nuclear Security Studies?” Foreign Policy, Jan. 21, 2010, http://foreignpolicy.com/2010/01/21/a- Nicholas L. Miller renaissance-in-nuclear-security-studies; and Scott Sagan, “Two Renaissances in Nuclear Security Studies,” H-Diplo/ISSF Forum on “What We Talk About When We Talk About Nuclear Weapons,” June 14, 2014, https://networks.h-net.org/node/28443/discussions/31776/h-diploissf-forum- Vipin Narang %E2%80%9Cwhat-we-talk-about-when-we-talk-about-nuclear. 60 The Scholar 61

and Chinese help with developing a nuclear pursue a nuclear weapons program, it has made its and “if the pressure put upon us is removed.”13 stalled on ratifying the safeguards agreement, U.S. weapons program. Both declined, but Moscow job much more difficult by signing the NPT.”7 By A few weeks later, as part of an initiative to officials warned that Pyongyang might only be a agreed to train North Korean nuclear scientists 1988, despite having signed the NPT, North Korea cut the U.S. nuclear arsenal globally as the Cold few months away from a rudimentary weapons and help Pyongyang develop a peaceful nuclear still had not reached a safeguards agreement with War wound down, President George H. W. Bush capability.20 Meanwhile, U.S. intelligence suggested program. After China tested its first nuclear device the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). announced that U.S. tactical nuclear weapons that North Korea was continuing construction in October 1964, North Korea approached Beijing Meanwhile, signs emerged that Pyongyang might would be withdrawn from foreign bases. This led on its reprocessing facility, hardening it against with another request for aid in nuclear weapons be building a reprocessing facility, which could the North Korean government to announce, “If the potential attack, and perhaps removing equipment development, which was again refused. Over the be used to extract plutonium from spent reactor United States really withdraws its nuclear weapons prior to inspections.21 In the spring of 1992, North next decade and a half, North Korea continued fuel. This combination of red flags led the CIA to from South Korea, the way of our signing Korea finally ratified the safeguards agreement, unsuccessfully to seek nuclear assistance observe that “close scrutiny of the North’s nuclear the nuclear safeguards accord will be opened.”14 submitted its declaration of nuclear activities to from abroad, including from East Germany, effort is in order,” even though it admitted, “we U.S. government officials around this time also the IAEA, and allowed inspections, but this only Czechoslovakia, and, again, from the Soviet Union have no evidence that North Korea is pursuing a were considering an initiative whereby both South roused further concerns. Inspectors uncovered and China. By the end of the 1970s, North Korea option.”8 The following year, after and North Korea would be asked to commit to not several inconsistencies in the North Korean decided to pursue a program on its own, with a Washington Post story drew attention to North reprocess spent nuclear fuel, which would help declaration, found evidence that equipment had Kim Il Sung ordering the development of a gas- Korea’s reprocessing facility and potential nuclear address proliferation risks but would go beyond been removed from the reprocessing plant (which graphite reactor at Yongbyon, which could be used weapons program, North Korea publicly denied North Korea’s obligations under the NPT.15 U.S. North Korea had previously denied existed), to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons.3 North that it was seeking nuclear weapons.9 Around this nonproliferation efforts finally bore fruit in late and were refused access to several undeclared Korea deliberately chose a reactor design that used time, the U.S. government concluded that North 1991, when North Korea agreed to accept IAEA sites suspected of storing nuclear waste. IAEA natural uranium and did not require heavy water, Korea was indeed pursuing nuclear weapons.10 That safeguards and reached an agreement with Seoul analysts also determined that North Korea had thus minimizing dependence on external supplies.4 conclusion was bolstered by evidence that North under which the two countries pledged not to likely produced more than the small amounts of Indeed, in describing North Korea’s program more Korea was testing sophisticated conventional develop nuclear weapons.16 The leaders of North plutonium to which it had admitted.22 Over the than a decade later, a U.S. official observed, “Of all explosives at Yongbyon, indicating that Pyongyang and South Korea also agreed to a nonaggression course of that summer, the United States, Russia, the nuclear weapons programs in the Third World, could be developing an implosion-type nuclear pact.17 The nuclear agreement, formally concluded in China, and Europe all pressured North Korea to this is the most indigenous.”5 weapon.11 January 1992, additionally required the two Koreas comply more fully with the IAEA. Meanwhile, China By the mid-1980s, the reactor at Yongbyon Over the next two years, North Korea’s sense of to refrain from enrichment, reprocessing, and restored diplomatic relations with South Korea and was complete. Meanwhile, the United States insecurity sharpened, as its Soviet ally collapsed hosting nuclear weapons, to be verified by bilateral Russia began to loosen ties with Pyongyang.23 As and Soviet Union began to take notice of North and both Russia and China sought to improve inspections.18 In the same month, as a gesture of an October 1992 U.S. Defense Department memo Korea’s suspicious nuclear activities. In 1985, at relations with Seoul. Meanwhile, the United good will toward Pyongyang, Washington and observed, “What is becoming clear is that North Washington’s urging, Moscow convinced North States and Russia worked to convince North Seoul announced that they would cancel their joint Korean non-cooperation is more evident as IAEA Korea to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Korea to accept IAEA safeguards. But Pyongyang military exercises for the year, leading North Korea becomes more aggressive in its inspections.”24 Treaty (NPT) in exchange for a Soviet agreement demanded the removal of U.S. nuclear weapons to finally sign an IAEA safeguards agreement.19 In early 1993, with the Clinton administration to provide power reactors.6 In September 1986, from the peninsula along with a negative security now in office, the United States and South Korea a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) report assurance as a precondition for accepting any The First North Korean Nuclear Crisis: announced that they would hold their annual concluded that, “whether [or not] the current such safeguards.12 When the IAEA Board passed a February 1992 – May 1994 military exercise — which had been canceled the nuclear developments in North Korea reflect resolution in September 1991 calling on North Korea year before — making reference to North Korea’s a nuclear weapons program, they represent a to implement a safeguards agreement, a North The momentum toward nonproliferation and lack of full compliance with the IAEA and North considerable developing capability.” However, the Korean official suggested his government would improved relations on the Korean Peninsula did Korea’s failure to agree to a bilateral inspection same report noted, “If North Korea intends to only do so if the U.S. “nuclear threat” dissipated not last long. In February of 1992, as North Korea regime with South Korea. For its part, the

3 Etel Solingen, Nuclear Logics: Contrasting Paths in East Asia and the Middle East (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007), 127-128. 13 Don Oberdorfer, “North Korea Balks at Nuclear Accord; Government Cites Outside ‘Pressure,’ Says Signing is Still Possible,” Washington Post, Sept. 17, 1991, A10. 4 Jeffrey Richelson, Spying on the Bomb: American Nuclear Intelligence from Nazi Germany to Iran and North Korea (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2007), 333; Mitchell Reiss, Bridled Ambition: Why Countries Constrain Their Nuclear Capabilities (Washington: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 14 T.R. Reid, “West [Europeans], Asians, Welcome Bush’s Arms Initiative; Changes Could Reduce Pressure on Leaders in South Korea, Japan,” 1995), 234. Washington Post, Sept. 29, 1991, A33. 5 Don Oberdorfer, “N. Korea Seen Closer to A-Bomb; U.S. Officials Say Weapon Capability May Come in Months,” Washington Post, Feb. 23, 1992, 15 NSA, EBB 610, doc. 2. A1. 16 Robert Carlin, “North Korea,” in Nuclear Proliferation After the Cold War, ed. Mitchell Reiss and Robert Litwak (Washington: Woodrow Wilson 6 Joel S. Wit, Daniel B. Poneman, and Robert L. Gallucci, Going Critical: The First North Korean Nuclear Crisis (Washington: Brookings Institution Center Press, 1994), 137-8; and Reiss, Ambition, 238-9. Press, 2004), 3. Also see Jonathan Pollack, No Exit: North Korea, Nuclear Weapons, and International Security (Abingdon: Routledge, 2011), 94. 17 Wit, Poneman, and Gallucci, Going Critical, 10. 7 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), “North Korea: Potential for Nuclear Weapon Development,” Sept. 1986, in “North Korea and Nuclear 18 “Joint Declaration of South and North Korea on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula”, Jan. 20, 1992, http://www.nti.org/learn/treaties- Weapons: The Declassified U.S. Record,” ed. Robert Wampler, National Security Archive (hereafter NSA), Electronic Briefing Book (EBB)no. 87, doc. 7. and-regimes/joint-declaration-south-and-north-korea-denuclearization-korean-peninsula. An agreement on inspections was never reached. 8 CIA, “North Korea’s Expanding Nuclear Efforts,” May 3, 1988, in “North Korea and Nuclear Weapons: The Declassified U.S. Record,” ed. Robert 19 Drennan, “Nuclear Weapons,” 165; and Carlin, “North Korea,” 139. Wampler, NSA, EBB no. 87, doc. 10. 20 Don Oberdorfer, “N. Korea Seen Closer to A-Bomb; U.S. Officials Say Weapon Capability May Come in Months,” Washington Post, Feb. 23, 1992, 9 Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS)/CIA, “Trends,” Aug. 9, 1989, in “North Korea and Nuclear Weapons: The Declassified U.S. Record,” A1. ed. Robert Wampler, NSA, EBB no. 87, doc. 14. Also see Don Oberdorfer, “North Koreans Pursue Nuclear Arms; U.S Team Briefs South Korea on New Satellite Intelligence,” Washington Post, July 29, 1989, A9. 21 Richelson, Spying, 519. 10 William Drennan, “Nuclear Weapons and North Korea: Who’s Coercing Whom?,” in The United States and Coercive Diplomacy, eds. Robert Art 22 Richelson, Spying, 517-518. and Patrick Cronin (Washington: United States Institute of Peace, 2003), 164-5. 23 Reiss, Ambition, 241-3. 11 Wit, Poneman, and Gallucci, Going Critical, 6. 24 Memorandum, William T. Pendley to the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, “Subject: North Korea Nuclear Issue — Where Are We Now?” 12 Reiss, Ambition, 230-237. Oct. 27, 1992, in “Engaging North Korea: Evidence from the Bush I Administration,” ed. Robert Wampler, NSA, EBB no. 610, doc. 11. 62 The Scholar 63

IAEA demanded that North Korea allow special concluded that North Korea may have already June 1994 – March 2003 normalization.42 Then, in 1998, the United States inspections of its suspected nuclear waste storage acquired enough plutonium for a nuclear device,30 detected the construction of a large underground sites, giving Pyongyang 30 days before it would causing the United States to try to line up support The North Korean nuclear crisis was only defused complex in North Korea, which officials worried refer the issue to the United Nations Security for sanctions at the United Nations, an effort again when former President traveled to might be a covert nuclear site.43 That same year, Council (UNSC).25 In March, as the military exercise obstructed by China.31 North Korea in June and met with Kim Il Sung. North Korea tested a new medium-range ballistic began, North Korea declared it would withdraw After North Korea agreed to allow new IAEA Carter identified a potential bargain that would missile, the Taepodong-1, firing it over Japan and from the NPT in 90 days, leading the IAEA Board inspections in March 1994, the United States and involve the United States agreeing to hold high- into the sea.44 The test was especially concerning of Governors to turn over the issue to the UNSC. South Korea announced that they would suspend level talks with Pyongyang in exchange for a North because it indicated that North Korea would soon After China signaled it would not support sanctions their joint military exercises and hold additional Korean commitment to allow IAEA inspections, to have the ability to target all of Japan.45 Washington against North Korea, the United States again turned talks with Pyongyang.32 But North Korea blocked not refuel its reactor, and to refrain from further responded by threatening to scuttle the Agreed to diplomacy, offering to hold talks with Pyongyang inspectors from visiting parts of its reprocessing reprocessing of spent fuel.38 A few weeks later, Kim Framework, leading North Korea to allow an on a range of issues — including military exercises, facility at Yongbyon, leading the IAEA to pull out Il Sung died and was succeeded by his son, Kim inspection of the underground site in question. security assurances, and nuclear inspections — if it its team.33 This, in turn, led Washington to cancel Jong Il, who finished the nuclear negotiations his Although no evidence of nuclear activity was found, would be accommodating on the nonproliferation scheduled talks with North Korea, announce that father had started.39 In October 1994, after several U.S. intelligence soon began to notice indications it would indeed hold its military exercise months of negotiations, the United States and that North Korea was procuring components for with South Korea, and begin reinforcing North Korea concluded the Agreed Framework. an enrichment program, possibly with aid from With North Korea warning its military posture in the region, including The deal required Pyongyang to freeze operation Pakistan.46 Indeed, around this time, North Korea moving Patriot missile batteries to South of its nuclear facilities at Yongbyon, agree to began receiving assistance in enrichment from the that the peninsula was Korea.34 With North Korea warning that inspections, remain in the NPT, move toward AQ Khan network.47 the peninsula was “on the brink of war,” implementation of the 1992 denuclearization pact Despite these challenges, a few signs of “on the brink of war,” China China again signaled opposition to U.N. with South Korea, and not reprocess any more cooperation emerged at the tail end of the Clinton sanctions.35 Soon thereafter, Secretary spent fuel. In exchange, Washington agreed to administration. Clinton put Perry in charge of again signaled opposition of Defense William Perry publicly stated provide North Korea with heavy oil, to help it coordinating North Korea policy, who worked toward that a military strike was a possibility if acquire two light-water power reactors, and to renewed cooperation.48 Instead of confronting to U.N. sanctions. diplomacy and sanctions failed.36 After move toward broader improvements in relations, North Korea over its rudimentary enrichment another U.S. negotiation attempt failed, including increased diplomatic contacts, removal program and threatening to pull out of the Agreed issue.26 Although China opposed North Korea’s North Korea began unloading spent fuel rods from of sanctions, a negative security assurance, and, Framework, the Clinton administration decided to acquisition of nuclear weapons, it feared that strong its Yongbyon reactor, laying the groundwork for the ultimately, normalization of relations.40 pursue additional negotiated agreements. After all, sanctions might cause the regime to collapse, separation of additional plutonium. In June, IAEA By the late 1990s, however, the Agreed North Korea had technically been complying with leading to a refugee crisis on its borders.27 Over the director Hans Blix declared that the agency had Framework had run into difficulties. Partly due to its obligations under the Agreed Framework, which summer of 1993, talks with the United States led permanently lost the capability to verify whether congressional opposition, the United States was focused on its plutonium program — a far bigger North Korea to suspend its NPT withdrawal. The North Korea had diverted nuclear materials for use behind in delivering the promised benefits to North proliferation threat than its nascent enrichment United States agreed to help North Korea acquire in a weapons program. As tensions continued to Korea.41 In particular, the United States was late in program at the time.49 In late 1999, Pyongyang light-water power reactors in exchange for North rise, the United States proposed an arms embargo starting construction on the light-water reactors agreed to a missile test moratorium in exchange Korea’s cooperation with inspections.28 By the against North Korea at the United Nations, while and had been repeatedly late in providing oil. It for the easing of U.S. economic sanctions,50 and in end of the year, however, North Korea was again both South and North Korea prepared for possible also had lifted few sanctions and had maintained late 2000, the United States and Pyongyang held dragging its feet on inspections, seeking a broader military conflict.37 North Korea on the list of state sponsors of terror. a series of high-level meetings, including a trip by grand bargain with the United States as its price Meanwhile, there were no substantial moves toward Secretary of State to North for cooperation.29 At the same time, U.S. officials The Agreed Framework and its Demise: 38 Reiss, Ambition, 272. 39 Pollack, No Exit, 117. 25 Reiss, Ambition, 247-250. 40 International Atomic Energy Agency, “Agreed Framework of 21 October 1994 Between the United States of America and the Democratic 26 Reiss, Ambition, 250-253. People’s Republic of Korea,” in “North Korea and Nuclear Weapons: The Declassified U.S. Record,” ed. Robert Wampler, NSA, EBB no. 87, doc. 17. Also 27 Wit, Poneman, and Gallucci, Going Critical, 31. see Pollack, No Exit, 114. 28 Drennan, “Nuclear Weapons,” 169. 41 Siegfried Hecker, “Lessons Learned from the North Korean Nuclear Crises,” Daedalus 139, no. 1 (2010): 49. 29 Reiss, Ambition, 256-7; and Drennan, “Nuclear Weapons,” 170-1. 42 See Maria Ryan, “Why the US’s 1994 Deal with North Korea Failed — and What Trump Can Learn From It,” The Conversation, July 19, 2017, https://theconversation.com/why-the-uss-1994-deal-with-north-korea-failed-and-what-trump-can-learn-from-it-80578. 30 Richelson, Spying, 522-3. 43 Richelson, Spying, 527. 31 Julia Preston, “China Breaks Ranks on N. Korean Nuclear Plants; Beijing Refuses to Join U.S., Others in Security Council in Pressuring for Inspections,” Washington Post, Feb. 10, 1994, A24. 44 Robert D. Walpole, National Officer for Strategic and Nuclear Programs, “North Korea’s Taepo Dong Launch and Some Implications on the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States,” Dec. 8, 1998, in “North Korea and Nuclear Weapons: The Declassified U.S. Record,” ed. Robert 32 Thomas Lippmann and T.R. Reid, “N. Korea Nuclear Inspection Begins; U.S. Agrees to Suspend War Games with South Korea to Ease Tensions,” Wampler, NSA, EBB no. 87, doc. 19. Washington Post, March 4, 1994, A1. 45 Sheryl WuDunn, “North Korea Fires Missile Over Japanese Territory,” New York Times, Sept. 1, 1998, A6. 33 Drennan, “Nuclear Weapons,” 172; and Reiss, Ambition, 265-6. 46 Richelson, Spying, 528-530 34 Drennan, “Nuclear Weapons,” 173; and Reiss, Ambition; 266. 47 Pollack, No Exit, 135. 35 T.R. Reid, “North Korea Warns of ‘Brink of War’; Christopher: Sanctions Will Be Considered if Impasse on A-Sites Continues,” Washington Post, March 23, 1994, A23. 48 Pollack, No Exit, 128. 36 Don Phillips, “Sanctions a First Step, U.S. Warns North Korea,” Washington Post, April 4, 1994, A1. 49 See Jeffrey Lewis, “Revisiting the Agreed Framework,” 38 North, May 15, 2015, http://www.38north.org/2015/05/jlewis051415. 37 Drennan, “Nuclear Weapons,” 173-5; and Reiss, Ambition, 268-271. 50 David Sanger, “Clinton is Ready to Scrap Some North Korea Sanctions,” New York Times, Sept. 14, 1999, A14. 64 The Scholar 65

of the pact.”57 This fundamental asymmetry in progress, the United States imposed sanctions on how the Agreed Framework was understood may entities involved in North Korean weapons of mass help explain both the failure of the United States destruction (WMD) programs and levied an array to pursue broader improvements in relations of financial sanctions intended to cut down on in a timely fashion, as well as the North Korean Pyongyang’s illicit economic activities.63 decision to pursue an enrichment capability when In July of 2006, with the Six-Party Talks on the Agreed Framework was not playing out as it hold due to North Korean opposition to America’s had envisioned. It also suggests that a desire for sanctions policy, Pyongyang tested six missiles, improved relations with Washington has been an leading the UNSC to impose sanctions banning important motivation for North Korean decision- missile-related trade with North Korea.64 In early makers, which perhaps implies that “carrots” are October, North Korea warned it would soon as or more important than “sticks,” in dealing with conduct its first nuclear test, citing U.S. hostility and Pyongyang, a point we return to below. sanctions as justification.65 A few days later, despite international warnings, North Korea conducted its Crossing the Finish Line: first nuclear test, although the low yield suggests April 2003 – December 2017 the device did not work as intended, measuring less than one kiloton.66 The UNSC responded by Despite withdrawing from the NPT, North imposing new sanctions on North Korea, covering Korea continued to seek economic, diplomatic, trade in armaments and luxury goods, although and security benefits in exchange for limiting its provisions allowing for the inspection of North program, threatening to test a nuclear device or Korean cargo were weakened by Russian and export nuclear materials if its demands were not Chinese opposition.67 Soon thereafter, at Chinese met.58 While the Bush administration would not prodding, Pyongyang announced it would return to agree to these demands, it did begin negotiations the negotiating table.68 with Pyongyang in the context of the Six-Party In February 2007, an agreement was reached Talks, beginning in August 2003 and continuing by the six negotiating parties, which called on until 2009. These talks were organized and hosted North Korea to freeze its plutonium program and Korea to discuss the missile issue.51 In December construction on light-water reactors in North by China and also included South Korea, Japan, accept inspections at Yongbyon in exchange for 2000, with his administration’s time running short, Korea.55 North Korean officials began citing U.S. and Russia.59 At the end of 2004, the IAEA director Clinton decided to pause the negotiations, putting military actions in Yugoslavia, , and concluded that North Korea likely possessed the ball in the court of the incoming George W. Iraq as justifying their need to develop nuclear enough plutonium for four to six bombs.60 The “Perhaps ‘carrots’ are as Bush administration.52 weapons. Indeed, there are indications that Kim following year, U.S. intelligence detected the The Bush administration, opposed to a policy Jong Il was seriously concerned about the prospect construction of a tunnel that could be used for or more important than of accommodation toward North Korea, initially of U.S. military action in 2003.56 a nuclear test, while Pyongyang continued to halted negotiations and insisted on harsher terms, Why did the Agreed Framework break down? It demand concessions from the United States, ‘sticks’, in dealing with including broader inspection rights and limits seems reasonable to conclude that both sides bear including the provision of power reactors, which on North Korea’s conventional force posture.53 some of the fault. Although North Korea clearly had been promised in the Agreed Framework.61 In Pyongyang.” In October 2002, after the 9/11 attacks and North violated at least the spirit of the agreement by September 2005, during the fourth round of the Six- Korea’s inclusion in the Bush administration’s “Axis starting a secret enrichment program, it is also clear Party Talks, North Korea committed in principle the lifting of certain U.S. sanctions, the provision of Evil,” the United States accused North Korea of that the United States was not following through on to denuclearization in exchange for political and of fuel oil, economic aid, Washington taking North running a secret uranium enrichment program. its own obligations. The key problem, as Siegfried economic concessions.62 Nevertheless, despite this Korea off its list of state sponsors of terrorism, and Recriminations and threats between the two sides Hecker points out, was that “Washington saw the soon caused the Agreed Framework to break Agreed Framework primarily as a nonproliferation down, leading North Korea to kick out inspectors, agreement,” while North Korea “viewed the political 57 Hecker, “Lessons Learned,” 49. withdraw from the NPT, and restart nuclear provisions of the Agreed Framework, which called 58 Richelson, Spying, 532. activities at Yongbyon.54 The Bush administration, for both sides to move toward full normalization 59 Pollack, No Exit, 144. for its part, cut off oil shipments and suspended of political and economic relations, to be the heart 60 David Sanger and William Broad, “North Korea Said to Expand Arms Program,” New York Times, Dec. 6, 2004, A6. 61 Richelson, Spying, 536-7. 62 Hecker, “Lessons Learned,” 50. 51 Hecker, “Lessons Learned,” 49-50; and Pollack, No Exit, 128-129. 63 Hufbauer et al., “Case 50-1 and 93-1.” 52 David Sanger, “Clinton Scraps North Korea Trip, Saying Time’s Short for Deal,” New York Times, Dec. 29, 2000, A11. 64 Hufbauer et al., “Case 50-1 and 93-1.” 53 Michael Gordon, “U.S. Toughens Terms for North Korea Talks,” New York Times, July 3, 2011, A9. 65 David Sanger, “North Koreans Say They Plan a Nuclear Test,” New York Times, Oct. 4, 2006, A1. 54 Richelson, Spying, 530-532; Hecker, “Lessons Learned,” 50; and Pollack, No Exit, 139. 66 Richelson, Spying, 558; Hufbauer et al., “Case 50-1 and 93-1”; and Mary Beth Nitkin, “North Korea’s Nuclear Weapons: Technical Issues,” Congressional Research Service, April 3, 2013, 15. 55 Gary Clyde Hufbauer, Jeffrey Schott, Kimberly Ann Elliott, and Barbara Oegg, “Case 50-1 and 93-1,” Peterson Institute for International Analysis, May 1, 2008, https://piie.com/commentary/speeches-papers/case-50-1-and-93-1. 67 Hufbauer et al., “Case 50-1 and 93-1.” 56 Pollack, No Exit, 141-142. 68 and Helene Cooper, “North Korea Will Resume Nuclear Talks,” New York Times, Nov. 1, 2006, A1. 66 The Scholar 67

movement toward normalization of relations with Yeonpyeong.76 programs despite steadily increasing international have either the facilities or materials necessary the United States.69 After North Korea began to For the duration of its time in office, the Obama sanctions pressure, including six rounds of U.N. to develop and test nuclear weapons.”85 By the receive sanctions relief, it started to implement its administration adopted a policy of “strategic sanctions and gradually escalating U.S. sanctions.82 mid-1980s, however, North Korea’s development side of the deal in the summer of 2007. The following patience” toward Pyongyang, increasing the The most recent U.N. sanctions, passed in August of a nuclear reactor started raising concern that summer, the Bush administration further eased diplomatic and economic pressure on North Korea and September 2017, prohibited the import of North Pyongyang might be pursuing nuclear weapons, sanctions, but stalled on removing North Korea’s in an effort to convince the regime to return to Korean coal, iron, lead, seafood, and textiles, and though the intelligence community still doubted designation as a state sponsor of terrorism.70 In the negotiating table while hoping for a change in limited North Korea’s ability to buy oil and refined that North Korea would risk nuclear pursuit given September, North Korea blocked IAEA inspectors regime orientation. After Kim Jong Un succeeded petroleum.83 Yet these stronger measures have its vulnerability and the prospect of reactive South from monitoring Yongbyon, displeased that the his father in December 2011, the United States almost certainly come too late — no country has Korean proliferation.86 Twenty years later, North United States had not yet delivered some of the and North Korea reached the short-lived Leap ever given up an indigenously developed nuclear Korea would test its first fission device. Thirty promised benefits.71 After a deal was struck on Day Agreement in February 2012, whereby North arsenal of this size and sophistication. years later, North Korea would undeniably become verification measures the following month in Korea temporarily limited its nuclear and missile the world’s 10th nuclear weapons power. exchange for North Korea’s removal from the state- programs in exchange for economic aid, a deal that Few theories of nuclear proliferation, if any, gave sponsor-of-terrorism list, Pyongyang backtracked Pyongyang soon violated. From this point onward, How Did Academic Theories Perform? North Korea a chance of reaching that milestone. on the agreement, leading the United States to North Korea declined to seriously negotiate, Below, we catalog how academic theories fare in suspend the provision of fuel.72 focusing instead on building up its nuclear and Why North Korea pursued nuclear weapons is predicting North Korea’s chances of successfully Tensions continued after the Obama missile capabilities.77 This uncompromising North hardly a puzzle. The country finds itself in one of acquiring nuclear weapons. To be clear, we focus administration entered the White House in 2009, Korean posture has continued under the Trump the most dangerous security environments in the on theories that purport to explain the acquisition with North Korea testing a Taepodong-2 missile in administration, which has adopted a strategy of world, facing a conventionally superior, nuclear- of nuclear weapons (or lack thereof), as opposed to April of that year, which led the UNSC to tighten both sanctions and threats of preventive military armed American-South Korean alliance on its the related literature on why states pursue nuclear the enforcement of missile sanctions. North Korea force.78 borders. Since the end of the , which weapons. Moreover, we limit our discussion to responded by escalating the situation further, Between 2010 and 2017, North Korea conducted ended in armistice and not a peace agreement, both theories that are intended to apply generally to all kicking out inspectors, pulling out of negotiations, four nuclear tests (one in 2013, two in 2016, and one the North and the South have openly called for countries, as well as theories that are intended to and warning it would resume its nuclear program.73 in 2017). The most recent test, in September 2017, reunification. The pursuit of nuclear weapons — if apply to specifically to countries like North Korea. On May 25, 2009, North Korea conducted its is estimated to have well exceeded 100 kilotons it were successful — would provide North Korea In other words, these are fair tests of the theories second nuclear test, with a yield estimated between in yield, suggesting North Korea has developed with, at the very least, invasion insurance. This is under consideration; we are applying the theories two and eight kilotons, leading the UNSC to pass a thermonuclear or boosted fission device.79 not to say that there are not reinforcing domestic to a case in which they are intended to apply. additional sanctions, including a wider arms During the same period, North Korea conducted political motivations. Nuclear weapons have Realist theories on nuclear proliferation assume embargo and tighter financial restrictions.74 The more than 80 missile tests, including several that become a symbol of the Kim regime’s legitimacy that states acquire nuclear weapons for security following year, Pyongyang revealed a centrifuge demonstrate the country’s ICBM capability, putting and power. North Korea’s nuclear program also purposes. Indeed, quantitative studies have enrichment plant at Yongbyon, which could allow the U.S. homeland within striking distance.80 In makes it far more relevant in global affairs than it found that states in enduring rivalries and with it to produce highly-enriched uranium for nuclear 2017, the Defense Intelligence Agency estimated otherwise would be, giving it a kind of status. But more military disputes are more likely to acquire weapons.75 North Korea also committed two armed that North Korea may possess as many as 60 the primary motivation is security, to deter against nuclear weapons.87 In their most extreme form, provocations in 2010, sinking a South Korean nuclear weapons.81 North Korea achieved this a conventional invasion by the United States and realist theories argue that if a state has a strong vessel and shelling the South Korean island of impressive progress in its nuclear and missile efforts by South Korea to reunify the Korean enough security imperative, nothing can stop them Peninsula on Western terms. 84 from acquiring the bomb. According to Kenneth 69 U.S. Department of State, “North Korea — Denuclearization Action Plan,” Feb. 13, 2007, https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2007/ It is somewhat surprising, then, that North Korea’s Waltz, for example, “no country has been able february/80479.htm. pursuit of nuclear weapons only popped onto to prevent other countries from going nuclear 70 Arms Control Association, “Chronology of U.S.-North Korean Nuclear and Missile Diplomacy,” Jan. 2018, https://www.armscontrol.org/ the radar screen of the United States intelligence if they were determined to do so.”88 Yet there is factsheets/dprkchron#2007. community in the late 1980s. In 1982, a CIA report something fundamentally unsatisfying about this 71 Steven Lee Myers and Elaine Sciolino, “North Koreans Bar Inspectors at Nuclear Site,” New York Times, Sept. 24, 2008, http://www.nytimes. com/2008/09/25/world/asia/25korea.html. analyzing the next decade of nuclear proliferation argument, since it is impossible to measure a 72 Arms Control Association, “Chronology.” concluded that, despite interest in reactors, “we state’s level of determination with any degree of 73 Hufbauer et al., “Case 50-1 and 93-1.” have no basis for believing that the North Koreans certainty, thus rendering the theory tautological. 74 Arms Control Association, “Chronology of U.S.-North Korean and Missile Diplomacy,” January 2018, https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/ dprkchron. 82 Arms Control Association, “Chronology.” 75 Emma Chanlett-Avery, Ian E. Rinehart, and Mary Beth D. Nikitin, “North Korea: U.S. Relations, Nuclear Diplomacy, and Internal Situation,” 83 Arms Control Association, “UN Security Council Resolutions on North Korea,” Jan. 2018, accessed Jan. 29, 2018, https://www.armscontrol.org/ Congressional Research Service, Jan. 15, 2016, 12. factsheets/UN-Security-Council-Resolutions-on-North-Korea#res2375,. 76 Arms Control Association, “Chronology.” 84 On North Korean motives, see Scott D. Sagan, “Why do States Build Nuclear Weapons?: Three Models in Search of a Bomb,” International Security 21, no. 3 (Winter 1996-1997): 85; Pollack, No Exit, chapters 2-3; Etel Solingen, Nuclear Logics: Contrasting Paths in East Asia and the Middle 77 Chanlett-Avery et al., “North Korea,” 6-7. East (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007), 118-140; and Victor Cha, “What Do They Really Want? Obama’s North Korea Conundrum,” 78 See, for example, Steve Holland and Idrees Ali, “Trump: Military Option for North Korea Not Preferred, But Would be ‘Devastating,’” , Washington Quarterly 32, No. 4 (2009): 119-138. Sept. 25, 2017, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-missiles/trump-military-option-for-north-korea-not-preferred-but-would-be- 85 CIA, “A 10-year Projection of Possible Events of Nuclear Proliferation Concern,” May 1983, 5, NSA, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/ devastating-idUSKCN1C026A NSAEBB87/nk02.pdf. 79 Arms Control Association, “Chronology.” 86 CIA, “North Korea: Potential for Nuclear Weapons Development,” Sept. 1986, NSA, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB87/nk07.pdf. 80 See the CNS North Korea Missile Test Database, http://www.nti.org/analysis/articles/cns-north-korea-missile-test-database. 87 See Sonali Singh and Christopher Way, “The Correlates of Nuclear Proliferation,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 48, no. 6 (2004): 859-885; and 81 Joby Warrick, Ellen Nakashima, and Anna Fifeld, “North Korea Now Making Missile-Ready Nuclear Weapons,” Washington Post, Aug. 8, 2017, Dong-Joon Jo and Erik Gartzke, “Determinants of Nuclear Weapons Proliferation,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 51, no. 1 (2007): 167-194. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/north-korea-now-making-missile-ready-nuclear-weapons-us-analysts-say/2017/08/08/ 88 Kenneth Waltz, “More May Be Better,” in The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate Renewed, by Scott Sagan and Kenneth Waltz (New York: e14b882a-7b6b-11e7-9d08-b79f191668ed_story.html?utm_term=.d073bd77edf8. W.W. Norton and Co., 2003), 38. 68 The Scholar 69

If a state does acquire nuclear capabilities, it applied to North Korea, the argument relies on an was really determined; if it does not, it must not almost circular claim that the U.S. was deterred have been very motivated. Moreover, there are from taking military action against North Korea many countries in highly threatening security because it never carried out a military attack. Yet environments that have pursued and not acquired the United States seriously considered ordering a the bomb, including South Korea, Taiwan, West military strike on the Yongbyon Reactor in 1994.91 As Germany, Iraq, and Iran. Van Jackson demonstrates, North Korea perceived The most complete realist model for what states this as a credible threat due to a combination of might successfully acquire nuclear weapons is factors, including U.S. military exercises with offered by Alexandre Debs and Nuno Monteiro.89 South Korea and the recent use of force in the They argue that states must have both a willingness Gulf War. Indeed, according to the testimony of and opportunity to proliferate — that means defectors, Kim Jong Il (then head of North Korean they need a security motivation to proliferate, military forces) “spent much of March 1993 in a but the breathing room to do so without facing military bunker, issuing commands to field units, preventive war (or the credible threat of war) a curious action if North Korea did not anticipate from an adversary. States without reliable allies the possibility of conflict.”92 The threat of military will, therefore, be more willing to pursue nuclear force, combined with Carter’s intervention and weapons. This is where Debs and Monteiro place the subsequent offer of inducements, led to the North Korea. They write: Agreed Framework, which successfully froze North Unfortunately, North Korea is Korea’s plutonium program. Certainly the potential Taking stock, our strategic theory of for retaliation against Seoul induced caution in proliferation accounts for North Korea’s American decisionmakers, yet this is beside the clearly an outlier for his theory — nuclearization. Pyongyang’s security point, since Debs and Monteiro’s theory requires concerns vis-à-vis the South and the United only that the proliferator perceive a credible States, combined with the absence of a threat of force. North Korea also likely perceived a the pathologies of the Kim regime reliable ally since at least the end of the credible threat of force in 2003, as noted above, but Cold War, account for Korea’s willingness persisted with its nuclear program anyway. Even to proliferate. Its ability to inflict high this more complete security model does not explain may have stymied food production, costs on its adversaries using conventional how North Korea defied the odds, when other weaponry deterred counterproliferation similarly vulnerable states — all of whom had the military action, granting North Korea the ability to lash out conventionally or with chemical but not the nuclear weapons opportunity to become, as of this date, the weapons — failed to acquire nuclear weapons. latest state to have built the bomb.90 A strict test of the preventive war mechanism would underestimate North Korea’s probability of program — which once again At first glance, this appears to be a compelling acquiring nuclear weapons. argument; North Korea was strongly motivated by A second family of theories focuses on the ability its security predicament to pursue nuclear weapons of authoritarian states to successfully manage defied the theoretical odds. and was able to do so because it could deter a nuclear weapons program. In short, none of counterproliferation efforts with its conventional these models gave North Korea a fighting chance threat to Seoul. of succeeding. The most prominent example of Yet there are a couple problems with this this theory is Jacques Hymans’ work in Achieving argument. First, there are a variety of states with Nuclear Ambitions.93 Hymans argues that similar security motivations, but which failed authoritarian regimes, especially neopatrimonial to successfully acquire the bomb, for example regimes — where networks based on personal Iran and Iraq. Both countries could hold valuable ties make up the regime and its power base — are American allies or assets at risk conventionally, or particularly bad at managing complex projects even worse, with chemical weapons, if the United such as nuclear weapons programs that require States attempted a preventive strike. Iraq and Iran cooperation and coordination between scientists, (thus far) have failed to successfully acquire nuclear industrial and engineering organizations, and the weapons, yet North Korea did. Second, when military. Dictatorships are often too paranoid and

89 Alexandre Debs and Nuno P. Monteiro, Nuclear Politics: The Strategic Causes of Proliferation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016). 90 Debs and Monteiro, Nuclear Politics, 297. 91 Ashton B. Carter and William J. Perry, Preventive Defense: A New Security Strategy for America (Washington DC: Brookings Press, 1999), Ch. 4. 92 Van Jackson, Rival Reputations: Coercion and Credibility in US-North Korea Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 159-160. 93 Jacques E.C. Hymans, Achieving Nuclear Ambitions: Scientists, Politicians, and Proliferation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). 70 The Scholar 71

incompetent to successfully manage such projects, nuclear weapons program — which once again given that it has, for decades, defied predictions for example Germany, Japan, South Korea, and according to Hymans. defied the theoretical odds. that it would collapse.104 Yet if North Korea is truly Egypt. The second issue is that North Korea did North Korea is the poster boy for this theory. A second theory in this family of models is Malfrid a strong state, it is puzzling that it was not able not in fact receive an especially large amount of Hymans argues that North Korea “is the ideal- Braut-Hegghammer’s work on Iraq and Libya, to prevent hundreds of thousands (and perhaps foreign assistance. Indeed, according to the main typical case of neopatrimonialism,” where top- which similarly focuses on authoritarian regimes’ millions) of its citizens from dying from famine metric Fuhrmann uses to measure foreign support down meddling in programs makes it ripe for inability to manage nuclear weapons programs.99 in the 1990s.105 As David Kang argued in 2012, — the number of nuclear cooperation agreements spectacular failure in projects as complex as However, Braut-Hegghammer’s argument focuses the evidence suggests that “North Korea is both — North Korea received far less foreign assistance nuclear weapons.94At the time his book was not on interference in such programs, but on strong and weak,” and that the state has weakened than the aforementioned countries, and also published, in 2012, Hymans denied that North neglect by weak states with personalist regimes, further in recent decades, stating, “Largely as a received significantly less than countries like Korea was actually a nuclear weapons power. He where power is primarily invested in the hands of result of weakened state control, the economy has Ireland, , and Indonesia, as well as recent wrote that the October 2006 nuclear test “was one leader rather than a political party or other experienced increases in commercialization and proliferators like India, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq. an embarrassing technical failure”95 and the large group. According to her theory, the capacity marketization in recent years.” This, in turn, has Matthew Kroenig’s supply-side theory emphasizes second one in 2009 “was at best only the most of weak states is often restricted by constant “shriveled the central government’s control over the role of sensitive nuclear assistance in facilitating minimal of successes.”96 Hymans further argued efforts to prevent the next coup, which leads to the the periphery.”106 Yet, precisely as the North Korean nuclear acquisition, which he defines as the transfer that “it remains unclear if North Korea does or neglect of projects as complex as nuclear weapons. state has weakened, it has made the most dramatic of enrichment or reprocessing technology or bomb does not yet have an operational nuclear arsenal She argues that Saddam and Gaddafi “lacked strides in its nuclear weapons program. At the designs.109 While North Korea did receive aid in that it could use in battle.”97 However, tests are the capability even to pay close attention to the very least, this trend would seem to contradict the uranium enrichment technology from the AQ Khan only failures if nothing is learned from them. It performance of these programs because they had pattern expected by Braut-Hegghammer’s theory. network, this does not explain North Korea’s initial is clear that North Korea learned a lot from each weakened their states to strengthen their own hold The theories described above, which base acquisition of nuclear weapons, which relied on of these tests and, in its subsequent nuclear and on power.”100 Drawing on principal-agent theory, predictions of the likelihood of acquisition on plutonium [not highly-enriched uranium] from missile tests, has demonstrated an ability to reach Braut-Hegghammer argues that, rather than either security imperatives or regime type, in fact an indigenously built reactor and reprocessing thermonuclear yields in the hundreds of kilotons. meddling in their nuclear programs as Hymans vastly underpredict North Korea’s probability facility. Indeed, starting in the 1970s, Pyongyang It also likely has the capacity to deliver its nuclear suggests, Saddam and Gaddafi failed to monitor of acquiring nuclear weapons. Similarly, supply- had “minimal foreign assistance” to its nuclear weapons to regional targets if not the continental it closely enough, allowing scientists to run their side or diffusion theories also fail at providing a program, using publicly available information to United States. own fiefdoms and sell snake oil to these leaders, satisfying explanation of North Korea’s nuclear mimic the designs of British reactors and a Belgian Hymans’ theory predicts, at best, “the project’s which in turn resulted in both countries’ failure to accomplishments. For example, quantitative reprocessing facility.110 snail’s pace of progress,” arguing that “it seems successfully develop nuclear weapons. She writes: studies have found that wealthy (or at least A related theory by Michael Horowitz argues that reasonable to assume that maintaining the snail’s moderately wealthy) countries are significantly the diffusion of 1950s-era military technology to a pace would be the most North Korea could hope weak states often lack the institutional more likely to acquire nuclear weapons,107 yet state like North Korea should not be surprising.111 for. Moreover, Pyongyang has proved such an resources to set up and operate nuclear North Korea acquired these weapons despite being Horowitz writes: “How hard is it actually for inveterate bluffer in the past that we should stop weapons programs. This is particularly one of the poorest countries in the world. Matthew a determined proliferator to acquire nuclear gasping in fear every time it threatens the world problematic in so-called personalist regimes, Fuhrmann’s more nuanced supply-side argument weapons? The answer? Not as hard as you might with yet another technological ‘breakthrough.’”98 such as Iraq and Libya, whose leaders focuses on foreign technical support, contending expect. And this becomes clearer when you think And yet, history has proven this argument wrong. undermine formal state institutions and that North Korea “further underscore[s] the about the acquisition of nuclear weapons in the The 2017 summer sprint in North Korea’s nuclear seek to govern through informal structures significance of the technical base resulting from context of other military technologies.”112 Horowitz and missile program was a clear breakthrough of patronage and control.101 atomic assistance,” with the North Koreans himself admirably concedes, however, that the — one cannot bluff intercontinental ranges and receiving Soviet assistance in the 1950s and diffusion argument suffers the same problem as thermonuclear yields, which speak a universal Although the Kim dynasty is clearly dominated 1960s.108 The first problem with this argument is supply-side explanations: It overpredicts success. language. To his admirable credit, however, by one-man rule and invests a lot of energy in that while it might predict that North Korea would He goes on to point out that “simply importing Hymans develops a falsifiable and testable theory preventing coups,102 Braut-Hegghammer in fact succeed, it should also predict that other countries ‘normal’ military technology diffusion models, while and is willing to make predictions based on it. argues that her theory does not apply to North in threatening security environments that received helping us understand North Korea, would probably Unfortunately, North Korea is clearly an outlier for Korea, which she classifies as a “strong state.”103 foreign assistance would acquire nuclear weapons, overpredict proliferation in general, particularly his theory — the pathologies of the Kim regime This is debatable. Certainly, the North Korean may have stymied food production, but not the regime is stronger than many observers believed, 104 See Byman and Lind, “Pyongyang’s Survival Strategy,” and Jong Kun Choi, “The Perils of Strategic Patience with North Korea,” Washington Quarterly 38, no. 4 (2015): 57-72. 94 Hymans, Achieving Nuclear Ambitions, 253. 105 Kang, “Normal,” 153-156. 95 Hymans, Achieving Nuclear Ambitions, 251. 106 David Kang, “They Think They’re Normal: Enduring Questions and New Research on North Korea — A Review Essay,” International Security 36, 96 Hymans, Achieving Nuclear Ambitions, 252. no. 3 (2011-2012): 145, 169. 97 Hymans, Achieving Nuclear Ambitions, 252. 107 For example, Singh and Way, “Nuclear Proliferation,” and Jo and Gartzke, “Weapons Proliferation.” 98 Hymans, Achieving Nuclear Ambitions, 254. 108 Matthew Fuhrmann, Atomic Assistance: How “Atoms for Peace” Programs Cause Nuclear Insecurity (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012), 190. 99 Malfrid Braut-Hegghammer, Unclear Physics: Why Iraq and Libya Failed to Build Nuclear Weapons (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2016). 109 Matthew Kroenig, Exporting the Bomb: Technology Transfer and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2010). 100 Braut-Hegghammer, Unclear Physics, 1. 110 See Siegfried Hecker, Sean Lee, and Chaim Braun, “North Korea’s Choice: Bombs Over Electricity,” The Bridge 40, no. 2 (2010): 6. Also see Pollack, No Exit, 94-95. 101 Braut-Hegghammer, Unclear Physics, 6. 111 Michael C. Horowitz, The Diffusion of Military Power (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010); also see Michael C. Horowitz, “How 102 See Daniel Byman and Jennifer Lind, “Pyongyang’s Survival Strategy: Tools of Authoritarian Control in North Korea,” International Security 35, Surprising is North Korea’s Nuclear Success? Picking Up Where Proliferation Theories Leave Off,” War on the Rocks, Sept. 6, 2017, https:// no. 1 (2010): 66-68. warontherocks.com/2017/09/how-surprising-is-north-koreas-nuclear-success-picking-up-where-proliferation-theories-leave-off. 103 Braut-Hegghammer, Unclear Physics, 224. 112 Horowitz, “How Surprising.” 72 The Scholar 73

in light of international efforts to make weapons and process of nuclear proliferation. Of the 30 or so be others. Fourth, even poor states with domestic relied more heavily on foreign imports. Moreover, acquisition harder. States such as Iraq and Libya states that have begun nuclear weapons programs, political pathologies do not need substantial the fact that North Korea indigenously developed a tried but failed to acquire nuclear weapons.”113 10 succeeded in acquiring them. In other words, it is foreign assistance to successfully acquire nuclear nuclear reactor and reprocessing facility in secret, It is not as if we, the authors of this article, still a relatively uncommon event, and our theories weapons. While impoverished and/or authoritarian rather than publicly constructing them under the were right about North Korea either. Co-author are necessarily probabilistic. Nevertheless, it is countries have acquired nuclear weapons before — guise of a nuclear energy program, allowed its Vipin Narang, in his 2014 book on nuclear strategy, notable how few theories gave North Korea a good India, Pakistan, and China, for instance — they all nuclear program to make greater progress before the essentially punts on North Korea by claiming it chance of acquiring the bomb. did so with substantially greater foreign support international community could react effectively.119 was unclear what its nuclear strategy — if any So what can we learn from this outlier? It is than North Korea received. A second policy implication is that early detection — was at the time of writing.114 In his work on important to note here that an outlier case does The point of this exercise is not to dismiss any and policy intervention are crucial if nonproliferation strategies of nuclear proliferation, Narang argues not disconfirm any theory. All of the theories theories of nuclear proliferation, but rather to take success is to be achieved. Compared to other that North Korea’s probability of success was discussed above make significant contributions stock of how to adjust these theories in systematic proliferators, North Korea was relatively successful heightened because it was able to avail itself of a toward explaining and predicting certain cases of ways to account for how North Korea succeeded, at concealing its nuclear capabilities and intentions. “sheltered pursuit” strategy, enjoying protection nuclear proliferation. With that said, it is useful to while fully conceding that the proliferation process Partly for this reason, strong international pressure first from the Soviet Union and then China. This examine what adjustments to our theories might is unpredictable and probabilistic and that outliers was only mobilized in the early 1990s, when North in turn enabled Pyongyang to proliferate under be advisable based on the North Korean case. We will always exist. It is a worthwhile endeavor to see Korea was quite close to acquiring fissile material the cover of its allies — developing the plutonium believe the North Korean case illustrates several how the academic community could have better for nuclear weapons. Indeed, one could argue that pathway to nuclear weapons — before shifting to a dynamics worth incorporating into academic predicted North Korean nuclearization — because even the Agreed Framework came too late, in that “hiding” strategy, exemplified when it cheated on theories of proliferation. First, it shows that the there will likely be other proliferators like North North Korea may have already obtained enough the Agreed Framework to develop a secret uranium threat of preventive war, even when perceived Korea in the future. When taken in combination plutonium for a couple nuclear devices. The failure enrichment pathway.115 Here, Narang argues that it as credible, has limits as a counterproliferation with Mark Bell’s recent work showing that many of of early detection gave policymakers little margin for was the protection from China that helped stave tool. At several points, North Korea viewed the the quantitative correlates of nuclear proliferation error, making it easier for North Korea to succeed in off a United States attack, not just the threat North threat of an American attack as credible, and yet are not reliable predictors,117 our examination of its nuclear quest. Korea posed to Seoul. But even this argument it continued its nuclear program, or else only the North Korea case suggests that we, as scholars, Third, international sanctions have important likely underpredicts North Korea’s probability agreed to limits on that program after receiving should be more modest about our theories’ limitations when dealing with extremely isolated of success, because while sheltered pursuit can significant inducements (in the case of the Agreed predictive capacities. countries like North Korea. Unilateral U.S. often succeed, North Korea’s relationship with Framework). Second, it shows that states can still measures, or even joint measures with allies, only China has been peculiar in the post-Cold War successfully play a cat-and-mouse game of plausible go so far when dealing with a country like North era, forcing the Kim regime to at times pursue a deniability with hidden programs — as South Africa Implications for Korea, whose political and economic system is hiding strategy. Hiding strategies are very risky and Pakistan once did with enrichment programs, Nonproliferation Policy designed on the principle of self-reliance. This is if discovered, and North Korea’s hidden program and North Korea did with both its reactor and consistent with research on nonproliferation by was discovered before it even tested its first fission its uranium enrichment program. Third, states In addition to its implications for academic theory, Etel Solingen and Nicholas Miller, whose theories device. What seems to have deterred the United that can avail themselves of a “sheltered pursuit” North Korea’s acquisition of a sophisticated nuclear predict North Korean resilience to economic and States from attacking North Korea after the 2002 strategy — finding a great power patron, although weapons capability has important implications for political pressure, although they focus on outcomes discovery of the hidden enrichment program was not necessarily an ally, that is willing to essentially nonproliferation policy. For one thing, the North rather than the acquisition of nuclear weapons.120 As the fear that the North had reprocessed enough underwrite its illicit behavior and protect it from Korea case demonstrates that supply-side measures an inward looking regime, Solingen correctly argues plutonium from its sheltered pursuit days for coercive nonproliferation efforts, have a higher like export controls are insufficient, even against that “North Korea has defied political and economic several nuclear bombs — not just the conventional chance of succeeding. It is hard to imagine North countries with poor economies. Nuclear technology sanctions from great powers and international threat to South Korea. Essentially, North Korea’s Korea acquiring nuclear weapons absent Soviet is 70 years old, and North Korea has demonstrated institutions, allowing state agencies and industries hidden enrichment program was discovered too and then Chinese shelter. While China does not it is possible to construct the facilities needed to responsible for productive and distributive functions late to prevent it. While this framework gets some relish a nuclear-armed North Korea, and has produce fissile material indigenously, based on open- to benefit from international closure.”121 Relatively features of North Korea’s behavior correct, the become increasingly more disturbed by North source information. This is true not just for the gas insulated from the international economy to begin North Korean case is again unique and defies most Korean behavior over time, it has, for the most centrifuge, as Kemp has demonstrated,118 but also for with, North Korean leaders were willing to sacrifice theoretical predictions. part, not been willing to use intense pressure the plutonium path to the bomb that North Korea the well-being of their population while the regime In general, academic theories of nuclear against North Korea over this issue. China fears a followed. Indeed, North Korea’s focus on domestic devoted extraordinary resources to its nuclear proliferation sorely missed the mark when it comes North Korean regime collapse that would result in development of nuclear weapons, consistent with weapons program. Miller likewise argues that North to North Korea. It is only one case, to be sure, but large refugee inflows and the possible stationing its self-reliant, or Juche, philosophy, likely made it Korea was relatively invulnerable to sanctions, it is clearly an important one. However, this sober of U.S. troops along its border following Korean better able to adapt to technical challenges when although he attributes this primarily to Pyongyang’s assessment is not meant to suggest that we should reunification.116 The states that enjoy such shelter compared to countries like Libya and Iraq, which lack of dependence on the United States, the main abandon our efforts to theorize about the causes are few and far between, but there will undoubtedly 117 Mark Bell, “Examining Explanations for Nuclear Proliferation,” International Studies Quarterly 60, no. 3 (2015): 520-529. 118 R. Scott Kemp, “The Nonproliferation Emperor Has No Clothes,” International Security 38, no. 4 (Spring 2014): 39-78. 113 Horowitz, “How Surprising.” 119 On the effectiveness of a covert rather than overt proliferation strategy, see Nicholas L. Miller, “Why Nuclear Energy Programs Rarely Lead to 114 Vipin Narang, Nuclear Strategy in the Modern Era: Regional Powers and International Conflict (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014). Proliferation,” International Security 42, no. 2 (2017): 40-77. 115 Vipin Narang, “Strategies of Nuclear Proliferation: How States Pursue the Bomb,” International Security 41, no. 3 (Winter 2016-2017): 110-150. 120 Solingen, Nuclear Logics; and Nicholas L. Miller, Stopping the Bomb (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, forthcoming). Solingen’s primary dependent variable is the pursuit (rather than acquisition) of nuclear weapons. Miller’s primary dependent variables are pursuit and the success or 116 On China’s views on North Korea’s nuclear program, see Kihyun Lee and Jangho Kim, “Cooperation and Limitations of China’s Sanctions on failure of U.S. sanctions. North Korea: Perception, Interest and Institutional Environment,” North Korean Review 13, no. 1 (2017): 28-44; and Andrew Kydd, “Pulling the Plug: Can There Be a Deal with China on Korean Unification,” Washington Quarterly 38, no. 2 (2015): 63-77. 121 Solingen, Nuclear Logics, 138. 74 The Scholar 75

enforcer of the nonproliferation regime. Miller’s decisions to topple regimes in Iraq and Libya argument also identifies a scenario where sanctions despite their WMD disarmament, raises real might have worked against North Korea: namely questions about the viability of nonproliferation if they had been multilateral and stronger in deals with adversaries in the future. This leaves scope. However, U.N. nuclear sanctions were not us, unfortunately, with an unhappy conclusion: even imposed until North Korea already acquired The sort of diplomatic bargains that are needed nuclear weapons in 2006. Moreover, despite its to deal with proliferators like North Korea will be recent cooperation at the United Nations, China increasingly difficult to reach and sustain. has repeatedly dragged its feet on implementing sanctions over the years, dramatically increasing its trade with North Korea between 2006 and 2014.122 Conclusion Akin to the notion of “sheltered pursuit,” sanctions face long odds of success if a proliferator is insulated The fact that academic theories mostly from the international economy and if its primary underestimated North Korea’s chance of ally refuses to implement sanctions until it’s too late successfully acquiring nuclear weapons gives us and then violates the spirit of those sanctions. an opportunity to audit our theories and adjust Fourth, if export controls and sanctions are them based on lessons from this important case. unlikely to succeed against isolated adversaries like The biggest theoretical lessons from the North North Korea, and if credible threats of force have Korean example are the following: 1) that our been insufficient in the past, more attention should theories may overestimate the power of preventive be given to inducements and diplomacy as possible war threats in deterring states from pursuing solutions. Although it is politically challenging, nuclear weapons, 2) that determined leaders, both internationally and domestically, to be seen as even in dysfunctional authoritarian regimes, are “rewarding” proliferators by offering inducements, not always doomed to fail in this pursuit, and 3) the history of the North Korea case shows that the that even poor countries can succeed at acquiring greatest restraints on its nuclear program were in nuclear weapons based on indigenously developed fact achieved when Washington offered substantial technology. The policy implications are equally inducements, i.e., the 1994 Agreed Framework. grim. Given enough breathing room, even a poor Although North Korea violated the spirit of this a state that wants nuclear weapons badly enough agreement by starting a secret enrichment program, can acquire them, defying sanctions and threats of the United States also failed to fully live up to its force — particularly if it has an ally to shelter it end of the bargain by repeatedly delaying delivery from a strong multilateral coalition. While offering of the promised inducements. inducements to adversary proliferators may Fifth, and relatedly, the North Korea case stand a better chance of success, this is politically highlights the fragility of nonproliferation challenging for countries like the United States; bargains due to changes in the domestic and moreover, the credibility of American diplomatic international political landscape, a dynamic that assurances is increasingly shaky. Given the various makes such bargains hard to reach in the first pathways to the bomb and the geopolitical fractures place. The Agreed Framework — the closest the that proliferators can exploit, we should not assume international community came to preventing that what has so far been a rare event — nuclear North Korea from acquiring a credible deterrent proliferation — will always continue to be so. — ultimately was hampered by domestic opposition in the United States by Republicans, Nicholas L. Miller is assistant professor in the who opposed the agreement and later slowed Department of Government at Dartmouth College. its implementation.123 This case has obvious His book, Stopping the Bomb: The Sources and parallels to the Iran deal, a nonproliferation Effectiveness of U.S. Nonproliferation Policy, is bargain whose future is in jeopardy due to forthcoming with Cornell University Press. consistent Republican opposition, which, as in the case of North Korea, is inflamed by missile Vipin Narang is associate professor of political tests and extraneous bilateral issues. The fate science and member of the Security Studies Program of the Agreed Framework, along with the U.S. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

122 See Eleanor Albert, “The China-North Korea Relationship,” Council on Foreign Relations, Sept. 27, 2017, https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/ china-north-korea-relationship. Also see Lee and Kim, “China’s Sanctions.” 123 See, for example, Van Jackson, “Threat Consensus and Rapprochement Failure: Revisiting the Collapse of US-North Korea Relations,” Foreign Policy Analysis, forthcoming. 76 The Scholar 77

For years, scholars have argued that economists and the CIA Assessing Soviet failed to see that the Soviet Union’s economy was headed Economic Performance toward collapse. But are they right? The swift and peaceful collapse of the claimed flatly that Western specialists in this area Communist order, first in Eastern Europe and then had failed to “‘diagnose observable tendencies,’ in the Soviet Union itself, was an extraordinarily such as the continued decline of economic growth During the Cold War: important historical event, and people at the time rates.”3 According to Igor Birman, another émigré were amazed to see the Soviet system end the way economist — and one much admired by Malia — it it did. But why did it come as such a surprise? was “only in 1981, or maybe in 1982,” that people Shouldn’t the experts in the West who had devoted began “talking about problems within the Soviet A Failure of Intelligence? their lives to the study of the Soviet Union have economy.”4 Even today, many observers still take been able to see that such enormous changes were it for granted that the economics profession, and in the making? indeed scholars more generally, essentially missed Many observers felt that social scientists in what was going on in the USSR — a major failure, general, and economists in particular, had failed, given the importance of the issue.5 as Martin Malia put it, to understand “the deeper And it was not just academic economists who dynamics driving Soviet reality.” Their writings, in were criticized for their supposed failure to Malia’s view, had suggested that the Soviet system understand what was happening in the USSR. The was perfectly viable. They had assumed that the economic analysis produced by the CIA, it was Soviet Union was “just another” modern society said, had also failed to bring out how serious the — that it was “as much a going concern as its Soviet economic problem was. Sen. Daniel Patrick ‘capitalist’ adversary.” Viewing things through that Moynihan, himself a former academic, was by far social scientific lens, he thought, had prevented the most prominent critic. “For a quarter century,” Western scholars from seeing how serious the he wrote, “the C.I.A. has been repeatedly wrong USSR’s problems were; this was the main reason so about the major political and economic questions many of them had “been so wrong about so much entrusted to its analysis.” For 30 years, according for so long.”1 Western economists in particular, he to Moynihan, “the intelligence community said, had been unable to see that the USSR had to systematically misinformed successive Presidents deal with some very grave and perhaps even fatal as to the size and growth of the Soviet economy.” It problems; the more pessimistic line taken by some had portrayed the USSR “as a maturing industrial émigré Russian economists had mistakenly been society with a faster growth rate than the United dismissed out of hand. Mainstream economists in States,” a country “destined, if the growth rates the West, he believed, had greatly overestimated held, to surpass us in time, and in the interval Soviet economic performance; and had it not well able to sustain its domestic military and its been for that, political scientists, sociologists, and foreign adventures.” The Soviet economy, he said, historians would scarcely have painted such a rosy was thought to be roughly “three times as large as picture of Soviet performance in the areas they it turned out to be.” That “was the conventional studied.2 wisdom among economists,” but the fact that Malia was by no means the only scholar writing economists had taken that view was scarcely an after the collapse of Soviet Union to argue along excuse, since “the C.I.A. was meant to do better.”6 those lines. Vladimir Kontorovich, for example, Indeed, in Moynihan’s view, the CIA had done

1 Another version of this article, with direct links to most of the sources cited, is available online at http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/faculty/ trachtenberg/cv/chap1(9).docx. Martin Malia, The Soviet Tragedy: A History of Socialism in Russia, 1917-1991 (New York: Free Press, 1994), 5-9. 2 Malia, Soviet Tragedy, 362; and Martin Malia, “Out of the Rubble, What?” Problems of Communism 41, nos. 1-2 (January-April 1992): 96-97. 3 Vladimir Kontorovich, “Economists, Soviet Growth Slowdown and the Collapse,” Europe-Asia Studies 53, no. 5 (2001): 676. The internal quotation is from a passage in a book by Joseph Schumpeter that Kontorovich had referred to on the previous page. 4 Igor Birman, “The Soviet Economy: Alternative Views,” Survey 29, no. 2 (Summer 1985): 113. 5 Note, for example, the characterization of the conventional wisdom among scholars even in the early 1990s in Stephen Brooks and William Wohlforth, “Economic Constraints and the End of the Cold War,” in Cold War Endgame: Oral History, Analysis, Debates, ed. William Wohlforth (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003), 275; and also the works referred to in William Wohlforth and Randall Schweller, “Power Test: Evaluating Realism in Response to the End of the Cold War,” Security Studies 9, no. 3 (Spring 2000): 86. Marc Trachtenberg 6 Daniel Patrick Moynihan, “Do We Still Need the C.I.A.?” New York Times, May 19, 1991. 78 The Scholar 79

such a poor job in this area that he wanted of the Soviet economy” counting as one of the true believers made it impossible for them to grasp specializing in this area; Gertrude Schroeder’s to abolish the agency. The CIA, he repeatedly “more spectacular misses.”10 In 1994 a the impossibility of the increasingly sclerotic Soviet “Reflections on Economic Sovietology” (1995) is claimed, had utterly failed to see how serious the columnist noted in passing that the CIA story was command economy competing successfully with of particular interest in this context.21 There is, USSR’s economic problems were. “For 40 years,” “one of repeated intelligence failures,” culminating the market economies of the West.”16 Soviet leaders, moreover, a certain body of work dealing with — he wrote in 1990, “we have hugely overestimated in the “monumental miscalculation of the size of according to O.A. Westad, another distinguished and mainly defending — the CIA’s work on the both the size of the Soviet economy and its rate the Soviet economy, which the CIA judged to be scholar, were “cushioned from the grim reality of Soviet economy.22 But those studies of the CIA’s of growth. This in turn has persistently distorted three times as big as it really was.”11 And in 1995 the technological backwardness and lack of productivity performance focused mainly on the mid- and late our estimates of the Soviet threat — notably, in Washington Post columnist Mary McGrory asked by what today’s Russian economists call a political 1980s. The focus here, however, will be on an earlier the 1980s when we turned ourselves into a debtor rhetorically whether any government department economy of illusions.”17 Because of the nature of period: the period from the mid-1960s to about nation to pay for the arms to counter the threat had “goofed up more than the Central Intelligence the Soviet system, according to Robert English, a 1985. The goal is to give some feel for the sort of of a nation whose home front, unbeknownst to us, Agency”: “Their most egregious and expensive leading specialist in this area, the Politburo, at least thinking that went into the economic assessments, was collapsing.”7 Moynihan later boasted that he blunder about the Soviet economy we are still until the late 1980s, was not “subject to anything both on the part of the CIA analysts and their had been able to see as early as 1979 that “Soviet paying for.”12 The same basic point was made by like the pressures that would weigh on the leaders academic colleagues (who, it is important to note, economic growth was coming to a halt” and that a former CIA officer, Melvin Goodman, in 1997; it of a pluralistic state in similar economic straits”; were part of the same intellectual community). I “the society as well as the economy was sick.” “But was not until the mid-1980s, Goodman wrote, that Soviet leaders could thus feel, until the very end, want to show, in fact, how impressive that thinking our intelligence community,” he said, “just couldn’t the CIA “finally began to report lower growth rates that the system was stable and that strategic retreat was, how early the key ideas took shape in those believe this. They kept reporting that the economy for the economy.” The CIA, he wrote, “completely was not their only option.18 Part of the problem, circles — and indeed how the Soviets themselves was soaring!”8 misread the qualitative and comparative economic it was sometimes said, was that the leadership came to approach the problem in much the same In the public discussion, and to a certain extent picture and provided no warning to policymakers relied on inflated figures generated by its own way. of the dramatic economic decline bureaucracy; it therefore had little sense for what What is the point of doing this kind of analysis? of the 1980s.”13 And some leading was really going on. “For all one knows,” Walter The aim is not just to set the record straight as The economic analysis scholars also took the view that Laqueur wrote, “the Soviet leaders (certainly under a kind of end in itself. The story is worth telling “CIA estimates dramatically Brezhnev) were as ignorant as the Sovietologists only because it has a certain larger importance. For produced by the CIA, it was underreported the severity of the about the real state of the economy, because they one thing, the findings here have a major bearing decline that preceded Gorbachev were misled by their underlings, who, in turn, were on how the later Cold War is to be understood. said, had also failed to bring and accelerated during his misinformed by the local informants.”19 Or maybe A sense for how serious the USSR’s economic leadership.”14 the regime simply did not want to know the truth problems were, to the extent that it was shared by out how serious the Soviet It was not just the Americans, the — that it was determined to turn a blind eye to the the political leadership, was bound to play a key argument ran, who had failed to country’s problems and to pretend, even to itself, role in shaping policy on both sides. That basic economic problem was. understand what was going on in that nothing was really wrong.20 point needs to be kept in mind as we try to make the USSR. The Soviets themselves, The goal here is to examine some of these sense of great power politics not just in the late it was commonly argued, had arguments in the light of the massive body of 1980s, but in the whole period from 1963 to 1991. even in the scholarly literature, such claims were “reason to be confident in their economy,” at least evidence we now have bearing on the subject. But beyond that the story tells us something treated as established fact. “As the Bay of Pigs was until around 1975; it was only later that “serious This, of course, is not the first time these issues important about the way the American political to intelligence operations,” the columnist William weaknesses” showed up.15 Moscow, according to have been dealt with. A number of writers have system works. We like to think that when policy Safire wrote in the New York Times in 1990, “the the well-known historian Christopher Andrew, for defended the performance of Western economists issues are discussed in democracies like our own, extended misreading of the Soviet economic example, “was in economic denial.” “Though the debacle is to intelligence evaluation.”9 According to naïve economic optimism of the Khrushchev era 16 Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World (New York: Basic Books, a 1992 article in , the CIA’s had largely evaporated,” he wrote (referring to this 2005), 23. track record “on the really big developments” was period), “the ideological blinkers which constricted 17 O. A. Westad, “The Fall of Détente and the Turning Tides of History,” in The Fall of Détente: Soviet-American Relations During the Carter Years, “hit-or-miss at best,” with “the downward spiral the vision of Brezhnev, Andropov, and other Soviet ed. O. A. Westad (Oslo: Scandinavian University Press, 1997), 13. 18 Robert English, “Power, Ideas, and New Evidence on the Cold War’s End,” International Security 26, no. 4 (Spring 2002): 71. 7 Daniel Patrick Moynihan, “The Soviet Economy: Boy, Were We Wrong!” Washington Post, July 11, 1990. 19 Walter Laqueur, Fin de Siècle and Other Essays on America and Europe (New Brunswick: Transaction, 1997), 136. (Brezhnev was general 8 Daniel Patrick Moynihan, “How America Blew It,” Newsweek, Dec. 10, 1990. He was alluding to his article “Will Russia Blow Up?” published in secretary from 1964 to his death in 1982.) Note also the foreword by Georgi Arbatov in Re-viewing the Cold War: Domestic Factors and Foreign the Nov. 19, 1979, issue of Newsweek. Policy in the East-West Confrontation, eds. Patrick Morgan and Keith Nelson (Westport: Praeger, 2000), xiii; and Andrew and Mitrokhin, World Was Going Our Way, 23. 9 William Safire, “Intelligence Fiasco,” New York Times, April 27, 1990. 20 See, for example, Alexander Chubarov, Russia’s Bitter Path to Modernity: A History of the Soviet and Post-Soviet Eras (New York: Continuum, 10 Marvin Ott, “Reform Task for Woolsey at the CIA,” Wall Street Journal, Dec. 23, 1992. 2001), 149. 11 Jonathan Alter, “Not-So-Smart Intelligence,” Newsweek, March 7, 1994. 21 Gertrude Schroeder, “Reflections on Economic Sovietology,” Post-Soviet Affairs 11, no. 3 (1995). 12 Mary McGrory, “Spies Are Never Out in the Cold,” Washington Post, March 14, 1995. 22 See David Kennedy, “Sunshine and Shadow: The CIA and the Soviet Economy,” Kennedy School Case Study C16-91-1096.0 (Harvard University, 13 Melvin Goodman, “Ending the CIA’s Cold War Legacy,” Foreign Policy, no. 106 (Spring 1997): 141. Kennedy School of Government, 1991); Kirsten Lundberg, “The CIA and the Fall of the Soviet Empire: The Politics of Getting It Right,” Kennedy School Case Study C16-94-12510 (Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government, 1994); Bruce Berkowitz and Jeffrey T. Richelson, “The CIA 14 Brooks and Wohlforth, “Economic Constraints,” 276. Vindicated: The Soviet Collapse Was Predicted,” National Interest, no. 41 (September 1995); Bruce D. Berkowitz, “U.S. Intelligence Estimates of the 15 Richard N. Cooper, “Economic Aspects of the Cold War, 1962-1975,” in The Cambridge History of the Cold War, eds. Melvyn Leffler and O. A. Soviet Collapse: Reality and Perception,” International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 21, no. 2 (2008); Douglas J. MacEachin, CIA Westad, vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 50. See also William Wohlforth, “Realism and the End of the Cold War,” International Assessments of the Soviet Union: The Record Versus the Charges (Washington: CIA Center for the Study of Intelligence, 1996); Abraham Becker, Security 19, no. 3 (Winter 1994-95): 109-110; Stephen Brooks and William Wohlforth, “Power, Globalization, and the End of the Cold War: “Intelligence Fiasco or Reasoned Accounting? CIA Estimates of Soviet GNP,” Post-Soviet Affairs 10, no. 4 (1994); and James Noren, “CIA’s Analysis Reevaluating a Landmark Case for Ideas,” International Security 25, no. 3 (Winter 2000-2001): 28; “Z” [Martin Malia], “To the Stalin Mausoleum,” of the Soviet Economy,” in Watching the Bear: Essays on CIA’s Analysis of the Soviet Union, eds. Gerald Haines and Robert Leggett (Langley: CIA Daedalus 119, no. 1 (Winter 1990): 322; Hal Brands, What Good Is Grand Strategy? Power and Purpose in American Statecraft From Harry S. Truman Center for the Study of Intelligence, 2003). In 1991, a congressional committee asked a panel of specialists to assess the CIA’s work in this area. For to George W. Bush (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2014), 10; and Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA (New York: Doubleday, its report, see James Millar et al., “An Evaluation of the CIA’s Analysis of Soviet Economic Performance, 1970-1990,” Comparative Economic Studies 2007), 417. 35, no. 2 (Summer 1993). 80 The Scholar 81

intellectual standards are maintained because Soviet economy was expanding rapidly; the USSR dangerously” if the United States did not speed up people are held accountable for making claims that In the United seemed to be catching up. The United States thus its own growth rate.28 turn out to be baseless. What this case suggests, had to deal with “the most serious challenge” Those concerns were widely shared within the however, is that there is much less accountability States these Soviet it had ever faced in peacetime. “If the Soviet American political class, and the issue played in our system than people realize — even on issues industrial growth rate persists at 8 or 9 per cent a major, and perhaps decisive, role in the 1960 of fundamental political importance, and even boasts were by no per annum over the next decade, as is forecast,” he presidential election. Soviet output might be only when the evidence is readily available. told a congressional committee the next year, “the 44 percent of America’s today, the Democratic means dismissed as gap between our two economies by 1970 will be nominee, Sen. John F. Kennedy, said in the first dangerously narrowed unless our own industrial presidential debate. But the narrowing of that Measuring Soviet Economic mere propaganda. growth rate is substantially increased from the gap posed a real threat to American security. Performance present pace.” The New York Times praised Dulles Kennedy did not want to see the day when Soviet 1960s; it was worse in the late 1970s than it had been for “brilliantly” warning the country “of the perils production was “60 percent of ours and 70 and 75 Was it true, as many observers have claimed, in the first part of that decade; and in the early 1980s that threaten our survival.” The paper agreed that and 80 and 90 percent of ours, with all the force that academic economists had failed to see what it was lower still (See Table 2). As one scholar put “future Soviet growth to at least 1970 seems sure to and power that it could bring to bear to cause was going on with the Soviet economy, that the it in 1995 looking back on this whole period: “The be rapid” and that America’s “margin of superiority our destruction.” America’s independence, indeed CIA analysts had presented much too rosy a Soviet economy seemed to be gradually running out over the Soviet Union” would be “narrowed America’s survival, was at risk; the Eisenhower picture, and that the Soviet leadership itself did of steam, being dragged to stagnation and decline by not really understand what was going on? If true, some inexorable underlying process.”25 that conclusion would have a major bearing on how What about Moynihan’s claim that the CIA had the period should be interpreted. But is it in fact given the impression that the Soviet economy was correct? growing a lot faster than America’s and that the In a word, the answer is no. There is, for example, USSR might well out-produce the United States in no basis for the claim that Western economists had the not-too-distant future? That certainly had been failed to “‘diagnose observable tendencies,’ such as the CIA’s view in the late 1950s. At that time, the the continued decline of economic growth rates.”23 Soviet economy seemed to be growing rapidly; the Experts in this area had little trouble recognizing U.S. economy appeared sluggish in comparison. If that the Soviet growth rate was falling. It was widely that trend continued, the USSR might actually be understood by the mid-1960s that the Soviet economy able to overtake the United States not too far down was growing less rapidly than in the past. As the the road. The Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev CIA’s leading expert on the Soviet economy, Rush repeatedly predicted that by around 1970 the USSR Greenslade, pointed out in 1966, “the slowdown of would catch up with and surpass the United States economic growth in the U.S.S.R. is now a well-known in per capita production, and in 1961 the goal of story.” Abram Bergson, professor of economics at surpassing America by the end of the decade was Harvard and the most prominent scholar working even included in the official party program.26 The in this area, referred to it in a 1966 roundtable as a political implications were clear: If the Soviet “very familiar fact.”24 That general point, moreover, Union was able to out-produce the United States, was commonly noted in the press at the time. Even a the “correlation of forces” would shift, and the casual reader of the New York Times — someone who Communist side would soon have the upper hand merely glanced at the headlines — could scarcely in its conflict with the West.27 fail to note that the Soviet growth rate had declined In the United States these Soviet boasts were (See Table 1). Subsequent CIA calculations simply by no means dismissed as mere propaganda. The underscored that basic point. The growth rate was Eisenhower administration’s CIA director, Allen worse in the early 1970s than it had been in the late Dulles, sounded the alarm in a 1958 speech. The

23 Kontorovich, “Economists, Soviet Growth Slowdown and the Collapse,” 676. 24 Rush Greenslade, “The Soviet Economic System in Transition,” in U.S. Congress, Joint Economic Committee, New Directions in the Soviet Economy (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1966), Part I, 4; and Abram Bergson et al., “Soviet Economic Performance and Reform: Some Problems of Analysis and Prognosis (A Round-Table Discussion),” Slavic Review 25, no. 2 (June 1966): 231 (henceforth cited as Slavic Review Roundtable). 25 Schroeder, “Reflections on Economic Sovietology,” 209. 26 See, for example, Gur Ofer, “Soviet Economic Growth: 1928-1985,” Journal of Economic Literature 25, no. 4 (December 1987): 1798; Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Failure: The Birth and Death of Communism in the Twentieth Century (New York: Scribner, 1989), 35, 53; and Geir Lundestad, The Rise and Decline of the American “Empire”: Power and Its Limits in Comparative Perspective (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 18. A July 1963 CIA document quoted Khrushchev as saying in 1961: “I am asked, ‘Mr. Khrushchev, what do you think? In what year will you catch up with America?’ … My reply is: ‘you can write down in your little notebook that we will overtake you in per capita industrial production by 1970.’” “Post- Mortem on ‘Trends in the Soviet Economy (1950-63),’” July 26, 1963, CIA Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room (https://www.cia. gov/library/readingroom/), Document no. 0000496588 (to be inserted in search box). Henceforth cited as “CIAERR,” with document number. 28 Allen Dulles speech to U.S. Chamber of Commerce, New York Times, April 29, 1958; “Allen Dulles Sees U.S. Peril in Soviet’s Economic Rise,” New York Times, April 29, 1958; “Soviet Closing Output Gap, Allen Dulles Warns U.S.,” New York Times, Nov. 14, 1959; and “Allen Dulles’ Warning,” New 27 See Gareth Porter, Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 21. York Times, Nov. 16, 1959. 82 The Scholar 83

rates could be attributed in large part to shortfalls Figure 1: CIA Estimate of Soviet GNP as a Percentage in agriculture brought on by unusually bad weather, of U.S. GNP, Selected Years* and Soviet performance did improve somewhat in subsequent years. But the rebound was limited. According to one estimate at the time, the Soviet economy was growing at a rate of about 4 percent annually in the early 1960s, well below what had been predicted.33 All of this, in fact, came as quite a surprise to U.S. experts, in the CIA and in academia, who followed these issues. As one of them pointed out in 1966, most analysts had expected a certain slowdown in Soviet economic growth, “but the suddenness of the change, like a horse going lame, Soviet GNP as Percentage of U.S. GNP surprised many, including this writer.”34 Thus, while it is indeed true that both the CIA * Geometric mean of estimates based on Soviet and and, to a certain extent, the academic economists, U.S. prices had taken the view in the late 1950s and very early ** Preliminary figures 1960s that the Soviets were quickly gaining on America in the “great economic race” (as Bergson Source: Reproduced from CIA Office of Soviet called it), that view faded rapidly in the early Analysis, “A Comparison of Soviet and US Johnson period and a rather different picture took Gross National Products, 1960-83,” August 1984, shape. The Soviet economy was still gaining on the CIAERR/0000498181, iii. See also Noren, “CIA’s United States, but more slowly than before. The Analysis of the Soviet Economy,” 45-48. ratio of Soviet to American gross national product, according to a 1970 CIA estimate, increased from What finally is to be made of the claim that about 48 percent in 1961 to only about 51 percent the CIA had grossly overestimated the size of in 1969.35 By the late 1970s, the tide seemed to have the Soviet economy — that it had mistakenly turned. The USSR now seemed to be losing ground. portrayed it as being three or four times larger Soviet GNP, according to an estimate the CIA than it really was? CIA estimates, it now appears, produced in 1984, was only 55 percent of America’s, were probably too high, but they were not nearly down from 58 percent in 1975; the ratio was no as bad as Moynihan and others had suggested.37 greater than it had been in 1970 (See Figure 1). And The evidence supporting the claim that the CIA if one compared the two blocs, the picture was estimates were grossly inflated — that the agency even clearer. In 1960, America and its allies were had overestimated Soviet GNP by a factor of three policy was too passive; a far more active policy was during Eisenhower’s second term (2.8%).30 producing three times as much as the Warsaw Pact or four (meaning that the U.S. economy was at in order.29 And the U.S. economy did revive after the The Soviet economy, on the other hand, had countries; in both 1970 and 1980, according to CIA least five times as big), or even that the USSR was change of administration, in part thanks to some started to run into trouble. In January 1964, the CIA calculations, the picture was basically the same.36 just an “Upper Volta with nuclear weapons” as was modest expansionist policies put into effect during reported that the Soviet growth rate had dropped Perhaps the precise ratio was off, but in this sometimes said — is quite weak, if only because the Kennedy presidency. Gross domestic product from between 6 and 10 percent in the 1950s “to less context it is mainly the trend that matters: In the an Upper Volta could never have built the sort of grew by more than 6 percent in 1962 and by more than 2.5 percent in 1962 and 1963.”31 That finding CIA’s view, America’s economic lead was not being military establishment the Soviet Union created. than 4 percent in 1963, and this was no mere flash was considered extraordinarily important; the new threatened by a rapid build-up of Soviet economic Some critics seem to assume that because various in the pan. The annual growth rate, according to president, Lyndon Johnson, sent a special delegation power. Russian (and other) economists had come up with recent calculations, was twice as high in the four to Europe to brief the NATO allies on what had been 32 years after Kennedy took over (5.7%) as it had been learned. To be sure, those exceptionally low growth 33 Greenslade, “Soviet Economic System in Transition,” 4. 34 Greenslade, “Soviet Economic System in Transition,” 5. Note also the reactions of a number of leading scholars to the CIA data disclosed in 29 Transcript of the first Kennedy-Nixon debate, Sept. 26, 1960, 73, 91-92 (http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc. January 1964 in Harry Schwartz’s article “Some Experts Skeptical,” New York Times, Jan. 9, 1964. html?docId=145159#relPageId=87). Even during the campaign, the CIA continued to predict that the Soviet economy would grow rapidly in the 1960s. See Harry Schwartz, “CIA Forecasts Soviet Output Will Grow 80% in Next Decade,” New York Times, June 23, 1960. It was not just 35 Computed from Table 1 (slide 9) in CIA Office of Economic Research, “Soviet Economic Growth: Proposed Presentation to the Naval War Democrats who expressed concern. A number of leading Republicans, most notably New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, also stressed the seriousness College,” Aug. 24, 1970, CIAERR/0000307690. For an earlier estimate, see Table 2 of “US and USSR: Comparisons of Size and Use of Gross National of the problem. A number of works deal with the Soviet economic challenge as an issue in American domestic politics; probably the best account is Product, 1955-64,” March 1966, 23, CIAERR/0000316278. This showed the Soviet economy growing at an annual rate of 4.6 percent from 1961 to in Chapters 5-7 of John Kestner’s dissertation, “Through the Looking Glass: American Perceptions of the Soviet Economy, 1941-1964” (University of 1964, compared with a U.S. growth rate of 3.9 percent in that period. , 1999). 36 Noren, “CIA’s Analysis of the Soviet Economy,” 48. See also Abram Bergson, “Development Under Two Systems: Comparative Productivity 30 See U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, National Income and Product Account (NIPA) Historical Tables https://www.bea.gov/iTable/index_nipa. Growth Since 1950,” World Politics 23, no. 4 (July 1971), and Central Intelligence Agency (John Pitzer), “Gross National Product of the USSR 1950- cfm, Table 1.1.1: Percent Change from Preceding Period in Real Gross Domestic Product,” line 1, and Table 1.1.6: Real Gross Domestic Product, 80,” in U.S. Congress, Joint Economic Committee, USSR: Measures of Economic Growth and Development, 1950-80 (Washington: Government Chained Dollars, line 1. For historical data, click the “modify” link in the table and enter appropriate dates. Printing Office, 1982), 19-23. See also Table 4 below. 31 Edwin Dale, “U.S. Will Cite Lag in Soviet Growth to Deter Credits,” New York Times, Jan. 9, 1964. See also Rush Greenslade, “CIA Meets the 37 Keep in mind that all such estimates, which try to sum up in a single figure a massive and constantly shifting outpouring of goods and services, Press,” Studies in Intelligence 31, no. 2 (Spring 1969); and the Jan. 9, 1964, press release cited in the Greenslade article, “Soviet Economic Problems are necessarily based on a large number of assumptions, some rather arbitrary, and that none of the figures generated in such a calculation Multiply,” CIAERR/0000500555. should be taken as representing objective reality. When I say that the CIA estimates were probably too high, I mean simply that the most reasonable calculations today yield lower estimates of Soviet national income than those the CIA generated at the time, not that there is a single, 32 Noren, “CIA’s Analysis of the Soviet Economy,” 19. unambiguously correct figure we are now better able to see. 84 The Scholar 85

much lower estimates, that in itself shows that that the fundamental problems were structural in assumptions about higher productivity in the high and the slowdown took place as the burden the CIA figures were unrealistically high.38 But nature and would therefore probably worsen with military sector were correct.43 was being reduced, how could defense spending the mere fact that alternative estimates were put time? Did they, in other words, develop the sort of By 1970 CIA analysts had in fact reached the be to blame for the decline in the growth rate?45 forward scarcely proves that the CIA figures were theoretical framework that would enable them to conclusion that military spending was not the And indeed by the late 1960s the prevailing view grossly inflated, especially since those alternative see beneath the surface and understand the basic fundamental cause of the slowdown. It certainly among Western analysts was that the real problem estimates, and the methods that produced them, problem the Soviets would have to deal with? had not resulted in a reduction in the share of had deeper causes and that Soviet leaders were have come in for their share of criticism.39 And not The answer is that a powerful theoretical GNP earmarked for investment. That share going to have to make some very tough choices. every Russian scholar in the post-Soviet period took framework did develop, but it took a while for it actually rose slightly from about 23 percent in Specialists like Bergson had previously assumed the view that the CIA estimates were deeply flawed. to take root among economists working in this the late 1950s to about 25 percent in the early that the Soviets would be able to maintain a high As Angus Maddison points out, V.M. Kudrov (whom area. In the early 1960s, when the decline in the 1960s and then to about 27 percent by 1969; it growth rate because they, unlike their rivals in the Maddison calls a “leading Soviet Americanologist”) Soviet growth rate was first noticed, the falloff never fell below that level through at least 1987, West, could exercise “political control over the thought the CIA had done a good job in this area.40 was not interpreted in structural terms. U.S. according to CIA estimates released in 1982 and rate of investment.”46 It was for that reason that in Maddison himself, a highly respected authority officials instead attributed it mainly to increased 1990.44 On the other hand, the share of GNP 1961 he had been cautiously optimistic about the on national income accounting, wrote in 1998 that military spending — that is, to a readily reversible devoted to defense had decreased from a high of USSR’s economic prospects.47 But he soon came the CIA “estimates of Soviet growth performance” factor. The CIA, for example, in a January 1964 about 15 percent during the Korean War period to see that things were not so simple. It would were “the best documented and most reasonable press release, said that “much of the blame for down to about 13 percent in the mid-1950s and be hard, he pointed out, for the Soviets to make estimates we have.”41 recent reductions in the rate of growth falls on finally down to about 9 percent in 1960-61, more sure that their capital stock continued to grow the sharp increase in Soviet defense spending, or less remaining at that level for the rest of the at even its present rate, since that would mean which between 1959 and 1963 increased by about decade. Looking at those latter figures, one CIA a constant rise in the share of national income Analyzing the Problem a third,” and the agency took much the same line analyst concluded that the idea that the burden devoted to investment. The share allocated to in classified reports at the time.42 of defense was to blame for the slowdown was consumption, he thought, would have to decline The key issue, however, is not really about But there were problems with that argument, something of a “bugaboo.” If the economy was correspondingly.48 For if investment as a share of numbers. It is much more about how good the both conceptual and empirical. Military end- growing rapidly when the military burden was national income remained constant, investment qualitative assessments were — about whether, products are as much a part of GNP as consumer and if so when, analysts were able to see that the goods are, and while increased defense spending 43 It was commonly argued in the specialized literature at the time that “military R & D and production benefit from the close, interest, and demanding supervision of the consumers of the product,” and that this “effective communication of users with producers is missing at all stages of Soviet economy was in real trouble. Did economists, certainly hurt the civilian economy it would civilian production.” Rush Greenslade, “The Many Burdens of Defense in the Soviet Union,” Studies in Intelligence 14, no. 2 (Fall 1970): 10. See also both in academia and in the CIA, think that there not in itself necessarily affect the overall rate William Odom, “The Riddle of Soviet Military Spending,” Russia 2 (1981): 56-57. was nothing fundamentally wrong with the Soviet of economic growth. If an increase in military 44 CIA (John Pitzer), “Gross National Product of the USSR 1950-80,” 76-78, Table A-11; CIA (Laurie Kurtzweg), “Measures of Soviet Gross National system? To the extent that they recognized that spending resulted in a reduction in overall Product in 1982 Prices,” 82-83, Table A-10. there were major problems in this area, how were investment, GNP would grow more slowly than it 45 “Soviet Economic Growth: Proposed Presentation to the Naval War College,” Aug. 24, 1970, Table 9, CIAERR/0000307690; and CIA Office of Economic Research, “The Soviet Economy: Proposed Briefing,” Aug. 25, 1970, 5 (with chart), CIAERR/0000307692. More recent figures, though those problems understood? Did they interpret otherwise might, but a shift in priorities toward higher for all periods, show the same basic trend (albeit with a less dramatic decline) — they show that the defense burden was higher in the what they saw — the declining growth rate, most the military sphere might be accompanied not 1950s, when the economy was vibrant, than it was later on — and in the present context it is the trend that is important. See Noel Firth and James Noren, Soviet Defense Spending: A History of CIA Estimates (College Station: Texas A&M Press, 1998), 129-30, Table 5.10; Noren, “CIA’s Analysis notably — in essentially conjunctural terms? Did by a cut in overall investment but, rather, by of the Soviet Economy,” 33. The general point about the lessening of the defense burden is important because (as Noren notes in the passage just they view the problems as resulting, for example, a reallocation of resources within the capital- cited) even scholars had gotten a very different impression. To be sure, even the most recent CIA figures have been challenged; some scholars say from bad weather, excessive military spending, goods sector — that is, in an increased emphasis the Soviet defense burden was much higher. Brooks and Wohlforth, for example, cite Mark Harrison’s “How Much Did the Soviets Really Spend on Defence? New Evidence From the Close of the Brezhnev Era” (PERSA working paper No. 24, University of Warwick Economics Department, 2003), changes in the international price of oil, and so on investment in industries that supplied to support their claim that the Soviets “devoted up to a third of their economic output to the generation of military power.” Stephen Brooks and on — that is, the sort of thing that could easily the military at the expense of industries that William Wohlforth, A World Out of Balance: International Relations and the Challenge of American Primacy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008), 55. Harrison’s new evidence did seem to show that the Soviets were spending more on defense than many had thought; his main document change from year to year? Or did at least some mainly produced consumer goods. Such a shift suggested that the figure was equivalent to perhaps 24 percent of GNP. But Harrison, after reading various comments on his paper, concluded of them, at some point, come to the conclusion in priorities could actually have had a positive that the document in question (the “Konoplev Report”) was probably a forgery. See the postscript to the description of the original paper on Harrison’s website. On the other hand, according to Chernyaev, Gorbachev at one point received a top-secret briefing that suggested “‘defense’ was that the USSR’s problems were deep-seated — impact on the overall growth rate, if common consuming about a third of national income”; that estimate was in line with a similar estimate made at the time by the Defense Department’s Office of Net Assessment. See Gordon Barrass, The Great Cold War: A Journey Through the Hall of Mirrors (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009), 323, 254. According to another respectable estimate, the military sector accounted for about a quarter of Soviet GNP in the late 1960s and early 38 The passage on page 141 in Goodman’s “Ending the CIA’s Cold War Legacy” is an egregious example. 1970s. See Vladislav Zubok, “The Soviet Union and Détente of the 1970s,” Cold War History 8, no. 4 (November 2008): 430. 39 Schroeder, “Reflections on Economic Sovietology,” 206, and Abram Bergson, “The USSR Before the Fall: How Poor and Why,” Journal of 46 Bergson letter to the editor, New York Times, Oct. 16, 1960; and Abram Bergson, The Real National Income of Soviet Russia Since 1928 Economic Perspectives 5, no. 4 (Autumn 1991): 40-41. See also Kennedy, “Sunshine and Shadow,” 25. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1961), 294-95. Bergson had made much the same point when testifying before a congressional committee in 1956. See Kestner, “Through the Looking Glass,” 266. 40 Angus Maddison, “Measuring the Performance of a Communist Command Economy: An Assessment of the CIA Estimates for the U.S.S.R.,” Review of Income and Wealth 44, no. 3 (September 1998): 309. 47 And I do mean cautiously optimistic: The key sentence reads almost like a parody of ultra-cautious academic prose. “In the coming years,” Bergson predicted toward the end of a major work in 1961, “the rate of growth of Soviet Russia’s output per worker may decline below its recent 41 Maddison, “Measuring the Performance,” 322. In retrospect, however, Maddison did view the CIA figures as a bit too high. Maddison’s own high level, but if so one hesitates to assume that the reduction will soon be very consequential.” “Khrushchev’s plans for the future,” he went on, figures, posted on his website in 2009 (shortly before his death in 2010) showed the Soviet economy as peaking relative to America’s around 1975 “may often be overoptimistic, but they have some basis in fact.” Bergson, Real National Income, 295, 298. Newspaper accounts, however, gave at about 45 percent, as compared with the CIA’s estimate of about 58 percent. See the Excel file “Statistics on World Population, GDP and Per the impression that he had taken a more alarmist view. See Harry Schwartz, “Output of Soviet May Remain High: Study Shows It May Exceed U.S. Capita GDP, 1-2008 AD,” posted on Maddison’s website (http://www.ggdc.net/maddison/oriindex.htm). Production by 1975,” New York Times, Nov. 26, 1961; “Soviet Growth,” Washington Post editorial, Dec. 16, 1961. 42 CIA press release, “Soviet Economic Problems Multiply,” Jan. 9, 1964, and CIA Special National Intelligence Estimate 11-5-64, “Soviet Economic 48 Abram Bergson, “The Great Economic Race,” Challenge 11, no. 6 (March 1963): 5; Slavic Review Roundtable, 232, 237-38, 243; Abram Bergson, Problems and Outlook,” Jan. 8, 1964, CIAERR/0000272915, which claimed (on page 1) that the “demands of defense and space have greatly “Toward a New Growth Model,” Problems of Communism 22, no. 2 (March-April 1973): 7-9. It is striking that Bergson did not pay much attention to encumbered economic growth since 1958.” Many observers still argue that the economic problem had a good deal to do with high levels of military military spending in this context, even though it was fairly standard in discussions of this issue at the time to refer to consumption, investment, spending. See, for example, Brooks and Wohlforth, “Economic Constraints and the End of the Cold War,” 277. But some economists who have and defense as the three main end-uses for the national product, with the implication that there was a three-way, not just a two-way, competition studied the issue have concluded that the role increased defense spending played in causing the economic slowdown of the 1980s was “so modest for resources. This point was noted by Gur Ofer, who, in an article on Bergson, wrote that Bergson at this time merely “mentioned only in passing as to be unimportant.” See William Easterly and Stanley Fischer, “What We Can Learn From the Soviet Collapse,” Finance and Development 31, no. the burden of defense” and that while he later gave it more attention — referring to an article Bergson published in 1981 — the issue of military 4 (December 1994): 3. Wohlforth himself a few years ago referred to recent work by economists suggesting that there is not much of a connection spending by and large “did not play a major role in Bergson’s analysis of the slowdown of Soviet economic growth.” Gur Ofer, “Abram Bergson: The between military spending and economic growth. See William Wohlforth, “Hegemonic Decline and Hegemonic War Revisited” in Power, Order and Life of a Comparativist,” Comparative Economic Systems 47, no. 2 (2005). For the passage in the 1981 article Ofer referred to, see Abram Bergson, Change in World Politics, ed. G. John Ikenberry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 117. “Can the Soviet Slowdown Be Reversed?” Challenge 24, no. 5 (November/December 1981): 41-42. 86 The Scholar 87

and national income would grow at the same if a high growth rate was to be sustained, capital rate. Since in the long run the growth rate for and labor would have to become more productive. investment determined the rate at which the The productivity problem was thus of fundamental capital stock grew — indeed, the two rates tended importance. And this was why findings about to converge — sooner or later the capital stock productivity loomed so large in the analysis. would grow no more quickly than national income Indeed, perhaps the most striking empirical fact as a whole.49 Yet it would have to if the present to emerge from the study of the Soviet economy rate of economic growth were to be sustained was that “total factor productivity” — a measure simply by expanding the capital stock: Given of the part of the growth of output not accounted that the workforce was growing less rapidly than for by growth in factor inputs (essentially labor the economy as a whole, the capital stock would and capital) — was not increasing at anything like have to expand more rapidly, since those two its earlier rate. A 1964 CIA study had revealed that growth rates together (assuming no increase in the annual growth rate for factor productivity in productivity) essentially determined the growth industry had fallen from almost 5 percent in the late rate for the economy as a whole.50 The fact that, 1950s to only about 2 percent in the early 1960s.53 with a large and aging capital stock, an increasing Three years later another CIA study pointed out amount of investment would have to go toward that the decline in the Soviet growth rate (from replacing worn-out plant and equipment simply about 6.5 percent in the last half of the 1950s down compounded the problem.51 All this, Bergson had to about 4.5 percent in the first half of the 1960s) come to feel, lay “at the very heart of the Russian could “be attributed primarily to the sharp drop in problem.”52 the rate of growth of productivity” in the economy What this kind of analysis suggested was as a whole (from 2.8 percent down to a mere 0.6 that the Soviets could not sustain a high rate of percent in the same period).54 According to an economic growth just by plowing more and more important July 1977 CIA study, the growth rate capital into the economy. If productivity did not had turned negative: factor productivity actually rise substantially, the Soviet leadership would declined in the early 1970s.55 The basic trend here Table 4: Comparative Average Annual Growth Rates of National confront major problems. Investment policy alone was clear to academic economists. Bergson, for Income and Total Factor Productivity (TFP) could not do the job — a finding that perhaps example, in a major 1973 article, noted that total had a special resonance, given the way Western factor productivity had grown at an annual rate of 1950–62* 1950–62* 1950–73** 1950–73** economists had by this point come to understand 1.7 percent from 1950 to 1958; that rate, he pointed National Income*** TFP GDP TFP the whole phenomenon of economic growth, and out, had fallen to 0.7 percent in the period from especially the leading role that technological 1958 to 1967.56 The corresponding growth rates USSR: 5.02**** 5.05 0.50 change played in the growth process. were much higher even in the most sluggish The implications were clear. Investment policy Western economies (See Tables 3 and 4). United States: 3.36 1.87 3.66 1.49 on its own could not guarantee a high growth rate; France: 4.70 3.71 5.13 3.69

49 Bergson, “Toward a New Growth Model,” 4. This important article was a revised version of a paper Bergson had presented at a conference in in 1971. A shorter version was published in Challenge 17, no. 2 (May-June 1974), and the whole article was republished in Bergson’s West Germany: 7.26 4.47 5.92 4.14 Productivity and the Social System: The USSR and the West (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978). 50 See, for example, Abram Bergson, “The Soviet Economic Slowdown,” Challenge 20, no. 6 (January-February 1978), 23-24. It was widely Japan: 9.29 5.47 recognized that the two “reservoirs” the Soviets had traditionally drawn on as a source of industrial labor — women and low-productivity rural labor — had by the mid-1960s been largely depleted. An increasingly urbanized population, moreover, tended to have fewer children per family, in large part because of the unsatisfactory housing situation. According to projections provided to Congress in 1970 by Murray Feshbach, the 2.38 1.55 3.02 1.98 leading expert in this area, the working-age Soviet population was expected to grow by only about 1 percent a year from 1970 to 1990, significantly less than its previous growth rate. Calculated from Murray Feshbach, “Population,” 66-67, Table 4, in U.S. Congress, Joint Economic Committee, Economic Performance and the Military Burden in the Soviet Union (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1970), the source Bergson relied on for Average OECD: 5.40 3.35 his population growth figures in his 1973 article “Toward a New Growth Model.” 51 “The growing burden of attrition of the capital stock,” as Robert Campbell noted, “will also slow growth in productive capacity. In the early stages of growth, depreciation of the capital stock is relatively small compared to new additions. As the stock ages and becomes obsolete, depreciation increases as a share of increments, and net increments are squeezed further.” Robert Campbell, “The Economy,” in After Brezhnev: Sources of Soviet Conduct in the 1980s, ed. Robert Byrnes (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983), 69. 52 Slavic Review Roundtable, 243. 53 Noren, “CIA’s Analysis of the Soviet Economy,” 20. 54 “Soviet Economic Problems and Prospects,” NIE 11-5-67, May 25, 1967, 3-4, CIAERR/0000272916. 55 “Soviet Economic Problems and Prospects,” July 1977, 3, 10, CIAERR/0000292354. 56 Bergson, “Towards a New Growth Model,” 3, Table 1. More recent calculations show the same trend. See, for example, William Easterly and Stanley Fischer, “The Soviet Economic Decline,” Economic Review 9, no. 3 (September 1995): 353; Ofer, “Soviet Economic Growth,” 1778 (Line 7); and Angus Maddison, The World Economy in the 20th Century (Paris: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 1989): 100. “What was most striking after 1973,” Maddison writes, “was that total factor productivity became substantially negative, with labor productivity slowing down dramatically, and capital productivity very negative indeed.” Note also the data in Tables 3 and 4. 88 The Scholar 89

How then was what one analyst referred to in spur to innovation — was relatively high. With economy could not be run efficiently in such a decentralization and bars the use of a 1966 as a “precipitous decline” in the rate at which their much more autarchic and bureaucratically centralized way.64 rational calculus even within the framework productivity had been growing to be explained?57 run economy, the Soviets could not benefit from What all this suggested was that the USSR’s of the command economy. And lastly, direct This issue lay at the heart of much of the work that system to nearly the same extent. They might economic problems could be expected to worsen controls over labor — trained and educated done on the Soviet economy from the mid-1960s try hard to import Western technology through unless the Soviet economy changed in fundamental labor at that — offend against human dignity on.58 The answers were not obvious, but by the late both legal and illegal means, but as technology ways. In the past a rapid increase in factor inputs and the sense of justice. 1960s certain ideas were widely accepted. First, it advanced the barriers to technology transfer — essentially capital and labor — had been the was assumed (as basic economic theory would lead inherent in the Soviet system were bound to loom main engine of growth, but that strategy appeared The conclusion he drew was of fundamental one to expect) that diminishing returns had set in larger.62 It was clear what those barriers were, as to have run its course. The old “extensive” growth importance: “In terms of the historical contrast as capital had become more abundant relative to Joseph Berliner, a leading specialist in this area, model, as it was called, had to be replaced with with the West,” he wrote, “the wheel is set for labor.59 Certainly the evidence showed, as Bergson pointed out in a 1973 essay. “The international flow a new “intensive” growth model, focused on another turn.”68 put it, that the Soviets were “suffering from a of technological knowledge,” he wrote, “takes place improving productivity — either that, or the USSR’s The basic assumption here was that the absence rising capital-output ratio” — that is, it was taking through the movement of publications, products, economic problems would become even more of a market, or at least of market-like mechanisms, more and more capital to produce a given unit of and persons. The Soviets have relied most heavily serious.65 This was one of Bergson’s main points. lay at the heart of the productivity problem; output.60 on the first, less on the second, and least on the His main article laying out these ideas, called it followed that a solution would depend on A second major point was that by the mid-1960s last. The effectiveness of technological transfer, “Toward a New Growth Model,” concluded with economic decentralization. But would the Soviets all the low-hanging fruit had been harvested: easily however, is in the reverse order.” They therefore the observation that the traditional Soviet model be able make the transition — that is, would they exploitable resources had already been exploited had not benefited, and by implication could not “may not survive its dictatorial originator much be able to move toward a more efficient, and thus (Khrushchev’s “virgin lands” program being a good benefit, from technological advances to the same longer.”66 Other scholars went a bit further and more decentralized, system? On the one hand, they example here); relatively simple, and thus easily extent as their rivals in the West.63 as early as 1966 actually used the word “crisis.”67 certainly had enormous incentives to do so. For importable, foreign technologies had already been A third and somewhat related argument focused Gregory Grossman, a professor of economics at both domestic and foreign policy reasons, a vibrant imported; and as their economy had become more on the fact that the Soviet economy was far Berkeley and a leading specialist in this area, was economy was of fundamental importance. The developed, the Soviets were no longer able to benefit more complex than it had been in the past. The particularly prescient. In an extraordinary article Soviet government, as Bergson pointed out in 1966, as much from the “advantages of backwardness” as assumption was that the well-known inefficiencies published in 1962, Grossman argued that some of had over time become “committed to the notion they had in the past (an argument developed most and rigidities of the Soviet system would cause the most basic features of the Soviet economy — that rapid growth was the success criterion for the notably by Bergson’s Harvard colleague and friend more problems than they had in earlier years, the absence of a market mechanism, the limited system as a whole,” so the decline in the growth rate Alexander Gerschenkron).61 Western economies when economic goals (such as vastly increased role that money played in economic life and the was “politically and ideologically very disturbing.”69 were embedded in a vast international economic steel production) were relatively simple and the limits on labor mobility — were increasingly The CIA economist Rush Greenslade made much system, in which technology transfer was relatively strategies for achieving them were more or less counterproductive. They clashed with “some of the same point that same year. It was hard, he said, easy and the level of competition — and thus the obvious. But an enormously complex modern the most fundamental requirements of a modern to see how the Soviets could accept “slower growth economy and society”: and give up hope” of catching up with the West. They had always justified the sacrifices their people The lack of a market mechanism, that had to make “as the necessary price of Utopia in is, the command principle, obstructs the future.” Could they lower their sights now, decentralization and thus conflicts with a settle for just moderate growth, and aim merely modern economy’s enormous complexity, for a society that was “a pale and lagging imitation the need for dispersed initiative to take of Western life”? It was hard to imagine how that 57 James Noren, “Soviet Industry Trends in Output, Inputs, and Productivity,” in U.S. Congress, Joint Economic Committee, New Directions in full advantage of industrialism’s productive could happen after all that had been said, especially the Soviet Economy, Part II-A (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1966), 287. See also Stanley Cohn, “Soviet Growth Retardation: Trends in Resource Availability and Efficiency,” in U.S. Congress, Joint Economic Committee, New Directions in the Soviet Economy, Part II-A (Washington: and growing potential, and the modern given what the domestic political consequences Government Printing Office, 1966), 102. consumer’s quest for quality and variety might be.70 It was also clear that a strong economy 58 For a brief survey of the early literature on this question, see Martin Weitzman, “Soviet Postwar Economic Growth and Capital-Labor of goods and services. Demonetization, was needed to generate the resources to build a Substitution,” American Economic Review 60, no. 4 (September 1970): 678. albeit partial, stands in the way of effective military establishment that would enable the USSR 59 See, for example, the Slavic Review Roundtable, 238, 243; Weitzman, “Soviet Postwar Economic Growth,” 685; and Terence Byrne, “Recent Trends in the Soviet Economy,” in U.S. Congress, Joint Economic Committee, Economic Performance and the Military Burden in the Soviet Union (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1970), 5. The point is also emphasized in some post-Cold War accounts. See, for example, Easterly and 64 See, for example, Bergson in the Slavic Review Roundtable, 230-31; and Ofer, “Soviet Economic Growth,” 1815. This line of argument builds on Fischer, “What We Can Learn From the Soviet Collapse,” 4-5. important work done before World War II by Hayek and Mises, partly in the context of a famous debate with the “market socialists” Abba Lerner and Oskar Lange. Bergson and others cut their teeth intellectually grappling with these issues. See Friedrich von Hayek, “The Present State of the 60 Slavic Review Roundtable, 243-44. Debate,” in his Collectivist Economic Planning (London: Routledge, 1935) and Abram Bergson, “Socialist Economics,” in A Survey of Contemporary 61 See Gerschenkron’s famous article “Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective,” in The Progress of Underdeveloped Areas, ed. Bert F. Economics, ed. Howard Ellis (Philadelphia: Blakeston, 1949), reprinted in Bergson’s Essays in Normative Economics (Cambridge: Harvard University Hoselitz (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1952) and his comment on Gregory Grossman’s article “National Income” in Soviet Economic Growth: Press, 1996). For discussions of the debate, see Agnar Sandmo, ch. 14 in Economics Evolving: A History of Economic Thought (Princeton, Princeton Conditions and Perspectives, ed. Abram Bergson (Evanston: Row, Peterson, 1953), 25. University Press, 2011); Peter Boettke, ch. 3 in Calculation and Coordination: Essays on Socialism and Transitional Political Economy (London: Routledge, 2011); and Donald Lavoie, Rivalry and Central Planning: The Socialist Calculation Debate Reconsidered (New York: Cambridge University 62 See John Prados, How the Cold War Ended: Debating and Doing History (Washington: Potomac Books, 2011), 165-67. See also U.S. Senate, Press, 1985). Committee on Governmental Affairs, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Transfer of U.S. High Technology to the Soviet Union and Soviet Bloc Nations (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1982), Exhibit 1, CIA, “Soviet Acquisition of Western Technology,” April 1982; and 65 This terminology was common. See, for example, Ofer, “Soviet Economic Growth,” 1786, and the sources cited there. U.S. Department of Defense, “Soviet Acquisition of Militarily Significant Western Technology: An Update,” September 1985, Defense Department 66 Bergson, “Toward a New Growth Model,” 9. Freedom of Information Act Reading Room. In a March 1981 report to Brezhnev, the KGB chief, Andropov, described some of the agency’s accomplishments in this area: “On military-industrial questions about fourteen thousand items and two thousand types of design have been 67 See the Slavic Review Roundtable, 233-36. obtained; the work of strengthening illegal intelligence has continued.” Quoted at length in Dmitri Volkogonov, The Rise and Fall of the Soviet 68 Gregory Grossman, “The Structure and Organization of the Soviet Economy,” Slavic Review 21, no. 2 (June 1962): 208. Empire: Political Leaders From Lenin to Gorbachev (New York: HarperCollins, 1998), 340. 69 See the Slavic Review Roundtable, 231-32. 63 “Some International Aspects of Soviet Technological Progress,” South Atlantic Quarterly 72, no. 3 (1973), republished in Joseph Berliner, Soviet Industry From Stalin to Gorbachev: Essays on Management and Innovation (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988), 212-13. 70 Greenslade, “Soviet Economic System in Transition,” 8-9. 90 The Scholar 91

to hold its own against rivals or even to pursue thought, the Soviet system might become more of the U.S.S.R.” Yet the Soviets’ justification for management of a complex, modern economy. The more ambitious goals. And Soviet influence in relaxed. An improvement in the international their system, and for all the sacrifices the Soviet highly skilled, technical labor force now required the Third World depended in part on the Soviet environment, “a greater sense of security and people had been forced to make, was that it would is more motivated by incentives than by coercion. Union’s ability to hold up its system as a model — comfort due to material progress,” “the waning produce material well-being in the future. It was This means, in turn, that consumers can be no one that could lead to rapid economic growth. of the ideological élan,” “the embourgeoisement hard to see how they could give up on that, but it longer treated as residual claimants.”77 On the other hand, a thorough reinvigoration of the population, the growing expertise and was equally hard to see how they could give up on But all this meant that the Soviets were going of the economy called for fairly radical economic self-confidence of the professionals,” and so on the command economy. One could see the Soviets’ to have to face some very hard problems. As the reform, and it would be extremely difficult for the — might not such developments, he wondered, problem: Their dilemma, Greenslade thought, was economy slowed down and the allocation problem Soviets to dismantle the command economy, not “lead to a more relaxed attitude toward resource “that the causes of the slowdown and the party’s began to bite, they might be forced to take the basic just for ideological reasons. Strong bureaucratic mobilization and the enforcement of priorities?” tangible raison d’être are rooted interests were bound to oppose far-reaching reform In that case, “certain sectors might be separated equally deep in the system.”76 of that sort, even if the leadership wanted to move out of the command pyramid and ‘marketized’; for But no one could tell how they in that direction.71 And it was far from obvious that example, agriculture (albeit still largely socialized) would resolve it. the leadership would even want to do so, given and construction (or some parts thereof).” “But Assuming, moreover, that the that partial marketization was problematic even for then,” he went on to speculate, “such a hybrid Soviets were not able to liberalize purely economic reasons: “co-existence between structure might prove to be only a transitional their economy in any significant way the command principle and the market mechanism stage, for the same political developments would and that the slowdown continued, how would seem to be unstable and ephemeral,” so probably make it more difficult to resist the lure were the resources they did have to be perhaps there was “no half-way house between a of a thoroughgoing socialist market economy à la divided between their three main uses: market economy and a command economy.”72 But at yougoslave.” “But we are now,” he concluded, “on consumption, investment, and defense? its core the problem was political: At stake was “the very ‘iffy’ ground.”75 The problem was obvious. Increasing whole centralized structure of the Soviet economy, The point here is that the sort of analysis investment was one of the few things they the command economy itself, and ultimately, the economists had developed in the 1960s did not could do to increase the growth rate, even if location and distribution of power in the society.”73 quite allow one to see with any certainty how things it was becoming less and less effective in that No one could tell where even partial marketization would change. Its main value was that it enabled regard, but allocating a greater share of national question of marketization more seriously, but given might lead, a point perhaps underscored by what one to understand the structure of the problem income to investment would mean that the share the fundamental nature of their system would they had happened in Czechoslovakia in 1968.74 Fear of the Soviets would face and thus could serve as a going to defense or consumption or both would really be willing to move in that direction? “I have the unknown — that is, of a possible unraveling of framework for informed speculation about how have to be cut. It was difficult to cut defense the feeling,” Bergson said in a 1966 roundtable of the system, political as well as economic, once the things might develop. The fundamental question spending, given that the USSR was competing with economists devoted to this issue, “that it’s going reform process had begun — could easily hold the had to do with the core issue of stagnation or a much richer and more technologically advanced to be terribly difficult for the Russians to work Soviet leaders back. marketization. The command economy lay at the group of powers (not to mention China). On the out a solution for the problems they are dealing Yet, as Grossman pointed out in 1963, the issue heart of the Soviet system, Greenslade pointed other hand, to cut back on what was going to the with.” Another economist in that roundtable, G. was not quite that simple. Partial marketization out in 1966, but it was “as clear as can be that consumer might be difficult, in part because the Warren Nutter, went a bit further. The Soviets, he could not be ruled out entirely. Over time, he no commands can cure the economic troubles whole basis of the regime’s policy in the post-Stalin thought, were “facing extremely difficult problems period was to change the relationship between of choice as to which way they will move — to the 71 John Hardt, Dimitri Gallik, and Vladimir Treml, “Institutional Stagnation and Changing Economic Strategy in the Soviet Union,” in U.S. Congress, Joint Economic Committee, New Directions in the Soviet Economy (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1966), Part I, 62; Grossman, “Structure state and society — so that it rested not brute point of whether they will fundamentally change 78 and Organization,” 217; Gregory Grossman, “Notes for a Theory of the Command Economy,” Soviet Studies 15, no. 2 (October 1963): 122. force and terror but on at least a degree of consent; their economic system.” Again, no one could tell 72 Grossman, “Notes for a Theory,” 119, paraphrasing an argument made by Peter Wiles. the regime’s legitimacy in the eyes of the people, how the issues would be resolved, but given the 73 Grossman, “Structure and Organization,” 215. and to a certain extent in its own eyes as well, seriousness of this set of problems it was hard 74 See Malia, Soviet Tragedy, 360. As economic and political liberalization are linked in many ways, this problem was related to the fear that rested in large measure on its ability to deliver to think that things would just go on as they had. the whole Soviet system might be overwhelmed by forces released once the political controls were relaxed. “If we open up all the valves at once,” the goods and improve the material well-being of Perhaps gradual change was possible, but it was Andropov said, “and people start to express their grievances, there will be an avalanche, and we will have no means of stopping it.” Quoted in Barrass, Great Cold War, 355. the population as a whole. And the consumer’s also possible that Soviet society would not be able interests had to be taken into account for purely to evolve in that way. In that case, three analysts 75 Grossman, “Notes for a Theory,” 122-23. A decade later, however, in a review of Moshe Lewin’s Political Undercurrents in Soviet Economic Debates, Grossman seemed to argue that partial marketization was not a viable strategy. “Yet one may wonder,” he wrote, “whether the obstacles economic reasons. “The methods used for forced wrote in 1966, “if substantial changes do occur, to effective marketization of the economy — and, therefore, also to socio-political liberalization — are to be found only in the leadership’s industrialization,” as a CIA analyst pointed out they may occur rapidly and have far-reaching tenacious attachment to power. By this time equally important may be the tacit acknowledgment by both ruler and ruled of the public’s right to full employment, job security, and an easy pace of work, while its consumption levels must be steadily raised. This conjunction of imperatives virtually in 1970, were “increasingly ill-suited for the and immeasurable impacts on the whole fabric ensures the persistence of excess aggregate demand together with tight control of official retail prices. Under these conditions, a fledgling market mechanism may not have much chance against an entrenched command economy. Objectively, to use a favorite Soviet word, the masses may thus be on the side of the powerful and privileged in protecting the command economy from fatal attack. Again, the Czechoslovak experience is not 76 Greenslade, “Soviet Economic System in Transition,” 8-9. This theme was echoed in many writings and even some key leaders came to view the without its lessons.” Journal of Economic Literature 14, no. 3 (September 1976): 915. That someone of Grossman’s intellectual stature found it hard problem in these terms. For example, as one document pointed out, none of the USSR’s leaders “can suggest a new program of reform which would to reach definitive conclusions is a measure of how difficult this problem of partial marketization was, and yet the whole issue of whether gradual spur economic progress and at the same time preserve central political control. This is a central Soviet dilemma.” President Nixon highlighted those economic and political change was possible turned in large measure on how that question was to be answered. The scholarly literature on the passages and wrote in the margin: “The critical point.” Kissinger to Nixon (drafted by Kissinger’s assistant Helmut Sonnenfeldt), Feb. 2, 1970, FRUS semi-legal “second economy” is of particular interest in this context, since the “second economy” represents a form of partial marketization. For an 1969-74, 12:370. See also Georges Pompidou Le Noeud gordien (Paris: Flammarion, 1974), 112, and , as quoted in Peter Schweizer, early account, see Zev Katz, “Insights From Emigrés and Sociological Studies on the Soviet Economy,” U.S. Congress, Joint Economic Committee, Victory: The Reagan Administration’s Secret Strategy That Hastened the Collapse of the Soviet Union (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1994), Soviet Economic Prospects for the Seventies (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1973), 87-120. For more extensive studies of the subject, see xiv. And see , “Les fondements de la politique étrangère des Etats-Unis,” Politique étrangère 47, no. 4 (1982): 922: “Le dilemme du the many works published by the Berkeley-Duke Project on the Second Economy in the USSR, headed by Vladimir Treml, Gregory Grossman, and communisme est qu’il semble impossible de faire marcher une économie moderne avec un système de planification totale alors que la survie d’un Michael Alexeev. Note in particular Gregory Grossman, “The ‘Second Economy’ of the USSR,” Problems of Communism 26, no. 5 (September-October Etat communiste pourrait bien s’avérer impossible sans un tel système de planification!” 1977), and Grossman, “Sub-Rosa Privatization and Marketization in the USSR,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 507 77 “Soviet Economic Growth: Proposed Presentation to the Naval War College,” Aug. 24, 1970, 3, CIAERR/0000307690. (January 1990). See also Steven L. Sampson, “The Second Economy of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 493 (September 1987) and the references cited there. 78 Slavic Review Roundtable, 235. 92 The Scholar 93

of society.” Even the modest reforms the Soviets is a good case in point. The document began by “mushroomed in the dank darkness of the Soviet economic problem was already quite serious and seemed to be contemplating, might, if implemented, noting that the Soviet economy faced “serious dictatorship.”85 During the presidential transition would probably worsen in the next few years. “take them well beyond the dimensions anticipated strains in the decade ahead”; the basic problems at the end of 1980, CIA analysts had in fact made A new element was incorporated into the analysis by those who have unleashed the forces of change. that had long been noted “were likely to intensify”; it clear to President-Elect Reagan that “the Soviets beginning in the late 1970s. For the first time, The end result may well be a second economic “a marked reduction in the rate of economic growth are really suffering” and that “these guys are in a lot serious attention was given to the social problems revolution comparable in scope and depth to that in the 1980s,” it concluded, down to between 2 and of trouble.”86 By 1983, when the economist Marshall the Soviets had to contend with — alcoholism, launched by Stalin in the thirties.”79 Those words, 3½ percent a year, seemed “almost inevitable.”81 Goldman, associate director of Harvard’s Russian corruption, absenteeism and so on — and to the of course, have a special resonance today given Similar views can be found in many other CIA Research Center, published his book U.S.S.R. in demographic indicators suggesting that Soviet what happened during the Gorbachev period. documents from the period. The CIA director in the Crisis: The Failure of an Economic System, the view society had taken a sharp turn for the worse.91 So while the analysis might not have enabled late 1970s, Adm. Stansfield Turner, took the same that the Soviet Union was in deep trouble was quite The most important work in this area was done people to see precisely how the USSR was going line year after year in testimony before Congress.82 common.87 Indeed, Goldman noted in his preface not by the CIA (which did not pay much attention to develop, it did provide a certain window into These increasingly gloomy assessments were that other scholars had come to the perspective to issues of this sort) but by the demographer the future — a hazy and uncertain window to be widely reported in the press (See Table 1 above). reflected in the book’s title earlier than he had.88 A Murray Feshbach.92 Feshbach and his co-author sure, but one of real value nonetheless. What was In the late 1970s, the basic message was that CIA document issued in early 1981 noted that the Christopher Davis presented their findings in a particularly impressive was that this conceptual the Soviet leadership would eventually have to Soviet leadership’s apparent belief “that the decline Wall Street Journal article in 1978. “Unlike the rest framework took hold very early on — in the mid- deal with some very difficult problems. By the in Soviet economic performance can be kept within of the industrialized world,” they began, “the Soviet and late 1960s, that is, at a time when the Soviet start of the 1980s, the situation was viewed as manageable bounds without major policy change Union is experiencing a rising infant mortality rate growth rate still seemed quite respectable by even more serious. The veteran New York Times diverges from the perception of most Western and falling life expectancy.”93 The evidence was Western standards.80 The economists had been correspondent , for example, observers, who foresee more severe consequences outlined in some detail in a paper they released two able to see beneath the surface and give some feel referred to “debilitating Soviet weaknesses” and stemming from this business-as-usual attitude.”89 years later, and Feshbach published several other for the seriousness of the problem and for why to the “crushing problems” Soviet leaders had to The reference to “Western,” and not just American, articles on the subject in the early 1980s.94 Their those problems were likely to grow over time. face in an important article published in the New observers is worth noting: Many Europeans, such findings were extraordinary. The Soviet infant It was certainly not the case that mainstream York Times Magazine in February 1981, at the as the highly respected French journalist Michel mortality rate had “shot up by over 50%” in the American economists took a rosy view of Soviet beginning of the Reagan presidency; he concluded Tatu, took much the same view.90 The consensus 1970s; it was three times as high as the U.S. rate.95 economic performance and prospects well into by talking about how the Soviets had to “fight their by the early 1980s, in other words, was that the Life expectancy for males had fallen from 67 years the 1980s (as people like Malia had claimed). They way out of the quagmire into which failed Marxian not only saw, very early on, that the Soviets faced precepts and their own rigid bureaucracy” had major problems, but also saw why those problems led them.83 Ivan Selin, a former Pentagon official 85 Michael Getler, “Soviet Economy Called ‘Basket Case’: Presidential Aide Says U.S. Should Continue Pressures on Trade and Credit,” Washington Post, June 17, 1982. This is of particular interest given the later view that CIA estimates were too rosy because the political leadership at the time were likely to worsen in the not-too-distant future. who for years had been deeply involved with refused to accept the idea that the Soviets were in trouble. Note, for example, a comment by Michael Nacht, then dean of the Public Policy School Soviet affairs, expressed much the same view in at the University of Maryland and a well-known expert in this area. “Frankly,” Nacht said in a 1992 interview, “the reporting of intelligence has been a 1982 roundtable. The Soviets, he said, were “in extremely politicized. In the Casey period, any kind of study showing the Soviet Union was an economic basket case would have been shelved. It didn’t comport with the overarching view of a communist threat.” Rodman Griffin, “The New CIA,” CQ Researcher 2, no. 46 (Dec. 11, 1992). Reagan The Widening Circle a terribly difficult situation,” “probably the worst himself, incidentally, also referred to the Soviet Union as an “ec. basket case” in a diary entry in November 1985. See David E. Hoffman, The Dead situation they’ve faced at least since the early Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy (New York: Doubleday, 2009), 226, 520. The core analytical framework that had taken 1950s”; “their prospects are pretty grim — at least 86 Kennedy, Sunshine and Shadow, 18. hold by the late 1960s remained intact for the out to the end of the century.”84 That same year 87 See, for example, Richard Pipes, “L’URSS en crise,” Politique étrangère 47, no. 4 (1982); and Kissinger, “Les fondements de la politique étrangère remainder of the pre-Gorbachev period, but the Thomas Reed, formerly a consultant to the Reagan des Etats-Unis,” 920. basic picture that came across was increasingly National Security Council and then a special 88 “A few years ago,” he wrote, “Soviet prospects looked far more promising to me. When American Sovietologists painted a picture of the Soviet Union showing it on the verge of doom, if not collapse, I invariably responded that they were viewing something radically different from what I bleak: The Soviet economy was slowing down, and assistant to the president, called the Soviet Union knew. Now I am not so sure.” Marshall Goldman, U.S.S.R. in Crisis: The Failure of an Economic System (New York: Norton, 1983), xii. The journalist the slowdown was expected to continue in the “an economic basket case”; the Soviet government, Drew Middleton had pointed out a few years earlier that “some analysts” believed that “the Communist system is incapable of dealing with [the USSR’s economic and political] problems and that their growth could lead in time to disintegration of the Soviet Union.” “West Expects Soviet years to come. An important July 1977 CIA paper Reed said, could not “feed its own people”; “the Might, and Ills, to Peak in Mid-80’s,” New York Times, June 29, 1979. called “Soviet Economic Problems and Prospects” potential for corruption and decay,” he added, had 89 CIA Office of Economic Research, “Soviet Perceptions of Economic Prospects,” March 1981, iv, CIAERR/0000496623. 90 See Michel Tatu, “Les Relations Est-Ouest: Gérer la tension,” Politique Étrangère 46, no. 2 (1981): 288. 91 On corruption: see Konstantin Simis, “The Machinery of Corruption in the Soviet Union,” Survey 23, no. 4 (Autumn, 1977-78); Simis, USSR — The Corrupt Society: The Secret World of Soviet Capitalism (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982); Ilya Zemtsov, La Corruption en Union Soviétique (Paris: Hachette, 1976); and CIA, “Soviet Elite Concerns About Popular Discontent and Official Corruption” (December 1982), CIAERR/0000496810. On crime: Valery Chalidze, Criminal Russia: Essays on Crime in the Soviet Union (New York: Random House, 1977) and Lydia S. Rosner, Soviet Way 79 Hardt, Gallik, and Treml, “Institutional Stagnation and Changing Economic Strategy in the Soviet Union,” 62. of Crime: Beating the System in the Soviet Union and the U.S.A. (South Hadley, Mass.: Bergin & Garvey Publishers, 1986). On alcoholism: Vladimir 80 According to a 1982 CIA estimate, the Soviet economy was growing at a rate of 5.2 percent a year in the late 1960s. The U.S. growth rate for Treml, Alcohol in the USSR: A Statistical Study (Durham: Duke University Press, 1982) and Mark Schrad, Vodka Politics (New York: Oxford University the same period was 3.1 percent, and the growth rate for the whole OECD area was 4.8 percent. CIA (John Pitzer), “Gross National Product of the Press, 2014). On social issues in general, see Gail Lapidus, After Brezhnev: The Sources of Soviet Conduct in the 1980s (Bloomington: Indiana USSR 1950-80,” 20, Table 1. See also Table 2 above. University Press, 1983) and Lapidus, “Society Under Strain,” Washington Quarterly 6, no. 2 (Spring 1983). 81 Central Intelligence Agency, “Soviet Economic Problems and Prospects,” July 1977, i, ii, v, CIAERR/0000292354. This important paper was also 92 On Feshbach, see Cullen Murphy, “Watching the Russians,” Atlantic Monthly, February 1983, and Schrad, Vodka Politics, 249-51. For the CIA’s released to the public by the Joint Economic Committee a month after it was prepared. neglect of social issues, see Lundberg, “CIA and the Fall of the Soviet Empire,” 8, 12. 82 For a series of excerpts from CIA documents and statements expressing similar views, see “Excerpts From Cited References” in Douglas 93 Murray Feshbach and Christopher Davis, “Life Expectancy in the Soviet Union,” Wall Street Journal, June 20, 1978. MacEachin’s monograph “CIA Assessments of the Soviet Union: The Record Versus the Charges,” available online at https://www.cia.gov/library/ 94 Christopher Davis and Murray Feshbach, Rising Infant Mortality in the U.S.S.R. in the 1970’s, U.S. Commerce Department, Census Bureau, center-for-the-study-of-intelligence. Foreign Demographic Analysis Division, International Population Reports, Series P-75, no. 74 (September 1980). For background and a discussion of 83 Harrison Salisbury, “The Russia Reagan Faces,” New York Times, Feb. 1, 1981. related work, see Christopher Davis, “Commentary: The Health Crisis in the USSR: Reflections on the Nicholas Eberstadt 1981 review of Rising Infant Mortality in the USSR in the 1970s,” International Journal of Epidemiology 35, no. 6 (December 2006): 1400-05. 84 U.S. Congress, Joint Economic Committee, Subcommittee on International Trade, Finance, and Security Economics, and , Congressional Reference Service, Soviet Military Economic Relations: Proceedings of a Workshop on July 7 and 8, 1982 (Washington: Government 95 Murray Feshbach, “Health in Russia: Statistics and Reality,” Wall Street Journal, Sept. 14, 1981; Spencer Rich, “Infant Mortality Soars in Russia, Printing Office, 1983), 270. U.S. Study Finds,” Washington Post, June 26, 1980. 94 The Scholar 95

in 1964 to about 62 years in 1982.96 It seemed clear, underlies it”; the 1960s and 1970s, he thought, had spoke with took a gloomy view of their country’s his friend Andrei Amalrik’s famous essay “Will the moreover, that a leading cause for all this was what “proved devastating to Soviet society.”100 Another economic prospects — quite different from the USSR Survive until 1984?” which that journal had Feshbach called the “pandemic” of alcoholism analyst was even more blunt. “The health data,” “mood of exuberance and of confidence in the recently published. Nothing in the past six years, in the USSR, a point developed in greater depth he was quoted as saying, “simply reflect that vitality of the Soviet economic system” he had Shub said, including his two years in Moscow, by Feshbach’s sometime collaborator, the Duke some things may be cracking up there.”101 Other observed in another visit a decade earlier.106 Other had “significantly altered” his view that the Soviet economist Vladimir Treml.97 Infant mortality figures observers interpreted Feshbach’s findings in much observers came away with similar impressions: regime was in a state of what Amalrik called were considered a good indicator of the overall the same way. They were, for example, a key basis One scholar, who had spent four years in the “decrepitude” and that the great problem for the health of a society; it thus seemed that the general for Moynihan’s argument in 1979 that the USSR Soviet Union in the early and mid-1970s, published USSR’s leaders, as well as for the population they health of the Soviet population was deteriorating might “blow up.”102 an article when he returned home called “The ruled, was to find a way out “of the cul de sac” the and that the USSR’s health-care system was not Other information pointed in the same general ‘New Soviet Man’ Turns Pessimist.”107 William Communists had created in Russia. He thought able to cope with the problem. Recent studies had direction. Corruption, it was learned, had become Odom remembers “several chance conversations” that as time passed and the regime became “more suggested, one leading analyst, Nick Eberstadt, pervasive; in 1978 a Soviet dissident, Konstantin he had while serving as assistant U.S. military and more clearly anachronistic,” the discontent wrote in 1981, that the Soviet health-care system Simis, published an important article on the subject attaché in Moscow from 1972 to 1974: “middle-level would spread through the intelligentsia into the had “deteriorated dramatically in the past 15 years” in Survey, one of the main journals in the field.103 bureaucrats and officers expressed deep concern Communist Party itself, and perhaps to some parts and that “many believe its lapses may now have Even the family of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev over the state of the economy and the military of the leadership. “A definite intellectual osmosis” reached epidemic proportions.”98 was not beyond reproach in this regard — and burdens it carried.”108 Some Europeans had come between dissidents, “loyal but critical intellectuals, The press paid a good deal of attention to what Brezhnev’s hold on power at the end, in 1982, was to see things in a similar light. Georges Pompidou, economic managers and Party officials,” he wrote, these scholars were saying. The Feshbach-Davis so shaky that Yuri Andropov, the head of the KGB, for example, just before his election to the French had been going on for some time and was bound study, for example, was the subject of a front- was able with impunity to leak some damaging presidency in 1969, had already concluded that the to continue; “the current Soviet economic crisis page article in after it came information about Brezhnev’s daughter, her lover Soviets had lost the economic competition with the should, I would think, accelerate the process.’”111 out in 1980.99 Eberstadt published an important (“Boris the Gypsy”), and a diamond scam they West. He approvingly quoted Milovan Djilas, the During the 1970s more and more people came to piece in the New York Review of Books in early 1981 were involved with.104 Brezhnev himself, clinging to former Yugoslav Communist leader, as saying that see things this way — that is, they were coming discussing Davis and Feshbach’s “startling report” power despite obvious physical and mental decline, “as an ideology, Communism was in the process to think not merely that the economy was sluggish and drawing out some of its implications. Looking seemed to personify all that was wrong with the of falling apart, and as a society was in a state of and that the USSR had to deal with a series of at the “bits of information” they and others had system. Unable toward the end even to “utter a few unrest”; and he clearly shared Djilas’ view that “the discrete yet manageable problems but, rather, that supplied, Eberstadt asked: “What do these things phrases in public unless they were printed out for political and social structure of the Soviet Union the whole system was in trouble. That conclusion say about alienation and depression, the desire him,” and barely able to stand unaided, “he became was radically inconsistent with modern ideas and had by no means been universally accepted. As of people to look after their health and to keep a symbol,” Dmitri Volkogonov writes, “of the entire contemporary realities.”109 late as 1983 some experts still took a relatively others alive?” To him, they suggested that “some decrepit leadership.”105 Some — but by no means all — ’ rosy view.112 But among specialists, and to a certain virulent strain of anomie” was “running rampant” People were increasingly coming to feel that accounts gave much the same impression. In extent in the educated public as a whole, by and that the Soviet social order was “in the midst the Soviet system was in decline. In 1967, the 1969, Anatole Shub, after serving as Moscow around 1980 a certain picture had come into focus. of deadly decay.” He referred to the “debilitation economist Joseph Berliner was struck during a correspondent of the Washington Post, published The USSR’s prospects appeared grim; the Soviet of the workforce” and the “demoralization which visit to the USSR that the Soviet economists he a series of articles in that newspaper summing populace seemed increasingly disaffected. “Over up what he had learned about the Soviet Union. the past several years, and especially over the past

96 David Satter, “Soviet Death Rates Rising, Report Says; Trend Is Unique in the Developed World,” Wall Street Journal, Oct. 18, 1982. See also His views are of particular interest in this context. several months,” a 1982 CIA document reported, Murray Feshbach, “Between the Lines of the 1979 Soviet Census,” Population and Development Review 8, no. 2 (June 1982): 351. “The sense of suffocation and choking among the “a number of Western observers in Moscow 97 Satter, “Soviet Death Rates Rising,” 38, and Treml, Alcohol in the USSR. educated,” he wrote, “is matched by the sullenness have detected in Soviet society an air of general 110 113 98 Nick Eberstadt, “Ultimate Verdict on the Soviet Health System: Shorter Lives,” New York Times, Oct. 11, 1981. and permanent irritability of the masses.” The depression and foreboding about the future.” It 99 Rich, “Infant Mortality Soars in Russia.” following year he wrote in Survey commenting on seemed that even the Soviet leadership had lost 100 Nick Eberstadt, “The Health Crisis in the Soviet Union,” originally published in the New York Review of Books, Feb. 19, 1981, and republished in Nick Eberstadt, The Poverty of Communism (New Brunswick: Transaction Books, 1988). The quotations appear on pages 12, 18-19, and 25 of the 106 Quoted in Alexander Dallin, “Causes of the Collapse of the USSR,” Post-Soviet Affairs 8, no. 4 (October-December 1992): 283. book version. 107 John Bushnell, “The New Soviet Man Turns Pessimist,” Survey 24, no. 2 (Spring 1979). 101 Daniel Greenberg, “Ivan’s Declining Health,” Washington Post, Dec. 16, 1980. 108 William Odom, “The Sources of ‘New Thinking’ in Soviet Politics,” in The Last Decade of the Cold War: From Conflict Escalation to Conflict 102 See John Diamond, The CIA and the Culture of Failure: U.S. Intelligence From the End of the Cold War to the Invasion of Iraq (Stanford: Transformation, ed. Olav Njølstad (London: Frank Cass, 2004), 121. Stanford University Press, 2008), 32. 109 Pompidou, Le Noeud gordien, 103, 111-15. This book was written mainly in the brief period after Pompidou was dismissed by Charles de Gaulle 103 Simis, “The Machinery of Corruption in the Soviet Union.” as prime minister following the events of May 1968 and before he was elected to the presidency in 1969; it was published in 1974, the year he died in office. The idea that the Soviet economy was in trouble was a common theme in published French and German diplomatic documents even for 104 Martin McCauley, The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union (New York: Routledge, 2013), 372, 382-83; Robert Gates, From the Shadows: The the 1960s. See, for example, Wilson-Erhard meeting, Jan. 15, 1964, Akten zur Auswärtigen Politik Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1964, 1:50 (note 6); Ultimate Insider’s Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), 185-86; John Burns, “2 Scandals and de Gaulle-Heath meeting, Nov. 22, 1965, Documents diplomatiques français [DDF], 1965, 2:624. Note also de Gaulle’s comments in a meeting Have All Moscow Abuzz,” New York Times, Feb. 27, 1982. The message was that someone had to put an end to the rot and that Andropov was the with West German Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger, Jan. 13, 1967, DDF 1967, 1:69. man to do it. The fact that he could leak the message while Brezhnev was still alive shows that he understood that there was real support in the party for fundamental change, and he was appealing to those elements. 110 Anatole Shub, “Soviet Leaders Reject Reform, Cast Future in a Stalinist Mold,” Washington Post, June 13, 1969. 105 Dmitri Volkogonov, Autopsy for an Empire: The Seven Leaders Who Built the Soviet Regime (New York: Free Press, 1998), 302; Stephen White, 111 Anatole Shub, “‘Will the USSR Survive…?’ A Personal Comment,” Survey, no. 74/75 (Winter-Spring 1970): 88, 92. Russia’s New Politics: The Management of a Postcommunist Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 5, 294. In the mid-1970s, 112 See, for example, Stephen Cohen, “The Soviet System: Crisis or Stability?” in his Sovieticus: American Perceptions and Soviet Realities (New Brezhnev suffered two strokes (one of which “left him clinically dead for a time”) and several heart attacks. “Incoherent from arteriosclerosis York: Norton, 1986). This article originally appeared in the Nation in August 1983. See also , The Russians, 2nd ed. (New York: Times and tranquilizer overdoses,” in his last few years he “worked no more than two hours a day, and politburo meetings often lasted just twenty Books, 1983), 555-58. Note Smith’s later admission about how he had gotten it wrong there in Hedrick Smith, The New Russians (New York: Random minutes”; he was, however, able to remain in his position even after he “began drooling on himself in appearances on Soviet television.” Stephen House, 1990), xv-xvi. Kotkin, Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse, 1970-2000 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 49-50. See also Dimitri Simes, After the Collapse: Russia Seeks Its Place as a Great Power (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1999), 28. This situation was quite clear at the time. “Underlying 113 CIA Directorate of Intelligence, “Soviet Elite Concerns About Popular Discontent and Official Corruption,” 1. See also Barrass, Great Cold the stagnation,” Moshe Lewin writes, “but also constituting its main symptom — was a deadlocked Politburo around a brain-dead Brezhnev: a War, 284, which discusses a British intelligence report on The Malaise of Soviet Society. The report was given to the Americans and, according to humiliating impasse exhibited before the whole world.” Moshe Lewin, The Soviet Century (New York: Verso, 2005), 261. Barrass, made a big impression on its readers in Washington. 96 The Scholar 97

faith in the system; the widespread corruption was Did the Soviet leadership understand that “Never has there been such widespread and frank The interesting thing here is that the Soviets one major sign of this. And if the leadership no it would have to deal with some very serious discussion of the defects of the planning system,” analyzed the problem in much the same way U.S. longer took the ideology seriously, that was bound problems? It is often said that only at the very end Alec Nove, a leading specialist in this area, said economists did. The basic problem, according to to have an effect on ordinary citizens. “Under of the Brezhnev period in the early 1980s did the in May 1963. “To an ever greater extent,” Nove the Americans, was that the “extensive” growth Brezhnev,” Volkogonov writes, “Communism leadership come to see how serious the problem reported, “Soviet economists express the view that model had run its course and one had to shift to was talked about from habit, though no one was and that before that point it had the sense a new stage has been reached, that the old methods an “intensive” model and focus on making both believed in it any longer”; as Anatoly Chernyaev, that things were going pretty well. In reality, Soviet of planning cannot any more cope with the problems capital and labor more productive. Some of the then an important official in the International leaders had long been aware that their economy of an increasingly mature and sophisticated most talented Soviet economists took essentially Department of the Central Committee, noted in was in trouble. “The top echelons of the Soviet industrial system. The pages of Pravda and of the the same line. The academician V.S. Nemchinov, 1972, “our ideology is for internal consumption leadership,” according to two scholars who have specialized press are filled with debates on radical most notably, had argued as early as 1964 that a far- only.”114 Brezhnev himself, according to David studied this issue, “had been getting confidential reforms.”121 The political leadership frequently reaching liberalization of the economy was needed Remnick, “began privately calling Leninist ideology reports critical of the economy’s performance since discussed these problems, and its pronouncements if the productivity problem was to be solved — tryakhomudiya — a term of derision that might at least the 1960s.”118 Another scholar refers to an were widely reported in the Western press. A and indeed if the whole economic system was not best be translated as ‘crapola.’”115 The Soviet leader important 1968 report laying out the problems; handful of New York Times and Washington Post to break down.124 The idea that the centralized sneered at officials who kept “going on about it had been prepared, at Prime Minister Alexei headlines gives some feel for what was being said: planning system might have made sense in an imperialism this, imperialism that” and even asked Kosygin’s request, by the economic section of the “Premier Says Soviet Economy Is Beset by Lag in earlier period but no longer suited the needs of a for “quotations from the [Marxist] classics to be Soviet Academy of Sciences.119 Brezhnev himself Production” (Dec. 14, 1964); “Brezhnev Reports modern, complex economy was quite common. It cut” from his speeches, saying, ‘And who’s going to discussed the situation at some length in Central Wide Economic Ills, Asks Tight Control” (Jan. 17, even made its way into the military journals.125 believe I ever read Marx?’”116 People on the outside Committee plenums in 1972 and 1973. Chernyaev, 1970); “Soviets Ponder Ailing Economy” (March 29, Indeed, even top Soviet leaders expressed views had little trouble seeing how hollow the ideology who gives an account of both speeches in his 1971); “‘72 Growth Rate Lowest in 10 Years, Kosygin of that sort. Prime Minister Alexei Kosygin himself, had become. Brezhnev had become an object of diary, came away from the 1973 discussion with Says” (Dec. 14, 1972). “Dissatisfaction of the Soviet in a famous 1965 speech, outlined (in Vladimir ridicule. One joke, widely reported in the West, was “a gnawing feeling about the lack of prospects.” leaders with the performance of the economy,” Treml’s words) “practically all the shortcomings particularly telling. In it, Brezhnev’s mother, after It was not that economic collapse was imminent; a CIA analyst reported in 1970, was evident not and defects of the existing system.” Productivity, a lapse of many years, visited her son in Moscow. indeed, the assumption was that the system would just in their speeches but “in a flood of press Kosygin admitted, was growing less rapidly than As he showed off his sumptuous apartment, his probably endure. But the outlook was fairly dismal articles that urge better and more intensive work in the past; making capital more productive was fine clothes, his vast collection of luxury cars and it seemed that, given the existing structure, not and announce new measures to alleviate specific the “central problem” the country had to face. (Volkogonov says he had no fewer than eighty!), much could be done. “Have we formed,” Chernyaev difficulties.”122 The details reported in the Soviet That meant that the present system had to be the old lady looked increasingly disconcerted. wondered, “some kind of inert, bureaucratic, press about the inefficiencies of the Soviet system liberalized: existing forms of management were “What’s the matter, mom?” he asked. “Aren’t you ossified force of hopeless indifference (following had a major impact on the thinking of Western “no longer in conformity with modern technico- pleased with my success?” “Well, of course I am, the principle — just to survive a few more years), a economists in the 1960s and beyond: “when we’re economical conditions”; “the rights of enterprises Leonid,” she replied. “There’s just one thing that force that will swallow anyone who tries something being told these things with increasing frankness are cramped and their area of responsibility is worries me. What are you going to do when the new?”120 and incisiveness,” one U.S. economist noted in insufficient.” In making those arguments, as Treml Communists get back?”117 In fact, the problems were discussed openly. 1966, “something sinks in.”123 points out, Kosygin was presenting ideas that had

114 Volkogonov, Autopsy for an Empire, 318; Anatoly Chernyaev 1972 diary, entry for Oct. 17, translated and edited by Anna Melyakova and Svetlana Savranskaya, 33; the diary for 1972 is linked to National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book no. 279 (May 2012). See also Zubok, “The Soviet Union and Détente of the 1970s,” 434-35. 121 Alec Nove, “Prospects for Economic Growth in the U.S.S.R.,” American Economic Review 53, no. 2 (May 1963): 544. 115 David Remnick, “Patriot Games,” New Yorker, March 3, 2014. 122 Byrne, “Recent Trends in the Soviet Economy,” 3. 116 For the first point: Anatoly Chernyaev 1974 diary, entry for July 13, translated and edited by Anna Melyakova and Svetlana Savranskaya, 24; the diary for 1974 is linked to National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book no. 471 (May 2014). (Brezhnev was referring to a prominent Soviet 123 Alexander Erlich in Slavic Review Roundtable, 244-45. See also Schroeder, “Reflections on Economic Sovietology,” 210. ideologue, B.N. Ponomarev, head of the International Department of the Central Committee.) For the latter point: see Georgi Arbatov, The System: 124 For the key passages, see Lewin, Soviet Century, 252, 260; and Moshe Lewin, Political Undercurrents in Soviet Economic Debates: An Insider’s Life in Soviet Politics (New York: Times Books, 1992), 123. From Bukharin to the Modern Reformers (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974), 157, 177-79. See also Vladimir G. Treml, “The Politics of 117 See Ben Lewis, Hammer and Tickle: A Cultural History of Communism (New York: Pegasus, 2010); and Volkogonov, Autopsy for an Empire, ‘Libermanism,’” Soviet Studies 19, no. 4 (April 1968): 569-72; and Vladimir Treml, “Interaction of Economic Thought and Economic Policy in the Soviet 302-03. McCauley, Rise and Fall, has many of the best jokes from the period. For Brezhnev’s automobile collection, see Volkogonov, Autopsy for an Union,” History of Political Economy 1, no. 1 (1969): 207-16. The 1964 Nemchinov article is of particular interest since Gorbachev “in a crucial speech Empire, 307. The view that the ideology was just a shell of its former self is, of course, by no means universally shared. Even so hard-core a realist on economic reform singled it out as the theoretical inspiration for the economic reforms of perestroika.” Pekka Sutela, Economic Thought and as Wohlforth, writing in 1994, thought it was striking “how very late in the game” Soviet leaders clung to their “basic ideological faith.” Wohlforth, Economic Reform in the Soviet Union (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 62. Nemchinov was by no means the only economist to call for “Realism and the End of the Cold War,” 98. Mark Kramer, who probably is more familiar with the historical evidence from Eastern sources than fairly radical changes. V.V. Novozhilov and L.V. Kantorovich are often mentioned in this context, and, as Bruce Parrott points out, the academician any other Western scholar, takes a balanced view but clearly believes ideology was more important than realist scholars are inclined to think. N.N. Inozemtsev, head of a major Soviet research institute, also took a fairly radical line. In 1969, Inozemtsev “stressed the need to identify the “The latest evidence,” he concludes in an important article on the subject, “suggests that Marxism-Leninism was far more than a charade or a ‘objectively progressive’ tendencies in the growth of capitalist productive forces which could be emulated by the USSR”; Inozemtsev was later made smokescreen.” “It was an ideology,” he writes, “that underlay and guided the Soviet regime,” and a certain emphasis on ideology in explaining Soviet a candidate member of the Central Committee. See Bruce Parrott, Politics and Technology in the Soviet Union (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1983), 236-37, foreign policy “seems largely warranted.” Kramer, “Ideology and the Cold War,” Review of International Studies 25, no. 4 (October 1999): 574-75. 248, 251-53. The record of the economist Abel Aganbegyan’s June 1965 talk to a group of editors in Leningrad, published in a samizdat journal and made available in the West, is another well-known document from the period bearing on this issue. See Aganbegyan, “The Real State of the 118 Michael Ellman and Vladimir Kontorovich, “The Collapse of the Soviet System and the Memoir Literature,” Europe-Asia Studies 49, no. 2 Economy,” in An End to Silence: Uncensored Opinion in the Soviet Union: From Roy Medvedev’s Underground Magazine “Political Diary,” ed. Stephen (March 1997): 260. See also Woodrow Wilson Center, “U.S. Assessments of the Soviet and Post-Soviet Russian Economy: Lessons Learned and Not Cohen (New York: Norton, 1982), 223-27; and “L’Affaire Aganbegyan, Its Economic Revelations,” CIA/RR EM 65-27, November 1965, cited in Julie Learned,” Kennan Institute Occasional Paper 283 (Washington: Woodrow Wilson Center, 2002), 14; and Volkogonov, Rise and Fall of the Soviet Kerlin, “Military-Economic Estimating: A Positive View,” Studies in Intelligence 10, no. 4 (Fall 1966): 36. The rather radical ideas put forth by some Empire, 318-19, 321 (referring to Andropov’s special notes, beginning in about 1975, “warning Brezhnev of hard times to come”). Soviet economists received a certain amount of attention in the West at the time. Note, for example, the references to Novozhilov and Kantorovich 119 Lewin, Soviet Century, 261. in Pompidou, Noeud gordien, 110. On Soviet economic thought during the Brezhnev period, see also Robert English, Russia and the Idea of the West: Gorbachev, Intellectuals and the End of the Cold War (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 141-47. 120 Anatoly Chernyaev 1972 diary, entry for Dec. 31, translated and edited by Anna Melyakova and Svetlana Savranskaya, 37-39; the diary for 1972 is linked to the National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book no. 279 (May 2012); Anatoly Chernyaev 1973 diary, entry for Dec. 17, translated 125 See the passage from T. Bul’ba, “The Fundamental Question of the Economic Policy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union,” Kommunist and edited by Anna Melyakova and Svetlana Savranskaya, 74-77; the diary for 1973 is linked to National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book vooruzhennykh sil, no. 10 (1973): 16, quoted and discussed in William Odom, “Who Controls Whom in Moscow,” Foreign Policy¸ no. 19 (Summer no. 430 (May 2013). Note also Chernyaev’s postscript to the 1973 diary, on page 80, written in 2002. The economy, he wrote, was not doing well; 1975): 114. See also Leslie Gelb’s account of a remarkable interview he had with Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov, chief of the Soviet General Staff, in 1983. indeed, a period of “stagnation and irreversible decline” had begun; this was “starting to be felt, if not understood, by the ruling stratum”; and it “We will never be able to catch up with you in modern arms,” Ogarkov essentially said, “until we have an economic revolution. And the question is “became clearer and clearer that ideology was falling victim to the hopeless economic stagnation.” whether we can have an economic revolution without a political revolution.” Leslie Gelb, “Who Won the Cold War?” New York Times, Aug. 20, 1992. 98 The Scholar 99

been developed by leading Soviet economists and could not bring themselves to do much about however, that such claims are not supported by the had been discussed thoroughly in the press.126 it. When you read the speeches given by Soviets historical record, at least as far as the economists And Soviet thinking, one should note, was also leaders, Simes said, you are struck by how huge a were concerned. To be sure, neither the CIA analysts influenced by the writings of Western analysts; major gap there was “between the frankness with which nor the academics were able to predict that the Western studies were translated into Russian and they admit their shortcomings and difficulties and Soviet system would collapse when it did; even in made available to researchers in this area.127 Soviet the solutions which they’re willing to offer.” It was retrospect, it is hard to see how anyone could have economists, in fact, seemed to have a high regard “almost pathetic” to see how incapable they were foreseen exactly how events would run their course. for the work done by their American colleagues of rising to the challenge.131 Chernyaev had come But what the specialists in this area had been able and in particular by the CIA. The academician Abel to much the same conclusion a decade earlier. He to do was create a framework for analysis — to give Aganbegyan, for example, noted in 1965 that the reported in his diary the reaction of one prominent a good sense for what the major problems were CIA had given “an absolutely accurate assessment figure in Soviet industry to Brezhnev’s December and to suggest that some very fundamental choices of the situation in our economy.”128 And Gennadii 1972 speech to the Central Committee plenum were going to have to be made. “The low growth Zoteev, who worked in the Soviet planning agency about the problem: “we’ve heard it all before more rates we envision for the mid-1980s,” CIA Director in the 1980s, later said that it was “thanks primarily than once. The speeches get nicer and nicer, while Turner told a congressional committee in 1979, to Western literature on the Soviet economy” things get worse and worse.” “He said all this out “could squeeze their resources to the point where that he realized how “inflexible, sluggish, and loud,” Chernyaev noted, in the crowd of Central something has to give.”135 But what exactly would Soviet economic growth was coming to a halt, “our inefficient” the planning system was.129 Even Yuri Committee members, “but it didn’t turn a single give could not be predicted — though Turner did intelligence community just couldn’t believe this. Andropov, general secretary from 1982 to 1984, head. The others must have been occupied with think that fairly radical change was a real possibility. They kept reporting that the economy was soaring!” thought the CIA’s figures were more reliable than similar thoughts.”132 “By the mid-1980s,” he thought, “a new, well- If the U.S. government had been able to see what the statistics the Soviet system itself generated; established Politburo could be persuaded that more he had seen, it would not have had to virtually that was the view of the most astute Soviet leader radical policies were necessary.”136 But no one could bankrupt itself by engaging in a massive but utterly of the pre-Gorbachev period, a former head of the Why Does It Matter? tell specifically what the future would bring, and at unnecessary military buildup and could have just KGB and a man who (as Volkogonov put it) “knew that point the Soviets themselves probably did not waited the Soviets out.138 But in the 1979 article he far better and in greater depth than any of his Western Sovietology, Martin Malia charged in 1990, know how they would deal with their problems. was referring to, the economic data he cited were colleagues the true state of the economy.”130 had “done nothing to prepare us for the surprises of One needs only to think of the Chinese experience quite similar to the data the CIA was releasing at The problem, as Dimitri Simes pointed out in the past four years.”133 The CIA, according to Melvin to realize that things could have turned out very the time and may well have been where Moynihan’s 1982, was not that the Soviets were “unaware of Goodman in 1997, had “completely misread the differently.137 figures came from.139 He had also predicted that the the sad state of their economy. They know very qualitative and comparative economic picture” and This story is important for many reasons. It Soviets, as a power in decline (like Austria-Hungary well how pitiful their economic situation is.” The had “provided no warning to policymakers of the matters, first of all, because of the light it sheds on in 1914, he said), would pursue an increasingly problem, under Brezhnev at least, was that they dramatic economic decline of the 1980s.”134 It is clear, the way the political process works in countries aggressive policy and might try to seize the “oil like the United States. Many people like to think fields of the Persian Gulf”: Soviet military power had 126 Treml, “Economic Thought and Economic Policy,” 214; A.N. Kosygin speech to Central Committee Presidium, Sept. 28, 1965, Vital Speeches of that “the marketplace of ideas” ensures that public “never been greater”; “the short run looks good, the the Day 32, no. 4 (Dec. 1, 1965), 116, 118. The chapter on “The Brezhnev Administration, 1969-1975” in Parrott, Politics and Technology in the Soviet discourse in liberal democracies will meet certain long run bad. Therefore move.” But that argument Union, is of particular interest in this context. See also Soviet leaders’ remarks in plenary meeting of the CPSU Central Committee, December 1969, quoted in CIA Directorate of Intelligence, “Investment and Growth in the USSR,” March 1970, 2, in CIA’s Analysis of the Soviet Union, 1947-1991, eds. standards — that because public figures, including scarcely suggested that a major U.S. military buildup Gerald Haines and Robert Leggett (CIA: Center for the Study of Intelligence, 2001); and Lewin, Political Undercurrents, 128-30. For more evidence prominent journalists, will be held accountable was unwarranted. on this general issue, see CIA, Office of Economic Research (M. Elizabeth Denton), “Soviet Perceptions of Economic Prospects,” March 1981, 1-2, 7 (and especially the Brezhnev remarks from 1970-71 quoted there), CIAERR/0000496623; this study was published in U.S. Congress, Joint Economic for misrepresentation, they have a strong interest There was also a problem with Moynihan’s Committee, Soviet Economy in the 1980s: Problems and Prospects (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1983), 30-45. in getting their facts right, so if an idea is broadly evidence, or really the lack of it. In his many writings 127 See Vladimir Treml, Censorship, Access, and Influence: Western Sovietology in the Soviet Union (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), accepted, one can pretty much assume that it is and speeches dealing with the subject, he did not 1-46, and Treml, “Western Analysis and the Soviet Policymaking Process” (with discussant comments), in Haines and Leggett, Watching the Bear, correct. But those mechanisms are a good deal cite specific assessments the CIA had made at 187-219. The Czech economist Václav Klaus, who was president of the Czech Republic from 2003 to 2013, reminisced about how it was possible under a Communist regime for young economists to read works such as Friedrich von Hayek’s article “The Use of Knowledge in Society,” which was weaker than many think, and it is in fact shocking to the time. As Bruce Berkowitz points out, he relied published in the American Economic Review in 1945. It was impossible to read periodicals like Newsweek or the Wall Street Journal, “but in the see what even major figures were able to get away instead mainly on one striking source: former CIA libraries of academic institutions we could get the American Economic Review and similar journals. They were sufficiently scientific and, therefore, incomprehensible for the communist censors.” Václav Klaus, “Hayek and My Life,” in F.A. Hayek and the Modern Economy: Economic Organization with. director Turner’s admission, in a 1991 Foreign and Activity, eds. Sandra Peart and David Levy (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 230-31. Consider, for example, Moynihan’s charge in Affairs article, that no one in the agency appeared 128 Aganbegyan, “The Real State of the Economy,” in Cohen, An End to Silence, 227. 1990 that while he had been able to see in 1979 to recognize how serious the USSR’s economic 129 Gennadi Zoteev, “The View From Gosplan,” in Destruction of the Soviet Economic System: An Insiders’ History, eds. Michael Ellman and Vladimir that Russia might blow up, in large part because problem was. The CIA analysts, Turner suggested, Kontorovich (Armonk: Sharp, 1998), 87. 130 According to former CIA director Robert Gates, the CIA “had clandestine reporting to the effect that even Andropov regarded our reporting 135 U.S. Congress, Joint Economic Committee, Allocation of Resources in the Soviet Union and China — 1979, Part 5 (Executive sessions, June 26, on the Soviet economy as the best available to him.” Robert Gates, “U.S. Intelligence and the End of the Cold War,” Nov. 19, 1999, https://www.cia. 1979) (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1980), 11. gov/news-information/speeches-testimony/. Gates had made the same point in a speech when he was director of central intelligence seven years 136 Joint Economic Committee, Allocation of Resources in the Soviet Union and China, 1980 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1980), 113- earlier. See Robert Toth, “CIA Defended on Assessing Soviets,” Los Angeles Times, May 21, 1992. Volkogonov, Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire, 339. 15. 131 Dimitri Simes, in Soviet Military Economic Relations, 244. 137 Note, in this context, Marshall Goldman, “Soviet Perceptions of Chinese Economic Reforms and the Implications for Reform in the U.S.S.R.,” 132 Anatoly Chernyaev 1972 diary, entry for Dec. 31, translated and edited by Anna Melyakova and Svetlana Savranskaya, 38; the diary for 1972 is Journal of International Affairs 39, no. 2 (Winter 1986). linked to National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book no. 279 (May 2012). See also the discussion in Parrott, Politics and Technology, 239-40. 138 Moynihan, “How America Blew It.” For the 1979 article, see Daniel Patrick Moynihan, “Will Russia Blow Up?” Newsweek, Nov. 19, 1979. According to information provided by a samizdat publication at the time, Parrott writes, “three Politburo members (Shelepin, Suslov, and Mazurov) circulated a private letter condemning” a speech Brezhnev had given in the December 1969 Central Committee Plenum discussing the problem “for 139 Thus he referred in that 1979 article to how the Soviet economy had been growing at “better than 6 percent in the 1950s” but was “barely half producing ‘only hysteria’ without providing any solution to the difficulties it depicted.” that” in the 1970s. He also noted that “productivity increases are about at zero.” Those figures are in line with CIA estimates at the time: In the important CIA paper “Soviet Economic Problems and Prospects,” released by Congress’s Joint Economic Committee in 1977, the Soviet economy 133 “Z” [Martin Malia], “To the Stalin Mausoleum,” 297. was said to be growing at a rate of 5.8 percent in the 1950s but only 3.7 percent in the first half of the 1970s (page 2), and factor productivity was 134 Goodman, “Ending the CIA’s Cold War Legacy,” 141. presented as actually declining slightly in that period (page 10). 100 The Scholar 101

point where something has to give.”144 All this was a years as an “era of stagnation,” and it certainly matter of public record; it should have been easy to seemed that the Soviet leadership could not bring see how misleading Turner’s remarks in the Foreign itself to even consider fundamental changes in the Affairs article were, and it should have been easy to basic structure of the system. But it is now clear see that Moynihan’s claim that the CIA had “kept that below the surface the sense was growing that reporting” that the Soviet economy was “soaring” things could not go on indefinitely as they had, and was baseless. Yet no one pointed out these things that sooner or later major decisions would have at the time; the press tended to take at face value to be made. Gorbachev himself had reached that what Moynihan, and Turner, had said about a huge conclusion well before he became general secretary intelligence failure. of the Communist Party; he kept his views mostly This is just one case among many, but it does to himself, but he eventually opened up with others suggest that there is much less accountability in the who had also reached fairly radical conclusions — U.S. political system than many scholars would like with Alexander Yakovlev during a trip to Canada to believe. And that point is certainly worth noting, in May 1983 and with Eduard Shevardnadze in not least because it relates to common ideas in the December 1984.146 The conservative journalist international relations literature about “audience Bernard Levin had predicted in 1977 that this was costs,” the “open marketplace of ideas,” and so on. the way fundamental change would take place: But the findings here are also important because that people were coming into positions of power they shed light on the issue of whether social science in the USSR who had “admitted the truth about can be of real value in practical political terms. their country to themselves” and had “vowed, also Malia, of course, had argued that when it came to to themselves, to do something about it,” and that giving insight into the big issues, social science in eventually they would “look at each other and realize general, and economics in particular, had not made that there is no longer any need for concealment of much of a contribution. Other writers took much the truth in their hearts.” At that point, he wrote, the same view. Even so careful a scholar as David the match would be lit.147 And that seems to sum Engerman, in his important book on America’s up what actually happened during the Gorbachev Soviet experts, saw economic Sovietology peaking period. in the early 1960s before going into a “steady decline But the most important reason this story is of that long preceded the Soviet Union’s.” The scholars interest, at least from my point of view, is that it in that field should have helped other Soviet experts has a direct bearing on how international politics in understand what was going on with the USSR’s the later Cold War period is to be understood. The had failed to see that the Soviets were suffering himself, in congressional testimony for four years economy but, according to Engerman, they failed to economic problem was clearly of enormous political from a “growing, systemic, economic problem.” in succession, took much the same line. The Soviet do so.145 importance and not just because it affected what “Neither I nor the CIA’s analysts,” he wrote, growth rate, he said, had fallen and the decline My own assessment is obviously rather different. was going on in the USSR. It was also bound to have “reached the conclusion that eventually something would continue; the economic outlook was “bleak”; The body of thought developed by economists a substantial impact on the way the Soviets related had to give.” His basic point was clear: “We should Soviet leaders would try to “muddle through” but working in this area was quite impressive in to the rest of the world and on how the United not gloss over the enormity of this failure to forecast that policy was not “tenable in the long run”; indeed, conceptual and not just empirical terms; it provided States framed its own policy. That issue, however, the magnitude of the Soviet crisis.”140 Yet the major “the economic picture might look so dismal by the real insight into what was happening in the USSR is too important to be treated in passing here. It CIA study on the subject released in August 1977, mid-1980s that the leadership might coalesce behind and even some insight into how things might deserves to be analyzed in some depth — but that not long after Turner had taken the top job at the a more liberal set of policies.”142 Indeed, in his first develop. Economists like Bergson did not provide is something that will have to be done elsewhere. agency, analyzed the issue in some detail: the “long- speech after assuming the directorship he said the the world with a crystal ball. What they did provide standing” economic problems, it said, were “likely Soviet economy was in trouble and predicted that was a very useful framework for thinking about the Marc Trachtenberg, a historian by training, is to intensify”; solutions would not be “easy to find”; the Soviet leadership was “going to be facing some Soviet Union and indeed, in principle, for thinking research professor of political science at UCLA. The “a marked reduction in the rate of economic growth very difficult periods.”143 And as noted above, he about what U.S. policy toward that country should author of a number of works on twentieth-century in the 1980s seems almost inevitable”; given the himself had stated in 1979 — and this contradicts, be. international politics, he is currently working on seriousness of the problem, Soviet leaders were almost word for word, his claim in the Foreign Affairs There is a third reason this whole story matters: a study of the Soviet economic decline and great- very likely “to consider policies rejected in the past article — that the “low growth rates we envision for It casts light on what was going on in the Soviet power politics from 1963 through 1991. as too contentious or lacking in urgency.”141 Turner the mid-1980s could squeeze their resources to the Union during the Brezhnev period. It was common, especially in the late 1980s, to view the Brezhnev 140 Stansfield Turner, “Intelligence for a New World Order,” Foreign Affairs 70, no. 4 (Fall 1991), 162, and Berkowitz, “U.S. Intelligence Estimates of the Soviet Collapse,” 244-45; a slightly different version of the Berkowitz article originally appeared in Blindside: How to Anticipate Forcing Events 144 U.S. Congress, Joint Economic Committee, Allocation of Resources in the Soviet Union and China — 1979, Part 5 (July 1979), 11. and Wild Cards in Global Politics, ed. Francis Fukuyama (Washington: Brookings Institution Press, 2007). 145 David Engerman, Know Your Enemy: The Rise and Fall of America’s Soviet Experts (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 125-26. 141 Central Intelligence Agency, “Soviet Economic Problems and Prospects,” July 1977. All the quotations come from the summary at the beginning 146 Hoffman, Dead Hand, 183-85. Gorbachev is quoted as telling his wife “We can’t go on living like this” just before he became general secretary of the report. in 1985 (page 187). 142 Quoted in MacEachin, CIA Assessments of the Soviet Union, appendix. MacEachin gives extracts from Turner’s testimony to Congress in 1977, 147 The original article appeared in the Times of London in September 1977. It was republished as Bernard Levin, “One Who Got It Right,” in 1978, 1979, and 1980, all of which make the same basic point. National Interest 31 (Spring 1993): 64-65 and is quoted in Seymour Martin Lipset and Gyorgy Bence, “Anticipations of the Failure of Communism,” 143 “Soviet Economy Said Unwell,” Washington Post, Aug. 6, 1977. Theory and Society 23, no. 2 (April 1994): 200-10. 102 The Strategist 103

The Strategist

This section is dedicated to publishing the work of current and former senior policymakers, members of the military, and civilian national security practitioners. 104 The Strategist 105

The international order is not just an abstract concept, The International but rather is of concrete value to U.S. national security, as Order and Nuclear exemplified by America’s policy toward Iran. When scholars discuss the contemporary has in turn been rebutted by scholars such as international order, they tend to do so in abstract John Bew, who observes that notions of world terms. Older forms of international order — the order, far from a latter-day globalist innovation, balance of power between great states and shifts have preoccupied policymakers from across the Negotiations with Iran 6 in that balance — could be measured in concrete ideological spectrum for more than a century. terms by counting men under arms, factories, Yet another objection to notions of international artillery pieces, and so on. Today, however, the order could be posed: that however noble such composition of the U.S.-led liberal international ideas may be, they are of little practical use to order is more difficult to articulate. Richard the policymaker engaged in the daily business Fontaine has characterized today’s world order of international relations. Indeed, even some as a “web of norms, institutions, rules, and defenders of the international order characterize relationships”1 that “range from maritime rules it as “a work of abstract art”7 and note that “the and trade regimes to norms against forcible link between the pursuit of world order and conquest and in support of state sovereignty” American security and prosperity has always and “institutions like the United Nations and the been “hard to sustain when subjected to s[k] World Trade Organization, as well as a variety of eptical questioning.”8 A complete argument in key alliances and arrangements.”2 In a similar vein, defense of the liberal international order requires Robin Niblett has defined the liberal international demonstrating that this order is not merely order in terms of principles — “open markets, abstract or vaguely laudable but of concrete value democracy, and individual human rights” — to the national security of the United States and undergirded by institutions such as those forged its allies. at Bretton Woods in 1944.3 This essay seeks to make that case by examining Such descriptions make the liberal international American policy toward Iran as an example of the order sound profoundly important, which is not international order in action. The essay draws surprising since they are generally provided as upon my experience as director for Iran at the predicates for arguments that this order is fraying National Security Council from 2006 to 2007 and and in need of reinvigoration or repair.4 Yet the as the council’s senior director for the Middle East descriptions of what, precisely, the international from 2007 to 2008. At its best, U.S. policy toward order is — and, for that matter, the laments Iran melded the unilateral exercise of American over its uncertain state — are also undeniably power with utilization of the norms, institutions, amorphous. That vagueness has fueled and relationships that make up the international accusations by newly resurgent nationalists that order to advance a vital national security interest the liberal international order is at best a fanciful — namely, preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear notion or, more sinister, a scheme perpetrated by weapon. Yet an examination of American policy a “globalist” elite to advance parochial interests at toward Iran also sheds light on practical problems the expense of the national interest.5 This charge the international order faces and how those

1 Richard Fontaine, “Salvaging Global Order,” National Interest online, March 10, 2015, http://nationalinterest.org/feature/salvaging-the-global- order-12390. 2 Richard Fontaine, “The U.S. Response to Today’s Global Order and Tomorrow’s Threats,” Journal of International Affairs online, March 15, 2017, https://jia.sipa.columbia.edu/us-response-global-order. 3 Robin Niblett, “Liberalism in Retreat,” Foreign Affairs, January/February 2017, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2016-12-12/liberalism- retreat. 4 See, for example, Richard N. Haass, “World Order 2.0,” Foreign Affairs, January/February 2017, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ articles/2016-12-12/world-order-20. 5 See Michael Anton, “America and the Liberal International Order,” American Affairs, no. 1 (Spring 2017), https://americanaffairsjournal. org/2017/02/america-liberal-international-order/. 6 John Bew, “World Order: Many-Headed Monster or Noble Pursuit?” Texas National Security Review 1, no. 1 (October 2017): 14–35. 7 Bew, “World Order.” Michael Singh 8 John A. Thompson as quoted by Bew in “World Order.” 106 The Strategist 107

problems might be addressed. That Iran should 2005 when, after was provide a case study in how the international order elected president, Tehran rejected the EU-3’s works to advance American security is no doubt latest proposal and removed U.N. seals from its ironic given that it is a classic revisionist state, uranium conversion equipment. The IAEA Board railing against and seeking to undermine that very of Governors, in turn, condemned Iran’s violations order, skillfully and not without some success. of its safeguards agreement and referred it to the U.N. Security Council in February 2006. While by no means the starting point for the Iran Policy Under George W. Bush Bush administration’s Iran policy, this was a meaningful turning point. Events of 2005 and Iran’s nuclear activities were a preoccupation 2006 inaugurated a prolonged, steady escalation of the President George W. Bush administration in Iran’s nuclear activities, and they marked the nearly from its outset. This was most memorably beginning of an American strategy of looking illustrated by the 2002 State of the Union address, to the international order to address the threat in which the president decried Iran’s support posed by those activities. Institutions both formal That Iran should provide a case for terrorism, its pursuit of weapons of mass and informal, political and economic, were at the destruction, and its domestic repression. He heart of this effort. The first component of the famously described Iran as part of an “axis of new strategy consisted of an attempt to secure study in how the international evil.”9 Within the Bush administration, however, U.N. Security Council resolutions condemning Iran Iran’s nuclear program came to be seen as a subset and imposing international sanctions. From 2006 of the broader array of threats posed by Tehran, to 2008, five were adopted: Resolutions 1696, 1737, order works to advance which included terrorism and attempts to stymie 1747, 1803, and 1835. All but two of these resolutions American efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The passed unanimously; Qatar cast the sole vote Bush administration internally debated different against Resolution 1696, and Indonesia abstained American security is no doubt approaches for dealing with these various dangers, from voting on Resolution 1803.12 from regime change to sanctions to diplomacy.10 The strategy’s second component consisted of a What ultimately became U.S. policy for addressing U.S.-led effort to isolate Iran’s financial system; this ironic given that it is a classic Iran’s nuclear program — leading directly, if was later expanded to target other sectors of the distantly, to the conclusion of a nuclear agreement Iranian economy. Unlike the first leg of the strategy, in 2015 — was less the product of U.S. initiative this one relied on international arrangements that revisionist state, railing against than a reaction to external developments. had a lower profile than the U.N. Security Council Iran’s clandestine nuclear activities were and, in some cases, were outright ad hoc. Utilizing publicly exposed in 2002 by the National Council extraterritorial sanctions adopted by Congress and and seeking to undermine that of Resistance of Iran and shortly thereafter executive orders promulgated by President Bush, acknowledged by Iran.11 Threatened with referral American officials were able to threaten overseas to the U.N. Security Council over having violated banks with exclusion from the U.S. financial very order, skillfully and not its 1974 nuclear safeguards agreement with the system — and, later, the ability even to utilize U.S. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iran dollars — should they continue their relationships had entered into negotiations with the “EU-3” with Iranian banks designated under American or without some success. — the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. U.N. sanctions. The resulting economic pressure Those talks, likely reinforced by Iranian worries on Iran was possible only because of American of U.S. military action in the wake of Washington’s dominance of the international financial system interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, produced — and the related preeminence of the U.S. dollar two successive agreements: the Tehran Statement — and the degree to which that system had, over in 2003 and the Paris Agreement of 2004. Neither the course of decades, become integrated across deal stuck, however. The EU-3’s efforts to negotiate national boundaries.13 a long-term replacement foundered in August It would be tempting to see the latter effort’s

9 George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, Washington DC, Jan. 29, 2002, https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/ releases/2002/01/20020129-11.html. 10 For further detail, see David Crist, Twilight War (New York: Penguin Books, 2012), 442–460. 11 Paul Kerr, “IAEA to Visit Two ‘Secret’ Nuclear Sites in Iran,” Arms Control Today, Jan. 1, 2003, https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2003_01-02/ irannuclear_janfeb03. 12 The texts and voting tallies for all of these resolutions can be accessed at http://www.un.org/en/sc/documents/. 13 See Juan Zarate, Treasury’s War: The Unleashing of a New Era of Financial Warfare (New York: PublicAffairs, 2013). 108 The Strategist 109

success as evidence of the efficacy of the even a U.S.-led military attack, of which the Bush of the U.N. resolutions regarding Iran adopted to that presidential campaign. The global financial crisis, unilateral exercise of American power.14 In reality, administration explicitly and repeatedly warned. point; it imposed no new sanctions. This faltering meanwhile, dampened enthusiasm for further use however, the two policy initiatives depended This threat likely also explained, in part, Moscow in the pressure campaign is often attributed to the of economic weapons against Iran, which was in on each other for success. The U.N. sanctions, and Beijing’s willingness to endorse U.N. sanctions, publication of a National Intelligence Estimate18 in turn buoyed by sky-high oil prices. while impressive on paper, were unlikely on their though both pointedly refused to accept American 2007 that asserted Iran had suspended its nuclear own to have made a significant impact on Iran’s secondary sanctions, even as they quietly took steps weapons programs in 2003 and had not restarted economy or that government’s decision-making. to comply with them. While this sort of unilateral them as of 2007.19 The document was widely Iran Policy Under the The ad hoc financial sanctions, in turn, would warning enjoyed no international endorsement, it interpreted as contradicting Bush administration Obama Administration not have succeeded without the U.N. resolutions was nevertheless employed in support of what was assertions that Iran harbored ambitions to obtain to undergird them. Those resolutions provided essentially a multilateral effort. That also probably nuclear weapons, even though the suspension it This was the context in which Barack Obama international legitimacy to what was otherwise the dampened other states’ anger at the U.S. use of referred to related only to “weaponization” work, inherited the unresolved Iran nuclear file. Yet for naked exercise of unilateral power by Washington, extraterritorial sanctions, which are often seen not to Iran’s uranium enrichment activities, which all of the divisiveness of the 2008 presidential an important consideration in the wake of the as violating state sovereignty, a key international were ongoing. As Bush administration National campaign on matters of foreign policy, the Obama ongoing war in Iraq. U.S. allies in Europe, Asia, norm.15 Security Adviser Stephen Hadley later noted, the administration largely kept in place the strategy and elsewhere could argue with American tactics The Bush administration’s success in bringing National Intelligence Estimate “was misinterpreted pursued by the Bush administration. Engagement (and did so vociferously) but not with the objective international pressure to bear against Iran’s as an all-clear when it wasn’t that at all.”20 with Iran was a centerpiece of Obama’s campaign, or even the broader strategy, both of which were nuclear program was largely the product of two While the estimate was undoubtedly a hindrance but some of Obama’s efforts continued initiatives tacitly endorsed by the Security Council. The major factors. The first was a perceived threat — to U.S. diplomacy — and a political millstone begun during the Bush administration. For resolutions also laid a foundation for likeminded shared by the United States and allies in Europe, around the necks of European leaders facing example, the Bush administration dispatched states to impose their own sanctions on Iran, by Asia, the Middle East, and elsewhere — stemming constituencies skeptical of sanctions against Iran Undersecretary of State Bill Burns to participate providing both political cover and a legal basis for from Iran’s clandestine nuclear activities. This view — the document’s role has been exaggerated. in a P5+1 meeting with Iran for the first time in doing so — which was a necessity for some states. was sharpened by Iran’s behavior on the nuclear Even if Iran had suspended its weaponization August 2008.22 There were also discontinuities: This strategy was not without costs and front — keeping its facilities secret and reportedly efforts, as the document asserted, that did not Obama and other U.S. officials engaged in repeated, compromise. The decision to work around allied engaging in research related to nuclear weapons16 make the expansion of its nuclear infrastructure, direct outreach to Iranian officials.23 Indeed, governments and directly warn their financial and — and beyond, such as its threats toward Israel.17 nor its record of proliferation and of threatening European officials worried in the summer of commercial communities caused frictions that The second factor was Washington’s ability neighbors, less concerning to the U.S. and allied 2008 that Obama’s seeming readiness to engage Iran sought to exploit. The need to secure Russian to leverage the web of norms, institutions, and governments, whatever the consequences for directly with Iran without preconditions would and Chinese agreement, along with that of various relationships that make up the international order. public messaging. What’s more, U.S. allies largely undermine the P5+1’s approach on the nuclear other reluctant states in the This also helps to explain why the United States did not accept the NIE’s conclusions.21 issue.24 In addition, the Obama administration is and elsewhere, meant that U.N. resolutions were has been far less successful in rallying international Instead, the loss of diplomatic momentum has widely perceived to have deemphasized efforts frequently delayed and diluted. It also required support to confront other issues emanating from two other roots. The first was that the strategy had to counter Iran’s non-nuclear activities in the the United States to participate in the sort of Iran. U.S. allies in Europe and Asia simply do not simply failed to achieve its intended result. Iran Middle East. Obama was skeptical of U.S. military nuclear diplomacy with Iran that Washington had share the American assessment of the gravity of continued to expand its nuclear activities despite commitments in the region, emphasizing, for previously resisted. The first U.N. resolution on the risks posed by Iran’s non-nuclear activities, the mounting sanctions. Second, Iran, Resolution 1696, was preceded by the first and the international norms and institutions that and perhaps more important, offer to Tehran by the “P5+1” (the U.N. Security deal with those matters are far less developed the international context was Council’s five permanent members, plus Germany), than those that exist to address proliferation. In especially inauspicious. The in the form of an “incentives package” delivered on the Middle East, where U.S. allies tend to strongly United States and Russia were in the group’s behalf by the EU’s foreign policy chief share Washington’s estimation of Iran, there was a tense standoff over Moscow’s — then Javier Solana — in June 2006. (This was little in the way of a “regional order” — even an military campaign in Georgia. subsequently revised and presented again in mid- informal one — upon which to fall back in the Opposition to the Iraq War, then 2008.) absence of international action. in its sixth year, was pronounced Furthermore, what was primarily a multilateral By the time of the 2008 presidential election, abroad and increasingly bitter in strategy nevertheless depended on the threat U.S. strategy toward Iran had lost its momentum. the United States itself amid the or actual use of unilateral American power to Security Council Resolution 1835, adopted in succeed. For Iran, refusal to comply with the U.N. September 2008 in response to IAEA reports of 18 “Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities,” National Intelligence Estimate (Washington: National Intelligence Council, November 2007), https:// resolutions carried the risk of further sanctions or continued Iranian obstructionism, was the weakest www.dni.gov/files/documents/Newsroom/Press Releases/2007 Press Releases/20071203_release.pdf. 19 George W. Bush, Decision Points (New York: Random House, 2010), 419. 20 Stephen Hadley as quoted in Tabassum Zakaria and Mark Hosenball, “Special Report: Intel Shows Iran Nuclear Threat Not Imminent,” 14 See, for example, Jana Winter and Dan De Luce, “Iran Nuclear Deal Critics Push Plan for ‘Global Economic Embargo,’” Foreign Policy, Sept. 14, Reuters, March 23, 2012, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-usa-nuclear/special-report-intel-shows-iran-nuclear-threat-not-imminent- 2017, http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/09/14/iran-sanctions-memo/. idUSBRE82M0G020120323. 15 This view was enshrined in the European Union’s “blocking statute” of Nov. 22, 1996, adopted in response to the first U.S. extraterritorial 21 Condoleezza Rice, No Higher Honor (New York: Random House, 2011), 618. sanctions on Iran. Text of the statute can be found at http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:31996R2271:EN:HTML. 22 “U.S. Reverses Course, Will Send Envoy to Talks with Iran,” CNN, July 16, 2008, http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/07/16/us.iran/index. 16 For more information, see the annex to the report by the International Atomic Energy Agency Director General, “Implementation of the NPT html. Safeguards Agreement and Relevant Provisions of Security Council Resolutions in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” International Atomic Energy Agency, November 18, 2011, https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/gov2011-65.pdf. 23 Trita Parsi, Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran, and the Triumph of Diplomacy ( Press: 2017). 17 Louis Charbonneau, “In New York, Defiant Ahmadinejad says Israel will be ‘Eliminated,’” Reuters, Sept. 24, 2012, https://www.reuters.com/ 24 Glenn Kessler, “Europe Fears Obama Might Undercut Progress With Iran,” Washington Post, June 22, 2008, http://www.washingtonpost.com/ article/us-un-assembly-ahmadinejad/in-new-york-defiant-ahmadinejad-says-israel-will-be-eliminated-idUSBRE88N0HF20120924. wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/21/AR2008062101658.html. 110 The Strategist 111

example, the need to withdraw combat forces Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, as Tehran had of sanctions against Iran.35 In January 2012 an would be publicly exposed. Even this is debatable, from Iraq and shift resources to Afghanistan.25 The consistently claimed. oil embargo followed.36 Like the U.S. sanctions, however, as the talks that led from the JPOA to the precise impact of all of these changes is unclear. Another external development that proved these powerful EU measures capitalized on the JCPOA were conducted in the P5+1 format without Obama and his aides often argued that American critical came in February 2010, when Iran integrated nature of the global economy. significant leaks. outreach to Iran was vital to securing support commenced production of more highly enriched In 2012, however, the United States abruptly What’s more, the shift in U.S. strategy carried for subsequent sanctions.26 Others have observed uranium.30 This followed the failure in October shifted its diplomatic that these sanctions built incrementally on those 2009 of the “fuel swap” proposal, under which Iran strategy, pivoting adopted during the Bush presidency.27 Likewise, would have exported its low-enriched uranium to a from the multilateral Obama viewed his restraint in the Middle East third country to be further enriched and fabricated process that had as serving U.S. interests,28 whereas critics saw into fuel rods for its Tehran Research Reactor.31 The dominated from 2006 his focus on the nuclear issue to the exclusion of unsuccessful fuel-swap proposal had not sought to 2011 to one that was, Iran’s regional behavior as undermining American to enforce existing U.N. resolutions, as it did not in essence, unilateral. The leverage.29 Whatever one’s view of events, some require Iran to halt the enrichment of uranium, Obama administration had external developments were consequential. One but neither did it contradict them, as it offered no developed a channel to Iran such development was the discovery in September sanctions relief. More nettlesome to international via Oman that it used to secure 2009 that Iran was building yet another clandestine diplomacy was the Obama administration’s the release of three American uranium enrichment facility, at Fordow. This news apparent encouragement of a last-ditch effort by hikers detained by Iranian undermined the narrative that Iran had abandoned Turkey and to revive the proposal, an ad hoc authorities.37 It then utilized that its nuclear ambitions and showed that it was not initiative that ran contrary to Washington’s parallel channel to begin a bilateral nuclear acting in good faith on its obligations under the pursuit, via the P5+1, of a new U.N. sanctions negotiating track with Tehran resolution against Iran.32 without informing other members of the P5+1.38 costs. The revelation of the secret bilateral channel These events were the basis for passage of It was these negotiations, rather than the P5+1 roiled the P5+1, creating friction between the U.N. Security Council Resolution 1929, the last of talks that continued in parallel, that ultimately United States and France and pushing Britain and the six resolutions the council adopted regarding produced, in November 2013, what became known Germany to “the sidelines,” according to then- Iran’s nuclear program. Meanwhile, the Obama as the “Joint Plan of Action” (JPOA).39 This interim French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius.41 The administration, with increasingly vigorous prodding accord was the blueprint for the document — agreement reached between the United States from Congress, continued to expand the campaign formally the “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action” and Iran did not comply with the six earlier U.N. of ad hoc financial sanctions against Iran.33 Once (JCPOA) — endorsed by the U.N. Security Council resolutions, for which Washington had previously again, these sanctions leaned heavily on institutions in Resolution 2231 in July 2015.40 invested significant time and effort to secure of the international order, such as the U.S. dollar’s Negotiating an accord bilaterally with Iran in this Russian and Chinese backing. Instead, Washington role in oil transactions, the relative concentration of manner was expedient. Whether it was effective unilaterally changed the terms offered to Iran by the the international shipping insurance industry, and is debatable. The United States made major international community. The shift in negotiating the tight integration of global financial transaction concessions in the bilateral talks, foremost among format, together with skillful Iranian diplomacy, networks, the latter of which were instrumental to them dropping any insistence that Iran permanently affected the discussion itself; instead of grappling the “SWIFT” sanctions.34 The United States was suspend its enrichment and reprocessing-related over what Iran had to do to meet its international joined in these efforts by the European Union, activities. Had these concessions been offered obligations and be re-integrated into the global which in July 2010 adopted a wide-ranging package in the P5+1 talks, it is not clear that the channel order, the talks became about what infringement would have made a difference to Iran’s willingness of purported Iranian “rights” could be imposed by 25 Barack Obama, interview by Michael Gordon and Jeff Zeleny, New York Times, Nov. 1, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/01/us/ to reach a deal. To the extent that the more the United States and, in turn, what level of nuclear politics/02obama-transcript.html. restricted channel did have an effect on the talks, activity the United States could tolerate in Iran. 26 Remarks by the President at the United States Military Academy Commencement Ceremony, West Point, NY, May 28, 2014, https:// obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2014/05/28/remarks-president-united-states-military-academy-commencement-ceremony. it was most likely in providing a level of secrecy Security Council Resolution 2231 not only 27 Glenn Kessler, “Fact Checker: Obama’s Claim That His Administration ‘Built a Coalition That Imposed Sanctions on the Iranian Economy,” that made the parties more comfortable discussing departed significantly from the terms of previous Washington Post, June 2, 2014, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2014/06/02/obamas-claim-that-his-administration- their negotiating positions without fear that they U.N. resolutions on Iran but also represented built-a-coalition-that-imposed-sanctions-on-the-iranian-economy/. 28 David Samuels, “The Aspiring Novelist Who Became Obama’s Foreign-Policy Guru,” New York Times, May 5, 2016, https://www.nytimes. com/2016/05/08/magazine/the-aspiring-novelist-who-became-obamas-foreign-policy-guru.html. 35 “Council Decision of 26 July 2010 Concerning Restrictive Measures Against Iran and Repealing Common Position 2007/140/CFSP,” Official 29 Michael Doran, “Obama’s Secret Iran Strategy,” Mosaic, Feb. 2, 2015, https://mosaicmagazine.com/essay/2015/02/obamas-secret-iran- Journal of the European Union 53 (July 27, 2010): 25, http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=uriserv:OJ.L_.2010.195.01.0025.01. strategy/. ENG&toc=OJ:L:2010:195:TOC. 30 International Atomic Energy Agency Director General, “Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and Relevant Provisions of Security 36 “Council Decision 2012/35/CFSP of 23 January 2012 Amending Decision 2010/413/CFSP Concerning Restrictive Measures Against Iran,” Official Council Resolutions 1737 (2006), 1747 (2007), 1803 (2008) and 1835 (2008) in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” International Atomic Energy Agency, Journal of the European Union 55 (Jan. 24, 2012): 22, http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=uriserv:OJ.L_.2012.019.01.0022.01. Feb. 18, 2010, http://isis-online.org/uploads/isis-reports/documents/IAEA_Report_Iran_18Feb2010.pdf. ENG&toc=OJ:L:2012:019:TOC. 31 “Official Proposals on the Iranian Nuclear Issue, 2003-2013,” Arms Control Association, July 2015, https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/ 37 Parsi, Losing an Enemy, 217. Iran_Nuclear_Proposals. 38 Laurent Fabius, “Inside the Iran Deal: A French Perspective,” Washington Quarterly 39, no. 3 (Fall 2016): 7-38, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01636 32 Laura Rozen, “W.H. Pushes Back on Letter Leak,” Politico, May 28, 2010, https://www.politico.com/story/2010/05/wh-pushes-back-on-letter- 60X.2016.1232630. leak-037938. 39 “The Iran Nuclear Deal: Full Text,” CNN, Nov. 24, 2013, http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/24/world/meast/iran-deal-text/index.html. 33 Jay Solomon, The Iran Wars: Spy Games, Bank Battles, and the Secret Deals That Reshaped the Middle East (New York: Random House, 2016), 40 United Nations Security Council, “Resolution 2231 (2015),” S/Res/2231, July 20, 2015, https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/unsc_ 142-67. resolution2231-2015.pdf. 34 Solomon, Iran Wars, 202-04. 41 Fabius, “Inside the Iran Deal.” 112 The Strategist 113

a fait accompli in Washington. Congress was Second, by using Security Council endorsement legislation overseeing implementation.49 generally wary of Iran and had played a key role against domestic opponents, the Obama Trump’s decision not to unilaterally withdraw in pushing some of the most powerful sanctions administration risked further delegitimizing the was well-founded, whatever his concerns about against that country. It had adopted legislation United Nations specifically and internationalism the deal’s substance. American withdrawal, requiring the Obama administration to submit in general among already-skeptical American especially if followed by an effort to reimpose any nuclear agreement for congressional review. conservatives. Pew Research Center has found secondary sanctions punishing European and By first securing Security Council endorsement of a growing partisan gap in U.S. perceptions of the other international firms for business dealings with the JCPOA, however, the administration effectively United Nations in recent decades. In 1990, Pew Iran, would have been galling to U.S. partners in rendered congressional review moot. The Obama polling found, 68 percent of Republicans and 73 Europe and Asia. Whatever their concerns about administration’s argument — that because the percent of Democrats viewed the United Nations the agreement’s negotiation, those allies by and agreement had already been codified by the Security favorably. By 2016, Democratic support for the large support the deal and perceive it as serving Council, it could not be unilaterally changed by United Nations had climbed to 80 percent while not only their commercial interests but also their the United States — presented the broader U.S. Republican support had dropped to 43 percent.46 national security interests by forestalling Iran’s government with a binary option to accept the The perception that the United Nations can be used nuclear progress as well as potential military than in principled beliefs that administrations deal as it was or reject altogether a diplomatic to circumvent conservative political views at home conflict. Precisely because of their concerns about should honor their predecessors’ commitments. resolution to the crisis and consider other options, further erodes internationalist sentiments among the deal’s negotiation, they would find a U.S. effort American credibility is not, of course, irrelevant. such as a military operation. The irony was that Republicans. And neglecting to build a domestic to force their hands through punitive sanctions But U.S. policymakers are unlikely to advocate the agreement had, in broad strokes, not been consensus, however expedient it may have been to especially unfair — it would amount to Washington adhering to policies they consider bad simply to the product of an international negotiation but of reach agreement, meant that the nuclear deal was punishing its allies for adhering to an agreement sustain credibility. Preserving this sort of credibility bilateral discussions between the United States not placed on a footing that would weather political that the United States and Iran had negotiated internationally requires more concerted efforts to and Iran, regarding which Congress had been kept changes in the United States. bilaterally. build domestic coalitions that will sustain policies in the dark. Ultimately, congressional opponents Nor should it be presumed, however, that U.S. beyond an administration’s term. were unable to muster the votes needed to overturn allies are naïve. Congressional debate over the Whatever one’s opinion of the JCPOA’s merits the agreement, and it moved ahead.42 Iran Policy Under the JCPOA in 2015 played out in public view; few and flaws, there is good reason to think that U.S. At first blush, the JCPOA is a victory for Trump Administration predictions about U.S. foreign policy during the withdrawal from the agreement would chiefly multilateralism. Indeed, even Fabius praised 2016 election campaign were surer bets than the benefit Iran. Such a step would open a rift between the agreement as a “historic success” for all Few Republicans criticized the Iran deal — or presumption that a Republican administration the United States and its allies in Europe and parties involved and said it demonstrated that internationalism, for that matter — as harshly as would be unenthusiastic about the deal. Asia. If the agreement survived America’s pullout, “diplomatic action can yield spectacular results.”43 . As a candidate and in the early days Furthermore, the historical record does not enforcement would likely be weaker without But that perception of success obscures how the of his presidency, Trump swore at times that he support the notion that diplomatic agreements U.S. oversight. Whatever pressure Washington international order was damaged by the methods would “dismantle” the agreement.47 At other times are sacrosanct. Indeed, they often face pressure managed to generate through renewed sanctions used to reach the agreement. First, the United he adopted a milder line, arguing that it should be or dissolve when circumstances or governments enforcement would be impaired by resistance States unilaterally put aside six U.N. resolutions rigorously enforced despite its flaws.48 Ultimately, change. While abrupt swings are far from the norm from Iran and from European and Asian states, on Iran, all measures it had negotiated, without the Iran policy that his administration announced in U.S. foreign policy, neither are they rare. After which would be its proximate targets. The U.S.-led first coordinating with its allies — just as those after several months of review reflected a Obama took office, his administration quickly campaign for secondary sanctions against Iran in allies had worried Washington might do in 2008.44 compromise between these positions. He asserted repudiated the Bush administration’s plans for the mid-2000s demonstrates that such measures This arguably weakened the authority of the U.N. in October 2017 that he sought to nest the JCPOA missile defenses in Europe, angering Poland but can be effective despite allies’ objections if there Security Council and risked lending credence to in a strengthened, comprehensive Iran strategy. pleasing Russia.50 Obama also abandoned the Bush is strategic convergence among allies and if the arguments that the Security Council is merely an But he also said that he would walk away from the administration’s understandings51 with the Israeli measures are undergirded, at least in theory, by instrument of American power. That no doubt agreement if an understanding could not be reached government regarding settlements.52 U.S. officials U.N. action. But when there is strategic divergence pleased the Iranian government, which had long with allies on addressing what he perceived as its denied that any “enforceable agreements” existed53 and no effort at the United Nations, any economic decried the resolutions as “illegal.”45 shortcomings and if Congress did not adopt new and moved ahead with a new policy.54 Reactions effect of such measures is difficult to sustain and to these decisions appeared to be rooted more in must be weighed against serious diplomatic costs; whether a person agreed or disagreed with them the Clinton administration’s experience seeking to

42 Jennifer Steinhauer, “Democrats Hand Victory to Obama on Iran Nuclear Deal,” New York Times, Sept. 10, 2015, https://www.nytimes. 49 Remarks by President Trump on Iran Strategy, Washington DC, Oct. 13, 2017, https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/10/13/ com/2015/09/11/us/politics/iran-nuclear-deal-senate.html. remarks-president-trump-iran-strategy. 43 Fabius, “Inside the Iran Deal.” 50 Peter Baker, “White House Scraps Bush’s Approach to Missile Shield,” New York Times, Sept. 17, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/ 44 Glenn Kesssler, “Europe Fears Obama Might Undercut Progress with Iran,” Washington Post, June 22, 2008, http://www.washingtonpost.com/ world/europe/18shield.html. wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/21/AR2008062101658.html. 51 Elliott Abrams, “Hillary Is Wrong About the Settlements,” Wall Street Journal, June 26, 2009, https://www.wsj.com/articles/ 45 “Iran Calls New UNSC Resolution Illegal and Unfortunate,” Payvand News, Sept. 28, 2008, http://www.payvand.com/news/08/sep/1311.html. SB124588743827950599. 46 “Favorable Views of the UN Prevail in Europe, Asia, and U.S.,” Pew Research Center, Sept. 20, 2016, http://www.pewresearch.org/fact- 52 Letter From President Bush to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, April 14, 2004, https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/ tank/2016/09/20/favorable-views-of-the-un-prevail-in-europe-asia-and-u-s/. releases/2004/04/20040414-3.html. 47 Transcript of Donald Trump’s Speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Washington DC, March 22, 2016, http://www. 53 , “Remarks With Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman,” State Department, June 17, 2009, https://2009-2017.state.gov/ timesofisrael.com/donald-trumps-full-speech-to-aipac/. secretary/20092013clinton/rm/2009a/06/125044.htm. 48 Eric Cortellessa, “In Call With Riyadh, Trump Vows to ‘Rigorously Enforce’ Iran Deal,” Times of Israel, Jan. 30, 2017, https://www.timesofisrael. 54 Daniel Dombey, “Clinton Clashes With Israelis Over Settlers,” Financial Times, June 17, 2009, https://www.ft.com/content/614c98a4-5b98- com/in-call-with-riyadh-trump-commits-to-rigorously-enforce-iran-deal/. 11de-be3f-00144feabdc0. 114 The Strategist 115

enforce the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act in the 1990s especially when utilized in concert with other demonstrates this.55 instruments of American power. That history also For all of these reasons, the Trump demonstrates the mutual dependence at the heart administration’s decision appears sound — of the international order. After all, European namely, to leverage other states’ desire for the powers made little headway against Iran in the United States to remain within the JCPOA to win early 2000s absent American involvement, just those states’ cooperation with strict enforcement as the United States could not have imposed the and a broader effort to challenge Iran. Such pressure it brought to bear against Iran without bargaining is not incompatible with the ideas of the (sometimes reluctant) support of allies and internationalism and global order; that interests the use of international institutions. are shared does not imply that states will not Yet that history also illustrates a temptation seek to shift the burden of securing them on to for U.S. officials, confronted with a preeminent the United States, and American policymakers role and outsize influence, to use these resources are right to resist. What is vital, however, is that not as assets to be assiduously preserved Washington’s diplomacy not only advances U.S. and nurtured but as mere tools of U.S. foreign interests but also preserves and strengthens the policy — or domestic politics — like any others. international system, lest short-term gains be As the American appetite for global leadership outweighed by long-term costs. and internationalist spirit have waned in the To be successful, the United States must not wake of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and the only articulate a clear policy toward Iran but also global financial crisis, this tendency seems to explain how it serves U.S. and partners’ interests have grown. It was on display when the Obama and rally allies in support. This strategy should administration pivoted from the P5+1 process to be implemented across multiple policy tools a bilateral one and used the U.N. Security Council — economic, diplomatic, and military — not in as a domestic political cudgel. It was similarly sequence but as a single, concerted campaign. The exhibited by those who wish to use international history of U.S. policy toward Iran suggests that sanctions to coerce allies absent any effort to this will require patience and compromise but may bridge diverging aims and strategies with respect ultimately be rewarding. A united international to Iran. Treating the international order in this front has the twin benefits of spreading a policy’s manner risks eroding it. costs and amplifying its effectiveness. Every state acts out of self-interest. If a state perceives that its economic or political dependence on the United States is a liability Conclusion rather than the price of an international order that ultimately advances its security and prosperity, The international order may be a web of that state will inevitably develop workarounds norms, institutions, and relationships, but and hedging strategies. The international order an understanding lies at its core. American is not fixed or predictable like a domestic legal leadership of the international order is largely system. Rather, it is dynamic and relies on the embraced by allies, giving the United States balance of self-interest among allies. Iran and its tremendous global influence. But U.S. allies do fellow revisionists take gratification from friction not subordinate their interests any more than between the United States and its allies, and the United States does. Rather, this enduring they share the overarching goal of diminishing dynamic reflects confidence that the United U.S. influence in global affairs. Should the United States will advance shared interests, even if it States and allied policymakers fail to defend ultimately does so to serve its own. And it reflects the international order, they will discover to a mutual agreement that the international order their dismay that the loss is not at all abstract generates outcomes that serve shared interests but has concrete consequences for their states’ better than purely transactional relationships prosperity and security. could, and that these outcomes justify the compromises required to maintain that order. Michael Singh is Managing Director and Lane- The recent history of U.S. policy toward Iran Swig Senior Fellow at the Washington Institute for demonstrates how the international order works Near East Policy, and former senior director for in action and how it can provide Washington with Middle East Affairs at the National Security Council tremendous leverage to accomplish policy goals, during the George W. Bush administration.

55 Kenneth M. Pollack, The Persian Puzzle: The Conflict Between Iran and America, (Random House, 2005), 286-89. 116 The Strategist 117

In order to build the 355-ship Navy the United States needs, Changing Course: we will have to tell a new, and more compelling, story.

There is a moment in the 2001 comedy Zoolander Congress remains mired in the defense cuts of the Making the Case when the villain Mugatu, portrayed by a white- Budget Control Act of 2011 and uncertainties over haired Will Ferrell, screams as his plan disintegrates: continuing resolutions and long-term spending. “I feel like I’m taking crazy pills!” One year into my The gap between promises and appropriations first term in Congress, this captures the mood of continues even though the Budget Control Act (Old and New) for defense hawks in general and advocates of seapower experiment has clearly failed to force politicians to in particular. On the one hand, this country has a reach agreement on limiting long-term mandatory president who campaigned on expanding the Navy spending and has — as Defense Secretary Jim and who signed a National Defense Authorization Mattis testified before the House Armed Services Act making it U.S. policy to build a 355-ship Navy Committee in June 2017 — done more to harm the American Seapower 1 “as soon as practicable.” Multiple independent U.S. military’s combat readiness than any enemy in reviews commissioned by Congress and the Navy the field.6 Disturbing trends such as the one-third leadership have reaffirmed the strategic necessity increase in deaths from aviation mishaps in the of getting to 355 in due haste.2 Marine Corps over the past six years7 and the fatal But the promised military rebuild has yet collisions of the USS Fitzgerald and USS John S. to materialize, notwithstanding the Trump McCain illustrate what increased risks associated administration’s premature claims of “making with degraded readiness can mean for our men and historic investments in the United States military.”3 women in uniform.8 Indeed, Trump’s initial budget request called In other words, despite the stated desire of the for a modest 3 percent increase over the wholly president, the Navy, and Congress to get to 355 inadequate plan of his predecessor.4 The Pentagon ships, and mounting evidence of the damage done still does not have a 30-year shipbuilding plan that by the recent defense drawdown, the United States charts a specific course to 355. And given funding is struggling to change course. Even if Congress challenges and the defense industry’s limited manages to pass a two-year deal to lift the caps surge capacity, some question whether industry imposed by the Budget Control Act and raise could rapidly deliver the ships.5 Meanwhile, defense spending, the increase is still likely to fall

1 “National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018,” U.S. Congress, https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/2810/text. Mark Cancian, “Trump Proffers Pentagon Specifics: $60B More to Boost Troops, Ships,” Breaking Defense, Sept. 8, 2016, https://breakingdefense. com/2016/09/trump-proffers-pentagon-specifics-60b-more-to-boost-troops-ships/. 2 Sam LaGrone and Megan Eckstein, “Navy Wants to Grow Fleet to 355 Ships; 47 Hull Increase Adds Destroyers, Attack Subs,” USNI News, Dec. 19, 2016, https://news.usni.org/2016/12/16/navy-wants-grow-fleet-355-ships-47-hull-increase-previous-goal. Adm. John Richardson, “The Future Navy,” May 17, 2017, https://news.usni.org/2017/05/17/document-chief-of-naval-operations-white-paper-the-future-navy. See also the congressional-directed outside reviews: Bryan Clark, et al., Restoring American Seapower: A New Fleet Architecture for the (Washington: Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, 2017), http://csbaonline.org/uploads/documents/CSBA6292-Fleet_ Architecture_Study_REPRINT_web.pdf. Mitre Corporation, Navy Future Fleet Platform Architecture Study (McLean: Mitre Corporation, July 1, 2016), https://www.mccain.senate.gov/ public/_cache/files/1a3e3a4e-6c97-42fb-bec5-a482cf4d4d85/mintre-navy-future-fleet-platform-architecture-study.pdf. 3 The White House, The National Security Strategy of the United States, December 2017, https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/ uploads/2017/12/NSS-Final-12-18-2017-0905.pdf. 4 Travis J. Tritten, “Mac Thornberry: Trump Defense Budget Follows ‘Obama Approach,’” Washington Examiner, May 22, 2017, http://www. washingtonexaminer.com/mac-thornberry-trump-defense-budget-follows-obama-approach/article/2623812. 5 Sydney J. Freedberg Jr., “Trump’s 355-Ship Fleet Will Take Til 2050s,” Breaking Defense, Oct. 26, 2017, https://breakingdefense.com/2017/10/ trumps-355-ship-fleet-will-take-til-2050s/. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the fastest 355 ships can be achieved is by 2032. See Sydney J. Freedberg Jr., “355-Ship Navy Take At least 18 Years: CBO,” Breaking Defense, April 25, 2017, https://breakingdefense. com/2017/04/355-ship-navy-takes-at-least-18-years-cbo/. Navy Secretary Richard Spencer testified to the House Armed Services Committee in January 2018 that the Navy would submit a 30-year shipbuilding plan along with the Fiscal 2019 budget. But as of this writing, more than one year into the Trump administration, there is still no specific vision from the administration of how it proposes to grow the fleet to 355 ships. Megan Eckstein, “Navy FY 2019 Budget Request Will Include a 30-Year Shipbuilding Plan,” U.S. Naval Institute, Jan. 18, 2018, https://news.usni. org/2018/01/18/navy-fy-2019-budget-request-will-include-30-year-shipbuilding-plan. 6 “Secretary of Defense House Armed Services Committee Written Statement for the Record,” House of Representatives, June 12, 2017, http://docs.house.gov/meetings/AS/AS00/20170612/106090/HHRG-115-AS00-Bio-MattisJ-20170612.pdf. 7 Sydney J. Freedberg Jr., “Marine Aviation Deaths Are Six Times Navy’s,” Breaking Defense, Sept. 25, 2017, https://breakingdefense. com/2017/09/marine-aviation-deaths-are-six-times-navys/. 8 Mackenzie Eaglen, “America’s New Deadliest War Is Hiding in Plain Sight,” Real Clear Defense, Sept. 7, 2017, https://www.realcleardefense. Michael Gallagher com/articles/2017/09/07/americas_new_deadliest_war_is_hiding_in_plain_sight_112244.html. 118 The Strategist 119

short of what the Pentagon needs to fulfill global Strategy outlines, the United States is in the midst power parity, and less military concentration near assigned missions. Standards designed for safe requirements,9 or the increase will rely excessively of long-term strategic competitions with great- potential hotspots.17 The People’s Liberation Army- and effective operations were relaxed to meet on Overseas Contingency Operations funding.10 power adversaries. Not tomorrow, not in five years, Navy has more than 300 ships — the largest fleet in operational and fiscal demands, which led to Even in the best-case scenario, the Pentagon would but today. Departing from past policies “based on Asia.18 In 2016 alone, China commissioned 18 ships, continuous accumulation of risk.”23 get a short-term infusion of cash and then muddle the assumption that engagement with rivals and including a guided missile destroyer, three guided In the immediate aftermath of the Cold War, the along until the Budget Control Act’s defense caps their inclusion in international institutions and missile frigates, and six corvettes.19 These 18 ships “Base Force” proposed a 25 percent reduction in expire in 2021. global commerce would turn them into benign have a displacement of 150,000 tons, or about personnel from the 1989 baseline while shifting the Put differently, the U.S. is having its Mugatu actors and trustworthy partners,” the new strategy half that of Britain’s Royal Navy.20 Growth in the Navy’s primary focus from peer-on-peer conflict moment. Policymakers across Washington must warns that “China and Russia challenge American Chinese fleet is not just a numbers game: Beijing is to contingencies with mid-tier regional powers.24 be ingesting crazy pills. We are failing in our power, influence, and interests, attempting to retiring older ships to make room for modern ones The result was a planned fleet of more than 451 fundamental constitutional duty to provide for erode American security and prosperity. They as its maritime strategy transitions from “near sea” ships.25 Only a few years later, the 1993 Bottom- the common defense and maintain the U.S. Navy.11 are determined to make economies less free and defense to “far seas” power projection.21 Up Review reaffirmed a shift away from peer-on- Those of us who advocate for a 355-ship Navy have less fair, to grow their militaries, and to control Meanwhile, as China’s navy grows in capacity peer conflict and called for a reduced fleet size of been banging our heads against the wall for more information and data to repress their societies and and capability, the U.S. fleet is struggling. In the 346 ships to focus on power projection, presence, than a year with no end in sight. During posture expand their influence.”12 aftermath of last year’s collisions, a series of and crisis response.26 While Congress authorized hearings and the budget cycle, we hear about the As a book often cited by National Security internal and external reviews have sought to about 17 ships per year throughout the 1980s, it threats facing our nation. These hearings do not Adviser H.R. McMaster argues: “the United States examine their root causes. Even if a line cannot be authorized only five per year on average from change much, except that they grow progressively is in the midst of a robust competition with its traced directly from inadequate and unpredictable 1993 to 2000.27 This reduction in shipbuilding bleaker. It is time to recognize that our arguments rivals, spread in three key regions of Eurasia. Navy budgets to these tragedies, the incidents stressed a smaller fleet at the same time the fleet’s are not resonating and to try a different approach. Russia, Iran, and China are eager to revise the cannot be understood apart from their operational missions were growing.28 The Navy conducted This is my attempt to do just that. As great-power order established over the past six decades on the contexts. Adm. Philip Davidson’s Comprehensive 49 named operations in the 1980s and 85 in the competition returns, both old and new cases for basis of Western political and economic principles Review found that “risks that were taken in the 1990s, a 73 percent operational increase amid a seapower must be made. First, the United States and supported by American power.”13 If these Western Pacific accumulated over time, must rediscover and reinforce the geopolitical competitors and adversaries perceive weakness and did so insidiously.”22 (i.e., geographic) case for why seapower matters or opportunity, they will seek to exploit openings, The Navy secretary’s separate and why it is uniquely important for this country. perhaps even through armed conflict. The Marine review methodically tracked how, in Second, in support of this effort, the Navy cannot Corps commandant, Gen. Robert B. Neller, recently recent decades, the Navy contracted, remain silent for the sake of “strategic ambiguity.” went so far as to say, “I hope I’m wrong, but there’s budgets shrank, and responsibilities Rather, it must develop a new story about what a war coming.”14 grew. Secretary Richard Spencer the future fleet will do and how it will differ from Consider trends in the military balance between testified in January 2018 to the House today’s fleet, and tell that story loudly and directly the United States and China. The official Chinese Armed Services Committee, on which to the American people, thereby imposing pressure military budget expanded on average by about 10 I sit, that: “The Strategic Review team on Congress and the White House to act. percent in real terms from 2006 through 2015.15 concluded that Navy leaders gradually Over the same period, U.S. defense spending accepted greater risk to accomplish averaged negative real growth of about 0.1 percent.16 Great-Power Challenges So while U.S. defense spending was about seven times greater than China’s in 2006, by 2015 it was 17 Moon Cronk, “China’s Military Investments Continue.” See also OUSD(C) Budget Estimates FY18, 140-41, and “Military expenditure by country,” and Self-Inflicted Wounds Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 2017, 11, https://sipri.org/sites/default/files/Milex-constant-2015-USD.pdf. only about three times greater, and this was in the 18 Office of the Secretary of Defense, Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China As the Trump administration’s National Security face of more global commitments, less purchasing 2016 (Washington: Department of Defense, April 26, 2016), 25, https://www.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2016 China Military Power Report.pdf. 19 Ronald O’Rourke, China Naval Modernization: Implications for U.S. Navy Capabilities — Background and Issues for Congress (Washington: Congressional Research Service, Dec. 13, 2017), 3, https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL33153.pdf. 20 O’Rourke, China Naval Modernization. 9 Mackenzie Eaglen, “How to Repair and Rebuild America’s Military,” National Interest, Oct. 24, 2017, http://nationalinterest.org/feature/how- repair-rebuild-americas-military-22889. 21 Rear Adm. Michael McDevitt (Ret.), Becoming a Great “Maritime Power”: A Chinese Dream (Arlington: Center for Naval Analysis, June 2016), v, https://www.cna.org/cna_files/pdf/IRM-2016-U-013646.pdf. David A. Shlapak, et al., A Question of Balance: Political Context and Military Aspects 10 Mackenzie Eaglen, “Budget Deal: It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas (…2013),” Breaking Defense, Dec. 19, 2017, https:// of the China-Taiwan Dispute (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 2009), 89, https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2009/ breakingdefense.com/2017/12/budget-deal-its-beginning-to-look-a-lot-like-christmas-2013/. RAND_MG888.pdf. Ministry of National Defense, 2017 Quadrennial Defense Review (Taipei City: Republic of China, March 2017), 22, http://www. 11 Mackubin Owens, “Navy Clause,” in Heritage Guide to the Constitution, accessed January 16, 2018, https://www.heritage.org/constitution/ ustaiwandefense.com/tdnswp/wp-content/uploads/2000/01/2017-Taiwan-Quadrennial-Defense-Review-QDR.pdf. articles/1/essays/53/navy-clause. 22 Adm. P.S. Davidson, Comprehensive Review of Recent Surface Force Incidents (Norfolk: U.S. Fleet Forces Command, 2017), 9, https://news.usni. 12 National Security Strategy, 2017, 2–3. org/2017/11/02/document-navy-comprehensive-review-surface-forces. 13 Jakub J. Grygiel and A. Wess Mitchell, The Unquiet Frontier: Rising Rivals, Vulnerable Allies, and the Crisis of American Power (Princeton: 23 Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer, statement to U.S. House Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness and Subcommittee on Seapower and Princeton University Press, 2016), 188. On McMaster’s use of the book see Uri Friedman, “The World According to H.R. McMaster,” Atlantic, Jan. 9, Projection Forces, Jan. 18, 2018, http://docs.house.gov/meetings/AS/AS03/20180118/106784/HHRG-115-AS03-Wstate-SpencerR-20180118.pdf. 2018, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/01/hr-mcmaster-trump-north-korea/549341/. 24 Hon. Michael Bayer, Adm. Gary Roughead (Ret.), et al., Strategic Readiness Review 2017 (Washington: Department of the Navy, Dec. 3, 2017), 14 Bradford Betz, “’There’s a War Coming,’ Marine Corps General Warns US Troops,” , Dec. 23, 2017, http://www.foxnews.com/ 10, http://s3.amazonaws.com/CHINFO/SRR+Final+12112017.pdf. us/2017/12/23/theres-war-coming-marine-corps-general-warns-us-troops.html. 25 Strategic Readiness Review, 10. 15 Terri Moon Cronk, “DoD Report: China’s Military Investments Continue,” DoD News, Defense Media Activity, May 13, 2016, https://www. 26 Strategic Readiness Review, 11. defense.gov/News/Article/Article/759522/dod-report-chinas-military-investments-continue/. 27 Strategic Readiness Review, 12. 16 Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller), National Defense Budget Estimates for FY 2018 (August 2017), 140-41, http:// comptroller.defense.gov/Portals/45/Documents/defbudget/fy2018/FY18_Green_Book.pdf [hereafter: OUSD(C) Budget Estimates FY18]. 28 Strategic Readiness Review, 12. 120 The Strategist 121

warned, “I can’t tell you for sure…if we are at an the proof is in the pudding. Our warnings, speeches, and vulnerabilities. Compared with a nation that inflection point or a tipping point, but I don’t and reviews have fallen flat. has continental boundaries, there is a natural see how we can sustain this pace of operations I suspect this is partly because many who advantage for a nation that is “so situated that it is indefinitely and meet the readiness standards.”33 campaign on (or vote for) a strong national defense neither forced to defend itself by land nor induced One month later, Congress passed the Budget secretly harbor doubts about how much money to seek extension of its territory by way of the Control Act and took close to a trillion dollars out the Pentagon really needs. After all, the Pentagon land.” In peacetime, this is a blessing for the United of the bipartisan budget path identified by then- wastes a lot of money and the United States is States because “[i]ts contour is such as to present Secretary of Defense Robert Gates just seven 17 years into the longest and most costly wars few points specially weak from their saliency, and months prior.34 Since then, the Navy alone has in its history with no end in sight. Yes, there are all important parts of the frontiers can be readily accumulated more than $100 billion in shortfalls obvious rejoinders to these concerns: One of the attained — cheaply by water, rapidly by rail. The between enacted budgets and the Gates plan, biggest sources of waste is stop-start budgetary weakest frontier, the Pacific, is far removed from generating a readiness crisis throughout the fleet.35 dysfunction that creates uncertainty and precludes the most dangerous of possible enemies. The Compounding the problem, the Defense planning. But more significant is that reflexive internal resources are boundless as compared Department has operated under continuing criticism of past mistakes has made defense hawks with present needs.”44 On the other hand, during resolutions for 33 of the past 42 years.36 Over lazy. Put another way, it is easy but ineffective to wartime American coastlines are vulnerable targets, the past decade alone, it has operated under point to fleet failures and scream for more defense particularly on the Pacific side, where harbors and continuing resolutions an average of 106 days per dollars. It is much harder to make a positive and port cities (in Mahan’s time) were widely dispersed year — almost 30 percent of that time.37 In practical strategic case for seapower. As Seth Cropsey writes and lacked adequate fortifications. Mahan feared terms, this means almost a third of each year has in his new book, Seablindness: How Political Neglect that if adversaries were able to operate from Pacific been lost or renegotiated for more than 100,000 Is Choking American Seapower and What to Do, island bases they could strike the U.S. coast at will contracts across the Department of the Navy.38 “American seapower needs more than funding. while disrupting U.S. trade routes to Asia.45 Because contractors factor this uncertainty into It needs articulate, strategic-minded leadership The inevitable conclusion, even for a country their pricing, the cost to taxpayers has gone up. that can connect national seapower goals with as geographically blessed as the United States, 25 percent funding cut.29 This naturally produced The Navy estimates that inefficiencies associated persuasive arguments to achieve them.”41 is to eschew isolationism and the temptations of maintenance backlogs, manning shortfalls, reduced with continuing resolutions have cost the service hemispheric defense.46 As Michael Green shows part availability, and diminished training.30 $4 billion over the past decade.39 As Navy Secretary in his review of Mahan’s work, in the Pacific this Then, as the United States scrambled to respond Spencer put it, due to inefficiencies from continuing It’s the Geography, Stupid started with controlling Hawaii and thereby giving to the 9/11 attacks, the Navy continued its shift resolutions, the Navy essentially “put $4 billion in the U.S. Navy away from peer conflict while operating a shrinking a trash can, poured lighter fluid on it, and burned Making this kind of strategically minded case fleet at full tilt. In 2001, the U.S. Navy was 316 ships it.”40 for seapower begins with an old case: geography. flexible internal lines to shift its fleets from one strong. Although defense budgets grew, driven by This is where we defense hawks usually stop. We North America remains functionally a continent- flank to the other for decisive engagements war-related spending, the Navy continued scaling paint a scary picture of the world, remind everyone size island, one “abundant in natural resources against enemy fleets. In contrast, control of down and, by 2009, had only 285 ships.31 The of the original sin of the post-Cold War peace and lacking the competitive political environment Hawaii by a hostile power would provide a 2010 Balisle Report found that the wear and tear dividend, and inveigh against the Budget Control of Europe and Asia.”42 There is no conceivable secure coaling station from which to mount of a decade of war had taxed this declining fleet Act while throwing around numbers. At that point, challenger to American hegemony in the Western attacks on American trade routes to Asia, to its breaking point, requiring the Navy to retire we essentially tell the public that if only the corpse Hemisphere. This means that despite the real the vulnerable West Coast, and the canal many ships after 20 or 25 years — well short of of Ronald Reagan could be reanimated, none of this dangers of domestic terrorism or cyber warfare, route to the Gulf Coast and East Coast. As their expected 35-year lifespan.32 In July 2011, then- would be happening. This argument is not working. any existential threat to the U.S. homeland will naval officers had begun to appreciate in the Vice Chief of Naval Operations Jonathan Greenert As the Budget Control Act enters its seventh year, come from across the seas.43 Gilded Age, the combination of geography Rear Adm. Alfred Thayer Mahan illustrated and technology (steam power and steel) 29 Strategic Readiness Review, 11-12. this point in his seminal work, The Influence meant that forward presence in the Pacific 30 Strategic Readiness Review, 12. of Sea Power Upon History. Mahan argued was necessary not only for access to China 31 Ronald O’Rourke, “Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: that the “geographical position” and “physical but now also for defense of the homeland.47 Background and Issues for Congress,” Congressional Research Service, Dec. 22, 2017, 130, https://fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/RL32665.pdf. conformation” of nations comes with strengths 32 Strategic Readiness Review, 14. 33 U.S. Congress, House Committee on Armed Services, “Total Force Readiness: Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Readiness,” July 26, 2011, 7, 41 Seth Cropsey, Seablindness: How Political Neglect Is Choking American Seapower and What to Do (New York: Encounter Books, 2017), 270. https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-112hhrg68163/pdf/CHRG-112hhrg68163.pdf. John Lehman highlights this same point in his memoirs. To build Reagan’s 600-ship Navy it was necessary to make a strategy-first argument from 34 The Fiscal 2012 Gates budget, in the words of the Strategic Readiness Review, was “the last time the Navy had sufficient resources to operate which requirements and fleet size naturally flowed. John F. Lehman, Command of the Seas (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1988), 121, 115-60. at its present levels without having to markedly decrease funding for ships, weapons and aircraft procurement, equipment modernization, shore 42 Grygiel and Mitchell, Unquiet Frontier, 18. infrastructure, and the maintenance backlog.” Strategic Readiness Review, 55. 43 See Lehman, Command of the Seas, 119. “The free world is an oceanic coalition. It follows, therefore, that the free world coalition must have 35 Strategic Readiness Review, 55. unquestioned superiority on the seas if overall strategic parity is to exist — parity at the nuclear level, and inferiority in the size of land force 36 Strategic Readiness Review, 58. balanced by superiority at sea. We must be sure we can use the oceans in peace and in war if we are to survive.” 37 O’Rourke, Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans, 44. 44 Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 (New York: Barnes and Noble, 2004), 30, 43. 38 O’Rourke, Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans, 44. 45 Michael J. Green, By More Than Providence: Grand Strategy and American Power in the Asia Pacific Since 1783 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2017), 80-81. 39 O’Rourke, Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans, 44. 46 Grygiel and Mitchell, Unquiet Frontier, 17-20. 40 Katherine Blakeley, “It’s Time for a Grand Budget Bargain to Save the Pentagon,” War on the Rocks, Dec. 21, 2017, https://warontherocks. com/2017/12/time-grand-budget-bargain-save-pentagon/ 47 Green, More Than Providence, 80-81. 122 The Strategist 123

Green contends that “Mahan was one of the first “Who controls the Rimland, rules Eurasia; who counted on a decisive advantage in the maritime adviser and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs for strategic thinkers to identify America’s realpolitik rules Eurasia controls the destinies of the world.”53 domain. While the NATO allies could afford airstrikes.59 And when an Arab coalition attacked interest in preventing the rise of any rival Spykman’s writings on the centrality of the rough parity — and even conventional inferiority Israel in 1973, President and hegemonic power from within continental Asia.”48 Rimland to world politics are often paired with — with the Soviets on land, as long as NATO Secretary of State Henry Kissinger not only put Adm. James Stavridis argues that the strategic those of Halford Mackinder, a British strategist maintained maritime superiority it could threaten the United States on global military alert but also concept underlying Mahan’s work is prominent around the turn of the 20th century. the Soviets on their vulnerable flanks.55 Since the surged a third carrier task force to reinforce the Mackinder also conceived of grand strategy United States was physically separated from its Sixth Fleet in its dangerous confrontation with the the ability of a nation to use sea power to through geographic terms, but he favored land allies, as well as the most likely theater of battle, Soviet Mediterranean Squadron, thereby deterring ultimately contain powerful nations that supplies and reinforcements would have to travel Leonid Brezhnev from more aggressive action.60 have concentrated their use of forces ashore, over the high seas.56 Mere naval parity, therefore, ignoring the sea out of lack of interest, or an would not mean stalemate but slaughter for allied Back to the Future inability to see the force of the sea power forces in Europe.57 Seapower was not a sideshow argument, or simply because they lack the to the battle on the central front because only a Some might suggest that this geopolitical case geography, character, and political will to decisive advantage at sea could guarantee the safe for seapower is obsolete. As President Obama exploit the oceans.49 and timely arrival of American military might to quipped when debating Republican presidential defend Europe. nominee Mitt Romney in 2012: “The 1980s are Owing in part to Mahan’s influence, America’s Throughout the Cold War, command of the now calling to ask for their foreign policy back core geostrategic goal has stayed remarkably seas provided administrations of both parties because the Cold War’s been over for 20 years.”61 consistent since World War II: The United States options to reassure allies, deter aggression, and Implicit in Obama’s retort was a sense that the has forward-deployed forces to deter potential take action without resorting to kinetic force. complexities of the present day and advances in aggressors from attempting hegemony in Europe When mainland Chinese Communist forces began technology obviate the lessons of geography and or Northeast Asia. As the 20th-century American power. He described how the Eurasian “Heartland” shelling Chinese Nationalist forces on Quemoy in make Cold War instruments of national power less strategist Nicholas Spykman wrote, “our constant of Russia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia — part 1954, President Dwight Eisenhower was able to relevant.62 Yet even in the Internet age, 90 percent concern in peace time must be to see that no of a broader “World Island” containing more than reject the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s recommendation of global trade travels by sea, and American goods nation or alliance of nations is allowed to emerge half of the planet’s natural resources — was the to use tactical nuclear weapons against China and services trade with Asia-Pacific Economic as a dominating power in either of the two regions “pivot” around which global power turned. Thus and, instead, sent the Seventh Fleet to evacuate Cooperation member economies totaled almost of the Old World from which our security could be Mackinder’s alternative formulation: “Who rules 15,000 of Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist forces and $3 trillion in 2016.63 Furthermore, 40 percent of threatened.”50 To this end, America has defended East Europe commands the Heartland; who rules 20,000 civilians from the Tachens island chain the world’s population lives within 62 miles of a forward, manning a series of ramparts along the the Heartland commands the World-Island; who while securing a congressional authorization to coast,64 the Pacific Ocean alone is bigger than all Eurasian littoral from Western Europe, through the rules the World-Island commands the world.”54 use force in defense of Formosa (Taiwan).58 When of the combined land on Earth,65 and almost all of Middle East, to East Asia. America’s core strategic The Cold War, in a sense, was the ultimate U.S. reconnaissance confirmed that the Soviets the world’s transoceanic data traffic is dependent positioning along the Eurasian littoral follows showdown between Spykman and Mackinder. were deploying medium-range nuclear missiles to on fiber-optic cables at the bottom of the ocean.66 Spykman’s logic of the “Rimland.” Spykman took The United States and the free-world coalition Cuba in 1962, President John F. Kennedy chose a As Robert Kaplan argues, while technology may the maritime strategic worldview of Mahan and enjoyed a considerable advantage along the naval “quarantine” and bought time to negotiate, have neutralized America’s geographic position to paired it with Mackinder to develop his analysis of Eurasian Rimland. The Soviet Union, on the other rejecting the preference of his national security some extent, this diffusion of technology creates the centrality of the Rimland, which he viewed as hand, tightly controlled the Eurasian Heartland. the crucial “zone of conflict between sea power and Cold War strategists conceived of Europe as a 55 Cropsey, Seablindness, 72. land power.”51 The Rimland encompasses what are peninsula, surrounded by the Baltic and North 56 Lehman, Command of the Seas, 119. now viewed as critical strategic locations: Western Seas on one flank and the Mediterranean on Europe, the Middle East, South Asia, and East the other. This quintessential Rimland strategy 57 Lehman, Command of the Seas, 119. 52 58 The authorization also explicitly included the Pescadores islands but left the fate of Quemoy and Matsu ambiguous. Jean Edward Smith, Asia. Spykman summarized his views by saying meant that the United States and its NATO allies Eisenhower in War and Peace (New York: Random House, 2012), 655-59. 59 Gordon M. Goldstein, Lessons in Disaster: McGeorge Bundy and the Path to War in Vietnam (New York: Henry Holt, 2008), 72-5. See also “The Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1962,” State Department Office of the Historian, accessed January 16, 2018, https://history.state.gov/ 48 Green, More Than Providence, 81. milestones/1961-1968/cuban-missile-crisis. 49 Mahan, Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 432-33. 60 John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of American National Security Policy During the Cold War (New York: 50 Nicholas J. Spykman, The Geography of the Peace (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1944), 34. Oxford University Press, 1982), 311; Henry Kissinger, Years of Upheaval (Boston: Little, Brown, 1982), 575-91. 51 Spykman, Geography of the Peace, 41. 61 Glenn Kessler, “Flashback: Obama’s Debate Zinger on Romney’s ‘1980s’ Foreign Policy (Video),” Washington Post, March 20, 2014, https://www. washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2014/03/20/flashback-obamas-debate-zinger-on-romneys-1980s-foreign-policy/. 52 “The importance of these states is not measured in their physical size, power, or wealth but in the real estate that they occupy. Roughly speaking, they compose a narrow belt that runs from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea in Europe, through the Levant and Persian Gulf to the Indian 62 On the “temptation of technology,” see Grygiel and Mitchell, Unquiet Frontier, 20-5. Ocean and up through littoral Asia to the Sea of Japan. What happens to these states in coming years will have a disproportionate impact on the 63 Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, “U.S.-APEC Bilateral Trade and Investment,” accessed Jan. 24, 2018, https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/ shape of the twenty-first century.” Grygiel and Mitchell, Unquiet Frontier, 163. japan-korea-apec/apec/us-apec-trade-facts# 53 Spykman, Geography of the Peace, 43. Bryan McGrath recently argued in these pages that “no other aspect of military power is as closely 64 United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, “Percentage of Total Population Living in Coastal Areas,” accessed Jan. 16, 2018, connected with prosperity [as seapower]. This symbiotic relationship between seapower and prosperity was bluntly stated centuries ago by Sir http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/natlinfo/indicators/methodology_sheets/oceans_seas_coasts/pop_coastal_areas.pdf. Walter Raleigh: ‘[W]hosoever commands the sea commands the trade; whosoever commands the trade of the world commands the riches of the world, and consequently the world itself.’ American seapower apostle Alfred Thayer Mahan packaged this view more diplomatically for statesmen in 65 Adm. James Stavridis, Sea Power: The History and Geopolitics of the World’s Oceans (New York: Penguin, 2017), 15. the late 19th and early 20th centuries, though no less emphatically.” 66 Nicole Starosielski, “In Our Wi-Fi World, the Internet Still Depends on Undersea Cables,” The Conversation, Nov. 3, 2015, https:// Bryan McGrath, “The National Security Strategy’s Implications for Seapower,” Texas National Security Review 1, no. 1, (2017), https://tnsr.org/ theconversation.com/in-our-wi-fi-world-the-internet-still-depends-on-undersea-cables-49936. See also Magnus Nordenman, “Russian Subs Are roundtable/policy-roundtable-make-trumps-national-security-strategy/ - essay8. Sniffing Around Transatlantic Cables. Here’s What to Do About It,” Defense One, Jan. 17, 2018, http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2018/01/russian- 54 Halford Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality: A Study in the Politics of Reconstruction (National Defense University Press, 1996), 106. subs-are-sniffing-around-transatlantic-cables-heres-what-do-about-it/145241/. 124 The Strategist 125

even greater vulnerabilities than those identified projection could be brought to bear. This shifting essential not just for winning future wars but also failed to appreciate the ways that their adversary’s by Mahan. Technological advances have operational focus — from power projection to sea for preventing them in the first place. capabilities had caught up to their own. And, most control — makes a balanced and powerful naval dangerous of all, some viewed their tradition as only deepened American involvement and force structure more important than ever. If the part of their armor, succumbing to the illusion that influence around the globe. We remain an Navy is not able to establish sea control where and Speak Loudly in Order generations of British mastery of the seas guaranteed immense continent but in an increasingly when it is needed, U.S. power projection forces to Carry a Big Stick future British mastery of the seas. As Gordon put smaller and interconnected world, so would face difficulties even entering the fight. After it, “They thought they were good, but in ways that that we are, more and more, vulnerable to all, U.S. allies and forward-deployed assets are still Even if defense hawks in Congress start making mattered, they were not. They thought they were everything from global financial disruptions oceans away from reinforcement. such a strategic case for seapower, we will need the ready for war, but they were not.”76 The Royal Navy to violent ideological movements…it is In a future conflict, forces based in the continental help of the Navy and the president. This is true in part paid for this with about 6,000 British lives at Jutland. simply impossible for us to escape from United States would not be able to swiftly arrive because the Navy has much higher approval ratings It lost eight destroyers, three cruisers, and three the geopolitical intimacy of the twenty-first in theater without decisive maritime superiority. and trust among the public than Congress does, battlecruisers that just hours before had been the -century world. What all of this amounts And time will not be on our side: Global pressure and because none of us can match the president’s pride of the fleet.77 One of those battlecruisers, HMS to is something stark: America is fated to to end the conflict before it escalates further would megaphone.71 In some respects, the right notes Invincible, sank after just 90 seconds of fire from lead. That is the judgment of geography as it be intense — even if doing so meant locking in are being sounded. There is talk of expanding the German ships.78 has played out over the past two and a half Chinese gains.69 The longer it takes for decisive fleet and of restoring readiness.72 The new National To avoid a similar fate, and to complement the centuries.67 American forces to fight their way across the Defense Strategy discusses “emerging from a period geopolitical case for seapower in general, the U.S. Pacific, the more likely it is that a conflict could be of strategic atrophy” and re-orienting the military Navy needs to tell a new story about what it will do In such an environment the U.S. Navy plays a settled on unfavorable terms. As Spykman warned around the primary concern of “[i]nter-state strategic with 355 ships and how this future fleet will differ unique role sustaining maritime order, providing more than 70 years ago, advances in technology and competition, not terrorism.”73 Yet the tragedies of the from today’s. Strategy is, after all, a type of script, or the world with the “primary geopolitical good” communication mean that the oceans buffering the past year, and our collective response, suggest that a “story told in the future tense.”79 It is not enough of securing the global commons. As Kaplan puts United States something is still wrong.74 to talk vaguely about overall numbers and new it: “While our land forces are for unpredictable I am reminded of Andrew Gordon’s masterful book technologies. The usual talking points and generic contingencies, our sea and air forces secure the are not barriers but highways. [A] balance of The Rules of the Game, about the decline of the Royal warnings of risk have left the Navy seven years into global commons. The navy is our away team: its power in the transatlantic and transpacific Navy before the Battle of Jutland.75 As technology the Budget Control Act and more than three decades operations tempo around the world is the same, zones is an absolute prerequisite for the advanced in the century between the Battle of removed from the last major naval recapitalization. whether in peacetime or wartime.”68 independence of the New World and the Trafalgar and World War I, the Royal Navy seemed What’s needed is a specific and compelling sense of Thus, Mahan’s logic is still relevant and the preservation of the power position of the to be adapting. It converted from sail to steam and how the Navy would operate in the Eurasian Rimland, geographical case for seapower endures. As it did United States. There is no safe defensive constructed a fleet that captured public imagination. how its warfighting doctrines would change, how its during the Cold War, the United States depends on position on this side of the oceans. New classes such as dreadnoughts and battlecruisers culture is likely to evolve, and how it can ensure that command of the seas to facilitate its transoceanic Hemispheric defense is no defense at all.70 stood ready to defend the empire should the German technology would not become a crutch.80 alliances. Furthermore, the theories of Spykman High Seas Fleet sally forth. Without proper funding, no amount of and Mackinder are again playing out on the Spykman’s fundamental insight — that if unified Yet out of public view, something was wrong. introspection will heal the Navy. But the Navy needs world stage. The United States and its allies lead under a single hegemon or an unfriendly alliance Officers of the Royal Navy had failed to appreciate the to do more than craft a new case for seapower in the a Rimland coalition against autocratic aggressors. of great powers, the Eurasian landmass would ways in which their doctrines of war at sea needed 21st century; it also needs to tell that story directly Today, however, our most difficult challenger is not effectively encircle North America — becomes to change because of technological innovations. They to the American people. I worry that the Navy is a Heartland power but a Rimland state. The sea- more relevant each day as China continues its naval facing geography of Chinese power compounds the modernization and island construction campaign, 71 Domenico Montanaro, “Here’s Just How Little Confidence Americans Have in Political Institutions,” National Public Radio, Jan. 17, 2018, https:// challenge to our transoceanic alliance and makes as Russia continues its aggression against the www..org/2018/01/17/578422668/heres-just-how-little-confidence-americans-have-in-political-institutions. command of the seas more difficult than when we United States and our allies, and as rogue actors 72 “Prepared Remarks of the Honorable Thomas Modly, Undersecretary of the Navy: Formal Swearing in Ceremony,” U.S. Navy, Jan. 5, faced the Soviets. such as Iran and North Korea threaten regional 2018, http://navylive.dodlive.mil/2018/01/11/swearing-in-of-thomas-modly-under-secretary-of-the-navy/. While maritime superiority was the implicit security. And his fundamental challenge — that 73 Summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy of the United States of America (Washington: Department of Defense, January 2018), 1, https://www.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2018-National-Defense-Strategy-Summary.pdf. foundation of U.S. defense strategy during the Cold America must have unquestioned command of 74 The Strategic Readiness Review did identify, as one of its four broad recommendations, the need for the Navy to become a true learning War, on the operational level the U.S. Navy focused the seas to vigorously defend interests and allies organization. “Navy history is replete with reports and investigations that contain like findings regarding past collisions, groundings, and other on power projection and hitting the vulnerable in the Eurasian Rimland — becomes more difficult operational incidents. The repeated recommendations and calls for changes belie the belief that the Navy always learns from its mistakes. Navy leadership at all levels must foster a culture of learning and create the structures and processes that fully embrace this commitment.” Strategic Soviet flanks. Today, while power projection would each day the rebuilding of the U.S. naval fleet is Readiness Review, 5. be critical in a war against China, the growing delayed. Mere parity in the maritime domain is a 75 Andrew Gordon, The Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1996). capability of China’s navy means the United States recipe for wartime defeat. Maritime dominance 76 Gordon, Rules of the Game, 594. would have to establish sea control in the Indo- — a navy capable of decisive fleet action near the 77 United Kingdom Ministry of Defence, “Battle of Jutland Centenary,” accessed Jan. 23, 2018, https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-and-latest- Asia-Pacific before the hammer of American power enemy’s home waters that can win quickly — is activity/features/jutland-100. 78 Adm. Sir Philip Jones, “First Sea Lord’s Remarks Ahead of the Centenary of the Battle of Jutland,” United Kingdom Ministry of Defence, May 19, 67 Robert D. Kaplan, Earning the Rockies: How Geography Shapes America’s Role in the World (New York: Random House, 2017), 138. 2016, https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/first-sea-lords-remarks-ahead-of-the-centenary-of-the-battle-of-jutland. 68 Kaplan, Earning the Rockies, 131. 79 Lawrence Freedman, Strategy: A History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), xiv, 607-29. 69 Jan Van Tol, et al., AirSea Battle: A Point-of-Departure Operational Concept (Washington: Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, 80 In fact, it is possible that due to enemy disruptions in communications, electronics, and connectivity, parts of the wars of tomorrow may be 2010), xii, http://csbaonline.org/research/publications/airsea-battle-concept/publication. fought with less technology than the wars of the recent past. For a non-naval analysis of overreliance on revolutions in military affairs, see the transcript “Harbingers of Future War: Implications for the Army With Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster,” Center for Strategic and International 70 Spykman, Geography of the Peace, 457. Studies, May 4, 2016, https://www.csis.org/analysis/harbingers-future-war-implications-army-lieutenant-general-hr-mcmaster. 126 The Strategist 127

headed in the wrong direction in this regard. I read The Navy again needs to tell its story in a new way military presence in that region, it is for extended and enforcing the rules the United States created with great concern public reporting of a memo that inspires popular action. The Navy has advocates deterrence. This suggests a broader awareness of to our benefit. And too often, that service is taken from last March that focused on a “less is more” and allies across the country, from Congress to America’s responsibility to maintain stability on for granted. Americans fly flags and thank veterans approach to strategic communications.81 This newspaper editorial pages to Legion and VFW halls. foreign shores in order to protect our continental for their service, but it takes tragedy to remind us would be a catastrophic mistake. While it might This coalition needs to be mobilized to create a island. of the cost of liberty. Getting to a 355-ship Navy have been true once that “loose lips sink ships,” groundswell of public support and political pressure. Yet even if this instinctive awareness exists, only is about giving U.S. warfighters the best tools they nonexistent strategic communications today can Members of Congress need to hear from their strategic-minded leadership can translate it into can possibly have to accomplish the mission and sink entire navies.82 If the bias is toward silence to constituents about key Navy priorities the same way 355 ships. Advocates for American seapower have come home safe. To this end, the strategic case prevent adversaries from finding out about unique we hear about domestic issues such as the Deferred effectively skipped that step. We have long assumed must be made for seapower, both old and new; capabilities or potential weaknesses, then there will Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program or that our audience shares our understanding of why building a fleet strong enough to secure the peace; health-care reform. More an unquestioned Navy is critical. Rather than trying and passing the torch of maritime superiority to people need to be part of to scare the public into accepting certain fleet the next generation. the conversation about the numbers (and implicitly taking others’ word for it), future U.S. fleet and how it we need to focus more on explaining why getting Mike Gallagher represents Wisconsin’s 8th will keep this country safe and to 355 ships is so important and what strategic and District in the U.S. House of Representatives and prosperous. operational risks our nation runs if it fails to do so. serves on the House Armed Services Committee, This will not be easy. I am new After all, budgets are tight, our country’s debt is where he is a member of the Seapower and to elected office, and I still hear out of control, and 355 might seem like an arbitrary Projection Forces Subcommittee. Prior to Congress, daily from my constituents about number. Yet as this analysis shows, there is nothing Mike served in the Marine Corps for seven years as a what is on their minds. Although arbitrary about the Navy’s requirement for more Counterintelligence/Human Intelligence Officer and they would rather talk about Aaron ships, nor optional about America’s role in the Regional Affairs Officer for the Middle East/North Rodgers than Nicholas Spykman, world and on the seas. History offers a sobering Africa, earning the rank of Captain. He deployed I believe they would be open to a lesson: When hostile nations have threatened U.S. twice to Al Anbar Province, Iraq and worked for strategic case for seapower — and higher interests and allies, they often did so by projecting three years in the intelligence community, including defense budgets — if that case were made power across the seas. Today, it might be easy to tours at the National Counterterrorism Center and never be a public constituency for acquiring those powerfully. Recent Chicago Council polling on “What think, “Well of course Hitler lost. Of course the the Drug Enforcement Agency. Mike also served capabilities or mitigating those weaknesses. (And Americans Think About America First” found some U.S. defeated Japan. Of course the Berlin Wall as the lead Republican staffer for Middle East, U.S. adversaries already have a decent idea of what interesting attitudes among core Trump voters, who fell.” But the totalitarians of the 20th century were North Africa and Counterterrorism on the Senate our Navy is up to.)83 are often perceived as being outside the post-World not destined to lose. Freedom’s triumph was not Foreign Relations Committee. After earning his The Navy has done public diplomacy well in the War II consensus.85 While core Trump supporters preordained. It took men and women of good faith bachelor’s degree from Princeton University, Mike past. During the height of the Cold War, the Navy’s profess skepticism that the U.S. benefits from its and courage to win the peace. And it took a lot of went on to earn a master’s degree in Security nuclear missile submarine program adopted the alliance system, they are more supportive than strong ships manned by brave sailors and marines. Studies from , a second in slogan “41 for Freedom,” and each of the 41 ballistic other subgroups about increasing the U.S. military We who have inherited that legacy cannot fail Strategic Intelligence from National Intelligence missile submarines commissioned from 1959 to footprint abroad in defense of those alliances.86 For in our duty. Every day sailors around the world University, and his PhD in International Relations 1967 was named after a historical figure who had example, 21 percent of core Trump supporters favor are carrying out their missions, deterring conflict from Georgetown. contributed to our nation. The Navy invested in increasing America’s military presence in the Asia- videos, posters, and media relations to publicize the Pacific compared with 13 percent of all respondents. missions and importance of the ships throughout This is not a segment espousing only isolationism, their service lives. These ships captured popular and the reaction seems more proactive than a imagination in a visceral way. Proud veterans groups reflexive Jacksonian response to foreign aggression.87 still celebrate the 41 for Freedom.84 To the extent that Trump supporters want a larger

81 Barbara Starr, “Admiral Warns Staff Against Talking Too Freely,” CNN, March 8, 2017, https://www.cnn.com/2017/03/08/politics/admiral- warns-navy-of-speaking-freely/index.html. See also Christopher P. Cavas, “Does the US Navy Have a Strategy Beyond Hope?” Defense News, Jan. 4, 2018, https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/surface-navy-association/2018/01/04/does-the-us-navy-have-a-strategy-beyond-hope/. 82 Also, there is no single individual in charge of unified communications across the Navy and Marine Corps. See Bryan McGrath, “Reforming the Navy Secretariat: Bureaucratic Requirements to Achieve a Vision of American Seapower,” Information Dissemination, Jan. 26, 2016, http://www. informationdissemination.net/2016/01/reforming-navy-secretariat-bureaucratic.html. 83 On the other hand, it’s also possible that the Navy is too open in discussion of some programs and initiatives. As Bryan McGrath put it, “There is no doubt in my mind that the Navy is ‘oversharing’. There is also no doubt in my mind that it is ‘undersharing’. There is furthermore, no doubt in my mind that the Navy is ‘inefficiently-sharing’. The plain truth is that the Navy is incapable of figuring this out because it is not organized to address it.” Bryan McGrath, “On the Navy and Oversharing,” Information Dissemination, April 6, 2017, http://www.informationdissemination.net/2017/04/ on-navy-and-oversharing.html. 84 Erica Buell, “41 for Freedom,” Submarine Force Library and Museum Association, Aug. 11, 2017, http://ussnautilus.org/blog/41-for-freedom/. See also “41 for Freedom: Polaris Submarines 2088,” YouTube video published Oct. 22, 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PAmEFrzQdk&t=931s. 85 Dina Smeltz, et al., “What Americans Think About America First,” Chicago Council on Global Affairs, 2017, https://www.thechicagocouncil.org/ sites/default/files/ccgasurvey2017_what_americans_think_about_america_first.pdf. 86 Smeltz, “What Americans Think About America First,” 12, 33. 87 Walter Russell Mead, “The Jacksonian Revolt,” Hudson Institute, Jan. 20, 2017, https://www.hudson.org/research/13258-the-jacksonian-revolt. 128 The Strategist 129

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson delivered the following U.S. Engagement remarks at the University of Texas at Austin, on February 1, 2018, ahead of his first trip as secretary of state to South in the Western America.

This trip comes at an important time for the So today I want to focus on three pillars of Hemisphere Western Hemisphere. This diverse region — which engagement to further the cause of freedom includes Canada, Mexico, South America, and the throughout our region in 2018 and beyond: economic Caribbean — is a priority for the United States growth, security, and democratic governance. for reasons other than simply our geographic The hemisphere has significant potential for proximity. We share an interwoven history and greater economic growth and prosperity. We chronology. Our nations still reflect the New World will build upon the solid foundation of economic optimism of limitless discovery. And importantly, cooperation with our Latin American and we share democratic values — values that are at Caribbean partners. Brazil, for instance, is the the core of what we believe, regardless of the color region’s largest economy and the ninth largest in of our passport. the world. The United States is Brazil’s second- And for generations, U.S. leaders have understood largest trading partner, with two-way trade at that building relationships with Latin American record highs in recent years totaling more than and Caribbean partners is integral to the success $95 billion in 2015. and prosperity of our region. In 1889, at the urging The United States has free trade agreements of then-Secretary of State James Blaine, the United with 20 countries; 12 of those countries are in the States hosted the First International Conference of Western Hemisphere. And every year, the United American States — the precursor to today’s OAS, States trades almost $2 trillion worth of goods or Organization of American States. and services with Latin America and Caribbean At the beginning of the 20th century, President nations, supporting more than 2.5 million jobs here Teddy Roosevelt visited Panama — the first foreign at home. Instead of a trade deficit, we actually have visit of a U.S. sitting president in our history. And a $14 billion trade surplus with the hemisphere. during the 1960s, President Kennedy established But today we have an opportunity to further our the Alliance for Progress — his ambitious plan economic partnership and the prosperity of the to strengthen economic cooperation among the peoples in this hemisphere. An important step to United States and the hemisphere, and to, in his strengthen North American economic prosperity words, “eliminate tyranny from a hemisphere in and integration is to modernize the North which it has no rightful place.” American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA. Today, we share these same goals as the visionary I’m a Texan, former energy executive, and I’m leaders before us: to eliminate tyranny and to also a rancher. I understand how important NAFTA further the cause of economic and political freedom is for our economy and that of the continent. But it throughout our hemisphere. As 2018 begins, we should come as no surprise that an agreement put have an historic opportunity to do just that. into place 30 years ago, before the advent of the A few weeks ago, the United States cohosted digital age and the digital economy, before China’s a ministerial with our counterparts in Canada in rise as the world’s second-largest economy — that Vancouver. Twenty countries joined us to discuss NAFTA would need to be modernized. the global threat posed by North Korea. In April, Our aim is simple: to strengthen our economy will host the Summit of the Americas to and that of all of North America, to remain the highlight our region’s commitment to fighting most competitive, economically vibrant region in corruption. Two months later, Canada will host the world. the 44th G7 Summit. And at the end of this year, We appreciate the hard work of our Mexican the states will convene in Buenos Aires, the and Canadian counterparts throughout these first South American city ever to host. So in many negotiations. Last week, we concluded round six, ways, 2018 marks the year of the Americas. Many and we will continue to work toward a modernized of the world’s leaders will be in this hemisphere, agreement with another round scheduled next and as such, the eyes of the world will turn to the month. Building greater prosperity by integrating Rex Tillerson Americas. the wealth of energy resources within the 130 The Strategist 131

hemisphere is an opportunity that is unique in the Further south, we are partnering with Central humans, weapons, opioids, and other drugs are enable them. world to the Americas. America to strengthen its regional electricity smuggled, law enforcement and civilians become Close collaboration among multiple agencies Over the past decade, North America has been market and modernize its grid. Creating stronger the targets. — within our own government, and with our leading an energy renaissance. By 2040, North Central American economies by lowering energy Here at home, Americans do not necessarily international partners — is essential. The way we America is expected to add more oil production to cost is critical to building a more secure Central see the day-to-day violence that is so common in combat threats to our southern border security is the global markets than the entire rest of the world America. We have the chance to develop an energy other parts of our hemisphere. But U.S. demand to work collaboratively with Mexico to strengthen combined and more gas production than any other partnership that spans the Western Hemisphere, for drugs drives this violence and this lawlessness. Mexico’s southern border. single region. The flow of crude oil, natural gas, to the benefit of all of our citizens. We cannot We acknowledge our role as the major market for Through the Merida Initiative — a partnership refined products, and electricity already crosses afford to squander this moment. illicit drug consumption and the need for shared between the United States and Mexico focused our borders in both directions, approaches to address these challenges. The on improving security and the rule of law — the leading to greater reliability, opioid epidemic we are facing in this country is a United States is providing assistance to build more efficiency, and lower costs We have the chance to develop an clear, tragic representation of how interconnected the capacity of Mexican law enforcement and to consumers. our hemisphere truly is. Violence and drugs do judicial institutions. By providing inspection Our continent has become the energy partnership that spans not stop at our southern border. That is why we equipment, canine units, and training, we equip energy force for this century, continue to employ a coordinated, multilateral law enforcement officers with tools to eradicate thanks in large part to rapid the Western Hemisphere, to the approach to diminish the influence of these opium poppy production, tighten border security, expansion in natural gas and groups. It is time we rid our hemisphere of the and disrupt trafficking activities — not just in tight oil production, and, of benefit of all of our citizens. violence and devastation that they promote. drugs but in trafficking of humans. By improving course, thanks to some great I co-chair a high-level dialogue with Foreign cross-border communications, we make both engineers, many produced right Secretary [Luis] Videgaray of Mexico to discuss sides of the border safer. here at UT. A transition to more market-based economic new and strategic ways to disrupt TCOs. We must And our security partnerships extend beyond The rest of the hemisphere can use the North reforms are not limited to the energy take new approaches to disrupt their business just our southern border or Mexico’s southern American experience as a model. We see a future sector. , under President [Mauricio] models — models of cartels which operate border. where energy connectivity from Canada to Chile Macri’s leadership, has made monumental much like any other business organization that Colombia has been one of our strongest partners can build out and seize upon energy integration strides in delivering reforms to open the maximizes their value chain from feedstock to in the region. Following decades of long internal throughout the Americas, delivering greater Argentine economy and pursue growth for all manufacturing to distribution to marketing and battle with Revolutionary Forces of the FARC, energy security to the hemisphere and stability to Argentinians. Its historically high inflation rate is sales. Colombia has charted a pathway to peace. We growing economies. finally decreasing. GDP is going up, spurred on by The second meeting of our dialogue was held in continue to support this sustainable peace, but South America is blessed with abundant energy investment and soaring consumer confidence. Washington this past December, which included challenges do remain. Colombia is the world’s resources. Colombia, Peru, Brazil, Guyana, and And one week after the U.S. Congress passed Secretary [Kristjen] Nielsen of the Department largest producer of cocaine — the source of 92 Argentina all have significant undeveloped oil and landmark tax reform policy, Argentina’s of Homeland Security and Attorney General Jeff percent of the cocaine seized in the United States. natural gas. The United States is eager to help legislature took action to overhaul their tax Sessions, as well as our Mexican counterparts. We Last year, and with U.S. support, Colombian our partners develop their own resources safely, system as well. All of these efforts are making the also had with us law enforcement representatives police and military forces eradicated 130,000 responsibly, as energy demand continues to grow. second-largest economy in South America ripe from both countries. acres of coca fields — the highest number since Our hemispheric energy trade is already for more investment and growth. We hope more Dismantling TCOs is not just a diplomatic 2010. The same year, Colombian forces seized beginning to meet these needs: 36 percent of countries take a similar path — to help the entire nearly 500 metric tons of cocaine. U.S. liquefied natural gas exports since 2016 have hemisphere grow in prosperity. But for prosperity There is more work ahead. Regrettably, coca landed in Latin America. That’s more than any to take root, we must create the conditions for cultivation has skyrocketed in recent years. In other region in the world. Between now and 2030, regional stability. 2016, more than 460,000 acres in Colombia were Latin America is expected to spend at least $70 Economic development and security reinforce used for coca cultivation — a record. We keep a billion on new electric power generation plants each other. When individuals are living in poverty, very open and frank dialogue with the Government to fuel economic growth. Many of those plants a life of crime can look like the only opportunity of Colombia to address the eradication of this will be powered by natural gas. The United States available to make a living. Legal and illegal very large feedstock for cocaine and to identify should be a substantive and reliable supplier. immigration increases as people look for more alternative cash crops to support rural Colombian By building out a more flexible and robust opportunity elsewhere. And innocent people are farmers. energy system in our hemisphere, we can power more likely to become victims of drug cartels, In Central America, through the Alliance our economies with affordable energy. We can lift human traffickers, and corrupt law enforcement for Prosperity, we support countries as they more people out of poverty. And we can make our authorities. address security and economic development in hemisphere the undisputed seat of global energy The United States approach is holistic — we tandem. Last June in Miami, the State Department supply. To support and capture this opportunity must address security and development issues and the Department of Homeland Security, along requires the opening of more market economies. side by side. You cannot expect to have one with our Mexican counterparts, cohosted the The opening of energy markets in Mexico, for without the other. issue. Obviously, it requires integrating the skills Conference on Prosperity and Security in Central example, has led to greater private investment, The most immediate threat to our hemisphere and expertise of law enforcement to interdict America. Through many productive conversations more competition, and more energy trade with are transnational criminal organizations, or shipments of illegal drugs, attack the revenue with public and private sector leaders across the United States than ever before. Truly, a win- TCOs. In their pursuit of money and power, TCOs streams and the weapons feeding TCOs, and to the region, opportunities were identified to help win. leave death and destruction in their wake. As track down and prosecute the middlemen who Central American countries grow their economies, 132 The Strategist 133

strengthen their institutions, and better protect the ruling elites. As a consequence, the people their people. More opportunities for Central suffer. Venezuelans are starving, looting is Americans will weaken the hold of transnational common, and the sick do not receive the medical criminal organizations, address the underlying attention they desperately need. Venezuelans are causes of legal and illegal immigration, and result in less violence. That makes their nations stronger, and it makes ours safer. Venezuela stands And through the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative, partners along our third border, the in stark contrast Gulf of Mexico, are increasing their ability to perform maritime interdictions, rein in illegal to the future of firearms, counter corruption, and prosecute criminals. Over the summer, we submitted our stability pursued Caribbean 2020 Plans. This comprehensive strategy fosters closer security cooperation by so many others and reaffirms our commitment to encourage private sector growth and diversification of in the hemisphere. energy resources, creating energy security in the Caribbean. We also maintain our partnerships dying of malnutrition and disease. in education and health initiatives, including There has been no natural disaster — nothing PEPFAR, the President’s Emergency Plan for like that earthquake that took me to Peru. The AIDS Relief. Venezuelan people suffer because of a corrupt The United States knows that our country regime that steals from its own people. The — and the rest of the region — benefits from Maduro regime is squarely to blame and must greater regional stability and the prospect of a be held to account. The United States has growing economy throughout the hemisphere. imposed sanctions on more than 40 current The United States’ partnership with nations in or former Venezuelan government officials — the hemisphere is founded on shared values and individuals who support Maduro and his efforts democratic governance, but we cannot take it for to undermine democracy. granted. Many still live under the oppression of Over the past year, we have worked with many tyranny. of our Latin American partners — through the The corrupt and hostile regime of Nicolas Lima Group and the Organization of American Maduro in Venezuela clings to a false dream and States in particular — to build support for antiquated vision for the region that has already coordinated action to counter the country’s slide failed its citizens. It does not represent the into dictatorship. We appreciate the Lima Group vision of millions of Venezuelans — or in any way of major regional leaders who have met regularly comport with the norms of our Latin American, to support the Venezuelan people’s quest to Canadian, or Caribbean partners. regain their country. Our position has not changed. We urge Canada too has sanctioned dozens of Venezuela to return to its constitution — to Venezuelan leaders, including Maduro himself. return to free, open, and democratic elections — And recently, the European Union joined the and to allow the people of Venezuela a voice in growing global chorus to sanction leaders in the their government. We will continue to pressure regime for human rights abuses. The world is the regime to return to the democratic process waking to the plight of the Venezuelan people. that made Venezuela a great country in the past. We encourage all nations to support the Venezuela stands in stark contrast to the future Venezuelan people. The time has come to stand of stability pursued by so many others in the with freedom-loving nations, those that support hemisphere. The great tragedy is that, although the Venezuelan people, or choose to stand with Venezuela could be one of the most prosperous the Maduro dictatorship, if that is your choice. countries in the region, it is one of the poorest in Elsewhere we will continue to encourage the world. Venezuela GDP growth in 2004 was as others in the region, like Cuba, who disregard high as 18 percent. Ten years later, it is nearly a their people and ignore this democratic moment negative 4 percent — all the result of man-made in Latin America, to give their people the freedom collapse. that they deserve. Venezuela boasts the world’s largest proven Cuba has an opportunity in their own transfer oil reserves, but riches are reserved only for of power from decades of the Castro regime to 134 The Strategist 135

take a new direction. In June, President Trump development and the United States version. laid out a new vision for our approach to Cuba — China’s offer always come at a price — usually one that supports the Cuban people by steering in the form of state-led investments, carried out economic activity away from the military, by imported Chinese labor, onerous loans, and intelligence, and security service which disregard unsustainable debt. The China model extracts their freedom. precious resources to feed its own economy, often The administration’s policy — as written in the with disregard for the laws of the land or human National Security Presidential Memorandum — rights. also seeks to, quote, “ensure that the engagement Today, China is gaining a foothold in Latin between the United States and Cuba advances America. It is using economic statecraft to pull the the interests of the United States and that of region into its orbit. The question is: at what price? the Cuban people.” It includes advancing human China is now the largest trading partner of Chile, rights and encouraging the nascent private Argentina, Brazil, and Peru. While this trade has sector in Cuba. The future of our relationship is brought benefits, the unfair trading practices used up to Cuba — the United States will continue to by many Chinese have also harmed these countries’ support the Cuban people in their struggle for manufacturing sectors, generating unemployment freedom. and lowering wages for workers. Venezuela and Cuba remind us that, for our Latin America does not need new imperial powers hemisphere to grow and thrive, we must prioritize that seek only to benefit their own people. China’s and promote democratic values. We must root out state-led model of development is reminiscent of corruption in all of its forms. Ineffective, corrupt the past. It doesn’t have to be this hemisphere’s governance damages countries. The economy future. Russia’s growing presence in the region is suffers. People lose faith in institutions. And alarming as well, as it continues to sell arms and crime increases. Recent steps taken against military equipment to unfriendly regimes who do corruption in Guatemala, Peru, the Dominican not share or respect democratic values. Our region Republic, and Brazil underscore the importance must be diligent to guard against faraway powers of directly addressing it. who do not reflect the fundamental values shared In Guatemala, we continue to support the in this region. CICIG — a U.N. body created in 2006 — to uphold The United States stands in vivid contrast. the rule of law, strengthen accountability, and We do not seek short-term deals with lopsided independently investigate illegal, corrupt activity returns. We seek partners with shared values and affecting government institutions. visions to create a safe, secure, and prosperous 2018 should be the year countries in the hemisphere. The U.S. approach is based on Western Hemisphere restore their trust with mutually beneficial goals to help both sides grow, their people, the people they represent, and take develop and become more prosperous, and do so serious anti-corruption action. by respecting international law, prioritizing the As I mentioned, the Summit of the Americas will interests of our partners, and protecting our values. be hosted by Peru in April. We wholeheartedly With the United States, you have a support this year’s theme: “Democratic multidimensional partner — one that benefits Governance Against Corruption.” And we both sides with engagement to support economic encourage every nation in the region to fully growth, education, innovation, and security. This embrace it. year the United States is eager to create even Encouraging transparency, increasing deeper relationships with Latin America and accountability, rooting out corruption — all of Caribbean partners, with the aim of expanding these are essential to creating a sound economy for freedom to more people. the region, promoting security, and protecting our We have a tremendous opportunity to build values. Strong institutions and governments that upon our shared history, culture, and values to are accountable to their people also secure their generate more opportunity, more stability, more sovereignty against potential predatory actors that prosperity, and more resilient governance in South are now showing up in our hemisphere. America, Central America, North America, and the China — as it does in emerging markets Caribbean. throughout the world — offers the appearance of In this year of the Americas, the United States an attractive path to development. But in reality, will continue to be the Western Hemisphere’s this often involves trading short-term gains for steadiest, strongest, and most enduring partner. long-term dependency. Just think about the difference between the China model of economic Rex Tillerson is the secretary of state. The Roundtable

Roundtables are where we get to hear from multiple experts on either a subject matter or a recently published book. This edition features Emma Ashford & Joshua Shifrinson’s analysis of Trump’s National Security Strategy. 138 Roundtable 139

President Donald Trump released his The 2017 Strategy: Sui Generis administration’s first National Security Strategy or Déjà vu All Over Again? Trump’s National on December 18, 2017 with much fanfare.1 In the run-up to the release, Trump’s foreign Grand strategy — the linkage of a state’s policy had come in for significant hostility, military, diplomatic, and economic tools of with critics decrying the administration for statecraft to help a state “produce” security betraying U.S. liberal internationalism and for itself — is notoriously difficult to formulate, Security Strategy: 2 4 pursuing an avowedly “America First” agenda. describe, and execute. Although often portrayed Initial reactions to the speech from much of the as a formal plan by which a state assesses its policy and scholarly communities have been at interests and the means it chooses to get A Critic’s Dream best ambivalent, with analysts lambasting the there, in reality, strategy evolves as external strategy’s “realist framing,” its emphasis on great conditions, domestic and bureaucratic politics, power competition, and seeming over-reliance and the ideas motivating individual policymakers on the military tools of statecraft.3 wax and wane.5 The relative importance of these These assessments are disingenuous. Like factors can vary as well. States living in highly it or not, the 2017 National Security Strategy competitive international environments (think is strongly in line with the national security 19th-century Europe) are incentivized to focus agendas of Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. on external conditions. In contrast, states Bush, and Barack Obama. The new strategy may benefiting from a surfeit of security have the spend time identifying the problematic and self- latitude to draw more heavily upon other factors. harming elements of America’s post-Cold War The modern United States falls into the latter foreign policy consensus, but it is neither realist category: A massively wealthy state surrounded in its logic nor restrained in its recommendations. by weak neighbors and wide oceans, and with Instead, it commits the United States to a more no peer competitor since the early 1990s, the muscular primacist agenda. Trump’s onetime United States benefits from the most latent critics should now rejoice: At least on core security of any actor in modern history. In the security issues, the document reflects Trump’s post-Cold War world, the net result has been formal agreement to sustain the U.S. strategic the consolidation of a powerful grand strategic consensus. They have won the initial salvo in the consensus in which the United States claims grand strategy debate of this administration. to act in support of a liberal world order. In theory, this system allows the United States to (1) support benevolent policies such as free trade and regional stability; (2) prevent states from engaging in military affairs unless viewed as legitimate; and (3) integrate potential rivals into

1 The White House, The National Security Strategy of the United States, December 2017, https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/ uploads/2017/12/NSS-Final-12-18-2017-0905.pdf. For media coverage, see, e.g., CBS News, “Trump Outlines New National Security Strategy,” Dec. 18, 2017, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/live-trump-delivers-national-security-strategy-speech-live-stream/. 2 For representative discussions, see David Frum, “A National-Security Strategy Devoid of Values,” The Atlantic, Dec. 12, 2017, https://www. theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/12/a-national-security-strategy-devoid-of-values/548219/; James Jay Carafano, “What Should Trump’s National Security Strategy Look Like?” The National Interest, Dec. 10, 2017, http://nationalinterest.org/feature/what-should-trumps-national- security-strategy-look-23585; Thomas Wright, “What Would An Honest National Security Strategy Say?,” War on the Rocks, Dec. 12, 2017, https:// warontherocks.com/2017/12/honest-national-security-strategy-say/; Steven Metz, “Linking Trump’s National Security Strategy to Reagan is a Roll of the Dice,” World Politics Review, Dec. 8, 2017, https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/23784/linking-trump-s-national-security-strategy-to- reagan-is-a-roll-of-the-dice; Kate Brannen, “Trump’s National Security Strategy is Decidedly Non-Trumpian,” The Atlantic, Dec. 8, 2017, https://www. theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/12/trump-nss-diplomacy-security-foreign-policy/547937/. 3 Paul Pillar, “America Alone,” The National Interest, Dec. 19, 2017, http://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/america-alone-23726; Andrew E. Kramer, “Russia and China Object to New ‘America First’ Security Doctrine,” New York Times, Dec. 19, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/19/ world/europe/russia-china-america-first-doctrine.html; Daniel Twining, “Does Trump’s National Security Strategy Have a Value’s Deficit?”Foreign Policy, Dec. 19, 2017, http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/12/18/trumps-national-security-strategy-has-a-values-deficit/; Roger Cohen, “Trump’s National Security Strategy is a Farce,” New York Times, Dec. 19, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/19/opinion/trump-national-security-strategy- tillerson-haley.html; Washington Post Editorial Board, “Trump’s National Security Strategy Isn’t Much of a Strategy at All,” Washington Post, Dec. 19, 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/trumps-national-security-strategy-isnt-much-of-a-strategy-at-all/2017/12/19/ eac50556-e4e9-11e7-ab50-621fe0588340_story.html?utm_term=.af589929bd37. 4 Barry R. Posen, The Sources of Military Doctrine: France, Britain, and Germany Between the World Wars (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984), 3–6; Hal Brands, What Good Is Grand Strategy?: Power and Purpose in American Statecraft from Harry S. Truman to George W. Bush (Ithaca, NY: Emma Ashford Cornell University Press, 2014). 5 For the critique of grand strategy as a formal plan, see Ionut Popescu, “Grand Strategy is Overrated,” Foreign Policy, Dec. 11, 2017, http:// Joshua R. Itzkowitz Shifrinson foreignpolicy.com/2017/12/11/grand-strategy-is-overrated-trump-national-security-strategy-nss/. 140 Roundtable 141

a mutually agreed-upon “rules based” system of year in office has seen Washington double of strength.”11 In short, America would welcome and continuous action” against terrorist groups international governance.6 down on its commitments in the Middle East, cooperation from other major powers on while calling upon the international community Of course, these claims were always embraced affirm the American commitment to NATO, American terms, or try to overmatch potential to “focus its efforts and resources on areas most more in theory than in the breach. In practice, the and reinforce the U.S.-Japanese and U.S.- competitors. at risk” of “spawning” terrorism.15 Strikingly, United States quickly recognized the desirability South Korean relationship. The new strategy The 2017 strategy again falls within this post- not only did the 2006 National Security Strategy of asserting American power in support of affirms these actions, noting that the United Cold War tradition. Embracing the potential for return to these themes, but so too did the 2015 its self-defined interests irrespective of other States will “compete and lead in multilateral U.S.-Indian “strategic partnership,” the report version advanced by the Obama administration.16 states’ concerns. “America First” is hardly a new organizations so that American interests and also notes that China and Russia are increasingly At least on paper, Trump is little different than concept. Primacy, not benign liberal engagement, principles are protected.” It underscores pursuing “revisionist” policies that imperil his predecessors. typically ruled the day. After all, the United the continued relevance of NATO, existing American dominance in Asia and Europe.12 The States went to war against both and Iraq “partnerships” in the Middle East, and the two “competitors” to the United States thus despite international opposition, and has shown centrality of allies in East Asia for “responding need to be overmatched and contained. Even A Critic’s Dream a marked disinclination to let other states have to mutual threats.”8 In this, the document here, however, the change is less dramatic than a say in constructing the nominal “rules” of parallels past strategic declarations. The George it may appear. Although describing China and Noting that the Trump administration’s international governance. W. Bush administration’s 2006 strategy, for Russia as explicit “competitors” is new, the National Security Strategy is relatively As a framing device, however, the post-Cold instance, vowed that the United States would underlying theme of competition is not. After consistent with that of previous administrations War foreign policy consensus was a mobilization prioritize “pursuing American interests within all, as far back as the 2006 National Security is one thing. As significant for the grand strategy device par excellence, reflecting and able to cooperative relationships, particularly with our Strategy, the George W. Bush administration debate, it also bears little resemblance to the sustain popular backing through its nod to oldest and closest friends and allies.” Likewise, allowed in the Chinese context that “Our images conjured by the primacists who have liberal values, bureaucratic support by providing the Obama administration’s 2015 strategy called strategy seeks to encourage China to make become some of Trump’s biggest critics. Take substantial foreign policy funding, and political for the United States to foster a “rules-based the right strategic choices for its people, while Tom Wright’s campaign-era overview of Donald support by leaving enough maneuvering room international order” under “U.S. leadership we hedge against other possibilities [emphasis Trump’s foreign policy, in which he argues that for leaders to pursue any policy they wanted. that promotes peace, security, and opportunity added].” The Obama administration’s 2015 report Trump’s election would destroy America’s post- Indeed, the appeal of this consensus was such through stronger cooperation to meet global was even clearer in underscoring “there will be Cold War foreign policy: that — as Patrick Porter shows — alternate challenges.”9 The Trump administration has competition” with China such that the United grand strategy approaches have been largely effectively committed itself to a strikingly States sought to “manage competition from a If he did get elected president, he would ignored, with their proponents isolated or driven similar approach, couched in similar language, position of strength.” Labeling China and Russia do his utmost to liquidate the U.S.-led from government decision-making.7 to its predecessors. “competitors” is thus an evolutionary change in liberal order by ending America’s alliances, Despite the sound of grinding teeth, Trump’s The same is true of U.S. relations with other U.S. policy — not a revolutionary break.13 closing the open global economy, and National Security Strategy fits squarely in the powerful states such as India, Russia, and China. What of counter-terrorism and state building? cutting deals with Russia and China.17 post-Cold War grand strategic tradition. This At the start of the 1990s, the U.S. government The Trump-endorsed document hardly breaks is not to deny that the 2017 strategy contains — as the draft 1992 Defense Planning Guidelines the mold, committing the United States to Or, consider Eliot Cohen, who promises that some departures from past practice on domestic and its successors underscored — decided that it both extensive counter-terrorism efforts — Trump will usher in a “dangerous and dispiriting policies, with calls for reduced immigration, would oppose the emergence of peer competitors particularly against Islamist terrorism — and chapter” for American foreign policy. Cohen tightened border security, and economic policies able to challenge American dominance.10 As the state-building abroad. Not only will the United notes, suggesting a more closed American homeland. distribution of power shifted away from the States “pursue [terrorist] threats to their source” Still, on core security issues related to U.S. United States, this view evolved. The United militarily, but there is a direct relationship even barring cataclysmic events, we will be engagement in international affairs, relations States would now seek to either co-opt potential between state-building and counter-terrorism. living with the consequences of Trump’s with other powerful states, and counter-terrorism competitors as allies (e.g., India) or incentivize After all, “safe havens” in fragile states allow tenure as chief executive and commander and state-building efforts, Trump’s agenda is in their continued cooperation through integration terrorist groups to flourish, requiring the United in chief for decades. Damage will continue keeping with the post-Cold War tradition. into economic and security institutions. The States to help develop local institutions so that to appear long after he departs the scene.18 Consider 2017. Despite coming to office tradeoff gradually became explicit: As the 2015 direct American action is superfluous.14 Again, more overtly critical of U.S. global activism National Security Strategy explained in the this logic tracks with prior strategic guidance. Meanwhile, Hal Brands outlines a stark and traditional alliance relations than any context of China, the United States would Bush’s 2002 strategy, for one, espoused “direct potential shift in American foreign policy, a so- American leader since 1945, Trump’s first otherwise “manage competition from a position

11 National Security Strategy, 2015, 24. See also National Security Strategy 2006, 40–42. 6 For such discussions, see G. John Ikenberry, After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Rebuilding of Order After Major Wars (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001); G. John Ikenberry and Anne-Marie Slaughter, eds., Forging a World of Liberty Under Law: U.S. 12 National Security Strategy, 2006, 42; National Security Strategy 2015, 24. National Security in the 21st Century: Final Report of the Princeton Project on National Security (Princeton: Woodrow Wilson School of Public and 13 National Security Strategy, 2017, 27. International Affairs, Princeton University, 2006). 14 National Security Strategy, 2017, 39. 7 Patrick Porter, “Why America’s Grand Strategy Has Not Changed: Power, Habit and the Foreign Policy Establishment,” International Security (forthcoming). 15 The White House, The National Security Strategy of the United States, September 2002, 6, https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/ nsc/nss/2002/. 8 National Security Strategy, 2017, 4, 40, 46–49. 16 National Security Strategy, 2006, 8-10; National Security Strategy 2015, 9-10. 9 The White House, The National Security Strategy of the United States, March 2006, 35, https://www.state.gov/documents/ organization/64884.pdf; The White House, The National Security Strategy of the United States, February 2015, 2, https://obamawhitehouse. 17 Thomas Wright, “Trump’s 19th Century Foreign Policy,” Politico, Jan. 20, 2016, https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/01/donald- archives.gov/sites/default/files/docs/2015_national_security_strategy_2.pdf. trump-foreign-policy-213546?o=2. 10 Eric S. Edelman, “The Strange Career of the 1992 Defense Planning Guidance,” in In Uncertain Times: American Foreign Policy After the Berlin 18 Eliot Cohen, “Trump is Ending the American Era,” The Atlantic, Oct. 20, 2016, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/10/is- Wall and 9/11, ed. Melvyn P. Leffler and Jeffrey Legro (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2011), 63–77. trump-ending-the-american-era/537888. 142 Roundtable 143

called “Fortress America” approach “that would Trump’s foreign policy statements during the position), the authors suggest that the solution critics also suggests a more worrying trend: that actively roll back the post-war international campaign. In response to articles attempting to is to “reclaim” realism. They would do this by members of the foreign policy consensus and order and feature heavy doses of unilateralism label Trump’s nationalist pronouncements as taking realism’s core precepts and adding those backers of the Trump administration may make and latter-day isolationism.”19 realist, both Stephen Walt and Robert Kaplan — of liberal internationalism — from the necessity common cause to sustain the primacist core of Yet the Trump administration has not gone analysts not known for their agreement on any of American global leadership to maintaining U.S. grand strategy at a time when Americans are down this road, in either practice or the new issue — argued the same thing. In essence, each U.S. alliances and spreading of American values.25 clamoring for a forthright foreign policy debate. National Security Strategy. Again, the document said, “I’m a realist, and Trump doesn’t represent In the same way as this approach seeks to As Brands argues, perhaps policymakers should embraces America’s global alliances, noting that my foreign policy views.” appropriate the term realism and reallocate it to make “an effort to minimize the most costly and “allies and partners are a great strength of the the authors’ favored policy packages, the Trump frustrating aspects of American internationalism United States,” and promising to “encourage administration’s National Security Strategy in order to sustain the broader tradition” of aspiring partners.”20 In contrast to the idea of uses the term “principled realism” to disguise intensive American global engagement and embracing authoritarian states, it pushes back its hodge-podge of contradictory ideas and efforts to structure international security on on them strongly through repeated statements impulses. American terms. The National Security Strategy such as “China and Russia want to shape a world Indeed, perhaps ironically, the document bears appears comfortable with a similar course, antithetical to U.S. values and interests.” Indeed, the strongest resemblance to the approaches questioning long-running economic policy while the language in the document is so stark on this favored by some of Trump’s critics. After advocating a muscular and unilateral approach point that Russia and China have condemned it criticizing “Fortress America,” for example, to U.S. primacy. In many ways, Trump’s liberal as “imperial” and a “victory for hardliners.”21 Brands goes on to suggest an alternative, which international critics are getting almost everything Even on trade, where the document perhaps he describes as either a “better nationalism” or they could want in this strategy. makes the biggest divergence from prior “internationalism with a nationalist accent.”26 policy approaches, it doesn’t come close to This alternative includes a tougher approach to the dystopian visions critics have predicted. China, renegotiation of existing trade agreements Is there Hope for a Realist The document strongly supports the existing like NAFTA, reaffirmed alliance commitments, Grand Strategy? global trade regime, though it does promise Despite its use of the term, however, the new a strong military buildup, and intensified anti- to crack down on “cheating” countries which National Security Strategy includes few policies terror campaigns — each of which is in the new Of course, it is fair to question whether the “adhere selectively to the rules and agreements” that are recognizably realist as understood by National Security Strategy. National Security Strategy reflects Trump’s own of free trade.22 Though the document suggests scholars or savvy practitioners. Although it Likewise, Wright argues that his proposed views, and whether it will be put into practice. the potential to “modernize” existing trade promises pragmatism, the strategy commits grand strategy of “responsible competition” is Tellingly, the president’s speech accompanying agreements, it offers no specifics, instead pledges to advance American values and deny “the not compatible with the Trump administration’s the release of the National Security Strategy emphasizing domestic economic policies such benefits of our free and prosperous community to views.27 Yet responsible competition is a strategy was notably different from the text. He spent as infrastructure investment. By any reasonable repressive regimes and human rights abusers.”24 that “preserves a liberal international order” much of his time criticizing his predecessors standard, this is a change of degree, not of type. It provides prominent placement to relatively while acknowledging “the adversarial and zero- and calling for increased spending by NATO Yet, just as the National Security Strategy minor threats like terrorism and transnational sum nature characterizing relations with rival allies; he did not echo the document’s criticisms does not actually reflect the predictions of crime, and maintains America’s commitments to powers,” and avoiding major conflict. This of China or Russia.28 Yet in its broad strokes, Trump’s critics, neither does it appear to be conflicts in Afghanistan and elsewhere despite sounds remarkably similar to the National the strategy mirrors the actions that the Trump realist in any true sense of the word. Certainly, criticism of those conflicts as expensive side- Security Strategy’s emphasis on combating administration has taken during its first year: the document claims to advance a strategy of shows by most realist analysts. And it again powers like China and Russia, adversaries “adept complain about allies, suggest cozying up to “principled realism,” suggesting aspirations for perpetuates the idea of safe havens, arguing that at operating below the threshold of open military Russia or China, and criticize America’s wars the level-headed strategic calculations of a Henry fragile states pose security threats — a claim conflict.” Elsewhere, Wright emphasizes the in the Middle East, while actually pursuing Kissinger or George H.W. Bush. Yet realism as a that most realists see as a myth. nuclear threat posed by North Korea, and the a conventional foreign policy and dialing up concept has always been promiscuously used by In some ways, the document’s evocation of need for increased military involvement in the America’s foreign commitments. Trump’s experts in order to give their opinion gravitas realism is reminiscent of an argument made Middle East — both of which are championed by rhetoric has never truly matched his actions.29 — or as a slur. As Kissinger himself once noted, recently in Commentary by some of Trump’s the Trump administration. Undoubtedly, there And, regardless of the rhetoric, the president “the United States is probably the only country most fervent critics, Peter Feaver and Hal Brands. are differences between these strategies, but has accepted this strategy and put his name in which ‘realist’ can be used as a pejorative In arguing that realism has lost its way (and that there is more that unites them than divides them. on it. If this is a case of advisors like Secretary epithet.”23 Look no further than reactions to Trump himself advocates a variant of a realist This common ground between Trump and his of Defense James Mattis or National Security

25 Hal Brands and Peter Feaver, “Saving Realism from the So-Called Realists,” Commentary, Aug. 14, 2017, https://www.commentarymagazine. 19 Hal Brands, “US Grand Strategy in an Age of Nationalism: Fortress America and its Alternatives,” Washington Quarterly (Spring 2017): 74. com/articles/saving-realism-called-realists/. 20 National Security Strategy, 2017, 37–38. 26 Brands, “Strategy in an Age of Nationalism”: 83. See also Hal Brands, American Grand Strategy in the Age of Trump (Washington, D.C.: 21 “China Reacts to Trump’s National Security Strategy,” CBS News, Dec. 19, 2017, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-china-national- Brookings Institution Press, 2017). security-strategy-victory-hardliners-us-isolationism/; “Russia blasts Trump’s “imperial” national security strategy,” CBS News, Dec. 19, 2017, https:// 27 Thomas Wright, All Measures Short of War: The Contest for the Twenty-First Century and the Future of American Power (New Haven: Yale www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-donald-trump-imperial-national-security-strategy/. University Press, 2017), 227. 22 National Security Strategy, 2017, 17. 28 “Remarks by President Trump on the Administration’s National Security Strategy,” White House (website), Dec. 18, 2017, https://www. 23 Henry Kissinger, “Implementing Bush’s Vision,” Washington Post, May 16, 2005, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-administrations-national-security-strategy/. article/2005/05/15/AR2005051500811.html. 29 For illustration, see Joshua R. Itzkowitz Shifrinson, “Trump and NATO: Old Wine in Gold Bottles?” H-Diplo/ISSF Policy Series, Sept. 29, 2017, 24 National Security Strategy, 2017, 42. 2017, https://issforum.org/roundtables/policy/1-5ba-nato. 144 Roundtable 145

Advisor H.R. McMaster “managing up,” conflicts might spin out of control; that local then they have been remarkably successful competitions may allow a state such as China or in reshaping the president’s foreign policy Russia to establish regional hegemony; or that instincts, and maintaining the broad strokes of local actors may fail to address problems such American primacy as a strategy. as terrorism. These are reasonable concerns. Yet, if Trump and his advisers have sought the Even then, however, a truly realist grand realist imprimatur without actually embracing strategy would still ask the extent to which realist precepts, the question stands: What American activism is needed to address these would a realist national security strategy entail? problems. Depending on the circumstance, It is not primacy. As even the most hard-bitten some form of American action may be needed, whether combat power, diplomacy, or economic engagement. Nevertheless, it would not mandate the extensive efforts to manage all global affairs at significant cost and risk that the post-Cold War consensus calls for and the Trump administration endorses. Advocates of the foreign policy consensus have been rightly critical of many aspects of the Trump administration, from his odious and xenophobic views of immigrants to realists focused on power-seeking acknowledge, his tendency to pick fights on . Trump pursuing primacy in global affairs is a recipe himself is a poor spokesperson for U.S. foreign for international opposition and overreach.30 policy. His impulsiveness and self-absorption Indeed, realism as a body of knowledge are likely to undermine foreign policy underscores the often self-defeating nature of implementation throughout his term in office. power and the risks of actively seeking security Yet their criticisms of Trump’s foreign policy in an uncertain world. are misleading. The new National Security Any realist strategy would therefore start from Strategy is far closer to the primacy-based the point noted earlier in this paper, namely, strategy favored by these critics than to any that the United States is extremely secure. From recognizably realist strategy. Both Trump and there, the question becomes, how does seeking his critics call for the United States to play an more power and more security in the world help, outsize role in global affairs because they see and what are we giving up or squandering in the the world as dangerous, and believe American process? For many realists, the answer is simple: activism increases our power and influence. a restrained grand strategy focused largely on Ultimately, Trump’s critics should be thrilled. preventing a peer competitor such as China They are getting almost everything they want. from establishing dominance overseas, while reinforcing quiet tools of cooperation with local Emma Ashford is a Research Fellow in Foreign actors to address regional conflicts, terrorism, Policy Studies at the Cato Institute. Follow her on and other such security problems. Without Twitter @emmamashford. locally powerful actors poised to dominate their regions, and with actors incentivized Joshua R. Itzkowitz Shifrinson is an Assistant to address local problems in way conducive Professor of International Affairs with the Bush to U.S. interests, the United States can be far School of Government at Texas A&M University. more relaxed in world affairs. Restraint — as His book, Rising Titans, Falling Giants: How Great opposed to the classic formulation of primacy Powers Exploit Power Shifts is being published in or the Frankenstein version of it found in the 2018 with Cornell University Press. new strategy — has much to commend it. Still, not all analysts accept that the global status quo is truly stable. Some argue that local

30 For the most forthright argument, see the conclusion to John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: Norton, 2001). 146 Roundtable 147