Thinking more about Peter Zeihan’s books - The Accidental
Superpower (2014), The Absent Superpower (2017), and Disunited
Nations (2020) - I find persuasive his narrative, that the global order
founded at the Bretton Woods conference in 1944 no longer serves US interests
since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, and hence the US voting public is
no longer willing to pay the price (outsourced jobs and industries, casualties
in overseas wars, massive foreign aid, etc) to support that order. I find it
more persuasive than the major alternatives on offer, most of which argue in
essence for replacing the Soviet menace with a hypothetical Chinese and/or Russian
menace and continuing much the same policies we have followed for the past 75
years, reflecting the inertia and groupthink of the Washington foreign policy
establishment.
I find his narrative persuasive for three reasons: (1) he
backs up his arguments with extensive historical, geographical, economic,
military and demographic data, (2) most of the other major geopolitical
strategists I follow seem to more or less agree with him, and (3) world events
thus far seem to be confirming his predictions.
Given that narrative, the next obvious question is this:
just what foreign policy should the U.S. follow in this new world environment,
in which the world has reverted to more traditional Hobbsian power politics
driven by national interests? It is
notable that none of the Democratic presidential contenders for the 2020 election
had much if anything to say about foreign policy. They are all tightly focused on
domestic issues. If one looks at Joe Biden’s foreign policy positions on his
website, they are fairly thin – a little focus on China, some boilerplate on
global warming and not much else. Presumably if he wins he will bring back much
of the Obama-era neoliberal consensus on globalization and internationalist
interventionism (ie – the US as the world’s policeman). Zeihan may be right
that President Trump, for all his many faults, will be the most
internationalist president we will see for the next decade or so, as the nation
turns inward and even somewhat isolationist.
Thinking about the problem, I can think immediately of four key
objectives:
1. Maintain naval control
of the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean. These two oceans are (a) the moats that
protect the U.S. from foreign invasion, and (b) the key trade routes to some of
our major trading partners (Britain, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Australia).
This implies continuing to invest in maintaining and upgrading our naval forces
to adapt to the growing threat of long-range precision weapons. It also implies
investing in control of space, since long-range precision weapons need accurate
targeting information to be effective, and that is best acquired from space. The
current administration is moving forward on both of these initiatives, though bureaucratic
inertia and Congressional fickleness are slowing the effort. It is unclear whether
a Biden administration would continue to fund these initiatives adequately.
2. Require Europe to take up more of the costs of its own
defense. Since the end of World War II the US has provided a significant
proportion of the defense of Europe against the Soviet Union, and born a
significant portion of the costs and risks. But Europe actually has as large a GDP
as the US, so it ought to be paying for its own defense, especially now that
the Soviet threat is gone (the Russian threat is much smaller). The current administration
has pressed that issue more forcefully than previous administrations, with some
results. Again, it is unclear what a Biden administration might do.
3. Re-establish key domestic industries that have been
destroyed by overseas outsourcing under globalization. The CORVID-19 pandemic
has made it painfully obvious that overseas supply chains are highly vulnerable
to disruption. For example, the US currently depends on overseas supply chains
for 95% of its antibiotics, 77% of its steel, 40% of its aluminum, 95% of rare
earths, and 80% of its integrated circuits. Rebuilding such industries
domestically both reduces our vulnerability and addresses the political
problems posed by putting so many US workers out of jobs through outsourcing.
The current administration has talked a great deal about this, and even made a
few minor symbolic steps toward encouraging such retrenchment. Whether a Biden
administration would do anything effective to foster the return of production
to the US is unclear.
4. Abandon the neoliberal international interventionist
model, in which the U.S attempts to impose American ideals at the point of a
gun on any international problem that the U.S. media happens to focus on. Follow
instead the highly successful British (and Roman) model of empire. Maintain
balances of power in key regions of the world, so that no coalition of forces
arises powerful enough to pose an existential threat to the U.S. Avoid putting
U.S. troops on the ground unless absolutely necessary, and then only for
limited, clearly-defined objectives (see the Colin Powell doctrine). Rely
instead on supporting allies to maintain the balance of power in their own neighborhoods.
In particular, avoid getting financially
destroyed by getting over-extended, which has been the downfall of many empires.
The Obama administration began this in the Middle East and the current
administration has continued it (support Turkey, Israel and Saudi Arabia to counterbalance
Iran), and the current administration has begun the same thing in Southeast
Asia (the Quads initiative – Japan, Australia and India to counterbalance
China). One presumes even a neoliberal resurgence under Biden would continue
these efforts.
No doubt there are a few other key objectives we ought to be
thinking about, and the reader can ponder that question.
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