Readers » USA

« back to Conference reader: USA

Hard choices
Michael O'Hanlon

There is an understandable desire, both on the part of the new Obama administration and on the part of many European governments, to demonstrate through both rhetoric and action that the Bush era is definitively over. This is particularly true when it comes to questions over the use of force as an instrument for managing global order. The Bush administration upset many critics both at home and abroad with its tendency to use force frequently and relatively unilaterally. The most vociferous criticism came from Europe, where governments have long advocated the need to put less emphasis on military force and more on "soft power". This difference in outlook put unprecedented strain on the transatlantic relationship at a time of shifting global power dynamics, when the US and Europe needed each other's support more than ever. Aware of the need to rebuild the transatlantic relationship, President Obama has self-consciously adopted a different approach that focuses on engagement and consultation.   

The change in emphasis is a welcome and necessary corrective to the excesses of the Bush years.  But as Obama himself has admitted, albeit in fairly soft tones, the new American approach will not eliminate the hard choices that both US and allied policymakers will have to make about the use of force. The maintenance of global order will unfortunately continue to require the threat of force, and, if history is any guide, the use of force as well, including by the Obama administration. In the coming years, the United States will need to consider, sometimes threaten, and in rare cases actually make use of force (ideally as part of a coalition, and ideally in missions approved by the UN Security Council). This, however, does not mean that the US will be isolated in its thinking in the coming years. On the contrary, if one looks ahead at ten of the most plausible and revealing international crises Obama may face in his first term in office, it is difficult to see how any major power, let alone Europe, would disagree with the United States over the use of force in each of these instances.

1. Iraq 2003
To understand why the US and its European partners are not destined to disagree, consider a historical case. Imagine that Mr. Obama (or Mr. Gore) had been president in 2003 when the most controversial US decision of the post-Vietnam era on the use of force was made. It is fairly clear that they would not have made the same decision as Bush. Consider also that only four EU states opposed the war, while fourteen actively supported it (and participated to varying degrees).  The point is that what looks in retrospect like a transatlantic divide over the use of force was actually a divide within both the United States and Europe over the appropriate response to Iraq.  A dispute across the Atlantic was not inevitable, but rather the result of a particular set of political circumstances in both the United States and Europe.  

2. Afghanistan
Obama's new strategy on Afghanistan emphasises a comprehensive civilian-military strategy and hints at using engagement and reconciliation with some elements of the insurgency.  But at its heart, the strategy recognises that a prerequisite for stability and development in Afghanistan is the imposition of a monopoly over the legitimate use of violence.  It therefore proposes to deploy 21,000 new US troops and some thousands of forces from other nations to establish that monopoly through decidedly forceful means.  Few Europeans are interested in adding troops to support the strategy - but that is not because they disagree with the strategy in the sense of believing that it is an unwise approach to the problem before us.  Some intellectuals may rail against the supposed militarisation of policy, but in fact, other countries tend to recognise the policy as basically correct even though they have little interest in contributing troops themselves (of course, this is not to trivialise the importance of the non-US NATO contingent of 30,000 troops currently in Afghanistan). Indeed, that view extends beyond Europe even to Russia, China, and India; Russia, for example, appears to be quietly cooperating in a northern logistics route that helps deliver needed military supplies to the Afghanistan mission.  As is so often the case, especially within NATO, this is a burden-sharing issue which disguises itself as a fight over principles.  Indeed, the new Afghanistan strategy amounts to a repudiation of Rumsfeld's "light footprint" and is a variant on the philosophy that characterised successful NATO stabilisation missions in the Balkans - so it is not surprising that European allies tend to agree with the logic.

3. Iraq 2009
Iraq today is a similar case. Iraq remains by far the biggest western military operation in the world and the use of US troops remains critical to maintaining the brittle stability that exists there. Of course, the echoes of the 2002/2003 debates and the later military debacles remain. As a result, most Europeans have little interest in directly supporting US efforts there through troop contributions in Iraq, which is legitimate and fair.  But there is no clamouring for Americans to come home from Iraq immediately, either from Europe, from within the region, or from any other part of the international community.  Indeed, it would be surprising to hear such demands at any serious level of volume, since the Iraqi government itself is a full partner in the status of forces agreement and the envisioned US withdrawal schedule over the next two and a half years.

4. Iran
Iran's nuclear programme presents itself as another looming challenge. Here the point is not that we agree that force must be used.  To the contrary, it is that we do not support such an option, either in Europe or in America.  It seems clear that an Obama administration will simply not, under any plausible circumstances, use military force against Iran's nuclear facilities.  This would amount in effect to a revival of Bush's "preemption doctrine", and whatever the merits of such a potential decision, in the end Obama will be put off by the degree to which such an action would associate him with the Bush administration. Again, there is no fundamental chasm between Europe and the United States here (except perhaps in the case of those Europeans, and perhaps some Russians and Chinese too, who quietly wish that the United States would in fact preempt Iran and solve that problem for them while absorbing most of the consequences itself).

5. Israel-Palestine
This most intractable of Middle East problems presents a similar story. Much to their credit, European partners and allies are already committed to helping to stabilise the region through the presence of military forces in southern Lebanon. It is certainly plausible that a similar effort might be relevant and helpful with regard to the West Bank or Gaza at some point in the future. In that case, there would be little question of a divide within the international community or between the US and Europe.  Depending on the views of the parties on the ground, the US and Europe, as well as other partners would enthusiastically contribute resources - even at some risk to their troops from would-be spoilers of the process.

6. Africa
The United States has a fairly bad track record in Africa; Europe's record is perhaps slightly better but still mediocre. In the event of another genocide there, the international community would face tremendous pressure to respond.  Indeed, even without a new crisis, the United States may try to be more helpful by indirectly supporting missions in Congo and Darfur now. Here again, any dispute over how to respond to Congo, Darfur, or an emerging crisis would not be over whether it was appropriate to use force, but rather over who should bear the burden of providing that force.  Most likely, the list of respective military contributions will begin with African nations themselves, then involve south Asians and perhaps Latin American countries, then extend to Europe - with the United States helping only modestly, and the likes of Russia, China, and other east Asian states doing little to nothing in the military sphere.  But again, even the latter are unlikely to object to the use of force for responding to genocides or for peacekeeping in Congo, Darfur or other crisis in Africa.

7. North Korea
Moving to the other side of the world, the seventh case is a collapsing North Korea, a scenario that appears more likely than ever.  In the event of such a conflict, Europe might seek to do as little as possible, hoping that the United States and the Republic of Korea could handle the challenge.  But there would, in such a situation, be no alternative to a major effort to help stabilise the country, feed its refugees, secure its nuclear weapons, and prevent spillover of the conflict into the Republic of Korea.  The notion that there could be a plausible alternative to a major exercise of the military instruments is mistaken.  Even if that exercise involved only the United States and the Republic of Korea, the notion that it would cause a heated international argument over the legitimacy of the use of force seems far-fetched.  The harder questions will centre on how to involve, and coordinate with, China given its strategic interests in the region - rather than philosophical debates with Europeans about the basic utility of force in such situations.

8. Russia and its neighbours
Another likely scenario is a crisis between Russia and one of its smaller neighbours, reminiscent of last summer's Georgia conflict.  Much has been made about the divergent US-European approach toward Russia during the Georgia crisis.  But even during the Bush administration, there was little consideration in the United States of responding to such a crisis with military force.  Under Obama, it is even more doubtful that the United States would want to respond to such a conflict with military force - and quite difficult for it to do so without active European support, given the geography.  So the likelihood of a major transatlantic disagreement would be limited.

9. The Indo-Pakistani border
The nightmare scenario of an Indo-Pakistani war with the risk of nuclear escalation also needs to be considered.  Neither Europe nor the United States nor anyone else has the means to respond quickly to stem such a war with force.  Yet all would have to do their utmost to help keep the peace if and when a ceasefire could be negotiated, perhaps even deploying peacekeeping troops to contested regions. The interest in this case would be clear and the utility of force fairly obvious, though there would certainly be the usual disputes over how to spread the burdens.

10. Pakistan
The final and most worrying scenario is the collapse of Pakistan itself. Yet neither the US nor any other major power is likely to believe it has a military option to prevent such a collapse. If Pakistan does fall apart, and its nuclear weapons are no longer fully secure, every state that could imagine itself a target of al Qaeda or related terrorists - certainly both the United States and most of Europe, as well as Russia - will likely feel an acute need to help re-secure them in whatever way is feasible.  Securing such weapons might require the use of military forces, most likely as an international coalition acting in conjunction with whatever is left of Pakistan's own armed forces. 

None of these scenarios are inevitable, but they are all, to varying extents, possible and demonstrate the continuing relevance of force to international politics. There are of course other scenarios that can be imagined, and perhaps some would reveal a major divergence in European and American views on the use of force. But only very few come to mind. With Iraq in the rear-view mirror, it is easy in transatlantic forums to focus on the somewhat abstract issues of international law and moral principles that might conceivably divide us.  Such divisions are real. But when measured against the situations that we might plausibly face in the world, such transatlantic disputes quickly reduce to extremely small differences.

Michael O'Hanlon is a senior fellow in foreign policy and director of research for the 21st Century Defence Initiative at the Brookings Institution