An American foreign and military policy for the next decade

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I do not often write about foreign policy in this Substack column. This is partly due to my lower levels of expertise in that domain but also my lower levels of interest in the topic.

A few readers have asked me about what a Progress-based American foreign policy would be. Presumably, this would be the foreign policy twin to my Manifesto for the Progress-based Perspective.

To be frank, I am not quite sure how to answer that question because:

1. There is a very real trade-offs between devoting resources to domestic material progress and resources devoted to foreign and military policy.
   A maximalist approach to one leads to fewer resources in the other. I think that it is perfectly reasonable for the American government to focus on domestic progress even if it does not maximize equivalent progress abroad.

2. Having said that, I strongly believe that a strong American economy is the best foreign and military policy. This has been the “secret sauce” of American foreign policy for 250 years. It is not due to any particular wisdom that the American foreign policy establishment possesses.
   Largely without even realizing it, American history has leveraged the following into military power that can then be used at the discretion of the President in a crisis:

   1. Geographical isolation from Eurasian powers. This means that few threats are truly existential.

   2. Hegemony over the New World, enforced by the Monroe Doctrine.

   3. Geographical foundations for transformative economic and demographic expansion.

   4. Colonial immigration from Commercial societies.

   5. A governing system based on a Constitutional Federal Republic.

   6. Virtually free land to the West

   7. A fantastically innovative economic system.

   8. Immigration from around the world that increased American demographic power.

3. Despite what the media and foreign policy pundits state, foreign policy is far more reactive than proactive.
   Few American Presidents have had a real Grand Strategy for their administration. Typically, Presidents want to focus on domestic issues but are reluctantly dragged into foreign crises due to the actions of foreign nations. Presidents then apply their predisposed views to solving that one specific crisis before moving on to the next crisis.
   So American Grand Strategy evolves; it is not promulgated.

4. American Presidential candidates spend most of their time criticizing the sitting President for his haphazard foreign policy and then largely copy those same policies after being elected. Very few American Presidential candidates campaign based on a new Grand Strategy for foreign policy and then actually implemented it.
   So different foreign policy strategies often lead to the same place.

5. It is very difficult to predict which foreign policy crisis will occur within the next decade. For example, in 2001 the GW Bush administration had a Grand Strategy of containing China and then spent the entire next 8 years fighting Islamic terrorists, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

Competing theories in International Relations

In the early 1990s, I attended a Political Science and Public PhD program at Brown University. I graduated with a PhD in 1995.

Of all the classes that I took, I was the least impressed by the International Relations course. This is not a complaint about the professor or the content of the course. I just believed (and still do) that many of these competing foreign policy theories that are the focus of the discipline are not very useful.

The endless debate of whether Realism is better than Idealism or whether Offshore Balancing is better than Liberal Internationalism or Constructivism bored me. It all seemed so, well, “academic” and isolated from the real world. Supporters of each theory seemed to be cherry-picking certain conflicts of the past to “prove” their theory correct while ignoring the broader trends.

As I mentioned before, I see American foreign policy as primarily reactive. While the United States clearly has enduring interests and values, we rarely have Presidents or Secretaries of State who have a clear foreign policy doctrine that undergirds their decisions. And despite what foreign policy academics might believe, I do not see how it can be any other way.

More importantly, a strong American economy and military give far more flexibility and leverage to American foreign policy. So, domestic policy should almost always trump foreign policy.

So, if you are expecting me to endorse one of the main theories of foreign policy, you will be disappointed with this article.

I believe that the best strategy is to identify key threats to the American nation from abroad and develop strategies for those specific military threats. Those strategies should include:

• Geography, the key factor in all conflicts

• The relative military balance of power in the region

• The relative economic balance of power in the region

• Existing and potential allies in the region

• Key American material interests at stake in the conflict

• Key American values at stake in the conflict

• Key vulnerabilities of our adversaries and allies

• Current American military capabilities and how they might be enhanced in that region

• Potential problems of having to fight multiple conflicts at the same time and the need to provide a large enough deterrence so our adversaries believe that we can do so.

The 4 primary threats

Having said all this, I can say that there are four nations that have real potential to create problems in the world and so they deserve their own containment strategy. In descending order of importance, they are:

1. China, primarily via an invasion of Taiwan or control of the South China sea.

2. Russia, primarily via invasion of the Baltic states or Poland (in addition to their ongoing invasion of Ukraine).

3. Iran, primarily via its nuclear program and sponsorship of terrorism, causing instability in the region.

4. North Korea, primarily via ICBM attack or conventional invasion of South Korea.

But don’t forget our allies

Fortunately, for each one of these threats, the United States has current or potential allies with the incentive and the ability to contain those nations without direct US military intervention before a conflict. Even better, virtually all these allies are already what one might call Liberal Democratic Capitalist societies.

Our current situation is not like previous global conflicts, where virtually every nation outside of the West was a poor authoritarian regime.

• In World War I, we needed Tsarist Russia as an ally (though we did not actually join the war until after it collapsed).

• In World War II, we needed the Soviet Union and Nationalist China as allies.
  The Soviet Union was one of the most brutal regimes in world history, but we needed an ally on the eastern front. Nationalist China was also capable of extreme brutally, including a willingness to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of its own people to defend itself against Imperial Japan.

• In the Cold War, we needed to choose between containing Communism and a willingness to support brutal authoritarian regimes in the Third World.

In general, I think that the United States made the right choices in each conflict, although I can fully understand why foreign policy critics do not like every one of those choices. Now we typically do not need to make those difficult choices between our interests and our values.

Against China, we have clear allies in Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Vietnam, and India. We should probably also add Indonesia to that list. Vietnam is really the only nation that is particularly troubling from a Liberal Internationalist standpoint.

Against Russia, we have Ukraine and NATO. Ukraine and several Balkan nations have troubling corruption problems, but they are nothing that a realistic Liberal Internationalist could not accept. Sure, it might be great to have some Central Asia allies, but due to the lack of ocean access, this seems difficult for the United States to manage anyway.

Admittedly, potential Liberal Democratic Capitalist allies against Iran are pretty sparse. The Middle East is always a hornet’s nest of authoritarian regimes, and that is not likely to change in the next decade.

Despite what pro-Palestinian activists say, Israel is a shining example of a Liberal Democratic Capitalist ally. Its settlement policies are troubling, but compared to the surrounding Arab regimes, Israel is a much better path for other nations to follow. And Israel has shown a strong willingness to defend itself and counter-strike against its allies.

Against North Korea, South Korea is perfectly capable of defending itself, although its coming demographic collapse might change that in future generations.

In every case, the United States has strong Liberal Democratic Capitalist allies that want to work with us. They can easily take the lead in all those regions, with the United States playing the role of the offshore Big Bad MoFo that no one wants to antagonize.

Because of this, I do not believe that the United States needs to choose between:

• Foreign policy realism based on cold hard interests

• Defending our values abroad (i.e. liberal democratic governance, human rights, and relatively free trade).

Notice that I wrote “defending our values abroad,” instead of “expanding our values abroad.” There are already so many strong liberal democratic nations with good human rights records and a strong economy and military.

Or the global free trade system

Despite what the most enthusiastic Leftists and MAGA supporters say, the global free trade system backed by the US Navy is a key means for maintaining global peace and American prosperity. Whereas history since the invention of agriculture has been dominated by predatory empires who seek to expand their power via military conquest, the American-backed global free trade system encourages all national leaders to shift their focus towards promoting domestic economic growth. This benefits all of us, though some more than others.

Whatever short-term benefits the United States may receive from neglecting this global trade system will quickly be undone by one major conventional war with one of the four nations listed above. Even if we do not intervene immediately, the conflict might spread to other nations, eventually forcing us to intervene at a later date when the costs are much higher.

Maintaining the American-backed global free trade system is far cheaper than fighting a conventional war. Maintaining that system requires trade-offs that we would not otherwise make.

Can we defend against all four threats?

If you assume that our regional allies are willing to fight (admittedly a very big if), then I think the answer is yes. Most likely, the United States will only have to deal with one adversary at a time because those four adversary nations have not shown an ability to cooperate. All four nations are almost as distrustful of each other as they are distrustful of the United States.

So realistically, the goal should be to maintain:

1. A credible military deterrence versus each of the four individual threats

2. An ability to support a fight against one of the four without degrading our deterrence against the other three threats.

Fortunately for the US, all these conflicts are quite different so the dangers of multiple conflicts overwhelming our military capabilities are relatively low. The confrontation with China is primarily a naval and air threat off the coast of Taiwan. The confrontation with Russia is primarily a test of the NATO alliance and its willingness and ability to defend against a land invasion. The confrontation with Iran is primarily an asymmetric threat where Iran gradually gains an advantage by sponsoring terrorist attacks, particularly against Israel. The confrontation with North Korea is primarily one of a weaker nation invading a stronger nation (South Korea) out of desperation.

If we ever get to a situation where there is a true Axis (i.e. a strong and aggressive military alliance between the four powers to simultaneously aggressively attack the US and its allies), then our entire strategy must change. Such a threat would be like 1940, where the United States needed to start a massive military build-up before we are attacked.

For this article, I will assume that this is not the case, but that we will need to stay alert to the developments in that direction.

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If you are interested in this article, you should read my From Poverty to Progress book series.

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An overview of my proposed strategy

For all these reasons, I believe that an American foreign policy should be based on:

1. Strengthening the American economy.

2. Playing a supporting role to front-line allies against the four most dangerous nations: China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.

3. Maintaining the global free trade system, although adding on a low level of economic warfare against China with targeted tariffs and export control on advanced technologies, particularly microchips.

4. Preparing for a future conventional war with each of these four powers separately as a means of deterrence from those wars ever taking place.

5. Avoiding other conflicts as best as possible, or more likely, enabling our allies to deal with other foreign policy crises, so we can keep the focus on the primary threats listed above.

In other words, the United States should be a blend of what foreign policy experts call an

• “Offshore Balancing.” and

• “Liberal Internationalism,”

All while avoiding:

• Isolationism,

• Protectionism and

• Interventionism on other crises that may erupt.

I fully recognize that this is a difficult balancing act between conflicting foreign policy traditions, but I think it can be achieved if we have strong economic growth and good decision-making over the next decade (admittedly a big if).

Let’s get into the details

This article is already getting long, so I will not go into great detail on the actual components of implementing this strategy. Again, my expertise in this domain is not as much as in domestic policy.

So here is a rough sketch of my proposed American foreign policy for the next decade:

1. Prioritize domestic policy, especially:

   1. Promoting long-term widely shared economic growth

   2. Promoting upward mobility for the working class and poor.

2. Focus military policy reforms on:

   1. Eliminating DEI from the military, which is sabotaging the confidence and effectiveness of the military

   2. Building a large fleet of cost-effective long-range air/ground-launched anti-ship missiles and their delivery platforms to deter Chinese invasion of Taiwan (see below).

   3. Building surge capacity of military contractors, particularly ammunition manufacturers. This is to give a plausible deterrence against World War III.

   4. Adding manufacturing surge capacity as a criterion for all future military contracts.

   5. Changing recruiting policy to emphasize the military as a hard life that only high achievers can handle. We need to recruit warriors not social justice warriors.

   6. Return to previous fitness standards for all combat positions. Maybe non-combat desk jobs can maintain lower fitness standards and keep separate gender requirements.

   7. Increase pay for NCOs and warrant officers to retain the most experienced front-line leaders.

3. Tie continued federal aid to schools to the establishment of strenuous physical fitness programs in K-12 schools to prepare the next generation. Right now, the primary problem with recruiting is a lack of physical fitness. This will also lead to huge health benefits for civilians in future generations.

4. Maintain a dominant US Navy to secure the global free trade system. This will encourage all nations to focus on promoting economic growth rather than military expansion.

5. Contain military expansion by China, particularly deterring an invasion of Taiwan.

   1. Strengthen military alliances with Japan, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam.

   2. Increase military arms sales to Taiwan, particularly anti-ship missiles, anti-air missiles, and anti-drone defenses.

   3. Conduct a low level of economic warfare against China with targeted tariffs and export controls on advanced technologies, particularly microchips

   4. Build a large stock of cost-effective long-range air-launched anti-ship missiles and their delivery platforms, including:

      1. LRASM-ER, a long range anti-ship missile

      2. MACE, a low-version of LRASM-ER that can be manufactured rapidly in case of war.

      3. Rapid Dragon, an extremely cost-effective means to deploy dozens of LRASM-ER and MACE via cargo planes.

      4. AIM-174B, a new long-range air-to-air missile.

   5. Reconstruct a chain of military bases in the Western and Central Pacific to guarantee the survival of the military supply chain to Taiwan after a surprise first strike by China. This largely consists of rebuilding old WWII-era air and naval bases in the Central and Western Pacific to create redundancy for existing bases in Okinawa and Guam. The more redundancy, the lower the incentives of China to engage a Pearl Harbor-like surprise attack on US military forces in Okinawa and Guam.

6. Encourage Europe via carrots and sticks to:

   1. Increase their ground-based military capabilities of armies to deter Russian expansion into NATO's eastern flank.

   2. Reinstate universal male conscription in front-line states bordering Russia based on the Finnish model.

   3. Provide for their own energy security by ending domestic prohibitions on fracking and fossil fuels exploration, distribution and production.

   4. In return for the implementation of the above policies, the United States promised to:

      1. Encourage the American shale gas industry to explore and test drill on European soil.

      2. Allow exportation of LNG (Liquified Natural Gas) to Europe as an energy bridge to expanded domestic gas and nuclear electrical generation.

7. Rollback Iranian proxies in the Middle East by:

   1. Declaring that Iran will be held accountable for eliminating terrorist attacks by Hamas and all Shiite organizations.

   2. In retaliation for future terrorist attacks, give Israel diplomatic cover and logistical support for direct Israeli military strikes on:

      1. Iran’s nuclear installations

      2. Iran’s air defense and naval bases

      3. terrorist facilities anywhere in the Middle East.

   3. Support the peace process between Israel, Saudi Arabia, and other Arab nations to further isolate Iran in the region.

8. Support South Korean defense against North Korea. Maintain a credible American military deterrence in South Korea.

What does victory look like

Victory looks an awful lot like the current state but with a richer American economy and no war in Ukraine. Though I think it is fair to say that we have already entered Cold War 2.0, I am fairly confident that it will be quicker and far less violent than the first Cold War.

Notice that except for Iran, a stalemate is a victory for American foreign policy objectives. This greatly increases the odds of success.

With the proper American foreign and military strategy, the world could look very similar to today, except that we are all richer and wondering why there was ever a confrontation to begin with.

Going too far toward either Isolationism or aggressive promotion of values overseas could, however, result in a much more violent world. World War III and nuclear exchange is not impossible, and not following my proposed policy makes it more likely.

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If you are interested in this article, you should read my From Poverty to Progress book series.

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