By Haoyan “Ken” Wang
Introduction
From 1945 to 1991, the United States was in a position of dominance and went head-to-head with the Soviet Union. After 1991, the United States dominated world politics, but it is not true anymore. With the rise of China, the United States is losing its dominance in economics due to the Belt and Road Initiative. Huawei, a Chinese technology company, was one of the first entities that successfully adopted the 5G technology before American corporations. Needless to say, the U.S.-China relationship, a long-term partnership on multiple fronts, was damaged by the Trump Presidency because of the Trade War. With the deteriorating situation in Ukraine, the U.S.-Russia relationship has been drastically declining. The sanctions on Russia certainly made things worse. With these challenges and the loss of Afghanistan, Washington desperately needs a new set of global security strategies.
Current Policy Assessments
After Afghanistan, what policymakers at the Pentagon primarily need is a new set of military strategies. When former President Donald Trump took office, he constantly pledged to end unnecessary wars, yet he continued to expand the U.S. military presence abroad. For example, when Trump wished to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, he did the exact opposite by increasing the number of troops in the region by roughly 50% (MacDonald and Parent 2020). Despite the strong presence of the U.S. military, the Taliban still gained control of the Afghan government. After decades in Afghanistan, about 6,000 Americans died, more than 100,000 Afghan civilians were killed, and more than $2 trillion in tax dollars was spent (Macias 2021). Just Afghanistan alone is costly in terms of both capital and human cost. The United States suffered a blow to its Middle East policy. The government should also consider public opinion because most of the American public has no interest in invasion and occupation (Mueller and Stewart 2021). Besides the Middle East, NATO is another key foreign policy area that Washington needs to rethink.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was established in 1949 to further a U.S.-backed security structure in Europe during the reconstruction period under former President Harry Truman’s containment foreign policy. Over time, NATO has expanded eastward, even though the Soviet Union has been dissolved for more than 30 years. NATO members are required to pay 2% of their GDP to support the organization, but only eight NATO members have kept their promises (MacDonald and Parent 2020). With the complete integration of the European Union (EU) under the Treaty of Lisbon, European countries have established their own collective defense and security structure. More importantly, there are 30 member states in NATO, 21 of which are also members of the EU (NATO 2022). Policies regarding NATO have caused tensions between the U.S. and European countries, such as Germany, over the membership fee in 2018 as well as tensions between the United States and Russia. The point is, if most members of NATO are in the EU, who have already established regional security orders and structures, there is no longer a need for a U.S.-backed security structure as there once was during the Cold War. Foreign policymakers in Washington need to recognize that and refocus military resources on other challenges.
In addition to the role of the U.S. military, foreign policies regarding China and Russia remain difficult challenges for policymakers, which Washington could resolve when diverting some of its focus on Europe. The most recent clashes between the United States and China are the Trade War and the politicization of COVID-19. The true conflict of the Trade War is the controversies over intellectual property. Trump has issued several xenophobic executive orders based not on evidence, but on paranoia, by accusing Chinese students of illegal intellectual property theft and espionage for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) (Boylan, McBeath, and Wang 2021). The administration imposed visa restrictions on Chinese students without actual evidence. To counter the U.S. suppression, China utilized the Belt and Road Initiative to push its own economic and political influence in Far East Asia by forming new partnerships and granting loans to developing countries. Regarding COVID-19, the United States lost control. Until this day, the United States performed the worst in handling it among all other major countries (Mathews 2021). Because the United States could not keep the pandemic under control, Trump decided to play the blame game by calling it the “Chinese virus” and blaming China for it, despite there being and still having no concrete evidence that suggests China is ground zero (Rogers, Jakes, and Swanson 2020). In both cases, what Trump did has damaged the previous U.S.-China relations established under the Obama administration. The Biden administration must undo what Trump did and repair U.S.-China relations.
Regarding Russia, especially given what is happening in Ukraine, the United States needs to stop using its appeasement policies. Appeasement did not work when countering German aggression, and it did not work to prevent an invasion; Washington needs to learn its lessons so tragedies in history shall not repeat again (Wang 2022). Moreover, a major part of the United States’ foreign policy is that it rushes to use economic sanctions, and the problem is sanctions rarely work effectively when used unilaterally (Mathews 2021). Although Biden joined the EU to impose sanctions on Russia, it did not prevent an invasion from happening nor help solve the Ukrainian refugee crisis. Washington needs to find new effective and immediate strategies to counter Putin’s aggression.
Policy Recommendation: Ukraine Crisis as a Priority
Regarding NATO, the European Union (EU), and the current Ukraine crisis, the United States should stop expanding NATO eastward, which allows the EU to act autonomously as a foreign policy actor under its pillar of CFSP, de-escalating the tensions in Eastern Europe.
The first attempt to create a common security policy that is independent of NATO’s security umbrella was in 1952 when the member states of the European Coal and Steel Community signed the founding treaty, creating the European Defense Community (EDC). However, the member states did not form a consensus on the EDC, and therefore, it failed. Then, in 1993, when signing the Treaty of Maastricht, member states adopted the Common Foreign and Security Policy CFSP, but they insisted on the CFSP remaining intergovernmental. Between 1952 and 1993, Europe heavily relied on NATO, namely the United States, for military support to deal with security issues. Because of the reliance, Europe failed to develop its own security agendas and a European military force to deal with conflicts.
The European Union is, by nature, a civilian organization due to its reliance on NATO and its strengths in promoting civilian norms through free trade agreements. The European Union established the legal basis to form economic relations with Ukraine in the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PAC), which set the stage for the European Neighborhood (ENP) policies in 2004 when the EU absorbed many former Soviet states (Schumylo 2009). Both the EU and NATO did not include Ukraine because it was the red line for Russia. In 2014, after the annexation of Crimea, the EU and Ukraine signed the Association Agreement, which established a deep and comprehensive free trade agreement (DCFTA) between the EU and Ukraine. By agreeing to the terms of the Association Agreement, especially regarding DCFTA, Ukraine is required to push for a series of reforms to keep its share in the EU’s internal market, forcing Ukraine to assimilate to the European values (Spiliopoulos 2014). This puts Ukraine on the track to accession to the EU.
Ukraine’s potential for accession to the EU and the EU’s interest in Ukraine, and eastern Europe in general, are a clear sign of the diverging interest between the EU and Ukraine. The divergence of interests is closely related to the divergence of preferences. On the issue of Iran, the EU heavily criticized the U.S. strike on the Iranian General Soleimani and its withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which the European countries heavily invested in and believed it was the best way to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power (Petrov, Schütte, and Vanhoonacker 2020). Undoubtedly, the EU and the U.S. have extremely different policy preferences and executions of those policies. The actions taken by the United States have constantly undermined the EU’s nature of being a civilian (non-military) institution. Specifically, the strike demonstrates the United States put military options before anything else. The strike also proves the United States has a habit to act unilaterally when necessary to achieve its desired results, whereas the EU’s insistence on JCPOA reflects the EU’s commitment to multilateralism and treaty-based approach to international politics (Demetriou 2016; Petrov, Schütte, and Vanhoonacker 2020). In many cases, besides Iran, the EU reserves to use force as the last resort (Demetriou 2016). The unilateralism from the United States meant it does not respect the authority established by the Europeans, nor did it appreciate the EU’s preference to use soft power. More importantly, the United States is often skeptical of the EU’s abilities to develop a common security and defense policy (CSDP). Although CSDP is not the same as its common foreign and security policy (CFSP), CSDP is an important part of CSFP, and there are many overlapping objectives. Despite CFSP not being supranational, the EU’s political cohesion has survived many crises, and in the case of defense, the EU created a common fund to “make procurements and provide security assistance abroad” (Bergmann and Haddad 2022). This certainly applies to the current crisis in Ukraine, where the European Union acted defensively through a series of imposed economic sanctions on Russia.
Therefore, the United States should stop expanding NATO eastward and respect the current social and political order established by the European Union. Also, the expansion of NATO is exactly the cause of current tension, as Ukraine’s membership in NATO is a red line for Russia.
References
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Macias, Natasha Turak, Abigail Ng,Amanda. 2021. “‘Intelligence Failure of the Highest Order’ — How Afghanistan Fell to the Taliban so Quickly.” CNBC. August 16, 2021. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/16/how-afghanistan-fell-to-the-taliban-so-quickly.html.
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Wang, Ken. 2022. “Lessons Yet to Be Learned: War in Ukraine.” Lessons Yet to Be Learned: War in Ukraine (blog). March 10, 2022. https://thewireuw.com/2022/03/10/lessons-yet-to-be-learned-war-in-ukraine/.