Bismarck and East Asia

February 5th, 2017

The other day I heard someone opine that it’s a crime that the US hadn’t (and wasn’t considering) going into Syria to take down President Assad.

Well, consider this:

While the focus of the US, and much of the rest of the world, has been squarely on the US elections, and ISIS, things have continued at quite a pace in East Asia. In the last 5 years China has moved aggressively into the South China Sea (through which passes some 20% of all international trade), claiming it as their own. Meanwhile, China continues expanding its army, navy and air force.

Elsewhere, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia have drifted away from the US and towards China, a result of both neglect on the part of the US during the same 5 years, and the muscular foreign policy of China.

And, North Korea appears to be on the verge of producing both an intercontinental ballistic missile and a nuclear weapon to fit atop that missile.

A rising, expansive power, with a centralized government and few of the restraints found in a western democracy, has been extending its reach, and a new nuclear power has emerged, while the US has been focused elsewhere.

The question is: What next?

Almost to a certainty there will be confrontations between the US (and certain key allies, Japan and the Republic of Korea) and China. And North Korea. Whether those confrontations are violent, and whether they escalate, is the real question. Our goal, quite obviously, is to keep these confrontations as peaceful as possible and where that isn’t possible, to limit the escalation. And to make sure that, in the end, US aims are achieved.

But in getting there, we need to remember something…

Despite how morally superior we might want to sound, it’s critical in the nuclear age that we recognize that every nation will, and must, weigh the cost of survival against the cost of its other interests.

Any planning must first be bounded by the knowledge that potential enemies have nuclear weapons. It’s for that reason that our nuclear force must be modernized and kept ready, to ensure that any possible enemy understands that our nuclear forces are credible and that they can’t resort to the use of nuclear weapons without paying too high a price. A modern, ready nuclear force therefore acts as a bar to crossing that nuclear threshold.

But long before we get to any nuclear threshold, we as a nation need to consider other thresholds.

Ask yourself this “simple” question: how many American lives would you be willing to trade for peace in Syria? 400,000 Syrians have now died in their civil war. Would you be willing to send in the Marines to bring peace to that country? If so, how many dead Marines would be too many?

That’s not an easy question, and there are no easy answers.

Otto von Bismarck, the foreign minister of Prussia 1862 - 1890 (and chancellor of Germany 1871 - 1890) is reputed to have said, as to the question of Germany getting involved in the Balkans: "the whole of the Balkans is not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier."

Bismarck had orchestrated the War of German Unification, the Austro-Prussian War and the Franco-Prussian War. He was an exceptional strategist, probably the best in two centuries, and he understood costs and national interests. He was willing to expend assets – and lives – in defense of those interests. But only in defense of those interests. He understood Germany’s national interests, and he knew where those interests ended.

It’s in this sense that the US must be judicious in where it applies effort, where it commits forces, where it draws “red lines,” and where it lets others do what they will.

SecDef Mattis understands this calculus, he understands US interests, and he understands our approach to China needs to be well thought out and deliberate. 

But there seem to be a fair number of folks who think the US should be rushing here, there and everywhere to defend some other set of interests, the “common interests of mankind” or some such thing. They need to ask themselves exactly what price they’re willing to pay, particularly with other peoples’ lives.