How the Ukrainian issue is changing the US national strategy. Part 2Experts told the author of the FP article how the Russian special operation in Ukraine will affect the US national strategy.
In their opinion, the conflict allowed America to create a new Atlantic-Pacific partnership, but reminded that excessive activity in the economic war can scare away the allies.
The first part of the article can be read here .Liana Fix, Robin Niblett, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Edward Alden
A new grand bargain with Europe
Author: Liana Fix, Director of the International Relations Program of the Kerber FoundationSix months after the start of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, two preliminary conclusions can be drawn regarding its impact on the strategic prospects of the United States in Europe.
The first and most obvious is the rehabilitation of NATO after what French President Emmanuel Macron called “brain death” and the transformation of the alliance into the most important organization on the European continent. The conflict in Ukraine has confirmed this role — as well as the primacy of the United States — in ensuring European security.
This is not surprising: the armed conflict at hand gives the defense alliance every reason to re-declare the meaning of its existence. What is striking is the scale of NATO's rebirth – within a few months of the start of the Russian CSR, two new members received invitations. There is growing support for the alliance among the European public and a positive attitude towards the role of the United States in European affairs.
Even more remarkable than the revival of NATO is the height of the position of the European Union. Instead of standing on the sidelines, he became a powerful brother of the alliance in the economic sphere. Within a few days after the outbreak of the conflict, the EU turned from an organization dealing with issues of economic cooperation in peacetime into an association ready and capable of waging economic war.
This partly reflects the nature of this particular conflict: since NATO and its partners are not directly involved in it, their tools are limited to military support for Ukraine and economic measures. So economic warfare is almost as important as arms supplies and intelligence support. Now economic measures are firmly rooted in the competence of the EU.
Nevertheless, economic war is an unusual thing for the European Union, because it is much more experienced in negotiating free trade agreements than in breaking off relations with major trading partners. Instead of doing the usual thing and bringing economies closer together, Brussels had to reverse the process and in many respects burn bridges between Russia and the EU.
Europe, of course, should make more efforts. Its embargo on Russian oil, which is much easier to implement than on gas, will come into force only in December. In the meantime, EU countries continue to pay huge sums for Russian energy resources. But in the medium term, the regime of Western sanctions will deprive Russia of the ability to maintain a level of economy that meets modern requirements, and, perhaps, will limit its ability to fight.
How will this affect the US national strategy? This country needs to stop limiting itself to NATO alone when assessing the strategic importance of Europe.
Until the Europeans are able to take full responsibility for their own security — and this is still a long way off, if at all realistic — their power will be limited to the economic sphere. Washington will need partners in the conflicts of the future, because China will pose both an economic problem and a security threat. Since February, the EU has proved that it can be a reliable partner even with significant costs for its own economy. This points to a grand strategic deal that combines the economic power of the EU with the military power of the United States — and will require Washington to participate more actively than it expected in European affairs.
China, of course, has moved far ahead of Russia in economic terms, and without convincing reasons, the Europeans will not be able to put ties with it in a dangerous position. Nevertheless, no one expected such a significant response from Europe to the Russian special operation, and the Chinese leadership probably noticed them. The conflict in Ukraine has taught us that the same rules apply in an economic war as in a conventional one: no action plan can provide confidence beyond the first clash.
Formation of the Atlantic-Pacific Partnership
Author: Robin Niblett, Distinguished Fellow at the Royal Institute of International RelationsIn the face of the heroic resistance of the Ukrainian people and international support for Kiev, the special operation of Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Ukraine has begun to become obsolete.
The Biden administration took this opportunity to restore the strategic position of the United States as a link between all the liberal democracies of the world.
Thanks to Beijing's decision to align itself with Moscow, Washington has created a new Atlantic-Pacific partnership. It links the obligations of the United States to ensure European security in the face of Russia's actions with obligations to Asian allies against the backdrop of China's growing belligerence.
As the presence of Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea at the Madrid NATO Summit in June showed, these countries understand that the US obligations to ensure their security require them to reciprocate support for American interests in Europe. The first ever mention of China as a clear security challenge in the NATO summit communique — despite the ongoing conflict in Europe — signaled that Europeans are aware of the need to take China's threats seriously if they want to keep the United States as a reliable ally.
Biden's team now needs to make this hemisphere-wide partnership real. It should encourage European allies, some of which have developed ambitious strategies in the Indo-Pacific region (ITR), to join regular freedom of navigation operations and military exercises in the South China Sea and adjacent territories. The allies also need to work together to preserve freedom of navigation in the Taiwan Strait, after Beijing took advantage of the August visit of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taipei and changed the military status quo throughout the region.
In addition, the G7 should invite Pacific partners to participate in their strategic dialogues, whether on issues of sanctions policy, R&D costs or critical supply chains. Together, they would gain the necessary economic mass to harmonize trade and investment standards in accordance with their values. If successful, other democratic countries may also receive an invitation to join this community.
However, first of all, the United States needs to make sure that the world will not split as a result, as it was in the twentieth century. In addition to focusing on the formation of a new Atlantic-Pacific partnership, another element of the US grand strategy should be to attract the countries of Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia and others to the next level of economic and strategic relations, as opposed to the identical efforts of China and Russia.
In the rivalry between Russia and China on the one hand, and the Atlantic-Pacific Partnership on the other, about 140 neutral countries have such power as they never possessed during the Cold War. This time, the United States and its allies should not rely on the usual approach of “whoever is not with us is against us.” The material benefits of interaction with the members of the new Atlantic-Pacific partnership should be commensurate with the responsibility of the countries regarding the realization of common interests and the efforts they are making to improve the efficiency of public administration and the protection of citizens' rights.
This strategy will require the Biden administration to develop a more inclusive approach to global leadership than his predecessors managed. For their part, the allies of the United States should cross their fingers for luck and hope that the next presidential election in the United States will not reset what has been achieved over the past six months.
Future US successes require Ukraine's victory
Author: Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Chairman of Rasmussen Global, former Secretary General of NATO and former Prime Minister of DenmarkThe Russian-Ukrainian conflict has brought back the urgency of the problem of the territorial defense of Europe.
European capitals seem to have finally shaken up after the nuclear-weapon state launched a large-scale military operation on the territory of their neighboring country. Military budgets are increasing, Finland and Sweden are preparing to become full members of NATO, the countries of the free world are helping Ukraine — all this has important implications for the strategic ambitions of the United States. As the gap between world democracies and autocracies widens, the world is entering a new round of competition and confrontation. The situation in Ukraine has shown that Washington remains the main guarantor of security in Europe, and also stressed the need to unite the democratic world in the face of aggressive autocracies.
The main strategic focus of the United States remains a reorientation to Asia and increased competition with China. A protracted conflict in Europe will make things difficult for Washington. The best way to avoid this trap is to give Ukrainians everything they need to win. Then the West will have to make sure that Russia does not attack them in the future. This is the goal of the working group on the development of security guarantees for Ukraine, which I was asked to co-chair by the President of Ukraine, Vladimir Zelensky, along with the head of his administration, Andrei Ermak. The work of the group is in full swing, but one point is already clear: the best deterrent for Russia is a militarily strong Ukraine. Therefore, the United States and its allies need to provide it with everything necessary to protect its independence in the long term. Otherwise, Russian leader Vladimir Putin will not stop in Ukraine.
Dictators around the world are closely monitoring the progress of the conflict. So far, the United States has reacted decisively and given a powerful consolidated response on behalf of all Western countries. With the approach of winter and the accompanying difficulties, this unity will be put to the test. The West must redouble its efforts to guarantee Ukraine victory both in the conflict itself and after it. Otherwise, autocrats will celebrate the victory.
Overdoing the economic war can scare away the allies
Author: Edward Alden, Foreign Policy columnist, Visiting Professor at Western Washington University and Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign RelationsFor many years, economic influence has been central to the grand strategy of the United States — but only as a weak link of American power.
Successive administrations have largely followed the prevailing principles of free trade, foreign investment and open markets, believing that with such rules, the global system will simultaneously serve the national interests of the United States and enrich most countries of the world.
But with the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the United States dropped this set of rules. Led by the Biden administration, the West has imposed tough economic sanctions against Moscow, which are likely to be in effect for years. With an eye on national security issues, Congress adopted a clearly formulated industrial policy, passing the "Chip and Science Act" to strengthen the country's potential in semiconductor manufacturing and other key sectors. The specific purpose of this policy is to reduce dependence on imports from China and other potentially hostile powers. Beijing, in turn, has redoubled efforts to achieve maximum self-sufficiency, not least to prevent any future sanctions in the event of, say, a war over Taiwan. Russia has also joined the economic struggle: It hopes to weaken Europe's support for Ukraine by cutting off gas supplies, and at a huge cost to its own economic growth.
In the event of a future economic conflict between the great Powers, the United States and its allies hope that technological dominance will provide them with a decisive advantage. But this strategy has one drawback: the rest of the world does not want to participate in an economic war. Already, most countries outside the Western Bloc have refused both to support Ukraine and to join the sanctions. Although India is moving towards rapprochement with the West in the ITR, it cannot give up cheap Russian oil. Saudi Arabia continues to cooperate with Moscow within the framework of the OPEC+ oil producers cartel, rejecting US calls to exclude it from the club. Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America are mainly focused on their own economic aspirations, the problem of food shortages and increased inflation. Indonesia has rejected Western calls to exclude Russia from the list of participants in the G20 summit, which it is hosting in November, and the presidents of Russia and China will speak at it. “The rivalry of major countries is really worrying," Indonesian President Joko Widodo told Bloomberg News. "We want to make this region peaceful and stable in order to ensure economic growth.”
Thus, for the US strategy to succeed, Washington will have to moderate its economic enthusiasm for the great powers in order to ingratiate itself with less engaged countries. President Joe Biden's July visit to Saudi Arabia to call for an increase in oil production, and his administration's unwillingness to criticize India over purchases of Russian oil are just two examples of a fragile balance. Biden also showed no signs of determination to boycott the G20 summit in protest at Putin's presence there, even though representatives of the US Treasury Department refused to participate in a preliminary meeting earlier this year.
Unlike the Cold War era, when only the West could offer significant economic advantages thanks to wealth and appropriate institutions, the United States now faces fierce competition. China and even Russia have something to offer. The former has a full set of opportunities for a large market in need of raw materials and other resources, sufficient funds for foreign investment and loans, as well as low-cost exports of manufactured goods. Russia mostly has cheap resources, and some of them, including oil and fertilizers, are vital for many developing countries. The United States and its allies will have to demonstrate the ability to apply a new focus on economic management to the immediate challenges these countries face. They can, for example, offer food aid or write off debts, as well as keep Western markets open for trade. The economic component of the new grand strategy of the United States will be successful only if it brings tangible benefits to ordinary powers.
