Shawn P. Creamer
The world has not witnessed a great power general war in nearly 80 years, and for most of the last 35 years, the prospect of such a war has been considered remote by most government officials. Today, however, there is a growing unease over the trajectory of global peace and security. A broad consensus is emerging in the United States and among other free world capitals that the revisionist ambitions of autocratic states—China, Russia, North Korea, a weakened but still dangerous Iran, Pakistan, and others—through their armament programs, coercive diplomacy, and aggression, may eventually compel Western powers, including Western-aligned Asian states such as Japan and South Korea, into a large-scale war.
The next National Defense Strategy must acknowledge the existential nature of this threat and commit to the aggressive rearmament of American military power—both qualitatively and quantitatively—to deter, and if necessary, win a multi-theater large-scale war against one or more of the authoritarian powers. This will require more than marginal force adjustments; it demands a systemic shift in U.S. defense posture, planning assumptions, strategic priorities, and allied interoperability.
Reciprocal Limits and the East-West Divide
Time will tell whether the free world’s rhetoric on rearmament and preparedness translates into a resurrection of Western military power. Regardless of how far the West progresses in rearmament and in reestablishing deterrence, the United States and its allies must revisit and modernize their thinking on thresholds in warfare. All wars, even the most violent and brutish, contain some reciprocal firebreaks, limits, or restraints on belligerent behavior. For example, all major powers during World War II refrained from using poison gas on the battlefield, despite its widespread use in World War I.
While some thresholds in warfare are broadly respected, others are unevenly observed or rejected by non-Western states. Examples of such uneven application include differing interpretations of Western-centric international humanitarian law jus ad bellum principles—such as initiating hostilities prior to a formal declaration of war and the employment of proxy forces, or jus in bello principles—including the treatment of prisoners and the subordination of collateral damage concerns in warfare. These inconsistencies are not exclusive to East-West conflicts; however, the divergence between Western values-based thresholds and the belief systems of Eastern powers is a matter of fact.
No comments:
Post a Comment