When the idea of great power competition began to gain traction with the publication of the 2017 National Security Strategy and the 2018 National Defense Strategy, it soon became clear that it was much more descriptive than prescriptive. While it accurately captured important dynamics that increasingly defined the geopolitical landscape, it did not offer a roadmap guiding the implementation of a strategy optimized for those dynamics. The challenge since then has been to transform this conceptual strategic outline into a viable strategy.
Ali Wyne’s new book, America’s Great Power Opportunity, represents a step forward in the discussions guiding that effort. How should the United States identify its principal objectives? How should it balance those objectives and make smart decisions about the tradeoffs that are inherent to strategy making? What would a strategy that is clear, cohesive, and yet calibrated to specific competitors look like vis-à-vis China and Russia? Ali joins this episode for a discussion that addresses these questions and more.
You can listen to the full episode below, and if you aren’t already subscribed to the MWI Podcast, be sure to find it on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, TuneIn, or your favorite podcast app.
Image credit: Timo Kohlenberg
Re: the current competition between (a) the U.S./the West and (b) Russia and China (etc.), one of the most clear-cut features of this such competition, this would seem to be the aspect which finds:
a. The U.S./the West, post-the Old Cold War, embracing an "achieve revolutionary change" grand strategy; that is, embracing a grand strategy which was/is designed to advance — both here at home in the U.S./the West and there abroad elsewhere — such political, economic, social and/or value changes as we consider necessary; this, so as to provide that the states and societies of the world (to include our own states and societies here in the U.S./the West) might be made to better interact with, better provide for and better benefit from such things as capitalism, globalization and the global economy. And an aspect which finds:
b. The conservative states and societies of the world (includes Russia and China?) — thus threatened — working together and/or separately — not only to contain these such unwanted "revolutionary changes" — but also to possibly "roll them back:"
From the perspective that I offer above, consider how the term "revolutionary change" is used in the following quoted items:
a. Conservative rebellion here at home in the U.S./the West — re: our such "achieve revolutionary change" post-Cold War grand strategy:
“Liberal democratic societies have, in the past few decades, undergone a series of REVOLUTIONARY CHANGES in their social and political life, which are not to the taste of all their citizens. For many of those, who might be called social conservatives, Russia has become a more agreeable society, at least in principle, than those they live in. Communist Westerners used to speak of the Soviet Union as the pioneer society of a brighter future for all. Now, the rightwing nationalists of Europe and North America admire Russia and its leader for cleaving to the past.”
(Emphasis added. See “The American Interest” article “The Reality of Russian Soft Power” by John Lloyd and Daria Litinova.)
b. Conservative rebellion there abroad re: our such post-Cold War "achieve revolutionary change" grand strategy:
“Politically, in many cases today, the counter-insurgent represents REVOLUTIONARY CHANGE, while the insurgent fights to preserve the status quo of ungoverned spaces, or to repel an occupier – a political relationship opposite to that envisaged in classical counter-insurgency. Pakistan’s campaign in Waziristan since 2003 exemplifies this. The enemy includes al-Qaeda-linked extremists and Taliban, but also local tribesmen fighting to preserve their traditional culture against twenty-first-century encroachment. The problem of weaning these fighters away from extremist sponsors, while simultaneously supporting modernisation, does somewhat resemble pacification in traditional counter-insurgency. But it also echoes colonial campaigns, and includes entirely new elements arising from the effects of globalisation.”
(Emphasis added. See David Kilcullen’s “Counterinsurgency Redux.”)
“Dhofar, El Savador and the Philippines are all campaigns driven by fundamentally conservative concerns. When we are looking to Syria right now, it is not just about maintaining order or even the regime, but about larger political change. In Afghanistan and Iraq too, we represented REVOLUTIONARY CHANGE. So, perhaps we should read Mao and Che Guevara instead of Thompson in order to find the appropriate lessons of how to achieve large-scale societal change through limited means? That is what we are after, in the end. And in this coming era, where we are pivoting away from large-scale interventions and state-building projects, but not from our fairly grand political ambitions, it may be worth exploring how insurgents do more with little; how they approach irregular warfare, and reach their objectives indirectly.”
(Emphasis added. See the Small Wars Journal article “Learning From Today’s Crisis of Counterinsurgency” — an interview by Octavian Manea of Dr. David H. Ucko and Dr. Robert Egnell.)
Bottom Line Thought — Based on the Above:
Having had their rear-ends literally handed to them in the Old Cold War of yesterday — when the Soviets/the communists, back then, adopted a "achieve revolutionary change both at home and abroad" grand strategy — now nations such as Russia and China — in consideration of the U.S./the West post-Cold War "achieve revolutionary change both at home and abroad" grand strategy — seek to return the favor.
Thus, it is largely from this such New/Reverse Cold War perspective, I suggest, that we must view the current competitive environment.
Given my New/Reverse Cold War competition thesis above, let's look at this Old Cold War example; wherein, Linda Robinson — in her 1991 New York Times article "The Sandinista Decade" — reviewed Stephen Kinzer's book "Blood of Brothers: Life and War in Nicaragua."
As we look at the following excerpt from said article, note how (a) the "achieve revolutionary change" agenda of the communists back then allowed (b) the U.S./the West to work "by, with and through" the disaffected conservatives, thereby, (1) causing a civil war in Nicaragua, which would (2) ultimately result in the communists losing power, influence and control there:
“Blood of Brothers” is a graphic account of a country torn in half over the Sandinistas’ efforts to build a new political and economic order. Early on, Mr. Kinzer saw that Sandinista policies were alienating ordinary Nicaraguans. ‘In 1983 most Nicaraguans had still not fallen to the depths of deprivation and despair which they would reach in later years, but many were already unhappy and restive. . . . When the Sandinistas decreed that foreign trade was to be a state monopoly, they effectively declared war on these small-scale entrepreneurs. . . . [ And ] by trying to transform [ the existing system of food production ] so completely and so suddenly, they were underestimating the deeply ingrained conservatism of Nicaraguan peasants.’
While Mr. Kinzer in no way sees the Sandinistas’ actions as justifying the United States intervention by proxy, he does recognize that they fed the contra resistance: ‘As years passed, the nature of the contra force changed. Most of its members were young Nicaraguan peasants and workers, driven by Sandinista policies to the point of rebellion.’
Moreover, it was these policies that led to the Sandinistas’ crushing electoral defeat in February 1990. Until the day after the elections, most Americans believed that Nicaraguans blamed the United States, not their own Government, for their misfortunes. “Blood of Brothers” raises the unanswerable question of whether the Sandinistas might have moderated their rule had the United States not sponsored a war against them. ‘No one will ever be able to say what the comandantes would have done with their historic opportunity in Nicaragua if they had not been confronted with civil war,’ the author writes."
Bottom Line Thought — Based on the Above:
As with the U.S./the West in the Old Cold War of yesterday, likewise with China and Russia in the New/Reverse Cold War of today, nations who are threatened by an opponents' "achieve revolutionary change" agenda, these such nations will logically seek to work more "by, with and through" the natural enemies of "change," to wit: the more-conservative elements of the states and societies of the world — and especially these such elements in the countries of one's opponent.
In this such endeavor — and as described in my Nicaraguan example above — they seek to (a) foment civil wars which will (b) "contain" — and potentially even "roll back" — the threat posed by the "achieve revolutionary change" entity.
This is exactly what we did re: the threat posed by the communists' "achieve revolutionary change" agenda in the Old Cold War of yesterday. And this is exactly what our opponents are doing now; this, re: the threat posed by the U.S./the West's "achieve revolutionary change" agenda in the New/Reverse Cold War of today.