US Marines hike on skis during Exercise White Claymore in Blåtind, Norway, Feb. 14, 2019. 

The second installment in the “Bad Ideas in National Security” series by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, from author John Schaus, argues that the growing support — on both sides of the political fence — for pulling back home US troops supporting allies around the world is misguided. He knows his view will be unpopular, but forges ahead nonetheless with a policy case for staying the course in our military alliances. Read on. The Editor.

Two years ago, I wrote that war on the Korean Peninsula was a bad idea. At the time, rhetoric was heating up in Washington and Pyongyang, and there was a palpable sense that war was possible—even if it was not probable. That moment, thankfully, has passed. Presenting that bad idea was both timely and popular.

This year’s bad idea, however, will likely prove to be less popular, although it is an equally bad (if thankfully less dramatic) idea. It is the notion that the United States will solve all of its international problems if only the troops come home. While this notion operates under different guises, in policy-terms, its known as retrenchment.

Retrenchment from forward deployed forces supporting alliances is a bad idea.

With the 2020 presidential race in full swing, advocates from both ends of the political spectrum have ramped up calls to end US military engagements in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. After 18 years of fighting in Afghanistan and 16 in Iraq, the American public is right to be “tired” of these conflicts.

The seemingly simple solution of “ending” the wars, however, belies a more complicated problem: will the United States be more or less secure if US forces leave those places? This is a difficult question and one deserving of open discussion and debate. The informed consent of the governed (all of us) requires it.

Discussing whether we should, and if so, how, end US commitments to the conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria is a good idea—much like going for a swim on a hot summer day is a good idea. Similarly, debating whether—and if so, what—restraints are appropriate in the development or use of US force abroad is a good idea.

Advocates for restraint fall across the political and ideological spectrum, and there is not universal agreement on what restraint looks like from policy standpoint. Retrenchment—one strain of the ideology of restraint—is not about ending US military actions in countries where we have never clearly articulated an achievable political objective, however. Instead, the concept starts with support for drawing down from existing long-standing military commitments, but then takes the argument to an unsupportable conclusion: the United States will be better off if all forward deployed forces are pulled back from alliances in Asia and in Europe. Much like deciding that if a swim on a hot day is good, swimming over Niagara Falls must be better.

The growing body of opinion moving toward retrenchment has, thus-far, avoided using the term. Instead, the focus seems to be attempting to discredit the idea that US alliances are more durable when American forces are stationed on allies’ soil. Three points bear making here on the value of military alliances to US security and prosperity:

  • First, alliances are grounded in realism about how the world is, with an eye toward what the United States seeks for itself;
  • Second, alliances with the United States can reduce intra-regional rivalries, promoting greater stability and cooperation; and
  • Third, alliances directly enhance US prosperity through closer trade between the United States and the faster-growing economies of our allies.

Today’s alliances — as defined by mutual defense treaties — were established following World War II in Europe and following the Korean War in Asia. They were established to advance Americans’ own security and prosperity. (US allies—then and now—entered into alliances for many of the same reasons.)

The reasons for US participation in these alliances were not abstract ideals of US primacy, nor an assumption of the inevitable rise of democracies (which several allied countries then were not) and/or capitalism. US alliances were established based on realist assessments that each member state would be more secure and more stable as part of mutual defense treaty than they would be alone. US policymakers at the time shared this view: i.e., that even the United States was better off with allies than alone.

Alliances born of the immediate post-World War II era were a recognition that the United States—at the time the world’s largest economy by an enormous margin—had neither the wealth nor people to defend the hard-won peace globally by itself. The alliances, then, in part were forged to create bonds to enable US allies to develop economically and not just militarily.

The United States gained benefits by having troops stationed where they would most likely be needed. Doing so enabled an ultimately smaller force: by being present, the United States added credence to its deterrence policies while simultaneously requiring fewer troops overall than if it had to surge forces across an ocean after a conflict had already started.

US forward-presence reduces intra-regional rivalry, increases stability, and makes allies less likely to engage in a destructive arms race with each other. Even as a US-based alliance architecture provides NATO members and the allies in the Asia-Pacific great opportunities to grow economically, forward deployed US presence in support of a mutual defense treaty has the added benefit of reducing the intra-regional rivalry that enabled many previous conflicts.

In Europe, the combination of two World Wars, followed by a common recognition across much of the Western portion of the continent that its citizens would not likely be prosperous and free if they fought amongst each other, enabled NATO countries to flourish.

In East Asia, strong US commitments to the security of Japan and South Korea—and clear signals that US troop presence in each country was inviolable—has helped confine regional rivalry between these two states largely to the political sphere. Though the tension between South Korea and Japan is real, both countries will be more susceptible to outside pressure from Russia or China should the two embrace more seriously the competition latent in their rivalrous political rhetoric.

These examples are important to the United States because they illustrate  the impact of tamping down intra-regional rivalry: greater domestic political stability among and within the allies, making them more difficult targets for malign foreign influence; and, greater economic growth, allowing them to become both more prosperous for themselves and able customers of US goods and services, thereby supporting America’s own economic growth.

The impact on US prosperity is the final point. The United States and its allies, according to World Bank Data, accounted for 58 percent of global GDP in 2018. The United States and its allies made a wager in the 1940s and 1950s that free markets would move more people out of poverty than alternative systems. The stark differences between East and West Germany in the late 1980s and the even starker differences between South and North Korea today are evidence that the bet was right.

These benefits are not solely historical. Since 2002, US exports to its allies have accounted for more than 8 percent of annual US GDP, on average. Between 4.6 million and 5.8 million American jobs per-year have been supported by these exports.

Being an ally is not a requirement to be a trading partner with the United States. However, being a treaty ally—hopefully—provides a certain bilateral confidence that (in most instances) enables lower tariffs, increased business and research collaboration, and greater tourism.

Alliances, including forward-stationing of US forces abroad, make the United States safer, its allies more secure, and all more prosperous. Any plan for weakening the US alliance architecture should demonstrate how it provides greater benefits than the existing system—otherwise we’re just giving leash to a bad idea.