Military power is important for states looking to be players in a power politics world. But it is a specialized tool, best used sparingly and with careful intent. The old rules and norms in these areas are not well-suited to today’s world. We can and should make new ones, writes Jennifer Kavanagh. This article was prepared specially for the Valdai Club’s 22nd Annual Meeting.
For the United States, military power has always played a central role in the country’s approach to the world. Even in the era before World War II when the United States was supposedly an isolationist power, it was using military force readily and often, to protect its economic interests and sway political outcomes in countries across the Western Hemisphere. It was after World War II, however, that the US military’s global role exploded, as it was used to underwrite a massive American empire, spanning Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.
The rationale for the hundreds of thousands of forces that the United States has deployed around the globe over the past eight decades are many and varied: protecting allies, defeating threats to the homeland before they reach US shores, ensuring access to economic markets, and spreading democracy and liberal values. At home, other benefits of the heavily militarized US foreign policy are frequently championed. US officials tell their voters that defense spending creates jobs and spurs technological innovation, while having a powerful military is seen as a source of patriotism and national pride.
Across many dozen military interventions, America has achieved many tactical successes, but these have not always added up to strategic victories. The costs of US military adventures have been extremely high–in the United States and outside of it. Since the end of World War II, the United States has spent trillions of dollars on military interventions that have lost over 100,000 American lives, squandered geopolitical influence, and created new state and non-state adversaries. The countries where the United States has sought to display its military power are rarely better off after US forces leave (if they leave), and some are decidedly worse off. And US policymakers have seen their ambitious nation- and world-building projects scuttled.
As other countries invest heavily in building their military forces and using military power to advance their own influence and interests, they can learn from US experience–about what not to do.
There are many reasons that the United States has struggled to achieve its goals despite often having significant advantages in terms of capabilities, resources, and numbers of personnel. The biggest failures have come however when military power has been used in pursuit of goals for which it is the wrong instrument.
The US track record suggests that for all its benefits, military power has a very narrow set of applications. It is useful for seizing and defending territory, for protecting waterways and airspace, for providing physical security at key strategic locations, and for imposing costs on an adversary. Military threats can sometimes be used for leverage, to influence or sway the behavior of other states, or to force economic or political concessions.
But military power has limits. It cannot achieve political objectives and only sometimes helps states advance economic aims. The US experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan are reminders that while military power can overthrow governments, it cannot rebuild them.
These limitations should make even major powers wary of relying too heavily on military power, but they do not diminish the importance of having a self-sufficient military force especially in today’s world. For all countries, having a military strong enough to defend its territory and the ability to supply those forces with equipment in peace and wartime is a requirement. States that have not invested sufficiently in their militaries face both physical insecurity and the chance for geopolitical irrelevance. This is the situation Europe faces today, unable to influence decisions that will affect its own security. In contrast, states that have built strong armed forces and defense industrial bases have been able to use those resources to protect and sometimes improve their strategic position–but only to a point. A certain baseline set of capabilities is necessary, but beyond that baseline additional military investment may not be worth the opportunity costs or may create more risks–of entanglement and escalation–than rewards in terms of economic and political leverage.
That military power is increasingly important does not mean, however, that using it successfully will get easier. In fact, changes in technology mean that it will get harder–even for countries best positioned to exploit those technological advances to build the most cutting-edge weapons systems. I will offer two examples.
First, the proliferation of cheap weapons has democratized access to military power making it much easier for small insurgent groups and weak states to get access to enough cheap drones, loitering munitions, and missiles to deny even large military forces like the United States their objectives.
Small states and non-state groups may never be able to defeat the military of a much larger adversary, but they can keep that adversary from achieving its goals, contesting airspace and naval chokepoints or using drones to make ground advances impossible. We saw this clearly in the Red Sea, where the Houthis were able to disrupt shipping traffic despite an extended US effort to interrupt their campaign. While the Houthis fired $10,000 drones at commercial ships, the US military wasted billions in munitions before ultimately turning to diplomatic channels to broker a ceasefire.
This trend toward cheap mass will level the playing field and make it hard even for states with overwhelming military power to achieve tactical aims on the battlefield, let alone political goals.
Second, to gain advantage in this challenging military environment, states are looking to emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, hypersonics, and quantum mechanics to gain an upper hand. One area affected by this drive for ever more exquisite capabilities is long-range missiles, conventional and nuclear. The newest missiles can travel further, faster, and carry more firepower. With the help of new sensing and command-and-control systems they are better at evading air defenses and finding their targets. They allow countries that possess them to inflict significant damage from afar. In recent years, the US military has increasingly relied on what some call “over the horizon” capabilities–in counterterror operations in the Middle East and now against drug smugglers in Latin America–to reduce its reliance on larger ground and naval interventions and it also expects long-range missiles fired on the ground, in the air, and at sea to play an increasingly large role in future warfare.
Advanced missile technologies can produce spectacular effects, but their utility also has hard limits. Controlling territory, airspace, and waterways will always require physical presence. Long-range missiles can impose costs and may make states feel stronger and safer, but they cannot build political influence, shape economic outcomes, or provide real, lasting security. In fact, they bring tremendous risks, of escalation and miscalculation, raising the potential for catastrophic outcomes.
Military power is important for states looking to be players in a power politics world. But it is a specialized tool, best used sparingly and with careful intent. As states militarize, diplomacy becomes more important not less. So does communication between allies and adversaries to clarify and respect redlines and to define guardrails that prevent misunderstandings. The old rules and norms in these areas are not well-suited to today’s world. We can and should make new ones. This is a project where great powers like China, Russia, and the United States should take the lead.
