Hal Brands has written an important essay in Foreign Policy. Noting “the old order is dying,” he outlines three possibilities for tomorrow: a world “divided into dueling blocs led by Washington and Beijing”; “an age…of several empires”; or an “anarchic” age dominated by “predatory regimes.”
If those are the options, we should hope, like Brands, for that first scenario. If that’s where we find ourselves at the beginning of the next administration, the democratic world could be preserved by what I call “Free World Defense.”
More Restrained
The starting point of Free World Defense is recognition that Americans are world-weary and that near-omnipresent engagement isn’t politically feasible. (Largescale national-security efforts need broad national support.) However, with authoritarian regimes trying to roll back the free world, inward-looking isolationism isn’t prudent.
So, Free World Defense would focus on defending democracy, not planting democracy. Under Free World Defense, America would neither “fight” for the “liberation” of all the world, as President Woodrow Wilson declared, nor pursue “the goal of ending tyranny in our world,” as President George W. Bush declared. Those are noble missions, but they lack broad support.
Restraint doesn’t mean retreat, however. While Free World Defense would avoid overreach, it would require America to stand with democracies under threat. The Biden administration failed that test in Afghanistan, the Trump administration in Ukraine.
President Harry Truman and President Ronald Reagan modeled a better way. Truman didn’t plant democracy in East Germany. But he did support European democracies under assault; launch NATO to protect democratic Europe; bolster fledgling democracies in Japan and West Germany; and defend South Korea and West Berlin. Likewise, Reagan didn’t plant democracy in Warsaw or Kabul. But he did fend off communist encroachment; welcome a democratic Spain into NATO; and shepherd South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines as they trudged toward democracy.
The underlying premise of America’s world-weariness is that engagement causes more problems than it solves. In fact, U.S. engagement is part of the solution to the problem of the world’s brokenness. The natural order of the world is not orderly. As the Providence declaration explains, “The daily craft of foreign and defense policy involves the regular management and implementation of policies to preserve order.” That translates into deterring aggression and keeping freedom’s enemies at bay.
More Sustained
Toward that end, Free World Defense would deliver a sustained supply of deterrent assets to at-risk democracies.
“Let us say to the democracies,” President Franklin Roosevelt declared, “we are putting forth our energies, our resources, and our organizing powers to give you the strength to regain and maintain a free world.” Similarly, Reagan argued, “Support for freedom fighters is self-defense.”
From Roosevelt to Reagan and beyond, the arsenal of democracy defended the free world’s frontlines and strengthened America’s security. Regrettably, Washington has turned away from that approach—cutting security assistance for NATO’s eastern flank; reducing assets available to NATO for crisis response; slashing aid to Ukraine; allowing military aid for Taiwan to languish; using undelivered aid as a “negotiating chip” in dealing with Beijing. This approach undermines America’s word and security.
More Tools
The bad news is that America’s defense industrial base is a shell of what it was and what it needs to be. More than 50 prime defense contractors have been whittled down to five. Worse, 77.7% of America’s weapons systems rely on China for critical inputs.
The good news is that Congress has approved large-scale munitions production and multiyear contracting to incentivize long-term investments. Plus, NATO has launched initiatives to expand alliance-wide production capacity, improve supply-chain resilience, shrink the development-production-adoption cycle and expand multinational procurement. EU leaders have unveiled an $860-billion rearming initiative. Germany has launched a $536-billion rearmament fund. Japan will soon boast the world’s third-largest defense budget.
Free World Defense would recognize the synergistic benefits of such collaboration and investment.
More Clarity
Free World Defense would make clear commitments to allies and draw clear lines for enemies.
Recent administrations have drifted between neglecting and mistreating allies—breaking promises in Europe, erasing red lines in Syria, time-limiting military support in Libya, imposing unilateral timetables in Afghanistan, reducing mutual-defense treaties into transactional deals, piling demands onto allies in Asia, threatening to withdraw from NATO, threatening NATO allies.
Free World Defense would make clear to our allies that they are valued. As Gen. James Mattis observes, “The strength of our nation is inextricably linked to the strength of our unique and comprehensive system of alliances.”
Equally important, Free World Defense would make clear that Moscow won’t be permitted to resurrect a dead empire, Beijing won’t be permitted to build a new empire, North Korea won’t be permitted to attack its neighbors, and the Houthis and IRGC won’t be permitted to limit freedom of the seas.
More Vocal
America should never be ambivalent or silent about freedom. “The fate of our own freedom,” Reagan argued, “is tied to the fate of freedom in the world.”
Under Free World Defense, presidents would offer high-profile platforms to human-rights activists, religious minorities, political dissidents, war widows and other victims of Putinism; draw constant attention to Beijing’s laogai prisons, abuse of Muslims and Christians, and quashing of Hong Kong’s freedom; point to Donetsk, Gaza, Xinjiang,Groznyand Aleppo as evidence of what Moscow, Beijing and Tehran envision for their vassals; commit to Taiwan’s sovereignty, postwar Ukraine’s security and the world’s open waterways; use the bully pulpit to promote—never undermine—institutions that defend the free world (NATO, Five Eyes, AUKUS, NSATU); and draw bright lines connecting the front lines: Just as South Korea and West Berlin were connected during Cold War I, what happens in Ukraine, Taiwan, Israel, the Philippines and the Baltics is connected today.
More PreparedYet words aren’t enough when answering threats to the free world. What Churchill said of the Soviets remains true of Xi, Putin, and the Kim and Khamenei dynasties. “There is nothing they admire so much as strength, and there is nothing for which they have less respect than for weakness.”
With a proposed $1.1-trillion defense budget, it might look like America is fully funding its military. But looks can be deceiving.
First, restoring deterrence will take more than one budget cycle.
Second, the Army (42% smaller than it was in 1989) and Navy (half the size it was in 1989) are too small to carry out a Cold War-style deterrence mission. The Air Force is too old (average U.S. bomber age: 50+). The reason: For more than a decade—even as enemies built up and lashed out—America has invested just over 3% of GDP in defense. The average during Cold War I was more than twice that.
Some will argue that deterrence is costly. They’re correct. Free World Defense would counter that there’s something more costly than deterring great-power war: waging great-power war.
More PartnersThe American people have made clear there’s no room in the free world for free-riders; the free world has gotten the message.
In the past decade, allies in Europe and Canada have increased defense spending 106%. NATO allies are collaborating to stockpile defense-critical materials. Britain, France and Germany are deploying thousands of troops to defend NATO’s easternmost members. Ukraine is using ROK artillery shells. Japan has transferred Patriot missiles to America to backfill inventory sent to Ukraine.
Those helping hands are essential to Free World Defense. Even when America was relatively stronger—and the free world relatively weaker—the men who crafted Cold War I’s containment strategy emphasized that defending the free world “cannot be accomplished by us alone.”
This remains true.
China is a country of 1.3 billion, with a $19-trillion GDP. PRC military expenditures, approaching $800 billion annually, are fed by a dual-use economy built to serve the state. China has a 370-ship navy, tendrils around the globe, a mammoth industrial-production capacity, and a laser-like focus on absorbing or pacifying its neighbors.
Although America boasts a $31-trillion GDP and a 13-figure defense budget, it has a billion fewer people than China, a 297-ship navy, a defense budget that’s shrinking relative to federal outlays, and global security commitments. However, the free world enfolds 2.8 billion people, 71% of global GDP, 65% of global defense spending and what Adm. Michael Mullen calls “a thousand-ship navy.” Free World Defense would recognize that the free world’s alliances—which America built—are resources, not liabilities.
The Trump administration takes credit for the free world’s rearmament reawakening. But Washington’s means to that end—bluster, bullying, unpredictability, undependability—will come at a cost: More independent, less trusting allies will be more resistant and less deferent to U.S. leadership. Imagine the free-world alliance system, if it survives, with not one France but multiple Frances—defiant, insistent on their prerogatives, perhaps nuclear-armed. Such a system will be much harder to manage.
Worse, imagine a world without those alliances. If Americans think it’s difficult to deter our enemies, protect our interests and promote our prosperity with our alliances intact, wait until they’re gone.
