The Rim of the Pacific Exercise recently concluded in waters near Hawaii. For the first time China joined the drills. It was a small but positive step for integrating Beijing into more international institutions.

RIMPAC started in 1971. This year there are 23 participants, including the People’s Republic of China, which explained that the maneuvers are “an important mission of military diplomacy” and a means to strengthen “friendly relations with countries of the South Pacific through public diplomacy.”

Beijing’s participation comes at a time of significant regional tension. The PRC’s more aggressive stance in asserting its territorial claims in the South China Sea and Sea of Japan have led to dangerous maritime confrontations. 

RIMPAC offers an opportunity to create some countervailing pressure in favor of a less threatening regional naval environment. At the political level inviting Beijing to participate demonstrates respect for China’s increased military power and international role. Doing so also counters the charge that Washington is seeking to isolate and contain the PRC.

Moreover, inclusion hints at the benefits for Beijing of a civil if not necessarily friendly relationship with its neighbors as well as America. No doubt, the direct pay-off for China from RIMPAC is small. 

But to be treated as an equal and regular participant in international affairs is advantageous. Although any great power must be prepared to accept unpopularity when necessary, in general a friendly environment is more conducive to ensuring both peace and prosperity. 

Military cooperation also is important. Beijing can play a more important role in peacekeeping, anti-piracy patrols, counter-proliferation searches, search-and-rescue efforts, and other international operations. This demonstrates to Chinese naval officers that there are missions other than challenging the U.S. or other states as enemies.

The PRC’s participation in RIMPAC also will provide some valuable human interaction among naval personnel. It is harder to hate an entire people when you’ve had a drink with individuals.

Of course, participation in one or more military maneuvers is not enough to maintain the peace, especially when the respective governments have been only too willing to play games of international chicken over emotional claims to territory. But including the PRC can be seen as an aspect of a larger allied strategy of inclusion.

Today Beijing remains a revisionist power, determined to overturn past decisions seen as unfair and unreasonable. Its challenges likely will ebb only if it perceives the cost of acting to be greater than the benefit of the status quo, or at least a more modest reform course achievable through negotiation.

Costs already are rising for China as Japan begins to take a more active military role and affected countries attempt to pull Washington more directly into their affairs. At the same time, the U.S. and the PRC’s neighbors should think creatively about other activities and organizations which might entice greater Chinese involvement. 

The more invested the PRC in the existing order, the less likely Zhongnanhai’s residents would be to risk disrupting the system. To the extent the People’s Liberation Army and other services can be shown the benefits of peaceful cooperation, so much the better.

Of course, a little friendship diplomacy cannot close the gulf between China and America. But the best sales force for America tend to be Americans, including in the military—at least when participants are not shooting at each other, of course.

As I point out in my latest article on China-US Focus: “The U.S. and China’s neighbors increasingly look at Chinese naval vessels as a threat. However, RIMPAC showcases them in a different role. It will be up to Beijing, its Pacific neighbors, and the U.S. to find other opportunities to further invest the PRC in the existing geopolitical order.”

Doing so won’t be enough to keep the peace in the decades ahead. But it would nonetheless be useful step in the right direction.

In April, the CBO projected — based on current law — that the Pentagon would spend roughly $606 billion dollars in 2015. The just-passed House defense budget spends $570.4 billion. Both figures assumed, among other things, that we we would spend about $79 billion for overseas contingency operations (OCO), which is mainly for the war in Afghanistan. We have since learned that the Obama administration’s actual OCO request is likely to be “substantially smaller” than $79 billion, so perhaps $560 or $565 billion in total Pentagon spending when combined with their earlier base budget request.

One glance at Cato’s latest infographic* will tell you that even the lowest of these figures is too high.

For a little perspective, CBO’s original estimate of $606 billion dollars is roughly $10 billion more — in inflation-adjusted dollars — than the Pentagon spent in 2005, when the United States was engaged in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and is close to the United States’ Cold War peak of $611 billion in 1985, when the Soviet Union was spending an estimated $590 billion. Today, however, the United States is out of Iraq and is winding down its war in Afghanistan, and its nearest competitors — Russia and China — combined spend less than half as much as the United States on their militaries. Yet, some on the right continue to believe that Pentagon cuts should be off limits, including House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R‑WI), who argues that the United States should be spending much more on its military.

Rep. Ryan’s budget proposal would have busted the current spending caps to a tune of nearly $50 billion a year for the next decade. This would have amounted to $500 billion more than is currently projected, and around $1.7 trillion more than was spent in the decade following the Cold War. Incredibly, Ryan called for more spending while admitting that “the Department of Defense has repeatedly revised downward its estimates of the budgetary resources necessary to meet the nation’s security objectives.” Think about that: The military says that it does not need additional funding to meet its objectives, yet Ryan insisted that it should receive more money anyway. Luckily, if the budget that recently passed the House is any indication, few of Ryan’s colleagues seem to agree. Indeed, it now seems almost certain that we will spend less than CBO projected, and far less than Ryan called for. 

Some could argue that the United States can ill afford to cut its military spending given the current state of the world. Such cuts would only serve to embolden our adversaries like China and Russia, and exacerbate the turmoil in the Middle East, North Africa, and southwest Asia.

But, if anything, many of the current security issues in the world have resulted from America being too involved militarily. The U.S.-led war in Iraq, for example, certainly contributed to the current chaos in the Middle East. The war also undermined American influence by revealing the limits of America’s military power. The operation in Libya destabilized a country in which the United States had no vital interest, and showed Iran and others what happens when you negotiate away your nuclear program. And arming Syrian rebels has prolonged a civil war in which ISIS gained the strength, experience, and gear needed to launch a successful offensive into Iraq. It turns out that having an unrivaled military only gets you so far.

Americans can and should spend less on the military, because the U.S. military can and should do less, even in the face of what is happening in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Asia. And others, especially our wealthy allies in Europe and Asia, can, and probably should, spend more, as illustrated by another Cato infographic.

Beyond the numbers, however, it is important to maintain perspective. Although one might not know it from the images on television every day, the world, as President Obama stated, is less violent than it has ever been. Moreover, the threats to America’s vital national security interests are modest and manageable, and prudent reductions in America’s military spending won’t change that. Indeed, curing our power problem should make us safer, because it would limit our ability to become embroiled in unnecessary wars.

* Thanks to Travis Evans for his help in assembling these statistics, and in supervising the production of the various figures. 

—————— 

Infographic sources (in order of figures listed, top to bottom):

Figures in 2015 inflation-adjusted dollars, unless otherwise noted.

2015–24 Paul Ryan = $6 trillion ($6.469 nominal): House Budget Committee, “The Path to Prosperity: Fiscal Year 2015 Budget Resolution,” Table S5, April 2014, p. 93.

2015–24 Current Law = $5.5 trillion ($5.987 nominal): House Budget Committee, “The Path to Prosperity: Fiscal Year 2015 Budget Resolution,” Table S5, April 2014, p. 93.

1992-01 = $4.3 trillion ($4.281): Department of Defense, “Fiscal Year 2015 Green Book,” Table 6–8 – Dept. of Defense BA by Public Law Title, April 2014, p. 133.

2005 = $596 billion ($596.3): Department of Defense, “Fiscal Year 2015 Green Book,” Table 6–8 – Dept. of Defense BA by Public Law Title, April 2014, p. 134.

2015 = $606 billion ($521 + $85): House Budget Committee, “The Path to Prosperity: Fiscal Year 2015 Budget Resolution,” Table S5, April, 2014, p. 93.

All above figures include OCO funding.

Cold War Average (1948–90) = $457 billion: Department of Defense, “Fiscal Year 2015 Green Book,” Table 6–8 – Dept. of Defense BA by Public Law Title, April 2014, pp. 129–132.

U.S. 1985 = $611 billion ($610.86): Department of Defense, “Fiscal Year 2015 Green Book,” Table 6–8 – Dept. of Defense BA by Public Law Title, April 2014, p. 132.

USSR 1985 = $590 billion: State Department, “World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers: 1989,” Table I, Released October 1990, p. 65. Author’s inflationary calculations.

U.S. 2013 = $600 billion (2013 dollars): International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance 2014 (London: Routledge, 2014), p. 42.

China 2013 = $169 billion (2013 dollars): IHS Jane’s, Chinese Defense Budget, March 2014. Author’s inflationary calculations.

Russia 2013 = $68 billion ($68.2) (2013 dollars): International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance 2014 (London: Routledge, 2014), p. 180.

Iran 2013 = $18 billion ($17.7) (2013 dollars): International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance 2014 (London: Routledge, 2014), p. 318.

The outspoken Polish Foreign Minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, apparently believes his nation’s alliance with America is “worthless.” Washington should not race to reassure him. Instead, Warsaw should demonstrate why it is worthy of Washington’s support.

A weekly Polish publication received a recording of Sikorski’s conversation in which he declared: “This Polish-American union is worthless. It is even harmful because it gives Poland a false sense of security. Complete [B.S.]. We get into conflicts with the Germans, with Russia, and we think everything’s great because the Americans like us. Suckers. Complete suckers.” 

There are suckers in the existing relationship, but they are American rather than Polish.

The United States spends more than four percent of its GDP on the military and accounts for three-fourths of total defense outlays by NATO members. Poland has been patting itself on the back for recently hiking defense expenditures—to 1.8 percent of GDP. Overall, America’s contribution to direct NATO expenditures is nearly ten times that of Poland.

The collapse of the Soviet Union exacerbated the discrepancy among alliance members. While Washington preserved its globe-spanning military, the Europeans cut their armed forces significantly.

Worse, the alliance expanded willy-nilly to the Russian border, bringing in nations combining minimal military capabilities and serious potential disputes with Moscow. None had ever mattered to American security, but Washington handed out security guarantees like hotels place chocolates on pillows: everyone got one, including Poland.

American and European officials simply assumed that they would never have to make good on their promises. Then came the crisis in Ukraine. 

The eastern-most members of the alliance started clamoring for reassurance. No one was more insistent than the Poles. Back before he thought the alliance was worthless, Sikorski stated: “America, we hope, has ways of reassuring us that we haven’t even thought about. There are major bases in Britain, in Spain, in Portugal, in Greece, in Italy. Why not here?” 

As I point out in my latest article on National Interest online: “The benefits to Poland of winning a defense commitment against Russia backed by a permanent garrison from the world’s superpower are obvious. But what’s in it for America? The relationship runs one-way. Warsaw does not offer commensurate aid to the United States.”

As a substitute, Poland, like several other NATO members and member wannabes, participated in Washington’s foolish wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But even if the missions had been worthwhile, they didn’t compare to America promising to face down Poland’s potential nuclear-armed antagonist. The United States could find itself facing catastrophic destruction if things went bad.

There is no security reason for the United States to risk war for Warsaw. Poland never was strategically important for Washington. Even the Reagan administration did not consider military intervention in early 1982 when the Polish government cracked down on the Solidarity union after being threatened with a Soviet invasion.

Americans always felt sympathy for the plight of the Poles—for centuries stuck among avaricious empires. Although unfortunate, even tragic, Poland’s situation is no casus belli for the United States.

Washington’s policy changed only when U.S. policymakers ceased thinking about NATO as a military alliance and began treating it as an international social club. Thus Poland received a coveted Article 5 security guarantee.

The alliance is worthless only if the United States won’t back it. Most administrations would see that as a threat to core commitments that could not be ignored. Moscow would recognize that threatening Poland carried significant risks of confrontation with America. That’s far from “worthless” for Poland.

Sikorski’s comments should be a wake-up call in America. Washington has accumulated a host of welfare dependents in Europe and elsewhere. Yet those whose teeth are most tightly clamped onto the U.S. teat show the least respect for America. 

The real sucker in this arrangement is Washington. The United States should reconsider who it protects from whom, reserving “worthwhile” alliances for countries which offer something meaningful to America in return.

The debate over an appropriate American response to Iraq’s resurgent violence and the threat of radical rebels has highlighted the challenges and risks of even limited U.S. assistance.

As I argue in a post at The National Interest, Iraq is emblematic of a larger challenge in U.S. foreign policy. President Obama’s West Point address last month emphasized the role of “partner nations” who may leverage US assistance to counter security threats within their own borders and regions. But the president’s speech and subsequent debate about it have largely failed to provide criteria for selecting these partners.

Both the threats (insurgency, instability, radical rebels) and the possible solutions (military advisers and training, direct intervention, pushing for better governance) have cropped up in discussion of numerous other events: Boko Haram’s kidnappings in Nigeria, Al-Shabaab’s siege of Westgate Mall in Kenya, unrest in northern Mali, continuing instability in Libya, and so on.

All of these policy suggestions constitute calls for foreign internal defense (FID) assistance. FID, or “Helping others defend themselves,” sounds like an attractive option while facing a fiscal and domestic political reality that limits prospects for direct intervention. However, the Iraq debate highlights a crucial question: how do we tell the difference between states we can “partner” into effective and self-sufficient stability, versus those that risk pulling the US into local quagmires or exacerbating security problems?

Policymakers, media, and the American public are asking these questions about Iraq, in part because we have a lot of information about Iraq’s internal dynamics. But we should ask these questions about other potential partners too.

Join us to discuss the challenges and opportunities of Foreign Internal Defense aid next month at our Cato Policy Forum on the topic. Register here.

The uber-hawks and neocons who led America into the disastrous invasion of Iraq are campaigning for a repeat. If only the U.S. will go to war along the Euphrates a second time, they promise, everything will turn out well.

As I point out on Forbes online: “Americans should ignore these Sirens of Death. Attempting to forcibly transform Iraq never was Washington’s responsibility. Having botched the job once, U.S. policymakers should not try again.” 

There was much to despise about Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, but he helped constrain Iran and enforced an ugly stability at home, suppressing sectarian violence and al-Qaeda. As many analysts, including yours truly, warned, his forced departure would be welcome in principle but bloody in practice. 

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ruled with a harsh hand, favored his Shia supporters, and rejected a permanent U.S. military garrison. Nor would an American presence have saved Iraq from internal collapse. 

U.S. troops could not have forced positive political change. Employing U.S. troops against Baghdad’s opponents, such as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), would have been far worse. 

Washington nevertheless helped arm the Iraqi military, but a secret program begun last year to aid Baghdad against Sunni militants foundered. The Maliki government simply failed to maintain an effective force. As a result, Iraqi military units melted away in the face of ISIS attacks.

Yet the situation is not nearly as threatening for Washington as for Baghdad. So far ISIS has acted as an insurgency in both Syria and Iraq, not a terrorist group targeting America. In fact, the organization’s break with al-Qaeda reflected the latter’s focus on the “far enemy,” that is, the U.S. 

In contrast, ISIS is seeking to establish a real state and may not want to risk its practical gains in a war against the U.S. Obviously this could change, but Washington should not encourage retaliation against Americans by needlessly striking the group.

Moreover, Iraq will not fall under ISIS control. The radicals lack the resources necessary to conquer Iraq or even take Baghdad. Moreover, by making the conflict into a religious war ISIS has galvanized Iraq’s Shia majority. A bitter and potentially long struggle between essentially lawless paramilitaries impends.

Into this violent and unpredictable imbroglio President Obama is sending “up to 300” Special Forces. Even worse, he maintains the possibility of “targeted, precise military action,” presumably meaning air and drone strikes. 

However, Baghdad’s military lacks leadership and commitment while the Iraqi state lacks credibility and will. These Washington cannot provide, especially with the Iraqi people having so little faith in their government.

The administration now is not so subtly attempting to oust Maliki from power. But Maliki has pointedly rejected demands for his scalp, even as a condition of aid. Many Shiites have rallied around Maliki and Iran continues to back him. Many possible successors are untested or even less credible than Maliki. 

Military action is even more problematic. Airpower offers no simple solution. 

Air strikes have limited effectiveness in urban warfare and cannot liberate captured cities. To minimize “collateral damage” airpower best relies on ground support for targeting, something that could not be left to sectarian Iraqi forces. 

Unfortunately, another war on Muslims would make even more enemies of America. Indeed, targeting Sunni areas would kill people, including noncombatants, who once allied with Washington against al-Qaeda. De facto partition, perhaps with autonomous Shia, Sunni, and Kurdish zones within a highly federalized state, might offer the best possibility of peaceful coexistence. 

The Middle East appears to be a tragedy permanently set on repeat. That is a reason for America to stay out, not jump in. 

After blowing up the country, the U.S. obviously did not leave behind “a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq,” as President Obama claimed in 2011. America cannot put Humpty Dumpty back together again. Washington should learn a little humility and leave the clean-up to others.

The U.S. government is financially bankrupt and can ill afford to police the world. Unfortunately, U.S. policymakers refuse to reconsider even the most antiquated security promise. The result is strategic bankruptcy as well.

In the aftermath of World War II the U.S. effectively took over the defense of much of Asia and Europe, fought or supported combatants in several Third World proxy wars, engaged in nation-building, and otherwise routinely intervened around the globe.

Despite a changed world, the U.S. continues to defend now wealthy Asian and European client states. American military personnel continue to die fighting in Third World conflicts, only in different nations. Washington continues to attempt to micromanage the globe.

On the day President Barack Obama announced America’s return to Iraq’s conflict, Air Force Lt. Gen. Jan-Marc Jouas said Air-Sea Battle was the Pentagon’s new war-fighting doctrine in the Korean peninsula. Is there anywhere America is prepared to say does not warrant military intervention?

For a time President Barack Obama followed his predecessors in acting as if there were no limits to U.S. capabilities. However, the so-called “pivot” to Asia suggested that the administration finally realized some choices had to be made. Yet Washington’s commitment of more resources and attention to Asia appeared to have little effect on American policy elsewhere in the world. 

Administration officials continued to treat a U.S.-dominated NATO as essential. The war in Afghanistan went on. Last year the president proposed to launch air strikes against Syria, backing away only after failing to win congressional approval. 

More dramatically, Russia’s absorption of Crimea prompted manifold administration efforts to “reassure” the Europeans, including shifting ground, air, and naval units to the region. Washington even appeared open to proposals for adding permanent U.S. garrisons to NATO’s eastern-most members. 

Now the president is sending limited ground forces to Iraq, with the added possibility of air and drone strikes. He may find it hard to limit U.S. involvement in a complex and evolving conflict. 

Yet military officials are discussing their war doctrines for Korea.

U.S. foreign and military policy has a mad quality to it, suggesting that involvement everywhere should be forever. If President Obama is unwilling to keep America out of any conflict in any part of the world, he should at least set priorities within regions. 

In the Middle East, for instance, the president should halt incremental escalation in Syria. The battle is tragic, but no one knows what would emerge if Bashar al-Assad is ousted. Almost certainly fighting would continue, reprisals would be made, and radical forces, such as ISIS, would be empowered. 

In Europe Ukraine remains far from the continent’s population and economic centers which the U.S. spent decades defending. Kiev’s situation is unfortunate, even tragic, but the country matters not strategically to America. There should be no thought of military involvement by the U.S or NATO. 

In Asia there is no more dramatic disparity than on the Korean peninsula, where the South has a GDP and population respectively forty times and twice those of the North. The Republic of Korea could deploy a military capable of deterring North Korea. Instead of concentrating on defense, in the past Seoul has shipped cash, food, and other goods north in an attempt to buy goodwill—even as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was building nuclear weapons. 

As I point out in my latest article on National Interest online: “These should be just the start. In a world of diminishing resources—Washington faces a debt tsunami in the years ahead, with more than $200 trillion in accumulated unfunded liabilities—the U.S. no longer can be expected to solve every international problem, especially through military means. American policymakers should begin to make tough choices. Now.”

Following the decision upholding numerous death penalties for Muslim Brotherhood members accused of a 2013 attack on a police station, Egypt has recently seen the conclusion of another sham trial, resulting in harsh sentences for three al-Jazeera journalists, accused of aiding terrorists.

While it is obvious that trials like these move Egypt further away from freedom, could they also be inadvertently helping Islamic radicals? My new development bulletin argues that political repression of the kind we are seeing in Egypt creates incentives for Islamists to use violence in order to attain their goals.

Iraq, where ISIS is making continual progress fighting the government of Nouri al-Maliki, is an extreme example of where things can end when political elites exclude a significant part of the population from democratic politics. Al-Maliki’s premiership has been marked by a strengthening of his own hold to power, progressively alienating the country’s Sunni population.

My paper argues that the electoral successes of Islamists in Arab Spring countries have relatively little to do with religion but rather with the organizational characteristics of Islamic political groups, which were typically active in the provision of local public goods and social services. Instead of seeing the rise of Islamic political organizations as a pathology that needs to be countered – possibly through repressive means – we should note that,

[I]n transitional environments, the electoral success of Islamists is a natural result of the political environment, which can be mitigated only by an increase in the credibility of alternative political groups. The electoral advantage enjoyed by Islamic parties can be expected to dissipate over time as competing political groups establish channels of communication, promise verification for their voters, and build reputation over time.

Furthermore,

There is no denying that religion and politics do not always mix well. However, the appropriate answer to the ugly side of religious politics is not political repression of the kind we are seeing in Egypt but rather open, competitive democratic politics.