Zalmay Khalilzad, the former head of policy planning at DOD, takes on John Mearsheimer's critique of the U.S. strategy he helped forge:
In his article “Imperial by Design,” John Mearsheimer argues that U.S. difficulties since the end of the Cold War have stemmed from the “flawed grand strategy” of “global dominance” that every president since Clinton has followed. This strategy, as he describes it, is guided by two objectives: “maintaining American primacy” and “spreading democracy across the globe.” He continues: “With global dominance no serious attempt is made to prioritize U.S. interests, because they are virtually limitless.” Consequently, the United States is overextended in needless interventions abroad—without making the country safer. His solution: abandon global dominance and return to a strategy of offshore balancing. Under this approach, U.S. interventions would be limited to countering potential hegemons in key regions. No more regime change, democracy promotion, nation building, counterinsurgency, or other “interference in the domestic politics of other countries.”
Part of the problem with Mearsheimer’s argument is that he attacks a straw man. In early 1993, the Defense Department issued the Regional Defense Strategy, which outlined American strategy for the new international system. I was deeply involved in that effort. The document did not call for global dominance. It clearly prioritized U.S. interests and advanced a sustainable strategy for pursuing them. It argued that America should use its post-Cold War preeminence to preclude the rise of a multipolar or bipolar world. The way to achieve this objective, it maintained, was to prevent hostile states from dominating critical regions based on the logic that a single hostile power could pose a global challenge if it achieved regional hegemony. Spreading democracy was one component of this strategy. Every subsequent administration followed a variant of this outline of American global leadership.
Mearsheimer criticizes previous administrations for failing to appreciate certain realities: military interventions, nation building, and counterinsurgencies are often costly; missions outside the realm of our vital national interests distract from paramount priorities; overextension is a distinct possibility without selectivity; unilateralism decreases burden sharing; and too much focus on foreign policy risks undermining the domestic foundations of our international stature. But the original 1993 strategy and subsequent iterations recognized these points as important. The charge that administrations did not give them sufficient weight in making certain decisions does not undermine the overall merits of the strategy.
Mearsheimer ignores positive outcomes arising from American global leadership in Europe and Asia. Successive administrations since the Cold War have sought to preclude hostile regional hegemony and expand the zone of democracy. On both continents, the United States maintained a permanent military presence, upheld its security commitments, and supported the expansion of alliances—notably NATO and EU enlargement into Eastern Europe. These policies have helped avoid resurgences of nationalism, proliferation, and arms races among major powers. They have enabled democracy and free markets to expand in Europe and Asia.
Rather Mearsheimer points to U.S. troubles in the greater Middle East to justify his more general criticism of post-Cold War U.S. grand strategy. Yet, before 9/11, America acted as an offshore balancer in the region. We carried out occasional strikes against al-Qaeda sanctuaries and Iraqi regime targets in response to specific provocations. We abandoned Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal. And we pursued Arab-Israeli peace through energetic diplomatic engagement. Instead of empowering democratic reformers, American strategy relied on alliances with dictatorships to maintain stability. Even the policy of dual containment against Iran and Iraq—which Mearsheimer criticizes for being too interventionist—at a practical level reflected the logic of offshore balancing. The limited U.S. military presence in the region, flagging efforts to enforce the post-Gulf War ceasefire against Saddam, and minimal attempts to topple the regimes, meant in practice that regional players had to preserve the balance of power.
When the George W. Bush administration entered office, it supported American global leadership, but did not believe that this strategy necessitated the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. The 9/11 attacks changed the strategic calculus. Addressing the region’s dysfunctionality and the extremism and terror that it produced now came front and center. The United States liberated Afghanistan out of fear that failing to confront the Taliban regime (considering its alliances with al-Qaeda and other terrorists) would lead to even more catastrophic outcomes. In the case of invading Iraq —the basic reason was that it was a festering issue that if left unattended would likely become a big strategic threat. A new set of objectives became priorities: counterterrorism, stability and democratization in Iraq and Afghanistan, containment of Iran, Israeli-Palestinian peace, and liberalization and reform of the region.
Was it inevitable for the efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan to become so expensive? The costs were certainly underestimated. But the interventions have been costly due in large part to specific tactical errors that were avoidable. The United States did not train enough indigenous security forces early on, deal with terrorist sanctuaries in Pakistan, level the playing field between moderate and sectarian factions in Iraq, or pay sufficient attention to crafting political deals among local forces.
Instead of dealing directly with these key decisions, Mearsheimer assumes that setbacks in the Middle East were inevitable consequences of post-Cold War U.S. grand strategy. On this faulty premise, he argues that America has overstated the threat of terrorism, that the risk of WMD terrorism or other potentially game-changing attacks are remote, and that, therefore, the United States should confront these threats via offshore balancing. He does not answer why the United States would be worse off dealing with these issues appropriately within the framework of American global leadership.
U.S. grand strategy since the end of the Cold War has not fundamentally endangered American global primacy. Our current military budget as a percentage of GNP is consistent with past levels. The more serious threat to our position in the world is our continued economic problems and the rise of rival powers such as China. Whether we can address slow growth and mounting debt before they force us to retrench internationally is our test. Should we fail to get our economic house in order while others continue to grow at a rapid pace, a multipolar world may reemerge. In such a scenario, offshore balancing could be a sensible option.
Shifting to an offshore-balancer role now is premature. Adopting such as strategy would accelerate the rise of multipolarity and increase the risk of conflict among major powers. Pursuing a global-leadership strategy remains the best option, albeit in a way that incorporates lessons of the past two decades. Looking ahead, future administrations should adjust specific policies to deal with changing domestic and global circumstances—the rise of China and threats resulting from globalization such as cyber attacks for example—while maintaining a grand strategy of American global leadership.
Zalmay Khalilzad is a counselor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. From 2007 to 2009, he served as U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations. He has also previously served as U.S. ambassador to Iraq, as well as U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan and also as special presidential envoy to Afghanistan.
