Of course, even with sizeable allied force contributions, there is a danger that effectiveness could suffer if unilateral preparations and operations are made multilateral. We must not sacrifice military performance at the altar of fair burden-sharing.
So the effort to involve allies must include a strategy and preparations that take advantage of respective strengths and meld an effective force. Our point of departure is to understand the reasons why the United States does not depend on its allies today:. A vicious circle is at work. The United States plans, and maintains sufficient forces, to defend common interests independently because it lacks confidence in even its closest allies' capabilities and intentions.
These allies lack motivation to remedy their shortcomings, knowing that the United States can and evidently will protect common interests with or without them. Because the allies lack capabilities, the United States does not pursue the cooperative preparations that could raise confidence in allied intentions and in effective coalition military action.
From this diagnosis, four basic conditions for relying on allies emerge. These conditions address the central problem for the United States: confidence —that the allies will send forces, that the forces will be capable, and that a U. In the absence of new treaty obligations to act, which the United States could neither obtain nor offer, clear and durable political understandings are essential.
These include the sharing of strategic perspectives by political leaders, consultations among senior officials on common international security strategies, and if possible, more formal exchanges about the intent to act if certain broadly defined common interests are threatened. Combined military planning can buoy confidence further: The willingness of political leaders to authorize such planning implies a practical intent, or at least a presumption, to act; the planning itself would help convince senior officials and commanders that there is more at work than vague promises.
Such planning would need to address who provides what types of forces at what stages in a campaign, how the forces would be integrated or coordinated, and how to adapt to operational uncertainties. On the matter of capabilities , the United States would need to make known that hereafter it is counting on growing allied contributions. Only when the allies are told that the United States will no longer compensate for their inadequate power projection capabilities will the Europeans make a determined effort to shift their focus from territorial defense toward a relevant posture.
They have enough resources to perform power projection missions. Redirecting them toward the defense of shared interests, on the scale suggested here, will take years. Even then, any allied requirement for U. Therefore, agreed force goals and cooperative programs are needed to influence the specific capabilities allies acquire, to make U.
While none of these four conditions is sufficient in itself to permit the United States to count on allies to contribute effectively to a coalition military effort, the four in combination would be. Confidence would not soar overnight but would accumulate in the course of high-level conversations, joint planning, and concrete programs.
Meanwhile, the United States would not make precipitous changes in its defense posture in light of expected allied contributions; but as dependable allied capabilities grow, the United States would be able to shift resources toward other needs. To illustrate how confidence in the allies could be raised to such a point, consider the case of the Persian Gulf—as acute as any Western security concern.
Because access to fossil fuel supplies is at least as vital to the Europeans as it is to the United States, the leaders of the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Germany, along with the NATO Secretary General, might agree that a threat to Gulf security should trigger urgent consultations with a view toward common military action.
These plans would surely reveal gaps in coalition capabilities, provided—and this is crucial—the United States said it expects allies to furnish a substantial share of the combat forces needed for a major Persian Gulf contingency.
To close these gaps, the United States and its allies, at least the big ones, would need to agree upon force goals. The Europeans would then strive to meet these goals by accelerating the shift in their force postures from territorial defense to power projection. Preparations to execute multilateral plans would require U.
In the event of an actual crisis, the Congress and public would be unlikely to balk at a decision taken in NATO to form and send a U.
If the confidence problem were overcome in a way such as this, what sort of coalition force might be possible? The case that follows is a two-step adaptation of the U. Second, while the current plan assumes no allied contribution to any MRC, we call for a significant one both to Europe and the Persian Gulf. At present, the Pentagon allocates a "building block" of forces for both the Persian Gulf and Korea: seven division-equivalents including independent brigades of Army and Marine forces, 11 fighter wings including a Marine wing , and four or five carrier battle groups.
What additional forces should be allocated for a conflict in Europe? NATO currently specifies a requirement for four divisions of projection forces and assumes these forces will be available to perform local European operations even during a major war in the Persian Gulf.
The need for projection capabilities for the European theater will grow as NATO enlarges eastward even as the need for border defense forces continues to shrink. A reasonable force-sizing standard is for a capability similar to the U. This posture could, for example, help defend Poland against a Russian attack.
It would not, of course, be intended solely for this contingency. Rather, it would be designed for a full spectrum of operations, including peace missions, crisis interventions, and lesser regional conflicts. At the risk of complicating matters, it should be noted that a force posture for Europe would require somewhat more divisions and wings than the U. BUR "building block. If the goal is comparable capability, the NATO-Europe posture should be, say, nine divisions and 15 fighter wings and corresponding naval assets.
This posture would be about double the size of the current four-division NATO standard but no bigger than the current RRF, which includes 10 divisions and combat aircraft. But, while the current RRF is viewed as a pool from which limited assets up to four divisions can be drawn at any time, our concept calls for the entire posture being capable of projecting power.
What countries would furnish these forces? Because the United States currently plans to use its Europe-based forces to meet Persian Gulf requirements, if need be, logically the European allies would have to provide the entire NATO-Europe force.
But such an approach is badly flawed: It would leave the United States carrying the entire burden in the more dangerous Persian Gulf; it would diminish the American role in Europe; and it would omit the United States from the defense of NATO's new Central European members.
In Europe, the United States would be responsible for providing, say, one-third of NATO's forces, and the allies would be responsible for the other two-thirds. In the Persian Gulf, U. As a consequence, U. Europe-based forces—two Army divisions and three USAF fighter wings—would be committed firmly to European missions and would no longer be planned for use in the Persian Gulf. To compensate for this U.
The allies would become responsible for furnishing their own lift and logistic support needed to help defend the Persian Gulf, as well as to carry out their NATO-Europe obligation. In the Persian Gulf, the United States would have the leading role, but it would no longer be alone.
In Europe, the allies would provide the bulk of the forces; but the United States would commit enough forces to solidify its continuing role in Europe, its support for the new democracies, and its irreplaceable contribution to deterrence. Building integrated defense plans, of course, requires more than simply allocating enough U.
Coalition planning, guided by sound military strategy, will be needed to ensure that combined military operations can be carried out effectively. In the Persian Gulf, a different approach is needed. Because the United States will still provide two-thirds of the forces, its Central Command would be responsible for leading combined operations, as in the Persian Gulf War of , albeit with larger contributions by allied forces than now envisioned.
NATO's role would be that of developing the necessary plans and programs to ensure that European forces are prepared for Persian Gulf missions and can be deployed there promptly. If Europe and NATO are concerned about territory, citizens, lifestyles, and existence, then the past American-fought wars didn't quite share the same interests.
That cannot happen in places such as Europe, UK, Taiwan, and South Korea where such tactics and strategy would be frowned upon. The American military will was often present, but the strategy, will of the Nation, and that of Washington D.
The U. DoD exports a lot of Top Tier arms to allies who want and could afford them. However, as the war in Yemen proved, even the best weapons can't substitute for poor maintenance and trained crews.
That is where the U. Armed Forces intervenes with better Readiness and trained soldiers and officers. The problem lies with the killing of battlefield combatants and no real strategy as to stem the flow of insurgents. COIN has a war with no fronts, sides, or fixed governments; a war where Body Count once again often rules as attacking the governments of COIN might incite a broader war. The insurgents of these parts of the world usually won't drive technicals en masse through the streets of Paris, London, Berlin, Rome, or Madrid, claiming victory.
To our allies, the age-old threat still remains Russia and now China and Iran. America could export its best arms to these Allies, but often their armies and air forces are smaller and weaker than the USA's as the USA spends a huge budget on Defense. Many said that the USA isn't the World's Policeman, and that usually makes sense as many interventions aren't paid for by allies.
Some contribute, but it's often the American Taxpayer that foots the hefty bill, and now with COIN, a bill that seems without any fixed deadline or ending.
In wars fought on both sides of the continent WW II , America has secured a world peace lasting 75 years. No other Superpower nation dare challenge us. Our commitment to our Allies needs to be paramount and steadfast, not just in the military and trade sense, but in the leadership, Democracy, and lifestyle sense.
America has much to lose if it cannot maintain the peace and involvement in all directions of the compass as peer nations strive to fight for global resources and territory again. World involvement is costly, yes, but America has the Peace Corps and the Sword Corps to carry forth involvement dating back to the founding of this nation.
A manner in which the U. As a result, new-generation wars are to be dominated by information and psychological warfare. In other words, Putin is expanding Russian power and influence while mounting a cultural critique that resonates with some American audiences, casting himself as a defender of Christian civilization against Islam and the godless, decadent West.
While most Americans still see Moscow as a key U. More tanks, troops, missiles, etc. Q: How then to "regain credibility with our allies" — as per this such amazing see my first "a" and "b" above failing and deficiency? A: Persuade our Commander-in-Chief to — publicly — acknowledge and address this such failing and deficiency and to attack same head-on. For example, and from a military perspective, by the CinC directing the U. I agree with your sentiments and observations about "New generation warfare.
That is what differentiates the U. The G. Because of COIN, the American soldier and officer spent years fighting an insurgency similar to Vietnam but with many differences—the desert and not the jungle, against Cells and not a centralized government, against pockets of people and not mass waves of infantry. Now, "Hard, soft, and medium" military power has to be instilled in the American soldier who just serves a few years before being released from volunteer duty.
Could and can we provide these again when peer nations have studied and trained for some of them during peacetime? Is there such a concern that the G. That was indeed a worry back in the s, yes, as articles and analysts surmised that the G. The soldier, the Marine, once again needs to stand toe-to-toe for training funds with the high-tech expensive weaponry budgets, for it is the ground forces that change, shape, and mold the battlefield compared to the pilot overhead.
Think outside-the-box vs. Think lasers and tasers instead of rifles and bullets. Think Internet instead of radio.
Think flowers instead of rations. Expert analysis on the issues that shaped the election. Americans have frequently been told that allies matter, but what exactly does it mean to be a U.
And why are relationships deemed so vital to American security frequently so contentious? The result was the decision to establish a set of formal treaty alliances that would create a collective defensive effort to contain Communist expansionism. The U. The theory behind establishing the U. And it has. While abandoning the Kurds in Northern Syria raises moral and strategic questions, there is no formal alliance relationship with them.
Similarly, what makes Ukraine different from a country like Poland or Estonia is that while it has long received American support, the U. The core feature of U. Similarly, the Nixon administration urged Asian allies to play a larger role in their own defense as early as the late s. Allied defense budgets have waxed and waned—as have U. In the past decade, however, renewed concerns about Chinese and Russia aggression—as well as calls from both the Obama and Trump administrations for greater allied defense spending—have led many U.
In Asia, Australia , Japan , and South Korea have all announced plans for significant new defense investments, much of which includes purchases of U. Only four non-U. NATO members also recently agreed to a new cost-sharing formula that will result in Germany and the U.
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