This week on Facing the Future, we examined developments on the national security front with Michael O’Hanlon, senior fellow and director of research in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution. He is the author of a timely new book called “To Dare Mighty Things: U.S. Defense Strategy Since the Revolution”
“We’ve done a lot of things with our military power over our history,” O’Hanlon said in describing the theme of his book. ”We’ve been much more activist, much more assertive, than people usually acknowledge. We tell ourselves we’re a peaceful people. I don’t think that’s true. I think we are a good people, and I think we’ve generally put our military power to good use in a way that’s benefited not just us, but the world. However, we’ve had plenty of failures and we’ve had some ethically questionable actions, like the U.S.-Mexico War of 1846-1848, and Donald Trump’s threats to take Greenland now. And so we’re not always noble, and we’re certainly not always successful, but on balance we are a force for good and we certainly dare mighty things.”
Relating past American foreign policy to current events, O’Hanlon said he was “still in awe of the military for what they did to back up the arrest” of Venezuela’s president Nicolas Maduro. “But it raises this very tough question, just like we had in Iraq in 2003, and Libya in 2011: You take out the head of state, and what happens next? There’s the possibility that at some point, the Venezuelan regime collapses. So, what happens if things go south?”
He cautioned that stabilizing Venezuela politically and rebuilding its oil production capacity could be expensive and require U.S. troops on the ground. “The oil companies so far are telling President Trump, ‘we’re not interested in investing in Venezuela. It’s not safe and secure and stable enough,’” O’Hanlon noted.
Regarding President Trump’s desire to acquire Greenland, O’Hanlon said, “There are valid reasons for us to want to have access to Greenland, but we already do. Greenland is part of Denmark, Denmark is a NATO ally. We’re already committed by treaty to defend Greenland. We already have military access in Greenland. We have an open invitation to put more military capability there. Greenland is unambiguously part of the alliance’s purview. And therefore, there is no reason for it to be owned by the United States. There is no need.”
O’Hanlon worries that a U.S. confrontation with NATO over Greenland risks an end to the alliance. “I’m in a different place than I was two weeks ago, when I thought this whole idea had quieted down or maybe even started to go away. And then President Trump, maybe emboldened by the Venezuela operation, decided that he should think bigger and come back to the proposal.”
O’Hanlon continued, “I find it not only off-putting, but fundamentally risky to the NATO alliance, because if we actually take territory or coerce the acquisition of territory from another NATO member, our basic commitment to the Alliance seems to fall apart. Plus, the European countries and Canada are going to be deeply offended if we actually do this, and will doubt whether they should stay in alliance with the United States; whether they should keep hosting U.S. military forces on their territories.”
He cautioned that another risk to a confrontation with NATO is the potential Russian reaction. He explained: “Now Vladimir Putin starts to wonder, is this the right moment to test NATO? Maybe putting in a few forces into eastern Latvia or Estonia, NATO member states, where there are Russian speakers living. If he doubted that the United States would help come to the defense of those countries, that’s a golden opportunity to test NATO. So I see some real danger, not just to international norms and to the well-being of Greenland and Denmark but I see some danger of an increased risk of war with Russia.”
This risk could have an impact beyond U.S. defense spending, he said “because the biggest question is what would happen to global stability if we decided to fracture these alliances or get more involved in Venezuela. If you wind up with a war against Russia, now we’ve got not just the budget at risk, but the future of human civilization, because Russia still has 6,000 nuclear weapons.”
O’Hanlon observed that, “President Trump seems to be feeling his oats with military power. He’s recently proposed going from a little less than $1 trillion a year to $1.5 trillion. I think that’s way too big, no matter what your view of proper American foreign policy, because the system can’t productively absorb that much added spending that fast. If we were going to ever get to $1.5 trillion, I would say we should take at least a half a decade, probably a decade to get there. So, I am fine with seeing a modest real increase above inflation in the defense budget, and actually would advocate it. But I think we should have the real defense budget grow anywhere between 1% and 3% a year, instead of a single 50% increase all in one fell swoop.”
Hear more on Facing the Future. Concord Coalition Senior Advisor Bob Bixby hosts the program each week on WKXL in Concord N.H., and it is also available via podcast. Join us as The Concord Coalition team discusses issues relating to national fiscal policy with budget experts, industry leaders, and elected officials. Past broadcasts are available here. You can subscribe to the podcast on Spotify, Pandora, iTunes, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or with an RSS feed. Follow Facing the Future on Facebook, and watch videos from past episodes on The Concord Coalition YouTube channel.
