President Putin made three foundational assumptions in launching his war against Ukraine that should have been correct but were not. First, Putin assumed the invasion of Ukraine would be a quick and easy fight. Second, he assumed the world would denounce the invasion but tacitly allow it. Third, Putin assumed the war would deter NATO expansion.
The character of war is rapidly changing. The increasing availability of evolving technology confounds previous frameworks for military operations. Socioeconomic factors and demographic shifts complicate manpower and force generation models for national defense. Ubiquitous connectivity links individuals to global audiences, expanding the reach of influence activities. And a renewed emphasis on strategic competition enhances the scope of military action below the threshold of violence. This is the world that Mick Ryan explores in War Transformed: The Future of Twenty-First-Century Great Power Competition and Conflict.
It stands to reason that as global conditions point to steady competition, the United States will need a force capable of understanding local conditions, building relationships with an array of partners, combating disinformation through truthful narratives, fostering resilience, raising costs of aggression, and selectively imposing costs through a variety of creative means. The solution to today’s challenges cannot only be material or technological in nature—there is no deus ex machina for human-centric competition. Special operations forces could fill the void as a competitive force once more, and campaign to provide outsized benefits in support of the nation’s priorities.
When the U.S. Coast Guard’s unique capabilities, authorities, and less threatening white hulls are considered in totality, novel solutions that mesh with the service’s strengths emerge. Cooperation on mutually beneficial Coast Guard missions serves as an opportunity to develop confidence-building measures and knit a resilient architecture that will inoculate two superpowers from conflict.
When the term “great power competition” (GPC) appeared in the 2017 National Security Strategy, it served as a wakeup call to many in the U.S. defense establishment. It signaled a sudden rhetorical shift which produced two positive developments. First, it prompted the military to embrace innovation with a newfound sense of urgency. Second, it helped to alert the American public to the strategic challenges presented by China’s newly aggressive foreign policy. But although its handy acronym is still alive and well in some sectors of government, “GPC” has fallen into disfavor, and for good reason.
If the United States is serious about competition in a global, informationalized arena against other aspiring great powers, a better-informed and engaged populace capable of thinking critically about the veracity of information it encounters daily should strengthen America’s intrinsic informational and economic strengths. A better-educated and informed public is a cognitively armed population, better able to participate in the processes of government, drive civic outcomes, and thwart disinformation while also producing innovative products and solutions.
In great power competition, alliances matter as much as anything else. And, as previous great power competitions demonstrate, alliance shifts can lead to instability and even open conflict between competitors. For the United States to maintain the upper hand in a worldwide strategic competition with China, alliances play a central role.
The 2017 National Security Strategy (NSS) serves as the keystone document of America’s strategic posture. Considering how the world has changed since it was first published, and in response to how our adversaries have reacted to U.S. actions on the world stage, the next National Security Strategy must shift to meet evolving threats. The next National Security Strategy must remain grounded in principled realism, but also must pivot away from the insular tone that has isolated the U.S. from its friends and has needlessly provoked its enemies. America must engage with the world and shift from a policy maintaining peace through strength of arms to a posture of peace through strength of engagement.
Ensure the ability to produce and deploy more military power than the enemy, protect this capability, and use the resulting military power to attack an adversary’s ability to do the same. Simple, but difficult. Technophiles will spill immeasurable amounts of ink writing of the need for American investment in artificial intelligence, hypersonics, and other new technology. The brutal truth is none of this technological overmatch matters if America can’t build enough of it, sustain it, or get it to the fight in the first place.
States, organizations, and individuals engaged in competition must ask themselves: Will I win or lose this competition if I make no changes to systems or policy? Whether they predict a persistent advantage or imminent decline, they must strive to identify the culprit that will lead them to the winner’s circle or cause their failure. Only then should they consider positive action to cement their advantage or prevent its deterioration.
Are U.S. goals vis-à-vis opposing powers tied to an identifiable definition of defeating an opponent? Do U.S. goals account for a clear relationship between ends and means, and the finite nature of both? If the answer to any of these questions is no, and if therefore the nature of the competition cannot be coherently explained, then competition has likely passed form reasonable idea to a meaningless buzzword.
If the U.S. should concede ground on partner territories or interests, the nation must articulate a new policy. The other option would be to compete against near-peer competitors in such a manner that maintains the present security environment with enough flexibility to deter conflict and, if needed, limit escalation. Either way, we must move forward into the reality of great power competition with our eyes wide open and with a determined gait, not dozing and stumbling forward.
Let’s renounce the dictum that “war is thus an act of force to compel the enemy to do our will.” Instead, let’s focus on understanding wars as involving fighting others to achieve tacitly or formally agreed political outcomes. War is not, in the end, about compulsion, it is all about bargaining violently.
The risk of violent conflict is growing in several regions of the world, which threatens U.S. national security interests and may trigger a military response in the near future. While foreign crises can arise in unpredictable ways, in many instances the warning signs are evident. Prior to conflict escalation, the opportunity exists to take preventive action to lessen the risk of events transitioning in an undesirable direction. In today’s global environment, security risks increase in a variety of ways because of coups d’état, security crises, cessations of political dynasties, and less predictable environments. With violent conflict opportunities increasing throughout the international system, state and non-state actors can impact societies in a manner that challenges U.S. national security interests as a global superpower.
Scarcity should both interest and scare strategists and policy makers. It refers to a mismatch between the demand for and availability of a commodity. It helps drive free markets, and informs value. But strategists and policy makers should contemplate it because scarcity, both real and perceived, drives much of human conflict, and it has reared its head again, this time in Yemen.
