By William Tucker
Chief Correspondent for In Homeland Security
The United States is a member of several international bodies with mutual defense agreements that are based on shared interests. NATO is one such example, but other important defense agreements such those with South Korea and Japan are also of fundamental importance. Though many often look to Washington to provide leadership on many international issues, U.S. allies are still independent nations and may react to a situation with an adversary in ways that complicate their relationship with Washington. Such a situation frequently occurs with Israel, but one of the more profound instances took place in the Caucasus. Georgia took exceptional risk in a dispute with Russia thinking that its relationship with the U.S. would allow Georgia certain latitude the small nation lacked in the past. For its part, the U.S. was involved in Afghanistan and Iraq and the idea that Washington could aggressively respond to a Russian invasion of Georgia seemed rather far fetched. The Georgians would see their nation lose a significant amount of territory, while the U.S. would take a hit to its reputation as it appeared unable to fulfill several implied commitments to the defense of Washington’s allies. This result of the 2008 Russo-Georgian war likely led Tbilisi to rethink its relationships with the U.S. and Russia, while Washington had to rush to reassure its formal NATO allies in east and central Europe that it understood the Russian threat to the former Soviet states and was prepared to meet the mutual defense obligations of the NATO charter. Essentially, an ill conceived decision in a small republic forced the world’s lone superpower to rethink its negotiations with Russia in another part of the world and on other unrelated issues. The effect on U.S. policy toward Russia in the ensuing years has been profound.
For Georgia, its primary threat to national security was rather obvious, and the same could easily be said of many U.S. allies; however the UK has decided to place Russia at the top of its tier one risks along with terrorism and cyberwar. Previously, the UK had ranked Moscow at the bottom of its list of third tier threats. This isn’t the only shift in London’s stance as other issues ranging from urging NATO to update Articles 4 and 5 on Collective Defense, or more specifically, its definition of armed attack and what would constitute an appropriate response, and the increase of capabilities dedicated to the rapid response units. The shifts in threat prioritization from the UK, and the requests for improvements within NATO, will have an impact on NATO members including the U.S. As Russia becomes more of an active and persistent threat, the desire of the U.S. to place greater focus on East Asia will be complicated. As the constant return of U.S. military force in the Middle East has demonstrated time and again, Washington will have to take these complexities in stride as it tries to balance its allies needs with U.S. policy objectives. In a time when politicians in Washington have been searching for ways to cut defense spending, the rest of the world isn’t exactly cooperating in decreasing the plethora of armed conflicts. Now that major U.S. allies are reorienting their defense posture, Washington is going to have to respond in kind. The difficulties of this cannot be understated.
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