By William Tucker
Chief Correspondent for In Homeland Security
It was a busy weekend for U.S. foreign policy as Secretary of State John Kerry finalized a deal with Iran regarding its nuclear program and addressed the war of words between Japan and China. If that wasn’t enough, the Loya Jirga, Afghanistan’s traditional assembly, voted to endorse the joint U.S.- Afghan security cooperation accord and urged president Hamid Karzai to sign it by year’s end. Naturally, these are but a few of the issues the U.S. must content with as nations, friend and foe alike, vie for Washington’s attention. It is at this point where the reality of the superpower is cleaved from the mythos of omnipotence – the U.S. simply cannot respond to every issue or provocation that manifests around the globe. Though the U.S. has far reaching interests – many complex and seemingly contradictory – only a few can be effectively managed at any given time, but throw military action into the mix and the topic du jour gets narrower still. Such is the case with U.S. military involvement in the Middle East and the broader war on terror. With U.S. forces still in Afghanistan and an increasing commitment in Africa, U.S. military logistics is kept well employed. For Washington, this hampers the ability to respond to significant issues that may be pressing. Though the U.S. still maintains the ability to fight a two theater conflict, it is not an ideal situation and Washington would prefer to have forces available to respond to crises worldwide without threatening resupply to forces engaged elsewhere.
Though flawed, the agreement with Iran does give the U.S. leeway to handle issues beyond the Middle East. In Europe, former Soviet states are moving ahead with plans to bolster their military forces in spite of economic malaise because of the Russian threat, while nations bordering the South and East China Seas are busy looking for assistance to stymie aggressive Chinese action over disputed territory. The U.S. may feel more comfortable with NATO allies taking the initiative to increase military funding and may even see a more manageable threat in relation to Russia, but the concern over Chinese actions and intentions has prompted regular responses from Washington in defense of its regional allies. An example as recent as this weekend saw Beijing’s unilateral establishment of an air defense identification zone (ADIZ) over the hotly contested Senkaku/Diaoyu islands. Expectedly, Japan called the ADIZ expansion a provocation and dangerous escalation. The U.S. responded by flying two B-52 bombers over the islands without abiding by Chinese rules. As of this writing China has yet to respond to the U.S. over-flight though it did send its sole aircraft carrier to the South China Sea. On several occasions the U.S. Navy has had aircraft carriers transit the Strait of Taiwan as a show of force making today’s over-flight of the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands seem rather routine. Though the U.S. does maintain a sizable military presence in the East Asian theater, not to mention the extensive economic ties with the area, Washington wants to put more emphasis on the region. This has been repeatedly delayed, however, as the U.S. has dealt with the war on terrorism.
As the U.S. has extricated itself from Iraq and is working on doing the same with Afghanistan, the lone superpower will have a battle-hardened, yet disciplined military more readily available. This isn’t to say the U.S. would want or even need to employ force to reach it foreign policy objectives, rather Washington wants to have all elements of its national power readily available as it buoys everything from international negotiations to the free flow of global commerce. This recent breakthrough with Iran will serve Washington’s short-term plan to reorient its military commitments to those of smaller, shorter engagements all the while having large numbers of forces available to counter the moves of regional hegimons that challenge U.S. interests. Washington’s agreement with Iran puts the onus on Tehran to show good faith in limiting its nuclear activities over a six month period. During this period the U.S. will have a better idea of what military forces will be available, how the nations of the Middle East will react to Iranian activities independent of the U.S., how Iran will behave in its support for Syrian and Iraqi Shia militants, and how extra-regional powers will maneuver in relation to the U.S. recalibration. Without an agreement with Iran, the pressure that was exerted on Washington by its Middle Eastern allies would’ve complicated the U.S. response to crises elsewhere on the globe. This six month window provides the U.S. with some much needed breathing room to deal with issues such as China. Beijing may ultimately respond to the U.S. over-flight of the disputed islands, but it will be restrained in doing so as more U.S. forces are freed up from the war on terror.
Ultimately it comes down to this, the Middle East is a major energy provider constantly wracked by conflict, but the conventional military threat is manageable and the flow of commerce (i.e. energy) hasn’t yet ceased. In the case of East Asia, there are several world economic powers with substantial and capable conventional military forces locked in a conflict over territorial disputes that have potential energy reserves and other resources worth exploiting. For China’s part, it is a nation that is bottled up by several U.S. allies on its sole coastline, and though its exports are moving worldwide they do need the offshore energy reserves. More importantly still, they would very much like to break free of the U.S. encirclement. PLA planners have created a multistage plan to seize islands to accomplish this goal. Designated as the first and second island chains, China believes that the disputed islands must first be seized, an anti-access strategy designed to eject the U.S. from the region must be employed, then the further afield second island chain must be taken for Beijing to control its littoral environment. This is essentially the Japanese plan of WWII, yet in reverse. But, the problem China faces is one of military expansion. Granted, China has made great strides in modernizing much of its force, but its also worth considering that it took Beijing over a decade to refit a single aircraft carrier that was already obsolete when it was purchased in 1998. Essentially, China has a very long way to go and it just saw a golden window of opportunity begin to shrink away as the U.S. has slowly rebalanced its force commitment away from the Middle East. Even in the most advantageous circumstances, China, and to a lesser extent Iran, have not been able to take advantage of U.S. entanglement. On the contrary, Washington is increasingly becoming more flexible and should be able to respond more assuredly to various crises in the near-term. In theory this should make negotiations favor the U.S., but in practice it will at least make some nations more cautious.
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