Charles W. King

President Trump has recently transferred responsibility for the number of American troops deployed to Afghanistan to the Pentagon, precipitating a likely increase in the number of American soldiers there. This dismays those who would like to see the United States draw down its presence in Afghanistan, which has cost the US a tremendous amount of blood and treasure since the invasion in 2001, but it is worth examining why American commanders in both Afghanistan and Iraq have been so insistent on the need for large deployments of American troops to those conflicts.

Historically, the United States has relied on quality instead of quantity as for its armed forces. The US Navy was founded on the backbone of six innovative and expensive frigates. Even during World War Two when the US instituted conscription American GIs had more training than their Allied counterparts and vastly more tons of war materiel per soldier than any other belligerent. Supplying American soldiers with excellent training and inexhaustible supplies of rations, rifles, tanks, destroyers, and planes increased the combat effectiveness American forces many times over. This contrasts with the Soviet Red Army during the early years of the war, which possessed legions of able fighting men, but scant resources with which to equip them. Since World War Two the US has only increased the amount of investment, in training and materiel, per soldier. It is estimated to cost nearly $10 million to train an American Special Forces soldier.

At first glance the quality of each American soldier is the obvious reason why American commanders constantly requested more of them during the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. There are, after all, limits on the effect a single soldier can have, regardless of how much training and equipment they have. However this ignores the nature of the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Without front lines and traditional engagements they had less in common with like World War Two, the Korean War, or even Vietnam than they did with peacekeeping operations. The most successful peacekeeping operations in American history are the NATO operations in the Balkans in the 1990’s. They also have the highest ratio of troops to population of any peacekeeping operation.

Different of military operations have different requirements and increase or decrease the effect of different factors. Covert infiltrations are best performed by small groups of highly trained soldiers with extensive surveillance support. Fighting the Soviet Union in Europe would have required a great deal of anti-armor capabilities. Peacekeeping requires boots on the ground. This is because peacekeeping has more in common with policing than it does soldiering much of the time. American police chiefs have long understood that an increased visible presence reduces crime, while not necessarily affecting the arrest rate. This is because this visible presence has a deterrent effect. The same is true in peacekeeping operations. The more peacekeepers there are, the more deterrent value they have, and the less they have to engage in combat actions.

This is borne out not only by NATO operations in the Balkans, but also in the effects of past surges in Iraq and Afghanistan. The question American policy-makers are asking should not be whether or not to deploy more troops. More troops will increase the likelihood of achieving strategic objectives and reduce the rate of casualties. The question should be whether the United States is willing to spend the blood and treasure required to achieve the results it desires.

Charles W. King

One of the major concepts in modern Political Science is that of credibility. For a threat to be credible the leaders and policy-makers of foreign powers must believe that the actor making the threat will follow through on it. Credible threats are what make policies of nuclear deterrence and collective defense effective. After World War Two the United States initially threatened a policy of nuclear retaliation for any Soviet aggression, but this was quickly undermined by American unwillingness to use nuclear weapons over the 1948 Soviet coup d’état in Czechoslovakia. The formation of NATO and establishment of Article 5 made American and European threats of retaliation for Soviet aggression more credible. The articulation that, “an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all,” clarified how the US and its allies would respond to what kind of actions. Where previously it has been difficult for rivals and allies alike to predict the American response to Soviet actions, this clarification made US policy more predictable.

Predictability has a range of advantages in international affairs. In the 1980s the Soviet Union developed a system known as the “Dead Hand” or “Hand from the Grave” that would automatically launch a retaliatory strike against the United States if a nuclear weapon detonated in the Soviet Union, a doomsday device in every sense of the word. Contrary to Dr. Strangelove’s exclamation that, “the whole point of a doomsday device is lost if you keep it a secret!” The purpose of the “Dead Hand” system was not to deter American policy-makers, but Soviet ones. Knowing that the “Dead Hand” would automate a nuclear second strike if the Soviet Union was attacked, Soviet leaders would no longer be tempted launch a nuclear strike in response to a false alarm. The predictability of their own system made Soviet policy-makers confident in the credibility of their own threats of retaliation and enabled them to act more predictably towards American policies.

International diplomacy is underpinned by its predictability. Nations know that their diplomats and embassies are protected from molestation, and they know how and where to contact each other publically and privately. In the midst of war nations are able to contact each other directly or through intermediaries, which is essential to the successful resolution of conflicts. The United States does not have diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran, however there is a longstanding policy of contact between the US and Iran through the Swiss Embassy in Iran. The United States’ “One China Policy” and the Shanghai Communiqué allow both the US and the People’s Republic of China to know what is and is not over the line, so that the can avoid crossing it or cross it if they so choose. Without knowing where that line is relations between the US and the PRC would be much more fraught.

Even Richard Nixon’s “Madman Theory” was an exercise not in unpredictability but in predictability. Nixon established that he was willing to respond to Soviet actions more aggressively; this would not have been effective if it was not predictable. Nixon was not unpredictable; rather he leveraged Soviet expectations from previous administrations to create new expectations that his administration believed to be advantageous.

Predictability makes cooperation with friendly nations and deterring rival nations easier. It is the foundation of credible deterrence and effective international trade agreements. The establishment of policies and patterns of behavior on the international state are something that policy-makers must engage with actively, knowing that predictability is advantageous and descalatory, and can be leveraged.

Charles W. King

As Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies prepare to seize the port of Hodeidah in Yemen, the World Health Organization and the United Nations are reporting a rising death toll from cholera. They forecast 150,000 new cases in the next month. A faction of the Hadi government has split off, without the southern leaders the government is in peril.

Across the Gulf of Aden Somalia is suffering from increasing drought. Al Shabaab is capitalizing on the inability of the government in Mogadishu to provide the humanitarian relief. Instead of barring aid organizations as they did in 2011, Al Shabaab is taking responsibility for providing food and water to Somalis where the Somali Federal Government cannot.

In Egypt the government of President Adbel Fattah el-Sisi has passed legislation requiring 47,000 local and 100 foreign non-governmental aid organizations to get approval from a new regulatory body. That body has not yet been established, aid organizations predict that it will be more of a roadblock than a regulator

On June 1st the Economist reported on Mohieddine Manfoush, a Syrian dairy farmer who provides dairy to Damascus and dry goods to cities besieged by government forces. Small entrepreneurs who could not afford to flee the Syrian conflict are filling the gaps left by those who could.

Meanwhile the United States is increasing its military support for Kurdish and Iraqi forces, both through military aid and the increasing deployment of American Special Forces and support troops, including artillery batteries. In a recent statement Emmanuel Macron, the recently elected President of France, pledged French intervention in the event of the use of chemical weapons in Syria. While the West is focusing on guns, many of the states and non-state actors in the Middle East are focused on butter.

Islamic State’s rapid growth was fueled not only by foreign fighters, but by its enthusiasm for replicating the functions of the state. As it expanded across Syria and Iraq Islamic State repaired infrastructure, instituted and enforced law, and sought to reinforce its claim to the Caliphate not only through religious dogma but by mimicking state institutions. The entrenchment of Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon owe more to their willingness to provide governance and humanitarian relief than their military effectiveness.

The recognition that legitimacy derives not only from military force but also from the ability to protect and provide for the welfare of the people is not a recent innovation. The People’s Republic of China is acutely aware of how its declining economic growth may affect its legitimacy with the Chinese people. In the nineteenth century Germany and the Ottoman Empire instituted widespread reforms to strengthen state institutions and quiet domestic unrest. Providing health and prosperity engenders stability and suppot.

In Yemen cholera cases are rising and a longer conflict looms. Al Shabaab is positioning itself as a reliable source of governance and aid in rural Somalia. The el-Sisi government is increasing its control of aid organizations in Egypt. The government of Bashar al-Assad has recognized the need control over the flow of vital goods including food in the Syrian civil war. As these humanitarians crises in the Middle East worsen, the United States and the West remain fixated on killing jihadists and preventing the use of chemical weapons, and are providing guns and missiles to that end. Middle Eastern governments and insurgents alike have recognized the importance of providing milk, water, and wheat.

Charles W. King

The success of The Marshall Plan rebuilding Europe after World War Two and correcting the mistakes of the Treaty of Versailles is one of the most well known facts about World War Two amongst the American. Named for George C. Marshall, the US Army Chief of Staff during the war and Secretary of State and Defense after the war, the Marshall Plan provided more than $13 billion (in 1940s dollars) to Western Europe to help rebuilding. This largess is contrasted with the punitive measures imposed on Germany after World War One.

The Treaty of Versailles required not only German admission of guilt for World War One but the acceptance of responsibility for not only their own war debt, but millions in reparations to the victorious Entente powers. The predominant historical narrative is that the burdens of the Treaty of Versailles led to the collapse of the Weimar Republic’s economy, the rise of Adolph Hitler, and World War Two, and that the Marshall Plan averted a repeat of this cycle. Contemporary historians and economists are skeptical of whether the Treaty of Versailles actually contributed to the hyperinflation that plagued Germany in the interwar period. This raises the question; if the Treaty of Versailles is not responsible for World War Two, then what was the purpose of the Marshall Plan?

First and foremost the Marshall Plan, along with the Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe (CARE), saved countless lives in Western Europe in the years after World War Two. Additionally, like many of the other post-war efforts by the United States and its Allies, the Marshall Plan was designed to create a post-war order that was good for the United States. As it transitioned from a war-time economy to a consumer one the United States would need markets for its goods. A struggling Europe or a Europe that had turned to communism would not be able or willing to purchase American consumer goods. Like many of the American aid programs that would follow in the twentieth century the Marshall Plan had requirements. States receiving aid had to lower interstate barriers to trade and other regulations. The Marshall Plan also facilitated economic growth through labor union participation, increased productivity, modern American business practices and above all capitalism.

Recognizing the purpose economic and political objectives of the Marshall Plan illuminates the fact that while bold and on a scale not seen before, it was not unprecedented. Economic growth through productivity and access to markets goes back to colonial resistance to British mercantilism and monopolies. Westward expansion and the acquisition of overseas territory at the end of the nineteenth century represent the second phase of this effort. The Marshall Plan was the third. It ushered in decades of active American foreign policy where aid was a political tool used to gain market access for the United States and to prevent foreign states from falling to communism by allowing them to participate in the economic growth experienced by the US and its trading partners. The Marshall Plan for all of its expense and obvious moral character was essential to preventing the collapse of the American economy and a return to the Great Depression after World War Two. George Marshall and President Truman recognized that for the United States to continue to prosper it needed to invest in the wider world.

Charles W. King

Today the European Union has been buffeted by crisis after crisis; Sovereign debt, refugees, Brexit, illiberal democracy in Eastern Europe. The recent election in France averted a possible complete collapse of the European project. It is worth noting in this time of crisis for Europe that the European Union has been an unqualified success at its original purpose; preventing war in continental Europe.

The history of Europe is one of conflicts, dating all the way back to the Roman Empire. During that history many attempts have been made to establish structures that would prevent future conflict. The Holy Roman Empire, The Peace of Westphalia, Napoleon's Empire, the Congress of Vienna, and Bismarck's Alliance system, and the League of Nations all failed to prevent the nations of Europe from descending to violence again. Compared to the span of European history the twentieth century was both brutal (as measured by the casualties of the World Wars) and tranquil (as measured by the number of conflicts). It is true that to an extent there now exists a cultural disdain for the Clausewitzian use of 'war as politics by other means' but that was also true to an extent between World War One and World War Two. The establishment of NATO was a significant factor in the prevention of another European conflict, as was the looming threat of the Soviet Red Army in Eastern Europe. External threats and the continued occupation of West Germany are not enough to explain how the Europe of 1946 became the Europe of today.

Established by the Treaty of Paris in 1951 the European Coal and Steel Community is another in the plethora of post-World War Two international institutions designed to prevent future conflicts. The United Nations' purpose was to prevent another World War, and NATO possessed a dual purpose containing both Germany and the Soviet Union. Proposed by the French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman in 1950 the purpose of the common market was to, "make war not only unthinkable but materially impossible." The ECSC attempted to achieve this through a surprisingly limited means; it created a common market for two strategic commodities, coal and steel, between its six member states, France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. With these two essential war-making materials flowing unrestricted across borders nations would no longer have reason to fight over valuable borderlands like Alsace-Lorraine and the Ruhr, and it would be difficult to hoard steel or coal for military build up.

Then something surprising happened; the economies members of the European Coal and Steel Community began to flourish. They were some of the most ruined countries in Europe, devastated by two World Wars and the Great Depression, and yet they began to rebuild faster and stronger than those outside the common market. They quickly decided to expand their common market to more than two commodities, signing the Treaty of Rome in 1957 to establish the European Economic Community, based on the ECSC. The European Coal and Steel Community is the template upon which all of the subsequent supranational institutions of Europe have been based, from the European Atomic Energy Agency to the European Parliament. It facilitated recovery of Western Europe after World War Two, and its continued growth in the decades since. In those decades the original purpose of the European Coal and Steel Community has been forgotten. As Europeans struggle with economic disparity, refugees, and diplomatic deficits they should rejoice in the fact that they have transformed an institution designed to prevent war to an engine of growth. The European Union has turned swords to ploughshares on an epic scale.