{"id":29554,"date":"2016-11-18T11:00:20","date_gmt":"2016-11-18T00:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=29554"},"modified":"2016-11-16T11:50:00","modified_gmt":"2016-11-16T00:50:00","slug":"coming-crisis-americas-military-alliances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/coming-crisis-americas-military-alliances\/","title":{"rendered":"The coming crisis of America\u2019s military alliances"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-29555 size-full\" title=\"Edited image courtesy of the Department of Defence.\" src=\"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/20161111raaf8165233_124.t58291b16.m2048.x63ef4081.jpg\" alt=\"Edited image courtesy of the Department of Defence.\" width=\"640\" height=\"457\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/20161111raaf8165233_124.t58291b16.m2048.x63ef4081.jpg 640w, https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/20161111raaf8165233_124.t58291b16.m2048.x63ef4081-205x146.jpg 205w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>As Philippe Legrain pointed out in <em>The Strategist<\/em> last week, the election of Donald Trump as the next US president threatens to further undermine the liberal international order. Thus far, US military alliances in Asia and Europe have been a cornerstone of this structure. There\u2019s a good chance that many of these alliances could soon be faced with a major crisis.<\/p>\n<p>The success story of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Europe and America\u2019s system of bilateral alliances in Asia\u2013Pacific has been based on three major components: a commonality of values, US leadership and credible military capabilities to deter a potential adversary. As <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1080\/00396339708442901?journalCode=tsur20\" target=\"_blank\">Stephen Walt has pointed out<\/a>, modern Western alliances are more likely to endure if they share similar values and when there is a large asymmetry of power within them, i.e. US leadership backed by its overwhelming military force. The commonality of values cannot be overstated. Indeed, it\u2019s hoped that Trump\u2019s security advisors read <a href=\"http:\/\/jpr.sagepub.com\/content\/23\/3\/263\" target=\"_blank\">Geir Lundestad\u2019s seminal article<\/a> on the United States\u2019 preeminent position during the Cold War as the reflection of an \u2018empire by invitation\u2019. Yet, it\u2019s more likely that the Trump presidency will erode the critical \u2018glue\u2019 that holds these alliances together.<\/p>\n<p>Contrary to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theaustralian.com.au\/national-affairs\/foreign-affairs\/turnbull-attacks-shorten-for-barking-mad-trump-remark\/news-story\/0e4ad35ed88b5da51de18620772b2bcd\" target=\"_blank\">Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull\u2019s views<\/a>, many allies have great difficulty seeing the United States under a President Trump as the \u2018leader of the free world\u2019. America has indeed lost its status as the \u2018shining city upon the hill,\u2019 not least because of Trump\u2019s support for authoritarianism. The unprecedented reactions from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/projects\/cp\/opinion\/election-night-2016\/angela-merkels-warning-to-trump\" target=\"_blank\">German Chancellor Angela Merkel<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/world\/americas\/us-elections\/donald-trump-elected-us-president-wins-election-response-germany-france-merkel-hollande-putin-a7407426.html\" target=\"_blank\">French president Fran\u00e7ois Hollande<\/a> were loud and clear: the two most important European powers condition their future relationship with Washington within NATO and elsewhere on Trump meeting the basic standards of democratic conduct. Senior German policy-makers already discuss the need for the country to prepare for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/world\/europe\/hows-trumps-victory-is-causing-europe-to-rethink-its-security\/2016\/11\/10\/fba23df8-a68d-11e6-ba46-53db57f0e351_story.html\" target=\"_blank\">a more active security and defence policy<\/a>. Meanwhile, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.canberratimes.com.au\/world\/us-election\/donald-trumpvladimir-putin-alliance-sparks-diplomatic-crisis-20161112-gso1oi.html\" target=\"_blank\">UK diplomats also fear a major diplomatic crisis<\/a> because of Trump\u2019s appetite for close ties with Vladimir Putin. Should Trump indeed pursue this option at the expense of European security concerns, other NATO allies will also look elsewhere for security.<\/p>\n<p>Moreover, Trump has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/international\/archive\/2016\/11\/trump-election-foreign-policy\/505934\/\" target=\"_blank\">displayed a deep-seated belief<\/a> in an isolationist foreign policy and the need for allies to pay a greater share of the burden. Indeed, no other successful presidential candidate has so frequently questioned whether the United States would defend its allies. This\u2019s not only a problem for NATO but also for allies and partners in Asia\u2013Pacific. Japan, South Korea and Taiwan are extremely worried about the implications of a Trump presidency. Should Trump exacerbate fears in Tokyo and Seoul about US abandonment, both could even <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/with-trump-asias-nuclear-crisis-expands-1478797800\" target=\"_blank\">weigh their nuclear options<\/a>; Taiwan is also a \u2018latent\u2019 nuclear power.<\/p>\n<p>Some commentators (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/trump-make-pivot-great\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/nationalinterest.org\/feature\/12-carriers-350-ships-strategic-path-forward-president-elect-18395\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>) argue that Trump could revitalise the pivot through building a \u2018350 ship navy\u2019 and a \u2018bold\u2019 military strategy against China. However, America\u2019s military hardware has never been the main issue for the rebalance. Rather, the problem has been one of credible leadership \u2018within\u2019 the alliances. And Trump\u2019s transactional understanding of alliances\u2014the \u2018more you pay, the more we protect you\u2019\u2014fails to understand that America\u2019s leadership capacity and disproportionate influence has been based on its provision of significant resources. The \u2018free rider\u2019 argument is flawed in regards to most alliances. In the case of Japan, for instance, it neglects Tokyo\u2019s significant \u2018host nation\u2019 support for US troops and the fact that its relatively low defence spending in terms of GDP (which still makes it the second most powerful navy in the region in qualitative terms) is a means to reassure neighbours about its intentions. US presence in South Korea provides Washington with significant deterrent posture vis-\u00e0-vis the nuclear regime in the North. And even in Europe, US strategic investments have delivered a return which can only partly be measured in monetary terms: broad acceptance of US transatlantic leadership but also access to critical infrastructure for global force projection, for example through bases in Germany.<\/p>\n<p>Trump\u2019s presidency could make the United States and key alliances strategically poorer. Of course, it\u2019s still early days and the incoming administration could heed the sanguine advice by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.csis.org\/analysis\/pacnet-84-what-willshould-trump%E2%80%99s-asia-policy-look\" target=\"_blank\">Ralph Cossa<\/a> and others on how to reassure allies in Asia. Yet, in regards to Asia, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/11\/10\/us\/politics\/donald-trump-presidential-agenda.html?smid=tw-nytimes&amp;smtyp=cur\" target=\"_blank\">David Sanger has pointed out<\/a> that one of Trump\u2019s more consistent themes is his belief that Japan has been \u2018ripping off\u2019 its US ally. Trump is also <a href=\"http:\/\/english.yonhapnews.co.kr\/northkorea\/2016\/11\/10\/0401000000AEN20161110000600315.html\" target=\"_blank\">likely to pressure South Korea<\/a> to increase its host nation support and to complete the transfer of operational wartime control (OPCON) to South Korean forces.<\/p>\n<p>Moreover, highly institutionalised alliances such as NATO have demonstrated a remarkable resilience against shock events and strategic discontinuities. But we shouldn\u2019t bet on it and just expect that Trump will moderate his views in office. More than anything, Trump\u2019s pro-Russia stance as well as support for xenophobic and authoritarian positions are unlikely to subside, making cohesion within NATO a very difficult undertaking. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/meeting-the-press-for-first-time-since-trumps-win-obama-says-new-president-is-committed-to-nato\/2016\/11\/14\/b90dbf7c-aa92-11e6-a31b-4b6397e625d0_story.html\" target=\"_blank\">Obama\u2019s reassurance attempts<\/a> that Trump will stick to US\u2019 NATO commitments will hardly persuade European allies. While calls for \u2018greater burden sharing\u2019 have been repeated by almost every post-war US administration, in the context of Trump\u2019s ideology America\u2019s alliances could soon face a major crisis.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As Philippe Legrain pointed out in The Strategist last week, the election of Donald Trump as the next US president threatens to further undermine the liberal international order. Thus far, US military alliances in Asia &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":29555,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[40,1428,261,293,31],"class_list":["post-29554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-alliance-2","tag-donald-trump","tag-nato","tag-pivot","tag-united-states"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The coming crisis of America\u2019s military alliances | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/coming-crisis-americas-military-alliances\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The coming crisis of America\u2019s military alliances | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As Philippe Legrain pointed out in The Strategist last week, the election of Donald Trump as the next US president threatens to further undermine the liberal international order. 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