In the unlikely event that Donald Trump, Kamala Harris, or other aspiring world leaders ask me for foreign policy advice, I’d be happy to talk to them about a range of topics. There’s climate change, How to deal with Chinawhy protectionism is stupid, What to do about Gazathe role of standards, what balance of threats theory What globalization really means, and a host of other topics. But I will begin by drawing their attention to two competing trends in world politics, whose roots go back decades, if not centuries. These two trends are at odds in important ways, and failure to understand how they interact has led many countries down the wrong path.
In the unlikely event that Donald Trump, Kamala Harris, or other aspiring world leaders ask me for foreign policy advice, I’d be happy to talk to them about a range of topics. There’s climate change, How to deal with Chinawhy protectionism is stupid, What to do about Gazathe role of standards, what balance of threats theory What globalization really means, and a host of other topics. But I will begin by drawing their attention to two competing trends in world politics, whose roots go back decades, if not centuries. These two trends are at odds in important ways, and failure to understand how they interact has led many countries down the wrong path.
The first trend is the increased range, accuracy and lethality About a century ago, airpower was in its infancy, rockets and artillery were imprecise and had limited range. To do much damage to an enemy, you had to defeat its military forces and then surround its cities with a besieging army. Today, however, powerful states have become very adept at blowing things up, even if the target is hundreds or even thousands of miles away. Nuclear weapons and intercontinental-range missiles are the apotheosis of this trend, but fortunately these weapons have only been used for deterrence since 1945. But steady improvements in long-range aircraft, ballistic and cruise missiles, drones, and precision-guided technologies now allow fighters to destroy targets hundreds of miles away. Even some non-state actors (e.g., the Houthis in Yemen) are getting in on the action.
With their control of the air, powerful states can now inflict enormous damage on opposing armies or defenseless civilian populations. What the United States did at the start of the first Gulf War, what Russia is doing in Ukraine, or what Israel is doing in Gaza today demonstrate how the ability to project destructive power has grown dramatically over time. One could add to this list the use of drones to kill suspected terrorists in so-called “signature strikes” or to assassinate foreign officials such as Qassem Suleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force. The Israeli strike that killed Fuad Shukr, a senior Hezbollah official, in Lebanon last week is just the latest example. For the world’s most powerful states, the ability to deploy lethal force has never been greater. And sophisticated cyber weapons can enable states to attack an adversary’s critical infrastructure with the click of a mouse, even if the target is halfway around the world. In short, for some states, the capability for destruction has become global.
The second trend is completely different: the accentuation of the political relevance and tenacity of local forms of identity and loyalty, and above all of the feeling of being a nation. As I have noted before“The idea that humans form distinct tribes based on a common language, culture, ethnicity, and self-awareness, and that these groups should be able to govern themselves, has shaped the history of the last 500 years in ways that many people still do not fully appreciate.” The widespread emergence of a sense of nationhood and the belief that these groups should not be governed by others is a major reason why the multinational empires of the Habsburgs and the Ottoman Empire did not survive beyond 1918 and 1922 respectively; why the British, French, Portuguese, and Belgian colonies gained independence; and why the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact eventually collapsed as well.
Once a strong sense of national identity takes root within a population – a process that governments often encourage to forge a greater sense of unity and allegiance to the state – its members will be increasingly willing to make enormous sacrifices for the good of “the state.”imagined communityThe North Vietnamese fought the Japanese, French, and Americans for 50 years to gain independence and unify their nation. The Afghan mujahideen eventually forced the Soviet Union to withdraw its troops from their country, and their Taliban successors convinced the United States to do the same. Today, the Ukrainians, outnumbered and outgunned, continue to resist the Russian invasion, while Israel’s efforts to destroy Palestinian resistance and identity only seem to make them stronger.
The result is paradoxical: Powerful and technologically advanced countries have increasingly effective means of inflicting damage from a distance, but this destructive capacity does not give them lasting political influence or enable them to win significant strategic victories. The United States controlled the skies over Iraq from 1992 to 2010 and could deploy aircraft, missiles, and drones against its adversaries at any time. But this technically impressive capacity did not allow American forces to eliminate the insurgents, reduce the influence of pro-Iranian militias, or determine the political evolution of the country.
These two trends—the ever-increasing ability to blow things up remotely and the enduring power of local identities—are at odds in part because reliance on the former tends to reinforce the latter. Early airpower theorists predicted that aerial bombardment would break civilian morale and lead adversaries to surrender quickly, but experience shows that drop bombs The use of bombs and missiles on a civilian population is more likely to foster a powerful sense of unity and a spirit of resistance. Inflicting death and destruction on defenseless populations is, in fact, an ideal crucible for forging a sense of shared identity among the victims. Destroying Ukrainian infrastructure with bombs and missiles may have some military value, but Russian President Vladimir Putin could not have chosen a worse way to persuade Ukrainians of their “right to self-determination.”historical unit“with Russia. Whatever the outcome of the war, it has created a rift between Ukraine and Russia that is likely to last for decades.
Why do I want to talk to future national leaders about these two trends? Because leaders of powerful countries tend to think that the “shock and awe” ability to blow things up will allow them to dictate law to weaker populations. It’s an appealing thought, because dropping bombs or firing missiles and drones at weaker adversaries minimizes the risks to one’s own citizens. As historian Samuel Moyn has written: arguedLeaders may even convince themselves that precision and accuracy will allow them to eliminate the bad guys and spare civilians, making the use of lethal force seem more benign and easier to approve. If you are a powerful country facing a vexing foreign policy problem and can devote some air power to it without risking your own people, then “doing something” becomes much more appealing.
Unfortunately, blowing things up (and sometimes killing many innocent people) does not solve the underlying political problems that produced the conflict in the first place. Just look at the immense carnage that Israel has inflicted on Gaza over the past ten months. No one can question the destructive power that Israel has displayed. Just look Videos from Gaza today— but does anyone seriously believe that this will cause millions of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, or elsewhere to abandon their desire to govern themselves? The same is true the other way around, of course: Hezbollah has a greater capacity to strike Israel than it did twenty years ago, but that capacity for destruction will not allow it to dictate terms or resolve the deeper political problems that fuel the conflict with Israel and threaten to trigger a broader regional war.
I am not saying that modern airpower is worthless, or that the world would be better off if states were to resort to massive bombing and more crude forms of long-range attack. Combined with skilled ground forces, airpower can be extremely effective in advancing well-chosen political objectives. American airpower played a significant role in defeating the Islamic State, which persisted for a time, but only because Iraqi and Iranian ground forces were there to retake and pacify the region.
The military theorist Carl von Clausewitz was right: war is a continuation of politics, and the capacity for destruction alone is rarely sufficient to achieve political goals. Success depends not only on choosing realistic goals, but also on a willingness to address underlying political causes and to recognize the desire of each nation to govern itself. Anyone who thinks they can win by bombing has no right to rule a country, and we would all be better off if more ambitious leaders understood this.
