Southeast Asia
For the United States, maintaining a relationship with Australia shouldn’t be difficult. Australia has only two strategic options. One is to withdraw from alliance commitments and assume that its interests will be addressed in passing. The other is to participate in the alliance and have more formal commitments from the United States. The former is cheaper but riskier. The latter is more expensive but more reliable.
If a major threat developed, Australia would most likely return to the U.S. fold. If a western Pacific power suddenly gained control of the sea-lanes, however, there is always a chance that Australia would make a deal, if it calculated that such compliance would achieve its ends with less risk than fighting alongside the Americans. Therefore, having prior commitments from and installations in Australia serves the American interests best by limiting Australia’s options.
Even if Australia is hostage to U.S. protection, its strategic importance is such that the United States should be as generous and seductive as possible. Being sparing in what it asks of Australian military commitments also makes sense, because the United States may need Australia more—and more broadly—in the future than it needs Australian troops now.
Of similar strategic importance for the United States is the city of Singapore, created by the British at the tip of the Malay Peninsula as a base from which to control the Strait of Malacca. This narrow passageway is still the primary route between the Indian and Pacific Oceans, particularly for oil headed for China and Japan from the Persian Gulf. U.S. warships on the way to the Persian Gulf also must pass through this strait. Along with Gibraltar and the Suez Canal, it is one of the world’s great maritime choke points. Whoever controls it can shut off trade at will, or guarantee that it will flow.
Singapore is now an independent city-state, enormously prosperous because of its geographical position and because of its technology industry. It needs the United States as a customer, but also to protect its sovereignty. When Malaya was given independence, the primarily ethnic-Chinese Singapore split from the predominantly Muslim Malaysia. Relations have varied, and there has not been much threat of annexation, but Singapore understands two geopolitical realities: that the worst thing in the world is to be rich and weak, and that security is never a sure thing. What Malaysia or, for that matter, Indonesia might want to do in a generation or two can’t be predicted.
The United States cannot simply control Singapore; instead it must have cooperative relations with it. As in his dealings with Korea and Australia, the president should be more generous with Singapore than he needs to be in order to assure the alliance. The price is small and the stakes are very high.
Indonesian Sea-Lanes
INDIA
It is in the context of the western Pacific that we should consider India. Despite its size, its growing economy, and the constant discussion of India as the next China, I simply do not see India as a significant player with deep power in the coming decade. In many ways, India can be understood as a very large Australia. Both countries are economically powerful—obviously in different ways—and in that sense they have to be taken quite seriously.
Like Australia, India is a subcontinent isolated geographically, although Australia’s isolation, based on thousands of miles of water, is much more visible. But India is in its own way an island, surrounded by land barriers perhaps less easily passable than oceans. The Himalayas block access from the north, and hilly jungles from the east. To the south, it is surrounded by the Indian Ocean, which is dominated by the United States Navy.
The biggest problem for India lies to the west, where there is desert, and Pakistan. That Islamic nation has fought multiple wars with the predominantly Hindu India, and relations range from extremely cool to hostile. As we saw in my discussion of Afghanistan, the balance of power between Pakistan and India is the major feature of the subcontinent. Maintaining this balance of power is a significant objective for the United States in the decade to come.
India is called the democratic China, which, to the extent that it is true, exacts a toll in regional power. One of the great limitations on Indian economic growth, impressive as it has been, is that while India has a national government, each of its constituent states has its own regulations, and some of these prevent economic development. These states jealously guard their rights, and the leadership guards its prerogatives. There are many ways in which these regions are bound together, but the ultimate guarantor is the army.
India maintains a substantial military that has three functions. First, it balances Pakistan. Second, it protects the northern frontier against a Chinese incursion (which the terrain makes difficult to imagine). Most important, the Indian military, like the Chinese military, guarantees the internal security of the nation—no minor consideration in a diverse country with deeply divided regions. There is currently a significant rebellion by Maoists in the east, for instance, just the sort of thing that it is the army’s job to prevent or suppress.
On the seas, the Indians have been interested in developing a navy that could become a major player in the Indian Ocean, protecting India’s sea-lanes and projecting Indian power. But the United States has no interest in seeing India proceed along these lines. The Indian Ocean is the passageway to the Pacific for Persian Gulf oil, and the United States will deploy powerful forces there no matter how it reduces its presence on land.
To keep Indian naval development below a threshold that could threaten U.S. interests, the United States will strive to divert India’s defense expenditure toward the army and the tactical air force rather than the navy. The cheapest way to accomplish this and preempt a potential long-range problem is for the United States to support a stronger Pakistan, thus keeping India’s security planners focused on the land and not the sea.
By the same token, India is interested in undermining the U.S.-Pakistani relationship or, at the very least, keeping the United States in Afghanistan in order to destabilize Pakistan. Failing that, India may reach out to other countries, as it did to the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Pakistan does not represent an existential threat to India, even in the unlikely event of a nuclear exchange. But Pakistan is not going to simply collapse, and therefore will remain the persistent problem that India’s strategic policy will continue to pivot on.
India lags behind China in its economic development, which is why it is not yet facing China’s difficulties. The next decade will see India surging ahead economically, but economic power by itself does not translate into national security. Nor does it translate into the kind of power that can dominate the Indian Ocean. American interests are not served by making India feel overly secure. Therefore, U.S.-Indian relations will deteriorate over the next ten years, even as the United States leaves Afghanistan and even as U.S.-Indian trade continues.
THE ASIAN GAME
In the decade to come, while the United States is preoccupied with other issues, the two major Asian powers, China and Japan, will be only minimally subject to outside influence. They will move as their internal processes dictate. Given that pace, the United States should not invest heavily in managing the Chinese-Japanese relationship. To the extent possible, the United States should help maintain a stable China and work to maintain its relationship with Japan.
Nonetheless, the peace of the western Pacific will not hold together indefinitely, and the United States should work to cement strong relations with three key players: Korea, Australia, and Singapore.
These three countries would prove essential allies in the event of war with any western Pacific country, particularly Japan, and preparations cannot begin too soon. Building the Korean navy, creating facilities in Australia, and modernizing Singapore’s forces will not arouse great anxiety. These are steps that, taken in this decade, will create the framework for managing any conflict that might arise.
CHAPTER 11
A SECURE HEMISPHERE
Given that the United States shares a hemisphere and quite a bit of history with Latin America a
nd Canada, some might assume that this region has a singular importance for the U.S. Indeed, many Latin Americans in particular see the United States as obsessed with dominating them, or at least obtaining their resources. But with few exceptions—primarily in the case of Mexico and Cuba—what happens in Latin America is of marginal importance to the United States, and the region has rarely held a significant place in American thinking. Part of this has to do with distance. Washington is about a thousand miles farther from Rio de Janeiro than it is from Paris. And unlike European and Asian powers, the United States has never had an extensive war with the Latin world south of Panama. This isn’t to say that there isn’t mutual distrust and occasional hostility. But in the end—and again excepting Mexico and Cuba—the fundamental interests of the United States simply don’t intersect with those of Latin America.
The United States has had limited concern with the region in part because of the fragmentation there, which has prevented the rise of a transcontinental power. South America looks like a single geographical entity, but in fact the continent is divided by significant topographic barriers. First, running north and south are the Andes, a chain of mountains much taller than the Rockies or the Alps and with few readily traversable passes. Then, in the center of the continent, the vast Amazonian jungle presents an equally impenetrable barrier.
There are actually three distinct regions in South America, each cut off from the others to the extent that basic overland commerce is difficult and political unity impossible. Brazil is an arc along the Atlantic Coast, with the inhospitable Amazon as its interior. A separate region lies to the south of Brazil along the Atlantic, and it consists of Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay, the latter not on the coast but part of this bloc of nations. To the west are the Andean nations of Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela. Off the mainland and not completely Latin are, of course, the Caribbean islands, important as platforms but without weight themselves.
The only connection between Brazil and the southern nations is a fairly narrow land bridge through Uruguay. The Andean nations are united only in the sense that they all share impenetrable geographies. The southern region along the Atlantic could become integrated, but there is really only one significant country there, Argentina. In addition, there is no passable land bridge between North and South America because of Central America’s jungle terrain, and even if there were a bridge, only Colombia and perhaps Venezuela could take advantage of it.
The key to American policy in Latin America has always been that for the United States to become concerned, two elements would have to converge: a strategically significant area (of which there are few in the region) would have to be in the hands of a power able to use it to pose a threat. The Monroe Doctrine was proclaimed in order to make it clear that just such an eventuality was the single unacceptable geopolitical development as far as the United States was concerned.
During World War II, the presence of German agents and sympathizers in South America became a serious issue among strategists in Washington, who envisioned German troops arriving in Brazil from Dakar, across the Atlantic. Similarly, during the Cold War, the United States became genuinely concerned about Soviet influence in the region and intervened on occasion to block it. But neither the Germans nor the Soviets made a serious strategic effort to dominate South America, because they understood that in most senses the continent was irrelevant to U.S. interests. Instead, their efforts were designed merely to irritate Washington and divert American resources.
Terrain Barriers in South America
The one place where outside involvement has been seen as a threat to be taken seriously is Cuba, and its singular importance is based on its singularly strategic location.
Cuba and the Caribbean
Early in the nineteenth century, American prosperity was founded on the river system that enabled farmers in the Louisiana and Ohio territories to ship their agricultural output to the East Coast and Europe. All of these goods first flowed to the city of New Orleans and were then transferred from barges to oceangoing vessels. The United States fought to keep New Orleans safe, first at the Battle of New Orleans in 1814, and then during the Texan war of independence. New Orleans and nearby ports remain the largest by tonnage in the United States, enabling midwestern grain to be shipped out and steel and other industrial goods to be shipped in.
Because a naval force in Cuba could control the sea-lanes in and out of the Gulf of Mexico and thereby could control New Orleans, the United States has always been obsessed with the island. Andrew Jackson contemplated invading it, and in 1898 the United States intervened to drive out the Spaniards. A half century later, when a pro-Soviet government emerged there under Fidel Castro, Cuba became a centerpiece of U.S. strategy. An anti-American Cuba without the Soviets was a trivial matter. An anti-American Cuba with Soviet missiles was a mortal threat.
As we look toward the decade ahead, Cuba has no great power patron, so the president can craft his Cuban policy in response to American political opinion. But he must bear in mind that if the United States faces a global competitor, Cuba will be the geographic point at which that competitor can put the greatest pressure on the United States. This makes Cuba the prize it will aim for.
In the long run, bringing Cuba back under American influence is a rational, preemptive policy, and it is highly desirable to do so before a global competitor emerges to raise the stakes and the price. Fidel and Raúl Castro will die or retire during the decade we’re considering, and the political and intelligence elites who control the island are both younger and more cynical than the founding generation of the Castro regime. Rather than gambling on whether they can survive the deaths of the founders, they will be open to accommodation, amenable to deals that allow them to retain their position while granting America increasing power over their foreign policy. The transition will be the moment for the United States to try to deal. Before the Castros leave power they might be open to a deal that preserves their legacy while conceding to American influence. If that fails, the insecurity of the transition might be the moment to approach their heirs. The American interest is simple and has nothing to do with human rights or regime change. It is to have guarantees that regardless of future challenges, Cuba will not become a base for foreign powers. Having achieved that, the United States will have achieved much.
Venezuela is another Latin American country that has managed to attract attention by appearing to be a significant threat to the United States. It is not. First, the Venezuelan economy depends on exporting oil, and the realities of geography and logistics make it inevitable that Venezuela will export its oil to the United States. Second, Venezuela’s physical isolation—with the Amazon to the south, the Caribbean (dominated by the U.S. Navy) to the north, and a hostile and stable Colombia to the west, on the other side of mountains and jungle—renders the country otherwise irrelevant, even if Islamist terrorists, say, showed up and tried to exploit its current rift with the United States. Even if a new global challenger sought to align with Venezuela and use it as a launching pad for mischief, the country’s location does not allow for a significant air or naval base. Obviously, it would be desirable to have Venezuela shift its strategic outlook by the 2030s, but that is not essential to U.S. interests.
Venezuela is a case in which U.S. foreign policy should discipline itself to ignore ideology and annoyance and focus on strategy. In all likelihood, Hugo Chávez will lose power within the regime he created. Indeed, if the United States were to cut a deal with Cuba at the right time, part of that deal might be the withdrawal of Cuban support for Chávez. But even if he remains in power, he presents no threat to anyone but his own people.
BRAZIL AND THE ARGENTINE STRATEGY
There is only one Latin American country with the potential to emerge as a competitor to the United States in its own right, and that is Brazil. It is the first significant, independent economic and potentially global power to develop in the history of Latin America, and it has hedged its bets n
icely.
Brazil is the world’s eighth largest economy and the fifth largest country both in size and in population. Like most developing countries, it is heavily oriented toward export, but its exports are well balanced. Two-thirds are primary commodities (agricultural and mineral) and the rest are manufactured products. The geographic distribution of its exports is impressive as well, with about equal amounts going to Latin America, the European Union, and Asia. A relatively small but not insignificant amount goes to the United States. This balanced export posture means that Brazil is less vulnerable to regional economic downturns than are more focused economies.
Right now Brazil is not a power that is particularly threatening or important to the United States, nor does the United States represent a challenge to Brazil. There is minimal economic friction, and geography prevents Brazil from easily challenging the United States. Brazilian expansion northward would be irrational, because the terrain to the north is extremely hard to traverse, and there is nothing to the north that Brazil needs. Venezuelan oil, for instance, cannot be easily shipped to Brazil because of the terrain, and Brazil has ample supplies of its own anyway.
Brazil’s Trade Relations
The only challenge that Brazil could pose to the United States would be if its economic expansion continued enough for it to develop sufficient air and naval power to dominate the Atlantic between its coast and West Africa, a region not heavily patrolled by the United States, unlike the Indian Ocean or South China Sea. This would not happen in the next decade, but as Brazilian wage rates rise, the geographical factors are such that Brazilian investments in Africa might carry lower transportation costs than investments in other parts of Latin America. Thus there would be advantages for Brazil in developing relations with sub-Saharan countries, particularly Angola, which, like Brazil, is Portuguese-speaking. This could lead to a South Atlantic not only dominated by Brazil but with Brazilian naval forces based on both the Brazilian and the African coasts.
George Friedman Page 21
