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In The Unquiet Frontier, Jakub Grygiel and
Wess Mitchell paint a dire picture of global security: Chinese, Russian, and
Iranian troops nipping at the heels of a retreating American-established global
order. Though distinctly pessimistic, Grygiel
and Mitchell clearly explain “probing,” subversive actions by revisionist powers
which feel they would be advantaged by a revised global order (read: Russia,
China, and Iran), and then make cogent arguments for how to deter such
aggression. Crucially,
they identify probing as an attempt to determine American commitment to its
allies (Ibid., 54). In response, they argue that America should strengthen its
alliances with frontline states—the Baltics in Europe, Gulf States in the
Middle East, and Japan, South Korea, and Philippines in Asia—to deter future
probing and ensure that these regions do not devolve into full-scale war.
According to Grygiel and Mitchell, “the
probing power is not interested in ‘making war’ with the rival, and therefore a
probe is not a full-out attack on a rival’s ally or supported state” (Ibid.,
55). As a result, they argue it is cheaper for America to maintain alliances
and deter aggressors rather than withdraw from its global commitments and risk
war with a strengthened enemy which can no longer be ignored. NATO’s recent decision
to stage forward battalions in the Baltic States and Poland affirms Western
commitment to the edges of NATO, in line with Grygiel and Mitchell’s advice.
Following Grygiel and Mitchell’s reasoning, it also convinces Russia that because
NATO will protect the rule of international law, a policy of continued
expansion is not worth a potentially disastrous war.
Grygiel and Mitchell suggest that
in the modern age, “oceans are not uncrossable, and technological developments,
such as airpower and intercontinental ballistic missiles, combined with growing
ease and frequency of mobility of goods and people, make hemispheric security a
dangerous illusion. To indulge in the temptation of geopolitical insularity is
to court disaster” (Grygiel and Mitchell, 20). To apply Grygiel and Mitchell’s
logic, it is far less dangerous for America to handle comparatively small
problems, like Russian paramilitaries in Ukraine, than to fight a potential global
war if Russia expanded its sphere undeterred.
Mitchell and Grygiel describe offshore
balancing, the alternative to their proposed strategy, as a withdrawal of
American troops and support from all but the closest American allies. To
replace American alliances, offshore balancers suggest that the U.S. make
quick, powerful strikes when absolutely necessary to protect the balance of
power. “The result is a preference for some variant of isolationism, usually
advocating no long-term military presence abroad combined with sporadic,
limited, and quick interventions to restore an equilibrium of power in Eurasia”
(Ibid., 18). Unfortunately for offshore balancers, history has shown that these
interventions are rarely limited or quick.
America surrendered the ability to
deter conflict or halt the rise of regional hegemons after withdrawing from
Europe in the aftermath of World War I. Nazis initially rose to power on the
back of popular German feeling that they were cheated by the existing global
power structure. In an effort to overthrow this structure, revisionist Nazi
Germany expanded its territory and power until met with a determined resistance.
Unfortunately, this resistance didn’t materialize until Germany was powerful
enough to sustain a global total war, hardly the ‘quick intervention to restore
the Eurasian equilibrium’ promised by proponents of offshore balancing. While a
powerful force at home may serve as a theoretical deterrent, in practice a
revisionist gradually expands control of the surrounding region until it
amasses the power to strike out more broadly. If the Western powers stopped
revisionist Nazi Germany when Hitler militarized the Rhineland, annexed
Austria, or even occupied the Sudetenland, they may have averted the
catastrophic war and atrocities that followed.
As Grygiel and Mitchell write,
“continental-sized powers are nearly impossible to defeat, especially when they
are an ocean away from their would-be conquerors” (Ibid., 18). Applying Grygiel
and Mitchell, America cannot again repeat the failures that led to global war. By
basing troops from Korea and the Philippines in the Pacific to Estonia and
Poland on the Baltic, America affirms its commitment to these frontline allies,
stopping naked aggression before it begins. However, if America is willing to
tactfully confront global probing in international gray areas, it may also be
able to preserve relative global stability. In Ukraine, America can support and
advise the Ukrainian military, work with the government to build stronger civic
institutions and reduce corruption, and encourage private foreign investment to
jump-start the economy. Such tactics would strengthen a potential buffer to
revisionist Russian aggression, increasing the costs of further probing and
deterring increased expansion toward the borders of NATO.