Rebalancing Offshore Balancing

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Long, indecisive wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have led some to propose a middle ground between intervening too much and too little. One prominent strategy for this called offshore balancing. With ships on the water instead of boots on the ground, power and stability would be projected at seemingly little cost or risk. Offshore balancing, however, would be tantamount to an unstable selective isolationism leading to a delayed and perhaps more costly intervention. ********** Mearsheimer and Walt's Offshore Balancing Perhaps the greatest interest to defense practitioners the recent proposal of the University of Chicago's John Mearsheimer and JF Harvard's Stephen Walt for an offshore strategy. (1) As realists, they recognize not all regions reflect American national interests; many states can be left to sort out their difficulties without our help. In a swipe at neoconservatives, they decry the misguided grand strategy of liberal hegemony that includes spreading democracy. Instead, Mearsheimer and Walt propose a realist grand strategy that would concentrate on preserving U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere and countering potential hegemons in Europe, Northeast Asia, and the Persian Gulf. They would have the United States contribute to a regional balance carried out chiefly by local powers while American Military Power would remain offshore as long as possible. (2) These scholars call this a strategy with a limited agenda, but it could easily lose its limits--for example, they admit a fast-rising China is likely to seek hegemony in Asia, the United States should undertake a major effort to prevent. European NATO members should take the lead in Europe and the Russians in Syria. (3) But, what happens when these areas blow up? The devil in the details, and the generic problem of offshore balancing how to control events on land from the sea. Which shores? Mearsheimer and Walt do not mean our own shores--something they might have considered, but would basically amount to isolationism. (4) They have no interest in the southern and eastern Mediterranean basin, including Syria, where the Russians have a small naval base at Tartus. These are areas, however, where unrest sprouts and spreads. If the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant a menace in Iraq, it does not cease to be a menace when it crosses into Syria. Can local forces handle it with Iranian and Russian help? Surely, we do not wish to see stronger Iranian and Russian roles in the region. A victory for Iran would solidify its Shiiah corridor through Iraq and Syria into Lebanon, an uncomfortable development not least for emboldening Hezbollah, Iran's Lebanese outlet, to start a new war with Israel. Standing offshore in the Persian Gulf would not block the Shiah corridor. The situation could resemble the Tonkin Gulf, where the events of August 1964 illustrated how offshore operations easily become stepping stones to onshore wars. Moreover, US ships must come into port to refuel, which could resemble the Gulf of Aden in 2000 where an al-Qaeda boat crammed with explosives blew a big hole in the USS Cole, killing 17 American sailors. We can, of course, refuel from supply ships, but they in turn become the targets. The point there no such thing as sitting completely offshore, a land connection always requires onshore security. Is offshore balancing inexpensive? American offshore power projection chiefly revolves around carrier strike groups, each consisting of a carrier surrounded by escort vessels to protect it. As Lawrence Korb, a former Navy officer who also served as assistant secretary of defense, told the US Army War College in the early 1990s, these floating cities are the most expensive way to project power, far more expensive than land-based forces. And offshore costs are born entirely by US taxpayers; whereas American land bases are usually subsidized by the host country, such as Germany, Japan, and South Korea, which contribute free rent, base construction, and maintenance. …