The Power Problem

On July 24, Christopher Preble discussed his new book The Power Problem: How American Military Dominance Makes Us Less Safe, Less Prosperous, and Less Free. Dr. Preble was joined by New America's Michael Cohen, Senior Research Fellow and co-director of the Privatization of Foreign Policy Initiative, and Michael Lind, Senior Fellow and Policy Director of the Economic Growth Program, as well as Gordon Adams, a Distinguished Fellow at the Stimson Center, in discussing whether and how the U.S. should scale back its global military commitments.

Both Democratic and Republican policymakers, Preble claimed, assume that the U.S. military must be the linchpin of global stability.  But that exceeds our economic means, so America should begin to focus on a more modest military strategy focused on core national security interests, and pare back our military spending, before a fiscal crisis forces us to make abrupt adjustments for which we aren't prepared. That will require getting other countries to shoulder greater responsibility for maintaining order in their regions.

Adams largely agreed with Preble, but said that scaling back the military is not enough. Given the highly interdependent global order, the U.S. should deploy civilian experts around the world in multilateral operations to promote stability in post-conflict and failing states. Iraq and Afghanistan should not drive our thinking: we shouldn't be putting more civilians in combat zones. Cohen also expressed concern that the lesson Americans drew from the Iraq war was not how to avoid such wars but how to fight them more effectively.

Lind agreed that America's military preponderance is not necessary to deal with terrorists or rogue states, and argued that it is actually designed to intimidate rival powers who would consider challenging U.S. hegemony, and, by providing security for allies such as Germany and Japan, to persuade them not to build up their militaries. But we can't sustain spending 4-5% of GDP on military, and in the coming fiscal crisis, he predicts entitlement programs will win out over military expenditures. He called for a concert of global powers to address global problems together. At the same time, Lind said, we need to be prepared to fight in all types of conflict. If the U.S. announces it will not mount small-scale pacification operations, our enemies will challenge us through guerilla warfare.

Participants

Gordon Adams
Distinguished Fellow, Stimson Center
Professor, US Foreign Policy, American University

Michael Lind
Policy Director, Economic Growth Program
New America Foundation

Christopher A. Preble
Author, The Power Problem: How American Military Dominance Makes Us Less Safe, Less Prosperous, and Less Free
Director of Foreign Policy Studies, Cato Institute

moderator
Michael A. Cohen
Co-director, Privatization of Foreign Policy Initiative
New America Foundation