Primacy requires partners To remain preeminent, the United States must strengthen its alliances and work to build trust.
By Kay Bailey Hutchison - Spring 2024
Most
people, even America’s competitors, would agree that the United States
is the leader of the free world – for now. But will the country still be
the first among equals in 10, 20, or 50 years? What factors will
determine whether the United States remains preeminent?
The
answer depends, in part, on whether Washington pursues the right foreign
policy: one that emphasizes security, reliability, and alliances above
all. Having a well-funded national defense gives the United States
credibility. Military power is also the best tool for deterring
conflict. Having fought a war of independence, our Founding Fathers
understood that security is necessary for democracy to succeed. Fair
elections, a strong economy, the rule of law, and a free press – none
are possible without the protection provided by military power. Having a
powerful military also allows the United States to “speak softly and
carry a big stick,” as President Theodore Roosevelt described it. As the
American CEO of a major international corporation put it recently, U.S.
policy should be “to always go forward in peace, with heavy armor in
the rear.”
The next key to a successful U.S. foreign policy is
trust. While the United States has made mistakes in its almost 250-year
history, generally, when it has said it is going to do something, it has
done it. Our allies should continue to trust that we will do what we
say, and our adversaries should fear it. When that principle has been
abandoned in the past, the United States has paid a heavy price.
A policy that pays off
Sustaining
U.S. leadership requires the support of the American public, since in
our political system, voters get the ultimate say over what goals the
government should pursue and how much it should spend on international
priorities and national defense. As a consequence, for the country to
succeed, Americans must embrace the notion of an engaged foreign policy.
At various moments in our history, some Americans have questioned
whether the country should maintain its foreign commitments, arguing
that it should focus on problems at home instead. Almost every recent
poll on issues this year rates concern about the economy as the most
pressing. The staggering debt coupled with inflation could explain the
current rise in isolationism.
U.S. and Canadian troops working together in Afghanistan. Kabul, February 15, 2014. (Photo by Kenneth Takada/US Navy)
Why
should American citizens care whether their country continues to play
an important role on the global stage? The answer is that maintaining
U.S. global leadership is essential to protecting Americans’ way of
life. Asking working Americans to understand that nuance may be unfair –
but that is why our political leaders must make the case. A world with
more conflict would be worse for everyone, including those with no
interest in politics or government. More conflict could damage our
material well-being and threaten our individual freedoms. Investing in
defense and foreign policies that deter such conflict is therefore in
everyone’s interest. Take Ukraine, for example. Following Russia’s
full-scale invasion in February 2022, the United States and its European
allies responded by giving Ukraine weapons. This aid is meant to deter
an even bigger conflict with Russia – one that, if it expanded to a
member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), could
potentially involve U.S. troops.
International relationships,
treaties, and some alliances have produced significant long-term payoffs
for the United States. Of its alliances, none can compare to NATO, the
longest-running security pact in history. Since NATO’s founding in 1949,
the United States has been the de facto leader of the 32-member
alliance. Other NATO members look to the United States – which spends
far more on defense than any other member (and any other country in the
world, for that matter) – for leadership, coordination, and
intelligence-gathering. No other NATO member has the will or capacity to
take America’s place at the head of the organization.
NATO
illustrates the enormous benefits the United States gets from its
alliances. Allies share risks and provide unity, amplifying America’s
voice. While NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander is always an American
general or admiral, the organization’s other members supply well-trained
troops and first-class equipment for missions that the United States
would have a hard time providing on its own. NATO also shares costs in
other ways and aids the U.S. economy by purchasing American arms and
hardware. Consider, for example, the F-16s and F-35s that are the
alliance’s main fighter aircraft; U.S. allies and partners have spent
billions of dollars purchasing them from a U.S. company, Lockheed
Martin.
NATO benefits the United States in still other ways. It
is a political as well as a military alliance; every member is supposed
to maintain a resilient democracy, the rule of law, and a free press,
and engage in trade under rules we all agree are fair. NATO has helped
deepen the relationships among its members so that they can negotiate
their differences peacefully without imperiling their unity. And that
unity remains strong. In the 75 years of its existence, the organization
has invoked Article 5, its mutual defense clause, only once: after the
United States was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001. The subsequent mission to
wipe out al-Qaida and stabilize Afghanistan was a NATO operation.
Because the United States had worked hard to make friends abroad, those
friends came to our aid when we needed them the most.
Unity at home
To
sustain an engaged and effective U.S. foreign policy, the president and
Congress must work together. America is strongest when it adheres to
the principle that politics should stop at the water’s edge – a phrase
used by Republican Sen. Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan, the chairman of
the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, when he supported President Harry
S. Truman’s proposal to create NATO and the Marshall Plan following
World War II.
When our Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution,
their genius was to balance the powers of the new U.S. government among
its different branches. That balance necessitates compromise. Although
the president sets foreign policy and executes it through the military,
the State Department, and the U.S. Trade Representative, Congress sets
the government’s budget and is therefore very engaged in determining its
priorities.
Deciding whether to send troops into battle is the
hardest decision any official can make, and when it comes to war,
different presidents have handled congressional relations in different
ways. Some, relying on their authority as commander-in-chief, have
dispatched troops without getting Congress’ approval in advance. Others
have gone to Congress first, believing the president is strongest when
he has the Senate and House of Representatives behind him.
Those
who question whether the United States should still invest the time and
treasure required to lead should ask themselves one question: If
America does not do so, what other country will? Will that country work
as hard to safeguard the interests of our citizens? To protect our
national and economic security? Do we want to live in a world dominated
by Russia or China?
If the answer is no, then we must all do
what it takes to ensure that the United States has the unity, support,
and funding to continue to lead.
Kay Bailey Hutchison was a U.S.
Senator for Texas from 1993-2013 and U.S. Ambassador to NATO from
2017-2021. This essay was originally published in The Catalyst, a journal published by the George W. Bush Institute.