The Case For Offshore Balancing
The Case For Offshore Balancing
The Case For Offshore Balancing
F
or the first time in recent memory, large numbers of Americans
are openly questioning their country’s grand strategy. An April
2016 Pew poll found that 57 percent of Americans agree that
the United States should “deal with its own problems and let others
deal with theirs the best they can.” On the campaign trail, both the
Democrat Bernie Sanders and the Republican Donald Trump found
receptive audiences whenever they questioned the United States’
penchant for promoting democracy, subsidizing allies’ defense, and
intervening militarily—leaving only the likely Democratic nominee
Hillary Clinton to defend the status quo.
Americans’ distaste for the prevailing grand strategy should come
as no surprise, given its abysmal record over the past quarter century.
In Asia, India, Pakistan, and North Korea are expanding their nuclear
arsenals, and China is challenging the status quo in regional waters. In
Europe, Russia has annexed Crimea, and U.S. relations with Moscow
have sunk to new lows since the Cold War. U.S. forces are still fight-
ing in Afghanistan and Iraq, with no victory in sight. Despite losing
most of its original leaders, al Qaeda has metastasized across the re-
gion. The Arab world has fallen into turmoil—in good part due to the
United States’ decisions to effect regime change in Iraq and Libya and
its modest efforts to do the same in Syria—and the Islamic State, or
ISIS, has emerged out of the chaos. Repeated U.S. attempts to broker
Israeli-Palestinian peace have failed, leaving a two-state solution further
JOHN J. MEARSHEIMER is R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of
Political Science at the University of Chicago.
STEPHEN M. WALT is Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the
Harvard Kennedy School. Follow him on Twitter @StephenWalt.
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away than ever. Meanwhile, democracy
has been in retreat worldwide, and the
United States’ use of torture, targeted
killings, and other morally dubious practices
has tarnished its image as a defender of human
rights and international law.
The United States does not bear sole responsibility for
all these costly debacles, but it has had a hand in most of them. The
setbacks are the natural consequence of the misguided grand strategy
of liberal hegemony that Democrats and Republicans have pursued
for years. This approach holds that the United States must use its
power not only to solve global problems but also to promote a world
order based on international institutions, representative governments,
open markets, and respect for human rights. As “the indispensable
nation,” the logic goes, the United States has the right, responsibility,
and wisdom to manage local politics almost everywhere. At its core,
liberal hegemony is a revisionist grand strategy: instead of calling on
the United States to merely uphold the balance of power in key regions,
it commits American might to promoting democracy everywhere and
defending human rights whenever they are threatened.
There is a better way. By pursuing a strategy of “offshore
balancing,” Washington would forgo ambitious efforts to remake
other societies and concentrate on what really matters: pre-
serving U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere
and countering potential hegemons in Europe,
Northeast Asia, and the Persian Gulf. Instead of
policing the world, the United States would
encourage other countries to take the lead in
checking rising powers, intervening
itself only when necessary. This does
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John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt
not mean abandoning the United States’ position as the world’s sole
superpower or retreating to “Fortress America.” Rather, by husbanding
U.S. strength, offshore balancing would preserve U.S. primacy far
into the future and safeguard liberty at home.
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The Case for Offshore Balancing
the potential to project power around the globe, and perhaps even the
wherewithal to outspend the United States in an arms race. Such a
state might even ally with countries in the Western Hemisphere and
interfere close to U.S. soil. Thus, the United States’ principal aim in
Europe and Northeast Asia should be to maintain the regional balance
of power so that the most powerful state in each region—for now,
Russia and China, respectively—remains too worried about its neighbors
to roam into the Western Hemisphere. In the Gulf, meanwhile, the
United States has an interest in blocking the rise of a hegemon that
could interfere with the flow of oil from that region, thereby damaging
the world economy and threatening U.S. prosperity.
Offshore balancing is a realist grand strategy, and its aims are limited.
Promoting peace, although desirable, is not among them. This is not
to say that Washington should welcome conflict anywhere in the
world, or that it cannot use diplomatic or economic means to discourage
war. But it should not commit U.S. military forces for that purpose
alone. Nor is it a goal of offshore balancing to halt genocides, such as
the one that befell Rwanda in 1994. Adopting this strategy would not
preclude such operations, however, provided the need is clear, the
mission is feasible, and U.S. leaders are confident that intervention
will not make matters worse.
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should pass the buck to regional powers, as they have a far greater
interest in preventing any state from dominating them.
If those powers cannot contain a potential hegemon on their own,
however, the United States must help get the job done, deploying
enough firepower to the region to shift the balance in its favor.
Sometimes, that may mean sending in forces before war breaks out.
During the Cold War, for example, the
United States kept large numbers of
By husbanding U.S. ground and air forces in Europe out of
strength, an offshore- the belief that Western European
balancing strategy would countries could not contain the Soviet
preserve U.S. primacy far Union on their own. At other times, the
United States might wait to intervene
into the future. after a war starts, if one side seems
likely to emerge as a regional hegemon.
Such was the case during both world wars: the United States came in
only after Germany seemed likely to dominate Europe.
In essence, the aim is to remain offshore as long as possible, while
recognizing that it is sometimes necessary to come onshore. If that
happens, however, the United States should make its allies do as
much of the heavy lifting as possible and remove its own forces as
soon as it can.
Offshore balancing has many virtues. By limiting the areas the
U.S. military was committed to defending and forcing other states
to pull their own weight, it would reduce the resources Washington
must devote to defense, allow for greater investment and consump-
tion at home, and put fewer American lives in harm’s way. Today,
allies routinely free-ride on American protection, a problem that
has only grown since the Cold War ended. Within NATO, for
example, the United States accounts for 46 percent of the alliance’s
aggregate GDP yet contributes about 75 percent of its military
spending. As the political scientist Barry Posen has quipped, “This
is welfare for the rich.”
Offshore balancing would also reduce the risk of terrorism. Liberal
hegemony commits the United States to spreading democracy in
unfamiliar places, which sometimes requires military occupation and
always involves interfering with local political arrangements. Such
efforts invariably foster nationalist resentment, and because the
opponents are too weak to confront the United States directly, they
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The Case for Offshore Balancing
A REASSURING HISTORY
Offshore balancing may seem like a radical strategy today, but it
provided the guiding logic of U.S. foreign policy for many decades
and served the country well. During the nineteenth century, the
United States was preoccupied with expanding across North America,
building a powerful state, and establishing hegemony in the Western
Hemisphere. After it completed these tasks at the end of the century,
it soon became interested in preserving the balance of power in
Europe and Northeast Asia. Nonetheless, it let the great powers in
those regions check one another, intervening militarily only when the
balance of power broke down, as during both world wars.
During the Cold War, the United States had no choice but to
go onshore in Europe and Northeast Asia, as its allies in those
regions could not contain the Soviet Union by themselves. So
Washington forged alliances and stationed military forces in both
regions, and it fought the Korean War to contain Soviet influence
in Northeast Asia.
In the Persian Gulf, however, the United States stayed offshore,
letting the United Kingdom take the lead in preventing any state from
dominating that oil-rich region. After the British announced their
withdrawal from the Gulf in 1968, the United States turned to the
shah of Iran and the Saudi monarchy to do the job. When the shah
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rid the world of war and atrocities, keeping the United States secure
and alleviating suffering.
No one knows if a world composed solely of liberal democracies
would in fact prove peaceful, but spreading democracy at the point of
a gun rarely works, and fledgling democracies are especially prone to
conflict. Instead of promoting peace, the United States just ends up
fighting endless wars. Even worse, force-feeding liberal values abroad
can compromise them at home. The global war on terrorism and the
related effort to implant democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq have led
to tortured prisoners, targeted killings, and vast electronic surveillance
of U.S. citizens.
Some defenders of liberal hegemony hold that a subtler version
of the strategy could avoid the sorts of disasters that occurred in
Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. They are deluding themselves. Democracy
promotion requires large-scale social engineering in foreign societies
that Americans understand poorly, which helps explain why Washing-
ton’s efforts usually fail. Dismantling and replacing existing political
institutions inevitably creates winners and losers, and the latter often
take up arms in opposition. When that happens, U.S. officials,
believing their country’s credibility is now at stake, are tempted to use
the United States’ awesome military might to fix the problem, thus
drawing the country into more conflicts.
If the American people want to encourage the spread of liberal
democracy, the best way to do so is to set a good example. Other
countries will more likely emulate the United States if they see it as a
just, prosperous, and open society. And that means doing more to
improve conditions at home and less to manipulate politics abroad.
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belief that democracies don’t fight one another. This was the main
rationale for expanding NATO after the Cold War, with the stated goal
of “a Europe whole and free.” In the real world, the line separating
selective engagement from liberal hegemony is easily erased.
Advocates of selective engagement also assume that the mere
presence of U.S. forces in various regions will guarantee peace, and
so Americans need not worry about being dragged into distant conflicts.
In other words, extending security commitments far and wide poses
few risks, because they will never have to be honored.
But this assumption is overly optimistic: allies may act recklessly,
and the United States may provoke conflicts itself. Indeed, in Europe,
the American pacifier failed to prevent the Balkan wars of the 1990s,
the Russo-Georgian war in 2008, and the current conflict in Ukraine.
In the Middle East, Washington is largely responsible for several recent
wars. And in the South China Sea, conflict is now a real possibility
despite the U.S. Navy’s substantial regional role. Stationing U.S. forces
around the world does not automatically ensure peace.
Nor does selective engagement address the problem of buck-
passing. Consider that the United Kingdom is now withdrawing its
army from continental Europe, at a time when NATO faces what it
considers a growing threat from Russia. Once again, Washington is
expected to deal with the problem, even though peace in Europe
should matter far more to the region’s own powers.
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In Europe, the United States should end its military presence and
turn NATO over to the Europeans. There is no good reason to keep
U.S. forces in Europe, as no country there has the capability to
dominate that region. The top con-
There is no good reason to tenders, Germany and Russia, will both
lose relative power as their populations
keep U.S. forces in Europe, shrink in size, and no other potential
as no country there has hegemon is in sight. Admittedly, leaving
the capability to dominate European security to the Europeans
could increase the potential for trouble
that region. there. If a conflict did arise, however, it
would not threaten vital U.S. interests.
Thus, there is no reason for the United States to spend billions of
dollars each year (and pledge its own citizens’ lives) to prevent one.
In the Gulf, the United States should return to the offshore-
balancing strategy that served it so well until the advent of dual contain-
ment. No local power is now in a position to dominate the region, so
the United States can move most of its forces back over the horizon.
With respect to ISIS, the United States should let the regional
powers deal with that group and limit its own efforts to providing
arms, intelligence, and military training. ISIS represents a serious
threat to them but a minor problem for the United States, and the
only long-term solution to it is better local institutions, something
Washington cannot provide.
In Syria, the United States should let Russia take the lead. A Syria
stabilized under Assad’s control, or divided into competing ministates,
would pose little danger to U.S. interests. Both Democratic and
Republican presidents have a rich history of working with the Assad
regime, and a divided and weak Syria would not threaten the regional
balance of power. If the civil war continues, it will be largely Moscow’s
problem, although Washington should be willing to help broker a
political settlement.
For now, the United States should pursue better relations with
Iran. It is not in Washington’s interest for Tehran to abandon the
nuclear agreement and race for the bomb, an outcome that would
become more likely if it feared a U.S. attack—hence the rationale for
mending fences. Moreover, as its ambitions grow, China will want
allies in the Gulf, and Iran will likely top its list. (In a harbinger of
things to come, this past January, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited
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