Prioritize Plan A: America's Navy Must Come First

Christopher Mott

Security, Americas

A naval-centric approach that plays to America’s geographic strengths will better protect American power and defense interests across the world in the long-term.

Last month, the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan marked its eighteenth year and November 24 marked three years since the first American casualty in Syria’s civil war. As these conflicts drag on, America’s endless wars deserve closer examination. But it’s not enough to say the wars should end; we need to reconsider the ideas that drive them. The concept of overextension in particular needs elaboration.

Defenders of the bipartisan status quo are pushing back on flagging public support for their policies. Their favored tactic is to label those who wish to end these failed policies as “isolationists” regardless of whether they support trade and diplomacy. One could more effectively make the case that the supporters of endless wars themselves are the isolationists for how their policies isolate the United States in the international community and isolate Washington from the will of the people.

These wars are so unpopular in Europe and here at home that they sap support for international endeavors more broadly. These foreign misadventures are diminishing global trust in the strategic leadership of the United States. The refugee crisis exacerbated by the U.S.-supported state failures in Libya, Iraq, and Syria is one of the most divisive elements in European domestic politics today and a source of opposition to American diplomatic efforts.

What these misguided attempts to reorder the Middle East demonstrate is that being everywhere at all times is less of a forward defense than an over-extension. The American position in Syria is the most recent example of how dramatically such policies can backfire. U.S. bases set up without the permission of the government of Syria were easily swept into irrelevance by Turkish intervention in the region. America might be the dominant world power, but in these wars, all politics is local. Turkey, like Iran, is a permanent fixture of the region; isolated inland American bases are not. When push comes to shove, American presence will give way to the superior resources and more direct interests of nearby powers.