Air University Review, September-October 1982

Geopolitics For an Uncertain Era

For almost a third of a century the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Japan have stood as the mainstays of the Untied States defense system beyond our borders. If these security organizations are to retain their solidarity, however, it will be only on the basis of a mutual coordination of military, political, economic, and technological interests. But now a divergence of these interests threatens this solidarity. Some observers see NATO as a disintegrating alliance. In 1980, our Atlantic connections were assessed in these ominous terms: "The gradual secession of Europe from the U.S.-dominated Atlantic Alliance is under way."¹ Subsequent events seem to confirm this assessment.

Elsewhere, analysts see a loosening of American-Japanese ties as Tokyo loses confidence in U.S. security guarantees.² This maybe an overstated reading, but the uneasiness is there. So, it may not be entirely unthinkable that our transoceanic links could gradually erode. This possibility—the falling off in the number of our overseas allies—is a contingency that U.S. security planners might well be taking into their calculations. To ignore it is to invite disaster. To offset it may necessitate a sweeping geopolitical realignment.

As a first rule, U.S. security rests upon a satisfactory balance of power with any potential adversary. As NATO and our Far Eastern connections have demonstrated, this balance is more effectively maintained with allies than without. Does this mean, then, that they must be these allies or none? Should our Old World alliances continue to show signs of unraveling, we would be faced with two alternatives: either a ruinous withdrawal behind the borders of our 50 states or the building of a multinational structure of power here in the New World.

Basic to the widening rift dividing the United States from its overseas allies is a move on their part to chart a more independent course. This drift toward separatism is motivated by a relative decline in U.S. economic and political strength, as opposed to that of Western Europe and Japan.³ As a result, our allies not only are more reluctant to rely on American power but also are more inclined to demand a greater share in shaping alliance policies.⁴

With this new leverage, they are advocating the preservation of détente with the Soviet Union. They support détente largely because of their unwillingness to sacrifice their considerable trade with the Soviet bloc.⁵ Europeans and Japanese are concerned also with assured access to Middle East oil, which is far more vital to them than it is to America. This accounted for their giving only limited support to the United States at the time of the hostage crisis in Iran. They contend, moreover, that following the U.S. lead in opposing a Palestinian state would jeopardize their oil supplies by alienating the Islamic nations.⁶

Another bone of contention within the alliance is the reluctance of our European and Japanese partners to support U.S. military initiatives in the Persian Gulf. Our NATO allies are opposed to any collective defense effort beyond the Europe-North Atlantic area.⁷ And Japan is loath to develop military power on a scale necessary to project power any distance away from their home islands.⁸

Because of these apparent cracks in the Western alliance, our European and Asian partners are reassessing their national interests and redefining their roles. In July 1980, French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing and West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt concluded a summit conference by agreeing that Western Europe must play a more independent and assertive role in world affairs.⁹ The two leaders also agreed that their region must become an effective counterweight to the rising power of the Soviet Union.¹⁰

Both men apparently were aware that European NATO has the basic resources, both material and human, to counterbalance Russia. It is an area with a larger population, greater industrial production, and higher technical know-how than the U.S.S.R. Ray S. Cline points out that Western Europe potentially could become "the most powerful regional center in the world if its resources were successfully mobilized for a common political purpose."¹¹

The combined gross national product of all European members of NATO is more than twice that of the Soviet Union,¹² and their greater economic and manpower resources imply that the means are available for building a strong military force as well. European NATO could provide much more for its own defense than it is currently doing. Although four countries there have per capita incomes exceeding that of the United States, and two others approach ours, their per capita spending on defense falls far short of ours.¹³

Even so, European NATO has more troops in Europe than does the Soviet Union,¹⁴ and any Russian tank superiority may be offset by new antitank weapons.¹⁵ As for the Warsaw Pact, many analysts discount the Eastern European divisions, arguing that they might be more of a liability than an asset to the Soviet Union.

Also, there is the matter of theater nuclear balance. We hear a great deal about the Soviet SS-20 nuclear missiles and Backfire bombers but little about the British and French deterrents, which are of considerable magnitude. Altogether, these total more than 200 nuclear weapons targeted on European Russia.¹⁶

Plans are under way in both Britain and France to expand and upgrade their nuclear firepower. Britain plans to launch four or five new nuclear-powered submarines armed with nearly 100 U.S. -made Trident missiles. Each of these will have a range of 4000 miles and carry eight to ten warheads. These missiles, although British controlled, will be assigned to NATO. For its part, France is expanding its missile-launching submarine force as well as increasing the range and power of its land-based nuclear missiles.¹⁷ So, given the will, the Europeanization of NATO is not a totally unreal prospect.

The same pressures that are moving Western Europe in the direction of greater autonomy also are at work in the Far East. There, increasing evidence of a revived nationalism, especially among younger people, appears to be swinging Japan toward greater self-reliance.¹⁸

This trend is fed by fears that the U.S. Japanese security treaty, like that with Taiwan, may be terminated.¹⁹ The Japanese also are edgy about the prospect of an American military withdrawal from South Korea. These fears, coupled with others focusing on Soviet behavior and the decline in U.S. credibility, already are producing a shift in Japanese policy. Pressure is building to strengthen their armed forces,²⁰ and should Tokyo decide to allocate greater resources to a rearmament program, it could develop a military capability far superior to the current modest force.

Raising the present defense budget, which accounts for less than one percent of Japan’s gross national product, would be no great problem for that country’s powerful economy.²¹ Japan has the capability of becoming a modern military power—even a nuclear power—in a very short time.²²

A Japanese arms buildup would be aimed at one target: the Soviet Union. In successive public opinion polls, the U.S.S.R. repeatedly ranks highest as the nation offering the most serious threat to Japan.²³ A Japanese move from economic strength to military strength and political assertiveness could lead to a fundamental shift in the Eurasian balance of power. Given the political will, European NATO in functional alliance with a rearmed Japan could be an effective counterweight to the Soviet Union.

Western Europe and Japan have a combined gross national product more than twice that of the entire Soviet bloc.²⁴ Add the People’s Republic of China to this combination and the U.S.S.R. would be substantially outmatched in economic power, manpower, and possibly in conventional military effectiveness as well. Thus the correlation of forces—components incorporating economic and political elements in addition to military factors—would give impressive strength to a potential anti-Soviet coalition.

Quite apart from the previous scenario is another that tends to divide the United States further from its overseas allies. Due to the course of economic evolution in the world, the international economy is becoming fragmented along regional lines,²⁵ as individual nations form geographically based common markets. Here the aim is to exploit the economic advantages that larger territorial units can offer.

The nine-nation European Economic Community (Common Market), closely tied to 19 African states, is the best known of these units.²⁶ Another, the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon), includes the Soviet bloc. In the Far East some Japanese are thinking of coordinating their economies with China’s and forming a bloc of their own.²⁷

If the international economy is drifting apart along regional lines, is it not possible for the nations of the Western Hemisphere to form a bloc of their own? A hemispheric common market might go far toward solving the economic and political woes now besetting the United States and its neighbors.

Another advantage to be gained from regional economic integration is the strengthening of the member states’ defensive positions. If a nation cannot produce within its own borders the commodities essential to its survival, it must seek guaranteed access to outside sources of supply. For the United States, these commodities, mostly raw materials, can be found close at hand. Canada, right next door, ranks only behind the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. in the production of minerals.²⁸ Mexico, in our territorial backyard, may command oil reserves equal to that of Saudi Arabia.²⁹ Beyond Mexico, Central and South America and the West Indies contain nearly all the commodities essential to our economy.

North and South America share a richer collection of raw materials and industrial equipment than is available in any area of comparable size elsewhere in the world. This command of material assets provides the Western Hemisphere with a sound base for unmatched economic, political, and, perhaps, military power. Given the necessary internal cohesion, the New World has the potential for transforming the geopolitical configuration of the globe.

Yet some geopolitical alarmists are prone to minimize New World capabilities by referring to Sir Halford John Mackinder’s Heartland theory of 1904. His contention was:

Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland:

Who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island:

Who rules the World-Island commands the World.³⁰

Although Mackinder’s later work is seldom cited, in it he noted that North America contains a heartland as significant as that in Eurasia.³¹ General Karl Hausofer, former head of Germany’s Institute for Geopolitics, also disputed the World-Island theory. He contended that even a united World-Island (Afro-Eurasia) could no more than balance a Pan America.³²

Yet another point of view is expressed by some writers who maintain that Afro-Eurasia, because of its greater area and population, holds a preponderance of global power. If we subtract the vast desert wastelands from the overall Afro-Eurasian landmass, however, we realize that its greater area yields no significant advantage. The same holds true for population; great numbers are no guarantee of strength. India offers evidence that population figures alone cannot be translated into comparable estimates of political, economic, or military power.

But the power potential of the two regions involves more than the total of their respective material resources, areas, and populations. The balance can be completely defined, as geopolitical analyst Nicholas Spykman has noted, only if the relative integration of the two areas is taken into account.³³ Here, the New World holds a significant lead.

Unlike Afro-Eurasia, the Americas have produced effective and durable instruments for international cooperation and mutual security: instruments such as the Pan American Union, the Organization of American States, and the Inter-American Development Bank. Moreover, cultural unity as well as the relative absence of territorial disputes and national and religious rivalries serves to simplify our regional problems—factors that prompted Pope John Paul II to call the Western Hemisphere "the continent of hope."³⁴

The concept of hemispheric unity is unique in having a long and honorable tradition. Early leaders such as Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and Simón Bolívar recognized that the peoples of the New World were tied together by a common geography.

Jefferson wrote that "America North and South has a set of interests distinct from those of Europe and peculiarly her own."³⁵ Hamilton, in turn, advocated a strict and indissoluble hemispheric union.³⁶ Latin American leaders other than Bolívar expressed similar opinions. The late Carlos Davila of Chile, who participated in formulating the United Nations Charter, endorsed a New World "economically, politically, and militarily integrated, self-sufficient, self-protected from pole to pole."³⁷

That more recent United States presidents have also favored the concept of hemispheric unity is demonstrated by Franklin Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor Policy and John Kennedy’s Alliance for Progress.

The threat of world shortages, particularly those in mineral fuels, suggests that we turn the spotlight on what might provide the New World with a decisive weapon. The Arab’s use of oil as an instrument of influence demonstrated that any bloc controlling a major share of an essential commodity commands a potent weapon. Yet no matter how we rate oil in the scale of importance, it scarcely ranks with food.

Although the Middle East controls a major share of the world’s current oil exports, the United States, Canada, Brazil, and Argentina together are responsible for an even greater share of the world’s food grain exports.³⁸ In contrast, the subsistence of many Afro-Eurasian states—especially those of the Soviet bloc and China—depends in large part on their ability to obtain necessary food from outside sources. This dependence, in turn, makes them vulnerable to New World leverage. In order to implement this leverage, a Pan American commission to set and administer food policy might be established. A move in this direction was initiated by former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Robert Bergland when he proposed a joint U.S.-Canada wheat board to regulate grain exports and prices.³⁹

The New World’s economic assets are matched by its geostrategic assets. Our hemisphere is a huge geographic entity, a 16-million-square-mile island. Surrounded by water, its lines of defense are natural ones, which can be maintained by sea and air power when backed by an adequate nuclear deterrent.

Any attempt at overseas invasion must cross the broad moats of the Atlantic or the Pacific. No such force could succeed without command of the sea lanes and the air above them. In support of this thesis, Admiral James Holloway, former Chief of Naval Operations, has pointed out: "Technology has not changed the basic fact that it is more difficult for a hostile nation to cross the water than to cross a land barrier."⁴⁰ Already we have seen the obstructive effectiveness of a narrow ditch, such as the Suez Canal. Distance is a factor that has not yet been conquered. History seems to have demonstrated that the effectiveness of conventional power is in inverse ratio to the distance from its source.

In his 1975 Defense Department report, former Defense Secretary James R. Schlesinger pointed out: "We can retreat to the North American continent, and we can perhaps survive there indefinitely."⁴¹ If this is an accurate assessment, it leads to the conclusion that we can move to a hemispheric position and with some assurance survive there indefinitely.

In this hemisphere there is already an established alliance system in which U.S. military ties with most of the other nations predate those with NATO and Japan. With the signing of the Rio Treaty of Inter-American Defense in 1947, the United States concluded its first peacetime military alliance. By the terms of this treaty, the entire Western Hemisphere, including Canada and Greenland, was placed within a single collective security zone.⁴²

The following year, this alliance was formalized by the creation of the Organization of American States (OAS), which now includes the 28 New World nations to our south. Our ties with Canada are even closer, closer than with any other country, for we are bound together not only by our NATO connections but by others involving the North American Aerospace Defense Command. So, within the framework of mutual security arrangements, the United States is allied with every major nation in our hemisphere, except Cuba.

Although the OAS, unlike NATO, does not involve an integrated military command, this does not imply that one could not be developed. Should circumstances dictate that the United States withdraw from its transoceanic positions, Washington would have almost no other alternative than to sponsor a similar security arrangement in the Americas. If the present direction and support now given our European and Far Eastern allies were to be redirected to the existing inter-American security system, a NATO-type command might be feasible here in the New World.

It has been assumed here that an anti-Soviet combination of European NATO, Japan, and China could maintain the Eurasian balance of power. This may be too optimistic an assumption. There is always the possibility of some of these countries seeking an accommodation with the Russians or of Eurocommunists attaining power in Italy or France. Finally, we cannot rule out the possibility of a rapprochement between China and the Soviet Union; a Sino-Soviet accord modeled on that which prevailed before 1960 would deal a shattering blow to the world power equilibrium.

Any of these eventualities would leave the United States with no other recourse than to go with the hemispheric option. Assuming that a hemispheric design becomes necessary, how do we go about implementing it?

The first step must be to heal the break that we have permitted to develop between us and our neighbors to the north and south. U.S. preoccupation with global strategy and super-power détente has gone hand in hand with a corresponding negligence of hemispheric affairs.

Our foreign aid program offers evidence of our benign neglect. Over one ten-year period, Communist Yugoslavia received more U.S. aid than did all Latin America.⁴³ In fiscal year 1977-78 the Carter administration requested more than six times as much military aid for tiny Israel as it did for all Latin America.⁴⁴

Today’s crises in Central America and the West Indies may be a result of these years of neglect. While we have been focusing on Indochina, the Middle East, and elsewhere, we have permitted a dangerous situation to develop at our very doorstep. Unless checked, the violence there could spread, endangering the strategically vital Panama Canal as well as critical oil supplies in Mexico and Venezuela.⁴⁵

Although American support for Britain during the Falklands conflict may have further strained U.S.-Latin American relations, a number of Latin American and Western diplomats interviewed concluded that most U.S. alliances in the area remain intact.⁴⁶ Geography has ordained that we share this insular landmass with our fellow Americans, north and south. These peoples stand in a special relationship to us—economically, geographically, strategically.

The Reagan team may be aware of this geopolitical assessment. During his presidential campaign, Reagan was a strong advocate of a North American common market. And Richard V. Allen, the President’s former National Security Adviser, went even further, saying: "Specifically, we must put much stronger emphasis on the Western Hemisphere—Canada and Latin America."⁴⁷

If Napoleon’s dictum is accurate, that "the policies of all the powers are inherent in their geography,"⁴⁸ then in this uncertain era, given an adverse turn of events, the hemispheric option might become the one best geared to America’s future. It would reduce the number and range of our dependencies. It would secure the land and sea routes to vital raw materials. And so long as we retain sufficient conventional and nuclear firepower, it could provide an impregnable, defensive position—one capable of withstanding threats from any conceivable transoceanic combination.

"Power belongs to those who can anticipate the future."⁴⁹

1. "How Europe’s Neutralism Harms U.S. Business," Business Week, July 28, 1980, p. 56.

2. "In Tokyo, a Spreading Case of the Security Jitters," Business Week, July 30, 1979, p. 43.

3. "Can Alliance Survive?" U.S. News & World Report, June 9, 1980, p. 21.

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid., p. 22.

6. Ibid., pp. 22-23.

7. "Cost to Protect Mideast Oil: $5 Billion a Year," interview with Harold Brown, Secretary of Defense, U.S. News & World Report, August 4, 1980, p. 26.

8. "Worldgram," U.S. News & World Report, March 3, 1980, p. 35.

9. "France, Germany Agree on Need to Check Soviets," Corvallis Gazette-Times, July 12, 1980, p. 3.

10. Ibid.

11. Ray S. Cline, World Power Assessment: A Calculus of Strategic Drift (Washington: Georgetown University Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1975), p. 91.

12. The Military Balance 1980-1981 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies), p. 9.

13. Information Please Almanac, 1980, pp. 42, 145, 167, 183, 232, 176, 227.

14. Military Balance, pp. 9, 21-31. Basis for statement: subtract from Soviets’ total armed forces the 1/3 based in the Far East (see statement by Admiral Robert L. J. Long, Commander in Chief of U.S. Forces, Pacific, U.S. News & World Report, August 10, 1981, p. 40), plus the 85,000 stationed in Afghanistan.

15. "The New Defense Posture, Missiles, Missiles and Missiles," Business Week, August 11, 1980, p. 76.

16. Robert Ball, "A Decision That Will Shape NATO’s Future," Fortune, December 17, 1979, p. 86.

17. "As Allies Boost Their Nuclear Punch," U.S. News & World Report, July 28, 1980, p. 8. France is still a member of NATO although she withdrew her military support in 1966.

18. Robert A. Scalapino, "Asia at the End of the l970s," Foreign Affairs-U.S. & The World, 1979, p. 706.

19. Business Week, July 30, 1979, p. 43.

20. Ibid.

21. "Why U.S. and Japan Are Drifting Apart," U.S. News & World Report, August 14, 1978, p. 50.

22. Waladyslaw W. Kulski, The Soviet Union in World Affairs: A Documentary Analysis 1964-1972 (New York: Syracuse University Press, 1973), p. 143.

23. Donald S. Zagoria, "The Soviet Quandary in Asia," Foreign Affairs, January 1978, p. 314.

24. Edward Luttwak, "America Now: A Failure of Nerve?" Commentary, July 1975, p. 61.

25. Lincoln P. Bloomfield, The U.S. Interdependence and World Order, Headline Series #228, Foreign Policy Association, December 1975, pp. 20-21.

26. Ernest H. Preeg, Economic Blocs and U.S. Foreign Policy, Report #135 (Washington: National Planning Association, 1974), p. 110.

27. Ibid., p. 134.

28. "Canada: Mining," Encyclopedia Americana, vol. 5 (New York, 1979), p. 355.

29. Bridget Gail, "The West’s Jugular Vein: Arab Oil," Armed Forces Journal, August 1978, p. 20.

30. Colin S. Gray, Geopolitics of the Nuclear Era (New York: Crane, Russak & Co., Strategy Information Center, 1977), p. 25.

31. Saul Bernard Cohen, Geography and Politics in a World Divided (New York: Random House, 1963), p. 52.

32. Ibid., p. 42.

33. Nicholas John Spykman, America’s Strategy in World Politics (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1942), pp. 179-80.

34. James Reston, "The Pope Reaches People," Corvallis Gazette-Times, October 8, 1979, editorial page.

35. Spykman, p. 365.

36. Ibid.

37. James F. Rippy, Globe and Hemisphere (Chicago, 1958), p.

21.

38. James Reston, "How Do You Mirv a Cow?" Reader’s Digest, October 1974, p. 113.

39. Michael Hudson, Global Fracture: The New International Economic Order (New York, 1977), p. 76.

40. "New Debate: Is U.S. Carrying Too Heavy a Burden Abroad?" U.S. News & World Report, July 7, 1975, p. 27.

41. James Schlesinger, Defense Department Report, Fiscal Year

1975, p. 6.

42. Dexter Perkins, A History of the Monroe Doctrine (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1955), p. 365.

43. Mario Lazo, "On Knowing Latin America," Strategic Review, Summer 1974, p. 39.

44. "Why Latin Americans Are Bitter about Carter," U.S. News & World Report, April 4, 1977, p. 34.

45. "Power Keg at our Doorstep," U.S. News & World Report, May 19,1980, p.21.

46. "U.S. Alliances Likely to Survive Falklands," Corvallis Gazette-Times, June 28, 1982, p. 22.

47. "In Prospect: Shift in Course Overseas," U.S. News & World Report, November 24, 1980, p. 54.

48. John Lucas, The Last European War, September 1959-December1941 (New York: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1976), p.³²⁸.

49. Quote from Robert Jungk, U.S. News & World Report, December 1, 1980, p.⁵³.

George W. Ott (B.A., Eastern Washington State University; M.A., Washington State University) is a free-lance writer on history, geography, and political science. He has been an instructor at the high school and college level in the Los Angeles city school system. Ott has published articles in U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, Military Review, Armed Forces Journal, and National Defense.

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.

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