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CIAO DATE: 9/01

Forward Presence and Peacetime "Shaping": Comparative Analysis of Great Power Experiences

Edward Rhodes, Jonathan DiCicco, Sarah Milburn, and Tom Walker

2001

Center for Global Security and Democracy
Rutgers University

 

Identification of ship and combat unit attributes for utilizing distributed systems for forward presence prepared by the Center for Global Security and Democracy, Rutgers University under contract to Carderock Division, Naval Surface Warfare Center

The authors also wish to thank Dr. Mark Montroll.

Introduction: Military Power and Peacetime "Shaping"

The United States has a range of tools at its disposal with which to shape the international environment in ways favorable to U.S. interests and global security. Shaping activities enhance U.S. security by promoting regional security and preventing or reducing. . . [a] wide range of diverse threats.... These measures adapt and strengthen alliances and friendships, maintain U.S. influence in key regions and encourage adherence to international norms.... The U.S. military plays an essential role in... shaping the international environment in ways that protect and promote U.S. interests. Through overseas presence and peacetim e engagement activities such as defense cooperation, security assistance, and training and exercises with allies and friends, our armed forces help to deter aggression and coercion, promote regional stability, prevent and reduce conflicts and threats, and serve as role models for militaries in emerging democracies. . . .

— The White House, "A National Security Strategy for a New Century" (National Security Strategy of the United States), October 1998, pp. 8, 12.

US Armed Forces help shape the international environment primarily through their inherent deterrent qualities and through peacetime military engagement. The shaping element of our strategy helps foster the institutions and international relationships that constitute a peaceful strategic environment by promoting stability; preventing and reducing conflict and threats; and deterring aggression and coercion. . . .

— The Joint Chiefs of Staff, "Shape, Respond, Prepare Now: A Military Strategy for a New Era" (National Military Strategy of the United States of America), 1997, p. 12.


In the post-Cold War era, U.S. defense planning has taken as a fundamental premise that the United States needs to act prophylactically, using its military power to "shape" the peacetime world, encouraging the emergence or preservation of political conditions that favor peace, prosperity, and democracy. What has remained unclear, however, are the implications of this peacetime mission for U.S. force posture and defense strategy. What attributes need U.S. military forces possess if they are successfully to meet the challenge, posed by the National Security Strategy, of "shaping the international environment in ways that protect and promote U.S. interests"?

This study undertakes a preliminary, historical investigation of this question. Comparing the experience of three democratic great powers — Britain, America, and France — as they attempted to shape outcomes in regions in which they enjoyed military predominance, this study explores the particular attributes of military power that appear to have been correlated with an ability to ensure political conditions consistent with great power goals. This study does not hope to provide conclusive answers about the relationship between particular military capabilities and successful peacetime "shaping," but seeks to generate plausible hypotheses that can be subjected to more rigorous testing. To this end, the study concludes by distilling its findings into a set of speculative propositions about what contributes to "shaping."

I: The Challenge of Peacetime Shaping

The importance of military power in wartime is self-evident. Winning wars, however, is only one of the functions of military forces. Military forces are also called upon to win the peace, creating or preserving political conditions consistent with national diplomatic, strategic, and economic objectives. Most obviously, in recent American history this peacetime role of military power has been evidenced in the demand that military forces deter potential adversaries from attacking the United States or its allies. More broadly, however, American military power has been regarded as relevant in a wide range of efforts to influence both friends and enemies — reassuring friends that they can take the risk of embracing political and economic choices that are consistent with their own preferences and American visions, while convincing potential adversaries to rethink the goals or policies that brought them into conflict with the United States.

Indeed, in the post-Cold War period, American policymakers have increasingly emphasized the relevance of American military power to the achievement of peacetime political goals. Both the U.S. National Security Strategy (the official presidential strategy statement) and the U.S. Military Strategy (the uniformed military's official pronouncement on strategy) underscore the role of American military power in "shaping" peacetime political environments in regions around the world. U.S. military strategy is explicitly defined as "Shape, Respond, Prepare Now" — that is, as a strategy of using American military power to shape (the peacetime international political environment in ways favorable to American interests and global security), respond (to crises and wars), and prepare now (for the still uncertain threats of an evolving future). 1

But what qualities or attributes of military power contribute to its effectiveness in influencing peacetime behavior? What military capabilities enhance the ability of a democratic great power like the United States to shape peacetime political conditions?

These questions are important for two reasons. First, in designing military forces it is necessary to make tradeoffs. The ultimately finite size of national budgets means that it is necessary both to choose among military capabilities and to choose between military capabilities and other elements of national power. These tradeoffs, while always present, are particularly salient in a period marked equally by a sweeping and global conception of U.S. interests and by fiscal frugality.

U.S. national security strategy enunciates three broad goals of American policy: enhancing American security, bolstering American economic prosperity, and promoting democracy abroad. 2 In this context, the pressing question becomes what military capabilities does the United States need to preserve from the budgetary axe (or enhance despite budgetary pressures to reduce) if it is to shape and guarantee a global political environment consistent with the protection of American lives and property at home and abroad, the diffusion of free markets and economic development, and the spread of democratic values and institutions? Need American forces be designed and deployed to maintain a constant forward presence in critical regions? Need forward deployed American forces be able to offer meaningful military options, or is their peacetime role largely a symbolic one? For peacetime missions, is technological superiority a good investment? Do critical capabilities vary by region and across time? Would "force packages" different from the ones currently envisioned in U.S. strategy be equally (or perhaps even more) effective in the missions envisioned by U.S. planners — that is, in deterring aggression, building alliances and coalitions, supporting international norms, encouraging the spread and strengthening of democratic institutions and values, and stimulating open markets and sustainable economic growth? Understanding what attributes of military power are important in peacetime "shaping" thus becomes essential if the United States is to make wise use of its limited resources.

Second, however, both in designing current strategy and in preparing now for an uncertain future, it is necessary to have some appreciation of what types and degrees of peacetime "shaping" are plausible, given particular types and levels of military capability. What objectives can realistically be demanded from military forces? To what political outcomes can appropriately designed and employed military forces significantly contribute? How difficult, for example, is it to use military forces to shape a regional enviro nment in which local conflict and outside intervention do not take place? One in which economic growth and the adoption of free-market principles occurs? One in which democracy spreads and human rights are respected? Policymakers need an assessment of the kinds of peacetime "shaping" that the possession of a dominant military force will permit.

Despite the importance of understanding the impact of military posture on global "shaping," our knowledge of the relationship remains rudimentary. The present study represents only an initial step in improving this knowledge base, and the propositions it derives are simply that — speculative propositions derived from a limited, though careful, examination of a limited number of historic cases.

The relationship between military power and successful "shaping" is obviously complex. Three dimensions of this complexity are worth acknowledging. Each complicates attempts to make predictions about how and when efforts to use military force to "shape" political environments will work.

First, the interaction between the external, international environment confronting states and domestic political realities is a maze of feedback loops. Changes in international realities — for example, the presence of a stabilizing external military force in the region — may not only influence states' foreign policy choices but transform their domestic political situation, altering the distribution of domestic power, the salience of political issues, and even the construction of political identity. This, in turn, reshapes foreign policy goals and behavior in ways that may not be easily generalizable. An understanding of the impact of military forces on "shaping" efforts thus demands an awareness of the dynamic processes at work in particular nation-states: environmental changes that on first inspection would seem to promote stability, democracy, and economic openness may unleash internal forces or trigger processes of domestic change that lead to entirely unanticipated outcomes. It is not inconceivable, for example, that under certain conditions the presence of "stabilizing" military forces that prevent interstate aggression may result in the emergence of internal political fissures or in political radicalization that ultimately undermines regional stability.

Second, under some conditions, efforts to "shape" peacetime environments may trigger countervailing reactions by other states. The conditions under which other nations tend to "bandwagon" rather than "balance" remain unclear, as are the conditions under which particular visions of the future or sets of values become broadly shared. In the Western world in the wake of World War II, states tended to bandwagon with the United States, accepting (with better or worse grace) American visions of a liberal world order and joining with America in pursuing that order. Historically, however, this sort of bandwagoning and hegemonic ideology appear the exception rather than the rule. When states will welcome, rather than rebel against, a great power's efforts to impose order remains uncertain.

Third, the interrelationship between military tools and influences, on the one hand, and the other resources available to nations, on the other hand, also remains murky. The extent to which military threats and promises need to be linked to economic, diplomatic, and cultural ones, and the fungibility of power resources — the extent to which one kind of power, such as military, can be substituted for another, such as economic — remain critical questions.

We find ourselves, therefore, in a situation in which neither rigorous mathematical modelling, involving comparative analyses of the cost-effectiveness of various inputs and alternative "production" processes in the achievement of various objectives, nor gaming efforts and experimentation offer much promise. In this regard the contrast between the wartime uses of military power and the peacetime uses of it stand in sharp contrast. Even in a period of potentially revolutionary change in military technology, our understanding of the dynamics of wartime engagement is sufficiently advanced that calculating the impact of a change in force posture or doctrine is essentially a technical — if admittedly difficult — matter. Relying on computer models, gaming activities, and small-scale field experiments, it is possible for a professional military establishment to establish with a reasonable degree of confidence which alternatives will prove cost-effective. This, however, is not the situation when it comes to measuring the effectiveness of military power in peacetime: here, at the present time, we are in the more speculative realm of traditional wisdom and gut hunches when we argue about what works best. The danger, of course, is that in designing military forces and doctrine we focus solely on those things that are most easily or rigorously measured — their probable efficacy in wartime — and assume that forces and doctrines developed for wartime efficacy will necessarily be cost-effective in the peacetime shaping mission as well.

II: Case Selection and Methodology

To begin to develop some working propositions about what attributes of military power and what kinds of military capabilities yield peacetime political leverage, this study examines six historical cases in which great powers have attempted to use their military resources to shape and stabilize the politics of particular regions. In selecting cases, we have looked for historical situations that are in some important respects analogous to the situation currently facing the United States. First, we have looked for cases in which the great power enjoyed a predominance of military power in the region being studied. Second, we have looked for cases in which the great power was a democracy, subject to whatever constraints on the use of military power that democratic institutions might impose. Third, we have looked for cases in which the great power was dealing with other sovereign states — that is, we have avoided colonial cases, in which key regional actors lacked formal sovereignty. Fourth, we have looked for cases in which the great power had clearly identified goals. Finally, we have looked for cases involving different great powers and different regions, to permit us to begin to distinguish between ideosyncratic and general findings.

The six cases selected for investigation are:

  1. Britain in the Eastern Mediterranean during the Concert of Europe period (1816-1852);

  2. Britain in the Eastern Mediterranean during the interwar years (1919-1937);

  3. Britain in South America between 1850 and 1890;

  4. The United States in the Caribbean between 1903 and 1920;

  5. France in West Africa between 1960 and 1970;

  6. France in Central Africa between 1970 and 1995.

Using focused-comparison techniques to rigorously compare the cases, in each case we explicitly ask the same set of questions. It should be possible to — literally — lay the answers to particular questions side by side, comparing across the six cases. The variables we explore fall into three general categories:

  1. What was the great power's military capability — that is, what were the principal attributes of its military power — in the region?

  2. What other power resources and what political constraints may have affected the great power's behavior or influence in the region?

  3. How successful was the great power in shaping peacetime political environments in ways consistent with its preferences?

From our perspective, the first category represents the relevant independent variables, the impact of which we wish to examine. The second category represents control and intervening variables. The third category, the outcome, represents the dependent variable of the study.

The specific questions posed in each of the cases are:

  1. What are the great power's military capabilities?
    1. What is the overall regional military balance between great power and regional powers?
    2. What is the degree of great power's effective technological superiority over regional powers (where "effective" implies not merely possession of technology but possession of the training and institutional capacity to maintain and employ it)?
    3. How constant is the great power's presence in region, with what kinds and levels of forces?
    4. What is the speed of great power possible response?
    5. What military options are available to the great power?
    6. Does the great power have the ability to intervene in domestic political affairs (e.g., to save or topple governments)?
    7. Does the great power have the ability to conduct humanitarian and peace-keeping operations?

  2. What are the great power's other resources and what constraints on its behavior exist?
    1. What other power resources does the great power have?
      — What is the great power's economic leverage?
      — What is the great power's political penetration of regional actors?
    2. How much freedom of action does the great power have, given domestic political constraints?
    3. What international regimes and institutions exist that either support or work against the great power's objectives?
    4. Are other great powers active or capable of intervening in the region?
    5. What realistic options do regional states have to put pressure on the great power?
    6. Do regional states and the great power share common objectives?

  3. Is the great power able to shape the peacetime environment consistent with its preferences?
    1. What is its ability to deter unwanted conflict in region?
    2. What is its ability to control the outcome of regional conflicts?
    3. What is its ability to reassure aligned states in the region?
    4. What is its ability to protect its economic interests in the region?
    5. What is its ability to ensure regional states pursue foreign policies desired by the great power?
    6. What is its ability to further domestic developments in the region consistent with its values and preferences (e.g., democratic development, economic development, pro-capitalist economic policies)?

Each of the next six chapters explores a historical case, posing these same 19 questions. The final chapter summarizes the case findings and, based on these findings, offers some propositions about the attributes of military power that contribute significantly to the ability to conduct peacetime shaping and about the kinds of shaping that are generally possible.

 

Endnotes

Note 1: Joint Chiefs of Staff, "Shape, Respond, P repare Now: A Military Strategy for a New E ra" (National Military Strategy of the United States of America), 1997, p. 1. Back

Note 2: The White House, "A National Security Strategy for a New Century" (National Security Strategy of the United States), O ctober 1 998, p. iii. Back

 

 

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