In Practice There Is

I agree with the point that Antony Blinken and Lloyd Austin make in their Washington Post op-ed. In theory anyway. In theory our alliances are force multipliers:

Our alliances are what our military calls “force multipliers.” We’re able to achieve far more with them than we could without them. No country on Earth has a network of alliances and partnerships like ours. It would be a huge strategic error to neglect these relationships. And it’s a wise use of our time and resources to adapt and renew them, to ensure they’re as strong and effective as they can be.

but I’m not entirely convinced that’s how it has been working out in practice. The entire discussion evokes for me Yogi Berra’s observation about theory and practice. In theory there’s no difference between theory and practice but in practice there is.

Let’s consider some concrete examples. Let’s consider the U. S., U. K., and French bombing of Libya in 2011 which largely brought down the Qaddafi regime. U. S. participation allowed France and England to do something they couldn’t accomplish on their own. At the end of a week of intervention the French and British had materially exhausted their own ability to prosecute the campaign. Was the converse true? No.

Let’s consider our alliance with Germany. Over the last 20 years what have we accomplished with that alliance we would not have been able to accomplish without it? I genuinely can’t think of anything.

In fact I don’t think I can come up with any examples from the last 20 years in which our alliances have been force multipliers.

Okay, let’s consider a hypothetical non-military alliance and objective: the Paris Accords. If we had joined the Paris Accords and actually made substantial cuts in our greenhouse gas emissions, would it have changed the course of human-induced climate change? Even if you make the dozens of assumptions you would need to make, I don’t think it would because China would have done exactly what they have done and as long as China maintains that course the objective cannot be reached. That seems to be a case in which one of the member’s participation in the alliance is actually a figleaf covering their own lack of compliance rather than a force multiplier.

My tentative conclusion is that our alliances to be force multipliers the relationship must be more one of equals than that of client and patron and all of the participants must live up to their obligations. That would require efforts and expenses on the part of our allies they have neither been willing to exert nor bear. For the last 75 years the objective of our foreign policy has been to turn all of our notional allies in clients. Can we change that? Is it too late to change that?