The End of an Era

James Joyner has a pretty good round-up of media and pundit reactions to the events of yesterday at Outside the Beltway. He remarks:

From my vantage point, Putin has lost much more than he’s gained. Defying the West and recapturing some of the glory of the Soviet days may give him a short-term boost in domestic popularity but one would think further sanctions piled atop those that have been in place since 2014 will quickly overcome that. Russia is a pariah state now, having lost its seat in the G-8 and still retaining its Security Council membership because of a sclerotic system, not because it’s regarded as an equal player.

while William Galston, in his Wall Street Journal column declaims that it marks “the end of an era”, advising:

The U.S. faces challenges to its interests and principles on two major fronts, not one. It doesn’t have the luxury of redeploying military assets and diplomatic focus from Europe to Asia. The U.S. must focus on both fronts, but it is hard to see how it can do so without a larger military budget and a beefed-up governance structure in the White House, State Department and Defense Department.

and

Generations of postwar Europeans have convinced themselves the use of force is no longer necessary to settle disputes between nations. They believed diplomacy, backed by international law and institutions, was the 21st-century way of keeping peace.

Against this backdrop, the Russian invasion of Ukraine should trigger a crisis of European identity. If force is a permanent feature of international relations, the European Union must either take more responsibility for its own defense or admit that it has subcontracted this job to the U.S. indefinitely, along with some of the EU’s strategic independence.

It will certainly be interesting (in a “may you live in interesting times” sort of way) to see how both the White House and our European allies respond. Will President Biden’s Congressional caucus tolerate such a course correction? And what of the president’s other priorities, e.g. climate change.

Frankly, I doubt our European allies will react as Mr. Galston proposes. I think they’re far more likely to hold tight to their post-war fantasy than they are either to start beefing up their own militaries or “subcontracting its strategic independence”.

I also wonder how we’re going to manage expanding our military while remaining as dependent on consumer spending as at present. Not to mention dependent on China.