Or maybe these days more likely Jan or Martin. At The National Interest Jerome Slater makes the argument that the Europeans should be fielding troops to fight DAESH:
Third, in even rarer circumstances, it may be justifiable or even necessary for states to go to war to protect against non-military but still massive threats to their economies or to their societies and national values. For example, during the 1970s when the health of the U.S. economy was still heavily dependent on importing oil from the Middle East—it no longer is—there would at least have been a case for U.S. military intervention if those oil imports were threatened, whether by boycotts or by military or terrorist attacks.
For all three of those reasons, a large-scale European ground intervention against the Islamic State in Syria, Iraq and possibly in Afghanistan would be justifiable and increasingly necessary: the self-defense and European collective self-defense case is obvious, the moral case for destroying the Islamic State and starting the process of restoring the human rights of the peoples of Syria, Iraq and perhaps Afghanistan is a very powerful one, and it is at least arguable that continuing massive refugee inflows into Western Europe could impose very high economic and societal costs, if not yet, then perhaps soon.
On the other hand, none of those reasons justifies U.S. military intervention—and by that I mean not only “boots on the ground,†but even the growing U.S. air and special forces interventions in the Middle East. First, unlike the 9/11 attacks, in the last fifteen years no terrorist attacks against the United States have been on a scale to justify going to war in the Middle East. On the contrary, it is precisely the growing U.S. military intervention—or re-intervention—in Iraq and Syria that is likely to provide the incentives for massive terrorist attacks on our homeland. Thus, our national security is not enhanced but in fact is threatened by our military interventions in the Middle East.
I’ve already alluded to a powerful argument against such an intervention: the Europeans think it’s our fault. There’s a kernel of truth to that but perhaps just a kernel. It’s their fault, too. We weren’t the colonizers in the Middle East and they’ve got more on the line than we do.
I think the Europeans are basing their strategy on the two guys being chased by a bear theory. You don’t need to be faster than the bear. You just need to be faster than the other guy. They don’t want to heighten their own security problems any more than we do and as long as we’re willing to do their fighting for them why the heck not?
There are only three European countries that matter militarily: Germany, France and the UK. Germany was taken out of the game 70 years ago and seems content to stay out. Britain and France have helped at times, but they don’t have anything like our broadly capable force. They would most likely need to start a years-long build-up, with a draft, major weapons acquisitions, etc… I won’t hold my breath.
The reality is that only two countries remain willing to use major military force and that’s us and the Russians. I’m not a fan of the Russians but we have interests that largely overlap – or would if we allowed ourselves to see it. Unfortunately we have too many people still trapped in Cold War thinking about Russian penetration of the Middle East, as though the ME was still some great prize to be sought after, rather than a leper colony to be contained and avoided.
I am not worried about Russian “inroads” in Syria and Iran. Syria, Iran and Russia are not the problem, jihadi terrorism is the problem, and it is largely created by our so-called friends, not our enemies. The problem in the ME is not Russia it’s Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is to jihadism what Moscow Center was to communism.
That’s a point I’ve been trying to make since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Our interests are congruent with those of Russia. We don’t have to agree with them. We just have to agree to disagree.
However, our interests are only congruent with Russia’s if we’re willing to recognize that other countries have a right to their own interests, to activist foreign policies, and to pursue their interests through their policies. There is a subtext in American foreign policy that we like our neighbors to be weak and mostly passive. With modern communications and transportation every country is our neighbor.
BTW, there’s one foot-noted exception to your remarks about the irrelevancy of forces other than the UK and France: Polish Special Forces. The Poles prudently decided to specialize in special forces. The number in their special forces is about the same as the UK’s or France’s and they’re highly competent and respected.
I did not know that about the Poles. Smart. Their country is flat with few natural obstacles to either east or west – a fact which has played a bit of a role in their history. I assume they are thinking guerrilla war after a Russian invasion.
Mumbling a bit here — I don’t have a well organized policy to speak up for, just random thoughts. One of them is that I suspect most Euorpean governments have memories of the Clinton administration (the previous Clinton administration) and Bosnia, where the USA was willing to provide air attacks on the Serbs while other NATO countries provided ground troops.
Slater is arguing for a repeat of that, and I wonder if Europeans remember that policy as being quite so successful as we do.
They Europeans have no ability to deploy and sustain the required forces. On paper they have what appear to be a sufficient number of troops, but they lack the key enablers and logistics which are necessary to actually deploy and employ a viable force for combat operations in a foreign theater.
The military force that could actually fight Daesh, with some US and NATO help, is Turkey, but they aren’t interested and are too busy with the Kurds.