Breaking Defense:
The National Defense Strategy rightly prioritizes great power competition as the biggest threat to U.S. security. This is perhaps its most significant contribution; waking us up from the collective security mindset that has captured the thinking of policy-makers following every major conflict going back to World War I.
Collective security assumes that all the great powers have bought in to the existing international system, that none seek to overturn it, and that all will defend against any challenge to it. Hence we witnessed the formation of the League of Nations after World War I and the signing of the Kellogg-Briand Pact to assure the eternal “renunciation of war”; the establishment of the United Nations after World War II along with the “Four Policemen” (an unlikely concert of the U.S., the U.S.S.R., what was still the British Empire, and not-yet-Communist China), and the protracted efforts after the Cold War to achieve some form of cooperative security.
In each case U.S. leaders misread the situation. Following World War I, Germany, Japan, and Italy rejected the international order and sought to impose a “New Order” of their liking. Following World War II the United States and the Free World were quickly confronted with the threat of Soviet and Communist expansionism. With the United States enjoying a dominant position following the Cold War, it was enticing to believe that the “end of history” was at hand and that the liberal democratic order had finally triumphed. But this only lasted until China amassed enough power and Russia recovered sufficient strength to challenge this order. Simply put, the United States has always been in an international system characterized by power politics, not collective security…
