What the New US National Security Strategy Means for the Caucasus
Op-Ed
On December 18, the US government unveiled the National Security Strategy of the United States. The document enumerates those major problems and challenges facing the US and western institutions. But the document also signals a new development in the US approach to foreign relations.
The overall tone of the document purports that Washington has started to realize that the post-Cold War approach to Eurasia brought nothing for ensuring a lasting peace and furthering of American state interests.
Indeed, the document quite openly states that “after being dismissed as a phenomenon of an earlier century, the great power competition has returned". It is a striking admission on behalf of the White House, and although in Europe and elsewhere the dominant nature of the new “strategy document” might raise questions, in the South Caucasus people would think that it is more attuned to the geopolitical situation on the ground.
Russian military resurgence and economic moves in the former Soviet Union have exacerbated the security situation in the region and potential cooperation with Russia on a number of issues has notably failed. The era of post-Cold War hopes for a lasting cooperation and peace officially ended with the announcement of the new strategic document.
“It is a strategy of principled realism that is guided by outcomes, not ideology,” the document reads. Scholars of international relations remember well that realism and its German version realpolitik have been several times scaled back by those notions that are built on ideological and ethical premises. This happened following the Congress of Vienna in 1815 when the European statesmen thought a lasting peace would ensue the Napoleonic wars. But WWI followed. Similar thinking was seen after the Treaty of Versailles, but, again, a purely geopolitical thinking returned in full swing with the rise of totalitarian powers.
The third period of expected prosperity and peace was the post-Cold War period, but as said above, the new Trump document essentially means the death of ethical and moral premises in international relations and the return of geopolitics. Georgians could only rejoice in that as the geopolitical approach to the South Caucasus and the wider region Georgia is located in responds well to the existing challenges the country is facing.
Perhaps this thinking is best summarized in the following quote which characterizes increased competitions in Eurasia: “These competitions require the United States to rethink the policies of the past two decades, policies based on the assumption that engagement with rivals and their inclusion in international institutions and global commerce would turn them into benign actors and trustworthy partners. For the most part, this premise turned out to be false.”
The new strategy states that, “the United States will respond to the growing political, economic, and military competitions we face around the world. China and Russia challenge American power, influence, and interests, attempting to erode American security and prosperity. They are determined to make economies less free and less fair, to grow their militaries, and to control information and data to repress their societies and expand their influence.”
The nature of the fundamental threat emanating from Russia is also reflected in North Korea and Iran, with their nuclear programs featuring only after China and Russia, as do transnational terrorist groups of various kinds.
The return to geopolitics by the US government has not happened overnight, but has rather been a result of constant challenges to the US world order by such powers as Russia. Relations with Russia have been declining over the past decade and it is fair to say that the National Strategy document simply responds to the worsened security situation in Eurasia. What is quite likely to happen is that US-Russia relations will now be more difficult to normalize.
Emil Avdaliani