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Dr. Andrew A. Michta: Geostrategy

The Great Power Threat is Back: Why America Needs a National Security Reset

F-35 Stealth Fighter U.S. Military
U.S. Navy Aviation Boatswain’s Mate (Handling) 3rd Class Nicolas Fareri launches a U.S. Marine Corps F-35B Lightning II aircraft with Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 121 off the amphibious assault carrier USS Tripoli (LHA 7) during Valiant Shield 2022 (VS22), June 13, 2022. Exercises such as Valiant Shield allows the Indo-Pacific Command Joint Task Force the opportunity to integrate forces from all branches of service to conduct long-range, precise, lethal, and overwhelming multi-axis, multi-domain effects that demonstrate the strength and versatility of the Joint Task Force and our commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Jackson Ricker)

As Donald J. Trump takes office as the country’s 47th President, American foreign and security policy are at an inflection point.  

While analysts routinely predict various and sundry policy changes when a new administration arrives on the scene, I will refrain from assessing the defining pillars of the Trump administration’s foreign policy agenda until the principals are in the saddle and the policy process moves forward

 Instead, I would like to focus on where the United States is today regarding its relative power position in the world, and how we got here.  

And the news is not good. In just one generation, America’s policy elites frittered away an inordinate amount of power. Following the collapse of the Soviet empire, the US policy community all but abandoned our traditional pragmatism and the respect for geopolitical constraints that heretofore had tempered America’s strategic thought.  

In short, we let ideology overpower geopolitical considerations.    

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States has played a normative game, professing that we lived in a world of rules tied to principles-based interlocking systems that would compel states to pursue integration into the global trade networks to set them on the course for reform, liberalization and “complex interdependence.” 

The searing trauma of 9/11 transformed those assumptions into articles of faith, making pre-emption our preferred driver of policy in place of the heretofore constraining geopolitical calculus. The ideological assumptions of those years convinced America’s policy elites that we could remake entire cultures and civilizations, including communist China, into responsible stakeholders in the international system.  

We drew the wrong lessons from our own experience as a country. The correct notion that markets are the best allocators of resources and value, which served as a pathway to America’s prosperity and undergirded the country’s economic resurgence in the 1980s, was projected worldwide as the foundational precept of the new globalist catechism. 

 Little thought was given to the fact that, unlike the nation-state governed by enforceable rules and laws, the Darwinian self-help eco-system that political scientists refer to as “international relations” possesses few rules and no real enforcement mechanisms to speak of.  

The offshoring of our industrial production chains to China and elsewhere in pursuit of labor arbitrage was accompanied by even more reckless technology transfers across the board, with our labs and research universities becoming the preferred place to educate communist China’s engineers and future weapons designers.  

All the while, China and Russia, our principal competitors, aided by Iran and North Korea, went about building and expanding the foundations of their hard power, investing in their defense industry and expanding and modernizing their militaries.  

We all but ignored repeated warnings that geopolitics remained the foundational driver of international security. When we were confronted with blatant violations of the very norms and rules we professed to hold dear, such as Russia’s invasions of Georgia or Ukraine, we prioritized escalation management.  

Why? Because we feared a wider conflict, but also because US and European governments could not disabuse themselves of the belief that our adversaries were rational actors invested, as we were, in making the system work as we believed it should.  

For over three decades, we deluded ourselves that in this brave new globalized world national security was no longer the irreducible function of the state, for “complex interdependence” and markets would defuse confrontation in the name of economic stability.  

We are now facing the reality of an unfolding great power conflict that may devolve into a great power war. Our manufacturing base has been significantly reduced – in some areas gutted – while that of our enemies has expanded and thrived. Our adversaries’ penetration of our societies at every level has allowed for influence operations on our home turf on a scale that would have never been tolerated during the Cold War. 

Fujian Aircraft Carrier China

Fujian, China’s new aircraft carrier. Image Credit: Chinese Internet.

The extent of intellectual property theft by China, and simple extortion in exchange for market access, has made our companies vulnerable in key areas of their business operations, leading in some cases to partial elite capture by outside players. The loss of manufacturing has been accompanied by social dislocation and the shrinking of the American middle class, with wage disparities unknown since America’s Gilded Age, and attendant political instability and systemic fracturing not seen since the Great Depression.  

It is time we looked in the mirror and asked ourselves how it was possible that a civilization like ours which prided itself on rationality and empiricism spent three-plus decades pursuing the chimera of a “flat world” as we imagined it – or willed it to be – but not how it was.  

As the second Trump administration takes the reins, the question stands: Can we re-learn the basics of geopolitics and rational calculus that allowed us to triumph in the two World Wars and the Cold War?  

Even as we look to the future, we must come to terms with the past – not to bemoan what happened, but with a steely determination never to repeat those mistakes. We must absorb the painful lessons of the post-Cold War decades, recognizing that it was largely our ideological certitude that hobbled this great country

We must vow not to allow this to happen again, and resolve that we can and will course-correct.  

Su-35 Fighter from Russia.

Su-35 Fighter from Russia.

About the Author: Dr. Andrew A. Michta 

Andrew A. Michta is Senior Fellow at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security at the Atlantic Council of the United States. Views expressed here are his own. 

Written By

Andrew A. Michta is Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and the former dean of the College of International and Security Studies at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies. He holds a PhD in international relations from the Johns Hopkins University. His areas of expertise are international security, NATO, and European politics and security, with a special focus on Central Europe and the Baltic states

8 Comments

8 Comments

  1. 404NotFound

    January 23, 2025 at 11:03 am

    America, or USA, or uncle Sam is no moral beacon to the world. It is no guiding light nor a right example to follow.

    It is no mother Teresa either.

    Why.

    Becuz america is the Babylon mentioned in Rev chapter 18.

    America or USA is the entity that fully demolished the original inhabitants or the indigenous red indian peoples and brazenly usurped their entire land.

    Not even a bare small piece piece of territory was left to the indians. Everything was taken and swallowed wholesale.

    Back to today’s USA.

    In today’s USA, yearly, there are so many numerous shootings and mass massacres one should be readily forgiven for wrongly thinking the civil war has never really ended.

    Civil war still ongoing in US.

    We have, under Joe Biden, police officers still beating and shooting blacks, blacks apparently still finding US a very dangerous place to live by default. Is this going to be for forever.

    Abroad, US actively pursues illegal regime change and proxy wars against weak nations and a genghis-style foreign policy toward rivals.

    US definitely always capable of extreme behavior despite all the big pompous talk about human rights, liberty, freedom and democracy and rules-based order.

    But strangely, it is always completely silent when it comes to the topic of chapter 18. So, babe, whatsittoya.

  2. Jim

    January 23, 2025 at 1:59 pm

    Wow! Given what I’ve read previously from this author…

    Great article!

    A quibble here, a quibble there.

    But overall, an excellent run down on how we lost our way.

    Can we find a pathway (in the jungle of international relations) which will keep the United States, a free, strong, and independent Republic?

    Yes. But it depends on rational thought with clear eyes and a sharp pencil… to what’s realistic… and, sustainable over time.

    And, build up what we have lost (or a proximity) in influence & good will across the Globe.

    America can be the “indispensable” nation if we know our role as a balancing force in geopolitics, not a quest to dominate the planet.

    Britain, mid-19th Century, stated they were a ‘balancing force’ for good and stability.

    They lost their way when they decided to attempt ruling the World. And, they will never get it back.

    We can rebalance our role (if done in time) and still be the most powerful country in the World.

    Bar none.

  3. Swamplaw Yankee

    January 24, 2025 at 3:37 am

    Wow: double kudos to MAM. An inflection point synopsis published for the low brows.
    Simple, low fact and therefore, educational.
    MAM needs recognition as a today’s needed teacher of the low capacity MSM brain trust.
    The question remains open at the MAM conclusion: who will vow: for whom?
    And, “Never Again”, is a code twist for “always again”.
    Always the Yankee can not mentally understand basic facts. Say use of language that defines the enemy muscovite. The muscovite elite subjugates many ethnic nations. Today the orc muscovite genocide elite try to send these ethnics to war in high percentages. Say, instead of common local Russian speakers. Common Russians easily graduate up and into the Muscovite orc elite. Ethnics, Asiatic, that is non-Russian, easily graduate over to the front lines. The spoils of war from inside Ukraine go into the realm of the Muscovites and not over to the ethnic, say sub-republic regions. Perhaps some Yankees have even mastered the facts about the language that we in the West use that applies to the Muscovite empire?
    MAM still confuses the current geopolitics. It is not 1938-39. So, MAM try to be clear.
    Say, back there in 1939, there existed a member state of the League of Nations. A member state that was really Ukrainian. The people spoke Ukrainian. The USA supplied military hardware for the Muscovite elite to wipe that nation out of existence at the end of WW2. Were these butchered victims also “Russian” to be forgotten by every 2025 era history re-teller?
    On ward: technology transfer. The theft of technology from the WEST + the USA is just so evil. The USA offers what seems to be near zero penalty for conviction of such crimes. Sell our trash, keep the cash, no problem, no penalty, traitors, is the always again message. This is a very cheap federal level change that might signal a challenge the on-going traitor tech sell out.
    Geopolitics. From about 1916 to 1922 the Ukrainians in Ukraine fought to re-instate their ancient state. Yes, Ukrainians existed for thousands of years. The ancient Greeks invaded + colonized the Ukraine so as to collect sex slaves out of Ukraine for a long term + very profitable sex trade.
    The point is, that the USA did not assist the Ukrainians, at that time, Ukrainians who died fighting the orc muscovites for freedom from muscovite thralldom. Americans never assisted those Ukrainians: ever! I am prepared to view the many Hollywood movies that show the contrary. Not.
    Later, the Yankee became more confused when Soviet and/or communist labels magically appeared. Evil, long time Muscovite empire builders were suddenly transferred into western msm soviet heroes and/or communist every men. Hey, the USA msm thought, those Ukrainians are so way distant + beyond the Christians in Anatolia who have the nerve to bug us, msm, to save them from the Genocide Gog coming from the east.
    Today, above, MAM states the obvious in a concise layout.
    +++ Will Trump be wise or stupid is the historic point, that he, himself labels himself as for eternity.
    + Will Trump restore geostrategic balance to Europe and return all Ukrainian soil to Ukraine?
    ++ Will Trump establish a FORTRESS Europe on the site of Crimea/ Sevastopol and asap? Will Trump act as leader for the EU as they witlessly un-arm their militaries? Make the EU long-term fund the FORTRESS Europe installation for the long term.
    ++ Will Trump reassure the slumbering Israeli power structure that the 2014 orc Muscovite invasion is repaired and that the rebuilt Caspian canal to facilitate Gog to their shore line for the butchery of the Jewish faithful is now averted thanks to Trump?
    ++ Will Trump install the Ukrainian Military, or at very least the EU, into the 2 bases in Syria that the orc muscovite genociders just evacuated?
    ++ After Trump installs FORTRESS Europe Into Crimea and the Ukrainian Military into the 2 Syrian bases, will Trump address the statements of Erdogen, his MIS and the FSB. The long term security of the Jewish faithful in addressed by God in the Bible. Trump must, in a historic sense, decisively act to protect God’s faithful from the wraith of Gog and Magog. I truly speculate, that God is in attendance on this matter!
    ++ Or, could be, Trump just ignores God, ignores Ukrainian people + their ancient soil, ignores the geopolitical weakness of the EU and Israeli power structure and gives Gog Trumps personal covert USA signal to continue to bulk Gog’s mass very close to the Jewish faithful. Gog + Magog will take up this Trump weakness and/or failure. Gog will use the tragedy of Trumps blindness to wield the destruction God clearly noted in the Scriptures and warned against.
    ++ I wish that MAM could synopsis that unique aspect of Trump decision duty right now. Every Rabbi in the world would revisit their Torahs.

  4. George

    January 24, 2025 at 9:03 am

    Until you confess how the Wolfowitz Doctrine has failed America, you will always have to spend a Trillion Dollars every year to “Defend” America.

    You should see how other countries have spent their money. America looks like a garbage dump.

  5. jddROUIN

    January 24, 2025 at 9:37 am

    With respect, the US military needs a reset not because ‘great power competition is back’, but because the DOD has become infested with embarrassingly incompetent 1-, 2-, 3-, and 4-Star Admirals and Generals.

    You don’t let rats live in your home because your neighbors have rats AND bedbugs AND leaky plumbing AND unstable electricity, you get rid of the rats because they’re a health hazard.

    Well, those embarrassingly incompetent 1-, 2-, 3-, and 4-Star Admirals and Generals ARE A HEALTH HAZARD TO AMERICA.

  6. The Voice of Reason

    January 24, 2025 at 12:25 pm

    Dr. Michta is a very smart man, and this narrative is understandable from an academic point of view. Unfortunately, it is too shallow and therefore misses the mark. The West will not be able to find treatment for what ails it with such a general diagnosis.

    We are where we’re at because strategically the West invested overwhelmingly in what academics might call “cockamamy schemes”. This was strategy devised and led by a very tiny number of individuals with TS SCI and a need to know.

    This was strategy made by a miniscule group of eggheads in windowless rooms and it amounted to what we would call “trick plays” in football. These tricks plays occasionally still work- see Syria recently.

    But they don’t work against sophisticated opponents. Say what you want about Russia and China, unsophisticated they are not.

    What’s more, the effectiveness of cockamamy schemes relies on a level of information dominance that the modern internet makes impossible. The returns on cockamamy schemes will continue to diminish. The British way of war is dying.

    Can strategy be taken out of the hands of the very few and discussed openly without the elite imploding? See Gorbachev. The answer is no.

    So the (very narrow) elite will continue to devise all strategy without honest input or feedback. They might consider, though, that what they are trying to do-avert revolution in conditions of cascading social, political, and wealth inequality- has never been done going back to the bronze age.

    Redistribution is coming, and soon. The only question is how it’s divided.

    Dr. Michta is only concerned about preventing redistribution based on national divisions. If that’s the case, in these conditions our TS SCI elite should really consider a strategy that shifts redistribution of power within the West in order to prevent it from being redistributed across national boundaries.

    Basically, populism has the potential to energize society. Digging heels in and hoping for just one more trick play a year or 4 from now is stupid and reckless.

    The West needs a generation to recharge the support of the nation/civilization. In that time buffer space (including Ukraine) will probably have to be surrendered.

    This is the way Dr. Michta. And the good Lord has sent us Trump to do it.

    What does that actually look like? It looks like what is currently underway under President Trump.

    Another cockamamy scheme is the road to ruin. Pray or TS SCI elite figure that out.

  7. Thomas Hazlewood

    January 25, 2025 at 9:06 am

    It was predictable 50 years ago that leftist politics and ideological obtuseness would wreak havoc on stability. Working on the assumption that Soviets wanted the same things the West wanted, the West offered bounty in return for blithe assurances.

    After the USSR had collapsed the hopeful West pretended that there was no longer any danger from the people that had caused mayhem and the slaughter of hundreds of millions. Bill Clinton declared that China was now our ‘strategic partner’ and threw open the doors to our most secure technologies for them.

    Now we are chasing the Chinese lead in military and technological sciences, achieved with the use of the state-of-the art technologies we’d sold to them, or allowed them to purloin. We teach 250,000 Chinese in our universities now. We sell them our farmlands. We permit them to openly surveil our country from one end to the other.

    Our entire culture has been adulterated with foolish hope and dependence upon the virtue of people who more greatly value achieving a dominating position on us. Trump can’t fix that.

  8. William

    January 26, 2025 at 8:42 am

    This article is really refreshing but I had a few points.
    The Ukraine war is a war America started preparing for and instigating for since 2009. It’s the most corrupt nation in Europe and the wash post says the Pentagon estimates 30% of aid disappears when it crosses the border but never makes it to the front. We provoked Russia into a war because the neoncons and the pointy CIA heads decided we could remove a strategic threat on the cheap with a proxy war. How’s that working out btw?
    We need to stop creating proxy wars. All we did was drive our enemies together. This was what pushed Russia into the arms of China. How stupid can our ‘leaders’ be – apparently limitless.

    It would also be wise to start treating enemies that have lost to us a little better – the lessons our enemies learn from Saddam and qadafi are that if you surrender or get captured then the mob will match you through the streets to kill you publicly after having r*ped you an*lly repeatedly. Why stop fighting or quit if that’s what’s going to happen to you?

    We have to increase our port management ability. We have no companies or entities capable of running multiple large ports (most USA companies manage 1) whereas Chinese companies are very good at it and have quite a few managing multiple major ports. We can’t keep turning over our ports to the Chinese and yet not have an American alternative. And maybe then we could compete with Chinese ports already managing many of the worlds most strategic economic And military choke points and have something viable to offer instead.

    We have to accept we over extended militarily and while over extended we borrowed money we can’t pay back to get there AND managed to waste most of that money.

    We can’t afford to send 6yrs worth of the USMC budget to black holes like the ukraine, not anymore. We needed that money and now we are on the back-foot and the losing side in a growing multidimensional soft war with a growing China.

    That money is going to have to be spent wiser and for better effect. Not necessarily military. But we can’t keep spending like we have – stupidly and wastefully.

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