American flag in front of a wall and flags of other countries
U.S. role and strategy in the world examined in new book
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Scott LaMar
American flag in front of a wall and flags of other countries
Airdate: Friday, June 16, 2023
What is America’s place in the world and what strategies can be used to maintain the nation’s leadership role?
Those are two of the topics addressed in a new book Sustaining America’s Strategic Advantage edited by three faculty members of the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle.
On the Spark Friday, Retired Col. Dr. Joel Hillison, Professor of National Security Studies at the War College talked about the inspiration for the book,”We’re (the U.S.) facing greater competition across the globe and at the same time, our material advantage that we’ve relied on historically, that relative material advantage is shrinking both in quantity and quality. So this notion of competition, especially with a rising power like China and a declining but increasingly aggressive power like Russia, who, by the way, still has nuclear weapons, forced us to look at, hey, maybe we need to address how we deal with these challenges.”
Another editor, Retired Col. Jerad Harper, an Assistant Professor and Director, Regional Issues and Interests, Department of Distance Education, at the U.S. Army War College explained what they mean by strategy,”you’d think first about the strategic objective that you’re trying to achieve in order to achieve a national interests or interests. The actions that you take to achieve those objectives and the resources you need to achieve this. So we approach this in the book in two ways. First of all, the first half we try to lay out better ways to understand our strategic environment. So we think about improving our ability to lead ethically in a complex and dynamic world. There’s a chapter. These are all different chapters, mixing a sense of urgency with a long term strategy, not thinking in the near-term and the day to day. You certainly have to do that. But thinking further out, responding to China’s economic strategy, not always focusing on larger states, but understanding the role of small states and prioritizing the security of energy resources. And then the second half looks at one of our biggest advantages, which Joel talked about, which is our strong network of allies and partners around the world. So we talk about how working with allies brings requirements and challenges. It’s not always easy, but it carries immense benefits. It’s better to be with partners and to have lots of friends and allies than not. And we look at this in terms of both competition, both traditional conflict or irregular conflict. And then we look at it in terms of, you know, different regions around the world. So maintaining our strong set of European security partners, a new model of competing in the Middle East where we’re not necessarily doing things ourselves, but where we’re working with our allies and friends in the region. And then looking at the intensifying competition, the Indo-Pacific, which has always been important, but is increasingly so with a rising China. So how can we build a stronger set of multilateral relationships? And then we finally we look at you know, we acknowledge we haven’t always done things right. So how can we learn from the mistakes of Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan to perform better security cooperation with our partners in the 21st century?”
Both editors called China a rising power both economically and militarily. China has asserted it’s influence around the world and even close to the United States in Latin America. Col. Harper indicated China often wants something in return for building infrastructure in those countries.
