Russia now has a “Monroyev Doctrine,” courtesy of Vladimir Putin. Like James Monroe’s original of 1823, it can be distilled into two words: “Keep out!”
Monroe ordered the Europeans to stay away from “this hemisphere,” as their intrusion would be “dangerous to our peace and safety.” It was bluster. The young U.S. Republic had no navy and army to enforce the ban, and the Old World shrugged off Monroe’s grandstanding. They had more pressing business at home, given the devastation of the Napoleonic wars and revolutionary unrest across the Continent.
Putinism is no joke, but a grand power play. Russian President Vladimir Putin wants a treaty from the West that would consecrate a Russian sphere of influence running roughly from the Caspian Sea to the Baltic. NATO must not recruit new members. No forward-deployed U.S. nuclear missiles that could reach Russia, no forces in the former Warsaw Pact. The thrust is the de-facto restoration of the former Soviet empire.
Round 1 goes to Putin. The U.S. rushed forward with an offer of talks, which have unfolded in Geneva. U.S. President Joe Biden’s predicament what the Russians call the “correlation of forces.” It favors Russia, which has the upper hand in Eastern Europe. A highly mobile force of 100,000 camps at the gates of Ukraine, ready to pounce.
Russia is close by; the U.S. is far away. Strewn across Europe, there are only some 60,000 U.S. troops, a hundred here, a few thousand there, and these units do not add up to a fighting army. Nor can NATO mount a counteroffensive, with only 4,500 in a forward position. So, how will Biden respond decisively if Russia further invades Ukraine? Putin has chosen well on the geostrategic chessboard.
The lack of numbers in Europe is only one sign of the larger problem: America’s fitful retreat from the world’s strategic arenas. Start with former President Barack Obama, who pulled forces out of Europe while launching so-called pivot to Asia, which was always more rhetoric than reality. He sought to dump the Middle East millstone by sidling up to Iran and reducing the U.S. footprint from the Levant to Afghanistan.
Though harsh on Tehran, former President Donald Trump was better at bravado than geopolitical savvy. He, too, downsized the U.S. presence in Europe, and he did so while hitting vital allies with trade war. Trump conceived the pull-out from Afghanistan that Biden consummated in 2021. Trump’s grand strategy was “Fortress America,” envisioning a big navy and air force that would allow for what strategists call “offshore balancing.” Yet being there is far less risky than steaming in where others are already ensconced.
Give Trump points for the Abraham Accords, the historic Arab Israeli realignment against Iran. Under Biden, it is back to Obama, with his unrealistic hopes to “socialize” the Khomeinists and thus to shed the burden of establishing order in one of the world’s most critical locales. Instead of blocking Tehran’s advance to the Mediterranean, Team Biden is holding back on delivering F-35 aircraft to Abu Dhabi and ballistic missile technology to Riyadh. Now China will please the Saudis and gain another foothold in the Middle East.
The U.S. has no acceptable military option in Ukraine, nor in the Straits of Taiwan. With what, when Russia is towering over Ukraine while China has been rearming at breakneck speed? Maybe Moscow and Beijing can be soothed by concessions dressed up as good will. Yet why would this revisionist duo stop just as it is achieving so much?
Putin will still want to have his sphere of influence certified, and Xi will continue to move his pawns forward. The U.S. quandary is more grievous than its modest military options. The real issue is conceptual, a matter of purpose and role. America has left a vacuum, and a vacuum is an invitation.
Even this mighty giant, ahead in material assets, has to play the power game if it wants to keep its exalted position. To retract is to lose, and small losses pile up. That is the fate of great powers. They must stay engaged everywhere. If Russia and China exploit their local advantage, the U.S. must choose open flanks where the edge is America’s. Most importantly, avoid war by investing in deterrence. Keeping credible forces in place is safer and cheaper than having to fight your way back in. The rule is to put the burden of escalation on your rival’s shoulders.
Hindsight is cheap, but it provides a guide for the future. Obama, Trump and Biden should have armed Ukraine with anti-tank and anti-air missiles to raise the price of Russian expansion. Arms races have a bad name, but they do signal resolve. Therefore Biden should not have submitted a defense budget for FY 2022 that amounted to a decrease in real terms. Congress was smarter when it appropriated a total that exceeds the inflation rate.
Negotiations with Putin will not send the Russian divisions home. Old timers remember that it took seven years in the 1980s to get rid of Soviet nuclear missiles targeted on Western Europe. Putin has learned that power talks, and he will keep his tanks in place to cow Ukraine. It is an easy, nice pressure point, and so is the manipulation of Russian gas supplies that reminds the Europeans of their vulnerability.
Putin’s Monroyev Doctrine will not evaporate. Putin knows who has the upper hand in Russia’s near abroad. But it is a wake-up call after a dozen years of U.S. retrenchment. The message: There is no vacation from power politics. If you slink off, you embolden your rivals. Cooperate where you can, contain where you must. “Come home, America” is not grand strategy.
Josef Joffe teaches international politics and U.S. foreign policy at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC. The views expressed are the author's own.