Conservative Historian

The Necessity for Strong Allies

January 04, 2023
Conservative Historian
The Necessity for Strong Allies
Show Notes Transcript

Does the US have strong allies?  We look at Ming China and World War I, among others, to learn the  answer.  

The Necessity of Strong Allies

January 2023

 

In my earlier adult years, a group of work colleagues would sojourn to Southern Missouri for a long weekend of canoeing, water skiing, beer drinking, and complaining about wives/girlfriends, albeit in a wryly amused sort of way. Yes, this was the Ozarks. Before generation Xers or Baby Boom listeners cue up Deliverance and start hearing dueling banjos in their heads, my experience has found the people of this region to be uniformly friendly and benign. During one night in a bar, there were six of us guys at one table, and we noted another group of guys, about five, at another table. They were loud and raucous and a few were glancing at us. I wondered if there would be any trouble, not that groups of guys at bars with inebriation the order of the night had ever led to concern. At that point, I noted to my friend Tom what was happening. Tom was about 6'1", built ox strong, a black belt in karate, and a captain in the U.S. National Guard. He calmly assessed the situation and noted he did not think it would, in the parlance of Ron Burgundy, "escalate quickly." At this point, I indicated to Tom that I would be behind him the whole way if it came to it. By that, I did not mean the backing of a staunch ally but literally behind him, meaning he had to take on his guy, and mine. 

 

I would have been a valued ally if it came down to a writing contest or a political debate. In terms of historical, literary, or geographic trivia, I am more than an ally; I am the person who can carry the load. But in a contest of physical confrontation, well, the spirit would be willing, but alas, the flesh, or Brian Mills-like set of skills, is sorely wanting. 

As it turned out, there was no confrontation. Instead, we left before the other table and thought they noted the dad-like quality of the majority of our band and decided we were not worth it (except for Tom, of course) and more than likely wait for more worthy foes.  

 

I was thinking about this when I read this from the invaluable Cato Institute in a piece by Ted Galen Carpenter, "Since the end of World War II, U.S. officials have had an unduly expansive concept of what constitutes worthwhile strategic allies for the United States. In too many cases, the "allies" that Washington touts are small, weak, often militarily useless dependents. Worse, some are on bad terms with more powerful neighboring states. Under those circumstances, the so-called allies are major liabilities rather than assets to the United States. Indeed, they are potential snares that can entangle America in unnecessary military confrontations." This was written in January 2022, a month before Putin invaded Ukraine.  

 

More recently, a piece by Andrew Stuttaford entitled "Our German Ally: Tanking" stated, "From the Financial Times, December 2022. Germany sought to reassure NATO that it could still be relied on to lead the alliance's rapid response task force even after all 18 of its most advanced armored vehicles malfunctioned in a training exercise earlier this month. All of them? One obvious sign of that was the country's neglect of its armed forces throughout Angela Merkel's dismal chancellorship. 

 

In 2015, I quoted an extract from the Washington Post: "The German army has faced a shortage of equipment for years, but the situation has recently become so precarious that some soldiers took matters into their own hands."

 

On Tuesday, German broadcaster ARD revealed that German soldiers tried to hide the lack of arms by replacing heavy machine guns with broomsticks during a NATO exercise last year. After painting the wooden sticks black, the German soldiers swiftly attached them to the top of armored vehicles, according to a confidential army report which was leaked to ARD . . .To make matters worse, the broom-equipped German soldiers belong to a crucial, joint NATO task force and would be the first to be deployed in case of an attack. Opposition politicians have expressed concerns about Germany's ability to defend itself and other European allies, given that even some of the most elite forces lack essential equipment."

 

Most nations are not the stuff of the Roman Empire, one of the most powerful political and military entities. Most countries are different from the prominent dynasties of Chinese history. During the Han, Tang, and Ming dynasties, China could field armies of such size and potency to sweep away any opposition. For example, the Ming Dynasty, founded in the 14th century, maintained an army of over 1 million, but the competence and organization stood out. In 2017 for the Cambridge University Press, David Robinson noted, "First, the Ming dynasty devoted more resources, in absolute terms, to its military enterprise than any other contemporary power. It maintained enormous standing armies that drilled regularly, empire-wide logistical systems, welfare provisions for military dependents and retired or injured military personnel, and multi-tiered, standardized arms productions under state supervision."

 

And there have been single states led by exceptionally gifted conquerors, ranging from Alexander of Macedon to Genghis Kahn to Napoleon Bonaparte, who primarily relied on single national or ethnic forces to do the work. And finally, there were large Empires that called on subject peoples to do the job. When Alexander's 40,000 largely Macedonians faced King Darius III of Persia at Issus and Gaugamela, he was not opposing a predominantly Persian force of 100,000. Instead, Darius' host consisted of a core of Persians, but most of his forces were Bactrians, Indians, Parthians, Caucasians, Cappadocians and Armenians, and Greeks. During one of the few times that Napoleon fielded an allied army, during his 1812 invasion of Russia, his allies were not that at all. The French Emperor coerced them to show up. They proved not only ineffectual, but like the French, they died by the tens of thousands when the Russian winter swept them away.  

 

But we call out these states or notable military captains because they represent special status. A more typical type of warfare is wherein the combatants either fight state to state in both equal and unequal terms, or there are groups of allies.  

 

One of the clearest examples of our history is the decisive battle of Yorktown in 1781. After six years of warfare, General Cornwallis found his army trapped on a Virginian peninsula but not trapped. British command of the sea meant he could be evacuated without too much ado, except for one big problem. The French Admiral de Grasse, acting in the capacity of the fledging nation's ally, had beaten a British relieving fleet and sealed up Cornwallis. Also present at Yorktown were 5,000 French troops to bolster Washington's Continental army. It was one thing for the British to be bested in land battles such as at Princeton or Saratoga. But quite another to have massive French fleets contesting the seaborne supply lines necessary to maintain an invading force of over 30,000 total troops.  

 

Similarly, after nearly 30 years of war between Sparta and Athens ranging from 431 BCE to 404, Persian intervention, in a naval capacity similar to the French in the American War for Independence, proved decisive. In a book called Persian Interventions by John O Hyland the Author states, "Thirty years after Xerxes invaded Greece, the Achaemenid Persian Empire ended its long war with Athens. For the next four decades, the Persians tolerated Athenian control of their former tributaries, the Ionian Greek cities of western Anatolia. But during the Peloponnesian War, Persia reclaimed Ionia and funded a Spartan fleet to overthrow Athenian power." 

 

And an aspect of the Peloponnesian War was the various allies of the two dominant states and their support. For example, Corinth fought on the side of the Spartans. Though Sparta was the dominant partner, Corinthians were not levied to fight similarly to the Parthians in the Persian Empire.  

 

In the 1500s, the Ottoman Empire seemed unstoppable, but an alliance finally stopped the Ottoman navies at Lepanto. This alliance was called the Holy League. Organized by Pope Pius V, the Holy League featured Habsburg Spain under Philip II (including Naples and Sicily), the Republic of Venice, Genoa, and several other Italian states. Given the size of the Ottoman fleets, the victory by Don John of Spain could not have been won without the cooperation of these disparate states. 

 

Sometimes allies provide a false sense of security. Before World War I, Europe was divided into two key alliances, the Triple Alliance led by Germany, including Austria, Hungary, and Italy, and the Triple Entente featuring England, France, and Russia. Though Germany possessed the dominant army of the time, having bested Denmark, Austria, Hungary, and France in the 1800s, the triple Entente was seen as the better bet. Austria-Hungary was a polyglot mixture of several nationalities whose only tie was to the House of Habsburg. Italy was untested. Against this alliance was Great Britain, the premier naval power and possessing the largest, most valuable Empire, since the Romans. They had France, spoiling for retribution for the humiliation of the Franco-Prussian war in 1870, and Russia. It was believed this latter member would more than makeup for Germanic army superiority. Though the most economically backward, Russia's population in the early 1900s was 166 million more than all three members of the Triple Alliance combined.  

 

As it turned out, the alliance with Russia proved dubious. Germany consistently annihilated armies on their Eastern Front. The best that could be said for the Russians is that their victories over the Austrian armies on that same front kept German and Austrian Troops in place as opposed to the west, where they might have proven decisive. Russia was also critical in the escalation that followed the assassination of the heir to the Austrian Hungarian throne. By shielding Serbia, who Austria felt was culpable in the assassination, Russia put some grease on the rails to war.

 

On the other hand, if not for the death of Franz Ferdinand, it would probably have been something else. France wanted revenge for the Franco-Prussian War. Germany wanted to cement their dominance. Britain wished to put the burgeoning naval power of Germany in its place to challenge Britain's century-old dominance of the seas. Austria-Hungary needed to keep its Empire from splintering. A weak response to the assassination might be the catalyst for dissolution. But would France and Britain have been so eager if they knew the true weakness of Russia?  

 

I am arguing for the value of allies and the seeking of alliances. But these alliances should be approached with circumspection and mutual understanding of the role of each ally. After his four electoral losses, after January 6, the poor showing of Trumpist candidates in 2022, and his descent into inadvertently having public dinners with white supremacists and crazy people, and big announcements about trading cards, it is easy to dismiss Donald Trump as a populist creature  whose time is past. But several of his policies, good trade deals, the declaration over the sovereignty of our nation through control of our borders, and his approach to NATO meant that conservatives such as myself still had things upon which to gravitate, at least before November 7 through January 7 during late 2020 and early 2021. Here was Trump in 2019 on crucial NATO member Germany. 

 

"Germany is a captive of Russia," Trump said at a meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, his first since arriving in the Belgian capital. "It's very inappropriate."

Trump complained that the United States is expected to "defend them against Russia" despite Germany making "billions of dollars" in energy payments to Moscow.

"I think it's something that NATO has to look at," Trump said. "Germany is totally controlled by Russia." 

 

An aghast CNN stated about these remarks that "Trump's comments were a remarkable criticism for a U.S. president to make about a close U.S. ally and is likely to increase tensions between the U.S. and its European allies. Indeed, while Trump singled out Germany, he also noted that "numerous" NATO countries have made pipeline deals with Russia" There is a narrative, mostly from the left, that Trump disliked NATO because his supposed friend Vladimir Putin also disliked the alliance, viewing it as a threat to Russian hegemony. Regardless of Trump's takes on Putin, the former instituted the one thing that would weaken him, advocating for greater oil and gas production by the United States. This is something that the Biden administration has virulently opposed. It may be a coincidence that Putin only invaded Ukrainian territories in 2014 and 2022 under Democratic, non-Trump administrations. Strange choices for a man who supposedly had Trump under his thumb. It is not a coincidence that the Democratic energy policy, supposed green policies, inflate the value of Russian energy assets and thus can fund Putin's initiatives. 

 

So, what was the cost of NATO? In a June 2022 release by NATO, the organization laughingly tries to mask the numbers by showing charts such as spend per total defense spending by country. According to this trickery, Luxembourg is the highest payer. In another chart that lists those nations who meet the criteria of 2% of GDP, of the 17 nations, only four (including the U.S., meet the standard.  

 

So let's cut the tomfoolery and look at the total dollars of spend, about 1 Trillion dollars, of which the United States pays over 70%, with the rest all of 17 nations paying the remaining 30%. Remember that the combined population of NATO nations UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain would roughly equate with ours. But we are not 50/50 in terms of NATO payouts.  

Is all this to say I would advocate ending NATO? Not with Putin still in Russia, I would not. But Trump was correct; this is not what true allies are about. There is a difference between allies and parasites. 

As a conservative, I strongly believe in individual agency, for good or bad. That is why I advocate little government intervention in the FTX meltdown, caveat emptor. And though I feel for those who recently missed the holidays due to Southwest Airlines' incompetence, I do not want Pete Buttigieg and the Department of Transportation creating some "oversee board" to regulate that. I, too, have been the victim of non-weather cancellations and too many delays in counting. Consumers will now look to other, better-managed airlines for their travel and punish SouthWest accordingly. It is called the market, an infinitely better allocator of everything than any government known to humanity. But my antipathy towards the reduction of individual choice does not mean I am not part of society, whether in the form of family, company, association, or community. When Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel penned the words "I am a rock, I am an island," it was not some anthem of perfect individualism. Consider other lyrics from the song,

 

I've built walls

 A fortress deep and mighty

 That none may penetrate

 I have no need of friendship, friendship causes pains

 It's laughter, and it's loving I disdain

 I am a rock, I am an island

 

Clearly one or both had just been through a bad breakup and the acidic nature of the lyrics conveys the (assuming) momentary rejection of love and friendship. But as I have noted before, we humans are social creatures and people who wish to accomplish things. Sure, many things we can do alone, but it is much easier and more gratifying when we do them with allies. Are allies friends? A friend should be an ally, but allies do not necessarily need to be friends. During the end of the Roman Republic, Julius Caesar realized he could not get what he wanted alone, so he added allies Marcus Crassus and Gnaeus Pompeius as allies. 

This first Triumvirate ended with two of the three fightings it out at Pharsalus. It was the same with the second Triumvirate, with erstwhile allies Octavian and Marc Antony contesting at Actium. Some allies, such as our alliance with the Soviet Union in World War II, ended with the destruction of the common enemy of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.  

 

Because of COVID, the 20th anniversary of 9/11 passed with less attention than merited. For the Silent Generation and older Baby Boomers, the Kennedy Assassination was the "I knew where I was when I heard the news" moment. 

For Gen Xers like me, it was 9/11. 

One of the memories that stood out was when George W. Bush, nine days after the assault on our nation, addressed a joint session of Congress. During that speech, he noted the presence of Tony Blair, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, sitting next to Laura Bush. I remember being quite gladdened by this presence. It had been decades since the United Kingdom could match, barely even contribute to the degree that the United States could contribute to our protection. Yet Blair's presence was a singular reminder. We were not alone in this. A Bush noted, "America has not a truer friend than Great Britain." The United Kingdom had been our ally in two world wars and during a Cold War. We had been there in their time of need, and regardless of the state of their military or economy, they were in our time of need. The U.S. and Britain are not allies of convenience or united by a common foe. Instead, we are allies of ideologies such as small L liberalism and a belief in capitalism. And those allies, united by ideas and ideals, tend to be the best.