Preserving balance among the great powers.

Strategizing 30 years into the future can serve a number of purposes, but in all cases the aim in thinking about the future is not to reach definite conclusions--useless as well as impossible--but to change behavior in the present.

During the Cold War, we had a high degree of risk but

also a high degree of stability. It was reasonable to predict an unchanging strategic future. We in the United States knew that the Soviet Union would be there, that the Warsaw Pact would be there, that there would be a NATO front in Germany. Knowing that all those factors would persist, engineering teams could spend 15 or even 20 years developing a battle tank for an unchanging theater strategy in Germany.

Now, we have lost the ability to project the strategic landscape for many years ahead with a decent probability of success. The absence of any such predictability has, in many ways, shaken our fundamental frames of reference. One result is a loss of a sense of proportion. Many thinkers, for example, are very concerned about threats to the civilized world from radical Muslim nonstate actors. So they should be. But to focus on jihadists as the greatest threat to our collective safety cannot be right because they are so weak--it gives such actors far too much credit. As compared with the 2,000 megatons of a limited Soviet missile strike aimed at "counterforce" targets alone, even September 11 was no big deal, and the ordinary achievements of Islamic fanaticism are far smaller. In the present, also, there are many dangers greater than terrorist bombings, as recent natural disasters amply showed.

Military and foreign-policy planners would do well to pay attention to what is not happening. We are living in most fortunate circumstances, characterized by a historically unprecedented absence of Great Power conflicts. However troublesome Iran or North Korea might be, they are not Great Powers. They merely have limited ways of attacking their neighbors and to be an irritant further afield. If it became imperative to do so, they could be crushed in short order in a manner that would never be feasible if they were the equivalents of Britain or France, let alone China, Russia, or the United States itself.

I am therefore certain that preserving the present state of affairs--whereby the United States is not locked into a state of all-around hostility with another Great Power--is far more important than victory or defeat in any one of the conflicts in which we are now engaged. It's the difference between a skin rash and a potentially lethal cancer.

Even the actions of the world's most fanatical terrorists pale in comparison to what calmly disciplined American or Soviet forces could have done had they been ordered to deliver nuclear weapons during the Cold War.

I believe that 97% of U.S. foreign policy should focus on preventing a return to Great Power conflict. When one starts projecting scenarios for what a war with China or Russia would look like, it becomes obvious that all our present engagements, clashes, and "wars" are simply insignificant.

This endeavor should not be confused with preserving U.S. military hegemony. In fact, to reduce the danger of an eventual Great Power confrontation, the United States should pursue a restrained military policy. But there is much more to it than that. The present fortunate situation is the result of international alignments whereby the key global players--the United States, Russia, China, and Europe--are all engaged in rather different projects instead of being engaged in the same, classic, global, power-accumulation project in an adversarial manner. That is the state of affairs that we must work to preserve. There is no doubt that the Russian project is to reconstitute a centralized state--albeit with moderately autonomous ethnic enclaves--and rehabilitate its institutions, from hospitals to the state-controlled industries whose privatization has ceased.

The China project is economic development first and foremost, and Europe's project is its own internal development toward a less imperfect union.

In each case, to be sure, there are power-oriented aims as well, but they are not symmetrical and can be accommodated. To do that, we must first achieve an agreed definition of the aims that each power pursues, and then work out arrangements for each. For instance, if the Russians want to dominate the Caucasus, interfering in that purpose is the height of foolishness. The effort to contain Russia would be great, and the loss of Russian cooperation in many other directions would cost the United States much. Similarly, given that the aim of the Chinese is to continue their economic development, we should in turn continue to favor that goal, without acting on or expressing any concerns that we may have about the military capabilities they may one day acquire with their future wealth. There is no point in anticipating. If dangerous military capabilities begin to emerge, the moment to take precautions is when we know what those capabilities are.

The most important objective of any nation should be not to preserve its hegemony, but to create a global system in which her citizens can be successful.

About the Author

Edward N. Luttwak is a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic & International Studies. He has served as a consultant to the U.S. Office of the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Council, the U.S. Department of State, and the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force. He is the author of numerous books, including Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace (Harvard, 2001). His address is Center for Strategic & International Studies, 1800 K Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006. Telephone 202-887-0200.

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