During the Cold War, the United States developed a strategy of containment. The Soviet Union would be surrounded on as many fronts as possible by American allies, backed by American power. This was meant to prevent Soviet expansion into Europe and threaten the Soviets with the possibility of an attack along its entire periphery.
It also forced the Soviets to expend vast resources on defense along its land borders—resources it then could not use to build a navy sufficient to force its way through the choke points discussed in our "Mapping Russia's Strategy" article. The collapse of the Soviet Union, in large part due to the strain its defense budget put on its economy, was not a fully intended or expected consequence of US strategy.
After the Soviet Union fell, the United States had no strategic challenger. Its new fear was that such a challenger would emerge—this time from minor regional hegemons growing into major ones. The fear, once again, was that these would in time have the resources to challenge the United States globally.
The Best Defense…
The automatic response to any potential hegemonic power, therefore, was to attempt to co-opt, destabilize, or destroy it before it could threaten the United States. Participation in the Balkan War, the destruction of Saddam Hussein, and confrontations with China in its coastal waters have been rooted in this deep structure of American strategy.
The American strategy has drawn the US into the Eastern Hemisphere at seemingly random intervals since the Cold War. Here, it discovered a paradox and a limit to its power. The United States has the power to destroy any conventional military force. It does not have the ability to occupy and pacify countries. Put differently, it could deal with threats but not stabilize the countries, as it did with West Germany and Japan.
The threat that emerged was not naval power, but terrorism. This is a lesser, yet still painful strategic problem that the United States must deal with today. It cannot tolerate potential hegemons like Russia and can effectively destroy their military capacity. However, it cannot deal with the consequences of its actions.
The point is that American strategy has been part of the deep structure of the United States since its founding. Its geography generated defensive fears, which it solved with offensive action. Yet now, the deep structure of the US has created a new kind of problem that historical strategy cannot address.
Eventually, the sheer scope of US power generated the threat. Every nation has its grammar of strategy, the manner in which it engages in strategic problems. The United States has been extraordinarily effective in sequentially and elegantly addressing its fears. And now, as always, the solution creates the new problem.
George Friedman is editor of Mauldin Economics' This Week In Geopolitics.