The Coalition of the Future
The future of US diplomatic success must be more than NATO
Despite the generally positive reviews, the United States and its allies’ response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine has not created the global coalition that would be needed to truly isolate Russia. While NATO and many of America’s treaty allies have responded strongly, leading non-aligned countries of the world such as India, Indonesia, Brazil, and Mexico have remained largely indifferent. Their posture has been replicated throughout the developing world where responses range from indifference to tacit support of Russia. This lackluster response even stretches to cover countries with robust national security ties to the United States such as Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the United Arab Emirates.
This represents a considerable risk to the national security strategy of the U.S. and its allies. Whereas for much of the past sixty years a coalition of Europe and the United States would be unstoppable, the rapid growth of the rest of the world over the past three decades has
The United States and its NATO allies have seemingly enjoyed a fairly triumphant last month. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, all of Europe rallied together with the United States to oppose the invasion and the UN general assembly passed a condemnation of Russia’s invasion by a massive margin. Impossibly strict sanctions on Russian financial transactions were imposed, creating clear consequences for the invasion. Germany announced massive investments in its armed forces as part of a broader reassertion of European security power. Even more amazingly, the fighting in Ukraine has slowly ground to a stalemate, creating the possibility of a negotiated peace that leaves some form of liberal, democratic Ukraine in existence. Russia’s seeming failure to achieve its goals may even serve as a warning to China that its attempts to overturn the current order to impose one with it at the center are doomed to failure.
However, this vision of the past month is one that is blind to a vastly different narrative taking hold in much of the rest of the world. The United States and its allies seem to be willing to ignore that most of the rising powers in the world have not joined in sanctioning or even actively opposing the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The silence or tacit assent of India, Turkey, Brazil, and Indonesia points to major problems in forming a global coalition in defense of the liberal world order. The US and its allies need to understand that they cannot dictate these countries’ responses and develop a carrot and stick approach that makes engagement in defense of the liberal world order align with the self-interest of these emerging regional powers.
It’s also worth noting that nothing in this analysis should suggest that maintaining a united front with Europe and our existing allies will not be important. Given the close connections we have with our European and Asian allies, it’s crucial that we continue to collaborate on security responses and in defense of a liberal, democratic world order. They will remain important players on the world stage in the coming decades and their power and influence should not be ignored.
The 21st century will be far more multipolar than previous ones. As the rest of the world steadily grows at higher rates than Europe and the United States, the relative distribution of economic and military power will continue to shift.According to the SIPRI Military Expenditure database, in 2002, as the United States attempted to assemble a coalition to invade Iraq, the top ten militaries in the world (by spending) featured the United States and four NATO allies, plus Japan and Saudi Arabia, which were clear US allies. All told, US and allied spending in 2002 accounted for 87% of spending in the top ten militaries globally. In 2020, the picture is much different. European countries have slid down the list and Russia, India and Saudi Arabia have moved up. Now if you look at the allies the US is actually able to rely on in the current confrontation with Russia, they only account for 70% of the spending. The trendlines outside the top ten are the same – Turkish defense spending has doubled between 2002 and 2020 while Indonesian spending has almost trebled. Even Brazil has seen its spending increase by 50%.
There’s also reason to believe that this metric is overly flattering to the United States, given the strength of the dollar and the euro. A conversion using Purchasing Power Parity, which attempts to capture equivalent value, would shift the scales even further, likely into outright parity. More concerning is that the trendline is fairly clearly against European expenditure and towards the rest of the world. Recent moves by Germany and other European nations to increase defense spending might mitigate that in the near term, but given relative growth rates, in the next 10-15 years the military power of India and other non-allies will only continue to grow.
The United States has to act in recognition of this fact. That means owning up to the increased power and autonomy that these rising nations are going to expect and demand. Rather than hectoring them, we’re going to have to swallow our pride and engage with them. If India is worried about losing access to Russian military capabilities, then we may need to lean into stretching our export controls for key systems and sweetening the deal with subsidies and broader trading privileges. It will mean working with leaders who are actively undermining democratic structures and norms, such as Erdogan, Modi, and Bolsanaro. This would be a significant change in our approach to the world, but the shifting patterns of spending and the return of historical regional powers demand recognition and a changed approach. We can either attempt to do so early and have some shaping ability or only attempt to do so when it’s too late.