The Protection of

US Allies

Hoover Institution Working Group on Military History

The Protection of US Allies

ANDREW ROBERTS

Alliances have always been mixed blessings, at least for the strongest members of
them. Yes, they add to overall numbers, are good for morale, and permit territory
to be used safely that might not otherwise be available. Sometimes they can act as
protection, a cordon sanitaire, orin the case of Americas ally Great Britain during
World War IIan unsinkable aircraft carrier. But with those undoubted benefits
come drawbacks. Allies join with strategic agendas that might differ from that of the
leading power; they can diffuse the central purpose of operations; andworst of
allthey need to be protected.
In retrospect, it would have been better after Saddam Husseins invasion of Kuwait in
1990, for example, had President George H. W. Bush not put together quite so broad
a coalition of Arab states for the countrys liberation the following year, because
they adamantly opposed any question of a drive on to Baghdad to oust the dictator,
which would have solved many of the problems bequeathed to Bushs son and
successor twelve years later. In several of Napoleons campaigns, the sheer size of the
five coalitions formed against him, and especially their complex decision-making
bodies, allowed him to slip between their component parts and defeat them in
detail. The great French commander Marshal Ferdinand Foch is credited with saying
during theFirst World Warin which he had to deal with the British and Russians
asalliesthat he admired Napoleon rather less once he realized how unwieldy
alliances could become.
In June 1940, after the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk
and the subsequent Fall of France, which left the British Empire totally alone in
the war against Nazi Germany, King George VI even went so far as to write in his
diary:Ifeel happier now that we have no more allies to be polite to and pamper.
Yet in the situation the United States has found herself postWorld War II,
the retention of strategic alliances spanning the globe has been essential, for
bothfighting and winning the Cold War, for subsequently prosecuting the War

Military History

A HOOVER INSTITUTION ESSAY ON THE PROTECTION OF US ALLIES

Against Terror, and also for facing the emerging threats from a revanchist, irredentist
Russia and an increasingly confident and nationalist China. The United States
fought all her major postwar strugglesprimarily in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and
Afghanistanas the leader of a coalition of allies. But the Obama administration
has a deeply unimpressive record of nurturing and protecting Americas allies, which
are in a worse state of repair than at any time since the Carter administration over
athirdof a century ago.
Although many Europeans among Americas allies derided President George W. Bushs
administration and opposed his invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, none doubted his
resolve to protect them from Russian or Chinese incursions against their sovereign
territory. They were willing to nestle safely under the American umbrella while
sneering at the president who obligingly held it over them.
By total contrast, today Americas allies are deeply concerned that American
supportfor them is weak, partial, and hesitant, while continuing to praise
PresidentObama personally. Specifically, the eastern European and Baltic states
worry that Obama has been insufficiently tough over Vladimir Putins seizure of
the Crimea from Ukraine, and not supportive enough of Ukraine in its struggle
against separatist rebels who are willing even to shoot down Malaysian airliners (at
no cost, so far). They worry whether Obama would support the Baltic states if Putin
were to destabilize them, too. In the Middle East, the Israelis, Saudi Arabians, and
other Gulfallies of America are also deeply concerned at Obamas appeasement
of Iran andrefusal to destroy the Islamic State. In the South China Sea, Chinas
saber rattlingand aircraft carrier-building have left its neighbors deeply concerned,
especially asObamas much-vaunted shift to the east now looks like just so
much verbiage.
The answer to many of these problems is a relatively simple one. Decent, democratic,
rich, and stable countries such as Japan and South Korea need to stop taking the
American protective umbrella for granted and follow Israel and Taiwans example
in developing weaponryincluding nuclear weaponrythat will protect them
regardless of what America might or might not do in a future crisis. If they doubt
whether President Obama or his successors would sacrifice an American West Coast
city in a nuclear exchange with China over their continued independence, then they
must arm themselves appropriately. Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, which

Andrew Roberts The Protection of US Allies

provides the right of self-defense, should trump the various nuclear non-proliferation
treaties.
Similarly, those NATO countries that doubt Americas willingness to face up to Putin
in the event that Russia stokes up irredentist feelings in, say, Estoniawhere a quarter
of the population is ethnically Russianshould stump up much more money for
their defense than the pathetic 1 percent of GDP contributions currently being made
by many of them. (Even Britain only reaches her 2 percent target by fiddling with the
books, by now including widows pensions and the intelligence services.) America
will not be any worse off from her allies stepping up their contributions in Europe
and arming themselves with nuclear weapons in the Far East. Malaysia and Indonesia
might need to as well, depending on Chinese foreign policy and naval construction.
Indeed, it might reduce the understandable resentment of American taxpayers at
shouldering the costs of their allies defense.
While Americas global network of alliances has faltered during Obamas period of
retrenchment and retreat, overall it has stayed relatively firm because it is based
on firmer foundations than one presidency can affect. However, there is one place
where a catastrophic, gaping hole might conceivably be punched through Americas
outer defenses, leaving a massive gap in the free worlds line of battle as it faces the
increasingly totalitarian Russian and Chinese behemoths and their Venezuelan,
North Korean, Syrian, and Iranian sidekicks. Furthermore, it is in a place that
everyone has least expected it for the past sixty years.
The election of Jeremy Corbyn to the leadership of Britains Labour Party on
September 12, 2015, might conceivably pose a greater threat to the US-UK special
relationship, the wider Western alliance, and Anglo-American nuclear and
intelligence cooperation than anything that has happened since NATO was founded
in 1949. Continued British participation in the War Against Terror at all levelsat
least on Americas sideis also in profound danger. For the first time in its history,
the British Labour Partythe party of Clement Attlee, NATO founder Ernest Bevin,
and Tony Blairhas elected a Marxist-Leninist to lead it, and moreover, one who
loathesAmerica, NATO, and nuclear weapons.
In Britain, governments lose elections rather than oppositions winning them, and
there are any number of ways that the slim majorityonly thirteen seatsof David

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Camerons Conservative government could disappear in bye-election defeats or party

splits over the coming European Union referendum. Radical proposals on tax credits
are about to cost the government popularity, and an economic downturn any time
over the next five years would also. If the opposition won the next election, due in
May2020, which has happened in half the elections since 1945, then a man will
become prime minister who has vowed to destroy everything for which Britain has
stood internationally for over a century.
Consider a few of Corbyns public statements,1 taken almost at random since there are
very, very many more of them from which to choose, all of which he still stands by.
In August 2003 he said, There is an overall US strategy of wars for military power,
raw materials, and threats. The next month he accused President George W. Bush of
wanting full spectrum dominance of the globe to ensure that economic power and
advantage lie with the corporate America that he represents. The following March
he described Israel as having a national psychosis against suicide bombers, and in
September 2004 he asked, Do the neo-cons in the USA have more influence over
our international policy than the Labour movement? That November he said of the
Middle East: It does not take a late-night conspiracy theorist to look at the map of
the region and see where oil lies, where the pipelines go, where the US bases are and
which countries they do not have any influence over.
Yet Corbyn is indeed a conspiracy theorist: the following March, after the
government responded to a credible threat against British airports from Muslim
fundamentalist terrorists, he stated, The deployment of tanks around Heathrow
Airport was aimed at reducing the size of the anti-war movement. In March 2009
he spoke in public to the Stop the War Coalition about our friends in Hamas and
Hezbollah, and the following month he added, The experience of Iraq shows that
the US intervention had little to do with democracy and much to do with oil. In
2011, he described the death of Osama bin Laden as a tragedy, and at centenary
commemorations of the First World War in July 2014 he spoke of how the real
victors of the war were US bank financiers and arms manufacturers.
In August 2014 Jeremy Corbyn wrotelike everything else Ive quoted, fully on
the recordthat NATO has been very adept at endlessly reinventing itself as some
sort of force for peace. The reality is the opposite. In the hustings for the leadership
election in July 2015, he stated his opposition to Britain retaining her nuclear

Andrew Roberts The Protection of US Allies

deterrent, and on the day of his victory he attended a rally in London full of his
followerswho are nicknamed Corbynistas or Corbyneros after the Sandinistas
and other anti-American liberation fightersand told them that as prime minister
he would not obey calls to go here, invade there, bomb there, do this, do that,
a reference to the paranoiac assumption on the hard Left that the United States
controlsBritish foreign policy.
Of course all this Communist ranting might well mean that Corbyn will never
become prime minister, owing to the innate good sense of the British people at the
ballot box. He only became leader because of the paucity of other candidates and
a massive Communist campaign of entryism taking advantage of the Internet
where it was hard to check bona fidesas well as a new, super-low $5 Labour party
membership subscription rate. (There were also many Conservatives who joined in
order to vote for Corbyn, believing him to be unelectable, including some deluded
friends of mine.) Yet his overwhelming victory among the membershipwinning
60percent of the vote, with his nearest rival getting 19 percentmeans that he is
now only thirteen members of Parliament away from becoming prime minister, in
aHouse of Commons numbering650.
The United States cannot do anything about a possible Corbyn premiership, of
course, but the embassy lines from London to Washington must have been buzzing
when he won on September 12, 2015, because such an outcome would take Britain
out of the equation when it comes to Americas defense of global freedom. A prime
minister who models himself on Daniel Ortega and Hugo Chavez could take the place
of pro-Americans such as Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher, and Tony Blair.
Britain will leave NATO under Corbyn, abandon its nuclear deterrent, and possibly
even aid Corbyns openly avowed friends in Hamas and Hezbollah. This is not
somekind of far-fetched paranoid fantasy of a TV drama; this is the stuff of actual
day-to-day politics in London right now.
What can the United States do to protect her allies? She can encourage them to
defend themselves better by developing nuclear weaponry in Japan and South
Korea and she can insist on the Europeans all spending at least 2 percent of GDP on
defense. At the right moment, the next president must warn the British people that
a Corbyn premiership would leave them vulnerable and friendless in an increasingly

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hostile world (unless, of course, Corbyn sought to place Britain in the RussianChinese-Iranian camp, in which case all of Western grand strategy would need
toberadically recast).
The decision of one of the great political parties of the West to elect a rabidly
anti-America, anti-Israel, anti-nuclear Marxist-Leninist as its leader might seem
infantile in the modern world, but it could have profound implications for
all of us.

NOTE
1 All of the statements by Jeremy Corbyn quoted here can be found on his website,
http://jeremycorbyn.org.uk/articles.

Andrew Roberts The Protection of US Allies

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Working Group on the Role of Military History

inContemporary Conflict

About the Author

ANDREW ROBERTS
Andrew Roberts is a visiting
professor at the War Studies
Department of Kings College,
London; the Lehrman
Distinguished Fellow at the
New-York Historical Society; and
a director of the Harry Frank
Guggenheim Foundation, where
he chairs its $50,000 military
book prize panel. He has written
seventeen books (which have
been translated into eighteen
languages), the last of which was
Napoleon: ALife.

The Working Group on the Role of Military History in

Contemporary Conflict examines how knowledge of past
military operations can influence contemporary public
policy decisions concerning current conflicts. The careful
study of military history offers a way of analyzing modern
war and peace that is often underappreciated in this age of
technological determinism. Yet the result leads to a more
in-depth and dispassionate understanding of contemporary
wars, one that explains how particular military successes
and failures of the past can be often germane, sometimes
misunderstood, or occasionally irrelevant in the context
ofthe present.
The core membership of this working group includes David
Berkey, Peter Berkowitz, Max Boot,Josiah Bunting III, Angelo
M.Codevilla, Thomas Donnelly, Admiral James O. Ellis Jr.,
ColonelJoseph Felter, Victor Davis Hanson (chair), Josef Joffe,
Frederick W. Kagan, Kimberly Kagan, Edward N. Luttwak,
Peter Mansoor, General Jim Mattis, Walter Russell Mead, Mark
Moyar, Williamson Murray, Ralph Peters, Andrew Roberts,
Admiral Gary Roughead, Kori Schake, Kiron K. Skinner, Barry
Strauss, Bruce Thornton, Bing West, Miles Maochun Yu, and
Amy Zegart.
For more information about this Hoover Institution Working Group
visit us online at www.hoover.org/research-topic/military.

(Photo Credit: Nancy Ellison)

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