A Time for Peace, a Time for War

FOREIGN POLICY

Permanent world order is an illusion. Seasons of violence always return, and the United States must learn to endure and manage them.

By Jakub Grygiel

The Biden administration has been vocal in defending what it calls the “rules-based international order,” but there is no such thing. An Earth-spanning security space governed by global rules or a few key powers doesn’t exist, as the war in Ukraine should remind us. There is also no “global threat” facing all states equally but, rather, regional revisionist powers threatening nearby states. Temporary regional equilibria with their own power dynamics are driven by local historical competitions. They are unstable and prone to wars. They require persistent attention and management.

Key points

» The world is made up of temporary equilibria, not permanent settlements between nations. » Local conflicts are based on, or justified by, historical claims. These can be both long-lasting and resistant to negotiation. » As a distant power, the United States must learn to navigate instability and regional conflicts—and to stay the course.

Jakub Grygiel is a national security visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, a senior adviser at the Marathon Initiative, and an associate professor of politics at the Catholic University of America. His latest book is Return of the Barbarians (Cambridge University Press, 2018).

Over the past three decades these regional orders—in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia—have been relative- ly stable and the local competitions subdued. The resulting impression was of a world order. Liberals saw this global stability as the product of international rules, a growing number of democracies, and greater international trade—a “rules-based order” enhanced by democracies and commercial peace. Real- ists saw a world order underwritten by a rough equilibrium between the great powers—the

United States, Russia, and China—with nuclear weapons as an effective pacifying equalizer.

Both visions of world order put too much emphasis on the global nature of this stability. If we look at the world through the lens of regional orders, the picture is more worrisome.

Russia’s wars in Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine since 2014, as well as Iran’s actions in Iraq, Yemen, and Syria, and China’s military expansion in Asia, were signs of growing local volatility. But until now these had been tenta- tive pushes, conducted by hesitant revisionist powers and checked by American power. Russia’s war in Ukraine is the first full-fledged military offensive that aims to change the local balance of

[Taylor Jones—for the Hoover Digest]

power drastically. Russia seeks to be the decisive power in Europe, and for that it needs to dominate Ukraine.

Regional orders are fragile for two reasons. First, military force is more likely to be used in local contests than in disputes between distant rivals. The stakes are high for the local parties, the perceived risks limited. A revisionist power is likely to pursue its goals, such as conquest of territory or control over a neighboring state’s political life, through war more than through negotiations. And the revisionist power’s targets won’t accept a hostile takeover without a fight. In the end, both sides are interested less in preventing war than in making war usable for their own objectives. War is an enduring regional reality.

The United States tends to think of stability as a broad goal of its grand strategy. As President Biden has said, the goal is to “strive to prevent” World

War III. But regional revisionists in Eurasia aren’t afraid of putting pressure on their own frontiers to extend their influence. The states they threaten will also choose war over submission, regional disorder over lost independence.

The United States will have to figure out how to navigate, even embrace, instability and war in regions that are important to its national interests.

The second reason regional orders are unstable is that local contests are geographically limited but last a long time. Local conflicts are based on, or justified by, historical claims. Perceived or real offenses committed in the past generate desires for revenge; aspirations to grandeur spur territorial demands; and national self-confidence motivates a stubborn hostility to aggressive neighbors. When the roots of a politiFor three decades, regional orders in cal action lie in national Europe, the Middle East, and Asia claims to greatness, were relatively stable. This gave the diplomatic compromise impression of a world order. becomes difficult. Lengthy conflict begins to look preferable to a negotiated settlement. It is more legitimate to dig trenches than to sit at negotiating tables.

Local antagonists are willing to incur high costs both when attacking (like

Russia) and when defending (like Ukraine). The expectation is that the high risk will be rewarded with a high payoff: the aggressor anticipates greater influence or a larger territory, while the defender expects independence and greater security.

For a distant power such as the United States, the enduring nature of regional conflicts in Eurasia is a political challenge. Managing such conflicts

requires consistent involvement and a permanent presence. But the US approach is to participate in regional geopolitical dynamics only when necessary to restore an equipoise, and then to move to a different region. Thus we hear talk of “uniting” Europe and “pivoting” to Asia.

It is historically rare for a local contest to come to a permanent end—usually only when a devastating war redraws the map in blood. The FrancoGerman conflict of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries turned into friendship only after two gruesome world wars. The end result was good for Europe but getting there was tragic and something to be avoided.

The current war between Russia and Ukraine will end at some point, but the contest between the two nations won’t. The best that can be hoped for is a delicate local equilibrium demanding constant maintenance through Western economic and military support of Ukraine.

If Ukraine survives Russian aggression as an independent state, the Biden administration’s liberal temptation will be to call it a victory for world order based on rules and democracies. That would be a mistake. The victory will be Ukraine’s, resulting in a moment of fragile regional stability and not in a renewed world order.

Military force is more likely to be used in local contests than in disputes between distant rivals.

Reprinted by permission of the Wall Street Journal. © 2022 Dow Jones & Co. All rights reserved.

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