The High Cost of Primacy Pub682

THE HIGH COST OF PRIMACY
Lieutenant Colonel Nathan Freier
It is critical that the elected representatives, policymakers, opinion leaders, and

population of the United States recognize that the maintenance of our global position
comes at a price. We must now acknowledge an historic certainty; a truism ignored in
the decade that preceded the War on Terror and the pacification of Iraq. Dominant
global power engenders persistent resistance and exposes the United States to
enormous costs and burdens. This observation is value neutral. That some actively
oppose us and we incur costs as a result should come as no surprise. We must
realistically account for both in the formation of grand strategy.
Those competitors who sense either their position or existence threatened by
American primacy will not roll over. Rather, they will push back with the range of
instruments at their disposal. Though we will continue to enjoy the benefits of close
international partnerships, competitor states will engage in nettlesome but manageable
political, economic, and military balancing. Transnational and subnational opponents
sensing an existential challenge and less constrained by the norms of international
politics will increasingly resort to irregular and catastrophic assault on the United States
and its interests. These challengers will employ clever combinations of incendiary
rhetoric and violence in an attempt to erode American resolve and separate the United
States from its partners. They seek to drive the cost of American primacy and close
alliance with it to increasingly uncomfortable and ultimately unacceptable levels.
Mainstream American political elites broadly accept the necessity for the active
maintenance of dominant U.S. influence. It is, in their eyes, a necessary component of a
stable global order. There are differences on particular policy choices and rhetorical
justifications. However, there is remarkable agreement on endgame: retention of global
influence unmatched by all other strategically significant actors. Recent history has
demonstrated that this pursuit will be neither risk free nor painless. Thus it is
imperative that the nation prepare itself for a strategic future that includes periods of
considerable conflict.
Increased sensitivity to the threat posed by purposeful resistance to U.S. influence
has embarked the United States on a course populated by small wars and interventions
of necessity. There is room to debate the requirement for any one intervention or small
war in isolation. However, policy consensus on the retention of dominant influence and
clear irregular and catastrophic challenges to it leave decisionmakers very little
operating room strategically. Few viable alternatives exist, other than the active defense
of our position and interests.
Securing American primacy relies on far more than the use of force, however.
Indeed, over-reliance or dependency on military power in the end will be counter
productive. Successful defense of our global position demands holistic employment of
all the nation’s instruments of power in various combinations to reinforce progress and
success, as well as offset catastrophe before it can threaten us directly.
We continue to be threatened by extremism and criminality originating from
ungoverned or irresponsibly-governed territory. Further, serious destabilization or
political collapse of a number of vulnerable states could result in a loss of responsible
control over weapons of mass destruction, trigger contagious extremism, place the
continued distribution of critical resources at risk, or spark combustible social upheaval
that would undermine the security and governance of entire regions. The most
dangerous of these circumstances will demand American-led responses; preferably
before they reach crisis proportions. Some will present immediate, obvious security
challenges to the United States. Others will challenge the United States more subtly in
the near-term, but will grow in severity over time. Each remaining unchecked will
increasingly defy all but the most extraordinary efforts to bring them under control.
The costs associated with these small wars and interventions transcend
straightforward accounting. Their human, physical, fiscal, political, psychological, and
even moral demands challenge what is proving to be a very vulnerable grand strategic
center of gravity for the United States—the population and its willingness to accept the
high price of great power. Indeed, political elites and opinion leaders must either inure
the body politic to the costs associated with exercising great power or face the
consequences of diminished U.S. influence.
Diminished influence leaves no guarantee of physical security and engenders great
strategic costs. For example, the most virulent of our irregular challengers oppose both
our physical, as well as our political, commercial, and cultural influence. Further,
American primacy underwrites the sanctity of responsible sovereignty and the integrity
of the global economy. Thus, a decline in U.S. influence is certain to see an increase in
strategically significant intra- and interstate conflict; the irresponsible exercise of
political authority; and serious challenges to economic well-being, growth, trade, and
access to critical resources worldwide.
Iraq, Afghanistan, and the broader War on Terror are illustrative of our strategic
future. Irregular conflicts were the business of past empires and now the burden of the
world’s only superpower. However, physical and psychological under-preparedness
for their costs increasingly places long-term interests in jeopardy. As costs mount,
policy elites are not only challenged to articulate the need for continued near-term
sacrifice, but also the certainty that our global position will be equally burdensome well
into the future. Today, the prospect of a slow voluntary retreat from dominant influence
that might accompany popular underpreparedness and exhaustion challenges
American primacy more than does any opponent’s deliberate cost imposing strategy.
The structural and material prerequisites of continued great power are secure. The will
to employ them is substantially more vulnerable.

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THE HIGH COST OF PRIMACY

Lieutenant Colonel Nathan Freier

It is critical that the elected representatives, policymakers, opinion leaders, and

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