By Noah Rothman
Monday, March 24, 2025
The most interesting and consequential revelation in The
Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg’s piece revealing
that he was accidentally privy to secret plans for imminent U.S. military
action against the Houthis is the revelation itself. It’s embarrassing enough
that the journalist was included in a Signal app chat along with senior members
of the administration where sensitive intelligence was discussed — and not just
because the secretary of defense emphasized the need for “100% OPSEC” on that
very chat. It’s not just mortifying; it was inexcusably reckless.
The second most interesting detail in Goldberg’s item is
the extent to which Vice President J.D. Vance seemed perplexed as to what U.S.
national interest the mission was designed to advance:
The account labeled “JD Vance”
responded at 8:16: “Team, I am out for the day doing an economic event in
Michigan. But I think we are making a mistake.” (Vance was indeed in Michigan
that day.) The Vance account goes on to state, “3 percent of US trade runs
through the suez. 40 percent of European trade does. There is a real risk that
the public doesn’t understand this or why it’s necessary. The strongest reason
to do this is, as POTUS said, to send a message.”
The Vance account then goes on to
make a noteworthy statement, considering that the vice president has not
deviated publicly from Trump’s position on virtually any issue. “I am not sure
the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe
right now. There’s a further risk that we see a moderate to severe spike in oil
prices. I am willing to support the consensus of the team and keep these
concerns to myself. But there is a strong argument for delaying this a month,
doing the messaging work on why this matters, seeing where the economy is,
etc.”
Vance is not wrong to ask what the stakes are for the
United States, distinct from (although not opposed to) America’s European
allies. He was wrong to resent the degree to which U.S. action against the
Houthis constitutes “bailing Europe out again.”
Indeed, the EU relies directly on the Suez Canal for more
of its trade than the United States. It’s also true that the E.U. and the
United States are each other’s largest trading partners, and American imports
constitute the largest share of foreign goods in many EU member states. It
isn’t bailing out Europe to preserve the EU’s capacity to import and export
goods efficiently and at low cost if the proceeds from that activity yield more
capital to spend on American goods. Less trade makes everyone poorer, and a
poorer, less interconnected world is unlikely to be a peaceful world.
That’s the other thing: allowing, as the Biden
administration did, a ragtag band of pirates whose names are only known in the
West because they’re financed and supplied by America’s enemies in Iran to
choke off key strategic sea lanes has broader implications. The Houthis’ marauding was directed
at the West and its allies. The terrorist outfit often took conspicuous care to
avoid targeting America’s enemies, like China. Indeed, some commercial
enterprises saw fit to shadow Chinese naval vessels in the effort to navigate
the Bab el-Mandeb Strait out of necessity. In that, we can see the outlines of
a post-American world in which free maritime navigation is guaranteed by powers
that are not aligned with America and do not follow its rules.
If America bucks its hegemonic obligations, other
aspiring great powers will fill the vacuum a retreating United States leaves in
its wake. The People’s Liberation Army Navy would not be a scrupulous steward
of American interests on the high seas. And those who seek to badger Europe
into standing up an indigenous defense force that can meet the measure of the
international threat environment should be cautious about doing so in a way
that limits U.S. influence over European affairs. We should not create a confident
Europe with an independent foreign policy from our own. If you think Europe
would rather confront China than sue for peace to access its own vital trade
lanes, you’re only kidding yourself.
Vance is right that the strikes send an unambiguous
message to, for example, the Houthis’ sponsors in Tehran. But that message will
have to be heeded by its intended recipients, and it will only be heeded if it
is a component within a broader strategic commitment to preserve American
global hegemony — keyword: “global.” The spheres of geopolitical influence that
withered away at the end of the Cold War will not make a comeback overnight.
They will be rebuilt piecemeal as revisionist powers take small bites out of
the U.S.-led world order based on our stated level of commitment to our
interests on the frontiers of American power. Just as Dean Acheson
inadvertently gave Stalin the green light to inaugurate the Korean War by
carelessly excluding the peninsula from the “perimeter” of U.S. interests,
America’s enemies can draw disastrously wrong conclusions from the careless
comments of America’s ruling elite.
Of course, this conversation was not meant to be public,
but it is public now. Since we have no assurances that the flip mishandling of
confidential communications will not happen again, Trump administration figures
should be more disciplined when setting U.S. policy in internal deliberations.
No comments:
Post a Comment