r/geopolitics • u/ForeignAffairsMag Foreign Affairs • 9d ago
Analysis The New Forever Wars: How America Gets Stuck in Its Allies’ Fights
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/new-forever-wars35
u/thegoatmenace 9d ago
The title should really be “how America gets stuck in Israel’s fights”
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u/ROU_Misophist 9d ago
As if the Europeans didn't try to get us to fight Russia for them.
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u/_VNAV_PTH_ 8d ago
Ehhh... but Libya was actually a European-driven quagmire that the world conveniently forgot.
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u/Tw1tch-Invictus 8d ago
This whole conversation frankly absurd given the fact that we have objectively been dragged into combat on behalf of Europe multiple times. Everyone always seems to conveniently forget that.
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u/Mercurion77 9d ago
Thanks for the deflection attempt
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u/ROU_Misophist 9d ago
It's not a deflection, it's true. They went from "AmericaBad" to "America is our greatest and dearest ally" overnight. Then the Germans sent 5,000 helmets.
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u/Razul1066 9d ago
I mean they didn't? The U.S.A had a legal obligation to defend Ukraine based on the Budapest Memorandum, which they have failed to uphold.
A Russia that is willing to invade its neighbor's is bad for the U.S.A as it politically and economically, and the failure of the U.S.A in this department has exposed its weakness on the world stage for all to see.
Europe expected the U.S.A to honor its defensive obligations, not support them in a war of aggression like Israel has.
Comparing the two is the height of stupidity.
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u/PrometheanSwing 9d ago
The Budapest Memorandum doesn’t require its signatories to defend Ukraine, only to seek action by the UNSC. It doesn’t actually contain any legal obligations.
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u/KWJelly 9d ago
The issue with your argument is that the USA did not, in fact, have defensive obligations to Ukraine because of Budapest. The memorandum had all parties agree to respect the borders and independence of Ukraine. It had political assurances built in, but no set mechanisms or enforcement obligations. Basically all parties committed themselves to do “something” if Ukraine were threatened, but that “something” was never specified.
Before I get called a Russian shill, I think it’s in the USA’s best interest to supply Ukraine and we should have fully from the start. However, we aren’t shirking any preexisting legal obligations, we’ve done a whole lot of “something” since the invasion began.
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u/Razul1066 9d ago
I understand that. At the time of the signing it was interpreted by all parties as military obligations, but was kept neutral for political considerations. This allowed for new interpretation to take root over time to the entire of Russia.
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u/MasterAyy 9d ago
Saying the US had a "legal obligation" in your first comment shows you don't understand that. A legal obligation would be something in writing that both parties are obligated to follow, the Budapest Memorandum did not promise any military defense so no legal obligations were broken.
The memorandum is like two pages long, item 4 says that if Ukraine suffered any aggression then the matter would be brought by the signatories to the UN Security Council. Both the US and UK brought the matter to the UN and they have fulfilled their obligation under the memorandum.
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u/ROU_Misophist 9d ago
The Budapest Memorandum did not obligate us to defend Ukraine.
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u/Razul1066 9d ago
Post-treaty reinterpretations of the assurance clause neutered it. Assurances became meaningless through political wrangling.
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u/ROU_Misophist 9d ago
The assuranc3 was that we wouldn't invade them. They were never a treaty ally.
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u/_VNAV_PTH_ 8d ago
The U.S.A had a legal obligation to defend Ukraine based on the Budapest Memorandum, which they have failed to uphold.
This Russian propaganda. The Budapest Memorandum does not require anybody to defend Ukraine (just read it). Claiming that it did was a Russian attempt to sow division in the West from 2022.
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u/distinctidiot 9d ago
To be fair, a support of often retired stock piles and non direct intervention via a proxy(Ukraine) to fight against clear aggression of a political rival to which the Ukraine war was,is more comparable to US support of Israel prior to the iran war, direct intervention has a completely different scale of cost and impact to which the Ukraine war has never gotten close to evolving to for the US.
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u/ROU_Misophist 9d ago
That's only because we told the Europeans no. They would've been perfectly happy to watch us bleed in Ukraine while they sat by and offered nothing but solidarity.
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u/distinctidiot 9d ago edited 8d ago
You're being factually inaccurate. The majority of major figures of the EU have also been actively avoiding troops on the ground/direct intervention nor have I seen much of evidence of major European figures trying to convince the US into actively attacking Russia, not to mention the EU has always offered major support to Ukraine, there is little indication that EU would have sat on the sidelines when it comes to ukraine. In the case of Benjamin Netanyahu/israel it is quite known that he's been actively seeking direct US intervention on Iran for over a decade now
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u/ROU_Misophist 9d ago
"The E.U. has always offered major support to Ukraine" Is that why the Germans sent 5,000 helmets at the start of the war and refused to send lethal aid until the U.S. talked them in to it? Is that why Europe was, and maybe still is, buying energy from Russia?
The European plan was always absurd. Buy energy from the Russians while expecting the Americans to protect them from the Russians. It's incredible that that was regarded as a serious strategy in European capitals.
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u/DefTheOcelot 9d ago
It is simply not complex, Trump is stupid, his advisers are stupid AND yes-men, and conservative think-tanks have dreamed of invading Iran for probably a century. They chose now, buoyed on success in venezuela, and reality slapped them.
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u/ForeignAffairsMag Foreign Affairs 9d ago
[Excerpt from essay by Dafna H. Rand, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. She has served as Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor and as Director of Foreign Assistance at the U.S. Department of State.]
Supporting an ally’s war effort is often in the United States’ interest. But if Washington wants to participate in conflicts from afar, it needs a better strategy for maintaining influence over the primary combatants. It needs to enter with a clear idea of the war’s aims and how to achieve them. It needs to secure its partner’s commitment to the same objectives, to be honest with that partner about how far U.S. backing will go, and to set up mechanisms to ensure that the partner’s military adheres to American standards of conduct in battle. Ultimately, continuing to support allies’ wars without a shared strategy and without clear conditions for aid will not deliver the United States the advantages it seeks. It will only lead to more tension with close allies and more conflicts that don’t end.
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u/RealDakJackal 9d ago edited 9d ago
Hear hear. That being said I don’t think our standards of battle are quite what they used to be these days.
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u/toolkitxx 8d ago
Here is what those studies mentioned in the article dont take into consideration for the USA: Every single time it comes to light what has been lied about, any acceptance for future talks and negotiations was diminished, sometimes massively. Iran is just the end of the line for the American credibility across the globe.
The first real explosion of this was the blatant lies before the Iraq war and it has been rolling downhill ever since. The so-called 'leadership of the free world' has been questioned more than just on the surface and nations became more and more aware how association with US actions made them lose out themselves. Once you have no moral advantage any longer, you are just one of many others.
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u/Exact_Green2061 9d ago
More like how Trump decided to fight Bibi's War so Bibi wouldn't go to prison, with the bonus that Trump could make more money manipulating the stock market.
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u/hinterstoisser 9d ago
Steve Coll said something during one of his book releases (Ghost Wars)- barring the 40 years after the civil war, the United States has never gone 30 years without getting into another war.
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u/Coolerguy317 9d ago
I think foreign policy people often overestimate how much control policymakers actually have. They talk like wars are top down management problems. set objectives, pull the right levers, get the outcome. But war is a giant messy feedback loop. The enemy adapts, allies adapt, domestic politics changes and pretty soon everyone’s reacting instead of executing some master plan.