Restraint: A post-COVID-19 U.S. national security strategy
The response to the COVID-19 pandemic has weakened the U.S. economy, the foundation of its national power. This has implications for U.S. foreign policy.
Health and economic fallout from COVID-19 makes setting realistic defense priorities more urgent
The response to the coronavirus global pandemic has severely weakened the U.S. economy, the foundation of national power. This reality has vast implications for U.S. foreign policy.
Two economic factors suggest narrowing U.S. foreign policy objectives: (1) U.S. GDP and tax revenue will shrink in 2020, with no certainty about when they might recover. (2) Record deficits and debt endanger future economic growth.
Political reasons for foreign policy restraint augment those economic factors: The public increasingly perceives non-security risks are paramount, and priority will go to domestic spending that aids recovery and increases domestic institutional resilience.
Federal discretionary spending will bear a greater burden because mandatory spending programs are politically harder to cut. Since defense accounts for nearly half of discretionary spending, DoD will likely face sustained cuts.
The U.S. enjoys a favorable geostrategic position with abundant protection from rivals, so it can cut defense spending without compromising security. Indeed, ending peripheral commitments in favor of core security interests strengthens the U.S.
Ending policies bringing failure, overstretch, and drained coffers always made sense—coronavirus makes the case more urgent.
U.S. federal budget authority by category (FY 2019)
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="2284"] Declining GDP and tax revenue and increased domestic spending post-COVID-19 will put downward pressure on DoD budgets.[/caption]
Abandon peripheral missions abroad and focus on core U.S. security and prosperity
As the pandemic demonstrates, non-military threats can be far more detrimental to Americans’ well-being than the non-state actors, rogue states, and authoritarian regimes that dominate military planning and drive DoD spending.
The decades-long pursuit of overly ambitious foreign policy goals disconnected from U.S. security contributed to the neglect of U.S. domestic institutions exposed by the coronavirus pandemic.
Recovering requires investment at home: education, health care, infrastructure, research and development, and policies that promote innovation and job creation.
For the past 20 years, the U.S. spent roughly $1 trillion annually on defense-related objectives (DoD, veteran’s care, homeland security, nuclear weapons, diplomacy) while domestic infrastructure in critical industries went under-resourced.
Rebalancing defense priorities to focus more on economic prosperity and public health will enhance U.S. power in the long term.
Middle East: Reduce overinvestment and military presence, which has backfired and weakened the U.S.
Core Middle East interests are (1) preventing significant disruptions to global oil supply and (2) defending against anti-U.S. terror threats. The former requires minimal U.S. effort; the latter requires intelligence, cooperation, and limited strikes, not occupations.
The Middle East accounts for just 4 percent of global GDP, yet for decades, the U.S. has attempted to reshape the region through military force, disrupting the regional balance of power, exacerbating political instability, and allowing terrorist groups to flourish.
Today, the U.S. has 62,000 troops in the region, many of them vulnerable to attacks by local militias. The U.S. is also fighting wars in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, largely based on exaggerated fears of Iran, a middling power contained by its local rivals.
The U.S. will be able to fund part of its coronavirus recovery by ending its participation in conflicts in the Middle East and nearby areas, such as Afghanistan and Somalia. This would free up tens of billions of dollars annually for higher priorities.
Additional savings can be had by focusing the Pentagon on its core warfighting missions and right-sizing force structure—reducing ground forces in particular, which have been swollen by these commitments.
The U.S., Europe, and Asia account for 81 percent of global GDP
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="2280"] The U.S., Europe, and East Asia are the hubs of the global economy, making them more important to U.S. security and prosperity than the Middle East.[/caption]
Europe: Shift security burdens to wealthy allies
The U.S. has strong economic and diplomatic interests in Europe, but the continent faces limited direct military threats. Despite the fall of the USSR, the U.S. maintains a heavy military footprint in Europe in the name of securing wealthy, relatively safe allies.
This arrangement served U.S. interests when a big U.S. military presence in Europe balanced the USSR’s military might while enabling allies to recover economically and unify.
As allies grew rich and the USSR collapsed, a sensible balancing policy became a subsidy that let wealthy allies “cheap ride” on U.S. taxpayers, driving excess DoD spending while subsidizing lavish social welfare programs for European nations.
Russia is a declining power (with a large nuclear arsenal). The EU dominates Russia in important metrics of national power: 3½:1 population, 11:1 GDP, and 5:1 military spending. European economies are also more dynamic than Russia’s.
Instead of jawboning allies for shirking their obligations, U.S. policy should shift the security burden onto them by (1) ending the European Defense Initiative and (2) implementing a responsible draw down of U.S. ground and nuclear forces on the continent.
This would not only free up finite U.S. resources for higher priorities at home or in Asia, but also encourage European allies to revitalize their militaries: increasing spending, prioritizing modernization, or increasing military cooperation with each other.
Asia: Fortify Asian allies with A2/AD capabilities to deter Chinese aggression at less risk
U.S. policy toward China—the only conceivable strategic competitor—balances several key interests: deterring Chinese territorial expansion against Asian allies, avoiding war, and ensuring a fair and beneficial trading relationship.
Efforts to balance against China should therefore be based on core U.S. interests and carefully designed and planned to reduce cost, minimize escalation risks, and protect trade.
U.S. goals in Asia are inherently defensive (to preserve the territorial status quo) and are best served by a military approach of “defensive defense”: an operational concept that limits U.S. costs by encouraging allies to develop their defensive capabilities.
By improving anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) capabilities—a network of sensors and missiles—U.S. allies can deter Chinese attacks more effectively and cheaply than via investment in aircraft and surface ships that mimic U.S. capabilities.
Allied defensive capability is less threatening to China than U.S. offensive capability. Reducing the perceived threat of direct attacks, A2/AD is less prone to spark costly, counterproductive arms racing.
Pressing allies to adopt this approach will allow the U.S. to jettison escalatory plans to defend them by attacking the Chinese mainland, lowering tensions and risks of a broader war with China and allowing for cost saving on U.S. forces in Asia.
U.S. force structure: Constrained DoD budgets means more tradeoffs and rebalancing among the services
With the world’s most sophisticated nuclear arsenal, large oceans separating it from rivals, and weak neighbors, the U.S. has a unique advantage over every other nation—security is abundant and cheap.
The U.S. accounts for 40 percent of global military spending—treaty allies account for 22 percent; Russia and China account for 17 percent. The 2020 DoD budget ($757 billion) exceeds Cold War highs in real terms, reflecting a false sense of insecurity.
Reduced DoD budgets can force debate and prioritization among programs and services—between what contributes to U.S. security and what is peripheral or even counterproductive—that large spending authorizations prevent.
Geography makes the U.S. a natural naval power and trading nation. Distance from other major states means the U.S. is perceived as less threatening—unlike China, which borders other Eurasia powers.
The Navy is the key service for projecting U.S. power globally and defending commerce if necessary while avoiding costly occupations. The Navy should command a larger portion of DoD’s reduced budget.
With no nation building and a large reservist pool, the U.S. can reduce Army, Marines, and special operations forces end strength.
Mission-driven reductions to force structure generate savings on personnel and procurement, enabling savings on operational costs, administrative overhead, basing, and other support functions.
U.S. military spending compared to allies and competitors
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="2284"] Total U.S. military spending vs. the rest of the world[/caption]
No major or regional powers are unscathed by the pandemic—strategic thinking will determine who comes out stronger
The pandemic has hit all major powers hard, including U.S. adversaries; the economic pain is well distributed.
China announced its GDP contracted at 6.8 percent in the first quarter of 2020, the first decline since 1976. The CCP relies on steady economic growth for legitimacy, and in a nation with almost no social safety net, job losses could breed discontent.
While earning some goodwill, China’s efforts to help afflicted nations are an attempt to mitigate the reputational damage from its early obfuscation of the outbreak, which led to the global pandemic. Businesses are also taking steps to limit their China exposure.
Record low oil prices could see Russia’s GDP fall by as much as 15 percent this year, resulting in more pressure to limit its military spending and interventions in places such as Ukraine and Syria.
Iran has been crippled by the virus. Infection has killed several of its senior leaders, and the collapse in oil prices has damaged its already shrinking economy, making this middling power even weaker.
Strong fundamentals undergird U.S. power: favorable geography; a technologically advanced society with a skilled, innovative workforce; and abundant natural resources. Post-COVID rebuilding will require focusing on these strengths to restart the economy.
The U.S. grew to become the global superpower by virtue of its productive economy; advanced technology, including nuclear weapons; and skillful diplomacy.
The pursuit of liberal hegemony—militarized democracy spreading fueled by threat exaggeration and hubris—has resulted in strategic failure, military overstretch, and a hollowing out of U.S. internal strength.
The coronavirus pandemic has exposed the extent to which U.S. power has been squandered. To recover its strength, U.S. should focus on the core elements of national power while avoiding excessive military projects and the overspending that entails.
The budgetary demands to recover from this pandemic will be enormous, but the fundamental sources of U.S. security are robust—and insensitive to mild deviations in military activities and spending.
Coronavirus is a terrible tragedy but nonetheless an opportunity to shed illusions and rebuild the real pillars of national strength for the long haul.
As long as U.S. focuses on its prosperity—rather than peripheral distractions—it will grow stronger at home and retain the ability to marshal the resources necessary for competition with any adversary.
This article has been republished with permission from Defense Priorities.
Benjamin H. Friedman is Policy Director at Defense Priorities and an adjunct lecturer at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. Previously, he served as Research Fellow in Defense and Homeland Security Studies at the Cato Institute.
In 2020 and 2021, 109 U.S. soldiers died at Fort Bragg, the largest military base in the country and the central location for the key Special Operations Units in the American military.
Only four of them were on overseas deployments. The others died stateside, mostly of drug overdoses, violence, or suicide. The situation has hardly improved. It was recently revealed that another 51 soldiers died at Fort Bragg in 2023. According to U.S. government data, these represent more military fatalities than have occurred at the hands of enemy forces in any year since 2013.
“The Fort Bragg Cartel: Drug Trafficking and Murder in the Special Forces” recently published by Seth Harpis a deep dive into the culture that produced these deaths. The book proceeds on two levels. The first is a closely reported examination of the lives of several Special Operations soldiers caught up in criminal networks — especially William Lavigne, a Delta Force operator who became part of an international drug cartel and was eventually murdered in a still unsolved case. This aspect of the book, which has the feel of an especially compelling true crime thriller, is no doubt what has propelled the book onto bestseller lists and picked up for an HBO miniseries.
But there’s a second, parallel narrative in the book that’s perhaps even more significant. Harp embeds the story of individual soldiers into a larger examination of the history of the global War on Terror (GWOT) that began after 9/11, and the U.S. military adoption of new forms of Special Operations-based warfare during that conflict.
After the most active phase of the 2003 Iraq war ended in roughly 2007-08, the GWOT has in many ways faded from broader public consideration. It has not left the mark on the American consciousness that the Vietnam war or even the “forgotten” Korean war did. But especially as we see tactics, justifications, and rhetoric from the GWOT re-emerging in the Trump Administration’s apparent new war on terrorist-designated drug cartels, this is a mistake.
Harp traces the way in which the military shifted from the mass deployment of large numbers of ordinary infantry forces overseas — which contributed to large-scale public opposition to the Vietnam War and the early Iraq War — to the more intensive use of much smaller numbers of highly trained Special Operations soldiers. This is a form of warfare less visible to the broader public, but with an even more significant personal impact on the small number of fighters who practice it.
While most will be familiar with the U.S. military use of covert assassination tactics and raids, what feels new here is the extensive documentation of the sheer volume and character of these operations. They feel less like targeted assassinations than an industrialized assembly line of personalized killing.
Harp describes Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) General Stanley McChrystal’s Find, Fix, Finish, Exploit, Analyze, and Disseminate (F3EAD) cycle, saying that “despite the ungainly initialism, the F3EAD cycle was not a complicated concept. It typically meant tracking down a target, killing him and every adult man and teenage boy in the vicinity, seizing every piece of paper and electronic device found on their persons, and using these materials to come up with more names to add to the hit list, and then killing them too, sometimes just a few hours later.”
Later in the book, Harp describes the Special Operations mission in the GWOT as “covertly liquidating the male population base of recalcitrant ethnic and tribal groups that resist U.S. military occupation.”
The full power of the book emerges in the way Harp personalizes the cost of these tactics to the men who perform them. There is a physical cost measured in the impact on their bodies and the routine use of performance enhancing drugs to facilitate the high-intensity, nonstop cycle of violent raids on deployments and the intensive training in peacetime.
There is also a psychic and moral cost in the act of killing. This is often illuminated through interviews with women connected to these soldiers. Indeed, women emerge in the book as a kind of horrified chorus of normalcy, as the mothers, sisters, wives, and girlfriends of Special Operations forces testify to the emotional changes that have occurred in their men over the years. Gruesome details are scattered through the book, such as when the sister of one of Lavigne’s friends asks him why his dog has no teeth:
“Lavigne told her that its titanium dentures had been surgically removed upon retirement because the dog had been trained to attack and had grown accustomed to feeding on the flesh of people killed in special operations raids, including being allowed, ‘as a ‘treat',’ to eat human brains.”
The political clout of Special Operations within the military community apparently leads to a two-tier system of justice in the municipalities around Fort Bragg. Lavigne’s murder of his close friend during a drug-fueled dispute is covered up by the police. There also seems to be a culture of impunity for domestic abuse and sexual assault.
Harp argues, convincingly, that the routine use of prescription amphetamines and opioids contributed to an epidemic of substance use among Fort Bragg soldiers. This in turn became a gateway for some to become traffickers in illegal drugs. He also claims, more controversially but with substantial evidence, that GWOT operations in Afghanistan were central to the increase in U.S. opioid use that has occurred over the past several decades. He points out that the Taliban banned opium production in 2000 for religious reasons, that the heroin trade experienced an apparent resurgence of production under the corrupt U.S.-backed Afghan government during the war, and that much of the heroin reaching the U.S. during the period may have been misclassified as coming from Mexico rather than Afghanistan.
Another important aspect of the book is the description of what Harp calls “Iraq War 3” — Operation Inherent Resolve — against ISIS beginning in 2014, which demonstrates the impact of the military’s new way of war. Harp covered this war himself as a journalist, and documents the intensity of U.S. operations. He claims that more troops were deployed in Iraq and Syria for the conflict — over 10,000 — than were ever acknowledged. It’s difficult to believe that a war of this size and intensity could have been fought with so little public attention before the military perfected its new Special Operations intensive method of warfare.
The capacity to fight highly lethal but relatively U.S. personnel-light conflicts using the combination of Special Operations and local proxies opens up new possibilities for the American military — and new challenges for public oversight of its actions. Again, this is especially salient in light of the signals from the Trump Administration that it plans a GWOT-style war against drug cartels directly on American borders.
One could quarrel with many of the specific claims in this book. William Lavigne, perhaps the central character, is only one individual. It’s always possible to misrepresent the full reality of a large community such as Fort Bragg or Special Operations through the selection of the most extreme examples. There have been many deaths in Fort Bragg but there are also many troops stationed there. The 109 deaths in Fort Bragg in 2020 and 2021 represent 5.4% of all deaths in the active duty U.S. military during those years, but over 3% of all active duty soldiers are stationed there, so the disproportion is not as extreme as one might think.
Harp’s claims about the centrality of Afghan heroin to the U.S. drug trade are likewise controversial, as there is debate about the sources of heroin flowing to the U.S. and the effectiveness of the Taliban in cutting off the heroin trade. They can also be questioned in light of the increasing importance of fentanyl — a synthetic that does not involve Afghan opium — to the drug crisis..
But the book is still path-breaking and compelling in its description of the transformation of the U.S. military during the War on Terror, as well as its deeply reported and resonant description of the personal toll of that transformation on members of one military community and their families.
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Top image credit: President Donald Trump hosts a bilateral dinner for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Monday, July 7, 2025, in the Blue Room. (Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok)
Is Israel becoming the new hegemon of the Middle East? The answer to this question is an important one.
Preventing the rise of a rival regional hegemon — a state with a preponderance of military and economic power — in Eurasia has long been a core goal of U.S. foreign policy. During the Cold War, Washington feared Soviet dominion over Europe. Today, U.S. policymakers worry that China’s increasingly capable military will crowd the United States out of Asia’s lucrative economic markets. The United States has also acted repeatedly to prevent close allies in Europe and Asia from becoming military competitors, using promises of U.S. military protection to keep them weak and dependent.
Historically, however, the United States has not faced viable hegemonic rivals in the Middle East. Possible contenders, like Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Iraq, each lack the military capabilities and economic wherewithal to establish dominance over the others. The region is also divided by long-standing distrust. For those in favor of U.S. retrenchment, this has been a selling point. With no real hegemonic challenger, Washington need not fear that a U.S. pullback from the Middle East will end with the United States shut out of the region for good.
Israel’s aggressive foreign policy over the past two years has brought new scrutiny on these long-standing assumptions. At least on the surface, Israel now has some of the markers of regional dominance. It has been able to act with near impunity, leveling punishing military force against countries across the region and imposing its will on adversaries. It has expanded its de facto borders with new “buffer zones” in Lebanon and Syria, and conducted successful and attempted assassinations in Lebanon, Yemen, Iran, Qatar, and Gaza. These efforts have shifted the region’s balance of power in Israel’s favor, and Israel has proven that its military capabilities far exceed those of its neighbors.
If Israel does have an independent path to regional hegemony that could challenge U.S. influence and leverage, it would create a dilemma for U.S. policymakers. Washington has never been willing to restrainIsrael as it has allies and partners elsewhere. Instead, the U.S. role has long been an enabling one that has worked to increase Israel’s military power, not constrain it or hold it back.
This relationship has worked because Israeli and U.S. interests in this regard have been generally aligned and because Israel served as useful proxy for the United States in the region without ever threatening its position atop the hierarchy. Last week’s Israeli strike on Qatar, a close U.S. partner, is the latest sign that this may be changing. Not only did Israel provide the United States little notice of the attack, but as U.S. President Donald Trump said afterward, the Israeli move did not “advance America’s goals” in the region or more generally.
Its tactical feats have been impressive, but the reality is that Israel has little chance of becoming a regional hegemon on its own. Writing in Foreign Affairs, two former Israeli government officials agree with this assessment noting that “although it is the strongest military power in the region, Israel is not a regional hegemon. ... The Israeli economy does not represent a disproportionate share of regional GDP, nor can Israel unilaterally shape economic arrangements in the region to its benefit. Israel, with few natural allies in the region, also enjoys relatively little soft power among its neighbors.”
Rather than an independent path to regional pre-eminence, the best Israel can likely hope for is a sort of quasi-hegemony, underwritten and facilitated by U.S. dollars and American military power. As the Quincy Institute’s Trita Parsi explained, “Israel cannot sustain its wars for long without the U.S. paying for them, sending weapons and protecting it diplomatically. This is not Israeli hegemony: this is Israel becoming a proxy for U.S. hegemony while putting much of the cost back on the U.S. shoulder.”
There are three mechanisms through which U.S. military and diplomatic support fuel Israel’s quasi-hegemonic position. The first is straightforward. Israel relies on U.S. military assistance for both its offensive and defensive operations. Israel’s attack on Iran was fueled by F-16 aircraft and the bombs it used in Gaza and Lebanon were U.S. made. To be sure, Israel has its own indigenously produced capabilities but it depends heavily on U.S. aid and the “qualitative military edge” U.S. support provides to maintain its numerous and unending military campaigns.
Second, Israel’s offensive military posture in the region is possible because the country’s leaders are confident in America’s nearly unconditional backing. Israel knows that if it suffers retaliation for its military actions against its neighbors, even if Israel itself is the provocateur, the United States will serve as its guarantor, defending at least Israel’s airspace and waters as it did throughout 2024 and 2025. Israel can therefore take extreme risks, knowing that it will never have to pay the full consequences.
The same is true in the diplomatic space where Israel has become accustomed to unfailing U.S. support in the face of international pressure and condemnation. Israel’s impunity, in other words, is not earned but given by the United States.
Finally, continued U.S. military presence in the Middle East enables Israel’s rise by interfering with the region’s natural balancing. Currently, the United States acts as the regional balancer between Israel and the Arab States and between the Arab States themselves. If the United States were absent, Israel’s increasingly offensive regional posture would trigger counterbalancing by its neighbors, including the Gulf States and Iran, to check Israel’s encroachment and block an Israeli push for hegemony. As long as the United States stays, this will not happen, and Israel will remain unchallenged.
For a United States primed to act against regional challengers in whatever form they come, retrenchment from the Middle East is no longer optional. Instead, it is required and necessary to ensure that Israel cannot continue to capitalize on U.S. military support and its forward presence to act against U.S. interests.
The Trump administration is well-positioned to begin this retrenchment. It should start with air and naval forces surged over the past two years and then turn to legacy deployments held over from the Global War on Terror, including those in Iraq, Syria, Jordan, and at Al-Udeid air base.
Trump will also need to take a harder line with Netanyahu. U.S. offensive military aid to Israel should be curtailed and Washington should make clear that the United States will only provide direct defensive support to Israel in cases where it is the victim of unprovoked aggression — not retaliation for Israel’s own strikes. Finally, the Trump administration needs to draw a clear redline when it comes to Israel’s violations of the territorial sovereignty of its neighbors and be willing to show diplomatic and political disapproval if Israel steps over those lines.
These moves need not signal the end of the U.S.-Israel partnership. That relationship could continue with the United States offering more limited military aid and playing a constrained role in the region, one that supports Israel’s defenses in a narrow way. But the changes would constitute a significant realignment of the relationship that ensures it is fit for purpose and advances rather than harms U.S. interests going forward.
In an era of widespread use of economic sanctions, dual-use technology exports, and hybrid warfare, the boundary between peacetime and wartime has become increasingly blurry. Yet understandings of neutrality remain stuck in the time of trench warfare. An updated conception of neutrality, codified through an international treaty, is necessary for global security.
Neutrality in the 21st century is often whatever a country wants it to be. For some, such as the European neutrals like Switzerland and Ireland, it is compatible with non-U.N. sanctions (such as by the European Union) while for others it is not. Countries in the Global South are also more likely to take a case-by-case approach, such as choosing to not take a stance on a specific conflict and instead call for a peaceful resolution while others believe a moral position does not undermine neutrality.
The salience of neutrality has fluctuated over time and receded significantly following the end of the Cold War, as the United States became the world’s sole superpower. However, with the emergence of multipolarity, neutrality has once again seen a global revival, although its meaning is less clear than before.
Neutrality, as well as its related but distinctly different relatives, non-alignment and multi-alignment, can take many forms, which have resulted in a patchwork of approaches.
The ambiguities inherent in 21st century neutrality make it harder for neutrals or aspiring neutrals to act in a consistent manner that makes their position more credible while enhancing their security. Switzerland’s gradual embrace of non-U.N. sanctions has diminished its perception as a viable host for peace talks (or even a place to store one’s money) while non-sanctioning and selectively neutral MiddleEasternstates have been far more successful in facilitating prisoner exchanges and negotiations between Moscow, Washington, and Kiev.
As neutrality becomes more diffused, so do the responses to it. During the Biden administration, the United States and its NATO allies described China as a “decisive enabler” due to its robust trading relationship with the Russian Federation, even while the same countries ignored Russo-Indian trade. By contrast, the Trump administration has more aggressively targeted India with the president’s economic adviser Peter Navarro referring to the conflict in Ukraine as “Modi’s War.”
As geopolitical competition intensifies and middle powers assert themselves, traditional notions of neutrality, which are rooted in outdated treaties and Cold War-era alignments, are no longer adequate. Neutrality today extends beyond the battlefield, encompassing economic entanglements, digital infrastructure, and diplomatic alignments. Yet there is no updated definition of what it means to be neutral in a multipolar world.
As rising powers, such as Indonesia, Brazil, and India, increasingly eschew traditional bloc politics, the relevance of neutrality or non-alignment will only grow. With it comes tremendous potential to reduce the risk of war and improve global cooperation. However, in the absence of a universally agreed definition of neutrality, its benefits will be limited.
An international treaty on neutrality that clearly defines the rights and responsibilities of neutral states, as well as how others should engage with them, could reduce inconsistencies in how neutrality is interpreted, lower the risk of conflict, and restore trust in international norms.
A neutrality treaty would also provide greater certainty and transparency in interstate relations, especially on the relationship between neutrality and non-war conduct (such as trade) and foster formal recognition of the neutral status of countries by both neutral and non-neutral states.
Such a treaty could commit a state to disregard sanctions that are not authorized by the U.N. or implement a discriminatory visa regime in response to a country’s foreign or security policy while explaining the scope and limits of complying with secondary sanctions. This would inject much needed stability into the international system.
In addition, such a treaty could include provisions that lay out a signatory’s willingness to act as a mediator or host for negotiations between antagonists, which not only could improve the prestige of neutrality, but could also encourage other states to invest in the viability of neutrality.
A treaty on neutrality could also help alleviate concerns about alliance enlargement, which, when left unchecked, can contribute to violent clashes, such as the current Russo-Ukrainian war. By clarifying the nature of joint military exercises, ruling out the permanent hosting of foreign troops, and banning the continuous rotations of foreign military units that result in de facto indefinite basing, neutral states, as well as their neighbors and faraway powers, can benefit from a more stable status quo and minimize the risk of tensions spiraling out of control.
As Europe’s efforts to draw in Ukraine in the 2010s as well as Sweden and Finland’s rapid accession to NATO membership after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine demonstrate, in the absence of a treaty commitment, neutrality and non-alignment risk becoming increasingly meaningless and could potentially pave the way for such states to become future frontlines.
On the diplomatic front, ensuring consistent and equal treatment ought to be embedded. Western inconsistencies with respect to honoring or ignoring arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court have undermined the credibility of the transatlantic powers and international institutions, as countries like Mongolia are criticized for not arresting Russian President Vladimir Putin at the same time that Europe and the United States announce exemptions for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. A common standard, such as immunity for heads of states and governments, would allow neutrals to play crucial backchannel roles while reconciling their legal obligations and security needs.
The non-compulsory nature of such efforts could also have a norm-setting effect in international relations that may not necessarily always be respected but can nonetheless help integrate an updated version of neutrality into international relations.
The establishment and reinforcement of a new norm around neutrality would in some ways mirror the way that the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) or anti-nuclear weapons testing treaties have evolved. These treaties have not prevented all violations but nevertheless succeeded in gradually and fundamentally shifting expectations and desires around the pursuit of nuclear weapons while raising the cost of ignoring anti-proliferation efforts.
As with the NPT, a treaty on neutrality can have two categories of signatories, consisting of neutrals and those states that recognize the neutral statuses of others and agree to engage with them on that basis.
Neutral states themselves and non-aligned middle powers that share their vision of international relations should lead this effort, while major powers like the United States, Russia, and China should support that initiative, thus lending it further legitimacy.
Without a treaty, neutrality risks becoming merely an opportunistic tool. With one, neutrality can be revitalized and become a building block for global security in the 21st century.
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Declining GDP and tax revenue and increased domestic spending post-COVID-19 will put downward pressure on DoD budgets.[/caption]
Declining GDP and tax revenue and increased domestic spending post-COVID-19 will put downward pressure on DoD budgets.[/caption]
The U.S., Europe, and East Asia are the hubs of the global economy, making them more important to U.S. security and prosperity than the Middle East.[/caption]
The U.S., Europe, and East Asia are the hubs of the global economy, making them more important to U.S. security and prosperity than the Middle East.[/caption]
Total U.S. military spending vs. the rest of the world[/caption]
Total U.S. military spending vs. the rest of the world[/caption]
