Spend More on Defense and Less on Everything Else, Mandelbaum Warns
A military setback or financial crisis could force the issue
[“America has a positive role to play in advancing freedom and democracy in the rest of the world,” is one of the themes here at The Editors. I’ve been reporting that out by soliciting, from a variety of thoughtful voices, answers to this prompt:
What are the most promising, concrete, specific steps America can take over the next few years to promote freedom, democracy, and rule of law in other countries? What places and people would you focus on, what’s the case for making the efforts, and how, practically, do you get it done given the constraints imposed by the American political and fiscal landscape?
Today’s response comes from Michael Mandelbaum. He is the Christian A. Herter Professor Emeritus of American Foreign Policy at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and the author of the new book The Titans of the Twentieth Century: How They Made History and the History They Made, a study of Woodrow Wilson, Lenin, Hitler, Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Gandhi, Ben-Gurion, and Mao, published by Oxford University Press.
(Program note: The Editors ordinarily does not publish on Jewish holidays. This post was prepared and scheduled in advance for automatic publication during Sukkot.) — Ira Stoll]
The United States has had little recent success in directly promoting freedom, democracy, and the rule of law beyond its borders. Despite extensive American involvement in their internal affairs, the governments of Bosnia, Somalia, Haiti, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq each lack some or, in most cases, any of these features. Still, since the 20th century, America has succeeded indirectly at what can, for the sake of convenience, be called democracy-promotion beyond its borders, in two ways.
First, the United States has defended already existing democracies from assaults by undemocratic aggressors. World War II and the Cold War were, inter alia, exercises in such promotion by protecting existing democracies. Second, America has spread democracy by the power of its own example, a trend that its 18th-century founders were confident they were setting in motion. Other countries, in post-communist central and eastern Europe for example, have sometimes adopted democratic political systems because they observed the benefits that Americans and other peoples have derived from living under such systems, and in particular its economic benefits.
Both indirect methods of democracy-promotion remain relevant in 2024. Democracies face mortal threats from dictatorships: Taiwan from China, Ukraine from Russia, and Israel from Iran. Around the world, the political and economic health of the United States and its fellow democracies affect the opinions of others about the best form of government for themselves. Unfortunately, the present and future effectiveness of both methods is very much in doubt. Attending to their shortcomings would make a greater contribution to the spread of freedom, democracy, and the rule of law around the world than any other measures the United States could adopt.
Protecting embattled democracies requires American military power — to come to their aid if necessary but in the cases of Taiwan, Ukraine, and Israel to supply them with the weaponry they need to defend themselves. The United States currently lacks the military capacity for these purposes, a point that the July 2024 report of the Congressionally-authorized Commission on the National Defense Strategy makes in convincing and alarming detail. In particular, it lacks the weapons that its armed forces and those of its democratic allies need. To supply them will require a bigger defense budget.
The vibrancy and attractiveness of the American example is also under threat, from the large and growing federal debt. If not brought under control, it will sooner or later lead to much higher interest rates, severe cuts in government programs, and perhaps an economic crisis on the scale of the one that the housing bubble triggered in 2008, if not greater. Such developments would not only tarnish the global image of American democracy, they would also, through inevitable reductions in defense spending, constrain the capacity of the United States to support other democracies around the world.
In short, the most important step the United States can take to promote democracy is a dramatic change in its fiscal policy: spending more on defense and less on everything else. Such a change can come about either via pressure from the public or through the initiative of national leaders. As the election of 2024 approaches, no sign of either is apparent. This means that the impetus for a substantial alteration in America’s fiscal priorities will come from a major international or domestic crisis — the first likely in the form of a military setback, the second probably a financial disaster of some kind — which would make the need for a change of fiscal course unavoidable and urgent. The country would learn from such an event; but the lesson would surely be, alas, a tragically costly one.
Other, earlier answers: “Don’t Lose Any Countries” Is Elliott Abrams’s Advice, by Elliott Abrams
Counter Communist China in the U.S. and at the U.N., Ellen Bork Recommends, by Ellen Bork
Help Ukraine and Israel Prevail, Says Carl Gershman, by Carl Gershman
Resist Redefining “Democracy” as Elite Preferences, Kontorovich Says, by Eugene Kontorovich