Atlas Shrugged (off some of its burdens)

The news that the USA is abandoning it strategy of being able to fight two major wars at the same time, in its drive for efficiency cuts to the military, is a seminal moment. They may spend more money than the next ten biggest spenders combined and Defence Secretary Leon Panetta may still quip about being handy in two theatres, but it is all too reminiscent of imperial down-sizing.

In the years after 1889, Britain insisted on maintaining the two-power standard, whereby the size of its navy was as strong as the next two foreign navies combined. This was a time when the expansion of empire was proceeding apace and far-flung colonies and protectorates needed to be defended. Ultimately, it was ‘navalist’ hubris, especially after Germany and America started rapidly building up their high seas fleets, for the cost became, if not ruinous, discomfiting. Splendid isolation was abandoned because British finances were not expanding as fast as the rest of the world rearmed their surface craft, resulting in an alliance with Japan in 1902 and an entente with France in 1904. The death knell was the construction of the Dreadnought in 1906, which although built by Britain, rendered all other battleships obsolete. To maintain the two-power standard Britain would have to start from scratch, an impossibility given the speed of German, French and American shipyards.

So the UK focused on protecting its interests signing another entente with Russia to resolve the Indo-Afghan border disputes and expanding its cooperation with France as a buffer against Germany. As with the USA. The latter is shifting its primary defence interests to the Pacific Rim, as the dual wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have exhausted it.  It may have been feasible to fight two conflicts at the same time but it has proven to be not desirable in terms of power projection.  It is also in a process of a ‘re-set’ in relations with Russia so it can disengage with a NATO whose membership largely do not pull their weight.

Britain was still the biggest naval spender after 1906 but its pre-eminence was being whittled away. The USA will still be respected as the only superpower but its influence is in inexorable decline, especially as Chinese and Indian agents snap up land and resources in Africa and the Middle East, just as American businessmen competed in the early 20th century with British companies in South and Central America (gaining the upper hand during World War One). Given the alternatives, a declining USA is not in the interests of the West.