The Era of Contested Commons

By Shawn Brimley

There is an emerging consensus that we are slowly but surely entering an era that will see the rise of new great powers and the relative decline of the United States as the world's sole superpower. Most work on this topic explores the question of why such a future is likely, but there has been relatively little discussion over how such a transition will occur or what it would look like.

The architecture of the modern international system rests on a foundation of free and fair access to a vibrant global economy that requires stability in what scholars call the "commons," those areas that no one state controls but which provide access and connectivity to much of the world. 90 percent of global commerce travels by sea, and nearly everyone on earth is at least somewhat reliant on a global communications system of internet servers and orbiting satellites.

After World War II, the United States essentially became the guarantor of the global commons, ensuring freedom of the seas and the ability of individuals to traverse much of the world. But this long era of uncontested dominance of the global commons is coming to an end.

While the overwhelming majority of analysis on American defense strategy concerns whether the Army and Marine Corps are learning the right lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan, little attention is being paid to broader security trends. The paucity of discussion is worrisome, as several quite recent developments - largely below the media's radar - give a sense of what the future may hold:

Space is becoming increasingly militarized. China's successful 2007 anti-satellite missile test has initiated a series of responses. Last February the US military shot down one of its own failing satellites, ostensibly to prevent its toxic fuel from harming people on the ground. In May, Japan's legislature passed a law ending a ban on the use of its space program for defense. France's latest defense white paper calls for doubling investment in space assets, including spy satellites. In late June, India announced that it would "optimize space applications for military purposes," and one of its most senior military officers candidly stated: "With time we will get sucked into a military race to protect our space assets and inevitably there will be a military contest in space."

Tensions are rising on the world's oceans and key waterways. Moscow announced in June that it would dramatically expand its naval and air operations in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic Oceans, in part to back up its expansive claims on Arctic resources, but also a means to contest perceived Western encroachment on its other interests. In 2006, near Okinawa, Japan, an advanced Chinese submarine surfaced very close to the US carrier Kitty Hawk before being detected. While the consensus is that China has some ways to go before it can sustain naval operations far from its shores, the Kitty Hawk incident, as Robert Kaplan concluded: "might prove to be a better harbinger of the future than anything going on in Iraq." With naval analysts projecting a future with more "blue-water" or expeditionary navies, America's inability to sustain a 300-ship navy is worrisome.

Cyberwar is here to stay. Threats emanating from cyberspace tend to be over-hyped, but the long-term trend lines reveal some cause for concern. Senior U.S. government officials have openly discussed the large number of cyber-attacks and intrusions emanating from computers within China. In 2007, Russian hackers engaged in a massive coordinated cyber-attack against Estonia, and again this year during its operations in Georgia.

These trends are evolving in the context of an ongoing reduction in America's forward-stationed military forces in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. While there are several reasons for these shifts (e.g., changing threats, ongoing operations, technological improvements), in most cases the permanent stationing of U.S. forces has proven to be highly contentious in host nations (particularly in the Middle East). The Department of Defense's ongoing Global Posture Review has recommended a 35 percent reduction in forward-stationed military personnel and a 30 percent cut of U.S. military facilities abroad. The U.S. military will thus continue to become more reliant on an expeditionary posture over time.

Two important trends are occurring simultaneously here. First, as the US military continues to evolve toward an expeditionary posture, American hard power will become more dependent on access to, and stability within, the global commons. Second, the rise or return of multipolarity will increase the complexity and challenges associated with sustaining stability on the sea, in space, and within cyberspace. The confluence of these trends is occurring now and will continue for many years.

The architecture of the modern international system is built on a foundation of free and fair access to the global commons. While America has spent nearly seven years relearning what it had forgotten about counterinsurgency in the twentieth century, the world's emerging powers have been planning for a global role in the twenty-first. It's time we started paying attention.

By washingtonpost.com |  September 11, 2008; 10:20 AM ET  | Category:  Emerging Conflicts
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