Ukraine, the Middle East, and Taiwan are part of an unstable frontier—and require a more principled U.S. strategy.
In 2017, we wrote a book arguing that the United States faced simultaneous tests from Russia, China, and Iran. We argued that these tests, or “probes,” were occurring at the outer perimeter of U.S. power—the “unquiet frontier,” as we called it. Front-line allies, such as Poland, Israel, and Taiwan, we wrote, were tempting targets for the United States’ adversaries because of their vulnerable geography and great distance from the U.S. homeland.
Seven years later, this frontier is more than unquiet—it is in flames. On the European frontier, the largest war since 1945 is entering its third year. On the Middle Eastern frontier, Iran is using its network of proxies to wage an undeclared war against the United States and Israel. On the Asia-Pacific frontier, China is accumulating military assets to cross the Taiwan Strait.
Collectively, these moves suggest that the United States’ rivals are not only probing the firmness of the frontier adjacent to them but also anticipating a dramatic opportunity to upset the wider order that has underwritten Western security and well-being for decades. The frontier—and with it, the entire game board—is in crisis.
https://buy.tinypass.com/checkout/offer/show?displayMode=inline&containerSelector=.post-content-main%20.in-article-piano-gating-container&templateId=OTMIWLMH52WC&offerId=OFXRBX5MFCAE&formNameByTermId=%7B%7D&hideCompletedFields=true&showCloseButton=false&experienceActionId=showOfferMP4CU34PEPYI120&experienceId=EX18WC8F65D6&activeMeters=%5B%7B%22meterName%22%3A%22DefaultMeter%22%2C%22views%22%3A1%2C%22viewsLeft%22%3A0%2C%22maxViews%22%3A1%2C%22totalViews%22%3A1%7D%5D&widget=offer&iframeId=offer-1-oWJGn&url=https%3A%2F%2Fforeignpolicy.com%2F2024%2F02%2F12%2Fus-ukraine-middle-east-taiwan-geopolitics-strategy-conflict-russia-china%2F&parentDualScreenLeft=0&parentDualScreenTop=100&parentWidth=1140&parentHeight=505&parentOuterHeight=594&aid=beVmoi3WRm&customVariables=%7B%7D&browserId=lskxgts384rjhfcn&pianoIdUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fid.tinypass.com%2Fid%2F&pianoIdStage=&lang=en_US&userProvider=piano_id&userToken=&customCookies=%7B%7D&hasLoginRequiredCallback=true&initMode=context&requestUserAuthForLinkedTerm=true&initTime=3338&logType=offerShow&width=1&_qh=128ec1173f
All of this may be sobering to a generation in the West expecting the world to become an ever-expanding zone of peace. But there’s nothing new about it. Historically, the strength of a great power and the political order it embodies have been shaped by events on the frontier more than events in the relatively safer confines of the imperial interior. Rome’s great crises began on the banks of the Rhine, Danube, and Tigris. The British Empire’s moments of truth were in Natal, the Hindu Kush, and the Sudetenland.
Then, as now, moments of violent upheaval naturally prompt debates about the character of geopolitical change and the right strategies to cope with it. How should a great power manage a lengthy and distant frontier under attack? While the United States is unique in the sheer scale of military and economic power it possesses, the question is no easier than it was for past empires; U.S. power, like theirs, has limits. It is limited in quantity, by geographic distance, by domestic concerns, and by Americans’ own, often fickle political will. The United States’ predicament, in other words, is not new.
While the debate rages about how to handle what’s happening in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia, it may be worth pausing to consider the situation from a historical perspective. Short of abandoning the frontier outposts under pressure from predatory powers, great powers in the past tended to follow five basic principles for managing an unquiet frontier.
First, the frontier is a violent place where war is always possible. By definition, the frontier is a zone of competition among rivals. It is an object coveted in its own right for its strategic location, but it is also the place where colliding agendas—between powers seeking to maintain the geopolitical status quo and those seeking to revise it—inevitably play out. While it is possible to mitigate the clash through negotiations, trade, or bribes, a frontier separates powers that have deep conflicts of interests grounded in history, civilizational contrasts, or ideological differences. As a result, violence is never too far below the surface.
This may sound obvious, but it’s worth stating upfront because it runs counter to a Western conceit that lasted until the very eve of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine: namely, that old-fashioned wars of conquest don’t happen nowadays, even in historically fraught locations, because of the civilizing effects of liberal institutions or globalization—or the deterrent effect of all-powerful military technology. That’s not true and probably won’t ever be true. Violence is endemic to the frontier, and the current wars and threats in Ukraine, the Middle East, and East Asia should have surprised no one. A realistic strategy to manage violence along the frontier begins by recognizing that fact, as well as its corollary: that preserving the status quo requires an unsleeping vigilance in these distant places. No international institutions or sets of rules will prevent the United States’ rivals from seeking to expand their control over key regions in Eurasia, where Washington has vital economic and political partners.
Second, well-armed and motivated frontier states are the best deterrent on the frontier. What the inhabitants of the frontier have in common with the distant power is a desire to not see the frontier fall into the hands of a nearby bully. The distant power’s motivation is to prevent the rival from accumulating a bigger power base. But the frontier state’s motivation is much, much greater and more personal: ensuring its own survival. It has the most to lose if the frontier breaks and disgorges Scythian hordes.
This greater motivation makes frontier states the most effective source of resistance to threats against the frontier. They are the first responders, and their determination is the foundational bloc of a stable frontier. Local resolve trumps United Nations resolutions. From the standpoint of their great-power patron, it is also a very good thing to work with the momentum of locals’ desire to resist—whether it takes the form of Ukraine’s struggle to not be absorbed into a new Russian empire, Israeli defiance of Iranian plans for regional dominance, or Taiwan’s effort not to be subsumed under the Chinese Communist Party’s rule. Countries at the frontier are a source of amply motivated, effective, and legitimate resistance to their own enemies; without that resistance, the superpower patron would have to venture much more of its own blood and treasure. There may, of course, be many differences between the front-line state and its far-away patron, but at least on this core strategic point—that the frontier should not be breached—their interests naturally converge.