The United States and Iran may have taken a deep breath after last week’s standoff, but the crisis is far from over.
Ratcheting up conflict in the Middle East wasn’t supposed to be on the U.S. foreign policy agenda. Instead, the 2017 National Security Strategy of the United States and the 2018 U.S. National Defense Strategy have sought to refocus U.S. grand strategy on the emerging threat posed by two particular great powers: China and Russia.
Yet when NPR’s Steve Inskeep asked whether the conflict with Iran is “the best long-term strategic application of American power,” national security adviser Robert C. O’Brien insisted that “we’ve got a lot of concerns around the world and we’re watching all of them. Iran is one of those. And we’ll take care of business as it comes up.”
Will the Iran crisis distract the United States from long-term threats from great powers? Here’s what we know.
The Iran crisis could drag on
Can the United States deal with an immediate military crisis — which may turn out to drag on for a while — while still planning for and adjusting its military forces for long-term competition with China?
Elbridge Colby, one of the principal authors of the National Defense Strategy, and Wess Mitchell argue in a recent Foreign Affairs article that “engaging in a war with Iran, sustaining a large military presence in Afghanistan, or intervening in Venezuela, as some in the administration want to do, is antithetical to success in a world of great-power competition.”
As I have argued elsewhere, existing and potentially declining great powers, such as the United States, are compelled to have short time horizons — while rising powers tend to have longer time horizons. Here’s why: Existing powers that face immediate threats must address those while paying less attention to long-term and less certain threats. Rising powers recognize that their brightest days are ahead, and they welcome opportunities in the short term to bolster their long-term prospects.
China might benefit from the U.S. preoccupation with Iran
A potential conflict between the United States and Iran might pose some challenges for Russia and China, but a crisis also presents opportunities.
First, with Washington distracted, Beijing and Moscow may pursue their own interests with less concern about a U.S. reaction. Were China to act even more ambitiously in the South China Sea — or Russia to seek to expand its influence both regionally and globally — the U.S. ability to respond either militarily, economically or diplomatically might be constrained by its focus on Iran.
Second, a military conflict in Iran would have significant implications for U.S. resources, including the deployment of substantial U.S. forces. As Joshua Rovner points out, a conflict in Iran means a continuing large force presence in the Middle East — and that may make it more difficult for the United States to pivot its attention to great-power competition. Conflict in Iran may also make it even more difficult for the United States to extricate itself from Afghanistan — even if that’s what President Trump wants to do.
Third, tensions with Iran may have adverse consequences for the U.S. relationship with allies who might be useful for confronting emerging great-power threats.
America’s relations with its European allies are already strained by disagreements over the airstrike that killed Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani — as well as the bigger picture of how to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. European allies are unlikely to be willing participants in a U.S. military conflict with Iran.
Those same allies are vital to managing Russian aggression and play an increasingly important role in responding to the rise of China. Despite the president’s suggestion to expand NATO’s mission to the Middle East, such a move probably would only intensify disagreement with European allies over Iran, fray the NATO alliance further, and undermine efforts to balance against Russia.
Uncertain of U.S. strategic priorities, those same allies may pursue their own strategy toward China rather than acting in concert with the United States. In short, alienating U.S. allies over a conflict with Iran may undermine U.S. efforts to balance either great power.
But the news is not all good for China and Russia
Both China and Russia have consistently signaled their opposition to Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons, including sustaining their commitments to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action even as the Trump administration withdrew from the agreement. If a conflict with Iran encourages Tehran to accelerate its nuclear program, presumably neither Beijing nor Moscow would welcome this development.
As resurgent and emerging great powers, Russia and China will also want to guard against short-term developments that might interfere with their long-term ambitions. China is Iran’s biggest trading partner and imported $15 billion of Iranian crude in 2018. While these imports are down since the reimposition of U.S. sanctions on Iran and while China has diversified the sources of its energy imports, Beijing is most likely wary of any conflict that would disrupt global energy markets.
Moreover, China’s Belt and Road Initiative has expanded China’s presence around the world, including in the Middle East. A U.S. conflict with Iran could very well complicate China’s presence in the region, including its deepening ties with Saudi Arabia. China’s interests in both the stability of energy markets and these Belt and Road projects would contribute to Chinese concern about any conflict in the region.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has visited his Syrian allies even in the midst of the current crisis, but a heavier and more active U.S. presence in the region could complicate the pursuit of Russia’s interests. Avoiding an inadvertent conflict between the United States and Russia has been a concern in Syria, and those risks could increase with a larger U.S. military presence in the region — which would be likely if the U.S.-Iran conflict escalates.
In sum, Russia and China might benefit from a simmering crisis between the United States and Iran, but they might also prefer to avoid that simmer growing into a boil. A military conflict could reverberate in unpredictable ways, with unwelcome implications for both China and Russia.
For the United States, to the extent that the National Security Strategy and the National Defense Strategy correctly identify the most significant challenges to U.S. national security, the Iran crisis illustrates the difficulty of planning and implementing a long-term grand strategy to address those still-emerging threats.
In grand strategy, as in life, it’s hard to walk and chew gum at the same time.
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David M. Edelstein is vice dean of faculty at Georgetown College and an associate professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University. He is the author of “Over the Horizon: Time, Uncertainty, and the Rise of Great Powers” (Cornell University Press, 2017). He tweets at @dmedelstein.
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