CS 21 More than Ever?

I enjoyed Bryan's thoughtful argument that potential cuts to the Navy budget will force the USN to scrap CS 21, but I'm unconvinced. The first reason I'm unconvinced is that Bryan seems to be suggesting that CS 21 requires a particular force structure and shipbuilding profile, and consequently that cuts to the Navy budget will force the USN to abandon the cooperative security project. It seems to me, rather, than one of the central critiques of CS 21 is that it lacks a framework for thinking about shipbuilding and force structure requirements. Another way of saying this is that CS 21 can tolerate a variety of different force structures and sizes. Indeed, while I've long thought that the Kaplan-esque critique of CS 21 (a blueprint for naval decline) is nonsense, I'll grant that Kaplan is correct in suggesting that CS 21 could accomodate a significant reduction in US naval power. As a political scientist specializing in international relations, what appeals to me about CS 21 is its attempt to spread the costs and benefits of hegemony. The entire point of the project is that the United States can rely upon allies (and even non-allied states friendly to the current structure of international trade and commerce) to carry out many of the basic tasks associated with hegemonic stability. The concept works, I think, whether or not the USN constitutes 65%, 50%, or 35% of aggregate world naval power.

Bryan's point about the shift to from cooperative maintenance to offshore balancing would be more difficult to refute, if I believed that such a move was actually afoot. I don't; while it's true enough that the Obama administration has been more responsive than either the Bush or Clinton administrations to certain "realist" voices who are themselves responsive to the intellectual community of offshore balancers, I don't see the United States retreating from global commitments, even with an overall reduction of naval forces. I suppose that I'd like to see Bryan articulate why he think that a strategy of offshore balancing is about to be adopted by the administration, because the offshore balancers themselves don't seem to believe it. In terms of global repositioning (or even retreat, if you prefer), it seems to me that the administration wants to reduce the commitment to Iraq, and would prefer to limit the commitment to Afghanistan (although it has had trouble doing so thus far). But one can be strongly in favor of the principles that underlie CS 21 without agreeing that these commitments represent a cornerstone of US global engagement strategy.

Indeed, I'd go a step farther; the most sophisticated recent restatements of offshore balancing strategy are tolerant of the CS 21 concept. Christopher Layne's relatively protectionist conception of offshore balancing has been replaced by Eugene Gholz' much more market-friendly definition. This is not to say that offshore balancing is perfectly in accord with CS 21 (the latter still envisions missions and projects that the former), but the two are not at such loggerheads that the one precludes the other. Specifically, in my view Gholz' vision of offshore balancing requires a commitment to some of the principles of hegemonic maintenance, while eschewing others; the US should take steps to facilitate the conduct of international commerce without agreeing to the necessity to destroy or discipline bad actors such as Iran.

And so, I'd like to see some more clarity as to just why CS 21 is obsolete in an era of declining naval budgets, and I'd also like to see some more compelling evidence that the United States is on the verge of adopting an offshore balancing strategy. Until then, I'm not convinced that CS 21 is either impossible or at odds with US grand strategy.