counterterrorist strikes) not aimed at
Should America
Retrench?
The Battle Over Offshore
Balancing
The Risks of Retreat
Hal Brands and Peter Feaver
A
quarter century after the Cold
War ended, critics have renewed
their calls for the United States
to abandon its existing grand strategy,
which they contend has both cost too
much in blood and treasure and delivered
too little in terms of peace, prosperity,
and security. John Mearsheimer and
Stephen Walt make this case in their
article The Case for Offshore Balancing
(July/August 2016), which charts an
alternative course. Under their preferred
strategy, the United States would signifi-
cantly roll back the system of alliances,
the forward deployments, and the onshore
presence that have characterized its
security posture for decades. Instead, it
would husband its strength by relying on
other countries to maintain the balance of
power in regions crucial to U.S. interests
namely, Europe, Northeast Asia, and the
Persian Gulfand step in militarily only
when absolutely necessary, to prevent the
emergence of a regional hegemon. It
would also forswear long-standing
endeavors such as democracy promotion
and nearly all military interventions
(except perhaps narrowly tailored
164 f o r e i g n a f fa i r s
preserving key regional balances.
The case for offshore balancing has
superficial appeal. Its advocates claim
that under the prevailing U.S. grand
strategy, Washington has intervened
too often in faraway conflicts of dubious
importance to U.S. interests, with adverse
consequences for U.S. security and
international stability. According to this
camp, most of what the United States
has accomplished in the postCold War
eraor, at least, most of what was worth
accomplishingcould have been achieved
at far lower cost, simply by letting other
states fend for themselves. Offshore
balancers thus promise a rare win-win:
better outcomes at lower cost.
It sounds too good to be true, and
indeed, it is. Once the historically dubious
claims and flawed strategic assumptions
are corrected, the case for offshore balanc-
ing collapses. The concept may remain
popular in certain academic circles, but
it is no wonder senior policymakers have
consistently rejected it in practice.
REWRITING HISTORY
Offshore balancers argue that their
strategy represents the United States
traditional approach to global affairs,
and one that has consistently proved
effective in advancing U.S. interests.
In reality, however, U.S. policymakers
have pursued offshore balancing only
when they have been overly focused on
avoiding short-term costs, such as those
associated with overseas military deploy-
ments, and have thus been willing to
accept a high level of strategic risk.
The results have been ambiguous at best
and disastrous at worst, which is why
the strategy has so often been discarded
in favor of a more engaged approach.

In the 1920s and 1930s, for instance,
the United States pursued a version of
offshore balancing, by relying on regional
governments to uphold power balances
in Europe and East Asia. Those efforts
failed, forcing the United States to enter
World War II and launch major cam-
paigns in both theaters. After sacrificing
more than 400,000 American lives and
spending the equivalent of $4.1 trillion
today in the process, the United States
rightly discarded offshore balancing as
too costly and risky a way of defending
its interests in those regions. Instead,
U.S. policymakers committed the coun-
try to an onshore military presence that
continues seven decades later, as well
as to an ultimately successful effort to
shape the internal politics and security
dynamics of those areas.
The United States next foray into
offshore balancing, in Cold War Korea,
ended no more successfully. In 1950,
North Korean troopsresponding in
part to the U.S. withdrawal from South
Korea the previous yearoverran nearly
the entire peninsula. U.S. forces then
intervened, and, after some 36,000 U.S.
soldiers were killed and the equivalent
of $320 billion today was spent, the
United States once again shifted to an
onshore strategy, which has helped
prevent a recurrence of the Korean
War to this day.
The United States longest reliance
on offshore balancing has come in the
Middle Eastfrom 1945 until 1990 and
again from 2011 to 2014. The United
States did make brief onshore interven-
tions (notably, in Lebanon in 1958 and
again in 198284 and in Libya in 2011),
but it primarily used economic aid,
diplomatic support, covert intervention,
and arms transfers to get major powers
Should America Retrench?
such as Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, and
Saudi Arabia to defend a favorable
balance of power. Even after the
Iranian Revolution knocked out a key
U.S. partner, the United States stuck
with offshore balancing, supporting
Saddam Hussein as the price of main-
taining an acceptable balance of power
in the Gulf, while also developing the
over-the-horizon military capabilities
needed to intervene in an emergency.
It ended up having to do just that in
1990 when Iraq invaded Kuwait and
threatened to overrun crucial Saudi
oil fields, thereby threatening the
regional balance and bringing yet
another experiment in offshore bal-
ancing to a bloody conclusion.
The subsequent discovery of an
unexpectedly advanced weapons-of-
mass-destruction program in Iraq,
along with concerns over the weak
Gulf states ability to balance against
Baghdad on their own, convinced U.S.
leaders to shift to an onshore strategy,
which President George W. Bush dou-
bled down on after the 9/11 attacks
by invading Iraq. President Barack
Obamas decision to withdraw from the
country at the end of 2011 marked a
shift back to offshore balancing in the
Middle East, with the exception of
Afghanistan, on the periphery of the
region. But the rapid advance of the
Islamic State (also known as isis) in
2014 convinced Obama to commit nearly
5,000 U.S. ground troops to fight isis
in Iraq and Syria, along with thousands
more operating from air bases and ships
in the region.
In short, when leaders have tried
offshore balancing, the strategy has tended
to fail in costly ways, convincing them to
shift to a more forward-leaning approach.
November/December 2016 165
Mearsheimer and Walt and Their Critics

Thus, Mearsheimer and Walts sunny Withdrawing offshore threatens to have

claim that for nearly a century, . . . the opposite effect. It is no surprise that
offshore balancing prevented the emer- South Korea expressed nuclear aspira-
gence of dangerous regional hegemons tions when the United States gestured at
and preserved a global balance of power withdrawing its troops from the penin-
that enhanced American security masks sula during the 1970s, or that Taiwan did
a much darker reality: offshore balanc- likewise when U.S. rapprochement with
ing has succeeded only if one considers China appeared to jeopardize the United
World War II, the Korean War, the States commitment to the islands secu-
Persian Gulf War, and the rise of isis an rity. Offshore balancers may wave away
acceptable price for remaining offshore. the dangers of proliferation; given the
If this is success, one shudders to imagine destructive power of nuclear weapons,
what failure might look like. policymakers can hardly be so cavalier.
Mearsheimer and Walt further
FUZZY MATH obscure the costs of offshore balancing
Offshore balancings costs are not limited by being fuzzy about when and where
to the wars that must be fought when the strategy has been tried. They treat
regional balances collapse. There are also the decades-long commitment of hun-
the costs of maintaining those balances dreds of thousands of troops to Europe,
even when the strategy appears to be as well as tens of thousands to Japan, the
working. Offshore balancing requires the Philippines, South Korea, and other Asian
United States to become more dependent allies, as part of an offshore-balancing
on morally bankrupt regimes, subordi- strategy, rather than acknowledging it
nating all else to the narrow realpolitik to be the reverse. This flexibility allows
requirement of short-term stability. In Mearsheimer and Walt to simultaneously
the Middle East alone, offshore balancing credit the adoption of offshore balancing
tied the United States to its partnership for the Cold War peace in Western Europe
with the ill-fated shah of Iran during and Northeast Asia and blame its aban-
the 1970s and caused it to turn a blind donment for the war in Vietnam. In
eye to Saddams domestic terror, inter- reality, the opposite readingat least
national aggression, and widespread use insofar as Western Europe and Northeast
of chemical weapons during the 1980s. Asia are concernedwould be more
In both cases, the consequences for human historically accurate.
rights, as well as for longer-term regional Mearsheimer and Walt use a similar
stability, were problematic, to say the least. accounting gimmick to inflate the benefits
To make matters worse, offshore of offshore balancing. They claim that
balancing encourages nuclear proliferation. it would dramatically reduce defense
Throughout the postwar era, maintaining expenditures. But because host nations
an onshore presence has given the United usually subsidize the costs of U.S.
States leverage to restrain allies nuclear forward deployments, the savings of
ambitions while also mitigating the going offshore are often negligible.
insecurity that might otherwise have Moreover, the costs of rapidly moving
driven such countries as Germany, Japan, forces back onshore during a crisis must
and South Korea to pursue the bomb. also be considered, and those costsas

166 f o r e i g n a f fa i r s
 Should America Retrench?

in World War II and the Korean War States would remain offshore until some
can be prohibitive. The United States intervention was required, but before a
would thus save significant amounts D-Day-style invasion became necessary.
of money only if it eliminated the very Yet although the right moment for inter-
forces needed to fight its way back vening can sometimes be seen in hind-
onshore, an approach that would look sight, identifying it in real time, amid
more like full-fledged isolationism than enormous uncertainty, is far harder.
the minimalist strategy Mearsheimer Even alert and determined leaders have
and Walt propose. found it impossible to time onshore
Furthermore, the notion that off- interventions perfectly, as President
shore balancing would suddenly defuse Franklin Roosevelt discovered in Europe
the terrorist threat is wishful and even and East Asia, President Harry Truman
dangerous thinking. As the rise of isis discovered in Korea, and President
has demonstrated, terrorist groups can George H. W. Bush discovered in the
mobilize even after the United States Persian Gulf. In each case, the president
has withdrawn from a region. In fact, realized the need for onshore interven-
such groups may find it easier to operate tion, or gathered the necessary political
in the subsequent security vacuum. To consensus, only after a regional balance
be sure, onshore deployments serve as had been fundamentally disrupted or
a convenient rallying cry for terrorist overturned. Offshore balancing simply
propaganda, forming part of Osama bin offers too little margin for error.
Ladens casus belli against the United Second, Mearsheimer and Walt make
States in the 1990s, for example. But heroic assumptions about the United
as al Qaedas own propagandists have States ability to reach faraway places
made clear, other irritantsabove all, without its current network of global
U.S. backing of authoritarian Arab deployments. They would have the United
regimesalso figure prominently in States end those commitments but then
the jihadist indictment of U.S. policy. rush back if a regional hegemon appeared.
By forcing Washington to redouble its Today, the United States can indeed
support for such regimes as pillars of rapidly project combat power in the
regional stability, offshore balancing Middle East, the Pacific, and Europe,
might actually fan the flames of jihadist but only because of the global network
resentment. of bases and logistics chains developed
to maintain the grand strategy that
HARDER THAN IT LOOKS offshore balancing would jettison. Had
Not only is the case for offshore balancing the United States not had forces and
based on bad history and miscalculated bases in Europe in 1990, for example, it
costs and benefits; it also rests on several would have been nearly impossible to
flawed (and mostly unstated) assumptions. project decisive military power into the
First, Mearsheimer and Walt assume that Persian Gulf so soon after Saddams
once Washington disengages from a occupation of Kuwait. Take away an
region, it will still be easy to sense and onshore grand strategy, and you take
react to adverse shifts in the balance of away the capacity for timely force projec-
power. Ideally, in their view, the United tion on which offshore balancing relies.

November/December 2016 167

Mearsheimer and Walt and Their Critics
Third, offshore balancing assumes
that the United States can get other
countries to do more of its dirty work
simply by doing less itself. Mearsheimer
and Walt claim that the United States
globe-spanning military presence incen-
tivizes its regional partners to free-ride
and that the United States should instead
pass the buck and make its allies do as
much of the heavy lifting as possible.
But there is little reason to believe that
the United States absence would moti-
vate others to act in accordance with
U.S. interests. On the contrary, it is
far more likely that Washington can
influence other states when they are
confident about its commitment to
their security. The painful experience
in post-Saddam Iraq illustrates the case.
Although the Iraqi government never
fully lived up to U.S. expectations, it
came closest to fulfilling them during
the 20079 surge, when the U.S. com-
mitment was at its greatest. By contrast,
the Iraqis underperformed most from
2012 to 2014, when the United States
withdrew its troops.
Fourth, Mearsheimer and Walt assume
that the American people do not care
about anything other than realpolitik,
so policymakers should back the strong
est horse that will serve U.S. security
interests, regardless of the impact on
democratic norms or human rights. In
reality, Americans expect their allies
to abide by minimum humanitarian
standards, and when they fail to do
so, policymakers come under pressure
to use U.S. influence to improve the
situation. To be sure, the American
public is not willing to pay any price
and bear any burden to shape the
internal politics of other states. But
nor is it willing to turn a blind eye
168 f o r e i g n a f fa i r s
to these concerns forever, as offshore
balancing requires.
And it would not be wise to do so.
As the political scientist Tony Smith
has demonstrated, U.S. democracy-
promotion programsincluding eco-
nomic aid, diplomatic pressure, covert
action, and even the occasional military
interventionhave helped foster a
world that is more liberal and more
congenial to U.S. values and interests.
By tossing aside any concern with democ-
racy and human rights, offshore balancing
would surrender a crucial aspect of the
United States long-standing effort to
shape a favorable international order.
Finally, offshore balancing assumes
that the free flow of commerce, decline
of great-power conflict, and global
economic growth that have defined
the post-1945 world would sustain
themselves without the underwriting
of global security that U.S. power and
overseas engagement have provided.
Mearsheimer and Walt thus minimize
the positive role that U.S. grand strat-
egy has played in promoting a favorable
world order and fail to see how a retreat
would threaten that very achievement.
Why, offshore balancers seem to say,
should we bother with so much diet
and exercise when we feel so healthy?
The basic claim of the case for offshore
balancing is that it maximizes American
security and influence while it minimizes
risks and costs. Yet the opposite is closer
to the truth. If U.S. policymakers em-
braced offshore balancing, they would be
discarding a grand strategy that has led
to many of the greatest successes of U.S.
foreign policy because of a few undeniable
setbacks and replacing it with an approach
that has produced some of the United
States costliest wars.
 Perhaps someday, American power
will have eroded to the point where
the United States has no choice but
to accept those risks and retrench as
fundamentally as Mearsheimer and
Walt suggest. But until then, U.S.
officials should resist the siren song
of offshore balancing. Assistant Editor
HAL BRANDS is Henry A. Kissinger Distin-
guished Professor of Global Aairs at Johns Foreign Affairs is looking for
Hopkins Universitys School of Advanced
International Studies.
Assistant Editors to join our
editorial team.
PETER FEAVER is Professor of Political
Science and Public Policy at Duke University.
The Assistant Editor position
is a full-time paid job offering
exceptional training in serious
Mearsheimer and Walt Reply journalism. Previous Assistant

I
Editors have included recent
n The Case for Offshore Balancing,
graduates from undergraduate and
we argue that if a potential hegemon
masters programs. Candidates
emerges in Europe, Northeast Asia,
should have a serious interest in
or the Persian Gulf, Washington should
international relations, a flair for
commit resources to preserve a favorable
writing, and a facility with the
balance of power and, if necessary, fight
English language.
to defend it. If no potential hegemon is
present, however, the United States should
Assistant Editors work for one year,
remain offshore and let regional powers
starting in July or August.
uphold the balance.
Hal Brands and Peter Feaver reject
For more information about how
this recommendation and contend that
to apply for the 201718 Assistant
the United States should continue its
Editor position, please visit:
failed pursuit of its existing grand strat-
egy, liberal hegemony. But they repeat-
edly misrepresent our argument and www.foreignaffairs.com/Apply
offer a dubious account of the relevant
historyunwittingly underscoring the Applications will be due
superiority of offshore balancing. February 6, 2017.
Brands and Feaver begin by claiming
that we want the United States to remain
offshore in Europe, Asia, and the Gulf,
intervening in those regions only after
war has broken out and a hegemon is
about to win. This assertion allows them
to accuse us of wanting to roll back

169
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