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11 given the large number of U.S. military forces deployed around the world and the casualties sustained in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is easy to miss that the militarydoesmuchmorethanengageincombat.Onanygivenday,militaryengineers dig wells in East Africa, medical personnel provide vaccinations in Latin America, and Special Forces mentor militaries in southeast Asia. By doing so, the United States seeks to improve its international image, strengthen the state sovereignty system by training and equipping security forces, preempt localized violence from escalating into regional crises, and protect U.S. national security by addressing underlying conditions that inspire and sustain violent extremism. Far from preparation for major war, these activities rely on a unique blend of charitable American political culture, latent civil–military capacity, and ambitiousmilitaryofficerswhoseethestrategiclandscapecharacterizedbychallenges to human security, weak states, and nonstate actors. Furthermore, changes are informed by U.S. partners that conceive of their militaries as forces for good and not simply for combat. The United States has been slow to catch up to European governments that see the decline of coercive power and the importance of soft power today. This chapter analyzes the debate about U.S. power, explores the shift from traditional to human security challenges, and explains why weak states matter for U.S. national security. Fundamentally, this chapter offers theoretical support for the movement beyond preparation for warfare and embeds security assistance in contemporary U.S. military strategy. End of U.S. Primacy? U.S. foreign policy activism over the last twenty years has revived interest in power and the nature of security. For decades some scholars have been forecasting the end of U.S. primacy and waiting for the unipolar moment to end.1 Taken to the extreme, these behaviors can give way to a tripolar world composed of the 1 Beyond Warfare 12 Chapter 1 United States, China, and India.2 The U.S. National Intelligence Council (NIC) echoed a multipolar future in 2004 when it noted that the rise of China and India would be reminiscent of Germany’s ascent in the twentieth century, which will have profound implications on the geopolitical landscape.3 The NIC reiterated the end of unipolarity in 2008 when it reported that “the whole international system—as constructed following WWII—will be revolutionized. Not only will new players—Brazil, Russia, India and China—have a seat at the international high table, they will bring new stakes and rules of the game.”4 And China optimistically agreed in its defense white paper: “a profound readjustment is brewing in the international system.”5 These statements are largely consistent with realist theory that tends to see a great power such as the United States provoking balancing behavior by potential victim states.6 As early evidence of balancing against the United States, realists point to China’s military modernization program, Russia’s coercive energy policy, and general reactions to NATO enlargement as signs that great power competition is reappearing. Christopher Layne sees that his earlier predictions of multipolarity were premature but now predicts balancing coming from Asia.7 Xenia Dormandy suggests that China’s and India’s growing economies, developing naval capabilities, and expanding spheres of influence in the Indian Ocean are early signs that American unipolarity is waning.8 Additionally, some scholars have also noted soft balancing, which Robert Pape defines as measures that “do not directly challenge U.S. military preponderance but that use nonmilitary tools to delay, frustrate, and undermine aggressive unilateral U.S. military policies.”9 T. V. Paul sees that “soft balancing involves tacit balancing short of formal alliances.”10 For Stephen Walt, soft balancing is the “conscious coordination of diplomatic action in order to obtain outcomes contrary to U.S. preferences, outcomes that could not be gained if the balancers did not give each other some degree of mutual support.”11 For this group of scholars, the United States provoked a backlash (evidenced in the 2003 opposition to the Iraq War), and the international system will eventually return to equilibrium , bringing the era of U.S. primacy to an end. The 2009 global recession was expected to hasten the decline. The Absence of Balancing The United States cannot dominate the geopolitical landscape as colonial empires once did, but to date, potential rivals such as China, India, Russia, or the European Union are not balancing U.S. power. They either lack the resources to catch up to U.S. military supremacy or the strategic rationale to balance the United States. Robert Kagan wrote, “The world’s failure to...

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