Do America’s Adversaries Understand America?

Commentary

In the late 1990s, I attended a meeting of senior U.S. military leaders debating how China might assess the U.S. reaction to an invasion of Taiwan.

They focused primarily on the usual wargaming strengths of both forces. One maverick officer said that they had it wrong. He said Beijing thinks we cannot handle casualties, so it will pour its efforts into sacrificing its assets to ramp up American casualties at the beginning of the conflict. The maverick said it did not matter whether this was true, only whether the People’s Liberation Army thought it was.

The way Beijing assesses Taiwan is, in part, based on its estimate of the United States’s willingness to go to war.

Moscow has to decide if Washington would come to the aid of a NATO member.

Iran and North Korea consider the possible reactions of the United States to their nuclear activities and threats in light of its relations with U.S. partners.

All of them keep an eye on U.S. elections in order to judge what Washington might do.

The November midterms will provide a great deal of material. There is a contest for control of Congress. Governors will win, and others will lose. Candidates will say they have been given mandates, and commentators will explain what the results mean for the president.

Foreign governments will reach their own conclusions, some of which will have repercussions far beyond the campaign.

What level of understanding do those governments really have of the country they are studying?

Foreign analysts can understand the structure of the U.S. government. They can examine the powers of the president, the appropriations of Congress, and the electoral map.

Yet to grasp the nature of American political culture, one has to make judgments about a people who openly challenge their leaders, argue about national interests, and, at times, suddenly alter their priorities.

A person can disagree with a president while still supporting his handling of an international crisis. Americans who oppose an overseas commitment might respond differently if their own country or a treaty ally is attacked.

Campaign rhetoric can show what the public feels at a particular moment; it is much more difficult to predict how people will act under different circumstances.

Foreign leaders should first understand what actually changes in a midterm election.

A president whose party loses seats in Congress still has considerable authority in foreign affairs. He remains able to conduct diplomacy, direct intelligence operations, and command the armed forces.

Existing law also gives the executive considerable discretion over sanctions and other instruments of national power. An electoral setback does not automatically remove those authorities.

Congress, however, can determine whether a policy has the means to succeed. Military operations require funding. Weapons have to be produced. Aid to allies has to be appropriated.

Congress can impose legal restrictions and investigate executive decisions. The Senate considers treaties and nominations. A president may retain the authority to pursue a commitment, even as sustaining it becomes much harder.

So the foreign observer has to look beyond which party wins. An adversary must ask whether support for a particular commitment crosses party lines, whether appropriations align with presidential promises, and whether congressional opposition concerns the objective itself or merely the means used to achieve it.

Governors generally have a very limited effect, especially on questions of national security. They can influence investment restrictions, purchasing decisions, and trade relationships. Their victories may also reveal something about public sentiment or elevate future presidential candidates. They normally do not alter the incumbent president’s authority to respond to a foreign crisis.

Even if an adversary understands the institutions correctly, the cultural problem remains.

How should an enemy interpret the bitterness of an American campaign? Does it mean the country is unwilling to defend its interests, or does it mean Americans disagree about who is best suited to defend them?

The United States’s opponents also try to influence the arguments they observe. Through foreign operations, they can exploit grievances, deepen distrust, and spread false claims.

The fact that they can find an audience demonstrates that they understand something about particular American constituencies. It does not prove that they can determine an election outcome, nor does it mean they can predict how the public would respond to war.

One can have a high degree of tactical skill in exacerbating division and, at the same time, make a serious strategic mistake.

History gives good reasons to take that possibility seriously.

Before Pearl Harbor, Japanese leaders had a good understanding of many elements of American industrial strength. They had also discussed the danger of a long war. Nevertheless, they proceeded with a strategy that depended in part on assumptions about American endurance and the possibility that Washington might accept a negotiated settlement. The attack instead produced a decision to fight on a scale Japan could not match.

Sept. 11, 2001, provides another example. Osama bin Laden treated the U.S. withdrawal from Somalia as evidence that casualties could weaken American resolve. He drew a broad conclusion from a particular intervention.

After the 9/11 attacks, the United States invaded Afghanistan, toppled the Taliban government, and maintained a military presence there for nearly 20 years. Since al-Qaeda also wanted to draw the United States into costly wars, this response cannot simply be described as something bin Laden never anticipated. It does, however, show the danger of assuming that one U.S. withdrawal reveals the limits of American endurance in every future conflict.

This does not mean that American determination is unlimited. The eventual withdrawal from Afghanistan shows that it is not. What an opponent has to determine is which situations produce mobilization, which lead to restraint, and how long either condition is likely to last.

That problem is directly relevant to Taiwan. Beijing has to gauge the amount of U.S. support and whether it would extend to combat involvement, accepting casualties, and major economic disruption. An influence campaign aimed at exploiting domestic American grievances cannot answer those questions.

Russia faces a related problem with NATO. Opposition to aid for Ukraine may reveal the limits of support for one particular policy. Ukraine, however, is not a member of the alliance. Opposition to Ukrainian aid does not tell Moscow how Washington would respond to an attack on a treaty ally. Confusing those two commitments could produce a very dangerous calculation.

Iran’s nuclear ambitions pose a different problem from North Korea’s existing arsenal, but both governments must judge the United States’s willingness to carry out threats, reassure allies, and accept the risks of confrontation. America has a low tolerance for anything related to weapons of mass destruction.

Election pressure may restrain a president. It may also generate demands for a stronger response. Neither outcome can simply be assumed.

There is another problem for authoritarian and totalitarian governments attempting to understand the United States. Leaders who suppress domestic opposition may have particular difficulty interpreting opposition inside a free society. In their own systems, visible dissent can signal weakness in the regime. In the United States, fierce disagreement may coexist with a willingness to defend the country.

Their own advisers may also face pressure to produce judgments that align with what the ruler already expects to hear, out of fear of reprisal or of missing out on promotion. Public propaganda portraying the United States as divided, decadent, or weak does not guarantee that private intelligence assessments will escape the same assumptions.

U.S. officials have a responsibility to reduce the danger of miscalculation. Commitments need clear objectives, credible capabilities, and enough political support to survive an election.

Strategic Ambiguity has performed poorly for U.S. presidents, and confusion about whether the United States possesses either the will or the means to act can invite a test.

The midterms will show U.S. adversaries something about U.S. politics. Whether they understand what those results mean for U.S. action is another question.

Deterrence can fail when an opponent gets that answer wrong.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.