Global Shepherd Isn’t Working; Let’s Go Back to Global Marshal

Global Shepherd Isn’t Working; Let’s Go Back to Global Marshal

Gary Anderson

Barak Obama has appointed the United States to be the Global Shepherd. The term ‘leading from behind” has come to symbolize his approach to international security challenges ranging from the Arab Spring to Ukraine and stretching across Asia to the China Sea. The results have been the debacle that Libya has become, a humanitarian crisis of genocidal proportions in Syria and Iraq, and a diminished trust and respect among some of our oldest and steadiest allies in the world. We have lost control of the flock and the wolves are picking off the strays one-by-one.

Americans have never been comfortable with the role of global policeman; several Republican presidential candidates reiterated that fact in the January 14^th primary debate. The fact is that since World War II we have acted unilaterally relatively rarely. Unilateral interventions such as Lebanon (1958), the Dominican Republic (1965), Haiti (1993), and Panama (1989) have averaged one per president since World War II. Most of these have been in-extremis operations to deal with fast breaking crises where there was little time to craft a coalition in order to deal with what appeared to be a situation spinning out of control.

The reality is that the preferred American method of operation has been to organize and lead coalitions; NATO, of course, is the most famous and durable of these. In areas where standing coalitions are not possible, such as the Pacific, we have crafted a series of bi-lateral relationships to deal with specific threats; the partnerships with Japan and South Korea are the most notable. Since the end of the Cold War, ad-hoc coalitions have been the norm. Some have worked better than others, but they lend an air of legitimacy that unilateral action lacks. Even in Granada, with a potential hostage situation brewing, President Reagan attempted to craft a quick coalition of Caribbean micro-states even as US forces were moving into position for the intervention.

Dr. Robert Wood, the former Dean of the Naval War College Center for Naval Warfare Studies, coined this as the “American Global Marshal” approach; he noting that, in the old west, the Marshall was usually a guy who was good with a gun and fists that other citizens would follow when a posse needed to be formed.

This approach has been particularly successful in responding to fast-breaking humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations. Because of our military overseas forward presence posture, US naval and air forces are generally the first large scale responders on scene when a massive earthquake, Tsunami, Typhoon or other disaster occurs. Because these assets also have excellent communications capabilities, it is natural for later arriving military and civilian responders to coalesce around the American force already in the area.

Such posse-like coalitions are generally meant to solve fast-breaking crisis situations ranging from simple humanitarian emergencies to countering aggression in places where standing coalitions or bi-lateral agreements do not exist. Even NATO out-of-area interventions are meant to be relatively short affairs. Such coalitions fray when the operation becomes open-ended as it did when the UN took over the nation building effort in Somalia from 1993-5 and in Afghanistan. However, when the objective is unambiguous and achievable in a reasonable time frame, such American-led “posses” can be a useful tool in restoring stability when natural and man-made crises break out.

This ability to act quickly is a primary reason why the Global Shepherd construct doesn’t work. Finding someone with the logistics power projection capability and command and control sophistication to lead a major overseas effort and get those capabilities in place can be a time consuming process. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia might, today, be under Saddam Hussein’s control if we had not reacted decisively and promptly to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 by deploying forces and forming a coalition quickly. Russia and China would probably love to step into the Global Marshal role, but they simply lack the daily forward presence, logistics, and command and control capabilities to pull it off; in some cases, those two nations may actually be the actors that the posse needs to head off at the pass.

We are likely stuck with the lead from behind Global Shepherd doctrine until January 2017; this administration is not going admit that it is wrong at this point. The next president should immediately pick up the Marshal’s badge out of the dust and assume the corresponding responsibility to lead from the front. Shepherds don’t get much respect in this century.