The US ”Offshore Balancing” and the case of Greece: America has security commitments to Athens

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By ALEXANDER DRIVAS, Strategic Analyst

The US foreign policy is at a crossroads. It is not only the submissive picture that the US has already shown us. It is entirely something else that we should get used to from now on.

The US foreign policy embraces Realpolitik and maybe Henry Kissinger will be happy about that. For almost three decades, the US officials tried to approach the world as it was in each decade, but little progress has been made.

• We owe to the truth to mention that Secretary Pompeo was the first Secretary that achieved to grasp the complexity of the current international status quo and to clarify the American interests. In other words, Americans didn’t withdraw from the world because it simply can’t do so. The US interests are global and its internal harmony depends on what happens in the world.

The American withdrawal from Afghanistan was less important than the withdraw from the ”US Adventurism” and the fallacy that has been bleeding American foreign policy for at least three decades. The ”superiority over everyone” is not workable, and the US is now understanding that the so-called ”primus inter pares” logic is accurate and holds full of feasibility.

A few days ago, on ”The National Interest” website, David T. Pyne published a significant article about how the US could deter the rise of China and the geostrategic renaissance of Russia. Amongst others, he points out that ”U.S. leaders must discard their idealistic misconception of a safe and secure unipolar world in which the United States is universally recognized as the most powerful superpower.

The reality is entirely different. America now faces increasingly stark, limited, and uncomfortable choices, and is in desperate need of a new, forward-thinking grand strategy that counters, divides, and disrupts this burgeoning alliance between two nuclear superpowers.” To conduct an indirect strategy, the US officials should adopt the Kenan’s attitude of selective engagement. As Afghanistan proved, America can’t be everywhere.

Signs of that accurate American shift could be found not only in Southeastern Asia but in the Mediterranean as well. Washington is thirsty to find new security hubs and one of those is in Greece.

There is a correlation between selective engagement and offshore balancing. The US has to allocate again its footprint in every region. The Mediterranean Sea is of vital importance for American interests because China and Russia have augmented their presence. Black Sea is also a sea of challenges and high stakes for the US. In the Eastern Mediterranean and MENA, Washington has to reaffirm its commitment to Israeli security.

• Turkey is no longer behaving like an American ally and Turkish-Israeli relations are restrained because of Turkish militarization of its foreign policy and the anti-Semitic rhetoric that usually AKP officials express against Israel.
• Greece is a necessity for Israeli security and the US aims to use Greece as a pivotal state in order to protect the American interests in the wider region (in the Eastern Mediterranean, MENA, Black Sea, and in the Balkans).

Greece and the USA signed an updated defensive agreement (Mutual Defence Cooperation Agreement). According to the agreement, the USA could enjoy four military facilities and bases in Greece (Suda Bay, Stefanovikeio, Larisa, and Alexandroupoli’s Port) for 5 years and that means that Greece is turning to a security hub for the USA.

The strategic location of the Greek military facilities allows the USA to connect militarily the Balkans and the Black Sea with Eastern Mediterranean and MENA. The presence of the USA in the wider Mediterranean region becomes bolder while in other parts of the planet, the American withdrawal provokes insecurity in many states. But again, selective engagement means that the US could not be the sheriff of the entire world. Greece is located among three continents and is the junction that connects the three continents.

The Greek value for the US has gained points since the MENA is again a region full of conflicts, tensions, and instability. Frankly, Washington has few stable and devoted allies in the Eastern Mediterranean. Greece has also signed a critical security agreement with France and that means that the American offshore balancing in the Mediterranean Sea couldn’t exclude Paris, which is definitely the major Mediterranean power.

The logic behind the new look of American foreign policy is to use pivotal states in order to be the representatives of the US interests, as long as the Americans should focus on the Indo-Pacific Ocean. Pivot to Asia has been put in a new framework after the AUKUS and QUAD. Stakes are higher in the Indo-Pacific, but the logic is like America’s Mediterranean role.

The United Kingdom is in search of a new role in the after-Brexit era. Australian foreign policy tries to avoid the Chinese debt trap and India has been disturbed by the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative, which, from New Delhi’s view, encircles India with the separate economic corridor between China and Pakistan (CPEC).

• In conclusion, the international role of the US is redefining because of the structural change in international politics. The keywords that are necessary to refer to in order to fully describe the US foreign policy are ”retrenchment”, ”selective engagement” and ”offshore balancing”..

Αs Pyne stresses ” Further, the United States has security commitments with over one-fifth of all countries, leaving its military seriously overextended. ”Following the imperatives that flow from those keywords, the US officials could avoid the miscalculations of the past and foremost, the trap of overstretching that could oblige the US to abolish its relative dominance in contemporary world politics.

The alliances with key states in every region would fortify the pleasant possibilities for the US regarding its maintenance as the dominant force in the rest of the 21st century as ”primus inter pares”

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