Once, and If, the Dust Settles

Abstract

In the aftermath of the 2008 Georgia-Russia War, then US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates outlined what he saw as the contemporary strategic dilemma in the US and NATO effort to deal with a more assertive Russia. To prevent the outbreak of major-power war, it was necessary to seek out policies that did not result in either the pre-World War I or pre-World War II models of confrontation or capitulation:

The goal must be to come together and take the steadfast and prudent steps now— political, economic and, when appropriate, military—to shape the inter-national environment and choices of other powers … Our policies and responses must show a mixture of resolve and restraint … To be firm, but not fall into a pattern of rhetoric or actions that create self-fulfilling prophecies … We must try to prevent situations where we have only two bleak choices: confrontation or capitulation, 1914 or 1938.¹