America Has a ‘Total Security’ Problem
Trump’s calls for territorial expansion are a logical extension of Washington’s worst instincts
When the Assad regime fell in Syria, Israel wasted little time in making a new enemy. Even as a successor government was taking over in Damascus, the Israel Defense Forces marched into Syria, seized a swathe of land inhabited by thousands of civilians, and made clear that they wouldn’t be leaving any time soon. The IDF accompanied this incursion with a campaign of airstrikes on Syrian military sites that has continued well into the new year.
Israel’s decision-making may strike some observers as odd. Why, after the fall of a virulently anti-Israel regime, would the Israeli military scuttle the chances of friendly ties with its successor? After all, the new leaders in Syria have made no secret of their desire to distance themselves from Iran, Israel’s primary adversary. Many analysts on the left attempt to square the circle by arguing that Israel is just a neo-imperial state bent on territorial expansion or the seizure of natural resources such as water. But the real answer is less sinister—and more insidious. Israel has fallen into a trap that can ensnare any powerful state: the quest for total security. National leaders become convinced that they can, and therefore must, neutralize all of their potential enemies. The problem is that the aggressive moves required to pursue this goal tend to backfire, leaving the security seeker in still greater danger.
Many nations develop a case of total-security syndrome. Less than three years ago, for instance, Russia invaded Ukraine, and it had a total-security motivation for the move: to prevent Kyiv from joining NATO. Of course, Kyiv had no chance of joining NATO anytime soon, and Moscow may well have been able to negotiate a lasting modus vivendi with Ukraine and the broader West. But Russian President Vladimir Putin still went with brinkmanship and, eventually, war—moves that wound up leaving Russia bogged down in a protracted ground conflict and inspiring both Finland and Sweden to join NATO.
Yet no country exemplifies the total-security malady more acutely than the United States. Although it is flanked by two friendly neighbors and two great oceans, the United States acts as if no threat were too distant to be dangerous. Washington has spent much of the past three decades going abroad in search of monsters to destroy, waging wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and using military force in at least 20 countries. Today, its pursuit of security even includes plans for territorial expansion. President Donald Trump pledged in his inaugural address to make America into a “growing nation” by, among other things, taking Greenland from Denmark, a move that Trump says is “absolutely necessary in the interests of national security and freedom in the world.” This is the total-security mindset at work, and it can lead nowhere good. Like so many great powers in the past, the United States has failed to learn that pursuing too much security can be just as dangerous as pursuing too little. Now, its striving for total security may well accelerate the erosion of the “rules-based international order”—and perhaps even spark a great power war.