Haass: Condemning Aggression Is Not a Defence Guarantee

Not peace at any price

In Chapter 9, Thwarting Thucydides, Haass tries to reconcile two demands. The United States should deter Russian and Chinese aggression without turning the whole relationship with either country into confrontation. He explicitly warns that avoiding confrontation at all costs would amount to appeasement and encourage the rival’s ambitions.

The chapter therefore contains more than caution. Haass advocates a local military presence, exercises and stronger allied capabilities. Cooperation is meant to coexist with a credible signal that coercion will not pay. Quoting the proposed membership pause without that context would conceal an important part of the argument.

The opening of the next chapter, World Order 2.0, supplies a normative boundary. Haass argues that sovereignty must remain central to order and that violating borders through military force, as in Ukraine, increases danger and instability. His proposal to add obligations towards other states to sovereign rights does not abolish that rule.

Where the policy choice begins

The NATO recommendation in Chapter 9 is specific. In Haass’s assessment at the time, neither Ukraine nor Georgia met the alliance’s requirements; moving ahead could further alienate or provoke Russia and add military commitments the United States was not in a position to fulfil. He recommends meeting existing obligations before assuming new ones.

That is his strategic assessment, not a conclusion automatically produced by the treaty. Article 10 of the North Atlantic Treaty provides for inviting other European states by unanimous agreement of the parties and under the conditions it sets out. It establishes a procedure; it does not instruct the alliance to pause enlargement.[1]

The decision rule can therefore be checked separately from the argument for postponement. Likewise, taking Russia’s reaction into account in a strategic calculation is not the same as finding a separate Russian veto written into the treaty.

A norm does not turn itself into a commitment

This distinction does not require accepting Haass’s entire theory. Article 2(4) of the UN Charter prohibits the specified threat or use of force against a state’s territorial integrity or political independence; Article 51 recognises the right of individual or collective self-defence.[2]

That is a different level from a particular alliance undertaking. Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty concerns an armed attack against its parties and assistance through such action as each party deems necessary, including armed force. Even here, the wording does not prescribe an identical automatic military response by everyone.[1]

The distinction does not make violating borders permissible. It shows why support for a principle cannot, without examination, be treated as equivalent to a specific defence treaty. That is the gap Haass’s recommendation leaves open: defend the norm, but do not assume a particular new commitment.

His audience here is Washington. The question is framed around which promises the United States can reliably fulfil and what risks it should accept. A Ukrainian reader needs an additional question: what does that restraint mean for the state remaining outside the relevant alliance commitment? The American calculation does not exhaust that state’s security interests.

The useful reading route is therefore not a single provocative sentence but the whole of Chapter 9, comparing deterrence, cooperation and restraint. Then read the opening of Chapter 10, where Haass defines the normative boundaries of his order. This makes it possible to assess his argument without mistaking a 2017 recommendation for a current NATO decision, or condemnation of aggression for a defence guarantee.

This essay examines a specific argument in the 2017 edition. It does not assess all the book’s forecasts or present-day security arrangements.

Sources

[1] https://www.nato.int/en/about-us/official-texts-and-resources/official-texts/1949/04/04/the-north-atlantic-treaty — The North Atlantic Treaty (1949) [2] https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/full-text — Charter of the United Nations — full text [3] https://static.cfr.org/sites/default/files/pdf/A_World_in_Disarray_Teaching_Notes.pdf — Council on Foreign Relations — A World in Disarray teaching notes