Paradoxes of Power

U.S. Foreign Policy in a Changing World

David Skidmore

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781594514029
• eBook ISBN: 9781317254812
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book provides a lively and readable introduction to current debates over U.S. power and purpose in world affairs. The end of the Cold War launched a new era in U.S. foreign policy. The United States entered a period of unprecedented global power, but one also characterized by new conflicts, challenges, and controversies. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 and the subsequent U.S. military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq cast a spotlight on continuing debates over how the United States should best use its considerable international power to secure safety for Americans and stability in the world. These debates involve two crucial questions: Should U.S. foreign policy focus on securing vital interests that are narrowly defined, or should the United States seek to spread U.S. institutions and values to other societies? Should the United States exercise maximum independence in the exercise of U.S. power abroad or work principally through multilateral institutions? This book brings together many different voices to answer these questions and to add to our understanding of the issues. Contributors include: Andrew J. Bacevich, Max Boot, Stephen G. Brooks, Ralph G. Carter, Robert F. Ellsworth, Niall Ferguson, Francis Fukuyama, Philip H. Gordon, Christopher Hitchens, James F. Hoge Jr., Michael Ignatieff, G. John Ikenberry, John B. Judis, Robert Kagan, Charles Krauthammer, Christopher Layne, Michael Mandelbaum, Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Minxin Pei, PEW Center for the People and the Press, Jeffrey Record, Paul W. Schroeder, Todd S. Sechser, Dimitri K. Simes, Stephen M. Walt, The White House, William C. Wohlforth

I

U.S. Dominance and Its Limits

OVERVIEW

Few analysts dispute the fact that America’s current military, technological, and economic resources dwarf those of any other country in the world today. Surveying the vast concentration of global power in American hands, Stephen G. Brooks and William C. Wohlforth comment that “if today’s American primacy does not constitute unipolarity, then nothing ever will.”

Yet disagreement remains over several important questions surrounding the issue of American dominance: Which sources of power—military, economic, or cultural—will prove most salient in coming decades? What are the limits of American power, or, in other words, what kinds of problems are beyond the ability of even the United States to resolve? Will other countries find American power so threatening that they form balancing coalitions designed to check the United States? How long before one or more rising powers manage to narrow the gap with the United States?

The readings contained in this section offer a range of views on these questions and others. Brooks and Wohlforth are the most bullish on the staying power of American dominance. The comprehensive nature of American power and the size of the gap between the United States and its nearest competitors ensure that the United States will enjoy a long period of primacy. Brooks and Wohlforth dismiss the idea that other states might combine in a balancing coalition against the United States. The geographic isolation of the United States from other major powers makes American military primacy seem relatively unthreatening. Indeed, most states worry more about proximate rivals than about the United States, and some rely upon U.S. security guarantees for their protection. This further reduces the likelihood that other states will combine in an effort to contain U.S. power. Despite much international criticism of U.S. foreign policy in recent years, only China, among the major powers, seems engaged in a serious effort to upgrade its military resources, and even the Chinese buildup offers little threat to U.S. primacy. The unusual degree and stability of U.S. dominance provide U.S. policymakers, according to Brooks and Wohlforth, unprecedented freedom of choice in how to use that power.

Nevertheless, Joseph S. Nye Jr. urges caution about embracing a triumphalist perspective on American power. Despite its great military might, the United States has suffered a decline in what Nye refers to as “soft power”: the ability to influence the behavior of others through the attraction of America’s culture, values, and institutions. What many around the world view as arrogant and unilateralist U.S. behavior abroad has diminished the global appeal of the American example. U.S. efforts to counter such perceptions through public diplomacy have been halfhearted and ineffective. Nye advocates greater efforts to communicate the American message abroad, more openness to educational and cultural exchanges, greater cultural sensitivity in U.S. diplomacy, and a willingness to listen and take into account the views of other states. These measures, he argues, will enhance the ability of the United States to influence international outcomes through the employment of soft power.

Michael Mandelbaum also stresses the limits of American power. U.S. interests will be most secure in a world favorable to the spread of peace, democracy, and free markets. Yet despite its vast resources, the ability of the United States to ensure the persistence of a world order built upon these foundations is uncertain. Peace, democracy, and free markets are international public goods that depend upon the support of strong international institutions. These international institutions are costly to create and sustain, in terms of both financial resources and lost policy autonomy. States have a rational incentive to “free ride”—relying upon others to provide the necessary support for international public goods while avoiding such costs themselves.

During the cold war, the dominance of the United States, combined with the presence of a serious and sustained common threat—the power of the Soviet Union—gave American policymakers sufficient incentive to pay the lion’s share of the costs of supporting strong international institutions. With the end of the cold war, however, the United States has proven less willing to cover such costs. Indeed, the United States itself has sought to “free ride” on the efforts of others while pursuing an increasingly unilateralist foreign policy. In the absence of international leadership, the institutions necessary to the survival of a world order built upon peace, democracy, and free markets seem likely to weaken.

A second challenge Mandelbaum identifies arises from the difficulties of establishing peace and implanting democracy and free markets in societies where these institutions remain tenuous or absent. While the United States can offer a powerful example to others, democracy and free markets can only arise within a society through internal processes of change. The enormous resources available to American policymakers are insufficient to impose the Western model on societies whose people and culture are resistant. If the United States is unwilling to support strong international institutions necessary to the spread of peace, democracy, and free markets and unable to impose these conditions on societies where they do not yet exist, then the ability of the United States to guarantee international stability will remain limited in spite of American dominance.

The coming decades could also bring growing regional challenges to U.S. power in Europe and Asia. Christopher Layne argues that the growing diplomatic rupture between the United States and Europe is a predictable consequence of the end of the cold war. Although Europe chafed under U.S. domination during the cold war, European dependence upon U.S. power in order to counter the greater threat posed by the Soviet Union generally dictated deference to U.S. leadership. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, many Europeans now aspire to greater independence from U.S. control. The push to unify Europe and pool its collective resources is in part driven by this desire to balance U.S. hegemony. The potential inclusion of Russia, and perhaps even China, in a European-led balancing coalition could undermine the basis for U.S. global dominance in the coming decades.

James F. Hoge Jr. points to the economic rise of China and India as harbingers of potentially broader political and military realignments in the Asian theater. The United States has traditionally relied upon its naval strength in the region and bilateral defense treaties with Japan, South Korea, and other countries as tools for promoting stability and discouraging local security dilemmas. China’s growing economic and military power, and to a lesser extent that of India, poses new challenges to this strategy. Several regional flash points—North Korea, Taiwan, and Kashmir—hold the potential for escalating conflict while Japan and other nearby states remain uneasy about China’s ultimate ambitions. The U.S. role must be to manage China and India’s rise while dampening regional insecurities.

In short, agreement among most observers about the dominant international position that the United States presently enjoys leaves plenty of room for disagreement about the relative salience of different forms of power, the relevance of American power for ensuring a favorable international order, and the likelihood that other powers will close the gap with the United States over time. Most important, the authors represented here each raise, in somewhat different ways, the following question: How will the choices made by American policymakers over how to wield U.S. power affect the future position of the United States and the prospects for international peace and stability? This important question lies at the heart of the debates featured in subsequent parts of this book.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. What measures are most important in measuring the distribution of power among the world’s leading states? How can we assess the relative significance of military, economic, and cultural sources of international influence?

2. How do other countries view American dominance? Is U.S. power viewed as relatively benign or as potentially threatening?

3. Why have other powers been slow to form military balancing coalitions in order to counter U.S. dominance? What other options do states possess for resisting U.S. power?

4. What is “soft power” and why does Joseph Nye believe that its significance is rising? How do the foreign policy choices that U.S. leaders make affect the ability of the United States to successfully exercise soft power?

5. Is it possible to foresee a day when one or more countries will close the power gap with the United States? Which country or countries are most likely to challenge U.S. dominance? How should the United States respond to the rising power of other states?

SUGGESTED READINGS

Ikenberry, G. John, ed. America Unrivaled: The Future of the Balance of Power. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2002.

Kapstein, Ethan B., and Michael Mastanduno, eds. Unipolar Politics: Realism and State Strategies after the Cold War. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999.

Kupchan, Charles. The End of the American Era: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Geopolitics of the Twenty-first Century. New York: Knopf, 2002.

Mearsheimer, John J. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. New York: Norton, 2001.

Nye, Joseph S., Jr. The Paradox of American Power: Why the World’s Only Superpower Can’t Go It Alone. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

1

American Primacy in Perspective

Stephen G. Brooks and
William C. Wohlforth

FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH

More than a decade ago, political columnist Charles Krauthammer proclaimed … the arrival of what he called a “unipolar moment,” a period in which one superpower, the United States, stood clearly above the rest of the international community. In the following years the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia’s economic and military decline accelerated, and Japan stagnated, while the United States experienced the longest and one of the most vigorous economic expansions in its history. Yet toward the close of the century readers could find political scientist Samuel Huntington arguing … that unipolarity had already given way to a “uni-multipolar” structure, which in turn would soon become unambiguously multipolar. And despite the boasting rhetoric of American officials, Huntington was not alone in his views. Polls showed that more than 40 percent of Americans had come to agree that the United States was now merely one of several leading powers—a number that had risen steadily for several years.

Why did the unipolarity argument seem less persuasive to many even as U.S. power appeared to grow? Largely because the goal posts were moved. Krauthammer’s definition of unipolarity, as a system with only one pole, made sense in the immediate wake of a Cold War that had been so clearly shaped by the existence of two poles. People sensed intuitively that a world with no great power capable of sustaining a focused rivalry with the United States would be very different in important ways.

But a decade later what increasingly seemed salient was less the absence of a peer rival than the persistence of a number of problems in the world that Washington could not dispose of by itself. This was the context for Huntington’s new definition of unipolarity, as a system with “one superpower, no significant major powers, and many minor powers.” The dominant power in such a system, he argued, would be able to “effectively resolve important international issues alone, and no combination of other states would have the power to prevent it from doing so.” The United States had no such ability and thus did not qualify.

The terrorist attacks last fall appeared to some to reinforce this point, revealing not only a remarkable degree of American vulnerability but also a deep vein of global anti-American resentment. Suddenly the world seemed a more threatening place, with dangers lurking at every corner and eternal vigilance the price of liberty. Yet as the success of the military campaign in Afghanistan demonstrated, vulnerability to terror has few effects on U.S. strength in more traditional interstate affairs. If anything, America’s response to the attacks—which showed its ability to project power in several places around the globe simultaneously, and essentially unilaterally, while effortlessly increasing defense spending by nearly $50 billion—only reinforced its unique position.

If today’s American primacy does not constitute unipolarity, then nothing ever will. The only things left for dispute are how long it will last and what the implications are for American foreign policy.

PICK A MEASURE, ANY MEASURE

To understand just how dominant the United States is today, one needs to look at each of the standard components of national power in succession. In the military arena, the United States is poised to spend more on defense in 2003 than the next 15–20 biggest spenders combined. The United States has overwhelming nuclear superiority, the world’s dominant air force, the only truly blue-water navy, and a unique capability to project power around the globe. And its military advantage is even more apparent in quality than in quantity. The United States leads the world in exploiting the military applications of advanced communications and information technology and it has demonstrated an unrivaled ability to coordinate and process information about the battlefield and destroy targets from afar with extraordinary precision. Washington is not making it easy for others to catch up, moreover, given the massive gap in spending on military research and development (R&D), on which the United States spends three times more than the next six powers combined. Looked at another way, the United States currently spends more on military R&D than Germany or the United Kingdom spends on defense in total.

No state in the modern history of international politics has come close to the military predominance these numbers suggest. And the United States purchases this preeminence with only 3.5 percent of its GDP. As historian Paul Kennedy notes, “being Number One at great cost is one thing; being the world’s single superpower on the cheap is astonishing.”

America’s economic dominance, meanwhile—relative to either the next several richest powers or the rest of the world combined—surpasses that of any great power in modern history, with the sole exception of its own position after 1945 (when World War II had temporarily laid waste every other major economy). The U.S. economy is currently twice as large as its closest rival, Japan. California’s economy alone has risen to become the fifth largest in the world (using market exchange-rate estimates), ahead of France and just behind the United Kingdom.

It is true that the long expansion of the 1990s has ebbed, but it would take an experience like Japan’s in that decade—that is, an extraordinarily deep and prolonged domestic recession juxtaposed with robust growth elsewhere—for the United States just to fall back to the economic position it occupied in 1991. The odds against such relative decline are long, however, in part because the United States is the country in the best position to take advantage of globalization. Its status as the preferred destination for scientifically trained foreign workers solidified during the 1990s, and it is the most popular destination for foreign firms. In 1999 it attracted more than one-third of world inflows of foreign direct investment.

U.S. military and economic dominance, finally, is rooted in the country’s position as the world’s leading technological power. Although measuring national R&D spending is increasingly difficult in an era in which so many economic activities cross borders, efforts to do so indicate America’s continuing lead. Figures from the late 1990s showed that U.S. expenditures on R&D nearly equaled those of the next seven richest countries combined.

Measuring the degree of American dominance in each category begins to place things in perspective. But what truly distinguishes the current international system is American dominance in all of them simultaneously. Previous leading states in the modern era were either great commercial and naval powers or great military powers on land, never both. The British Empire in its heyday and the United States during the Cold War, for example, each shared the world with other powers that matched or exceeded them in some areas.…

Today, in contrast, the United States has no rival in any critical dimension of power. There has never been a system of sovereign states that contained one state with this degree of dominance. The recent tendency to equate unipolarity with the ability to achieve desired outcomes single-handedly on all issues only reinforces this point; in no previous international system would it ever have occurred to anyone to apply such a yardstick.

CAN IT LAST?

Many who acknowledge the extent of American power, however, regard it as necessarily self-negating. Other states traditionally band together to restrain potential hegemons, they say, and this time will be no different. As German political commentator Josef Joffe has put it, “the history books say that Mr. Big always invites his own demise. Nos. 2, 3, 4 will gang up on him, form countervailing alliances and plot his downfall. That happened to Napoleon, as it happened to Louis XIV and the mighty Hapsburgs, to Hitler and to Stalin. Power begets superior counterpower; it’s the oldest rule of world politics.”

What such arguments fail to recognize are the features of America’s post–Cold War position that make it likely to buck the historical trend. Bounded by oceans to the east and west and weak, friendly powers to the north and south, the United States is both less vulnerable than previous aspiring hegemons and also less threatening to others. The main potential challengers to its unipolarity, meanwhile—China, Russia, Japan, and Germany— are in the opposite position. They cannot augment their military...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• Part I U.S. Dominance and Its Limits
• Part II An American Empire?
• Part III Strategic Choice: Unilateralism or Multilateralism?
• Part IV Attitudes toward American Power at Home and Abroad
• Part V Case Studies in U.S. Grand Strategy: The War against Terrorism and the Invasion of Iraq
• Conclusion
• Credits
• About the Editor and Contributors