Unipolar Moments

Greg Djerijian asks whether America's "unipolar moment" is waning. The real issue here is that the unipolar moment prophesied by Charles Krauthammer in 1990 was always somewhat illusory. The true unipolar moment came not in 1990, but in 1946, when the United States enjoyed something like half of the world's economic output and a monopoly on nuclear weapons. Since that time, the long-term trajectory of US relative power had been distinctly downward. The collapse of the USSR bumped it back up, but not back to anything resembling 1946 levels and didn't alter the long run trajectory. Nor should this be a surprise -- sustaining the 1946 status quo would have been impossible and would have entailed miring the vast majority of humanity in a permanent state of economic misery. It's worth remembering that Robert Keohane's book on what happens to U.S. foreign policy After Hegemony was published in 1984 and locates the end of hegemony in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

For various reasons, by the dawn of the 21st century we'd arrived at a situation where only the United States maintained a serious capacity to "project" military power to regions distant from its borders. Nevertheless, a great many countries containing a majority of the world's people could not realistically be subjected to direct military coercion of this sort. In terms of non-military forms of power (including the coercive "hard power" of economics) the United States had long been the strongest player, but not strong enough to generate its preferred outcomes without cooperation from other major players. There's a reason, after all, while real or contemplated US military interventions during the so-called post-1990 "unipolar moment" have been concentrated in the Middle East and Africa -- these are the regions where there are no particularly strong local players so the sharp divergence in the great powers' ability to project force becomes decisive.

Comments

Jonathan Schell's "The Unconquerable World" is as good a survey as any of the situation we're in today. Schell recounts instance after instance in which seemingly superior military force was unable to resolve the situation in favor of the nation wielding it.

Posted by Chloe | October 22, 2006 2:08 PM

"There's a reason, after all, while real or contemplated US military interventions during the so-called post-1990 "unipolar moment" have been concentrated in the Middle East and Africa -- these are the regions where there are no particularly strong local players so the sharp divergence in the great powers' ability to project force becomes decisive."

Yugoslavia is now in the Middle East? Time to order a new atlas...

Posted by FMguru | October 22, 2006 2:28 PM

"real or contemplated US military interventions during the so-called post-1990 "unipolar moment" have been concentrated in the Middle East and Africa -- these are the regions where there are no particularly strong local players so the sharp divergence in the great powers' ability to project force becomes decisive."

What about Bosnia and Kosovo? Out very belated intervention in Bosnia was partly a result of the inability of Europe to act decisively. For me personally, it was these two actions that made me think liberal interventionism was possible.

Posted by RWB | October 22, 2006 2:44 PM

America achieved military dominance by delivering knock-out blows to each of its military rivals one by one, until in 1990, none remained. But as you say, America's economic strength relative to the world has been declining since WW2, which raises the problem of how to continue paying for all this.

The obvious answer is to promote a bigger and better alliance that can afford to protect the entire world. Of course that's exactly the opposite of current American policy.

About the Middle East, Yugoslavia, etc, I think America fights wars where the wars are and patrols the regions where wars are most likely to start. How else could you preserve a monopoly on military might?

Posted by Gary Sugar | October 22, 2006 4:18 PM

American "unipolar" dreams all relied on a Randy Newman scenario: dropping the Big One. Blackmail. Either pony up allegiance and obesiance or quit existing. To the extent that people like Krauthammer and Bush haven't been able to drop Big Ones wherever they damn well wanted, it's just been a win/win scenario all around. Of course, they've never released their greasy grips on wielding the nuclear "I Win" card and so haven't spent their time in power exactly productively. What to do if they don't play their "I Win" cards. Which is a lose/lose scenario all around. They all just seem to be cut from the same mold as the would be novelist who never gets beyond a first paragraph.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | October 22, 2006 4:54 PM

What is military power ever good for? Never for governing other countries, for bringing political order to them--as Bush and Baker understood and Bush and Cheney-Rumsfeld never did.

But still, until the late summer of 1991, there existed another superpower that could check the power of the United States and deter its dispatching troops anywhere it desired, even into the heartland of the Middle East. Since then, there's been none, and American arrogance and foolishness (beginning with the extension of NATO to eastern Europe) go unchecked.

In 1946 the Soviet army offset American nuclear power in the decisive theater. After 1949, Soviet nuclear power offset America's. Now America's military capability goes largely unchallenged. America spends as much on its armed forces as does the rest of the world combined, and seven times as much as its nearest national rival. To suppose that the unprecedented unipolar structure of world power is without significance or that the United States was less constrained in 1946 than it is in 2006 is wildly off the mark. Bush could not have acted so recklessly and foolishly were it not for the margin of error the unipolar structure afforded him.

Posted by Rainsborough | October 22, 2006 7:02 PM

"The true unipolar moment came not in 1990, but in 1946, when the United States enjoyed something like half of the world's economic output and a monopoly on nuclear weapons. Since that time, the long-term trajectory of US relative power had been distinctly downward."

I'm not sure I agree with that proposition.

It's my belief that we are entering a long period of American civilization (which is just a polite word for empire), and that just because North Korea has nuclear weapons, and we don't have garrisons on the outskirts of Moscow doesn't mean we aren't a unipolar power. Successful empires tend to be as seductive in their values as they are coercive. It may come as some surprise to certain western liberals, but any number of people who live in Bhutan want Baywatch reruns, and Toyota pickups more than they want the survival of their own traditional cultures. This doesn't mean we are on the precipice of "invading their countries, killing their leaders, and converting them to Christianity" or that they would convert to Christianity if we need. Successful empires tend to be multicultural; the locals keep their "household gods" (even if they drink Starbucks coffee, are increasingly tolerant of homosexual brother-in-law and women working outside the home).

As far as I can tell, the only difference between liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans on the question of empire is that the former prefer it have the cover of UN and EU approval. I fully expect to see some radical reforms at the UN, and increasing authority of international institutions, but I believe these reforms will not undercut the increasing primacy of American values in the world, and even if American corporations are kept on a shorter leash from time to time, they will continue to exert the greatest influence on the way business is done in the world, as well as continue to shape policy outcomes (including on crucial matters of trade and currency policy).

The greatest long term threats to American dominance are not so different from the greatest threats to Roman Imperial Civilization, cultural and environmental threats. I believe American Civilization will last for several hundred more years, but that a new religious movement will begin to challenge certain orthodoxies of these times (in much the same way Christianity challenged certain foundations of the Roman Empire). De Tocqueville observed more than a century ago that the weak links of American civilization were its prisons and its poor. Christianity spoke for Rome's misbegotten - lepers, widows, the insane - and the next great religious movement will speak for those left behind by American Civilization around the world: the poor, the homeless, criminals (and sex offenders; there's talk of sex offenders colonies now).

It wouldn't surprise me to find out we're already in the next age of the messiah, and it doesn't matter if he or she is some kind of divine being, only that people believe it. The next world religion will take root in the west first (where the decay of social cohesion is most advanced), and eventually most of the world will convert. (At first it will be dismissed by secularists as crackpot, and evangelicals as satanic.) But it will become the basis of a new world (and ultimately interplanetary) civilization (western in orientation), and eventually bring a new golden age of culture and philosophy. These are cynical times. It won't always be this way.

Posted by Linus | October 22, 2006 8:21 PM

Linus, the definition of empire you're using here is so broad as to be useless. Basically you use empire to mean any powerful country. Empires are based primarily on coercion. Rome's colony-cities may have tried to work within the framework of Roman citizenship during the Social Wars, but that was only after they had already been conquered and working within the Roman framework of subservience (booty, providing troops, etc.). Such empires were only attractive in a world made up regional political systems: Chinese system, Roman system, Indian system, Aztec system, Ottoman system, etc.

We live now in a world system that was brought about by the post-1492 spread of the European system of nation-states into a single international system that allowed for the likes of world wars. We cannot expect to extract troops, for instance, from any country like the British could from their colonies. The European imperial powers were seen as attractive only after conquest because people needed a reason to believe there was a reason they had been conquered. The conquests themselves were brutal. The most liberal of all the European empires - Britain - killed between 40%-60% of African locals in some areas that were brought under British rule.

What much of the post-1945 system that the US helped construct has at its best acted on the basis of coercion, not consent. This is not to say the two are mutually exclusive, but claiming that the presence of coercion means that it is all based on coercion is like claiming that the presence of class conflict means history is only based on class conflict. People in Bhutan consent to watching Baywatch, which increases American soft power, which is based on consent. When your power is based primarily on coercion, that means your power is based on an imbalance in the power and quantity of arms, which is actually an expensive way of showing that you have an insufficient amount of soft power, which comes rather cheap.

What liberals want isn't just a fig leaf, but fig leaves are useful. When other nations work in consent with us primarily based on consent, it costs us little and increases our power because it is other nations that further entrench our high position of power instead of us having to do the heavy lifting. When there is disagreement, dialogue will help find the best policy - thus exemplifying democratic norms of debate leading to better policy - instead of just looking at who has the biggest nukes. The relying on the latter would mean we would have little reason to listen to others' ideas, which means we feel no problem with following self-defeating policies until it is too late. The Iraq War is a perfect example of this. Our military primacy allowed us to stupidly shoot ourselves in the foot and weaken both our hard and soft power.

Also, lumping the US at its best with the imperial powers of old is just insulting to the victims and subjects of older empires. That really is comparing apples and oranges.

Posted by Reality Man | October 22, 2006 10:47 PM

"What much of the post-1945 system that the US helped construct has at its best acted on the basis of coercion, not consent."

This should have read:

"What much of the post-1945 system that the US helped construct has at its best acted on the basis of consent, not coercion."

Posted by Reality Man | October 22, 2006 10:49 PM

"Linus, the definition of empire you're using here is so broad as to be useless."

America has more than 700 bases around the world, 24/7 patrols of a not-incidental part of the world's airspace and seas, military spending that exceeds any country on earth by multiples, de facto dominance of every political and economic international institution. Its language and culture permeate the global airwaves. Treaties are made and unmade by America. Trade agreements are made and unmade by American corporations (who continue to loot the natural resources and exploit the human resources of the developing world in a way that resembles old fashioned colonialism more than anything else). Ask yourself if any other country is truly allowed to have an independent foreign policy (this more than anything else is the defining feature of empire; local and national self-governance do not full sovereignty make).

But it could be worse. (It could always be worse.)

Our Christian bias distorts our view of Rome. Between the iron rule of Roman law, the promise of a long peace, and the riches of trade on the one hand, and warlordism, banditry, slavery and starvation on the other, many peoples more or less chose the cover of Rome's protection racket. Many peoples will choose America's too.

But as state enterprises fail, traditional cultures crumble, and urban migration continues in much of the developing world, America will begin to export not only the free enterprise system and liberal attitudes toward women and gays, but the decline of the traditional (and extended) family, rising crime, the police and prison state, callousness toward the poor.

"Also, lumping the US at its best with the imperial powers of old is just insulting to the victims and subjects of older empires."

Tell that to my Cherokee ancestors. Tell that to the families of the disappeared (dropped out helicopters) by our client regime in Cold War Chile. Tell that to the tortured in Iraq.

Posted by Linus | October 23, 2006 12:30 AM

I thought this was going to be a Clinton post.

Posted by tps12 | October 23, 2006 11:34 PM