Perspectives
Well past its unipolar moment
INTOXICATED with the conquest in the Cold War, American think-tanks and school strategists started describing their great country some times as a hyper-power and at others as an indispensable superpower. Terminologies like "new American century" and "US unipolar moment" proliferated almost overnight in the lexicon of strategic literature.
Notwithstanding these accolades, a chink in the American armour was visible when Yale professor Paul Kennedy published his treatise, "Rise and fall of great powers," wherein he argued that the US was falling into the familiar historical pattern where the combination of huge military budgets and ever-larger deficits led inevitably to the kind of "imperial overstretch" which once transformed mighty empires into shadows of their former selves.
After Kennedy's prognosis came the sudden collapse of the Soviet Union, an earthshaking event that was soon followed by Washington's decisive victory in the first gulf war with its jarring effect on the world.
This unrivalled status of America was celebrated, among others, by neo-conservatives like Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer who coined the phrase "unipolar moment." Being bolstered by the unexpected development on the global scene, Paul Kennedy also chose to revise his views by suggesting that Washington might have escaped the laws of history because, he noted, of the sheer size of the American economy, and its technological prowess and military dominance, which had no parallels in history.
Krauthammer also endorsed the fact that no country had ever been as singularly dominant culturally, economically, technologically and militarily in the history of the world since the Roman empire. Yet, what a negative difference was effected during the past five years -- by the invasion and bungled occupation of Iraq particularly!
Gone with the wind is the American dream of Pax Americana! The reference to the Roman empire at this point is more appropriate to its decline rather than to its rise and its halcyon days.
Donald Kagan has made a similar observation, a dean of neo-conservatism and Kennedy's colleague at Yale. Kagan argued that not since the Roman empire has any country had such extraordinary power as the United States after the Cold War. But the American strength is now being challenged.
This is not without reasons. There has been a major structural shift in the distribution of global powers. None can maintain -- let alone enhance -- their post-Cold War dominance. Not only have both Iraq and Afghanistan shown the world the limits of US military power, they are also exacting an increasingly fear- some toll of Washington's ability to wage war.
Echoing what Paul Kennedy argued some twenty years ago, "over stretched" is the word most aptly and frequently attached to the US military. Just as Kennedy had warned against the deadly long-term impact of budgetary deficits on empires, the Bush presidency has seen an explosion not just of government debt --currently more than $9 trillion -- but also of trade and balance of payment deficits. Much of this is, of course, due to the high price of oil and gas import -- which a growing number of experts believe has become a permanent fixture of the international economy.
The effects of global geo-economy include a much-weakened dollar, and increased reliance of both the US government and US business on foreign creditors. Among these creditors are state controlled agencies, some of which -- notably those of China, Russia -- are not enthralled by Krauthammer's unipolar vision.
If, for commercial or political reasons, any of these creditors decides to dump its hundreds of billions of dollar-dominated assets -- or if key energy exporters price their commodities in a currency other than the dollar -- the economic impact is bound to be grave.
In the meantime, a role reversal for supremacy is already underway. The military alone is insufficient in today's world to give one the right to rule the world, however much dominant it might be. Increasingly, it is economic strength, which makes countries rise and rule. For a long period of time, it was America and Europe, which produced and sold everything in the world. Now, Asian giants are making deep inroads into these areas of dominance.
The multinational structure was invented by the Americans to dominate most parts of the world through its strategy of mergers and acquisitions by simply going into another country, buying local companies and making these part of the multinational system. The turnover of these multinationals was many times more than the GDPs of smaller countries.
However, the end of the last century saw the emergence of Japanese and South Korean conglomerates as a serious threat to US dominance, while the beginning of this century saw the Indians and Chinese turning tables on the world. As a result, the degree to which Washington can slow its decline and preserve its remaining primacy will depend increasingly on its willingness to suppress its unilateralist reflexes and to take account of the perceptions and interests of others in its foreign policy decisions making.
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