“A hegemon is supposed
to solve international crises, not cause them.” – Christopher
Layne, The American Conservative, May 1, 2010
Nothing upsets those drunk on
imperialist virtue than the fact it might end. Such romances with power
do have a use-by-date, going off like old fruit. Eventually, the
crippling contradictions will win through in the end. The days of the US
empire are numbered – but then again, they always were.
The recent round of spring meetings at
the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank flutter with
suggestions that American economic power is being shaded, be it by the
republic’s own dysfunction, or the emergence of other powers like
China. “People can’t be too public about these things,” argues Arvind
Subramanian, chief economic advisor to the Indian government, “but I
would argue this is the single most important issue at these spring
meetings.”[1]
This would come as a surprise for some. The various theorists on international theory, many slumming at The Weekly Standard,
form the praetorian guard of arm chair defenders of American virtue and
power. Max
Boot, writing a piece for the magazine in October 2001,
typified this by arguing that the attacks of the previous month were “a
result of insufficient American involvement and ambition; the solution
is to be more expansive in our goals and more assertive in their
implementation.”[2]
The problem is Barack Obama. They see
the Obama administration as a regime in retreat, which is the theme of
Bret Stephens near fictional work. Indeed, America in Retreat: The New Isolationism and the Coming World Disorder already
gives its readers two issues to stumble over: that there is an
“isolationism” to speak of, and that disorder would be a genuine
problem.
The first issue. For Stephens, the
Obama retreat is reflected by the choice made by the president when he
“came to office determined to scale down America’s global commitments
for the sake of what he likes to call ‘nation building at home’.”[3]
Stephens assiduously ignores the vast, expansive and dangerous robotic
reach of American power, typified by remote drone strikes, the backing
of proxy regimes and such negotiating endeavours as the Trans-Pacific
Partnership. If only the isolationism argument was true.
President Warren Harding, in 1921, is
said to have placed the US on the pathway to isolationism with his
anti-League of Nations stance, and the winding down of the post-war
military machine. “Vast expenditure without proper consideration for
results,” he warned, “is the inevitable fruit of war.” Wars, rather
than being the efficient earners for a state, were wasteful enterprises.
Avoid those security alliances that become, more often than not,
stifling and awkward embraces.
Therein was born the myth of American
insularity, one of considered geopolitical withdrawal. Such an
assessment would ignore continued US involvement in the international
financial system – as indeed, the biggest creditor economy – and its
engagement in various international organisations, including, to a
limited degree, the League itself. This was Washington without the
fangs.
But Stephens, like his colleagues of
that most myopic brand of history – the idea of empire – can see no
reason for America to retreat from anything. Take, for instance, the
adventurism in the Middle East. “There was no strategic or even
political requirement to get out of Iraq once we had succeeded in
pacifying the country.”
The efforts of such pacification
continue to linger in their destructive toll, though armchair
militarists get goggle-eyed when it comes to the empirical world.
Conservative columnist George Will was left wondering what the missing
factor was in the state building process and came to a simple, if
impossible conclusion. “Iraq is just three people away from democratic
success. Unfortunately, the three are George Washington, James Madison,
and John Marshall.”
Then comes the issue of disorder, which
takes the contractarian idea that, to achieve order in the international
system, deals must be made with hegemons, whether you want to or not.
Stability is something gained by bedding the brute across the ocean,
and smaller states need to cosy up to bigger ones with tarted up appeal.
This system of perceived order was
deemed a matter of virtue rather than good, old fashioned avarice on the
part of the great power. “By dampening great-power competition and
giving Washington the capacity to shape regional balances of power,”
argues Stephen M. Walt, “primacy contributed to a more tranquil
international environment.”[4] Tranquillity, however, remains a matter of degree.
Empires do check into the old home, get
on the non-solids and eventually die from natural causes. Yet Stephens
is cautious to suggest that, while America is in retreat, it “is not in
decline.” This is in stark contrast to others, like Christopher Lane
of the George Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas
A&M University, who sees the US as “increasingly unable to play the
hegemon’s assigned role.”
In any case, a power dedicated to
causing more mayhem than policing stability doesn’t deserve any titles
in the hegemonic department. The otherwise war loving David Frum had to
concede after Obama pushed the US into another conflict in 2011 that,
“Three wars is a lot, even for the United States.” In Layne’s final
summation, “The epoch of American dominance is drawing to a close, and
international politics is entering a period of transition: no longer
unipolar but not yet fully multipolar.”[5]
When the curtains will be finally drawn
on the act that is American empire is not for anybody to say, though the
clock ticks with its usual grinding music. The nature of its power
will continue to change, with other powers emerging from the chrysalis.
The question will be whether such a process takes place slowly, or
whether the empire ages disgracefully.
Notes:
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/
[3] http://www.weeklystandard.com/
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