Ten months after Luce published his essay, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and the United States, which had already been aiding the Allies, officially entered the war. Over the next four years, a broad swath of the foreign policy elite arrived at Luce’s conclusion: the only way to guarantee the world’s safety was for the United States to dominate it. By war’s end, Americans had accepted this righteous duty, of becoming, in Luce’s words, the powerhouse… lifting the life of mankind from the level of the beasts to what the Psalmist called a little lower than the angels
. The American Century had arrived.
Furthermore, liberal internationalists’ democracy-first strategy assumes a Manichaean model of geopolitics that is both inconsistent and counterproductive. For all their crowing about democracy, liberal internationalists have been just fine collaborating with dictatorships, from Saudi Arabia to Egypt, when it has served perceived U.S. interests. This will probably remain true, making any kind of democracy-first strategy a primarily discursive one. Nonetheless, discursively centering democracy could have drastic repercussions. Dividing the world into “good” democracies and “bad” authoritarian regimes narrows the space for engagement with many countries not currently aligned with the United States. Decision-makers who view autocracies as inevitable opponents are less likely to take their interests seriously and may even misread their intentions. This happened repeatedly in the Fifties and Sixties, when U.S. officials insisted that the very nature of the Soviet system made it impossible to reach détente. In fact, détente was only achieved in the Seventies, after decision-makers concluded that the Soviet Union was best treated as a normal nation with normal interests, regardless of its political structure. Once Americans adopted this approach, it became clear that the Soviets, like them, preferred superpower stability to nuclear war.
Daniel BessnerSlightly amusing how the author himself acknowledges towards the end that the restrainers do not enjoy popular support for their proposed policies, instead in early 2020 91 percent of American adults thought that the U.S. as the world’s leading power would be better for the world
, up from 88 percent in 2018.
The article lays out several thoughtful arguments though, some of which are regularly being discussed among the people I follow on Twitter. Take the framing of ‘democracies versus autocracies’ for example: despite being a favorite talking point of President Biden – and Speaker Pelosi on her recent trip to Taiwan – actions contradict it significantly. Just a couple of weeks earlier, Biden made an official visit to Saudi Arabia and met Crowne Prince Mohammed bin Salman to negotiate an increase in oil output following the shortage caused by the Russian invasion in Ukraine and Western sanctions. Economic and security interests outweighed human rights and governance concerns (unfortunately a visit with few concrete results). On the same lines, it’s entirely conceivable that the US will reopen channels of communication with Russia – and even Putin – despite their brutal invasion and coercive tactics with food and energy supplies, when more pressing matters would require it, such as an imminent Chinese attack on Taiwan.
U.S. foreign policy often builds like a runaway bowling ball. An idea gets rolling, develops uncontrollable momentum, and then, before anyone has really evaluated the idea's merit, it's knocking over everything.
— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) August 31, 2022
1/ This could be happening today on Taiwan policy. Let me explain:
This constant disconnect between rhetoric and actions is actively undermining trust in the US elsewhere around the world – call it hypocrisy, or more politely, double standards. Another minor example that comes to mind is how differently the US treats foreign governments targeting journalists. After Mohammed bin Salman ordered the murder of Mohammed bin Salman, the current US administration nearly cut ties with him for almost two years; yet when the Israeli military shot and killed Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh (an American citizen as well I might add), there was barely any reaction towards Israel. Is anyone supposed to believe that the US is promoting and protecting press freedom around the world? Perhaps they do, but it’s a long way down their list of priorities…
When it comes to the benefits that ordinary Americans received from their empire, it’s similarly difficult to defend the historical record. It’s true that in the three decades after World War II, armed primacy ensured favorable trade conditions that allowed Americans to consume more than any other group in world history (causing incredible environmental damage in the process). But as the New Deal gave way to neoliberalism, the benefits of supremacy attenuated. Since the late Seventies, Americans have been suffering the negative consequences of empire—a militarized political culture, racism and xenophobia, police forces armed to the teeth with military-grade weaponry, a bloated defense budget, and endless wars—without receiving much in return, save for the psychic wages of living in the imperial metropole.
The more one considers the American Century, in fact, the more our tenure as global hegemon resembles a historical aberration. Geopolitical circumstances are unlikely to allow another country to become as powerful as the United States has been for much of the past seven decades. In 1945, when the nation first emerged triumphant on the world stage, its might was staggering. The United States produced half the world’s manufactured goods, was the source of one third of the world’s exports, served as the global creditor, enjoyed a nuclear monopoly, and controlled an unprecedented military colossus. Its closest competitor was a crippled Soviet Union struggling to recover from the loss of more than twenty million citizens and the devastation of significant amounts of its territory.
The Pelosi trip shows that our foreign policy debate is locked in a paradigm that's totally out of date. It's all about American willpower. It *assumes* we have plenty of power.
— Elbridge Colby (@ElbridgeColby) July 31, 2022
But the biggest issue now is we don't have enough power to do everything. So where do we focus?
Regardless of what the majority of Americans may wish, the proper question to ask is whether the US can remain the world’s leading power. Right now threats are brewing on three fronts: the proxy war with Russia in Ukraine; the deteriorating relationship with China over Taiwan, where Pelosi’s inopportune trip rattled the situation further; and the showdown with Iran over tensions in the Middle East and the years-long dance around the JCPOA. At the same time, Defense officials are worried that U.S. weapons transfers to Ukraine are reducing the Pentagon’s military readiness, and others are raising alarms about the insufficient number and output of US shipyards. In an age of renewed industrial warfare, the US seems ill-prepared to simultaneously confront three adversaries that may coordinate and assist each other against US interests.
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