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America's Role
What's Built Up Must Come Down

By Christopher Layne

Sunday, November 14, 1999

For most of the past 10 years, America's world dominance has been taken
for granted. In recent months, however, U.S. preeminence has been
attacked by other states--notably Germany, France, Russia, China and
India--and American policymakers have new doubts about its
permanence. In short, the foundations of America's post-Cold War grand
strategy are showing signs of wear and tear.

At the heart of that strategy is America's desire to perpetuate its supreme
global role. And why not? What could be better than being the sole
superpower in a unipolar world? The answer usually given in Washington is
"nothing." In the real world, however, this unilateral dominance--what
political scientists call hegemony--is self-defeating. In the first place,
hegemony cannot be sustained. Secondly, attempts to do so may ultimately
prove more harmful than beneficial to American interests.

Careful students of world politics know that hegemony has never proven to
be a winning strategy. History is strewn with the remains of states that have
bid for supremacy: the Hapsburg Empire under Charles V and Philip II,
France under Louis XIV and Napoleon, Victorian Britain, Germany under
Hitler. The reason for their ultimate failure is simple: When one state
becomes too powerful, other states become fearful and unite to "balance"
against it. That is, they build up their own military power and, if necessary,
form alliances to create a strategic counterweight.

Until recently, American policymakers have acted as if the United States
somehow is exempt from this pattern. But, if recent events are any
indication, this is wishful thinking.

Consider the international response to two recent developments--the U.S.
Senate's rejection of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and the
increasing likelihood that the United States will abrogate the 1972
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and deploy a ballistic missile defense system.

Russia, China and France are trying to use the United Nations to compel
the United States to adhere to the test ban and to the ABM treaty. German
Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer noted this month that Germany's
determination to remain non-nuclear "was always based on our trust . . .
that the United States, as the leading nuclear power, would guarantee
some sort of order"--and went on to imply that if America abandoned that
guarantee, Germany might have to develop nuclear capabilities of its own.
Just as alarmingly, Russia has threatened to build its own anti-missile
defenses and expand its nuclear arsenal, and in fact on Nov. 3 test-fired a
short-range interceptor missile.

Earlier this month, French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine gave voice to
fears that something must be done to rein in America. Calling the United
States a "hyper-power," he told the French International Relations Institute:
"We cannot accept either a politically unipolar world, nor a culturally
uniform world, nor the unilateralism of a single hyper-power. And that is
why we are fighting for a multipolar, diversified and multilateral world."

If the European Union ever does achieve political and military integration
and emerges as an independent strategic player in world politics, the
U.S.-led NATO action in Kosovo may come to be viewed as the catalyst
that made it happen. That conflict--fought in part to validate NATO's
post-Cold War credibility--had the ironic effect of dramatizing the striking
disparity between America's military power and Europe's.

Another alliance, one with fewer friendly ties to the United States, has
already emerged in the wake of the Kosovo action: China, Russia and
India. Seeing Kosovo as a precedent for Washington's self-declared right
to intervene in the internal affairs of sovereign states, these three countries
have increased their military cooperation--especially with respect to arms
transfers and the sharing of military technology--and, like the Europeans,
have declared their support for a "multipolar" world.

In Japan, meanwhile, there is growing support for the idea that Tokyo
needs to strengthen its military capabilities--and possibly acquire nuclear
weapons--to free itself of its strategic subservience to the United States.

These developments have not gone unnoticed in Washington. The depth of
American concern was made clear last month in a speech to the Council
on Foreign Relations by national security adviser Samuel R. Berger.
Excerpted in Outlook (Oct. 31), the speech primarily focused on attacking
the "new isolationism" that Berger said was emerging in Congress. But he
also directed some of his remarks at foreign critics of U.S. power.

Berger acknowledged that the United States is seen in Europe, Russia and
China as "a hectoring hegemon," a country that is "unilateralist and too
powerful." He did not deny or criticize the United States' dominant role.
What he tried to do instead was argue that the United States is a benign
hegemon. The United States acts not to promote its own selfish interests
but rather "for the greater good," he said, and others benefit tangibly from
America's global leadership. He said America's ideals and values legitimize
its preeminence and enable it to lead on the basis of its moral authority
rather than its military might. "Our authority," Berger declared, "is built on
very different qualities than our power: on the attractiveness of our values,
on the force of our example, on the credibility of our commitments, and on
our willingness to work with and stand by others."

It would be a mistake to think that other nations take these hubristic
protestations at face value. Much of the world does not share
Washington's belief that America is its model. Far from regarding
America's attempt to export its ideology as altruistic, they see it as a way
of rationalizing U.S. geopolitical preeminence. American pretensions of
idealism are not novel, but what is new--and frightening to other nations--is
the combination of a proselytizing ideology and overwhelming material
power.

Whether one looks at Europe, China or Russia, the handwriting is on the
wall: America's superpower strategy is triggering a geopolitical backlash
that will run counter to its interests. The ill-considered policy of NATO
expansion has heightened Russia's sense of strategic insecurity, and
underscored for Moscow the dangers of American power. America's
position on Taiwan, and its human rights policies, are regarded by Beijing
as unwarranted intrusions in China's domestic affairs. America's assertive
policy of "enlarging" the community of free market democracies is regarded
by others not as benevolent idealism, but rather as the use of ideology to
mask its will to power.

It is time to open a new debate--to get past the superpower model and
delineate a more productive U.S. role. The issue is not whether the United
States should act unilaterally, or act cooperatively with others. All states
act in their own interests. The salient point is how to define America's
interests. Some suggestions:

* Washington should encourage, and accept, Europe's emergence as an
equal--independent--actor in world politics.

* The United States should stop trying to force its values and institutions on
the rest of the world. In some cases, such as Russia, the American model
is inappropriate and has done more harm than good. In other cases,
notably China, Washington's attempt to compel ideological conformity has
made an already tense relationship worse.

* Finally, the United States should not be so quick to intervene overseas,
instead allowing other states and institutions to assume primary
responsibility for the security of regions where America's security interests
are not at risk. This is not isolationism; it is a classically realist strategy.

Some will argue that a non-hegemonic strategy will lead to increased
instability. Perhaps. But, because of its nuclear deterrent and geography,
the United States is the most secure great power in history. Moreover, one
must face reality: The sole superpower interlude of the past decade is not
sustainable. Attempting to prolong the "unipolar moment" will not work.
Paradoxically, a more circumspect America will be more secure in the
future than one assertively seeking to maintain its primacy.

Christopher Layne is a visiting scholar at the University of Southern
California's Center for International Studies and a MacArthur Foundation
Fellow in Global Security.

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