Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Robert J. Lieber
Department of Government
Georgetown University
Washington, DC 20057-1034
lieberr@georgetown.edu
Prepared for delivery at the 2010 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association,
Washington, DC, September 4, 2010
Draft: 8/25/10
By Robert J. Lieber
Since World War II the United States has been the preeminent actor in world affairs. Its
status at the end of that conflict, role in creating postwar international institutions, leadership in
the reconstruction of Europe and Japan, and dominant status within the Western alliance during
the Cold War are well known and beyond dispute. With the collapse of the Soviet Union,
America emerged as the lone superpower. Some two decades later, however, in a very different
international environment, its position of both absolute and relative power appears to have
changed significantly. As a result, many scholars and strategists now contend that the United
States is in decline. They argue that Americas economic, structural, political and even military
vulnerabilities are causing the erosion of national capabilities. Meanwhile, the rise of important
regional actors, especially Brazil, Russia, China, and India (the BRICs), as well as others such as
South Africa, Turkey, Iran, and the increasingly prosperous and dynamic countries of East and
Southeast Asia, are said to be seriously diminishing the primacy of the U.S. in world affairs. But
is this assessment accurate?1 The ability of the United States to maintain its staying power is a
The arguments in this paper are foreshadowed in my article, Persistent Primacy and the
Future of the American Era, International Politics (London), Vol. 46, No. 2/3 (March 2009):
question of immense importance, not only in terms of national interest, but because America
plays a unique role as the worlds principal provider of public goods. 2
The question to be addressed here is whether the U.S. any longer possesses the capacity
to maintain such a role. Two propositions are widely asserted by those who see the ebbing of
American predominance: first that America itself as a society, economy and a political power, is
in decline, and second that its international primacy is eroding as a result of the rise of other
countries.
On the domestic front, the effects of an extraordinary financial crisis, an unprecedented
national debt and deficit, yawning balance of trade and payments deficits, the escalating costs of
entitlement programs, and an aging and overloaded infrastructure lead a prominent financial
journalist to foresee the beginning of the end not just of an illusory unipolar moment for the
US, but of western supremacy in general and of Anglo-American power, in particular.3 And a
widely quoted public intellectual, though ambivalent about the future, warns that America has
pp. 119-139; and in Falling Upwards: Declinism, The Box Set, World Affairs, V. 171, N. 1
(Summer 2008).
2
In a previous book, I argued that the threat from militant Islamism and terrorism, the weakness
of international institutions in confronting the most urgent and deadly problems, and the unique
position of the United States made a grand strategy of superpower engagement a logical
adaptation to the realities of the post-9/11 world. See The American Era: Power and Strategy
for the 21st Century (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005 and 2007).
3
Martin Wolf, How the Noughties were a Hinge of History, Financial Times, December 23,
2009.
become an enfeebled superpower4 and embellishes his case by observing that the worlds
tallest Ferris wheel is now in Singapore and the largest casino in Macao.
As for the international arena, many scholars and pundits maintain that serious balancing
has already begun. The historian Paul Kennedy, after a hiatus in which he had seemed to set
aside his earlier declinist admonitions has returned to his original theme, writing that American
Power is on the Wane, and explaining that [W]hile todays Russia, China, Latin America,
Japan and the Middle East may be suffering setbacks, the biggest loser is understood to be Uncle
Sam.5 Similarly a respected academic writes that, The epoch of American dominance is
drawing to a close.6 A widely cited National Intelligence Council Report, Global Trends 2025,
foresees domestic constraints and the rise of foreign powers leading to a global multipolar
world.7 And a former president of the Council on Foreign Relations asserts that, The United
Fareed Zakaria, The Rise of the Rest, Newsweek, May 3, 2008; The Post American World
(NY: Norton, 2008), pp. 48, 217; and Enfeebled superpower: how America lost its grip, The
Sunday Times (London), June 22, 2008.
5
Paul Kennedy, American Power is on the Wane, Wall Street Journal, January 14, 2009, p.
A13. Also see Francis Fukuyama, The Fall of America, Inc., Newsweek, October 13, 2008.
6
Christopher Layne, Graceful Decline: The End of Pax Americana, The American
National Intelligence Council, Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World (Washington, DC:
States is declining as a nation and a world power.8 They and others argue that the rise of
China and India, the recovery of Putins Russia and the expansion of the European Union (albeit
recently in the throes of a Euro crisis) signal a profound shift in global power.9
Leslie H. Gelb, Necessity, Choice, and Common Sense, Foreign Affairs, May/June 2009, p.
56.
9
E.g., Christopher Layne, The Unipolar Illusion Revisited, International Security, Vol. 31,
No 2 (Fall 2006); T.V. Paul, Soft Balancing in the Age of U.S. Primacy, International
Security, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Summer 2005): 46-71; Robert Pape, Soft Balancing against the United
States, loc cit: 7-45; Stephen M. Walt, Taming American Power (NY: Norton, 2005).
10
11
Quoted in Neil MacFarquhar, ACan=t Live With; Can=t Live Without,@ New York Times,
To Paris, U.S. Looks Like a 'Hyperpower' New York Times, February 5, 1999.
31% in 2008 to 63% in 2010 and in France from 42% to 73%.13 Results in Asia and Latin
America were also positive. Although Obamas ambitious outreach to Arab and Muslim
populations gained him some personal approval there in the 2009 surveys, by the spring of 2010,
the Pew polls showed his personal support eroding in every Middle Eastern Muslim country in
which a poll took place. Moreover, despite the Obama initiatives the same populations exhibited
highly negative views toward America itself, with only 21% in Jordan, and just 17% in Egypt,
Turkey and Pakistan expressing positive views.14
Daunting foreign policy challenges have confronted the president and his administration,
in particular a costly and difficult counterinsurgency war in Afghanistan and a still to be
concluded commitment in Iraq which stretch military resources. The leaders of Iran and North
Korea vilify America and frustrate policies aimed at halting their nuclear programs. Brazil and
Turkey, the latter a long-time member of NATO though now an ally in name only, embrace
Ahmadinejad and break ranks over Iran sanctions.
Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and an earnest but misplaced assumption about the importance of
13
Pew Global Attitudes Project, Obama More Popular Abroad Than at Home, Global Image of
U.S. Continues to Benefit, June 17, 2010, http://pewglobal.org/files/pdf/Pew-Global-AttitudesSpring-2010-Report.pdf; and Confidence in Obama Lifts U.S. Image Around the World.
Released July 23, 2009 http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=264. Also see
Transatlantic Trends, Key Findings 2009, German Marshall Fund of the U.S., June 2009,
www.transatlantictrends.org/trends.
14
Results from the 2010 Pew Research Center poll, U.S. Favorability Rating, question Q7a;
also Q34a, Muslim Views of Obama. Interviews conducted April 7-May 8, 2010.
linkage (the belief that this issue holds the key to virtually every other crisis in the region) has
proved counterproductive and has retarded rather than advanced the peace process. Russia and
China have asserted themselves regionally and in the UN Security Council. And the difficulties
of crafting a new international financial architecture capable of coping with the realities of a
truly global economy remain unresolved. Here the question arises of whether the intractability
of such issues in themselves limits Americas ability to play its accustomed international role, or
whether policymaker perceptions, preferences and policy choices are as much or more at issue.
Without a doubt, the United States confronts serious problems at home and abroad.
Nonetheless, recent declinist arguments carry an unmistakable echo of the past. Antecedents of
these views were apparent in the 1970s, 80s and 90s, and on occasion even in identical
language, 15 but declinist proclamations have appeared on and off since the late 18th Century.
For example, writing in 1797, the French ultra-conservative Joseph de Maistre derided the young
American republic, emphasizing its symptoms of weakness and decay.16 A late eighteenth
century French scientist of that era, the prominent and widely-read George Louis Buffon, even
made a natural science argument for the inferiority of the new world including its plants,
animals, and people. Though he had never traveled to America, he insisted that its dogs failed to
bark, its birds didnt sing, and by implication that its people were weaker and less intelligent. At
15
For example, in 1970, a book by Andrew Hacker announced The End of the American Era
(NY: Atheneum, 1970). A generation later Charles Kupchan borrowed the same book title to
deliver his own warning in The End of the American Era (NY: Knopf 2002).
16
Philippe Roger, The American Enemy: The History of French Anti-Americanism (Chicago:
the time, Thomas Jefferson was so infuriated by this argument that he devoted a chapter in his
Notes on the State of Virginia to refuting it.17
Not only have past descriptions of America offered periodic descriptions of weakness and
decline, but previous crises in American history have included perils more threatening than those
of today. Consider, for example, the 1930s and early 40s, with the menace of fascism and then a
World War against Germany and Japan; the early Cold War years, with Soviet domination of
Eastern Europe, the triumph of Maos communist forces in the Chinese civil war, and the
outbreak of the Korean War. Or think about the decade of the 1970s, with the loss of Vietnam,
revolution in Iran, the 444 day American embassy hostage crisis, and two major oil shocks,
followed by the 1979-82 recession with record postwar unemployment, 13% inflation and
interest rates of 18%.
It is also well to recall recent conventional wisdom about rising hegemons said to be
challenging American predominance. Two decades ago, Japan was widely seen as on track to
become the worlds dominant economic power and potential geopolitical leader. Ezra Vogels
book, Japan as Number One,18 not only became a best-seller, but epitomized a then increasingly
common view about what the future held in store. As recently as a decade ago, a rapidly
expanding European Union was depicted not only as a model for the future, but as an emerging
superpower that in population, economic weight, and geopolitical impact was not only attaining
17
Philippe Roger, The American Enemy: The History of French Anti-Americanism (Chicago:
Ezra Vogel, Japan as Number One: Lessons for America (Cambridge MA: Harvard
10
a size and importance comparable to that of the United States, but might well become a serious
rival to it. From the vantage point of the second decade of the 21st century, these paeans to Japan
and Europe now seem quaint, as both struggle with formidable economic and political problems
and neither possesses the rising power traits so recently attributed to them. China today is a
different story and, unlike Japan and the EU, has the potential to become a true peer competitor
and superpower rival. But previous cases suggest we should be careful about assuming this is
destined to occur.
For the United States, historical as well as relatively recent comparisons provide evidence
for the robustness and adaptability of the United States as a society and as a leading power.
Time and again, America has faced daunting challenges and made mistakes, yet it has possessed
the inventiveness and societal flexibility to adjust and respond successfully.
Yet, just because America has previously overcome adversity and retained both its
strength and international primacy, does not guarantee that it will do so now. Central to this
question is an assessment of the internal foundations upon which American capability ultimately
rests. As noted by Michael Howard a generation ago, these "forgotten dimensions of strategy"
include not only the ability to deploy and support the largest and best-equipped forces but also
the capacity to preserve the social cohesion without which national power and strategy cannot be
sustained.19
In this regard, neither the rise of the BRICS and other regional powers, nor competition
in a globalized world economy, nor imperial overstretch, nor domestic weakness are by
themselves likely to have the transformative effects that have been so often suggested. Instead,
19
Michael Howard, The Forgotten Dimensions of Strategy, Foreign Affairs, Summer 1979.
11
despite major changes and severe challenges, these domestic and international constraints do not
in themselves predetermine the end of Americas international predominance.
To be sure, the impact of financial constraints needs to be taken very seriously. In this
regard, Michael Mandelbaum makes a compelling argument that financial conditions will
ultimately force a strategy of retrenchment. He focuses on the tenacious budgetary dilemmas
that policymakers will be forced to deal with in the coming years and that in his judgment will
compel a less expansive foreign policy. Mandelbaum cites the combined effects of expanding
deficits during the previous decade, the enormous costs of the financial crisis, and the growing
burden of entitlement programs as the baby boom generation retires, and observes that the
serious moneyis to be found in the defense budget." He avoids the facile arguments of the
declinists and sees these changes as occurring gradually and reluctantly, not least because of the
daunting political obstacles to cutting spending on entitlement programs or increasing taxes in
sufficient amounts to cope with long-term trends in budget deficits and the national debt.20
Mandelbaums argument cannot by any means be discounted, not least because of the
increasing proportion of entitlement programs in the federal budget. My counterargument draws
upon three broader considerations. First, it is well to keep in mind the unreliability of long-term
20
Strapped Era (New York: PublicAffairs, 2010). Also see, Overpowered: Assessing the Case
for American Restraint, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 89, No. 3 (May/June 2010). Mandelbaums
argument is all the more noteworthy, in that unlike declinist authors, he has not been an advocate
of retrenchment. See, e.g., The Case for Goliath: How America Acts as the World's Government
in the Twenty-First Century (NY: Public Affairs, 2006).
12
economic forecasts. Medium and long-term estimates of federal budget balances during recent
decades have often been wide of the mark because even modest annual variances in productivity,
GDP growth, employment, inflation, and tax revenues can quickly cause forecasts to become
outdated. Second, major economic, social or political crises can make it possible to shatter
political taboos and enable political leaders to implement policy changes once thought
impossible. Moreover, while defense spending is enormous in dollar terms, even in the midst of
two wars it amounts to just 4.6% of GDP, a modest percentage in comparison with its double
digit share during the early Cold War decades and 6.6% at the height of the Reagan buildup in
the mid 1980s. A third reason involves external threats which are likely to require policymakers
to maintain foreign commitments even when their preferences might have led them in another
direction. As a telling example, consider President Obamas ownership of two wars: Iraq, where
he has had to follow a pace of withdrawal notably slower than what he had advocated as a
senator and presidential candidate, and Afghanistan, which he had previously identified as the
necessary war, but where he has had to commit 30,000 additional troops, funding to support the
effort, and substantial economic and military assistance to neighboring Pakistan.
Ultimately, to the extent that limits to American primacy do exist, they are just as likely
to be ideational as they are material. The problem inheres as much or more in individual and
societal beliefs and policy choices, as in economic, technological or manpower limitations at
home, or the rise of peer competitors abroad.
13
underestimated, as Azar Gat writes in his insightful treatment of Americas pivotal role in the
defeat of the two great totalitarian challenges of the 20th Century:
In fact, had it not been for the United States, liberal democracy may well have lost
the great struggles of the twentieth century. This is a sobering thought that is often
overlooked in studies of the spread of democracy in the twentieth century, and it
makes the world today appear much more contingent and tenuous than linear
theories of development suggest. If it were not for the U.S. factor, the judgment of
later generations on liberal democracy would probably have echoed the negative
verdict on democracys performance, issued by the fourth-century-BC Greeks, in
the wake of Athens defeat in the Peloponnesian War.21
In this light, though the material aspects of national power are of fundamental importance, they
shape outcomes only in the very broadest terms, whereas specific choices about policy and the
strategy or the grand strategy upon which they rest become crucial.
During the past two centuries, profound threats to the United States have provided the
stimulus to major shifts in grand strategy. The British assault on Washington in August 1814,
the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, and the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade
Center and the Pentagon are cases in point.22 Other examples of strategic threat as a stimulus to
major foreign policy strategies and resultant commitments include the three 20th century
occasions in which a hostile great power threatened to gain control of the Eurasian land mass and
thereby imperil Americas security and vital interests. These cases included Imperial Germany in
1917, Nazi Germany in 1941, and the Soviet Union in 1947, and they precipitated President
21
Azar Gat, The Return of Authoritarian Great Powers, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 86, and No. 4
John Lewis Gaddis makes this point in Surprise, Security and the American Experience
14
Wilsons intervention in World War I, FDRs priority for the European theater in World War II,
and Trumans commitment to containment, the Marshall Plan, and NATO in 1947-49.
In each of those cases, strategy was a product both of external threat and specific, fateful
policy choices by a president and his administration with the support of congress. But threats are
often ambiguous, and there are societal, political and institutional reasons why creating and
implementing coherent and effective national strategy has become more difficult since the end of
the Cold War. Three relatively new and more pervasive elements seem particularly important:
the revolution in information technology and mass media, socialization of younger elites, and
erosion of the sources on which a sense of national community and solidarity ultimately rest.23
First, information technology and the new media intensify an environment in which the
immediate drives out the important. The incessant 24/7 news cycle, the internet, cable TV, and
the multiple forms of hi-tech communication (cell phones, smart phones and a legion of other
devices) in which news in its most unmediated and undifferentiated forms becomes instantly
available, affect everyone. These also expose the general public to graphic images devoid of
context and without the mediation common to traditional print media or the older network news
telecasts. Imagine the impact on the willingness of the public and its elected leaders to sustain a
long and bloody war if instant images of slaughtered American troops on the beaches of
Normandy had been available, or vivid pictures of mass civilian casualties from British and
American strategic bombing in Europe. In turn, for political elites and policymakers, the
23
On grand strategy and the need for broad education, knowledge and vision see Charles Hill,
Grand Strategies: Literature, Statecraft, and World Order (New Haven: Yale University Press,
2010).
15
unrelenting flood of emails, memos, press inquiries, and a rapid response news cycle increases
the difficulty of thinking long term.
Second, socialization of younger elites also becomes a factor. This has the effect of
devaluing history and shared national experience. For example, though the American world of
higher education is vast, and it would be a mistake to assume that any description applies
uniformly, there is evidence that the teaching of diplomatic history has declined precipitously, as
have economic, military and constitutional history. As a case in point, at the University of
Wisconsins prestigious History Department, a recent survey found that only one of 45 faculty
members listed diplomatic history as a specialty, and one cited American foreign policy, while
thirteen named gender, race or ethnicity.24 Surveys of American history and foreign policy do
continue to be taught, but within a vast array of different course offerings. Fragmentation of the
disciplines of history and political science and the emphasis on cutting edge topics and
methodologies are an important part of this shift, as is a pervasive though diffuse political
correctness. To the extent that broader themes are dealt with they are less likely to be those of
grand strategy and American exceptionalism, than concepts of race, class and gender,
international relations theory with its catechism of realism, liberal internationalism, and
constructivism or various post-modernist interpretations. Many of these approaches tend to
lessen the ability to understand contemporary events in a wider strategic context or they devalue
strategic thinking altogether.
24
See, e.g., Patricia Cohen, Great Caesars Ghost! Are Traditional History Courses
16
25
themselves as far left, 47% liberal, 28.4% middle of the road, 15.2% conservative, and 0.7% far
right. See Opinions and Attitudes of Full-time Faculty Members, 2007-08, All 4-year
Institutions, Source: The American College Teacher; National Norms, for the 2007-8 HERI
Faculty Survey, UCLA Higher Education Research Institute, in The Chronicle of Higher
Education, August 28, 2009, pp. 18, 27.
In marked contrast, a June 2010 Gallup survey of Americans found just 20% describing
themselves as liberal, 35% moderate, and 42% conservative. See Lydia Saad, In 2010,
Conservatives Still Outnumber Moderates, Liberals, (Princeton, NJ: Gallup, June 25, 2010),
http://www.gallup.com/poll/141032/2010-Conservatives-Outnumber-Moderates-Liberals.aspx,
accessed August 11, 2010.
17
it is otherwise hard to explain why so many of our compatriots act against what
we believe to be their own interests.26
There is evidence, especially in the field of history, that unbalanced narratives of the American
past are not uncommon. For example, a study of articles about American communism appearing
from 1972 to 2009 in a leading scholarly publication, the Journal of American History, found
three dozen articles that praised or were sympathetic to American communism or damning of the
excesses of anti-communism, but none that were explicitly critical of the party or its followers.27
In another subject area, Middle East studies, pervasive biases affect analysis. They
reflect the widespread embrace of the ideas of the late Edward Said and of interpretations that
focus disproportionately on Western colonialism and imperialism (though the U.S. was never a
colonial power in the region). These approaches tend to downplay or ignore altogether the
critical problems identified in the 2002 Arab Human Development Report, written for the UN
26
Robert Jervis, in APSA Presidents Reflect on Political Science: Who Knows What, When,
and How, Perspectives on Politics, 2005, 3(2), 309334, at 316. And see Robert Lieber,
Sifting and Winnowing: The Uses and Abuses of Academic Freedom, International Studies
Perspectives, Vol. 8, No. 4 (November 2007): 410-417.
27
Harvey Klehr and John Earl Haynes, Revising Revisionism: A New Look at American
Communism, Academic Questions, Vol. 22, No. 4 (Fall 2009): 452-462 at 461. The period
covered is from 1972 until June 2009.
18
Development Program, citing the Arab worlds profound deficits in the treatment of women, in
political freedom, and access to knowledge and information. 28
Third, there are factors that erode a sense of national community and shared identity.
Those Americans whose formative years took place between the 1930s and 1960s lived through
such experiences as the Great Depression, World War II, victory over Nazi Germany and Japan,
the postwar reintegration of sixteen million military veterans, the initial Cold War years, the
Marshall Plan and containment of the Soviet Union, the GI Bill, postwar prosperity, successful
rebuilding of Europe and Japan, the initial idealism of the Kennedy administration, Lyndon
Johnsons Great Society, passage of civil rights legislation, and the successful landing of
Americans on the moon. To be sure, those years also saw multiple disputes about domestic and
foreign policies, ample political strife, a bloody stalemate in the Korean War, and several
recessions, yet for the great majority of the population, their experiences conveyed a sense that
America and its government could, at least under the right circumstances, be both effective and a
force for good at home and abroad.
For a successor generation, whose reference points were Vietnam, Watergate, revelations
about excesses of the CIA and FBI, two oil shocks, the Iranian embassy hostage crisis, and the
troubled presidencies of Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter, government seemed
neither effective nor benign. Racial tension, urban riots, student and anti-war movements that
metastasized into violence, drugs, the counterculture, a president resigning in disgrace,
28
United Nations Development Program, Arab Human Development Report 2002, sponsored
by the Regional Bureau for Arab States (NY: UNDP, 2002). Available at:
http://www.nakbaonline.org/download/UNDP/EnglishVersion/Ar-Human-Dev-2002.pdf
19
withdrawal from South Vietnam, inflation and the worst recession since the 1930s were
hallmarks of the period from the late 1960s to the early 1980s.
In addition to these events there have been underlying social changes that further work
against a sense of community and that make shared experiences, for example in neighborhoods,
schools, and the military, less common. Among these have been the end of conscription in 1973,
the hollowing out of numerous central cities and the flight of many whites and middle class
blacks to more distant suburbs, the crisis in urban public education, and a growing distrust of
authority in private and public institutions. In recent decades, political polarization has
intensified, as evidenced in congress where there are far fewer liberal Republicans and
conservative Democrats, and where cross-cutting cleavages have become less common. Indeed,
an authoritative study of political distance between the parties from 1879 to 2009 finds that,
Polarization in the House and Senate is now at the highest level since the end of
Reconstruction.29
As for the wider public, although the phenomenon of partisan sorting continues, so that
those who consider themselves liberals or conservatives have for some two decades been
gravitating to the correct political party, partisan ideologues remain a distinct minority. In this
regard, Morris Fiorina, a leading scholar of American politics, observes that, For the most part
29
Nolan McCarty, Keith T. Poole, and Howard Rosenthal, Polarized America: The Dance of
Ideology and Unequal Riches (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press), 2006, and Party Polarization:
1879-2009, updated 4 January 2010, at
http://polarizedamerica.com/#POLITICALPOLARIZATION, accessed 30 June 2010.
20
30
Morris P. Fiorina, with Samuel J. Adams and Jeremy C. Pope, Culture War? The Myth of a
21
that these competing beliefs about the exercise of American power are very real. For example, a
prominent foreign policy official in the then newly elected Clinton administration, and someone
for whom the Vietnam experience remained formative, observed to a predecessor that the
difference between the two of them was that he believed the U.S. had done as much harm as
good in the world.
To cite a current example, President Barack Obama in his statements about foreign policy
has downplayed the relevance or importance of American exceptionalism. In a widely quoted
response to a reporters question, he replied, "I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I
suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek
exceptionalism."31 The 2010 National Security Strategy (NSS) exhibits some of this diffidence,
though it also includes passages about the importance of American military might.32 Thus, on
the one hand it contains wording that would not have been out of place at any time during the
previous seven decades:
This Administration has no greater responsibility than protecting the American
people. Furthermore, we embrace Americas unique responsibility to promote
international securitya responsibility that flows from our commitments to allies,
our leading role in supporting a just and sustainable international order, and our
unmatched military capabilities. p. 17
31
President Obamas response to a reporters question at the G-20 Summit, Strasbourg, France,
April 4, 2009. Quoted, James Kirchick, Squanderer in Chief, Los Angeles Times, April 28,
2009.
32
National Security Strategy (U.S. GPO: Washington DC, May 2010); also available at:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/national_security_strategy.pdf
22
At the same time, the NSS incorporates more ambivalent language. While it speaks of
defeating al-Qaeda and its affiliates, it refers throughout to violent extremists but never once
in the entire 52 page document to jihadism or radical Islamism. The inability or unwillingness to
describe accurately the movement and ideology that poses a lethal threat to the United States, its
interests and allies, as well as to a Muslim world in which radical Islamism contends for power
represents a disturbing omission. Contrast this not only with the 2002 and 2006 National
Security Strategy documents, but also with the language of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission
report, that unambiguously stated, [T]he catastrophic threat at this moment in history is more
specific. It is the threat posed by Islamist terrorism especially the al Qaeda network, its
affiliates, and its ideology. 33
The 2010 NSS also emphasizes international institutions, in expansive language that does
no more than give lip service to their shortcomings and does not come to grips with their
characteristic inability to confront the most urgent and deadly perils:
We will expand our support to modernizing institutions and arrangements such as
the evolution of the G-8 to the G-20 to reflect the realities of todays international
environment. Working with the institutions and the countries that comprise them,
we will enhance international capacity to prevent conflict, spur economic growth,
improve security, combat climate change, and address the challenges posed by
weak and failing states. And we will challenge and assist international institutions
and frameworks to reform when they fail to live up to their promise.
Strengthening the legitimacy and authority of international law and institutions,
especially the U.N., will require a constant struggle to improve performance.
(p.13)
33
The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks
23
Debate about Americas world role is nothing new. One notable version of it took place
in the late 1980s. Paul Kennedys 1987 bestseller, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers,
became one of the most widely cited books of that era. Kennedy cautioned that the U.S. ran the
risk of imperial overstretch, which he defined not just in terms of military commitments, but in
regard to the balance between resources and obligations. 34 In a 1990 response Joseph Nye,
whose own writing was both less pessimistic and more accurate for the years that followed,
argued that the issue was not one of resources per se, but of policy and choice, i.e., that to the
extent the U.S. faced a problem, it was because it lacks the will, not the wallet.35
So, does the U.S. today still possess the necessary resources? Is the declinist proposition
valid, that as a society, economy, and political power the country is in decline? Certainly the
domestic situation is more difficult now than two decades ago. Yet while these problems should
not be minimized, they should not be overstated. Contrary to what many observers would
assume, the U.S. has managed to hold its own in globalized economic competition and its
strengths remain broad and deep. For the past several decades, its share of global output has
been relatively constant at approximately one-fifth of world output 20-21% according to two
recent reports. During the same period, Europe has seen its share declining, from nearly 40% in
34
Kennedy, Paul. The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military
Joseph S. Nye, Is the U.S. Declining? Reply to Paul Kennedy, New York Review of Books,
October 11, 1990, and Kennedys rejoinder. Also see Joseph S. Nye, Bound to Lead: The
Changing Nature of American Power (NY: Basic Books, 1990.)
24
the 1970s to approximately 25% now. 36 Moreover, America benefits from a growing population
and one that is aging more slowly than all its possible competitors except India. It continues to
be a magnet for talented and ambitious immigrants (despite a dysfunctional immigration system).
It is a world leader in science and in its system of higher education, and it has the advantage of
continental scale and resources. In short, the U.S. remains the one country in the world that is
both big and rich. 37
But, given the severity of the recent economic crisis and the problems of coping with its
effects, will the United States be able to achieve the necessary level of economic growth? At
least in comparison with Europe and Japan, the answer is almost certainly yes. Here, the
perspective of Britains Economist is instructive:
America, with its relatively young, rising population, will find [generating
growth] comparatively easy. Continental Europe, by contrast, runs the risk of
ending up like Japan, which has spent two decades struggling to grow in the face
of its debt burden and aging population.38
36
See Jim Manzi, Keeping Americas Edge, National Affairs, winter 2010, pp. 3-21 at pp. 8-
9. Manzi cites a figure of 21%. The consulting firm, IHS Global Insight, estimates the U.S.
share in 2009 as 19.9%. In current dollars, it estimates that China will overtake the U.S. in 2011,
while on an inflation-adjusted basis this would occur in 2013-14. See Peter Marsh, US
Manufacturing Crown Slips, Financial Times, June 20, 2010.
37
William C. Wohlforth has made a similar point, e.g., Unipolarity, Status Competition, and
Great Power War, World Politics, Vol. 61, No. 1 (January 2009): 2857.
38
25
In addition, the American military remains unmatched and despite intense stress from
nearly a decade of war in Afghanistan and Iraq it has not suffered the disarray that afflicted it in
Vietnam. This is evident in terms of indicators such as successful recruitment and performance
of the volunteer force, the ongoing quality of the officer corps, and broad public support for the
military as well as casualty tolerance.
Beyond material strengths, the society itself benefits from a durable political system, rule
of law, vigorous free press and information media, and a competitive and adaptable economy, as
well as strong traditions of entrepreneurship and innovation, leadership and critical mass in new
technology, and a history of resilience and flexibility in overcoming adversity.
The declinist proposition that Americas international primacy is collapsing as a result of
the rise of other countries should also be regarded with caution. On the one hand, the U.S. does
face a more competitive world, regional challenges, and some attrition of its relative degree of
primacy. This process, or diffusion of power, is not exclusive to the post-Cold War era, but
began at least four decades ago with the recovery of Europe and Japan from World War II, the
rise of the Soviet Union to superpower status, and the emergence of regional powers in Asia,
Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa.39 Yet in contrast to other great powers that have
experienced decline the United States has held a substantially more dominant position. For
39
Kenneth Oye and I emphasized the effects of the diffusion of power in Oye, Donald
Rothchild and Lieber (eds.), Eagle Entangled: U.S. Foreign Policy in a Complex World (NY:
Longman, 1979); and Oye, Lieber and Rothchild (eds.), Eagle Defiant: U.S. Foreign Policy in
the 1980s (Boston: Little, Brown, 1983).
26
example, Britain at the start of the 20th Century was already falling behind Germany and the
United States, though it did manage to continue for half a century as head of a vast Empire and
Commonwealth.
Because of the enormous margin of power the U.S. possessed after the end of the Cold
War, it should be able to withstand erosion in its relative strength for some time to come without
losing its predominant status. While it is true that the weight of important regional powers has
increased, many of these are allied or friendly. Those that arent (Iran, North Korea, Syria, and
Venezuela) do not by themselves constitute serious balancing. China and Russia occupy an
intermediate position, neither ally nor outright adversary. Periodically, both act as spoilers, but
in their own self-interest neither has sought -- at least not yet -- to become a true peer competitor.
In any case, and despite the burden of nine years of war in the Near East, America continues to
possess significant advantages in critical sectors such as economic size, technology,
competitiveness, demographics, force size, power projection, military technology, and even in
learning how to carry out effective counter-insurgency, and thus retains the capacity to meet key
objectives.
In sum, though the U.S. predominates by lesser margins, it still remains a long way from
being overtaken by peer competitors. However, given profound disagreements about policy,
intense partisan rancor, distrust of government, and lingering divisions about foreign
commitments, non-material factors could prove to be a greater impediment to staying power than
more commonly cited indicators of economic strength and military over-stretch. Can the
American political system produce effective measures to cope with long term burdens of
entitlement programs and national debt? Will cultural and generational differences about the
uses and even legitimacy of American power lead to abandonment of a global leadership role?
27
And are persistent foreign threats, especially from terrorism and nuclear proliferation, likely to
sustain a domestic consensus or instead lead to intensified polarization and retrenchment? The
United States retains the power and capacity to play a leading world role. The ultimate questions
about Americas future are likely to be those of policy and will.