Foreign Policy: The Benevolent Empire

Foreign Policy
Summer 1998

The Benevolent Empire _*

By Robert Kagan _**

Despite a personal plea from the president of the United States, and a threat to impose stringent economic sanctions, Pakistan went ahead and detonated five nuclear weapons. After all, why should Pakistan take seriously any threat from the United States these days? When New Delhi detonated its five nuclear warheads, America was unable to muster enough international support to cancel World Bank loans to India. And, buckling under pressure from its erstwhile Gulf War allies, the United States now allows Saddam Hussein to sell so much "oil-for-food" that economic sanctions against Iraq are increasingly becoming a moot point. Meanwhile, the current crisis in Kosovo threatens to erupt into a repeat of the genocidal conflict that tore apart Bosnia, yet European nations rebuff U.S. initiatives to take a more forceful stand.

Considered individually, each of these events is unsettling. Considered collectively, the situation is downright alarming. We are seeing the steady erosion of American power, and the consequences—nuclear proliferation, ethnic conflict, regional instability—are reveberating worldwide.

Five years ago, Harvard academic Samuel Huntington warned that a world without U.S. primacy would be a world "with more violence and disorder and less democracy and economic growth than a world where the United States continues to have more influence than any other country shaping global affairs." He was right, of course. But lately Huntington has joined the plethora of scholars and pundits around the globe who denounce the "arrogance" of American hegemony. Whether a newspaper is published in Cairo, Paris, or Tokyo, you can be sure that its editorial page will issue periodic demands for a "multipolar" world that limits U.S. dominance. Supposedly, a semblance of international justice can be achieved only in a world characterized by a balance among relative equals.

Yet, for all the bleating about hegemony, no nation really wants genuine multipolarity. No nation has shown a willingness to take on equal responsibilities for managing global crises. No nation has been willing to make the same kinds of short-term sacrifices that the United States has been willing to make in the long-term interest of preserving global order. No nation, except China, has been willing to spend the money to acquire the military power necessary for playing a greater role relative to the United States—and China’s military buildup has not exactly been viewed by its neighbors as creating a more harmonious environment.

Not only do countries such as France and Russia shy away from the expense of creating and preserving a multipolar world; they rightly fear the geopolitical consequences of destroying American hegemony. Genuine multipolarity would inevitably mean a return to the complex of strategic issues that plagued the world before World War II: in Asia, the competition for regional preeminence among China, Japan, and Russia; in Europe, the competition among France, Germany, Great Britain, and Russia.

Consequently, those contributing to the growing chorus of antihegemony and multipolarity are playing a dangerous game. The problem is not merely that some of these nations are giving themselves a "free ride" on the back of America power, benefiting from the international order that American hegemony undergirds, while at the same time puncturing little holes in it for short-term advantage. The more serious danger is that this behavior is already eroding the sum total of power that can be applied to protecting the international order altogether.

Consider the recent stand-off with Iraq. America’s ability to pursue the long-term goal of defending the international order against Saddam Hussein was undermined by France and Russia’s efforts to attain short-term economic gains and enhanced prestige. They took a slice out of American hegemony, but they did so at the price of leaving in place a long-term threat to an international system from which they draw immense benefits but which they themselves have no ability to defend.

In other words, these countries did not possess the means to solve the Iraqi problem, only the means to prevent the United States from solving it. The same can be said of the nuclear testing in India and Pakistan. The developing nations that sit on the board of the World Bank balked at the idea of imposing punitive sanctions against India. Those countries might enjoy the short-term spectacle of humbling the United States, but are they prepared for a South Asian nuclear-arms race that might engulf Iran and China as well?

It might be easier to dismiss all this foreign grumbling about American hegemony were it not for the stirring of neo-isolationism in the United States today—a mood that nicely complements the view that America is meddling too much in everyone else’s business. Perhaps the most profound threat is that Americans will heed this criticism and forget just how important continued U.S. dominance is to the preservation of a reasonable level of international security and prosperity.