The National Interest
Summer 2000

The World's Resentment

by Peter W. Rodman

 

Charles Krauthammer was one of the first to speak of the "unipolar moment"–the extraordinary global predominance that the United States suddenly acquired when Soviet power collapsed. He wrote in 1990, when the ussr still existed. But Krauthammer chose the word "moment" wisely. He did not doubt that in this instance, as so often before in history, predominance would give rise to challenge, and that therefore its duration could not be predicted.

He did not have long to wait. Well before that decade was out, challenges began to appear. The unipolar moment that Americans so enjoy is not, it seems, so universally celebrated elsewhere. Most of the world's other major powers–even our friends–have made it a central theme of their foreign policies to build counterweights to American power. In fact, their efforts in this direction constitute one of the main trends in international politics today.

Americans seem strangely oblivious to this. One reason, perhaps, is the traditional Wilsonian bent of American thinking about foreign policy: an America that sees itself as leading and acting in the name of universal moral principles has a tendency to assume that its leadership is welcomed and endorsed by everyone else. Such an America is genuinely puzzled by the idea that its assertiveness in the name of universal principles may sometimes be construed by others as a form of unilateralism. Yet unilateralism is precisely one of the charges being levied by many against the Clinton administration–and, again, this includes some of our friends. Our assertiveness–in any cause–is today perceived by others as an exercise of our predominant power.

The fact is that the rest of the world is reacting to American power in a thoroughly classical, un-Wilsonian, balance of power fashion, according to which it is not motives and intentions that are decisive but comparative power. The Russians and Chinese have, for the past five years, made it a centerpiece of their foreign policies–and of their increasingly close collaboration–to restore what they call "multipolarity" to the international system. Our Western European friends, in the Maastricht Treaty of 1993, committed themselves to a stronger European Union not only in the economic field but also in foreign and security policy; the Kosovo war of 1999, instead of vindicating nato and American leadership, as it was seen to do in the eyes of the administration, had the effect of accelerating efforts to build a new all-European defense organization. Other powers in the world are reacting similarly to American predominance.

Another manifestation of this phenomenon is widespread sentiment that the United Nations Security Council ought to be the principal arbiter of international security, as was envisioned in the un Charter. Many feel especially strongly that military interventions are not generally legitimate unless carried out under a un mandate. (We heard a lot about this during the Kosovo crisis.) One of the main motives for this attempted elevation of the Security Council is to restrain American power.

How widespread and determined is this global reaction, and how seriously should the United States take it? Is it just rhetorical emoting, among countries that know full well they still need American leadership, or does it portend the kind of counter-coalition that has often in history cut a hegemon down to size? How much of it is structural–the natural response of others to a single power's predominance–and how much of it is the result of specific American conduct in the recent period? What policy lessons should the United States draw from the evidence, assuming it enjoys its pre-eminent position and would like to prolong it?

The Sino-Russian Mantra

It is not hard to accumulate evidence for the proposition that much of the rest of the world sees American predominance as a problem, rather than a blessing. The mantra for this point of view is "multipolarity"–the explicit rejection of the idea that the world ought to be, or remain for long, unipolar. The Russians and Chinese were the first to develop this theme. This is ironic, perhaps, in that the Clinton administration for a long time congratulated itself for its "strategic partnerships" with both countries. A "strategic alliance with Russian reform" was how President Clinton characterized his policy toward Boris Yeltsin's Russia in an April 1, 1993 speech. He could visualize, or so it seemed, a natural affinity between a progressive American administration and a reformist Russian leadership. Similarly, a "constructive strategic partnership" was often said to be the aim of American policy toward China.

Yet, if there has been any consistent theme in Russian foreign policy in the post-Cold War period, it is Russia's categorical rejection of American leadership. In September 1996, then-Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov told the un General Assembly that one of the basic conditions for achieving a durable peace was

the emancipation from the mentality of 'those who lead' and 'those who are led.' Such a mentality draws on illusions that some countries emerged as winners from the Cold War, while others lost it. But this is not the case. Peoples on both sides of the Iron Curtain jointly got rid of the policy of confrontation. Meanwhile the mentality . . . directly paves the way for a tendency to establish a unipolar world. Such a world order is unacceptable to the overwhelming majority of the international community.

Boris Yeltsin likewise hailed the trend toward multipolarity that he professed to see gaining ground in the world. "This trend in universal development has been formulated by Russia", he boasted in a speech on May 12, 1998. "Most countries have agreed with it." And since, as Yeltsin insisted, attempts were still being made to foist the interests of one state on the world community, "the time has come to understand that in the present-day world, particularly in the 21st century, no state, however strong, can impose its will on others."

Whatever affinity the Clinton administration may have assumed it had with Russian "reform", Russians themselves have been thinking in more classical terms about how to define their national interests. Resisting American dominance seems clearly to be a part of that definition.

The Chinese have expressed the same passion for "multipolarity." Liu Huaqiu, a vice foreign minister serving as the chief national security adviser to the president and premier, declared in 1997 that global trends were moving in this direction, with China at the forefront:

A multipolar world has become the growing trend, and China has developed into a main force. . . . The international status of socialist China has strengthened; its reputation has grown, and its influence has expanded. China will develop into an important role in the future multipolar world.

Not surprisingly, Russia and China have enshrined this as a central theme of their collaboration. When Chinese Premier Li Peng visited Yeltsin in Moscow at the end of December 1996, their joint communiqué declared, "The sides are unanimous that . . . a partnership of equal rights and trust between Russia and China aimed at strategic cooperation in the 21st century . . . promotes the formation of a multipolar world." And when Yeltsin visited Beijing in April 1996, the rhetoric on both the Russian and Chinese sides was extraordinary in its bluntness. The joint communiqué of that visit, signed by Yeltsin and Jiang Zemin, all but branded the United States a threat to peace: "The world is far from being tranquil. Hegemonism, power politics and repeated imposition of pressures on other countries have continued to occur. Bloc politics has taken up new manifestations." Three and a half years later, during Yeltsin's last visit to Beijing, another joint communiqué offered more of the same, only updated after Kosovo:

Negative momentum in international relations continues to grow, and the following is becoming more obvious: The forcing of the international community to accept a unipolar world pattern and a single model of culture, value concepts and ideology, and a weakening of the role of the United Nations and its Security Council; the seeking of excuses to give irresponsible explanations or amendment to the purposes and principles of the un Charter; the reinforcing and expanding of military blocs; the replacing of international law with power politics or even resorting to force; and the jeopardizing of the sovereignty of independent states using the concepts of 'human rights are superior to sovereignty' and 'humanitarian intervention.' The two sides agree to work together with the rest of the world to oppose the momentum presently preventing the establishment of a just multipolar structure for international relations.

Our Allies Agree . . .

More surprising, and perhaps more significant, than the reactions of Russia and China to American predominance is the degree to which these sentiments are also a staple of contemporary European discourse. The relationship of dependence that marked the last fifty years was the source of accumulating resentments–on both sides of the Atlantic–and the end of the Cold War danger has inevitably led our allies to seize the opportunity to expand their autonomy. The new European "identity", of course, is also the product of a long-standing and thoroughly positive project–that of European integration–which the United States has supported from the beginning. It has produced historic reconciliations on the Continent, and enormous economic progress. Yet there is no mistaking that at present Europe seeks to define its identity at least in part by differentiation from the United States. A common theme of European rhetoric, even of the friendliest of our allies, is that it is time for Europe to make itself an equal of the United States, to be a counterweight to it, to achieve greater autonomy from it, to lessen dependence on it, and so on.

Naturally, the French give this its most pointed expression. Foreign Minister Hubert Védrine has labeled the United States not only a superpower but a "hyperpower", for the unique range of its dominance in the political, military, economic and cultural realms. The need for Europe to counterbalance this power is, for France, a self-evident axiom. To a conference of French ambassadors in August 1997, Védrine declared:

Today there is one sole great power–the United States of America. . . . When I speak of its power, I state a fact . . . without acrimony. A fact is a fact. . . . But this power carries in itself, to the extent that there is no counterweight, especially today, a unilateralist temptation . . . and the risk of hegemony.

France's policy, he went on to say, was

to contribute . . . to the emergence of several poles in the world capable of being a factor of equilibrium. . . . Europe is [such] an actor, a means of influence absolutely necessary for such a multipolar world to come about.

In an interview with Libération in November 1998, Védrine complained again that "a major factor in the world today" was "the overriding predominance of the United States in all areas and the current lack of any counterweight."

Building "counterweights", the "risk of hegemony"–if anyone thought that the end of the Cold War meant the end of "old-fashioned" balance of power thinking, this is as classical as one can get.

But the French are not the only Europeans to think in these terms. In the economic realm, the strengthened economic and monetary union (EMU) brought about by the Maastricht Treaty had the explicit goal of making the eu a stronger economic bloc relative to other powers. Joschka Fischer, now the German foreign minister, summed up the significance of emu in an address to the European Parliament in January 1999:

The introduction of a common currency is not primarily an economic, but rather a sovereign and thus eminently political act. With the communitarization of its money, Europe has also opted for an autonomous path in the future and, in close collaboration with our transatlantic partners, for an autonomous role in tomorrow's world.

Likewise, Dutch Prime Minister Wim Kok declared in a March 1998 speech, "emu can develop into a cornerstone for Europe's further political integration–forming the foundation for Europe's increased power in the world."

All the more so was Europe's development of a common foreign and security policy, also mandated by Maastricht, seen as a means of making Europe into a "counterweight to the United States"–as Wim Kok put it on another occasion. The Kosovo crisis only intensified this resolve. In late 1998, in the early days of the Kosovo diplomacy, Tony Blair–perhaps America's closest friend among European leaders–cited Kosovo as a reason for the European Union to develop a defense institution of its own. This represented a major reversal of British policy, which had always insisted on nato as the exclusive organization for Western security. In a speech in Edinburgh on November 13, 1998, Blair complained that Europe had been "hesitant and disunited" over Kosovo; it was now time for it to develop a capacity for autonomous action so that it would not always be so dependent on the United States.

While the Kosovo air campaign was a remarkable demonstration of transatlantic solidarity and an American-led Alliance operation, the breathtaking scale of American technological dominance had a paradoxical if not perverse effect. For many European governments, particularly those of a Center-Left coloration, participation in an American-led war was political agony; governments were bitterly assaulted by anti-American leftists (and Gaullist rightists in France), though the anti-Milosevic cause was enough to sustain public support for the war. The conclusion drawn by many Europeans across the political spectrum was that Europe needed to accelerate its own technological development and its creation of a European defense institution, precisely so that it not be put in such a position again.

An official German account of the Bremen meeting of the Western European Union in May 1999 reported,

Minister Joschka Fischer and Defense Minister Rudolf Scharping urge a rapid buildup of common eu forces to master crises and conflicts in Europe even without participation of the United States. The Kosovo conflict expresses how urgent and indispensable this buildup will be for the future of Europe, declared Fischer.

At the Helsinki summit of the eu in December 1999, the Europeans announced their intention to field an all-European force of 50,000 to 60,000 men by 2003. While the position of all the European allies is that nato remains the foundation of European security, German Greens have hailed the eu's all-European defense project precisely as the beginning of Europe's "emancipation" from the United States.

Japan's attitude toward American pre-eminence is somewhat more complicated. While the end of the Soviet threat led many in Japan to question why the Americans were still hanging around, the North Korean menace and the emergence of China have supplied a persuasive answer to the question. Japan's assertiveness on many issues has also been dampened by its disappointing economic performance in recent years. Yet experts agree that Japanese nationalism is re-emerging.

Japanese officials now routinely stress "autonomy" from the United States as a central theme. Other Japanese are calling on their country to rewrite its American-drafted constitution; to forge a new identity as a bridge between East and West (rather than as just an appendage of the West); to seek greater influence and empowerment vis-à-vis the United States by becoming more active in the United Nations; and to challenge U.S. dominance of international economic policy. And in its own way, the debacle of the Seattle meeting of the World Trade Organization last December may have had some of the same impact in Japan as the Kosovo crisis had in Europe. "The failure poured cold water on the overconfidence of the United States", trumpeted Asahi Shimbun in an editorial. "The conference was an occasion that the other developed countries and developing countries said no to the United States, which is selfish and over-proud of itself as the sole superpower of the world."

. . . And the Third World Joins In

Many countries in the Third World as well view the emergence of the United States as the sole superpower as a mixed blessing. During the Cold War, they had played the two superpowers against each other. The Soviet collapse left the international system too "unbalanced" for some countries' tastes.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Amre Moussa, in a revealing 1996 interview in Middle East Quarterly, lamented the "lack of international balance" now that the Soviet Union was gone. This represented a remarkable shift from the policy of Anwar Sadat, who had expelled the Soviet presence from Egypt and cast Egypt's lot with the United States, calculating (even while the Soviet Union still existed) that America held "most of the cards" in the Middle East.

A more extreme statement comes from the egregious Mahathir Mohamad, prime minister of Malaysia. His speech to the un General Assembly last September 29 was a diatribe complaining that the international system was completely unbalanced without the Soviets. It is hard to say whether Mahathir speaks only for himself or whether he simply says openly what many other Third World leaders believe privately. In any case, his indictment is worth quoting at length:

With [the destruction of the Eastern bloc] the liberal democratic free market capitalists see no more need to be gentle in spreading their systems or in profiting from them. No one would be allowed any other political or economic system except what is prescribed by the sole dominant bloc. The true ugliness of Western capitalism revealed itself, backed by the military might of capitalism's greatest proponent. For the small countries the demise of the Eastern bloc is a major disaster. Now they are exposed to pressures which they cannot resist. . . . [T]he principle that prevailed in the third quarter of the 20th Century was that no one should interfere in the internal affairs of a nation. That in fact was the essence of independence. As long as the world was divided into Eastern and Western blocs this principle was respected. But then a President decided that his country had a right and a duty to oversee that human rights are not abused anywhere in the world irrespective of borders and the independence of nations. No one conferred this right on this crusading President. But small things like that was [sic] not going to stop him. . . . For the poor and the weak, for the aspiring tigers and dragons of Asia, the 21st Century does not look very promising. Everything will continue to be cooked in the West. . . . And what is from the West is universal. Other values and cultures are superfluous and unnecessary. If they remain there will be a clash of civilizations. To avoid this there should be only one civilization in the world. Thus the Globalized world will be totally uniform. Variety is equal to being intransigent and must therefore be eliminated.

Keeping Our Cool

Most of this reaction to American pre-eminence is inevitable, and much of it is, in fact, healthy. For our allies in particular, the end of the Cold War is an opportunity to restore some balance to a relationship of dependency. Such relationships are by their nature corrosive, breeding resentments on both sides. A U.S. Congress that has been complaining for years about inequitable "burden-sharing" should be pleased if allies now seek greater self-reliance. The issue with the Europeans, then, becomes a narrower one. As even the French agree, the Atlantic Alliance remains important, and valued, on both sides of the Atlantic. Therefore the task of U.S. policy is to develop the European Union's new defense policy and structure in a way that complements the Alliance and remains within its broad framework, rather than disrupting its unity.1 Assuming the anti-American rhetoric can be kept under control, the result could be positive, especially if the Europeans actually develop capabilities for handling a variety of crises and peacekeeping chores. With Japan, similarly, sufficient dangers exist to justify continuation of the security alliance, but a more equal strategic partnership would be healthy.

As for the general foreign complaint that the world is "unbalanced", there is not much the United States can do about that, short of collapsing or abdicating its international role. The demise of the Soviet Union did, alas, vindicate market economics and the idea of freedom; if this is painful for governments that would prefer to govern by contrary principles, then they have a problem that we cannot solve for them. The laws of economics apply to everyone, and we live in an age when every authoritarian regime faces a problem of legitimacy. We could not shield others from these forces even if we wanted to.

Yet, all this having been said, the United States has a problem too. Americans need to understand that other countries are not all eager and happy to fall into line under our leadership. Europe is the continent where the balance of power was invented; for most nations the fact of a single predominant power triggers a reflex to build counterweights. Probably we should not take it so personally; it is a survival instinct of smaller countries throughout history. It is a law of geopolitics–something that should be a surprise only to those who do not know geopolitics.

U.S. policymakers would also do well to remember that America's predominance may not last forever. This is not because our physical power will be matched anytime soon; William Wohlforth has made an overwhelming case that America's position of unipolar preponderance is probably going to be quite durable.2 The problem is rather that policy ineptitude could render that predominant power less impressive. Whether our physical predominance translates into actual influence over events will depend on intangibles such as our political will and staying power, the credibility of our commitments, our perceived willingness or unwillingness to take risks and bear costs, our reputation for reliability and competence. All these depend on our performance over time. They could all be badly weakened by a major policy fiasco–such as a failed military intervention.

The Pentagon has a phrase, "asymmetric strategies", which refers to the strategies by which smaller powers seek to exploit the vulnerabilities of a stronger power. Lord knows we have such vulnerabilities–and others are eagerly searching for them. (Chinese strategists, for example, have analyzed the 1991 Gulf War and satisfied themselves that if Saddam Hussein had not committed a few key errors, the outcome would have been quite different.) The intensity of rogue states' pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, moreover, undoubtedly derives from their conviction that such a capability would prove a great "equalizer", significantly compounding America's reluctance to use its power in some hypothetical future confrontation.

Finally, there is the broader issue of grand strategy: how a superpower can maximize its chances of preserving its advantageous position and minimize, for example, the risks of provoking countervailing coalitions. Some of this is merely a question of style. Triumphalism, gloating, bullying, lecturing about our "indispensability"–all these are counterproductive, and also avoidable. Sometimes the matter seems trivial; for example, President Clinton's forcing the embarrassed Helmut Kohl and Jacques Chirac to wear cowboy boots at the Denver G-7 summit in 1997 caused a wave of resentful press commentary in Europe. But peremptory American impositions of policy–the insistence on only three new admittees to nato in the first round at the Madrid summit, after some allies had publicly committed themselves to five; the abrupt U.S. veto of Germany's first nominee for imf director this year–have the same effect. Whatever the substantive merits of the U.S. position in such instances, the style rankles. Congress' recent habit of imposing third-country sanctions on allies over Cuba, Libya and Iran forms a part of this background. Again, even if we are correct on the merits (which we often are), we need to realize that in the eyes of our allies there is a rapidly lengthening list of examples of "unilateralism", if not high-handedness.

Josef Joffe has offered a model of grand strategy for the United States to follow. He sees America as the hub of a wheel, with other major powers as the spokes. America's central, pivotal, advantageous position rests not only on our strength, but on the fact that all other powers either need us for something, or want something from us, are afraid of crossing us, or are afraid of leaving us in bed with one of their rivals. Europe and Japan still need us for security, as a hedge against Russia and China; Russia and China worry about Japan, and both also wish to be part of the Western economic system; and so on. The United States continues, as Sadat said, to hold most of the cards.

Deterrence of major challenges to the world balance of power must certainly remain a key component of U.S. policy. But Joffe's concept is an argument for maintaining positive links with all the other major players, so that each continues to have a stake in its relations with America. This keeps us in the position of master of the geopolitical game. It is a logical formula for a pre-eminent power that wants to pre-empt counter-coalitions and retain influence over events. The United States has an excellent chance to prolong its advantage by a conscious strategy of this kind.

Conscious strategy does not come easily to American leaders, accustomed as they are to making policy by a series of ad hoc, unrelated, "pragmatic" decisions. Nor is subtlety our strong suit. But we would be well advised to give this some thought.