The US will go down swinging – ideology

Great power conflict is something that has more dire consequences now than it perhaps did in the 19th and 20th centuries. As such, the transition from being on top to perhaps once again. in a power competition with other nations is a coming reality fraught with uncertainty, especially in the foreign policy community. The result of the unipolar moment has been the U.S’s capitalization on being the unipole and subsequently the international system has been structured according to how we saw fit. Our foreign policy has also reflected the constraints and benefits of being the unipole for over two decades now. The U.S has almost in a way structured its ultimate grand strategy goals around maintaining this structure of unipolarity, despite that actually being out of any one state’s control.

Despite the surface level benefits that may be potentially reaped from the U.S’s status as the unipole, it is now increasingly predicted that a coming polarity shift is imminent in the form of a rising China. Since the early 80’s China’s GDP has risen at a rate of almost 10% per year following the series of economic reforms. As the country has continued to rival the U.S economic strength and even surpass it in 2014 in purchasing power according to data found from the IMF World Economic Outlook database, scholars are quick to note that this trend is one of the major ways in which neorealists tend to gauge power. In neorealist conceptions of what it

means to be a “superpower” vs. a “great power”, generally it is accepted that countries with strong economies, substantial land space, large populations, and regional power are the foundational steps often need to transition from a “great power” to a “superpower”. Of course as is also neorealist tradition, there is no hard and fast rule to exactly what makes a “superpower” or “great power”, or what the magic formula may be to transition from one or the other; but as China continues to grow in the foundational areas of typical power components, it is easy to see why this is causing the world some unease.

Before one can discuss the potential polarity shifts, it is important to establish that the world is in fact unipolar at this moment in time and has been since about the fall of the Soviet Union, if not perhaps slightly before as well. According to William Wohlforth’s 1999 article “The Stability of a Unipolar World'' the United States “ enjoys a much larger margin of superiority over the next most powerful state or, indeed, all other great powers combined than any leading state in the last two centuries. Moreover, the United States is the first leading state in modern international history with decisive preponderance in all the underlying components of power: economic, military, technological, and geopolitical. To describe this unprecedented quantitative and qualitative concentration of power as an evanescent "moment" is profoundly

mistaken” (Wohlforth, 1999). Since this article was published, this observation has remained over the last two decades, but scholars still disagreed over whether or not this observation was true and the system was truly unipolar. For the purposes of this paper, however, I will be agreeing with Wohlforth and other scholars’ assessment of current unipolarity with the United States as the only superpower within the system.

The current unipolar system for the purposes of this paper is undeniable, but also undeniably going to shift in the future. Yet as unipolarity has persisted, the U.S has made many foreign policy and grand strategy decisions based on the structural constraints and flexibilities of being the unipole. This trend may not be an advisable one should a shift in power occur. My question is, should the system return to bi or multipolarity, how will U.S foreign policy be able to accommodate these changes peacefully after it has so long been centered around maintaining the unipolar system and its current status? Additionally how will the U.S negotiate other rising powers, once they do rise enough to present real challenges to the status quo? Essentially seeing as China is the clear candidate for being the fastest rising power, how will the U.S navigate its relationship to avoid returning to an era reminiscent of Cold War tensions. The aim of this thesis is to do a literature review from the book “International Relations and the Consequences of Unipolarity” to help bring light to these questions.

A Structure Analysis

In Jervis’s article, he starts by discussing some key questions that scholars must ask themselves for a structural analysis of the unipolar system and its definition. It is well known that the unipole does not have control over outcomes, but Jervis says a good litmus test to explore this relationship between capabilities and power is to actually look at how often the

unipole actually gets what it wants. This is to help address the two different definitions of the unipolar system; one marked by just capabilities and the other defined by total security for the unipole. Both are linked by the underlying assumption that the privileged position of the unipole leads to security. This is a difficult assumption to verify seeing that capabilities and power are not entirely straightforward and even despite a state having sufficient capabilities and power, this may not entirely enable the state to reach all of their objectives, should their values or behavior be found unacceptable by the international community.

Essentially Jervis argues that unipolar systems hinge largely on what unipoles desire as they grow and the desires depend largely on the specific idiosyncrasies of whichever superpower. Unipolar systems thus are nonidentical. As Jervis explains for the implications of the specific unipole characteristic on its control over objectives, “Whether others will comply also depends on nonstructural factors, especially the coincidence of discrepancy between the worlds they prefer and the one sought by the superpower. Of course the actors’ preferences may themselves be subject to influence, and we would expect the unipole to make serious efforts to persuade or coerce…the others to develop goals, values, and beliefs that are compatible with its own. Indeed inducing such a consciousness…is over the long run the cheapest and most secure form of influence. Whether these efforts will succeed depends in large part on how compatible

the unipole’s objectives are with those of the others and the skill with which it acts” (Jervis, pg. 257).

This observation also leads to the related question of which threats actually challenge the security of a unipole. Jervis points out that traditional theories tie the longevity of the unipole to the economy, due to the fact that a strong economy is needed to protect the cost of its position. Yet he notes should the unipole be able to profit off its position, the unipolar structure is largely self-sustaining. While this observation is not enough to protect the unipole completely from instability (it does not protect the unipole from economic shocks) it does however represent a bigger break from past systems by “take[ing] states out of anarchy and transforms if not dissolves international politics in two related ways. First security concerns are greatly reduced for the unipole and others it protects….second some of the relations under unipolarity will embody a degree of hierarchy...the unipole cannot dictate but it can set at least some of the rules and can enforce agreements among others (although it itself cannot be bound)” (Jervis, pg. 258- 259).

Essentially, the result from the years under unipolarity has been a shift from past unipolar systems like those of ancient Rome or China, to one where the U.S is calling the shots and organizing the international system. Unlike past unipolar systems, the current one is characterized by modern developments like nuclear weapons, liberal values and more of a “security community” stemming from the high cost of modern war. It is also largely defined by the characteristics of the U.S itself in values, politics, and outlook. According to Jervis structuralist claims analyzing the system say any unipole would behave as the U.S has due to the constraints inherent in the system. But as Jervis has already mentioned, to expect unipolarity to look the same under different regimes like the USSR or China is to ignore the fact that it is extremely difficult to separate the impact of the “soft power” influences exported by the unipole. America’s insistence on democracy or liberal values does not reflect prudent statecraft in response to structure, but indeed reflects how under unipolarity the internal factors like regime and individual president attitudes may matter more than external factors.

Jervis discusses this by analyzing the Iraq war and the idea that has somewhat dictated American foreign policy, which is the attitude of to “be complacent is to allow alternative powers to rise” (Jervis, 272). The most extreme example of this attitude is the Iraq war in which the U.S and its allies felt it was best to take preventative steps in the form of war. This type foreign policy driven by American values like democracy promotion, has continued to steer the direction of foreign policy well past its initiation in President Bush’s term. The intensity has lessened as Jervis notes, but even under the Obama administration more troops were still sent to Afghanistan with the goal of democratization in the region. As Jervis best explains, “the current lack of a superpower competitor has not made the U.S comfortable with other kinds of regimes” (Jervis, 272). The structure of unipolarity has made the U.S brand of unipole power almost desirable to other countries despite any overreach in its foreign policy. It has also created a deeply mistrustful U.S that is uninterested in anything other than perpetuating the current status quo.

The regimes of the Middle East did not present any real threat like that of China, but they were still enough to encourage policies that at their heart wanted to keep the influx of American power stable. Yet even with the perhaps irrational and ambitious self interested foreign policy that came out of the Bush era, no legitimate balancing coalitions have formed against the U.S. As I had previously mentioned, instead of leading powers acting in ways balance of power theory would predict to unite against American unipolar power, they have formed a “security community” as Jervis coins it. Indeed while Jervis also points out the fact that neither China nor Russia are a part of this security community, neither country has attempted to unite in order to balance against the unipole either-contrary to what balance of power theorists would predict.

Jervis attributes this trend to the oversight balance of power theory does not account for which is, what happens once the unipole is already established. The theory makes predictions

that states will form coalitions in order to help prevent a hegemon from completing it’s full rise, but it doesn’t convincingly speak of what happens after unipolarity is already in effect. “What is equally crucial is that balance of power dynamics arise in the context of the use, threat, and fear of force. But as we have seen, the leading powers now form a security community. The incentives to try to overturn unipolarity are much less when states do not fear that the superpower will invade them or greatly diminish their sovereignty. Indeed, if they believe that the unipole will provide a degree of order and public goods and that rivalry would be destabilizing, they may actively support unipolarity. While self-interest may underlie the Bush administration’s argument that the rise of any other country or group of countries to challenge the US would lead to conflict if it failed and to instability if it succeeded, the claim may be correct and/or may be seen as such by many other countries. The record of bipolarity and

multipolarity is not attractive…cautious men and women might not opt to run the experiment” (Jervis, 275).

Legitimacy and Hypocrisy Under Unipolarity

The U.S has made foreign policy decisions based on the structure of unipolarity and the certain ways the structure of the system has caused the U.S to react in response. One way in which unipolarity has helped dictate certain decisions, stems from the role legitimacy and hypocrisy play in a unipolar system as Finnemore discusses in her article. Often overlooked by the more material aspects of a unipole’s power such as military capabilities or economic strength, Finnemore explains how, “material force alone remains to impose order, and order creation or maintenance by that means is difficult, even under unipolarity. Successful and stable orders require the grease of some legitimation structure to persist and prosper…unipoles attempt to articulate some set of values and shared interests that induce acquiescence or support from others, thereby legitimating their power and policies…acceptance by or overt support from others makes exercise of power by the unipole cheaper and more effective” (Finnemore, 72).

Since the U.S rise to preponderance after the collapse of the Soviet Union, this notion of a need for legitimacy and the pushing of shared values, has been a core component of the U.S brand of foreign policy and international conduct. By pushing values like open markets, the U.S was able to develop “public goods” such as international economic institutions, like the IMF, which in turn are key players in the U.S grand strategy of institutionalizing it’s power. As Finnemore notes, it is no coincidence that “current systemic rules demand open markets and free trade” (80) and this norm in turn reciprocally benefits the U.S economy. International authority has essentially resulted from the U.S transformation of its power into these institutions, simultaneously legitimizing the United States and most of its objectives in one fell swoop.

The U.S is a strong unipole due to the way it has positioned itself into championing universal values, despite the ultimate hypocrisy that does follow this sort of rule setting. Great power requires this sort of great legitimacy, and the U.S was able to create its current standing due not only to its rise to the unipole status, but also due to the efforts stemming from the Cold War values promotion in its sphere of influence. “The U.S was a vocal (if not always consistent) proponent of freedom, democracy, and human rights. It built and extended institutional architecture designed to shape global politics in ways that both served its interest and propagated

its values. So successful was the U.S at legitimating and institutionalizing its power that, by the time the Berlin Wall fell, other models of political and economic organization had largely disappeared. The U.S-favored liberal model of free markets and democracy became the model choice for states around the world not through overt U.S coercion, but in significant part because states had accepted it as the best (ergo most legitimate) way to run a country” (Finnmore, 97).

This observation from Finnemore about not only the importance legitimacy has for the achievement of power, but also the groundwork that was laid prior to the U.S’s rise is key to helping look at the question of returning to an era of bipolarity with China. Currently the legitimacy is centered most predominantly on the U.S as is to be expected from the result of the system structuring. But should bipolarity reemerge, it would not be unthinkable to expect the same sort of ploys from China that the U.S executed during the Cold War. However, a key difference I think from the Cold War era, to modern day would be the fact that authority and

legitimacy of the current U.S led system have already been accepted by many states. China’s main hurdle would be to present a viable alternative to what is already in place and accepted by the current international community. Thus should we return to a bipolar system, U.S foreign policy would be largely dictated to the upkeep of its unipolar legitimacy and the institutions that cemented its power. It should be noted however, that this current undermining of U.S legitimacy has already begun in several small steps from China, most notably AIIB. As unipolarity becomes more costly and demanding, we should expect more viable Chinese alternatives to U.S led institutions to become a reality. Yet the question of how the U.S and indeed the rest of the world will react, as the shattering of stable authority occurs from these alternatives, remains to be seen.