No.4. (28/02/2003)
The End of the American Era?
This week, FPA speaks with Charles Kupchan, professor of international relations at Georgetown University and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He also served on the National Security Council during the Clinton administration.
The end of the American era, as you see it, constitutes the historical endpoint of "industrial capitalism, liberal democracy in the nation-state." While you highlight many of the benefits of a system in which the U.S. ensures world order by extinguishing fires across the globe and controlling international institutions, you also note that this system of order may not be here for long. Why would this be the case?
The book illuminates two ways in which the American era is going to come to an end. The first highlights a "near-term" phenomena - the loss of the primacy that the United States enjoys today. I see that coming about for two different reasons. One is the rise of the European Union as a counterweight to the U.S., and the other is the erosion of liberal internationalism in the U.S. in favor of unilateralist and neo-isolationist alternatives -- in that change and practice of internationalism will both alienate others and cause the U.S. to pull its horns. And so to some extent the erosion of the US primacy will be internally driven. The second way in which the American era is ending adopts a much longer-term perspective that concerns the advancement in the digital age and the implications for fundamental political and social institutions during this century and beyond.
Who or what will be the first casualties in the end of the American era? Will it be NATO, the UN?
I believe that the Atlantic alliance rift, or the loosening bond between Europe and America will illustrate the primary casualty. Explicitly, both the rise of European power and its willingness to stand its ground against the United States, and the extent to which American behavior causes estrangement across the Atlantic demonstrate this Trans-Atlantic drift.
You note the need for a measured and steady internationalism rather than a schizophrenic multilateralism a la carte or a kind of unilateralist internationalism. Are we too focused on fighting terror and rogue nations? Have we lost our peripheral here? Is that what Europe is so upset about?
I think an element of it is unrelated to 9/11 - when this country is left to its own devices, it tends to drift from engagement with the world and particularly liberal engagement and by that I mean multi-lateral, institutional engagement. That's partly because we're large and isolated and therefore, are less aware of many other countries in the world. Another factor concerns our political culture- an identity that was merged with very strong strains of liberty and a fear of institutions that could compromise our sovereignty. Those strains, of isolationism and unilateralism, so to speak were overcome during the second half of the 20th century, but it took an enormous amount of work by Roosevelt and those who followed, to build a coalition around liberal engagement. So part of it, I think, is just a return of these strains that run deep in our political culture.
And don't you think that is a direct result of 9/11?
The second part of it is 9/11. I think 9/11, contrary to the popular perception of it being the new Pearl Harbor, is really the opposite. It will not engender moderate centrist engagement, but it will push us to the extremes. For now, those extremes are largely unilateral in the desire of the U.S. to go get the barbarians -- be they in Afghanistan or Iraq or elsewhere. I also believe, however, that in the longer run, the threat of terror will also provoke a turning inward and I believe we've seen it in the sense of calls by people like Richard Allen from the Wall Street Journal for pulling out of North Korea. There is now discussion of ending the U.S. bases in Saudi Arabia. And yesterday in the paper there was an article about the withdrawal of US troops from Europe. So this is all about change and strategic priorities where America may be more selectively engaged in the world.
In the book, you place importance on the need for a compelling American grand strategy to manage this new era that is being ushered in. In it, you trace a number of geopolitical maps that have served as guidelines towards a long-term strategy in the past, primarily throughout the Cold War. What are some of the challenges to creating such guiding principles today in this post-9/11 environment?
One of them is the domestic landscape. I think our country is becoming more difficult politically speaking with the coastal states leaning toward liberalism and democracy and the heartland remaining conservative, making it increasingly tougher to build coalitions. I believe we are, to some extent, seeing an erosion of the multi-ethnic melting pot and that's partly because the digital era allows people to live where they want to live, rather than where they need to live. So, you're not seeing the mixing bowl of people moving to the riverhead or to the port or other places. We're also seeing a very consequential generational change where the older Americans who still guide our foreign policy cut their teeth on World War II and the Cold War Berlin Wall. They are default internationalists. Younger Americans will not have those images in their minds. It will be harder to keep them focused on the mainstream international issues.
Do you believe that with the technological revolution of this younger generation, along with globalization , young people crave a better understanding of the world?
I think that younger Americans will tend to be very cosmopolitan, worldly, and traveled. They will have connections to the Internet in every reach of the globe. However, I don't feel this internationalism necessarily reflects an understanding of the notion of geopolitical urgency. Most Americans these days have never and will never serve in the military. It's very unlike the older generation. And so, in that sense, I think we just don't know where Americans will be heading on the internationalist front, but I feel confident in saying it will be different and probably more difficult than in the past.
You can see that in some of the anti-war demonstrations and some of the superficiality, in terms of simplifying an issue like Iraq down to oil.
Also just one further point going back to 9/11. I think we are not seeing the fullness of debate in this country that we have had in the past and that we would expect to see. People are no longer asking the hard questions. The Democrats are afraid of being anti-patriotic. So even though we are about to enter a war, which I think most reasonable people would agree, is questionable. You're not really seeing a rich, full debate in this country.
What about, in terms of that debate, the role of the press? It seems to me that the past few weeks have been rather reactionary. I've been surprised by the headlines and certain editorials that I've read, from the Wall Street Journal to the Washington Post. The language itself is almost shocking. What are your thoughts on that?
I think that the political atmosphere in this country tends to be generally supportive of the administration. And that's sort of the 9/11 sense of the anger and vulnerability. My own views are that the European objections are sincere and far from frivolous. The questions they pose about the wisdom of war are important. Reasonable people will disagree on this question of attacking Iraq. It's a close call. And so I don't believe that the widespread criticism of Europe is justified.
It seems like a lot has changed since last Wednesday. I'm looking right now at the editorial from today's Washington Post and the headline reads, "Standing with Saddam". This phrase ties in closely with my next thought. You talked about a global system today that is fluid and malleable with unprecedented opportunities and responsibilities falling upon the United States. This Administration has responded with what has come to be known as The Bush Doctrine. I see a relationship between the Post's headline and the doctrine, which basically implies that if you're against American policy, you are immediately assumed to be part of the other camp. Doesn't this eliminate any possibility for an articulated debate? The Bush Doctrine is obviously defined by the President's suggestion that "You're With Us or You're Against Us" and that the U.S. retains the right to act preemptively and unilaterally in a post-9/11 world. In your opinion, does this policy address the intricacies and complicated geopolitical fault-lines that make up the world today?
I think that the Bush Doctrine does in fact, provide a grand strategy in a way that was missing before. But it's the wrong grand strategy and I think the two key pieces of it are pre-emption and preeminence. On pre-emption, I think the Bush Administration is actually correct to acknowledge that we are in a new world now and there circumstances under which we need to act before we are acted upon. We need to, in some cases, take action against rogue nations with weapons of mass destruction, but I think moving down that road is treacherous and must be done with the utmost care and it must be done multilaterally because otherwise, it turns into a free-for-all. I decide I want to preempt, therefore, I pre-empt. Preeminence - I have more problems with this term in the generic sense, in that, the Bush Administration says that we will be so preeminent that no other country even thinks of taking us on. My view is that this force will provoke precisely the balancing behavior that the Bush Administration thinks it's avoiding. This is essentially a laboratory for competing theories to be tested. Bush says that the stronger we are and the more blustery our leadership, the more the world will follow. I would say, the stronger we are and the more blustery our leadership, the more the world will lock arms against us. And now we're going to see who's right.
The rise of the European Union obviously plays heavily into this and has been consistently referred to as the number one counterweight to American supremacy. You write that, "The EU and the United States might part ways borders on the unthinkable. A single pole is gradually separating into two, more or less before our eyes here." You wrote this obviously before the current disagreement over Iraq. Is the issue of Iraq quickening this separation? And how do you think the US should respond?
No question that it's quickening and it's forcing to the surface the deeper trend that I saw developing over the last decade. I'm surprised by the quickness with which these differences, these rifts are boiling up to the surface. I also think that the one statement you read to me that, "it's almost unthinkable that the two could part ways" is no longer true. I think that most observers would now say that's it's thinkable. Not only is it thinkable, it appears to be happening. And again, I'm not at all surprised that it's happening because I predicted it, but I'm surprised by how quickly it's coming about.
You write about a need for an American map in terms of guiding its grand strategy. What if we sort of turn the tables on that and look at it from a European perspective. What might an emerging European grand strategy look like as they begin drafting their constitution for the European Union and the lines are being drawn across the continent of Europe regarding Iraq and NATO expansion and some of these issues?
I think the EU will, despite the current differences within the Union over Iraq, gradually move down the path of greater integration, of greater collective identity. It will assume from NATO primary responsibility of managing European security and over time it will gradually extend its ambition outside Europe, but that's going to take a long time. I think for the next decade, at least, the EU will be primarily focused on the Balkans, integrating Russia, and consolidating central Europe. The relationship with the United States will become more distant and difficult. I think there will be a division of labor where the EU takes care of Europe and the United States focuses on the rest of the world. Then the big question is, will the Atlantic relationship not only be competitive, but also adversarial. Right now, it clearly has adversarial overtones. I think that a European grand strategy and an American grand strategy ought to be to recognize that the alliance is over, but rather than let it deteriorate into a divorce and a nasty divorce, try to find a way to make it a more healthy competition. And I think both sides need to think hard on how to do that.
I spoke some time ago with Paul Kennedy and I think the term he used was a "graceful decline" of the US and I believe it was in your book as well.
I think not so much US decline, I think we'll probably do fine in terms of our own economy. It's more about the decline of the world that is dominated by the US, and the rise of alternative centers of power. But I would agree with Kennedy. The key is- don't resist it, don't kick and scream. Realize it's happening, move with the flow and shape it.
The last thing I wanted to talk a little bit about, something that you mentioned earlier in our conversation, and something that I recall from the book as well - the idea that the end of the American era is internal. Some of the points from your book relate to American identity and self-identity even. For example: you say, "Even more disturbing than the incoherence of U.S. Policy is that few seem to care", "The professional and institutional structure of the U.S. research community is biased against just the type of broad inquiry needed to stimulate new thinking about grand strategy" and "The U.S. is a satisfied power". What role will these three issues play geared toward the public, towards institutions, and maybe on a more comprehensive level, what role would these three issues play at the end of the American era?
On the public issue I think the question is how to generate interest and engagement and not allow people to be swung back and forth between the extremes of unilateralism and isolationism. That's going to take an enormous effort by our leaders. A public education effort, an outreach that would be just as ambitious as what happened in the 40's by Roosevelt because I think that the public is not uninterested, but it is not, by default, going to engage in the way that I think is healthy. Also, unfortunately in our political system, the public, which is generally multilateralist, which is generally centrist, doesn't assign high saliency to foreign issues to the extent that foreign issues are electorally significant, they tend to be extremists. The people who are against the UN. The people who are against the ICC. They will cast votes on these issues. People for the UN, for multilateralism, don't cast votes on these issues. So the squeaky wheel gets the grease and I think that's something we need to work on. In terms of institutions, for someone who teaches at a University who has been engaged in teaching people public policy, I lament the extent to which, especially during the 1990's, the Internet, and the economy, have really been soaking up the best and brightest. We don't have people broadly educated in history, geopolitics, or the classics, in the same way that the older generation was. People are learning how to write memos and doing Lotus123 and PowerPoint. I think that comes at the expense of intellectual balance that we need to guide the country. "US as a satisfied power? To some extent, yes and no. Right now, because of the ascending of the neo-conservatives, we are almost a revolutionary power. We are trying to reshape the world in our image. The neo-conservatives think that they can export American values at the barrel of a gun, if necessary. And I think that that's quite dangerous and could well provoke a backlash against the United States in over its head. But I think that we are still satisfied to the extent that we are at the top. We think that we can get away with calling the shots, but I think that we are going to find ourselves increasingly frustrated in that sense as others garner strength and dig in their heels against us.
In the time that's gone by since you've finished the book and say, for example, the events of the last few months, do you think in terms of the US being a satisfied power that its main goal is no longer simply to achieve the status quo or to maintain the status quo, but is to, as you just mentioned before, revolutionize the face of the international order?
I think that I would probably qualify the statement that we are a satisfied power. At least this country, in its current political guise, has a revolutionary agenda in the sense of wanting to go out there and change the world toward the American model in those places where they are still lagging behind. And that's all about weapons of mass destruction and the threat of terrorism. So it really has re-awakened a sense in the need to get out there. The one downside in my mind is becoming so preoccupied with this one issue, terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, seeing the world in terms of good and evil risks that we miss the bigger picture; that we hold a view of the international system. That there's no resemblance to the view held by the rest of the world. In that sense, we could do as much damage or more damage, than were we to check out and turn inward.
(Source: FPA, www.fpa.org, Author: R. Nolan)