Novelty has observers rummaging through their inventory of ideas and concepts to find one to fit the new experience. Its application is supposed to provide some rudimentary meaning about the new phenomenon. Many are content with doing just that – however freighted with inappropriate connotations that label might be, however ambiguous its denotation(s). So, it is with concepts like populism, Fascism, and hegemony. All are in vogue; all are so promiscuously employed as to lose whatever capacity for clarification or explanation they could have for explicating the phenomena in question.
Let’s look at the last mentioned – Hegemony. The term holds a central place in the present discourse about the United States’ place in the world: what it has been, its sustainability, and alternative ways of formulating the country’s national interests.
Hegemony = dominance over places, political elites, institutions so as to control what a state does in its own interest. That dominance can vary in scope, in its methods of control, in its degrees of control. The much discussed American hegemony after WW II was geographically delimited by the Communist bloc outside its ambit. After 1991, it took on a putative global dimension with the aspirational goal to solidify the United States’ primacy and dominion. It remains so today. (It was first enunciated in the notorious Wolfowitz Memorandum in February 1992, which since has become the template American foreign policymaking).1 During the earlier period, the United States’ preoccupation was security, the means primarily military – albeit buttressed by a dense network of favorable economic relationships partially institutionalized. Over the ensuing 30-odd years, the emphasis gradually shifted toward the multifaceted, politico-economic strategy of neo-liberalism. That change in the balance between ‘hard’ and ‘semi-soft’ power never eclipsed purely military considerations – as evinced in a) the Pentagon’s publicly stated commitment to broad spectrum military superiority in order to ensure escalation dominance in every region against any imaginable foe, b) the scatter-shot interventions conducted in the name of the Global War On Terror, c) the relentless expansion of NATO.
Washington’s readiness to use force to work its will, now expressed in its aggressive stance toward Russia and China, did not extinguish the idealistic Kantian belief that the spread of constitutional democracy along with the promised tangible rewards of world-wide economic independence, is the surest guarantee of international stability. A stability overseen by a benevolent America. The fulfillment of this presumed teleology, though, dictated the use of hard power to thwart/subdue those who could challenge it.
Today, our political elites find themselves in a position where the goal of global hegemony has become unreachable – by any reasonable standard, for objective reasons. Yet, this logical conclusion is one that they are unwilling – or unable – to accept. That unwillingness is at once intellectual, ideological and emotional. The complex psychology of a declining great power that enjoyed unprecedented respect beyond its borders, that was founded on the belief in an inborn exceptionalness destining it to be the cynosure of ideas that would reshape the world, makes analysis of this behavior daunting. What we can say is that the prospect of diminished status is intolerable – even if the country’s security and welfare face no direct threat. The compulsive quest for an imagined absolute security and natural superiority does not allow Americans to rest content with what they achieved at home and abroad. For what the country aspired to, and felt itself near to accomplishing, is slipping out of our reach. The gap between aspiration and reality widens year by year. Therein lies the rub.
Fading prowess is one of the most difficult things for humans to cope with – whether it be an individual or a nation. By nature, we prize our strength and competence; we dread decline and its intimations of extinction. This is especially so in the United States where for many the individual and the collective persona are inseparable. No other country tries so relentlessly to live its legend as does the U.S. For many Americans – in the age of anxiety and insecurity – their sense of individual self-esteem and self-worth is grounded on their intimate association with being part of a uniquely endowed and virtuous nation. Today, events are occurring that contradict the American narrative of a nation with an exceptional destiny. That creates cognitive dissonance and unease. 2
The remarkable uniformity of thinking among influential members of the political class militates against confronting that dilemma head-on. There is close to zero serious debate about foreign policy ends and means – at least, among those who have any access to the corridors of decision-making power. All observe the same holy writ and sing from the same hymnal. The result: deeply entrenched group-think impervious to contradictory evidence that is ignored or dismissed or twisted to fit preconceptions. That points to a troubling question: should American conduct internationally be understood in terms of a reasoned determination to follow chosen course internationally, however high the odds against achieving its ambitious goal? Or, are we observing compulsive actions rooted in deep-seated emotions and states of mind that are reified in doctrinal hegemony?
WHY HEGEMONY?
Every state’s paramount concern is its security. That stems from the intrinsic nature of international affairs. The distinguishing characteristic of that environment is that each entity determines when and how it might use force to achieve its objectives – there is no superior authority setting and enforcing rules of behavior. Hence, the ubiquity of potential conflict situations for which states must prepare themselves. Is the hallmark of international relations. This truism, though, trails some cardinal questions. The circumstance in which any state finds itself is not fixed; there are a multitude of strategic configurations – each with its peculiar traits. Too, there is a range of policies that a state could follow to secure itself under any of those conditions.
Obviously, those theoretical options are limited by relevant parties’ relative strength, domestic resources, degrees of internal cohesion, prevailing ideologies, etc. Nonetheless, alternative ways of setting one’s security needs and formulating strategies for meeting them do exist. That holds even where ‘discretionary response potential’ is limited by objective conditions.
Determining what constitutes a satisfactory security situation is a function of judgments made by main decision-makers in their country’s peculiar context and history. At one end of the continuum is the quest for absolute security – or, some approximation to it. Even then an assessment should be made of the feasible/preferable timeframe. Absolute security for as far as the strategic eye can see? for this generation? Until some envisaged change in the balance-of-power is expected to register?
Predominant thinking in the United States is located toward that absolutist point on the continuum. In addition, it leans heavily toward the long-term – if not permanency. That is understandable. For its first 130 years or so, the U.S. was secured against threat to its physical cum political integrity by geography. The only exception was the hovering danger posed in its early years by a Britain which harbored hopes of retribution and restoration as became manifest in the War of 1812. For the next century, the Americans engaged in conflict with other states only because of their own ambitions to extend its dominions. (Against Spain: 1819, 1898; against Mexico: 1848). Those were choices, by no means a necessity. So, too, was entry into World War I. Washington leaders were evidently more comfortable with the pre-war status quo than they were with a Europe dominated by a triumphant Germany. Still, the threat assessment was more abstract than concrete and – such as it was – could not emerge in the near future. Hence, it rightly also should be labelled a ‘war of choice’ rather than a war of security necessity. It was natural, if not preordained, that the U.S. would revert to neo-isolationism during the inter-war period.
The American confidence in its insularity from tangible security threats subsequently was punctured by three events: Pearl Harbor, the Soviet detonation of a nuclear bomb, and 9/11. The last came 10 years after the dissolution of the threat from the USSR. In the intervening decade, the United States’ political elites felt reassured that the country’s near absolute security could be restored. The challenge was to exploit propitious conditions globally to establish a benign American hegemony wherein no threat could possibility materialize. A multiform strategy was in order to extend and deepen American influence, to affirm the allegiance and deference of other states, and to prepare for the use of force where necessary to PREVENT any prospective military rival from emerging. That is the underlying logic of the Wolfowitz Doctrine.
At present, its rootedness in the minds of the country’s leadership is evinced by our confrontational attitude toward Russia, China, Iran and a slew of less formidable states whom Washington sees as hostile or in some way antagonistic. As Joe Biden pithily pronounced last week: “not only am I campaigning, but I’m running the world.” Now, that sounds like hyperbole, but we are the essential nation of the world.” Interpolation: We should be running the entire world – for the world’s sake as well as for our sake.
‘Our sake’ implies a need. What sort of need? It is not an overt security need since there exists no manifest threat to the territorial integrity or political integrity. Nor is there such a threat to our principal allies/partners – the confected delusion about Putin being another Hitler and equally fanciful notion of a diabolical Chinese plot to replace us as the global supremo, notwithstanding. What is threatened is American hegemony as conceived a la Wolfowitz. That hegemony is needed not for security reasons, but rather to confirm United States’ entitlement to its exceptionalism and paramountcy embedded in the national psyche and its national creed.
That was the state-of-affairs when the Biden team of neo-cons and hardline nationalists came to power. They felt a sense of urgency. Trump had been too erratic in his dealings with Moscow and Beijing – a battery of sanctions notwithstanding. While he ‘dithered,’ China and Russia grew in strength, a progression that demanded swift action lest it get out of control. They were ready to take the bit between their teeth; they had a plan. The main players shared a clear – if unidimensional – cognitive map of the global environment, the goal was inscribed in granite, and their belief in the efficacy of American power unqualified. The main components were these. Russia was to be neutralized as a major power either by enticing it to shelter under the West’s wing so as to protect itself from the voracious ‘Yellow Peril” on its border OR gravely weakened by a combination of NATO expansion and economic sanctions – with the hope of that leading to Putin’s replacement by a more accommodating leadership. Joe Biden in March 2022: ‘That man just has to go!” China was to be contained by the formation a ring-fence of American-led alliances in Asia coupled to measures designed to restrict its access to Western markets, technology and finance. In addition, concrete steps would be taken to promote Taiwan’s independence while building up its defenses. The Bidens’ expected that such a strategy would mean stagnation of China’s economy with commensurate debilitation of its influence internationally. As for the other hostile parties. They could be dealt with by mobilizing America’s arsenal of coercion weapons against them.
This far-reaching strategy implied a basic change in not just objectives but in risk calculations as well. During the Cold War standoff with the USSR, Washington’s were tempered by prudence. No more. An historian of antiquity characterized the relations between the two great empires of Rome and Parthia this way: “Each empire needed to show respect to the other’s sensibilities. Pushing too hard risked bring on a far more serious war which neither side wanted.” Today’s hard-driving American leaders view that attitude as a quaint remembrance of a past epoch.
The common features of Washington’s plans for Russia and China were 1) their being grounded on profound ignorance of both countries, and 2) a gross overestimation of the West’s power relative to its postulated rivals. The stark demonstration by the Ukraine debacle and China’s economic resilience that all of Washington’s assumptions were misplaced has yet to be assimilated by the American foreign affairs community.
The obvious truth is that the Sino-Russian bloc’s growing strength makes the achievement of the hegemonic goal an impossibility. Indeed, the current trajectory points to an inexorable shift in the loci of international power and interaction toward a bifurcated (if still interdependent world system). Multi-nodal – to use Chas Freeman’s apt term.
America’s exalted sense of self is the principal obstacle to its coming to terms with this discomforting reality. It has sparked the impulse to prove to ourselves (and to the rest of the world) that we remain the global paladin by launching a series of enterprises intended to repel foes and rivals with reinvigorating the bonds with vassals and retainers. That foredoomed, audacious ambition to secure global dominance does not represent cool strategic judgment. Rather, it is the materializing of fantasies spawned deep in the collective American psyche. It is the go-for-broke strategy of a country suffering from a profound cognitive dissonance compounded by a collective identity crisis.
The United States has locked itself onto a course that permits no deviation, no adaptation, no deceleration. All or nothing: Hegemony or Armageddon. That steely determination blinds them to developments that are shifting the odds on that outcome. They are occurring not only in the BRICS part of the world. America’s disgraceful performance as an accomplice to the heinous crimes against the Palestinians has dissolved the United States’ standing in the world as a moral force, as a country with integrity and decent intention. The end of soft power as it had existed. Of course, Washington’s wishes are still taken as authoritative commands by its coterie of denatured vassals whose collective degree over control over their own affairs, as well as the words, is shrinking even faster even that that of their seigneur.
There is another, radically different alternative grounded on the belief that it is feasible to fashion a long-term strategy of nurturing ties of cooperation with Russia and China.
1. The Wolfowitz Credo animates almost all: the Classic neo-cons, the macho neo-cons, and the raw neo-imperialists. The few non-believers are irrelevant to America’s foreign policy discourse. If you urge engagement with Tehran and dialogue with Putin, you are shunned as a heretic – like the Gnostics, and then Cahors, except that the latter at least acknowledged Christ (American exceptionalism) and Satan (Putin/Khamenei) before they were administered their just punishment.
This historical narrative brings to the fore two quite remarkable features of the present elite consensus that bears the imprint of the Neo-Con/Wolfowitz template. First, its near total conquest of the American mind succeeded despite an unmatched record of failure – in analysis and in action. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Iran, Yemen, Somalia, Mali, Belarus, Venezuela, Bolivia – capped by the catastrophe in Ukraine that we choreographed (including that fatal misreading of Russia). Second, the Biden administration has all but officially announced that we are now committed to a comprehensive hybrid war against a Sino-Russian bloc – a powerful rival that has come into existence because we did everything conceivable to encourage it. Yet, the foreign policy elite, the political class and the public have received the news of this titanic struggle with hardly a blink of the eye. The country has set itself on a fateful course in a state of mindlessness induced by a willful coterie of true believers inspired by dogma wreathed in ignorance and pursued in stunningly incompetence.
2. At the psychological level, this approach is understandable since it plays to the United States’ strength: overweening self-confidence coupled to material strength – thereby perpetuating the national myths of being destined to remain the world’s No. 1 forever, and of being in a position to shape the world system according to American principles and interests. President Obama declaimed: “Let me tell you something. The United States of America is the most powerful nation on Earth. Period. It’s not even close. Period. It’s not even close. It’s not even close!” So? Is this meant as a revelation? What is the message? To whom? Is it any different than someone shouting: “ALLAH AKBAR!” Words that are neither a prelude to action nor inspire others to act – nor even impart information – are just puffs of wind. As such, they are yet another avoidance device – a flight from reality. They fail on receptive ears in London, Brussels, Berlin and Canberra. At NATO and G-7 summits, one hears the choral recitation of the ‘Shahada’: “there is only one God – Uncle Sam; and Wolfowitz is his prophet.” Yet, no President dares to repeat Obama’s exclamation in Moscow, Beijing, New Delhi, Brasilia, Riyadh, Brasilia, Jakarta ….
The tension associated with a nation so constituted encountering objective reality does not force heightened self-awareness or a change in behavior if the dominant feature of that reality is the attitudes and expressed opinions of others who share the underlying delusions.
Accompanying it is the growing apprehension in the country that the United States’ supremacy in the world is slipping away, the sensation of losing national prowess, of its mastery in jeopardy. Together, they generate a predilection for seeking clear-cut outcomes in a relatively brief timeframe that reassure by confirming the optimistic belief in American exceptionalism.
3. It is the national equivalent of ostentatious iron-pumping by bodybuilders worried about losing muscle tone. Those worries never disappear, though, even as one becomes muscle-bound striving ever more energetically to reassure oneself that nothing is creeping up behind you. The mirror is much preferred to the backward glance. More important, they fool themselves into the false belief that other, more relevant adjustments to reality are either unnecessary or intolerable.
4. Adrian Goldsworthy Rome and Persia: The Seven Hundred Year Rivalry (Basic Books 2023)
