The End of Pax Americana? - Dr. Mackubin Owens

The End of Pax Americana? - Dr. Mackubin Owens

In the early 1990s, the United States was sitting pretty, having defeated the Soviet Union and ended the Cold War.  With the collapse of the Soviet Union, some bought into “end of history” narrative, which argued that liberal democracy had triumphed as the world’s universal ideology, having defeated both fascism and communism.  While conflict might continue on the peripheries of the liberal world order, the trend was toward a more peaceful and prosperous world. The economic component of the end of history narrative was “globalization,” the triumph of liberal capitalism.

 

The end of history narrative was complemented by that of the “technological optimists” who saw the rapid coalition victory over Saddam Hussein in the First Gulf War as proof that the United States could maintain its dominant position in the international order by maintaining its technological advantage and exploiting the “revolution in military affairs” (RMA). Many US policymakers accepted the idea that the combination of the apparent victory of liberalism over communism on the one hand and US technological dominance on the other would ensure that US domination of the global order. If the term “Pax Americana” was not often used to describe the situation, others such as America’s “unipolar moment” served as a substitute.

GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST

 

Not everyone was on board. Echoing the observation of the Prussian “philosopher of war,” Carl von Clausewitz, that in war the outcome is never final, the eminent British strategist Colin Gray reminded his readers that “bad times return” and warned against the false promises of the technological optimists. The geopolitical writer, Robert Kaplan, warned of “the coming anarchy” first glimpsed in the Balkans. The great political scientist, Samuel Huntington observed in his “clash of civilizations” that there was still plenty to fight about besides ideology. In my own writings, I described this period as the “era of strategic happy talk.”

 

Some combination of the end of history and technological optimist storylines exerted a great deal of influence over the administrations of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden. Unfortunately, as illustrated by 9/11, the course of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the seemingly relentless military rise of China, and the failure of many Islamic states to embrace liberalism, and most recently, the role of Iran and its proxies in the Middle East, strategic happy talk continues to run up against geopolitical reality.  The world is certainly more dangerous today than it was during the halcyon days of the 1990s.

 

There is a case for the United States to reassume its role as underwriter of a liberal geopolitical order. The logic lies in the concept of “hegemonic stability,” which holds that a ‘‘liberal world order’’ does not arise spontaneously as the result of some global ‘‘invisible hand.’’ 

 

Instead, such a system requires, in the words of Ethan Barnaby Kapstein, a ‘‘hegemonic power, a state willing and able to provide the world with the collective goods of economic stability and international security.’’ The United States, as Great Britain before it, took up the role of hegemon not out of altruism but because it was in its national interest to do so.

 

According to the theory of hegemonic stability, the alternative to U.S. power is a more disorderly, less peaceful world.

 

The precedent for the United States is the decay of Pax Britannica, which, many believe, created the conditions for the two world wars of the twentieth century.

 

As British hegemony declined, smaller states that previously had incentives to cooperate with Britain "defected" to other powers, causing the international system to fragment.  

 

The outcome was depression and war. The decline of American power arguably has led to a similar outcome.

 

The decline of US power was not preordained. It has come about because of policy decisions. On the one hand, the Clinton, Obama, and now the Biden administrations have placed their faith in international institutions and acted as if the main use of US power is to support these institutions. All too often, the goal of Democratic administrations was to create a “global good,” a corporatist globalism divorced from patriotism or national greatness. In addition, Democratic administrations have consistently failed to make the distinction between friends and allies on the one hand, and enemies and competitors on the other. The result has been a loss of faith in the United States by our allies while our enemies—Russia, Iran, and China—have been emboldened.

 

On the other hand, the George Bush administration cast prudence aside, quixotically embarking on a quest to reshape the world in on the basis of a liberal democratic model. That quest foundered on the shoals of tribalism and religion in Afghanistan and Iraq. This hubristic effort to reshape the international system ironically contributed to the rise of China in two ways: first by expending limited resources on the post-9/11 wars; and by acting on the false belief that China was willing to abide by the “norms” of liberal internationalism.

 

Unfortunately, Americans seem to have lost the sort of national pride that has sustained US power in the past. Too many Americans, especially the young, have been taught that the United States, far from being a beacon to the world, is instead a regime founded on racism, imperialism, and colonialism. Our institutions of higher learning have gone a long way in undermining the patriotism of the young. But even many patriotic Americans embrace the idea of a “weary titan” and are all too willing abandon an outward-looking approach to foreign affairs.

 

What alternative futures might await an America that has abandoned the global role that it assumed in World War II? The least dangerous one is a return to the sort of balance of power system that prevailed in Europe from the defeat of Napoleon to the collapse of that system nearly a century later and the outbreak of World War I.

 

Another is a China-led power system of authoritarian control and economic dynamism with all that such a system entails. Of course, China has many problems of its own—especially demographic—and such a world order might arise only with war. And finally, it is possible to imagine a true breakdown of order arising from international anarchy, similar to the aftermath of World War I.

 

In any event, the result, as we have already seen, will be a world less friendly to freedom and prosperity. As Sam Huntington predicted in 1993, “a world without U.S. primacy will 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 in shaping global affairs. The sustained international primacy of the United States is central to the welfare and security of Americans and to the future of freedom, democracy, open economies, and international order in the world.” We have been warned.