America’s primacy: Is decline imminent?

America enjoys pre-eminence because it possesses these strengths to a greater degree relative to all other countries. The Economist magazine was undoubtedly correct when it declared in 1999 that the “United States bestrides the globe like a colossus”, but the more important point is that no other state is close to having either the will or the capability to challenge America’s primacy.

As American realist scholar Stephen Walt has noted, America’s position of primacy fosters fear and resistance when its power is misused, but strikingly, at least as yet, no serious international coalition or balance of power has formed to counteract it. None of the obvious contenders - China, Russia, Japan, India or the European Union seem interested. Perhaps the power differentials are too great and the task too demanding.

Alternatively, as a recent study of the US National Intelligence Council suggested, perhaps it is because US policies are not perceived as sufficiently threatening to warrant such a step. Either way, America’s unchallenged supremacy is an event unique in modern international affairs, and looks to be substantially more than the “unipolar moment” the neo-conservative columnist, Charles Krauthammer, proclaimed in 1990.

American primacy means that Washington’s power and influence is both global and highly diffused. President Clinton’s Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, captured this reality when she once famously remarked that America was the “indispensable power”. It was not said with hubris, or with the implication that the US could or should act unilaterally, but rather with the recognition that “America needs to be there”.

As troubling as it may be to those opposed to American power and purpose around the world, little of significance can be achieved in international affairs without Washington’s participation: sometimes with the use of its coercive power, sometimes with its ability to persuade and cajole.

Among many other things the much-needed United Nations’ reform will not take place without America’s active participation and support. Success in the Doha round of multilateral trade negotiations will require Washington’s energetic commitment to change. A serious international effort to address global warming will not be effective until the US signs on. And in a dozen trouble spots around the world - in the Middle East, Asia and Africa, Washington’s intervention has the capacity to shape and determine outcomes, for good or ill.

Historically, only imperial powers have wielded this kind of power and influence, and generally they yield their dominance only reluctantly and when confronted by a successor. For the moment there is no obvious successor. Certainly China’s power is rising, but this is unlikely to be a linear process. China is not yet a regional hegemony, still less is it a global challenger.

None of this is to suggest that great powers, the US included, can preserve their pre-eminence without the studious guardianship of strengths and judicious exercise of their power.

As the eminent historian, John Lewis Gaddis, provocatively remarked recently, “It is always a bad idea to confuse power with wisdom: muscles are not brains”. Whether the first term foreign policy of the Bush Administration is guilty of such a confusion is debatable, that it has struggled to deal effectively with some of the many challenges it has faced is less controversial.

As critics and supporters alike have noted, many of its foreign policy actions have been sound and principled, but implementation has too often proved a weakness. The reasons are important, as they will need close attention in Bush’s second term, but for the purposes of this discussion the more significant point is that this administration’s shortcomings threaten to undermine America’s great power legitimacy and thus its ability to secure important policy objectives, such as the expansion of democracy.

But this is not a terminal condition as the “declinists” are wont to believe. When the US emerged triumphant and pre-eminent from the World War II, the Truman Administration (and its successors) faced the challenge of protecting American power and advancing core national security interests in a world of danger and immense change. They were able to meet this challenge by working with American friends and allies to confront threats and shape a liberal political and economic international order that allowed America’s interests to be advanced, its ideals to be admired and its strength to be respected. Military power underwrote the strategy, but it also made creative use of America’s economic strength, a talent for diplomatic bargaining, artful resort to multilateralism and an enlightened attention to the value of international law.

In short, Washington used all of its available means and instruments of power to secure policy objectives. Policy failures sometimes occurred, as the outcome of the Vietnam War demonstrated, but for the most part American grand strategy secured legitimacy and delivered both prosperity and security, not just for Americans, but for millions of others in the international community not subjugated by communism.

In a globalised world, where the networks of interdependence that are its foundation go, in Thomas Friedman’s words, “farther, faster, cheaper and deeper”, and we face a new security threat, the challenges are manifestly different to those of 1945. The response will need to be different, but as the Bush Administration is showing in the early months of its new term, Washington can remain committed, while also retaining a capacity for adjustment and change.

As it has been able to do in eras now past, the United States must place its power, purpose and primacy on a new 21st century foundation that will serve to underwrite its international legitimacy. This is not just a cause for Americans. For all those members of the international community (including Australia) that revere America’s liberal political values, gain prosperity from its economic enterprise and find security in its military might, this is a cause which is in their interests too.