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Original Article

Persistent primacy and the future of theAmerican era

Robert J. LieberDepartment of Government, Georgetown University, Washington DC 20057-1034, USA.

E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract Arguments are widely expressed that America is in decline, both athome and abroad. These admonitions extend not only to economic, diplomatic andgeopolitical realms, but even to the cultural arena. The United States does face realand even serious problems, but there is an unmistakable echo of the past in currentarguments. Antecedents of these views were evident in the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s, and

on occasion even in identical language. Indeed, declinist proclamations haveappeared on and off not only throughout the 20th Century, but also duringthe 18th and 19th Centuries. Moreover, periodic crises in US history have includedchallenges more daunting than those of today. It can thus be instructiveto compare the arguments and prescriptions of the new declinism with those of earlier eras. The evidence suggests a pattern of over-reaction, a historicism, and alack of appreciation for the robustness, adaptability and staying power of theUnited States.International Politics (2009) 46, 119–139. doi:10.1057/ip.2008.44

Keywords: US foreign policy; primacy; American era; decline; staying power;adaptability

Introduction

By virtue of its size, the breadth and depth of its power, and the indispensable

role it plays in world affairs, the United States possesses a unique degree of

primacy, that is, preponderance in comparison with other countries in those

dimensions by which power is commonly measured, especially economic,

military, technological and even cultural. With the end of the Cold War and

the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States was widelydepicted as the lone superpower. In recent years, however, many authors and

strategists have been predicting the end of the American era They argue that

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wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and its economic, structural and military

vulnerabilities, are triggering the emergence of an increasing number andvariety of stubborn challenges to US power and influence.

These voices have grown louder with the onset of a massive financial crisis,

both American and global. For example, in the words of German Finance

Minister, Peer Steinbru ¨ ck, ‘The US will lose its status as the superpower of the

world financial systemyWhen we look back 10 years from now, we will see

2008 as a fundamental rupture’ (Benoit, 2008). And Iran’s volatile President

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, speaking to world leaders gathered at the United

Nations, has prophesied that America’s empire is ‘reaching the end of the road’

(Solomon, 2008). Notwithstanding such views, counterbalancing and the

decline of US primacy have yet to take place and it remains a matter of

contention whether or when they will occur. Elsewhere, I have argued that the

threat from militant Islamic terrorism, the weakness of international

institutions in confronting the most urgent and deadly problems and the

unique role of the United States have made a grand strategy of superpower

preeminence a logical and necessary adaptation to the realities of the post-9/11

world (Lieber, 2005/2007).1

This leads, however, to the question of whether we may be witnessing a

major erosion of America’s capacity to play this role. (The question of whether

it should do so remains a separate matter and one that has been subject tovigorous debate elsewhere.) One source of change could come from shifts in the

international distribution of power, so that other states, individually or in

coalition, come to possess power comparable to or even exceeding that of

the United States. In addition, there are the human and material costs of

wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which together may be undercutting America’s

strength. At the same time, the United States faces current or potential

threats from regional powers as well as radical Islamist terrorist groups,

and more diffuse but no less real dangers from nuclear proliferation and failed

states. Moreover, the rise of authoritarian capitalist powers, especially Russiaand China, suggests the possible re-emergence of great power peer competitors

(see Gat, 2007).

Challenges to primacy can come from many different directions, not only

from abroad. A significant, yet often under-emphasized dimension concerns

the maintenance of a strong domestic foundation. Nearly a generation ago,

Michael Howard called attention to the ‘forgotten dimensions of strategy’

(Howard, 1979). These included not only the capacity to deploy and support

the largest and best-equipped forces but also the ability to maintain the social

cohesion without which national power and strategy cannot be sustained.In this regard, there are long-term economic challenges in funding a robust

National Security Strategy (NSS) and meeting the needs of an aging

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especially in the context of domestic dissensus and political polarization that

until recently was more pronounced than at any time since the Vietnam era.In addressing the question of whether primacy is sustainable, I begin by

reviewing external challenges, including the threat environment, possible

alternatives to the American role and the extent to which the international

distribution of power may be shifting. I then examine past and present doctrine

and policy and argue that both have often been mischaracterized in recent

debates about strategy and foreign policy. Next, I address the problems of

domestic capacity, involving costs, public support and institutional capability.

I conclude that much of the debate about both the international and domestic

dimensions of foreign policy has given inadequate weight to more fundamental

questions while emphasizing those less likely to endure. Without minimizing

the very real difficulties in both the international and domestic environments,

and which most recently have been seriously exacerbated by a major financial

crisis, the underpinnings of American primacy remain relatively robust and the

country’s ability to maintain its international primacy is, on balance, more

likely than not to continue.

The International Context

Threats

Contrary to widely expressed hopes and expectations following the end of the

Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, a lethal and sustained threat

to America’s security and vital interests has emerged. This consists of three

distinct but interrelated elements: first, radical Islamist jihadism as ideology

and in its varied organizational forms; second, the persistent danger of mass

casualty terrorism; and third, the longer term peril that non-state actors mayeventually acquire and use some form of chemical, biological, radiological or

nuclear weaponry (CBRN). Within the American policy and strategic debate,

however, the reality of this threat has sometimes been obscured by the

bitterness and intensity of political polarization. As evidence, the partisan

division over Iraq is virtually unprecedented. In an August 2008 opinion poll,

asking whether the United States did the right thing in taking military action

against Iraq, the majority of voters (59 vs 37 per cent) thought the United

States should have stayed out. However, 70 per cent of Republican voters

answered that taking action was the right thing to do, whereas only 14 per centof Democrats agreed, as did a mere 2 per cent of delegates to the Democratic

presidential nominating convention (New York Times/CBS News Poll 2008)

Persistent primacy and the future of the American era

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the parties, these were less wide and the divisions within each party were also

quite pronounced.For America the 9/11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington

were a watershed event and deserve comparison with Pearl Harbor in marking

a turning point, but the peril had been developing during the course of

the 1990s. For example, a 1995 plot, the abortive Bojinka Plan, would have

destroyed 10 – 12 wide body passenger aircraft over the Pacific (see House,

2002; Senate, 2002; Karber, 2003). Even earlier, the 1993 truck bomb attack on

the World Trade Center in New York only narrowly failed in its aim. Had it

succeeded, it would have brought down the North Tower, possibly collapsing

it against its twin at a time of day when both buildings were fully occupied and

wreaking a casualty toll substantially greater than that of 9/11.

Abroad, particularly in parts of Europe, there has been a tendency to view

9/11 and radical jihadism through the lenses of earlier and more familiar

experiences with violent domestic groups such as Baader-Meinhof in Germany,

the Red Brigades in Italy, the IRA in Northern Ireland and the Basque

separatist ETA in Spain, and to imagine that the danger can be treated

primarily as a criminal matter best dealt with by domestic security, policing

and courts. Unfortunately, the scale of threat cannot be understood in such

limited terms, and though partially obscured by sharp differences about the

Iraq War and the conduct of the Bush administration, European governmentsdo appear to have become increasingly aware of the danger. For example,

the head of Britain’s MI5 revealed in November 2006 that as many as 30

‘mass casualty’ terrorist plots had been identified and that British security

services and police were monitoring 200 groups or networks totaling more than

1600 persons ‘actively engaged in plotting or facilitating terrorist attacks’

(Manningham-Butler, 2006).

Subsequently, in late June 2007, there were failed bomb attacks in central

London and at Glasgow airport, and in September of that year, German police

seized three Islamist terrorists planning massive bombings against targets inGermany (Gebauer and Musharbash, 2007; Sullivan and Whitlock, 2007).

Moreover, no less a figure than Osama bin Laden, who had been preaching

war against the United States since at least 1996, has asserted that acquisition

of nuclear weapons is a sacred duty and added that al-Qaeda would be justified

in killing four million Americans, half of them children. In recognition of

this threat, the bipartisan 9/11 Commission stated in its unanimous report that,

‘[T]he catastrophic threat at this moment in history is more specific. It is the

threat posed by Islamist terrorism – especially the al Qaeda network, its

affiliates, and its ideology’ (The 9/11 Commission Report, 2004, p. 362).It is also the judgment of prominent and largely non-partisan authorities on

terrorism and proliferation that the use of CBRN may well occur within

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‘[U]nless many changes are made, it is more likely than not that al Qaeda or

one of its affiliates will detonate a nuclear weapon in a US city within the nextfive to ten years.’ In addition, a survey of 100 foreign policy experts by Foreign

Policy magazine and the Center for American Progress found that, ‘More than

80 per cent expect a terrorist attack on the scale of 9/11 within a decadey’

(‘Terrorism Index,’ 2007, p. 62). Similarly, there are the responses of 85

national security and non-proliferation experts to a survey conducted by the

US Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff for its then Chairman, Senator

Richard Lugar of Indiana, and published in June 2005. These respondents

were asked to predict the likelihood of a CBRN attack occurring anywhere in

the world within the following 10 years and their average probability estimate

was 29 per cent for a nuclear attack, 40 per cent for a radiological attack and 70

per cent for some kind of CBRN event (Senate, 2005).

Another reason for concluding that the threat is deep-seated and long term

has to do with the fundamental sources of radical Islamism. Those who

downplay the threat tend to argue that the most important causes stem from

specific provocations by America, Israel or the West, particularly the Iraq War,

the American presence in the Middle East, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and

the affront caused by ‘occupation’ of Arab or Muslim lands (see Pape, 2005a).

Such interpretations not only do not take into account the far deeper origins of

radical Islam, but they also tend to over-simply the explanation of contemporary conflicts. In contrast, Assaf Moghadam of the Olin Institute

for Security Studies at Harvard has provided a compelling refutation of the

idea that suicide terrorism is primarily motivated by a resistance to

‘occupation.’ Instead he emphasizes the way in which it has evolved into a

‘globalization of martyrdom’ (Moghadam, 2006; see also Doran, 2002).

The fundamental causes of radical jihadism and its manifestations of

apocalyptic nihilism lie in the failure to cope successfully with the disruptions

brought by modernity and globalization and in the humiliation experienced,

especially by parts of the Arab–Muslim world, over the past four centuries.These reactions have been expressed at both individual and societal levels. For

example, in an implied reference to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire

and thus the end of the Muslim Caliphate which had extended back some

13 centuries to the time of the Prophet, Osama bin Laden’s October 2001 video

invoked 80 years of Muslim ‘humiliation’ and ‘degradation’ at the hands of the

West (Al-Jazeera, 2001). In turn, the 2002 UN Arab Human Development

Report has described the contemporary Arab world as afflicted by profound

deficits in freedom, in empowerment of women, and in knowledge and

information. These failures have, in some cases, been amplified by theexperiences of individuals who have become detached from one world and yet

have been unable to integrate into another (see Lewis 2002; Ajami 2006;


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It is noteworthy too that the 9/11 attacks took place before the US-led

invasion of Iraq, and that terrorist strikes against American targets abroadwere carried out in 1990s when the Israel–Arab peace process seemed to be

making real progress. Suicide terrorism elsewhere has had little to do with

‘occupation’ by the West or the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Attacks in Bali,

Mumbai, Istanbul, Jakarta, Casablanca, Amman, the murder of the Dutch

filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, the effort to blow up the Indian parliament, the

destruction of the Shiite golden dome mosque in Samarra, deadly Sunni–Shiite

violence in Iraq, mass casualty attacks on public transportation in London and

trains in Madrid, and numerous interrupted plots are among multiple indications

not only of the wider threat posed by radical jihadism, but also of a deep-seated

and fundamental rage against modernity and those identified with it.2

In addition to the threat posed by radical Islamist ideology and terrorism,

the proliferation of nuclear weapons is likely to become an increasingly

dangerous source of instability and conflict. Over the longer term, and coupled

with the spread of missile technology, the United States will be more exposed

to this danger. Not only might the technology, materials or weapons

themselves be diverted into the hand of terrorist groups willing to pay almost

any price to acquire them, but also the spread of these weapons carries with

it the possibility of devastating regional wars.

In assessing nuclear proliferation risks in the late Saddam Hussein’s Iraq,in North Korea and in Iran, some have asserted that deterrence and

containment, which seemed to work during the Cold War, will be sufficient

to protect the national interests of the United States and those of close allies

(see Mearsheimer and Walt, 2003; Shapiro, 2007). Such views are altogether

too complacent. The US–Soviet nuclear balance took two decades to become

relatively stable and on at least one occasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis of

October 1962, the parties came to the nuclear brink. Moreover, stable

deterrence necessitates assured second strike capability, the knowledge that

whichever side suffered an initial nuclear attack would have the capacity toretaliate by inflicting unacceptable damage upon the attacker. Importantly, it

also requires that one’s adversary is a value-maximizing rational actor and that

he be perceived as such.

A robust nuclear balance is difficult to achieve, and in the process of

developing a nuclear arsenal, a country embroiled in an intense regional crisis

may become the target of a disarming first strike or, on the other hand, may

perceive itself to be in a use-it-or-lose-it situation. Moreover, even if the

American territory may not be at immediate risk, its interests, bases and allies

surely might be. And careful decision-making control by rational actors in newor pending members of the nuclear club is by no means a foregone conclusion.

The late Saddam Hussein had shown himself to be reckless and prone to reject

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et al , 2006a, b). And Iranian President Ahmadinejad has expressed beliefs

that suggest an erratic grip on reality or that call into question his judgment.For example, he has invoked the return of the 12th or hidden Imam, embraced

conspiracy theories about 9/11, fostered Holocaust denial and called for Israel

to be wiped off the map.

One more component of threat to the global liberal democratic order

concerns what Azar Gat (2007, pp. 59–60) has termed the rise of authoritarian

capitalist powers. In his view, radical Islam is actually a lesser threat in that it

fails to offer a viable alternative to modernity, though he does take seriously

the potential use of CBRN, especially by terrorist groups. However, Gat argues

that the more dangerous challenge stems from the rise of China and Russia,

both of which represent an alternative path to modernity. He concludes,

that whereas either country could eventually evolve in a more democratic

direction, the United States continues to be the key actor for the future of

liberal democracy. In his words, ‘As it was during the twentieth century, the US

factor remains the greatest guarantee that liberal democracy will not be thrown

on the defensive and relegated to a vulnerable position on the periphery of the

international system’ (Gat, 2007, p. 69).

Alternatives

Almost every deliberation about foreign policy sooner or later gives rise to calls

for renewed or enhanced reliance on international institutions and multi-

lateralism as preferred means for addressing common problems and threats.

The emergence and expansion of international norms and regimes is seen as

evidence of a growing degree of global governance. For some, authorization by

the United Nations Security Council has come to be regarded as the litmus test

for the legitimacy of any foreign intervention. The UN specialized agencies are

pointed to, and global, functional or regional bodies such as the World Health

Organization, International Atomic Energy Commission (IAEA), WorldTrade Organization and the European Union (EU) are praised for their roles

above and beyond the nation state.

Of course, international law does operate in multiple realms, and traditional

national sovereignty has eroded under pressure from the forces of modernity

and globalization. This is especially true for smaller and medium-sized

countries and for rules and practices involving trade, finance, investment,

intellectual property, air travel, shipping and sports, as well as for international

tribunals to punish a selected number of gross human rights violators from

conflicts in places such as Bosnia, Rwanda and Liberia.Shared understandings and rules of the road are important, but by no

means do all societies accept the norms of liberal democracy transparency


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flawed. Why, for example, is a decision to act against threats to the peace more

legitimate when it is validated by the representatives of authoritarian regimes inMoscow and Beijing than when merely agreed to by the elected leaders of

liberal democracies? In crisis situations the invocation of global governance,

international norms or treaty obligations is as much or more likely to be a

pretext for inaction than a spur to compliance. And the more urgent,

dangerous or deadly the peril, the less likely there is to be effective agreement

by the international community.

Consider a number of cases in point:

K Bosnia, from 1992 to 1995, where UN resolutions and peacekeepers

proved unable to halt the carnage or to rein in Serbia, and where UN

peacekeepers stood by impotently during the July 1995 Srebrenica

massacre.

K The Rwanda genocide of 1994, where the UN Security Council permanent

members consciously averted their gaze and deliberately reduced the small

UN troop presence.

K Iraq under Saddam Hussein, which from 1991 to 2002 failed to comply

with its obligations in sixteen successive UNSC resolutions passed under

Chapter VII of the UN Charter, and which from 1996 to 2002 used

bribery and corruption to undermine the UN oil-for-food program anddivert revenues for Saddam’s use.

K Syria and Hezbollah, which have repeatedly defied Security Council

resolutions concerning Lebanese sovereignty and the disarming of

militias.

K North Korea, which has – at least until very recently – systematically,

secretly and sometimes openly, flouted both IAEA and UN resolutions as

well as its obligations under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT).

K Iran, whose concealed nuclear program has violated NPT and IAEA

requirements for nearly 20 years, as well as recent Security Councilresolutions, and whose Revolutionary Guard Corps have repeatedly

intervened covertly in Lebanon and Iraq, and carried out terrorist

bombings as far afield as Argentina.

K Sudan, whose depredations in the Darfur region have caused as many as

400 000 deaths and the flight of some 2 million refugees, and which has

managed (with Chinese help) to minimize effective international inter-

vention by the UN Security Council.

K Russia, which has used both overt and covert means to intimidate or

coerce independent states of the former Soviet Union by such means asarming separatist groups, refusing to withdraw its troops and bases,

and manipulating energy supplies and which launched a manifestly

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rashly to a series of provocations orchestrated by Moscow in the

separatist enclave of South Ossetia.

Not all of these cases are threats to America’s national security, interests or

allies, but they illustrate the limitations of the UN and mechanisms of global

governance. At times, it has been possible to work with allies outside the UN

framework in responding effectively to crises. An instructive case was the 1999

agreement of NATO member states to intervene in Kosovo in order to halt

ethnic cleansing and mass murder. This took place after it had become clear

that Russia would veto any UN Security Council authorization to act against

Serbia. Many, though not all, international law experts saw the intervention as

lacking international legitimation, but the American-led air war against

Serbian forces in Kosovo and targets within Serbia itself ultimately did bring

ethnic cleansing to a halt. The NATO intervention, however, exhibited military

and tactical limitations. The great majority of the air sorties were conducted by

the Americans, with some participation by the British and to a limited extent

others (French, Italian and so on), but most of the NATO contingents lacked

the advanced military technology and force deployments to be able to

cooperate effectively with the US Air Force. In addition, Serbia’s decision

to halt its actions in Kosovo may have owed as much to President Milosevic’s

fears that NATO might resort to the use of ground troops and that theRussians would not come to his aid, as it did to the effects of the bombing

campaign.

Possible shifts in the international distribution of power

Despite expectations that a period of unipolarity would trigger balancing

behavior or that French–German–Russian opposition to the American-led

intervention in Iraq would stimulate the formation of such a coalition, effectivebalancing against the United States has yet to occur. President Jacques Chirac

and Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder could not speak for all their EU partners,

and it is worth recalling that in the early months of 2003, on the eve of the

American-led coalition intervention against Saddam Hussein, some two-thirds

of the member governments of both the EU and NATO supported the Bush

administration’s decision.3 Despite arguments about ‘soft-balancing’, not only

has balancing not occurred, but also principal European leaders have either

maintained (as in the case of Britain) or reasserted (Germany and France)

pragmatic Atlanticist policies, and five of the largest EU member states (that is,all except Spain) are currently governed by avowedly Atlanticist presidents or

prime ministers 4 And for its part the EU has not distanced itself from the


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reasons for this long-term continuity, including shared interests and values

as well as the inability of the EU member countries to create a military forcewith sufficient funding, advanced military technology, power projection

and the unity of command that would enable it to play the kind of role

in the security realm that Europe’s size, population and wealth would

otherwise dictate.

Other major powers have actually tightened their bonds with Washington,

especially in Asia, where anxiety about the rise of China has shaped behavior.

For example, India in June 2005 signed a 10-year defense pact (‘New

Framework of the US–India Defense Relationship.’). In addition, it success-

fully concluded an historic agreement on nuclear technology with Washington.

Japan has developed closer ties with the United States than at any time in

the past, especially in the realm of defense. The Philippines, after having ousted

the United States from its longtime air and naval bases there, recently

welcomed a return naval visit, and Vietnam, Indonesia, Singapore and others

also have leaned more toward than away from America.

Despite a rise in expressions of anti-Americanism as indicated in opinion polls

(and more reflective of disagreement with Bush administration policies than

rejection of America itself), it would be a mistake to assume that the world has

turned against the United States. Indeed, wide-spread positive reactions to

Barack Obama’s election suggest otherwise. As for the leading authoritariancapitalist powers, Russia has adopted a much more critical and assertive stance,

but the financial crisis has impacted Moscow in ways that are likely to encourage

restraint. Russia’s currency, banking, credit sectors and commitments by foreign

investors have been very significantly affected, and with world oil prices having

dropped by two-thirds between the summer and autumn of 2008, the Putin

regime is likely to have less latitude than when it was flush with oil revenues. For

its part, China, despite its booming economy and rapidly modernizing armed

forces, has yet to take an overtly antagonistic position toward the United States.

Its huge domestic export sector has been seriously affected by changes in theworld economy and Beijing has urged greater cooperation with the United States

and other countries to address the impact of the financial crisis.

Although a major balancing coalition against the United States has not

taken shape, the incoming Obama administration faces formidable challenges.

Though Moscow and Beijing have not formed an alliance against Washington,

not least because of their mutual distrust, both have acted to support regional

states that pose significant problems for the United States. For example,

Russia has engaged in talks about the sale of advanced anti-aircraft missile

systems to Iran and Syria, and has been discussing a major weapons sale toVenezuela and an air defense system for Cuba. And neither Russia nor China is

likely to accede to Western urging for truly effective measures against Iran’s

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National power itself by no means guarantees the achievement of desired

outcomes. Nuclear proliferation constitutes a severe and growing menace. Iran,Venezuela and Syria have proved difficult to influence or coerce. The war in

Afghanistan has no end in sight, and the willingness and ability of NATO allies

to provide sufficient numbers of effective troops remains limited. American

forces are likely to disengage gradually from Iraq as its government gains

greater authority and local forces assume more of the responsibility for security

throughout the country. During the 2008 election campaign, candidate Obama

committed himself to a more rapid drawdown than the Bush administration or

candidate McCain preferred. Nonetheless, the Obama administration is likely

to find that redeployment will take considerable time, especially if American

military commanders caution against the consequences of a too rapid

withdrawal, and this will constrain its ability to put more emphasis on

Afghanistan, where the Taliban has become an increasing threat and al-Qaeda

has reestablished itself in the tribal areas of Western Pakistan and the adjacent

border regions. Meanwhile, despite the desirability of progress toward a

meaningful agreement, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict remains unresolvable in

the absence of a coherent Palestinian leadership with the capacity and

authority to act on behalf of its population as well as the will to end terrorism

and to work toward a two-state solution and a durable peace.

In sum, the international environment in which the United States finds itself is one in which there are both stubborn and lethal threats. Multilateral and

international mechanisms for responding to these perils can be effective, but

they are difficult to achieve. Meanwhile, in the absence of an effective

counterbalance, America maintains a position of primacy. The extent to which

it can continue to do so is, however, as much or more dependent on internal

and domestic considerations as it is on the difficulties it faces abroad.

Domestic Considerations: Doctrine and Policy

American national security policy since the end of the Cold War, and especially

since 9/11 has often been characterized as an aberration, either because it takes

place without the restraint required by adaptation to bipolarity during the

Cold War, or because the administration of George W. Bush was said to have

overreacted to 9/11 by adopting a doctrine of ‘aggressive war’ and by

abandoning past multilateral practice in order to act unilaterally. But these

depictions do not serve well as explanations of doctrine or policy. As John

Lewis Gaddis and others have noted, the United States has characteristically

reacted to being attacked by adopting strategies of primacy and preemption.Its neighbors in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries found the United

States a ‘dangerous nation’ (Kagan 2006) And since World War II presidents


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international role in ways that go well beyond the kind of limited engagement

that some critics insist is a more consistent or desirable strategy.President Harry Truman, for example, in his March 1947 speech to a joint

session of the Congress setting out what became to be known as the Truman

doctrine, asserted that ‘it must be the policy of the United States to support

free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by

outside pressures.’ John Kennedy’s 1961 inaugural address proclaimed that ‘we

shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend,

oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.’

Ronald Reagan’s State of the Union address in February 1985 insisted, that

‘We must not break faith with those who are risking their lives–on every

continent from Afghanistan to Nicaragua–to defy Soviet aggression and secure

rights which have been ours from birth. Support for freedom fighters is self-

defense.’ Bill Clinton’s 1993 inaugural address asserted that ‘Our hopes, our

hearts, our hands, are with those on every continent who are building

democracy and freedom. Their cause is America’s cause.’ And in July 1994,

Clinton’s National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement

advocated expanding the community of democracies and market economies.

In view of these precedents, the Bush administration’s embrace of both

democratization and primacy in its 2002 NSS and in the second inaugural

address of January 2005 were not inconsistent with past rhetorical statementsof American doctrine.6

It is also a commonplace to assert that, before 9/11 American foreign policy

had been multilateral in character, in that Democratic and Republican

administrations built upon international institutions, embraced alliances, and

deliberately accepted a kind of ‘self-binding’ in order to secure common

objectives (Ikenberry, 2001, 2004). But the record of the past six decades is more

varied than a neat bifurcation between the multilateral past and the unilateral

present would imply. Harry Truman sent American forces to Korea in 1950

without awaiting UN authorization, President Dwight Eisenhower ordered UStroops to Lebanon in 1958, John F. Kennedy appeared ready to launch a

preemptive attack on Soviet missiles in Cuba had the Russians not backed down

during the October 1962 missile crisis. In addition, Presidents Kennedy,

Johnson, Nixon and Ford sent American troops to Indochina, Ronald Reagan

invaded Grenada and George H. W. Bush intervened in Panama. The elder Bush

also worked closely with Chancellor Helmut Kohl to achieve German

unification despite the reservations of Britain, France and Russia, and President

Clinton used Tomahawk missiles and combat aircraft to strike targets in Sudan,

Afghanistan and Iraq and launched the 1999 air war in Kosovo with NATOagreement but without a formal approval by the UN Security Council.

Other evidence of policy continuity between the Democratic Clinton and the

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bipartisan character of decisions to intervene with military force between 1989

and 2001. Ivo Daalder and Robert Kagan observe that out of eight suchinterventions during those years, four were carried out under Democratic

presidents and four by Republicans. They add that the circumstances in

which a president may need to use force have increased since 9/11, these now

include terrorism threats, weapons proliferation, prevention of genocide as

well as in response to traditional forms of aggression. At the same time, they do

advocate a policy of seeking consensus among democratic states as a way of

securing domestic consensus for the use of force (Daalder and Kagan,

2007a, b).

Domestic Capacity

Can the United States sustain the costs of its global role and NSS? The answers

are not simple and the difficulty of the task has increased by an order of

magnitude with the financial crisis that erupted in September 2008. Viewed

historically the burden of defense spending as a percentage of GDP seems

manageable. Including expenditures on the Iraq and Afghan wars, America

now devotes approximately 4.5 per cent of its GDP to defense. This contrasts

with figures of 6.6 per cent at the height of the Reagan buildup in the mid-1980s and up to 10 per cent and more during the Truman, Eisenhower

and Kennedy years. There are, however, important differences, that make the

financial problem potentially more difficult than it might seem. The defense

budget is unlikely to decrease significantly even as a drawdown of troops in

Iraq proceeds. Obama is committed to a strong and likely costly effort in

Afghanistan. Both he and McCain have called for increasing the size of the

Army and Marine Corps, and a volunteer army is much more costly than

the one based on the draft, which was phased out in 1973. The price tag for

replacing worn out or obsolete equipment will be enormous, and expensive newweapon systems remain to be funded. Meanwhile, the pending retirement of

the baby-boom generation, looming deficits in the social security, Medicare

and Medicaid budgets, and a gradually aging population all make this task

significantly more difficult.

The problem is not merely one of numbers. Aaron Friedberg emphasizes the

long-term challenge of bringing means and ends into alignment. He observes

that this will be a daunting task, especially in view of the fact that since the

early 1960s, the government has been without a mechanism for sustained

interagency planning and for bringing the conflicting demands of finance andstrategy into some kind of long-term balance (Friedberg, 2007). The problem is

made still more acute by the intense partisan rancor that has characterized


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scandals, the contested outcome of the 2000 presidential election, the war in

Iraq and a heated 2008 presidential election contest have contributed to adegree of political polarization greater than that during the Vietnam era. In

this acrimonious domestic climate, reaching bipartisan consensus on high-

stakes issues has become exceptionally difficult. The new Obama administra-

tion will experience at least a brief honeymoon, and without the political

baggage of the previous 8 years it should, at first, face fewer obstacles to

sustaining public and congressional support. Whether this can be sustained,

however, remains an open question.

Others have argued that domestic polarization along with bitter divisions

about Iraq and the war on terror threaten to erode America’s ability to sustain

its international role, and they argue for a scaling back of foreign commitments

in order to stabilize the political foundations for foreign policy (see Kupchan

and Trubowitz, 2007). However, it is not self-evident that a less engaged

foreign policy and reduced commitments are really what matter most. Political

dissensus and public judgments about whether foreign interventions will

succeed or fail matter more than the scale of intervention itself. Over-extension

is to be avoided, but this is a different matter. Domestic support is a sine qua

non for sustainable foreign policy commitments, and there is a tendency to

assume that public reluctance to bear the costs of foreign interventions is a

function of increasing casualties (see Mueller, 1973). However, ChristopherGelpi et al (2005/2006) have shown that public tolerance for the human toll of

war is mainly affected by beliefs about the likelihood of success and the

rightness or wrongness of the war. And in their analysis, expectations about

success are what matter most.

In addition, there exists the problem of institutional capacity to manage,

coordinate and execute national security policy in its multiple dimensions. Not

only foreign policy and military spending, but force deployments, political and

military commitments, intelligence, counter-terrorism, public diplomacy,

foreign broadcasting, trade policy and economic sanctions are among theelements that require coordination and skilled implementation (see Ross,

2007). Recent experience provides a cause for concern. Shortcomings in

intelligence coordination before and after 9/11, failure to plan effectively for

the occupation of Iraq, inept public diplomacy, dysfunctional immigration

policy, and inadequate local, state and national response to the Katrina

hurricane provide evidence that governmental capacity to manage large-scale

challenges is sometimes badly flawed. Yet, twentieth-century American history

includes massive undertakings that were carried out successfully, for example

mobilization of manpower and industry in World War II, the ManhattanProject, the Marshall Plan, the interstate highway program of the 1950s and

1960s massive expansion of higher education in response to the Soviet

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successful waging of the Cold War. These precedents offer no assurance about

future successes, but they provide evidence that American government candevelop the capability for effective response and at times even do so with speed

and efficiency.

The intangible, yet indispensable element of domestic capacity is public

support and what Michael Howard has referred to as the social cohesion

necessary for sustaining national power and strategy. As noted above, the

expectation of eventual success is critical. So too are the political skills, and

leadership capacity of any administration as well as its diplomatic adroitness in

gaining support from other countries, not least to enhance the perceived

legitimacy of an intervention. Here, cooperation with the European

democracies becomes especially important in ways that go well beyond burden

sharing because in the eyes of American opinion makers and public, it

reinforces the perceived validity and acceptability of the action being taken.

There is one additional and often insufficiently appreciated element, the

urgency of external threat. During six decades, from Pearl Harbor to the end of

the Cold War, the United States faced successive and profound threats to its

national security and vital interests, first from Nazi Germany and Imperial

Japan, and then after a brief interlude from the Soviet Union. The substantial

domestic consensus about these threats, shared by the public, foreign policy

elites and decision makers, political parties and the media provided a soliddomestic basis for a robust NSS. This did not preclude domestic dissent

and disagreement, let alone insure unanimity of views, for example in regard

to the Vietnam War, but it did provide a basis for coherent and effective state

action in mustering the needed resources and maintaining sufficient public

support.

The post-Cold War era (1991–2001) provided a contrast. In the absence of

consensus about the existence of a profound overall threat, the salience of

foreign policy dropped quite noticeably. Election exit polls during the 1990s

found only single-digit percentages of voters identifying foreign or securitypolicy as among the leading concerns shaping their votes. Television and

newspaper treatment of foreign affairs also plummeted. Together, these factors

contributed to a weakening of the Clinton administration’s ability to muster

public and congressional support for foreign policy initiatives.

After 9/11, these circumstances changed dramatically, but with the passage

of time, partisan acrimony, disillusionment with the Iraq war and the absence

of another mass casualty attack on American soil have eroded both the sense of

threat and any consensus about strategy. That leaves a major uncertainty in

any attempt to gauge the future domestic policy environment. Here, thereciprocal interrelationship and feedback loops between domestic and foreign

policy come into play In view of the sustained nature of external threat


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United States remains significant, even though its probability is unknowable.

Were such an attack to occur, it is likely that there would be a domesticresurgence of support for a very robust, even draconian, response and for

paying whatever price was required in the effort to prevail against lethal

adversaries.

Conversely, in the absence of another such attack, domestic support for an

interventionist foreign policy might be more contested. Even then, however,

voices on the left and right fringes of the political spectrum calling for outright

withdrawal or isolationism would remain limited. Illustratively, in the case of

the 2008 presidential primaries, as in primaries during the previous several

presidential election cycles, Republican and Democratic candidates arguing for

such policies or even for a significantly curtailed global role were relegated to

the political margins and did not gain sufficient support to become plausible

contenders for their parties’ presidential nominations. Indeed, the 2008 major

party nominees, John McCain and Barack Obama, were both committed to an

activist and leading world role for the United States, even while they promised

to carry out this task more successfully, with more support from international

partners, while avoiding what they identified as mistakes of the Bush

administration (Guantanamo, treatment of foreign prisoners, inadequate

response to global climate change and so on). Both candidates also pledged

to fight the war on terror more effectively, prevail against the Taliban andal-Qaeda in Afghanistan, oppose Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons,

support Israel, work toward Middle East peace, increase the size of the US

Army and Marine Corps, strengthen cooperation with Europe, support the

admission of Georgia and Ukraine to NATO, and be prepared to intervene to

combat genocide if possible.

Challenges and Challengers

Can American primacy be sustained? Threats from radical Islamist groups,

nuclear proliferation, the potential use of CBRN weapons and competition

from authoritarian capitalist powers pose challenges that require assertive

American engagement. In addition, democratic allies and others have shown

few signs of wanting to forego the involvement of the North American

‘Goliath,’7 and despite heated rhetoric about ‘hyperpower’8 and real or

imagined excesses of unilateralism, a good deal of multilateral cooperation has

continued to take place. The NSS of September 2002 included a much-

overlooked endorsement of multilateralism and, at the time, the Bushadministration avidly sought to enlarge its coalition of the willing for the use

of force against Saddam In recent years there have been six-party talks with

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ultimately unsuccessful negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program,

promotion of the multilateral Proliferation Security Initiative aimed atstrengthening the NPT, co-sponsorship with France of UN Security Council

Resolution 1559 calling for the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon, a

massive increase in funding to combat AIDS in Africa, an expanded NATO

role in Afghanistan and UN mandates – UNSC Resolutions 1546 (2004) and

1637 (2005) – for the US-led multinational force in Iraq.

The extraordinary financial crisis that has impacted the United States,

Europe, large parts of Asia and much of the rest of the world has provided the

impetus for renewed predictions of America’s demise as the preeminent global

power. Of course, present problems are very serious and the financial crisis is

the worst to hit the United States and Europe since the great depression began

some 80 years ago. The impact on real estate, banking, insurance, credit, the

stock market and overall business activity is quite severe, and a painful

recession is already underway. Yet by themselves, these developments do not

mean that America will somehow collapse, let alone see some other country

assume the unique role it has played in world affairs. Arguably, the impact of

the crisis upon the US economy is actually less than for the major European

powers. For example, the $700 billion bailout for financial firms approved by

Congress amounts to about 5 per cent of the country’s annual gross domestic

product, significantly less as a percentage than the burdens borne by manycountries. In addition, while the exchange rate of the euro declined sharply in

the early months of the crisis, as did the British pound, the Russian ruble and

many other currencies, the dollar rose sharply in value as foreign investors

sought a safe haven for their funds. (Among the other G-8 currencies, only the

Japanese yen experienced a substantial rise.)

The United States will eventually surmount the present crisis, the excesses

that helped to cause it will be corrected, and despite painful costs of

adjustment, its economy and financial systems will sooner or later resume a

more normal pattern of activity and growth. The new Obama administrationwill continue and even intensify cooperation with other leading countries

in efforts to reform the international economic and financial systems. These

may or may not produce a new ‘Bretton Woods’ system, but agreements will be

reached and the United States necessarily will play a central role in this effort.

Past and Future Patterns

In general, effective alternatives to the role played by the United States tend tobe inadequate or absent altogether, and neither the UN, nor other

international bodies such as the EU the African Union the Arab League or


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Robert Kagan has observed, ‘American predominance does not stand in the

way of progress toward a better worldy

. It stands in the way of regressiontoward a more dangerous world’ (Kagan, 2007). In short, on the demand side,

there is an ample need for America’s active engagement.

What then about the supply side? The domestic costs and complications are

evident but need to be weighed in context. The long-term reality of external

threats creates a motivation for engagement abroad, as does the possibility of

future attacks on the US homeland. During the 2008 presidential campaign,

and despite a heated domestic political climate and sharp disagreement about

Iraq and the foreign policy of the Bush administration, none of the leading

candidates of either party called for dramatic retrenchment. In addition, they

largely concurred on the need to increase the size of the armed forces. Indeed,

and unlike the Vietnam era, popular support for the troops has been

widespread, even among many critics of the Iraq war.

Constraints on the capacity of adversaries also need to be taken into

account. Russia under Putin has put pressure on its immediate neighbors and

seeks to rebuild its armed forces, but Moscow’s ability to regain the

superpower status of the former Soviet Union remains limited. The Russian

armed forces remain mostly in weakened condition, the total population is half

that of the USSR and declining by 700 000 per year, male life expectancy is

barely 60 years of age, the economy is overwhelmingly dependent on revenuesfrom oil and natural gas and thus vulnerable to softening world market

prices. The long-term stability of its crony capitalism and increasingly

authoritarian political system is uncertain. China, despite extraordinary

economic growth and modernization, will continue to depend on rapid

expansion of trade and the absorption of vast numbers of people moving

from the countryside to the cities. It may well become a major military

challenger of the United States, first regionally and even globally, but only over

the very long term.

Demography also works to the advantage of the United States. Most otherpowerful states, including China and Russia as well as Germany and Japan,

face the significant aging of their populations. Although the United States

needs to finance the costs of an aging population, this demographic shift is

occurring to a lesser extent and more slowly than among its competitors. Mark

Haas argues that these factors in global aging ‘will be a potent force for the

continuation of US power dominance, both economic and military’ (Haas,

2007, p. 113).

Finally, the United States benefits from two other unique attributes,

flexibility and adaptability. Time and again, America has faced dauntingchallenges and made mistakes, yet it has possessed the inventiveness and

societal flexibility to adjust and respond successfully Despite obvious

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America’s adaptive capacity will allow it to respond to future requirements and

threats. None of this assures the maintenance of its world role, but thedomestic underpinnings to support this engagement remain relatively robust.

Thus for the foreseeable future, US primacy is likely to be sustainable.

America’s own national interest – and the fortunes of a global liberal

democratic order – depend on it.

About the Author

Robert J. Lieber is Professor of Government and International Affairs at

Georgetown University. He is the author or editor of 15 books on internationalrelations and US foreign policy. Most recently he authored the book The

American Era: Power and Strategy for the 21st Century (Cambridge University

Press, 2007). In addition, he is the editor of Foreign Policy (Ashgate Library of

Essays in International Relations, 2008).

Notes

1 I critique declinist arguments in Lieber (2008). See also Gaddis (2004), Rosen (2003) andFerguson (2004).

2 Jeffrey Herf (1994, 2006) has described as reactionary modernism the ideas of Nazi ideologists,

that Germany could utilize modern technology while rejecting the values of political modernity

from the enlightenment and western liberalism, and he identifies parallels between radical

Islamists and the ideology of European fascism.

3 Leaders of the Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Italy, Poland and Portugal signed a letter by

Prime Ministers Blair of Britain and Aznar of Spain. A similar letter was signed by 10 members

of the Vilnius group: Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia,

Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. The Netherlands, Iceland and Turkey also contributed to the

Iraq war coalition. For an official list of 47 countries supporting the Operation Iraqi Freedom

coalition as of 27 March 2003, see www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/03/print/20030327-10.html.

4 Robert A. Pape (2005b) argues that balancing is taking place. For rebuttals see K.A. Lieber and

Alexander (2005) and Brooks and Wohlforth (2005). Also see Art et al (2005/2006).

5 For example, Charles Kupchan (2003, p. 25) had proclaimed that NATO ‘is soon to be defunct.’

6 Robert Kagan (2007) makes this point.

7 Michael Mandelbaum (2005) makes good use of this metaphor.

8 In the words of this late Clinton era oratory from former French foreign minister Hubert Vedrine,

‘We cannot accepty the unilateralism of a single hyperpower’ (in Krauthammer, 1999).

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