Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 12:26:12 -0400
Subject: HAB: the World and US


Despite Complaints, U.S. Dominance Is Good for World
by Morton M. Kondracke
for Roll Call
Washington, D.C.
July 18, 2002

"Hegemon" is an ugly word. "Empire" sounds, well, imperious. 
"Unipolar"is academic. But they all mean the same thing: In this 
world, the United States holds overwhelming supremacy.

Three highbrow magazines recently tackled the question of whether 
this country deserves and will hold onto its position. The score was 
2-1 that we will, and the logic of it came out even stronger.

The journals with cover stories favoring U.S. dominance were Foreign 
Affairs and The Economist, and they made the case compellingly. By 
comparison, Foreign Policy sounded pathetically antique arguing that 
U.S. power is in decline.

The July-August Foreign Affairs and the July 5 Economist (whose 
parent company owns Roll Call) deserve to be read as antidotes to the 
notion that foreigners, resentful of U.S. power and "arrogance," are 
intent on ganging up on us and will do so sooner or later.

In Foreign Affairs, Dartmouth College professors Stephen Brooks and 
William Wohlforth acknowledge that other countries do harbor 
resentments, but assert they are unable - and unwilling - to do much 
more than express them rhetorically. "The United States has no rival 
in any critical dimension of power," Brooks and Wohlforth wrote. 
"There never has been a system of sovereign states that contained one 
state with this degree of dominance."

A chart in The Economist shows that the United States, with just 4.7 
percent of the world's population, represents 31 percent of its gross 
domestic product, 36 percent of its defense spending, 40 percent of 
its research investment - and its films account for 83 percent of 
world movie box-office revenue.

Historically, whenever a nation showed signs of seeking the kind of 
pre-eminence the United States now has - France under Napoleon, 
Germany under Hitler, the Soviet Union under Stalin - other countries 
have teamed up to thwart the effort.

But Brooks and Wohlforth argue that it isn't likely to happen this 
time because the United States is "both less vulnerable than previous 
aspiring hegemons and also less threatening."

Brooks and Wohlforth argue that no country big enough to counter the 
United States - such as China or Russia - is rich enough. And no rich 
countries, like Japan and major European powers, are so far willing 
to devote sufficient resources to defense to do so.

Also, were China to develop a powerful military to challenge the 
United States, the chances are they would scare Japan, India and 
Russia into countering it - and probably into closer alliance with 
the United States.

"The world finds it unfair, undemocratic, annoying and sometimes 
downright frightening to have so much power concentrated in the hands 
of one state," they wrote, "especially when the United States 
aggressively goes its own way."

And yet, countries critical of the United States can't decide which 
they like less - a too-passive United States (the one led by 
President Bush before Sept. 11) or one that's too active (the 
post-Sept. 11 version, the one that's headed toward a showdown with 
Iraq).

Moreover, it's simply not true that the United States is just 
resented. It's also respected. That's why Russian President Vladimir 
Putin has thrown in his lot with the U.S. and why Pakistani President 
Pervez Musharraf did so.

As the Economist notes, "America's national interest is special, and 
not only to starry American eyes. It offers the closest match there 
is to a world interest."

This whole world view is challenged in the lead article in the 
July/August issue of Foreign Policy by Immanuel Wallerstein, a 
research scholar at Yale University, who declares that "Pax Americana 
is over" and is likely to lose what pre-eminence it has by trying to 
topple Iraq's Saddam Hussein.

Wallerstein contends, against all evidence, that military power is 
America's "only card" and that it is "politically isolated" in the 
world, with Israel its only ally.

He says that the United States should "learn to fade quietly" - 
presumably, leaving the world to the tender mercies of Hussein and 
Osama bin Laden.

It's an untenable proposition - and one rejected by The Economist, 
which actually endorses a U.S. invasion of Iraq when Hussein refuses 
to submit to international weapons inspections.

"Without an enforcement mechanism as a last resort," it wrote, 
"treaties and conventions designed to control the spread of the 
ghastliest weapons will ultimately collapse. There has to be a 
military sanction, albeit used extremely reluctantly.

"The trouble is that, with these sorts of weapons, sanctions can't 
wait until a nuclear or biological attack has taken place. It has to 
be applied pre-emptively."

The fact that the United States is mighty - perhaps an "empire," but 
without an emperor or colonies - does not mean that it has to act 
heedlessly, arrogantly or unilaterally, according to Brooks and 
Wohlforth.

Where possible, it ought to inspire other nations' "voluntary help" 
through "magnanimity" and "restraint," they say, including fostering 
world prosperity by lowering U.S. trade barriers and testing a policy 
of engagement with China.

The Bush administration, post-Sept. 11, has acted with firm purpose 
against terrorists. It intends to eliminate Iraq's capacity for mass 
destruction. It has acquired allies in the war against terrorism. It 
could use them in Iraq.

http://www.rollcall.com/pages/columns/kondracke/index.html



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