From Superpower to Besieged Global Power

1
From Superpower to Besieged Global Power

• What is the Bush Doctrine and its Revolutionary
  Vision of a Transformed Global Order to Suit the
  administrations preferences?
• Why has the Bush Doctrine failed, exposing the
  United States as a formidable global power, but
  NOT a superpower?
• Leave open the question of the implications of
  viewing the United States as a formidable power,
  but not a superpower to the discussion following
  these remarks

2
What Do We Mean by Superpower?

• A superpower should be able
• (1) to impose its preferences for global order on
  adversaries coercively or
• (2) to elicit the consent for its preferred
  vision of global order from allies
• The Bush Doctrine has failed on both counts

3
The Power and Moral Assumptions of the Bush
Doctrine

• The United States is the Sole Superpower in
  International and Global Politics
• The United States has defeated all global rivals
  Fascism, Nazism, Communism
• No one state or combination of states today can
  defeat its military forces
• The United States is THE indispensable power for
  the preservation of the coalition of democratic,
  market states, providing the public goods of
  security and economic resources to ensure their
  ascendancy
• Its power material and ideational, hard and
  soft is sufficient, unilaterally, to reform
  global order to its linking

4
The Time to Transform the Global Order Is Now

• Bush at West Point, Spring, 2002
• . . . As we defend peace, we also have an
  historic opportunity to preserve the peace. We
  have our best chance since the rise of the
  nation-state in the seventeenth century to build
  a world where the great powers compete in peace
  instead of prepare for war.

5
From Balance of Power to American Hegemony

• The wars of the past because of the breakdown of
  the balance of power are precluded because of the
  overwhelming material power of the United States
• No state or coalition can balance U.S. power
• The United States has the resources and will to
  outspend any state or rival coalition if it tries
• So why try?

6
Pax America Rests on the Assumption of the United
States as the Sole Superpower

• Competition between great nations is inevitable,
  but armed conflict in our world is not. More and
  more civilized nations find ourselves on the same
  side united by common dangers of terrorist
  violence and chaos. America has, and intends to
  keep, military strength beyond challenge,
  thereby, making the destabilizing arms races of
  other eras pointless, and limiting rivalries to
  trade and other pursuits of peace.

7
The Moral Right and Obligation to Use American
Power to Reform Global Order

• Every state has the right of self-defense
• American power acts on behalf of the
  international community
• The United States is obliged to act when the
  international community and United Nations is
  incapable of acting
• Installing democratic regimes by force is
  justified, notwithstanding the UN Charters
  prohibition of intervening in the domestic
  affairs of states
• People will choose freedom if given a choice
• A world of democratic regimes will be peaceful

8
The Deep Domestic Roots of the Legitimate Use of
Force American Exceptionalism

• American political values and practices are
  morally superior and exceptional
• Both Right and Left through American history
  converge on this assumption
• President Bush in the National Security of the
  U.S, 2002 The United States is a single
  sustainable model for national success freedom,
  democracy, and free enterprise.
• If the United States is morally exceptional, then
  it can employ exceptional methods and means to
  reform global order and defeat its rivals,
  notably in conducting a long-term global war on
  terrorists and terrorist-supporting nondemocratic
  regimes

9
The Strategic Field of Action for American Power

• The entire globe
• State boundaries are no barrier to the projection
  of American power
• The territory of the United States is not apart
  from this strategic terrain, but an integral
  field of action
• The worlds populations are no less subject to
  American power
• The American people too, are subject to the
  inherently legitimate use of American power at
  the disposal of the American government, that is,
  the President as head of a unified executive.
• The Constitution confers all necessary power and
  authority on the President as Chief Executive and
  Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces to cope
  with all threats confronting the United States as
  the President defines them

10
Means and Methods Available to the Superpower as
Superpower

• Need for flexible use of power requires
  unilateralism and renunciation of international
  constraints
• ABM treaty renounced
• Kyoto rejected
• Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is not ratified
• The International Criminal Court rejected
• Treaties to ban land mines and chemical and
  biological weapons rejected
• The United States embarks on the renovation and
  perfection of its nuclear arsenal while denying
  other states a similar right of self-defense
• Unilaterally imposed exceptions to the Non-
  Proliferation Treaty are undertaken in
  concessions to India
• The Geneva Convention provisions against Torture
  and its proscriptions to protect prisoners are
  marginalized as inoperative in the global war of
  terror as quaint

11
Additional Superpower Strategic Means and Methods

• Create Coalitions of the Willing, expecting
  other actions to bandwagon on American power
• Employ the politics of fait accompli to compel
  foreign and domestic opponents to accede to
  American power
• Divide and rule Europe divided into old and new
  Russia marginalized as NATO expands
• Pre-emptive and preventive war the preferred
  option and always on the table in negotiations
  with rivals

12
Inherent Power and Authority of the President
Precedes the Constitution under Conditions of
Threats to the State

• The Congress, having passed a resolution
  authorizing the President to use force to compel
  Iraqi adherence to international accords is
  henceforward precluded from limiting Presidential
  power
• The President enjoys inherent authority to use
  American power as Chief Executive and
  Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces
• The President can define through so-called
  signing statements those laws he will enforce or
  interpret how he will enforce them

13
The Imperial President in Action

• Prisoners, designated by the President solely as
  illegal enemy combatants can be held,
  controlled and tortured in violation of
  international humanitarian norms and the Geneva
  convention hence Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo
• Prisoners can be rendered coercively to their
  home countries where they face torture and death
• American can be held without right of habeas
  corpus if designated an illegal enemy combatant
• Surveillance of American is conducted in
  violation of law

14
The Bush Doctrine Meets Reality

• Five factor that have limited the scope of the
  Bush Doctrine and its defeat
• The absence of a winning counterinsurgency
  strategy
• Domestic opposition to the Bush Doctrine and,
  specifically, the war in Iraq
• The limited material resources of the United
  States to realize the Bush Doctrine
• Domestic Demands for Entitlements
• And the Pushback of Peoples and States of the
  Global Society

15
1) Absence of an Effective Counter-Insurgency
Strategy

• Until recently, the US violated key tenets of
  counter-insurgency
• Unity of civilian and military command
  divided conflicting
• Close infiltration through surrounding
  states (Syrian and Iran)
• Control arms storage areas
• Most critically -- win the confidence
  support of the targeted population
• Provide security
• Separate the population from combatants
• Gain real-time intelligence
• Provide essential civilian needs

16
2) Increasing Costs of the Iraq War Declining
Domestic Support

• As of June 2007 3500 dead 30000 wounded --
  some impaired for a lifetime
• Current spending 100 billion annually
• Support for the war dwindling President Bushs
  approval rating, critically weighted by the Iraq
  war, in less than 30 percent of the American
  people -- in contrast to 90 percent after 9/11

17
3) Limited Resources of the United States

• Long-Term costs of the war 1-2 Trillion, having
  already exceeded 500 billion (Congressional
  Budget Office)
• Rising budget deficits, increased by large tax
  cuts
• 9 trillion within a 13 trillion GDP
• One-quarter of the US debt owned by foreign
  investors, notably Japan and China

18
4) Rising Domestic Demand for Entitlements

• The Social Security Trust Fund has been raided to
  meet current spending
• Somewhere between 2010-15 the Fund will be in
  deficit
• By 2040, the deficit will reach 2.5 of GDP
• Medicare spending is projected to rise from 2 of
  GDP to over 8 by 2040

19
5) The Resistance of Allies Adversaries to the
Projection Expansion of American Power

• Central Asia
• Return of the Taliban in Afghanistan and
  Sanctuaries in Pakistan
• Pakistan regime of President Musharraf is opposed
  at home
• Accord with tribes on Afghan border provides Al
  Qaeda bases
• Pakistan intelligence services provides support
  to Taliban
• Pakistan among the most notorious proliferators
  of nuclear technology
• Preventing Pakistans nuclear weapons from
  falling into opponents of the West remains a
  persistent concern
• Warlords and drug production continue as global
  security threat

20
1) Middle East

• Iraq War A Calamity
• Insurgency widespread and uncontrolled
• Civil war between communal groups rising and
  American forces attacked by all sides
• Terrorist groups increased where they were not
  before
• Iranian influence growing at the expense of the
  United States
• A nuclear Iran is on the horizon
• The Shiite dominated government of Iraq is
  aligned with Iran
• Iranian arms are being funneled to insurgents
• Iranian influence over Israel increased with its
  support of Hezbollah and the Israeli-Hezbollah
  statement of August 2006

21
2) Middle East

• Israeli-Palestine Conflict
• Neglect of the conflict has eroded US power to
  control the conflict
• U.S. policy is largely defined by Israeli
  strategy and aims settlements continue military
  intervention by Israeli unhindered
• U.S. call for elections in Palestine yields the
  victory of Hamas, dedicated to the elimination of
  the Israeli state and the right of return of all
  Palestinians

22
South Asia

• U.S. efforts to draw India into its sphere of
  influence exposes weakness of U.S. power
• Nuclear accord with India strengths Indias
  military nuclear program and weakens the
  Non-Proliferation treaty
• Meanwhile, India strengths relations with China
  and resists the role as counter-weight to rising
  Chinese power

23
Northeast Asia

• American power challenged by a nuclear North
  Korea
• China is central to negotiations to denuclearize
  N. Korea
• China holds the U.S. economy hostage
• It holds a quarter of the foreign debt of the
  U.S.
• The U.S. chronically runs a foreign trade debt
  with China
• China also possesses over 1 trillion in foreign
  assets
• South Korea pursues an increasingly independent
  foreign policy toward the U.S.
• Japan, while the most reliable U.S. partner, also
  increasingly pursues a nationally defined foreign
  policy that prompts resistance from its regional
  neighbors, heightening national tensions

24
SE Asia

• Former alignment with ASEAN states has eroded
• Malaysia is openly opposed to Iraq War
• Indonesia, while engaged in the war on terror, is
  also marked by heightened Islamic militancy
• The Chinese charm offensive, openness to trade,
  and investment draws these states into its sphere
  of interest

25
Central and South America

• The U.S. has failed to control its borders 12
  million illegal aliens, largely from Mexico,
  which does little to assist the U.S.
• The rise of states opposed to U.S. policies and
  power is growing Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador
• Brazil leads the Group of 21 against Western and
  U.S. trade policies in the WTO
• Most states of Latin America increasingly define
  their political and economic systems independent
  of U.S. influence and intervention.

26
Africa

• While U.S. aid for AIDS exceeds most countries to
  Africa, its interest and will to address African
  conflicts exposes its marginal influence
• Rwanda in 1993
• Sudan and the Congo Republic millions killed,
  wounded or dislocated
• Zimbabwe spins out of control

27
Is the United States a Superpower?

• A superpower presumably is able either to impose
  its preferences on other states or to elicit
  their support
• The United States does not meet this test
• Yet the United remains a formidable global power
• Its military is the most powerful relative to the
  forces of other states
• Its economy is still the largest at 13 trillion
  in GDP
• Its population is well educated and creative
• It has impressive hard and soft power to
  negotiate a global environment favorable to its
  interests, but it cannot command others to do its
  will absent concessions to their interests and
  power