The Post-American World: Release 2.0 (27 page)

I know that these complaints all sound very high-minded and squishy. And I know there has long been nasty partisanship in America, even in Madison’s own era. But there has also been a lot of bipartisanship, especially over the past century. Reacting to the political bitterness of the late nineteenth century—the last time there were two close elections in succession—many American leaders tried to create forces for good, problem-solving government. Robert Brookings established the Brookings Institution in Washington in 1916 because he wanted an organization “free from any political or pecuniary interest . . . to collect, interpret, and lay before the country in a coherent form, the fundamental economic facts.” The Council on Foreign Relations, founded five years later, also consciously reached across party lines. The first editor of its magazine,
Foreign Affairs
, told his deputy that if one of them became publicly identified as a Democrat, the other should immediately start campaigning for the Republicans. Contrast that with a much more recently founded think tank, the conservative Heritage Foundation, whose former senior vice president Burton Pines has admitted, “Our role is to provide conservative policymakers with arguments to bolster our side.”

The trouble is that progress on any major problem—job creation, Social Security, tax reform—will require compromise from both sides. In foreign policy, crafting a strategic policy in Afghanistan, or one on Iran, North Korea, or China, will need significant support from both sides. It requires a longer-term perspective. And that’s highly unlikely. Those who advocate sensible solutions and compromise legislation find themselves marginalized by the party’s leadership, losing funds from special-interest groups, and being constantly attacked by their “side” on television and radio. The system provides greater incentives to stand firm and go back and tell your team that you refused to bow to the enemy. It’s great for fund-raising, but it’s terrible for governing.

Americans have managed to survive through terrible governance before, but not while up against the kind of economic competition we now face. When I left India, the marginal tax rate was 97.5 percent, corporate taxation was punitive, and business was stifled or went underground. Were I to move from New York City to Mumbai today, my personal tax rate would drop, as would every other rate, from corporate to capital-gains taxes. (The long-term capital-tax rate in India is zero.) Singapore now ranks as the number one country for ease of doing business, with a top tax rate of 20 percent. I know permanent residents working in the United States who are thinking of giving up their green cards to move to Singapore. To an Indian of my generation, this would have been unthinkable. The green card was a passport to the American dream. But for young Indians, there are many new dreams out there, and new passports.

But there are reasons for optimism. The United States faces huge challenges, but it also has enormous advantages. “I’ve always been bullish on America,” says Coke’s CEO, Muhtar Kent. “It’s the largest, richest market in the world. Look at the demographics alone. North America is the only part of the industrialized world that will be growing in people. It now has a higher birthrate than Mexico, for the first time in history.” Or listen to Alcoa’s German-born Klaus Kleinfeld, previously the head of Siemens: “I know the things that America has that are unique. The openness, the diversity, the dynamism—you don’t have it anywhere else. If you keep all these things, build on them, I still believe in the American Dream.”

The term “American dream” was coined during the Great Depression. The historian James Truslow Adams published
The Epic of America
in 1931, in an atmosphere of despair even greater than today’s. He wanted to call his book “The American Dream,” but his publishers objected. No one will pay $3.50 for a book about a “dream,” they said. Still, Adams used the phrase so often that it entered the lexicon. The American dream, he said, is of “a better, richer, and happier life for all our citizens of every rank which is the greatest contribution we have as yet made to the thought and welfare of the world. That dream or hope has been present from the start. Ever since we became an independent nation, each generation has seen an uprising of the ordinary Americans to save that dream from the forces which appeared to be overwhelming and dispelling it.”

Today, those forces really do look overwhelming. But challenges like them have been beaten back before—and can be again. The real test for the United States is, in some ways, the opposite of that faced by Britain in 1900. Britain’s economic power waned while it managed to maintain immense political influence around the world. The American economy and American society, in contrast, are capable of responding to the economic pressures and competition they face. They can adjust, adapt, and persevere. The real test for the United States is political—and it rests not just with America at large but with Washington in particular. Can Washington adjust and adapt to a world in which others have moved up? Can it respond to shifts in economic and political power? This challenge is even more difficult in foreign policy than in domestic policy. Can Washington truly embrace a world with a diversity of voices and viewpoints? Can it thrive in a world it cannot dominate?

7

American Purpose

W
hen historians try to understand the world of the early twenty-first century, they should take note of the Parsley crisis. In July 2002, the government of Morocco sent twelve soldiers to a tiny island called Leila, a few hundred feet off its coast, in the Straits of Gibraltar, and planted its flag there. The island is uninhabited, except for some goats, and all that thrives on it is wild parsley, hence its Spanish name, Perejil. But its sovereignty had long been contested by Morocco and Spain, and the Spanish government reacted forcefully to the Moroccan “aggression.” Within a couple of weeks, seventy-five Spanish soldiers had been airlifted onto the island. They pulled down the Moroccan flag, hoisted two Spanish flags, and sent the Moroccans home. The Moroccan government denounced the “act of war” and organized rallies, where scores of young men chanted, “Our souls and our blood are sacrifices to you, Leila!” Spain kept its military helicopters hovering over the island and its warships off the coast of Morocco. From afar, the whole affair looked like a comic opera. But however absurd it may have seemed, someone was going to have to talk the two countries down.

That role fell not to the United Nations, or to the European Union, or to a friendly European country like France, which has good relations with both sides. It fell to the United States. “I kept thinking to myself, ‘What do I have to do with any of this? Why are we—the United States—in the middle of it?’” then–Secretary of State Colin Powell recalled amusedly. Once it became clear that nothing else was working, he began a hectic round of telephone diplomacy, placing more than a dozen calls to the Moroccan king and foreign minister late into Friday night and Saturday morning. “I decided that I had to push for a compromise fast because otherwise pride takes over, positions harden, and people get stubborn,” said Powell. “It was getting to be evening in the Mediterranean. And my grandkids were going to come over soon for a swim!” So Powell drafted an agreement on his home computer, got both sides to accept it, then signed for each side himself, and faxed it over to Spain and Morocco. The countries agreed to leave the island unoccupied and begin talks, in Rabat, about its future status. The two governments issued statements thanking the United States for helping to resolve the crisis. And Colin Powell got to go swimming with his grandkids.

It is a small example, but a telling one. The United States has no interests in the Strait of Gibraltar. Unlike the European Union, it has no special leverage with Spain or Morocco. Unlike the United Nations, it cannot speak for the international community. But it was the only country that could resolve the dispute, for a simple, fundamental reason. In a unipolar world, it is the single superpower.

The summer of 2002 will be seen as the high-water mark of unipolarity, America’s Roman moment. The decade leading up to it was a heady time. The economy was roaring, productivity growth was higher than it had been in decades, Washington was churning out massive surpluses, the dollar was sky-high, and American CEOs were global superstars. Then the world saw the United States brutally attacked in September 2001, producing feelings of sympathy as well as some quiet glee that even a superpower could be humbled. But soon, while America felt weak and vulnerable, the world watched it respond to 9/11 on a scale that was unimaginable for any other country. Washington immediately increased its defense budget by $50 billion, a sum greater than the total annual defense budgets of Britain and Germany. It single-handedly put terrorism at the top of the global agenda, making every country reorient its foreign policy accordingly. Pakistan, which was allied with the Taliban for years, turned against it within a week. Within a month, the United States had attacked Afghanistan, seven thousand miles away, almost entirely from the air, and quickly toppled the regime.

That was then. America remains the global superpower today, but it is an enfeebled one. Its economy is troubled, its currency is sliding, and it faces long-term problems with its soaring entitlements and low savings. Anti-American sentiment is at an all-time high everywhere from Great Britain to Malaysia. But the most striking shift between the 1990s and now has to do not with America but rather with the world at large. In the 1990s, Russia was completely dependent on American aid and loans. Now, it has its own multi-billion-dollar fund, financed by oil revenues, to reinvigorate its economy during slowdowns. Then, East Asian nations desperately needed the IMF to bail them out of their crises. Now, they have massive foreign-exchange reserves, which they are using to finance America’s debt. Then, China’s economic growth was driven almost entirely by American demand. In 2007, China contributed more to global growth than the United States did—the first time any nation has done so since at least the 1930s—and surpassed it as the world’s largest consumer market in several key categories.

In the long run this secular trend—the rise of the rest—will only gather strength, whatever the temporary ups and downs. At a military-political level, America still dominates the world, but the larger structure of unipolarity—economic, financial, cultural—is weakening. Washington still has no true rival, and will not for a very long while, but it faces a growing number of constraints. Polarity is not a binary condition. The world will not stay unipolar for decades and then, one day, suddenly switch and become bipolar or multipolar. There will be a slow shift in the nature of international affairs. While unipolarity continues to be a defining reality of the international system for now, every year it becomes weaker and other nations and actors grow in strength.

This power shift could be broadly beneficial. It is a product of good things—robust economic growth and stability around the world. And it is good for America, if approached properly. The world is going America’s way. Countries are becoming more open, market friendly, and democratic. As long as we keep the forces of modernization, global interaction, and trade growing, good governance, human rights, and democracy all move forward. That movement is not always swift. There are often setbacks, but the basic direction is clear. Look at Africa, which is often seen as the most hopeless continent in the world. Today two-thirds of the continent is democratic and growing economically. Yes, many problems remain. But few Africans doubt that they are in much better shape than they were two or three or four decades ago.

These trends provide an opportunity for the United States to remain the pivotal player in a richer, more dynamic, more exciting world. But grasping that opportunity will take a substantial shift in America’s basic approach to the world. There is only so much America can do about its relative power. As others grow from low starting points, its relative weight will slip. But there is a great deal that Washington can do to redefine America’s purpose.

The Virtues of Competition

How did the United States blow it? The United States has had an extraordinary hand to play in global politics—the best of any country in history. Yet, by almost any measure—problems solved, success achieved, institutions built, reputation enhanced—Washington has played this hand badly. America has had a period of unparalleled influence. What does it have to show for it?

Beyond specific personalities and policies, about which much has been written, the condition that made such errors possible was, ironically, America’s immense power. Americans firmly believe in the virtues of competition. We believe that individuals, groups, and corporations perform better when they are in a competitive environment. When it comes to the international arena, we have forgotten this fact. Ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States has walked the world like a colossus, unrivaled and unchecked. This has had its benefits, but it has also made Washington arrogant, careless, and lazy. Its foreign policy has at times resembled General Motors’ business strategy in the 1970s—an approach driven by internal factors, with little sense of the broader environment in which it was operating. It didn’t work so well for GM, and it hasn’t for the United States.

We didn’t start out careless. Most politicians and policy experts, American and foreign, were slow to embrace unipolarity. In 1990, as the Soviet Union was collapsing, Margaret Thatcher expressed a commonly held view that the world was moving toward three regional groups, “one based on the dollar, one based on the yen, one on the Deutsche mark.”
¹
George H. W. Bush, steeped in the bipolar order, never acted like the head of the sole superpower. He took a cautious approach to the historic changes in the global system. Rather than triumphantly claiming victory in the Cold War, his administration carefully consolidated the gains of Soviet collapse, always aware that the process could either reverse or end in violence. In waging the first Gulf War, Bush was highly attentive to building an international coalition, getting United Nations approval, and sticking to the mandate that gave the war its legitimacy. With the United States beset by a recession and mounting deficits, Bush sent his secretary of state, James Baker, around the world hat in hand to raise funds for the war. His great foreign policy achievement, German unification, was won not through unilateral force but through collaborative diplomacy—even though the United States held all the trump cards at the time. Germany was unified within the Western alliance, and 340,000 Russians quietly left East Germany—all with Moscow’s acquiescence.

Some did recognize that, with the Soviet Union in tatters, the United States was the only “pole” left standing. But they assumed that unipolarity was a passing phase, a “moment,” in one columnist’s phrase.
²
Talk of American weakness dominated the 1992 presidential election. “The Cold War is over: Japan and Germany won,” Paul Tsongas said throughout his campaign for the Democratic nomination. Henry Kissinger, in his 1994 book Diplomacy, predicted the emergence of a new multipolar world, a view held by most scholars. Europeans believed that they were on the path to unity and world power, and Asians spoke confidently of the rise of “the Pacific Century.”

Despite these claims, foreign problems, no matter how distant, always seemed to end up in Washington’s lap. When the crisis in the Balkans began in 1991, the president of the European Council, Jacques Poos of Luxembourg, declared, “This is the hour of Europe. If one problem can be solved by the Europeans it is the Yugoslav problem. This is a European country and it is not up to the Americans.” It was not an unusual or an anti-American view; most European leaders, including Thatcher and Helmut Kohl, shared it. But several bloody years later, it was left to America to stop the fighting. When Kosovo erupted later that decade, Europe immediately let Washington take the lead. The same pattern emerged in the East Asian economic crisis, East Timor’s struggle for independence, successive Middle East conflicts, and Latin American debt defaults. Other countries were often part of the solution, but, unless America intervened, the crisis persisted. And at the same time, the American economy was in its longest boom since World War II, actually increasing its share of world output as Europe and Japan stagnated.

When Bill Clinton came into office in 1993, he promised to stop worrying about foreign policy and to focus “like a laser beam” on the economy. But the pull of unipolarity was strong. By his second term, he had become a foreign policy president, spending most of his time, energy, and attention on matters like Middle East peace and the Balkan crisis. George W. Bush, reacting to what he saw as a pattern of over-involvement in international affairs—from economic bailouts to nation building—promised on the campaign trail to scale back America’s commitments. Then came his presidency and, more important, 9/11.

Through the Clinton years, American power became more apparent, Washington became more assertive, and foreign governments became more resistant. Some of Clinton’s economic advisers, like Mickey Cantor and Lawrence Summers, were accused of arrogance in their dealings with other countries. Diplomats like Madeleine Albright and Richard Holbrooke were disparaged in Europe for talking about America as, in Albright’s phrase, the “indispensable nation.” The French foreign minister Hubert Vedrine devised the term “hyperpower”—which he did not mean as a term of endearment—during the 1990s.
³

But all these complaints were polite chatter compared with the hostility aroused by George W. Bush. For several years, the Bush administration practically boasted of its disdain for treaties, multilateral organizations, international public opinion, and anything that suggested a conciliatory approach to world politics. By Bush’s second term, when the failure of this confrontational approach was clear, the administration had started to change course on many fronts, from Iraq to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process to North Korea. But the new policies were adopted belatedly, with considerable muttering and grumbling and with elements of the administration utterly unreconciled to the new strategy.

To understand the Bush administration’s foreign policy, it is not enough to focus on Dick Cheney’s and Donald Rumsfeld’s “Jacksonian” impulses or Bush’s Texas background or the nefarious neoconservative conspiracy. The crucial enabling factor for the Bush policies was 9/11. For a decade prior to the attacks, the United States had been unchecked on the world stage. But several domestic constraints—money, Congress, public opinion—made it difficult for Washington to pursue a unilateral and combative foreign policy. Military interventions and foreign aid were both unpopular, as the public wanted the United States to retreat from the world after the rigors of the Cold War. The Balkan interventions, NATO expansion, aid to Russia, all required considerable effort from the Clinton administration, often pushing uphill, despite the fact that these were relatively small ventures that cost little in resources. But 9/11 changed all that. It broke the domestic constraints on American foreign policy. After that terrible attack, Bush had a united country and a largely sympathetic world. The Afghan War heightened the aura of American omnipotence, emboldening the most hard-line elements in the administration, who used that success as an argument for going to war with Iraq quickly and doing so in a particularly unilateral manner. The United States didn’t need the rest of the world or the old mechanisms of legitimacy and cooperation. It was the new global empire that would create a new reality—so the argument went. The formula to explain Bush’s foreign policy is simple: