Out With the Old/In With the New

I’m in material agreement with Andrew Latham’s post on U. S. grand strategy at 1945. In it he makes three points:

1. The U. S. post-war grand strategy is, if not dead, on its last breath.

Whereas the period from 1990 to about 2010 was characterized by the historically anomalous circumstances of unipolarity and the dominance of a single set of (liberal) norms, rules and institutions, the period since then has been defined by the return of multipolarity; the emergence of a serious challenge to the liberal or rules-based order; and the continuing erosion of American military primacy. In short, over the past decade or so we have witnessed the resurfacing of what might be called the “deep structure” of international relations: a condition in which states, operating under conditions of anarchy, compete for power – and perhaps even dominance – in the diplomatic, military and economic domains.

Although it has yet to sink in, this new geopolitical reality has rendered the US grand strategy of liberal internationalism – first conceived in the 1940s, but only fully practicable since the end of the Cold War – effectively obsolete. That grand strategy, of course, had two main elements: upholding and defending the liberal international order (ends) and maintaining American primacy (means). The former entailed creating a dense network of US-led liberal institutions, advancing liberal-democratic norms, promoting liberal economic systems, and universalizing liberal conceptions of human rights. The latter involved maintaining a margin of hard- and soft-power superiority necessary to police and defend that liberal international order against all comers.

But the liberal international order, if not quite dead, is certainly on its deathbed, and American primacy is fast slipping away in the face of China’s multifaceted military buildup.

2. The return of great power competition is calling a competing grand strategy, restraint, into question.

But while the return of great power competition has effectively ended the checkered career of liberal internationalism, it is also calling into question one of its main competitors, the grand strategy of restraint. In connection with grand strategy, of course, the term restraint can be used in at least two registers. First, it is sometimes used as a hypernym covering a family of approaches to foreign policy that are less enthusiastic about maintaining global primacy or policing the liberal international order. That is not the way I am using it here. Rather, I am using the term solely to refer to restraint proper – that is, to a grand strategy that assumes that the US inhabits an extremely favorable security environment in the post-Cold War world, that this environment is the product of forces other than American primacy, and that the United States, therefore, does not require the world-spanning system of military alliances, bases, and deployments to maintain a liberal international order that either doesn’t exist or is self-sustaining.

And just how has the return of great power competition rendered restraint just as passé as liberal internationalism? Simply put, like liberal internationalism, restraint was an artifact of the post-Cold War unipolar moment. In that moment, the United States as the sole superpower faced no peer competitor.

3. “Blunting” is a viable alternative to the alternative.

My argument is that the only viable strategic path forward is a specific form of the traditional realist one of balancing – one that Rush Doshi in his recent book The Long Game: China’s Grand Strategy to Displace American Order has labelled “blunting.” According to Doshi, a blunting strategy would involve denying China hegemony in its home region, undermining Chinese efforts to assert its leadership regionally and globally, and preventing China from dominating the global commons, including not only the high seas, but space and cyber as well. As Doshi argues, such a strategy would have military, political and economic dimensions, for it is in precisely these domains that China is seeking to build its own forms of control. The goal of such a strategy would be essentially defensive – to prevent the emergence of China as either a regional or global hegemon.

I do have a few disagreements with him, however. For one thing I disagree with his assessment of American grand strategy. In my view American grand strategy, unlike the grand strategies of France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Russia, or China, is an emergent phenomenon. It has certain aspects, e.g. free transit of the sea, but other aspects, notably American hegemony is not properly an American grand strategy but one embraced by American elites which is not entirely the same thing and, I would argue, the source of much mischief.

I have always argued for a balance of power rather than American hegemony and I don’t believe that I’m the only one: as Mr. Latham notes, it’s the classic realist grand strategy. I would add that competition with China is not an issue only for the United States. There are three, even four candidates for Asian hegemony and, as Highlander put it, there can be only one.

And, as I have repeatedly contended, American hard and soft power are both downstream from American economic strength. If we continue our relative economic decline, great power competition will be the obvious emerging consequence. However, relative economic decline is a choice rather than an inevitability.