In addition, both America and Western Europe have been finding it difficult to cope with the cultural consequences of social hedonism and the dramatic decline in the centrality of religious-based values in society. (The parallels with the decline of the imperial systems summarized in Chapter 1 are striking in that respect.) The resulting cultural crisis has been compounded by the spread of drugs and, especially in America, by its linkage to the racial issue. Lastly, the rate of economic growth is no longer able to keep up with growing material expectations, with the latter stimulated by a culture that places a premium on consumption. It is no exaggeration to state that a sense of historical anxiety, perhaps even of pessimism, is becoming palpable in the more articulate sectors of Western society.
Almost half a century ago, a noted historian, Hans Kohn, having observed the tragic experience of the two world wars and the debilitating consequences of the totalitarian challenge, worried that the West may have become “fatigued and exhausted.” Indeed, he feared that
[t]wentieth century man has become less confident than his nineteenth century ancestor was. He has witnessed the dark powers of history in his own experience. Things which seemed to belong to the past have reappeared: fanatical faith, infallible leaders, slavery and massacres, the uprooting of whole populations, ruthlessness and barbarism.[4]
That lack of confidence has been intensified by widespread disappointment with the consequences of the end of the Cold War. Instead of a “new world order” based on consensus and harmony, “things which seemed to belong to the past” have all of a sudden become the future. Although ethnic-national conflicts may no longer pose the risk of a central war, they do threaten the peace in significant parts of the globe. Thus, war is not likely to become obsolete for some time to come. With the more-endowed nations constrained by their own higher technological capacity for self-destruction as well as by self-interest, war may have become a luxury that only the poor peoples of this world can afford. In the foreseeable future, the impoverished two-thirds of humanity may not be motivated by the restraint of the privileged.
It is also noteworthy that international conflicts and acts of terrorism have so far been remarkably devoid of any use of the weapons of mass destruction. How long that self-restraint may hold is inherently unpredictable, but the increasing availability, not only to states but also to organized groups, of the means to inflict massive casualties—by the use of nuclear or bacteriological weapons—also inevitably increases the probability of their employment.
In brief, America as the world’s premier power does face a narrow window of historical opportunity. The present moment of relative global peace may be short lived. This prospect underlines the urgent need for an American engagement in the world that is deliberately focused on the enhancement of international geopolitical stability and that is capable of reviving in the West a sense of historical optimism. That optimism requires the demonstrated capacity to deal simultaneously with internal social and external geopolitical challenges.
However, the rekindling of Western optimism and the universalism of the West’s values are not exclusively dependent on America and Europe. Japan and India demonstrate that the notions of human rights and the centrality of the democratic experiment can be valid in Asian settings as well, both in highly developed ones and in those that are still only developing. The continued democratic success of Japan and India is, therefore, also of enormous importance in sustaining a more confident perspective regarding the future political shape of the globe. Indeed, their experience, as well as that of South Korea and Taiwan, suggests that China’s continued economic growth, coupled with pressures from outside for change generated by greater international inclusion, might perhaps also lead to the progressive democratization of the Chinese system.
Meeting these challenges is America’s burden as well as its unique responsibility. Given the reality of American democracy, an effective response will require generating a public understanding of the continuing importance of American power in shaping a widening framework of stable geopolitical cooperation, one that simultaneously averts global anarchy and successfully defers the emergence of a new power challenge. These two goals—averting global anarchy and impeding the emergence of a power rival—are inseparable from the longer-range definition of the purpose of America’s global engagement, namely, that of forging an enduring framework of global geopolitical cooperation.
Unfortunately, to date, efforts to spell out a new central and worldwide objective for the United States, in the wake of the termination of the Cold War, have been one-dimensional. They have failed to link the need to improve the human condition with the imperative of preserving the centrality of American power in world affairs. Several such recent attempts can be identified. During the first two years of the Clinton administration, the advocacy of “assertive multilateralism” did not sufficiently take into account the basic realities of contemporary power. Later on, the alternative emphasis on the notion that America should focus on global “democratic enlargement” did not adequately take into account the continuing importance to America of maintaining global stability or even of promoting some expedient (but regrettably not “democratic”) power relationships, as with China.
As the central U.S. priority, more narrowly focused appeals have been even less satisfactory, such as those concentrating on the elimination of prevailing injustice in the global distribution of income, on shaping a special “mature strategic partnership” with Russia, or on containing weapons proliferation. Other alternatives—that America should concentrate on safeguarding the environment or, more narrowly, on combating local wars—have also tended to ignore the central realities of global power. As a result, none of the foregoing formulations have fully addressed the need to create minimal global geopolitical stability as the essential foundation for the simultaneous protraction of American hegemony and the effective aversion of international anarchy.
In brief, the U.S. policy goal must be unapologetically twofold: to perpetuate America’s own dominant position for at least a generation and preferably longer still; and to create a geopolitical framework that can absorb the inevitable shocks and strains of social-political change while evolving into the geopolitical core of shared responsibility for peaceful global management. A prolonged phase of gradually expanding cooperation with key Eurasian partners, both stimulated and arbitrated by America, can also help to foster the preconditions for an eventual upgrading of the existing and increasingly antiquated UN structures. A new distribution of responsibilities and privileges can then take into account the changed realities of global power, so drastically different from those of 1945.
These efforts will have the added historical advantage of benefiting from the new web of global linkages that is growing exponentially outside the more traditional nation-state system. That web—woven by multinational corporations, NGOs (non-governmental organizations, with many of them transnational in character) and scientific communities and reinforced by the Internet—already creates an informal global system that is inherently congenial to more institutionalized and inclusive global cooperation.
In the course of the next several decades, a functioning structure of global cooperation, based on geopolitical realities, could thus emerge and gradually assume the mantle of the world’s current “regent,” which has for the time being assumed the burden of responsibility for world stability and peace. Geostrategic success in that cause would represent a fitting legacy of America’s role as the first, only, and last truly global superpower.
Epilogue
In the conclusion of The Grand Chessboard, I warned that the United States would not be the sole global superpower forever. The United States was the leader of an unstable world order, in which, for the first time in history, one country was dominant. However, for both domestic and external reasons, the moment would prove to be fleeting.
The majority of Americans are largely skeptical of US involvement in world affairs. The public reacts only when it perceives a direct threat on its homeland—for example, Pearl Harbor or the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. As America becomes an increasingly multicultural society, its ability to form a consensus on foreign-policy decisions is weakened and there is unlikely to be a united American response such as there was during World War II and the Cold War.
As it emerged as the sole superpower twenty-five years ago, the United States should have crafted a geostrategy that accounted for the inevitable attrition of its power. The United States might have accomplished this by averting global anarchy and preventing the emergence of a significant power rival.
Yet today, America is perceived, both at home and abroad, as weakened, unwilling, and increasingly unable to act as the world’s politically, economically, and militarily most powerful country.
THE CHANGING STRATEGIC SCENE
The shift of global power eastward has intensified the instability of contemporary international relations. Europe, still important in some areas, has come to play a diminished role while Russia seeks to remain in the forefront of world affairs as it struggles to redefine itself.
Europe has a prominent global role to play, but it is not, and is not likely again to be, a global power. Nonetheless, Europe can take the lead in regards to a number of transnational non-political threats to global stability, such as climate change. Moreover, without Europe’s steadfast opposition to Russian aggression in Eastern Europe, the situation could worsen.
Meanwhile, Russia, led by a financially thirsty leader, seeks to regain its global prestige. However, in its effort, Russia ignores the reality that it can no longer lead a non-Russian empire. Initially, the Russian Empire derived its legitimacy and power from its huge territory as it thrust eastward and southward. Russian peasants, politically ignorant and overwhelmingly illiterate, were nonetheless connected to the Russian Empire through their deep religiosity and deference to the
