Of Henry Tougha

Source: Voices from abroad
A mainstream source such as Bloomberg states The American dream of imposing its own system of global control is officially dead. Russia, after recovering from the collapse of the Soviet Union, together with a new power like China, they have escaped US leadership by creating alternative poles of influence. Naturally Bloomberg takes an absolutely favorable and rosy point of view on the new peaceful and collaborative world order that the United States would try to pursue and considers its end negatively, casting the responsibility on the authoritarianism and power aims of China and Russia. In essence, however, this official renunciation of the ambition to integrate these countries under the American empire does not mean peace: according to Bloomberg the consequence will be that the USA will have to commit itself in an increasingly aggressive manner to militarily defend the hitherto consolidated American empire.
at Hal Brands, 27 September 2017
American foreign policy has reached a historic turning point, and here's the surprise: it has little to do with Donald Trump's exhausting and controversial presidency.
For approx 25 Years after the end of the Cold War, one of the dominant themes of US policy has been to lead an effort to globalize the international liberal order that originally took hold in Western countries following World War II.. The Washington government hoped to be able to integrate potential adversaries of the system into it, namely Russia and China, so profoundly that they no longer had any reason or desire to screw up that system. The goal was to push all the major world powers, through economic and diplomatic incentives, towards a system in which they felt satisfied, and where the USA and its values ​​would reign supreme.
It was an exhilarating ambition, based on the idea that Russia and China were definitively embarking on the path of political and economic liberalization, and that they would ultimately be able to define their own interests in a way compatible with those of America.
And yet this project is now undeniably in a dead end. The new goal of American strategy is no longer to integrate rival great powers into a truly global order, but only to defend the currently existing international system – a functioning but incomplete system.
 
This conclusion can be hard to accept, because it clashes with the great optimism that characterized the post-Cold War era. At the end of the great confrontation between the two superpowers, democracy and the free market had spread like wildfire, the walls had fallen and geopolitical divisions were disappearing.
 
Even Russia and China – the former a great geopolitical rival of America for a long time, the second a superpower that was looming on the horizon – they were showing interest in greater cooperation and integration with the US-led international community. It seemed possible that the world was moving towards a single model of political and economic organization, towards a single global system led by America.
 
Promoting such an outcome had become the primary concern of American foreign policy. The US sought to deepen diplomatic ties with Boris Yeltsin's Russia and encourage democratic and free-market reforms, despite these clashing with possible Russian revanchism and European instability due to the expansion of NATO towards the countries that previously belonged to the Warsaw Pact.
 
Likewise, Washington pursued an objective of “broad involvement” of China, aimed at integrating Beijing into the global economy and encouraging it to take a more active role in regional and international diplomacy. The idea was that a richer China would eventually become a more democratic China, as the growth of the middle class would put pressure for political reforms. At the same time, American integration policy envisaged giving Beijing a greater stake in the then existing US-led liberal order. This would therefore have deprived Chinese leaders of the reason to challenge the existing order.
 
Come described by the administration of President Bill Clinton, this approach aimed to “acgrasp the desire of both countries [Russia and China] to participate in the global economy and global institutions, insisting that both accept the obligations, as well as the benefits, of integration“.
 
This strategy, summarized by Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick in 2005 come “responsible shareholder model“, reflected the admirable aspiration to leave behind forever the intense geopolitical and ideological competitions of the twentieth century. However, as has become increasingly clear over the last decade, first in Russia and now in China, this approach was based on two assumptions that did not stand up to reality.
 
The first assumption was that China and Russia were indeed moving inexorably towards a Western style of economic and political liberalism. Reforms in Russia stalled in the late 1990s, in the midst of economic crisis and political chaos. In the following ones 15 Over the years, Vladimir Putin has progressively re-established a model of government characterized by an increasingly less disguised political authoritarianism, and with increasingly close collusion between the state and big commercial interests.
 
In China, economic growth and integration into the global economy have not led to automatic political liberalization. The ruling Communist Party has instead used dizzying economic growth rates as a way to gain legitimacy and bury dissent. In recent years, China's political system has become quite the opposite more authoritarian, the government assiduously repressed human rights demands and independent political activism, and achieved a centralized power not seen for decades.
 
The second assumption was that these powers could define their interests in the way the US wanted. The problem here is that Russia and China have never really been willing to embrace the American liberal order, which emphasized liberal ideas that would inevitably threaten dictatorial regimes, not to mention the expansion of NATO towards what was previously Moscow's sphere of influence, and the persistence of American alliances and military forces throughout East Asia bordering China. And so Beijing and Moscow began to gain or regain the power to challenge that world order, and they gradually began to exercise it.
 
Russia tried, in the last decade, to change the post-Cold War order in Europe through force and intimidation, particularly with the invasions of Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014. Putin's government has also worked to undermine key institutions of the liberal order, like NATO and the European Union, and has aggressively meddled in elections and the internal political affairs of Western countries.
 
At dinner, for his part, has been happy to reap the benefits of inclusion in the global economy, as it progressively sought to dominate its peripheral area on the ocean, and to coerce and intimidate neighbors, like Vietnam and Japan, and sought to weaken US alliances in the Pacific area.
 
American officials hoped that Moscow and Beijing would eventually feel satisfied with the status quo. Instead, come he wrote Thomas Wright della Brookings Institution, they are behaving in classic revanchist fashion.
 
The era of integration is therefore over, meaning there is no longer any realistic short-term prospect of bringing Russia or China back into an American-led system. This does not mean, Anyway, that America is destined for war with Russia and China, or that it should try to isolate one or the other of the two powers.
 
For better or for worse, The trade relationship between America and China remains necessary for American prosperity and the health of the global economy. Cooperation between Washington and Beijing, and also between Washington and Moscow, it is important in order to address international diplomatic challenges such as nuclear proliferation and climate change.
 
What this means, but, is that the US must become both tougher and less ambitious in its approach to relations with great powers and the international system. Less ambition in the sense that they will have to put aside the idea that the liberal order could become truly global or could involve all the major powers, at least in the near future. And they must become tougher in the sense of understanding that greater efforts will be needed to defend the currently existing order from the challenge posed by the revisionist powers..
 
This requires taking difficult but necessary steps, such as making the military investments necessary to maintain American power and deterrence capabilities in Eastern Europe and the Western Pacific, as well as develop the capabilities necessary to counter Chinese coercion and Russia's political subversion towards their respective neighbors. This will require rallying old and new allies against the threat posed by Russian and Chinese expansionism. Above all, it will mean accepting the idea that relations between the great powers must enter a period of greater tension and danger, and that the willingness to accept greater costs and risks will be the price to pay to face the revisionist challenge and protect American interests.
 
In short, the goal of achieving a fully integrated world is no longer achievable today. Being able to defend the existing international order that the USA has built and guided over the years will be a challenge - and an achievement - already more than enough.