America's Changing Role in a Transforming World

AMERICA'S CHANGING ROLE IN A TRANSFORMING WORLD Charles F. Doran The rise and decline ofstates is not simple. This is as true for the global power of the United States, Russia, China, and Japan today as it was for Britain, Austria-Hungary, Russia, and Germany a century ago. This is also why confusion permeates much ofthe contemporary discussion about the future power and role ofthe United States and other leading countries. Concept mustguide historical interpretation andpolicyassessment. Unless the concept of change in relative power and ofthe trajectory ofthat power are sound, interpretation is likely to continue to go awry. The contemporary debate about U.S. decline, involving the future trajectory of U.S. power and its foreign policy, is part of a larger scholarly dialogue about the structure ofthe international system and the dynamics of international politics. Structural theories focus on the distribution of power in the system—the hierarchic order, and changing relative power, or systemic share, ofthe member states. Statesmen think in relative terms because a state's power; its capacity to create and sustain a foreign policy role, is always relative to the other major states in the international system. To talk about a state's rise or decline, whether the source ofrelative change is internal or external to the state or both, is to talk about changes in the structure of the international system itself. Surely no analyst doubts that the international system today is undergoing monumental transformation. Charles F. Doran, Andrew W. Mellon Professor ofInternational Relations at SAIS, is writing a book about strategic policy and international political economy. This article builds upon a lecture he presented at the 1992 Milton S. Eisenhower Symposium , "America in Decline: Crisis or Illusion?" 69 70 SAISREVIEW The issue ofU.S. decline becomes re-focused: What is the future power and role of the United States in an international system whose structure and modus operandi are changing? Neither power nor role can be isolated from the particular international context in which the United States finds itself. In this transforming world, is the United States "bound to lead," as Joseph Nye has argued?1 Or, as Robert Gilpin has warned, is the United States a declining hegemon, whose weakened leadership invites challenge from a rising state seeking to establish a new system ofrules and benefits?2 Shouldthe United States accept itsso-called "endofempire"and"gracefully retreat" from its leadership role, as Paul Kennedy has advised?3 What is an appropriate grand strategy for the United States—appropriate both to U.S. interests and, since this is what leadership is all about, to the interests ofthe international system as a whole? A separate, albeit related, question underlies and further complicates the debate: isthere opportunityforAmerican economic resurgence, or is decline so aggravated as to preclude this possibility?4 This essay addresses these questions from the perspective of a form of analysis known as power cycle theory.5 The principles ofthe power cycle (of the structure of changing systems) show how absolute power changes in the system set in motion the relative power changes described as the rise and decline ofstates. Encompassing state and system in a single historical dynamic, power cycle analysis shows that relative power change is sometimes insidiously counterintuitive. The shifting tides of history are structural undercurrents that can counter even the largest growth in absolute power terms. Since role expectations are tied to change on the power cycle, incomplete understanding of relative power change supports dangerous fantasies about future power and role throughout the system. Intuitive 1.Joseph S. Nye, Jr. Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature ofAmerican Power (New York: Basic Books, 1990). 2.Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981). Robert Keohane, AfterHegemony: Cooperation andDiscord in the WorldPolitical Economy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984). 3.Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (New York: Random House, 1988); "The End of Empire: Can We Decline as Gracefully as Great Britain?," Washington Post, Outlook section (24 Jan. 1988). 4.Richard Rosecrance, America's Economic Resurgence: A Bold New Strategy (New York: Harper & Row, 1990). Henry R. Nau, The Myth ofAmerica's Decline: Leading the World Economy into the...