In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

chapter sixteen American Strategy for Global Order Roger E. Kanet As the editors initially conceptualized the project that has led to this volume, they began with the assumption, widely held in the United States and abroad, that the United States is a superpower and hegemon of the international system. That assumption, a view that remains embedded in the thinking of both the Bush administration and its harshest critics, is not tenable.1 What is implied by the terms “superpower” and “hegemon”—notions that gained increasingly concrete meaning as the conferences and countless exchanges among participants developed— is a power that can impose its preferences by eliciting, either through coercion or consent, the cooperation of other states and actors. This notion of superpower and hegemonic influence implies therefore, that the United States will always prevail over resistant factors and actors because of its overwhelming dominance. What has emerged from the research and deliberations reported here is a realization that, regardless of the great discrepancies in military, economic and political capabilities between the United States and other regional and global actors and despite the commitment of U.S. leaders to attempt relentlessly to impose their views of global security and values on reluctant allies, as well as on resistant opponents, virtually all relationships between the United States and other states and actors are based on some form of bargaining, of give-and-take, not the simple imposition of U.S. preferences. The U.S. military can destroy conventional military opponents with relative ease, if they recklessly engage U.S. forces in open combat, but it is incapable of turning this advantage into a tool to ensure that the country’s political objectives are achieved. That requires other capabilities that in both Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as elsewhere, have proven to be inadequate. Constraints on its military power and on its eroding economic power as well as declining legitimacy, at home and abroad, contribute to its inability to resolve regional and global problems to its satisfaction. In several regions, notably Latin 338 American Strategy for Global Order 339 America, U.S. power appears less relevant than ever before to the concerns of those peoples and states. The editors now conclude that both for reasons of conceptual accuracy and of policy-making effectiveness, it is best to regard the United States as doubtless a global power but not a superpower or hegemon. The sooner American policy makers jettison their unfounded assumptions of boundless American power, assumptions that have contributed so mischievously to the erosion of American prestige and influence around the globe, the sooner the United States will be able to use its necessarily scarce but still impressive human and material capabilities and reservoirs of moral authority, however damaged by the Bush administration , to ensure American security and welfare and to contribute positively to global order and the governance of the world’s diverse and divided peoples.2 As one examines carefully the nature of recent responses of other states to U.S. policy initiatives, one finds extensive evidence of the absence of effective hegemony or credible superpower status. That is, these responses make clear that United States is not necessarily able to achieve objectives that it sets or gain substantial support for those initiatives, even from long-term allies, regardless of the immense differences between the United States and all other state actors in the world in terms of military, economic, and other capabilities. The war on terror is one case in which the United States has been successful in gaining support, but its partner states in this effort, such as Egypt, Algeria, and India, have often simply subverted U.S. policy goals associated with the war to advance their own interests at the very expense of the United States. Edward Kolodziej’s outline in chapter 15 of U.S. foreign policy in regions around the world and the reactions to it of other states that emerges from the case studies as well as his assessment of the realities of the global system together comprise the first of four components of the overall argument that the editors present in these final two chapters. This argument provides compelling evidence that, although the United States is a great global power, it is not, no matter the aspirations of its leaders to hegemony, a hegemonic power, nor does it actually exercise imperial control, as many have argued.3 The limitations on the effective exercise of U.S. power are too great to permit...

Share