2 pages Literature Review

Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLC

David's Friend Goliath Author(s): Michael Mandelbaum Source: Foreign Policy, No. 152 (Jan. - Feb., 2006), pp. 50-56 Published by: Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLC Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25461991 Accessed: 07/05/2010 12:12

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=wpni.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLC is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Foreign Policy.

http://www.jstor.org

{ 1David's Friend

\JOLJATTHJ

The rest ofthe world complains that American hegemong is reckless, arrogant,

and insensitive. Just don't expect them to do anything about it. The world's

guilp secret is that it enjo)s the securiS) and stability the United States provides.

The world won't admit it, but thgy will miss the American empire when it's

gone. I By Michael Mandelbaum

E s verybody talks about the weather, Mark the United States misuses its enormous power in Twain once observed, but nobody does ways that threaten the stability of the internation anything about it. The same is true of al system. That is hardly surprising. No one loves America's role in the world. The United Goliath. What is surprising is the world's failure to

States is the subject of endless commentary, most of respond to the United States as it did to the it negative, some of it poisonously hostile. State- Goliaths of the past.

ments by foreign leaders, street demonstrations in Sovereign states as powerful as the Unit national capitals, and much-publicized opinion polls ed States, and as dangerous as its critics all seem to bespeak a worldwide conviction that declare it to be, were historically subject to

a check on their power.

Michael Mandelbaum is the Christian A. Herter professor of Other countries band American foreign policy at The Johns Hopkins University's e d together to School of Advanced International Studies and author of The block them.

Case for Goliath: How America Acts as the World's Govern

ment in the Twenty-First Century (New York: PublicAffairs_

2006) from which this article is adapted. -

t-i' LDiE ' ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~'

44, ,?, 4.4?44

Ar

4 44

.4.

4

4

44

,t

'F

V

.,4'.'4. - -

t

?44 't'? 44,44444

t t-??t4.

David's Friend Goliath 1

Revolutionary and Napoleonic France in the late 18th and early 19th century, Germany during the two world wars, and the Soviet Union during the

Cold War all inspired countervailing coalitions that ultimately defeated them. Yet no such anti

American alignment has formed or shows any sign of forming today. Widespread complaints about the United States' international role are met

with an absence of concrete, effective measures to challenge, change, or restrict it.

The gap between what the world says about American power and what it fails to do about it is the single most striking feature of 21st-century international relations. The explanation for this gap is twofold. First, the charges most frequently leveled at America are false. The United States does not endanger other countries, nor does it invariably act without regard to the interests and

wishes of others. Second, far from menacing the rest of the world, the

United States plays a uniquely

X YAI

positive global role. The governments of most other countries understand that, although they have powerful reasons not to say so explicitly.

BENIGN HEGEMON

The charge that the United States threatens others is frequently linked to the use of the term "empire" to describe America's international presence. In contrast with empires of the past, however, the United States does not control, or aspire to control, directly or indirectly, the politics and economics of other societies. True, in the post-Cold War period, America has intervened militarily in a few places outside its borders, including Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. But these cases are exceptions that prove the rule.

These foreign ventures are few in number and, with the exception of Iraq, none has any economic value or strategic importance. In each case, American control of the country came as

the byproduct of a military intervention undertaken for quite

/ different reasons: to rescue dis

tressed people in Somalia, to stop eth

_ t ;--> nic cleansing

in Bosnia, to

depose a danger ous tyrant in Iraq.

Unlike the great empires of the past, the U.S. goal was to build stable, effec

tive governments

and then to leave as quick

ly as possible. Moreover, unlike past imperial prac

tice, the U.S. gov ernment has sought

to share control of its occupied countries with allies, not to

monopolize them.

One policy inno

vation of the current

Bush administration that gives other coun

7:

z m m z o

52 FOREIGN POLICY

tries pause is the doctrine of preventive war. Accord ing to this doctrine, the United States reserves the right to attack a country not in response to an actu al act of aggression, or because it is unmistakably on the verge of aggression, but rather in anticipation of an assault at some point in the future. The United States implemented the doctrine in 2003 with the invasion of Iraq.

Were it to become central to American foreign policy, the pre ventive war doctrine would pro vide a broad charter for military intervention. But that is not its destiny. The Bush administration presented the campaign in Iraq not as a way to ensure that Sad dam Hussein did not have the opportunity to acquire nuclear

weapons at some point in the future, but rather as a way of depriving him of the far less dangerous chemical weapons that he was believed already to possess. More important, the countries that are now plausi ble targets for a preventive war-North Korea and Iran-differ from Iraq in ways that make such a campaign extremely unattractive. North Korea is

more heavily armed than Iraq, and in a war could do serious damage to America's chief ally in the region, South Korea, even if North Korea lost. Iran has a larger population than Iraq, and it is less iso lated internationally. The United States would have hesitated before attacking either one of these coun tries even if the Iraq operation had gone smoothly.

Now, with the occupation of Iraq proving to be both costly (some $251 billion and counting) and frustrating, support for repeating the exercise else

where is hard to find.

AMERICA THE ACCESSIBLE

The war in Iraq is the most-often cited piece of evidence that America conducts itself in a recklessly unilateral fashion. Because of its enormous power, critics say, the policies that the United States applies beyond its bor ders are bound to affect others, yet when it comes to deciding these policies, non-Americans have no influ ence. However valid the charge of unilateralism in the case of Iraq may be (and other governments did in fact support the war), it does not hold true for U.S. foreign policy as a whole.

The reason is that the American political system is fragmented, which means there are multiple

points of access to it. Other countries can exert influence on one of the House or Senate commit tees with jurisdiction over foreign policy. Or coun tries can deal with one or more of the federal departments that conduct the nation's relations with other countries. For that matter, American think tanks generate such a wide variety of proposals for

U.S. policies toward every country that almost any

The gap between what the world says about

American power and what it fails to do about

it is the single most striking feature of

21st-century international relations.

approach is bound to have a champion somewhere. Even Sudan, which the U.S. government has accused of genocide, recently signed a $530,000 contract with a Washington lobbyist to help improve its image. Non-Americans may not enjoy formal rep resentation in the U.S. political system, but because of the openness of that system, they can and do achieve what representation brings-a voice in the

making of American policy. Because the opportunities to be heard and

heeded are so plentiful, countries with opposing aims often simultaneously attempt to persuade the American government to favor their respective causes. That has sometimes led the United States to become a mediator for international conflict, between Arabs and Israelis, Indians and Pakistanis, and other sets of antagonists. That's a role that other countries value.

THE WORLD'S GOVERNMENT

The United States makes other positive contribu tions, albeit often unseen and even unknown, to the well-being of people around the world. In fact,

America performs for the community of sover eign states many, though not all, of the tasks that national governments carry out within them.

For instance, U.S. military power helps to keep order in the world. The American military presence in Europe and East Asia, which now includes approximately 185,000 personnel, reassures the governments of these regions that their neighbors

JANUARY I FEBRUARY 2006 53

David's Friend Goliath ]

cannot threaten them, helping to allay suspicions, forestall arms races, and make the chances of armed conflict remote. U.S. forces in Europe, for instance, reassure Western Europeans that they do not have to increase their own troop strength to protect themselves against the possibility of a resurgent Russia, while at the same time reassur ing Russia that its great adversary of the last cen tury, Germany, will not adopt aggressive policies. Similarly, the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, which protects Japan, simultaneously reassures Japan's neighbors that it will remain peaceful. This reas surance is vital yet invisible, and it is all but taken for granted.

The United States has also assumed responsibil ity for coping with the foremost threat to contem porary international security, the spread of nuclear weapons to "rogue" states and terrorist organiza tions. The U.S.-sponsored Cooperative Threat

Reduction program is designed to secure nuclear materials and weapons in the former Soviet Union. A significant part of the technical and human assets of the American intelligence community is devot ed to the surveillance of nuclear weapons-related activities around the world. Although other coun tries may not always agree with how the United

The alternative to the role the United States plays

in the world is not better global governance, but

less of it-and that would make the world a far

more dangerous and less prosperous place.

States seeks to prevent proliferation, they all

endorse the goal, and none of them makes as sig nificant a contribution to achieving that goal as

does the United States. America's services to the world also extend to

economic matters and international trade. In the

international economy, much of the confidence needed to proceed with transactions, and the pro tection that engenders this confidence, comes from the policies of the United States. For example, the

U.S. Navy patrols shipping lanes in both the

Atlantic and Pacific oceans, assuring the safe pas

sage of commerce along the world's great trade routes. The United States also supplies the world's

most frequently used currency, the U.S. dollar. Though the euro might one day supplant the dol lar as the world's most popular reserve currency, that day, if it ever comes, lies far in the future.

Furthermore, working through the Interna tional Monetary Fund (IMF), the United States also helps to carry out some of the duties that cen tral banks perform within countries, including serving as a "lender of last resort." The driving force behind IMF bailouts of failing economies in

Latin America and Asia in the last decade was the United States, which holds the largest share of votes within the IMF. And Americans' large appetite for consumer products partly reproduces on a global scale the service that the economist John

Maynard Keynes assigned to national governments during times of economic slowdown: The United States is the world's "consumer of last resort." Americans purchase Japanese cars, Chinese-made clothing, and South Korean electronics and appli ances in greater volume than any other people.

Just as national governments have the respon sibility for delivering water and electricity within their jurisdictions, so the United States, through its

military deployments and diplomacy, assures an adequate supply of the oil that allows industrial

economies to run. It has estab lished friendly political relations, and sometimes close military asso ciations, with governments in most of the major oil-producing countries and has extended mili tary protection to the largest of them, Saudi Arabia. Despite deep social, cultural, and political dif ferences between the two coun tries the United States and Saudi

Arabia managed in the 20th cen tury to establish a partnership that controlled the global market for this indispensable commodity. The economic well-being even of countries hostile to American foreign policy depends on the Amer ican role in assuring the free flow of oil through

out the world. To be sure, the United States did not deliber

ately set out to become the world's government. The services it provides originated during the

Cold War as part of its struggle with the Soviet Union, and America has continued, adapted, and in some cases expanded them in the post-Cold War

era. Nor do Americans think of their country as the world's government. Rather, it conducts, in their

54 FOREIGN POLICY

IBM"

view, a series of policies designed to further Amer ican interests. In this respect they are correct, but these policies serve the interests of others as well.

The alternative to the role the United States plays in the world is not better global governance, but less of it-and that would make the world a far

more dangerous and less prosperous place. Never in human history has one country done so much for so many others, and received so little appre ciation for its efforts.

INEVITABLE INGRATITUDE

Nor is the world likely to express much gratitude to the United States any time soon. Even if they pri vately value what the United States does for the world, other countries, especially democratic ones, will continue to express anti-American sentiments. That is neither surprising nor undesirable. Within democracies, spirited criticism of the government

is normal, indeed vital for its effective perform ance. The practice is no different between and among democracies.

Anti-Americanism has many domestic politi cal uses. In many parts of the world, the United States serves as a convenient scapegoat for gov ernments, a kind of political lightning rod to draw away from themselves the popular discon tent that their shortcomings have helped to pro duce. That is particularly the case in the Middle East, but not only there. Former German Chan cellor Gerhard Schroder achieved an electoral victory in 2002 by denouncing the war in Iraq. Similarly, it is convenient, even comforting, to blame the United States for the inevitable dislo cations caused by the great, impersonal forces of globalization.

But neither the failure to acknowledge Amer ica's global role nor the barrage of criticism of it

means that the officials of other countries are

JANUARY I FEBRUARY 2006 55

i David's Friend Goliath I

entirely unaware of the advantages that it brings them. If a global plebiscite concerning America's role in the world were held by secret ballot, most foreign-policy officials in other countries would vote in favor of continuing it. Though the Chinese object to the U.S. military role as Taiwan's pro tector, they value the effect that American military deployments in East Asia have in preventing Japan from pursuing more robust military policies. But others will not declare their support for America's global role. Acknowledging it would risk raising the question of why those who take advantage of the services America provides do not pay more for them. It would risk, that is, other countries' capac ities to continue as free riders, which is an arrange

ment no government will lightly abandon. In the end, however, what other nations do or

do not say about the United States will not be cru cial to whether, or for how long, the United States continues to function as the world's government.

That will depend on the willingness of the Amer ican public, the ultimate arbiter of American for eign policy, to sustain the costs involved. In the near future, America's role in the world will have to compete for public funds with the rising costs of domestic entitlement programs. It is Social Secu rity and Medicare, not the rise of China or the kind of coalition that defeated powerful empires in the past, that pose the greatest threat to America's role as the world's government.

The outcome of the looming contest in the United States between the national commitment to social welfare at home and the requirements for stability and prosperity abroad cannot be fore seen with any precision. About other countries' approach to America's remarkable 21st-century global role, however, three things may be safely predicted: They will not pay for it, they will con tinue to criticize it, and they will miss it when it is gone. ID

[ Want to Know More?]

Many historians and political scientists have examined the highs and lows of American empire. Some of the more notable works include Andrew J. Bacevich's American Empire: The Realities and Con sequences of U.S. Diplomacy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002), Colossus: The Price of

America's Empire (New York: Penguin Press, 2004), by Niall Ferguson, The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2004), by Chalmers Johnson, and Robert W Merry's Sands of Empire: Missionary Zeal, American Foreign Policy, and the Hazards of Global Ambition (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005).

Robert Kagan explains why the world welcomes vigorous American leadership in "The Benevo lent Empire" (FOREIGN POLICY, Summer 1998). In "A World Without Power" (FOREIGN POLICY, July/August 2004), Niall Ferguson argues that the world would be a far more dangerous place without U.S. dominance. Anne Applebaum looks at the places where America is loved, and why, in "In Search of Pro-Americanism" (FOREIGN POLICY, July/August 2005).

For a more detailed look at the United States' role in international security, see The Mission: Waging War and Keeping Peace with America's Military (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2003), by Dana Priest. Robert Gilpin examines America's interaction with the global economy in The Challenge of Global Capitalism: The World Economy in the 21st Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000).

The U.S. State Department offers regular roundups, available on the department's Web site, of foreign media commentary on major U.S. foreign-policy issues. The U.S. Justice Department also submits a semiannual report to congress on the foreign nations involved in lobbying the U.S. government, available on its Web site.

? For links to relevant Web sites, access to the FP Archive, and a comprehensive index of related FOREIGN POLICY articles, go to www.ForeignPolicy.com.

56 FORI i I(;X 1. I a(