The Hell of Good Intentions

by Stephen M. Walt

  THEORIES AND ASSUMPTIONS

  Liberal hegemony rests on a number of core premises or assumptions about the nature of world politics and the U.S. role in the current international system.3 Together, these beliefs make the strategy appear to be necessary, affordable, and achievable, as well as consistent with core American values.

  The intellectual foundation on which liberal hegemony rests is a family of interrelated theories of international relations: (1) democratic peace theory, (2) economic liberalism, and (3) liberal institutionalism. Democratic peace theory claims that well-established liberal democracies do not fight wars with each other and are strongly inclined to cooperate on key issues.4 Economic liberalism argues that open international orders with high levels of trade and foreign investment maximize efficiency and overall economic growth. As states become increasingly interdependent, so the argument runs, the costs of conflict increase and the likelihood of war declines because states will not want to jeopardize the economic ties on which their prosperity depends.5 Liberal institutionalism posits that strong international regimes—i.e., rules, norms, and formal organizations such as the WTO or the United Nations—can facilitate cooperation among states, discourage overly competitive behavior, and make it less likely that violent disputes will occur or escalate.6 Taken together, these theories implied that the United States could foster a more prosperous and peaceful world by spreading democracy, promoting economic globalization, and creating, expanding, or strengthening international institutions.

  As previously described, this hopeful vision was especially appealing in the early to mid-1990s, when history seemed to be moving America’s way and spreading these principles was thought to be easy to do. Confident that market-oriented democracy offered the surest and swiftest path to prosperity and peace, U.S. leaders believed that a universal desire for freedom, wealth, and comfort would supplant old-fashioned concerns about status, power, and identity.

  Pundits and policymakers also imagined that great power rivalries would fade or disappear and that traditional realpolitik would no longer be a useful guide to statecraft in this brave new postmodern world. Bill Clinton captured the prevailing optimism perfectly during the 1992 presidential campaign, declaring “the cynical calculus of power politics simply does not compute. It is ill-suited to a new era.”7 In the heady days of the 1990s, in short, the liberal prescription for perennial peace and expanding prosperity seemed to be within America’s grasp. As discussed in chapter 1, its proponents believed it was time to abandon ancient hatreds, atavistic ethnic loyalties, and pesky local quarrels and get busy getting rich in a globalized world, one whose defining features were made-in-America and underpinned by American power.

  AMERICA’S EXCEPTIONAL ROLE

  Liberal hegemony’s proponents also believed that the United States had a unique role to play in creating, expanding, and managing this emerging liberal order. The Clinton administration’s official National Security Strategy described the United States as a “beacon of hope to peoples around the world” and “indispensable to the forging of stable political relations.”8 The late Samuel P. Huntington of Harvard, a prominent public intellectual and former government official, saw U.S. primacy as “central to the future of freedom, democracy, open economics and international order.”9 To explain why the United States was entitled to lead the world, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright famously described America as “the indispensable nation … that sees farther than others do.”10 Prominent neoconservatives agreed wholeheartedly, with Charles Krauthammer of The Washington Post praising U.S. power as “the land mine that protects civilization from barbarism.”11 A cottage industry of think tank reports and strategy documents recycled this mantra, warning of the dangers of diminished U.S. “leadership” and offering advice on how to expand, strengthen, revitalize, justify, or guarantee it for the long haul.12

  Although he became president in the wake of the Iraq War and the 2008 financial crisis, Barack Obama never questioned the probity of America’s uniquely ambitious world role. At his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in 2009, for example, he told his audience that “the United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms,” and he made it clear that this role would not change on his watch. He made the same point in his 2012 State of the Union speech, declaring that “America remains the one indispensable nation in world affairs—and as long as I’m president, I intend to keep it that way.” His administration’s 2015 National Security Strategy referred to U.S. “leadership” more than thirty-five times, implying that the world might descend into chaos were Washington not firmly in charge.13

  This belief in the necessity for American leadership flows in part from the recognition that powerful states sometimes need to cajole others into cooperating in order to achieve common goals. If the world’s most powerful country disengaged completely and did not encourage other states to address global problems, selfish national interests might loom larger and achievable solutions to challenges such as climate change might never be reached.

  Yet the importance attached to U.S. leadership also reflected the conviction that the United States was uniquely positioned to spread democracy and other liberal ideals to the rest of the world, and that doing so would be to everyone’s benefit. Advocates of liberal hegemony believed that its blessings would be apparent to nearly everyone and that America’s noble aims would not be doubted. These deep convictions about America’s unselfish role help us understand why U.S. policymakers believed that active U.S. leadership was both essential and feasible. As President George W. Bush declared in his second inaugural address, “It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions … with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world … America’s influence is not unlimited, but fortunately for the oppressed, America’s influence is considerable, and we will use it confidently in freedom’s cause.”14

  THE POWER OF AMERICAN POWER

  Confidence was indeed a key ingredient in liberal hegemony, because it also assumed that American power—and especially its unmatched military supremacy—would provide the means to advance this revisionist agenda. For starters, a healthy margin of superiority would deter the emergence of new peer competitors and dampen future security competition in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Convinced that no state would willingly face the “focused enmity” of the mighty United States, proponents of liberal hegemony saw deep U.S. engagement as the key to preventing the renationalization of great power politics and renewed great power rivalry in Europe or Asia.15 Proponents also believed that the United States should stand ready to stop mass killings or other human rights abuses, if necessary by force, which in turn required U.S. engagement anywhere where such tragic events might occur.16

  Most important, advocates of liberal hegemony assumed that U.S. primacy gave Washington ample leverage over others and a reliable capacity to shape events around the world. As a task force of experienced foreign policy insiders put it in 2000, “Relative to any potential competitor, the US is more powerful, more wealthy, and more influential than any nation since the Roman empire. With these extraordinary advantages, America today is uniquely positioned to shape the international system to promote international peace and prosperity for decades or even generations to come.”17 During the heyday of American primacy, U.S. foreign policy mavens did not think small.

  If other states balked, U.S. policymakers were convinced that the United States had the tools to force them to comply. It could impose economic sanctions, give aid to a hostile regime’s foreign or domestic opponents, undermine rivals through covert action, and use military force to compel them to capitulate. If necessary, the United States could invade and depose hostile regimes at little cost or risk to itself. Once these obstreperous tyrants were gone, the United States and the rest of the liberal international community could step in and help liberated and grateful populations c
reate new and legitimate democracies, thereby expanding the liberal, pro-American order even more. Convinced that world politics were already going their way, U.S. officials were confident that they could accelerate the process reliably, safely, and cheaply.

  A SHRINKING PLANET

  Proponents of liberal hegemony also saw the world as a “global village” increasingly connected by trade, travel, and technology. They envisioned a world where borders were increasingly permeable (if not irrelevant), where information flowed at the speed of light and faraway events could reverberate with surprising rapidity. Distance no longer divided the world and the vast Atlantic and Pacific Oceans could not protect the United States from new nuclear arsenals, unexpected financial crises, transnational terrorists, global pandemics, cyberattacks, and a host of other dangers. As Secretary of State Albright remarked in 1998, “the idea of an ocean as protection is as obsolete as a castle moat.”18 According to the State Department’s 2010 Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR), “People, money, and ideas can move around the world so quickly that conflict, even in distant countries, has become a far greater threat to the United States.”19 In a complicated and tightly interdependent world, a weak failed state might be a greater danger than a hostile and heavily armed great power. Dangerous ideologies or destabilizing cyber-weapons could spread with the click of a mouse, and the hazards of disease, criminal activity, and violent extremism might fester and grow if they were not checked and eventually eliminated.

  Yet that same shrinking globe also made it easier for the United States to shape the world and address these various dangers. The absence of a peer competitor eliminated the risk of dangerous escalation, and an array of new technologies—including precision-guided munitions, enhanced surveillance and data management tools, sophisticated cyber-weapons, and improved communications capabilities—would enable the United States to project power with greater ease than ever before, without having to worry about local resistance or hostile retaliation. After warning about new threats such as violent extremism, WMD proliferation, or climate change, the State Department’s QDDR suggested that “the forces that fuel these challenges—economic interdependence and the speedy movement of information, capital, goods, and people—are also creating unprecedented opportunities.”20

  The idea that serious dangers might emerge from almost anywhere made liberal hegemony seem necessary, while the perceived ability to project power and influence at low cost and risk made global activism seem feasible. Threats might emerge from any quarter, but the United States could keep them at bay with a sophisticated combination of force, diplomacy, and economic and political engagement.

  Thus, as the unipolar era took shape, officials and commentators across the political spectrum believed that the United States had the right, the responsibility, and the ability to expand and consolidate a liberal world order and that doing so would keep the United States safe and prosperous. They were also confident that most states would recognize America’s benevolence, welcome U.S. leadership, and gratefully embrace Washington’s blueprint for a liberal order. Only “rogue states” led by illegitimate dictators and other international troublemakers would be inclined to resist the exercise of U.S. power, and most of these states were comparatively weak and politically isolated. In any case, they were assumed to be headed for the dustbin of history, with a helping hand from Uncle Sam.

  THE UNIVERSALIST TEMPTATION

  Lastly, liberal hegemony is attractive because it appeals to Americans’ self-regard and taps into powerful elements in America’s political DNA. As Louis Hartz and others have shown, the United States is the quintessential liberal society, in the sense that its founding principles and governing institutions privilege individual rights over group identities.21 Once committed to the “self-evident” truth that all humans possess the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” Americans cannot deny these rights to others without betraying their own beliefs. And as John Mearsheimer emphasizes, because Americans regard these principles as the ideal blueprint on which to found a just society and promote world peace, it is almost inevitable that they will seek to share these wonderful ideals with those who presently lack them.22 John Quincy Adams may have recognized that the early republic was too weak to “go out in search for monsters to destroy,” but the temptation to spread liberal ideals became more alluring as the United States grew stronger. Once the country stood at the pinnacle of power, it was impossible to resist.

  LIBERAL HEGEMONY IN PRACTICE

  In practice, the pursuit of liberal hegemony involved (1) preserving U.S. primacy, especially in the military sphere; (2) expanding the U.S. sphere of influence; and (3) promoting liberal norms of democracy and human rights. Although the three post–Cold War administrations pursued these goals in somewhat different ways, each was strongly committed to all three objectives.

  PRESERVING U.S. PRIMACY

  The first element in the strategy of liberal hegemony was maintaining—if not extending—the position of primacy the United States had acquired over the previous four decades, especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union. George H. W. Bush’s national security team signaled this intention clearly in 1992, recommending in a draft version of the Department of Defense’s official Strategic Guidance that the United States maintain a margin of superiority sufficient to discourage other states from even attempting to compete with American power.23 None of Bush’s successors ever questioned the need to maintain a significant power advantage over allies and adversaries alike. As former deputy secretary of state Strobe Talbott observed in 2003, “a recurring and animating premise of US foreign policy has always been the righteous imbalance of power; that is, an imbalance in favour of the US, its friends, its allies, its protégés and, crucially, its fellow democracies.”24

  U.S. defense spending did decline by about a third in the early 1990s—as the country enjoyed a brief post–Cold War “peace dividend”—but the United States still accounted for more than 35 percent of global military expenditures and spent more than twice as much as the number two power (China). Defense spending began to rise in Bill Clinton’s second term, however, with the Pentagon seeking sufficient strength to wage two “major regional conflicts” simultaneously. Significantly, none of the “regional conflicts” it envisioned were close to the United States, or even in the Western Hemisphere.

  National security spending increased sharply after the 9/11 attacks, and by 2007 it was higher in real terms than it had been at the peak of the Reagan administration. The 2008 financial crisis and the subsequent drawdowns from Iraq and Afghanistan slowed but did not reverse the upward trend, and defense spending did not decline until a congressionally mandated “budget sequester” went into effect in 2013.

  Although Barack Obama took office after the 2008 financial crisis and sometimes emphasized the need to rebuild U.S. economic strength, he reaffirmed the goal of continued military dominance. Obama repeatedly affirmed the need for active U.S. leadership, and his 2010 National Security Strategy called for the U.S. military to “maintain its conventional superiority and … nuclear deterrent capability, while continuing to enhance its capacity to defeat asymmetric threats, preserve access to the global commons, and strengthen partners.”25 The United States still spent more on national security in 2016 than the next dozen or so countries combined, and it sometimes devoted a higher percentage of its much larger GDP to defense than most of its allies or even such potential adversaries as Russia and China.26 In addition to maintaining powerful fleets in all the world’s oceans and thousands of nuclear weapons, the United States still had nearly 175,000 army, navy, or air force personnel deployed at hundreds of bases or other facilities in more than 130 countries as Obama’s second term neared its end.27 In a revealing sign of Washington’s global ambitions, every inch of the planet was now assigned to one of six “unified combatant commands.”28

  Most important, U.S. leaders did not seek primacy in order to protect the American homeland from i
nvasion or attack. Rather, they sought it in order to promote a liberal order abroad. “To effectively promote liberty over the long haul,” wrote Michael McFaul, the future U.S. ambassador to Russia, in 2002, “the United States must maintain its overwhelming military advantage over the rest of the world.”29 Or, as the neoconservative pundits William Kristol and Lawrence Kaplan wrote in 2003, “What is wrong with dominance, in the service of sound principles and high ideals?”30 America’s military forces were extremely busy after 1993, but they weren’t fighting to repel invaders from American soil or even to protect key allies. Rather, they were sent in harm’s way to shape political conditions or address security concerns in such faraway places as Afghanistan, Bosnia, Iraq, Kosovo, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen.31

  In short, apart from the obvious deterrent role played by the U.S. nuclear arsenal, U.S. primacy was for the most part not used to keep dangerous adversaries from attacking the United States or vital U.S. interests. Instead, it was used to shape the international environment according to U.S. preferences, to topple authoritarian leaders at odds with Washington, or to advance other broadly liberal objectives. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama used military force more cautiously and discreetly than George W. Bush did, but all three post–Cold War presidents saw U.S. military power as an invaluable tool for advancing an ambitious global agenda. In Nobel Peace Prize recipient Barack Obama’s last year in office, for instance, the American military dropped more than 26,000 bombs in seven different countries.32