The reality of Western unity and strength; the persistence of miscalculations that discount it
The Western countries have always ultimately united and won in face of a military challenge, but sometimes late, with a huge price paid for the delay. It was concluded, after two rounds of experience with this in world wars, that it would be less costly if the ultimate unity of the West were immediately present and predictable: that there was a need for concrete structures of unity that would be visible not only to the best-informed scholars and practitioners, but to ordinary people, media, and politicians. Otherwise, short-sighted politicians, fanning national visions and riding the waves of nationalist enthusiasm, could blind themselves to the enduring realities of Western unity and power, and sleepwalk themselves into a losing war against the West; and media could help them blind themselves, by creating false perceptions of reality, exaggerating changes in global power (change sells; studies found that, for years, weather predictions were skewed by exaggerating change compared to the day before; alarmism about decline also sells), and skipping the boring news about continued unity and predominance in the West. Visibly organized, reliable Western unity was the antidote.
As a consequence of this reasoning, the architecture of Western unity enjoyed a major construction period from 1940 to 1960. However, today, despite this architecture, there is once again a belief in Western decline, this time before China, argued on the basis of the old assumption that the West is only a collection of separate nations; and a sequence of increasingly aggressive Chinese postures in 2010, remarked by several media analysts, Chinese and Western alike, to be a consequence of this belief. This indicates that the Western architecture, which has been only slowly improved on since 1960, needs a more rapid renovation and strengthening, to achieve more consistently visibility to media, politicians, analysts, and ordinary people; and to avoid a new cycle of misperceptions and miscalculations on the part of a rising power, such as China, that might still forget that it needs to measure its power vis-a-vis the West as a whole not just vis-a-vis the U.S.
One could argue that, even more than supplementing of the capabilities of the trans-Atlantic structures, what is needed at this time is reinforcement of their visibility and consciousness as a collective reality. This was Huntley’s conclusion already in 1980. Thus his suggestion that the entire series of Atlantic-centered institutions be brought together, not so much to give them new powers, but simply to show that their various powers, thus far dispersed in a variety of institutional locations under different names, added up to a substantial collective reality. For this purpose there was a need also for a name strong enough to sustain the collective identity. His proposed name, Atlantic Community or Community of the Developed Democracies, was meant to parallel the name and elan of the narrower European Community. Had this been done, it would have been impossible for the popular declinists a few years later, such as Paul Kennedy, to have it both ways, treating the trans-Atlantic West as a non-entity but the European Community as a full-fledged state entity like -- and against -- America.
Methodology for calculating the strength of the Concrete West
The West is not a consolidated common state, like its member nation-states. Its common identity is weak; its common institutions are weak. It is strong passively, not as strong actively. Its members coordinate, they do not fight one another, and do not undercut one another in core matters.
They still do plenty of minor undercutting. But it is substantially less than the mutual undercutting of the U.S., Britain, and France in the interwar years 1919-39, when their dis-coordination bungled the handling of Germany and bungled the world economy as well, turning the depression into a truly Great Depression. It has no comparison at all to the mutual undercutting and mutual warfare traditional among great powers, or among countries that are potential enemies and calculate their strategies on all matters, from trade to diplomatic maneuvers, for their relative potential in future war against one another. In this difference, the Concrete West shows its very real existence.
Actively, the Concrete West is more than any single part of it but less than the sum of all its parts. In active military measures, the Concrete West often wields nearly the whole of U.S. power plus some fraction of the power of its other members; in economic measures, it usually wields a majority share of the power of each of its member nations, often nearly the whole. When any one of its powers acts on its own, it usually has the tacit backing of the bulk of the West and the non-opposition of the remainder. All this adds up to considerably more than U.S. power alone, but considerably less than the total of all OECD countries.
A consistent Union, for comparison, would be the full sum of its parts. And then it has some more power as well, due to the presence of the system level interactions that reinforce its other powers. The Whole in this case is decidedly greater than the sum of its parts.
This system-level add-on exists already for the present-day Concrete West, augmenting its power even today. When the NATO-EU-OECD complex attracts countries to wish to join, it is something that the Western national powers alone, without joint institutions, could not do; and were not able to do in the preinstitutionalized past of the Atlantic, with sometimes catastrophic consequences. When today it is often a matter of the U.S. acting almost alone, without any active add-on from the rest of the West, the system-level add-ons are usually significant nevertheless: passive support and endorsement from the other countries lends legitimacy to the U.S. effort, prevents non-Atlantic countries from opposing it as often or as actively as they would otherwise do, and keeps the American political classes and public more supportive and constant in their efforts. The significance is confirmed, negatively, by the consequences when this support is absent, as in Iraq; it reminds us what it was like in the pre-Atlantic era. A full Union, such as Streit advocated, would to be sure provide considerably larger add-ons: firmer expectations, greater consistency, a stronger meta-level consciousness, a higher legitimacy, a Whole with more convincing global normative pretensions.
How much power for the Concrete West does all this adds up to? We can use for the present -- acknowledging its imprecision -- a figure of 75% of the total of all the OECD members’ powers.
The percentage would have been a bit lower, about 70%, during the Cold War years; despite the widespread assumption that that was an era of unity, actually there was actually less Atlantic solidarity on global policies than today22. During World Wars I and II, the figure was temporarily higher: near 100% in critical military respects, but America was also actively undermining its allies’ empires in the midst of war23. From 1929-1939, the figure fell beneath the 50% mark, with more mutual economic undercutting than mutual support: the whole was less than the sum of its parts, perhaps less even than its largest single part taken alone. In the non-crisis times of uninstitutionalized Atlantic unity, 1895-1914 and 1919-1929, it was around 60%; the grand Anglo-American and Anglo-French rapprochements24 provided what turned out to be enduring foundations for growth of diplomatic cooperation. For the “normal” century before the 1890s, the figure was well beneath the 50% mark; mutual undercutting was a part of normalcy, as was mutual public hostility, despite underlying evolving trends of mutual support since the 1820s.
We see that the long term secular trend is thus for the percentage of solidarity, which we might call the “coefficient of joint power”, to increase, with temporary deviations up or down during crisis (war, depression). In the course of 150 years, it has grown steadily, apart from brief crisis zigzags, from under 50% to today’s 75%, and is still growing as allied collaboration evolves on global problems. We might call this the “coefficient of joint power”.
The growth in the coefficient of joint power compounds the effect of the simultaneous growth in the total of national countries and forces involved in the joint power. Effective power consists of the two multiplied together.
This total -- 75% x the sum of OECD national amounts -- yields a huge power, a majority share of the entire power of the world. It is something that no emerging power has a prospect of catching up with, even were the figures to stop growing. And a more realistic projection would not have it standing still, but put it by 2050 around 80% x an OECD about 50% larger than present. The coefficient of total effective power for the Concrete West, compared to the sum of national powers in the present-day OECD, would thus nearly double: to 80% x 150% = 120%, from the present 75% x 100% = 75%. The present 75% is in turn was more than during the late Cold War years, when the West was 15% smaller than today and the mutual support a bit less (85% x 70% = 60%); that in turn more than at the beginning of the Cold War (65% x 70% = 45%); that in turn more than in 1900 (65% x 60% = 40%).
Let us keep in mind that these figures do not count the internal growth of each national economy, which is an additional compounding factor. We are talking here solely about the growth of Atlantic power in the sense of combining nations more closely and combining more of them. It is a figure that changes in near-proportion to the changes in the share of total world power that they hold as a concrete collective group (but should not be read as the percentage of that total global power). And this change is extraordinary: from a factor of 40 in 1900, and 45 in 1950, to 60 by 1975, 75 today, and a projected 120 by 2050.
We see that we are talking about a collective power that has been growing rapidly for a century, outracing all possible competitors; and, unless self-disrupted, can be expected to continue to do so far into the future.
Is there any good reason for the habit of not weighing the Concrete West collectively?
The Concrete West could still come apart. That is the best reason that can be given for not summing its powers collectively and listing them as a concrete entity; indeed, the only reason ever given. But then, so could China come apart. And so could India, and Russia. On this argument, we should cease to weigh them, too, as whole entities. Only America, Britain, France, Germany, and Japan would remain as fairly solid power-entities by this standard. It is clearly too high a standard; although, applied consistently, it reminds us of an important fact: the Western powers are the most stable ones, the ones most likely to be around in 2050.
The dissolution risk to the Concrete West should in fact be taken into account, but in a different sense than ignoring the category. It should rather be taken to heart by Westerners as a reason for a reinforcing the category, that is, for seeking policies to maintain and reinforce the existence of the Concrete West. Can the risk of dissolution also be used as an argument against counting the Concrete West’s weight as a whole? No, not any more than the risk of China’s coming apart can be used as an argument against counting China’s weight as a whole; or Russia’s, or India’s.
Is the risk even at all realistic that the Concrete West could be dissolved? Yes; the weakening of G8 could continue, it could be completely abolished, NATO could break up over various resentments, America could abandon the alliance in a fit of ally-bashing, OECD could be watered down into insignificance. Honest prescriptions for preventing decline would focus on preventing such developments. Nevertheless the likelihood of the West’s coming apart is not great, given the close commonality of conditions and interests among its members. The greater likelihood is a continued shortfall in the collective use of their commonality of interests, causing the collective power to be somewhat less than the sum total of collective weight; a matter we have already discussed, yielding a collective power discount that, while shrinking over the decades, is still probably 25%.
Is the risk realistic that China would come apart? Its government thinks so; that it why it makes such an effort to repress the Tibetan and Uighur areas. It can be nervous about Mongolia and Manchuria too. The resentments in the Tibetan and Uighur regions are of a much higher order of magnitude than the resentments that exist within the NATO and OECD groupings. There are differences between the northern and southern regions of China, both economically and culturally; despite being Han Chinese, their dialects are so distinct as to require translation, and the economic differentiation has grown with reforms and global trade. Fear of coming apart has been used for restricting reforms. While this writer views the fears of break-up of Han China as exaggerated, they have had a serious political effect.
Could Russia come apart? It faces chronic rebellion the North Caucasus, and makes a huge effort to suppress it. The fear of the whole country coming apart was the reason Putin gave in 1999-2003 for destroying the autonomy of the provinces and appointing their governors in place of the former elections. Here too this writer views the fears of break-up of core Russia as greatly exaggerated, but they have had their political effect.
Could India come apart? Yes, and along a number of fault lines, not just Kashmir. This is the reason, when territorial integrity comes into conflict with human rights in international crises such as Kosovo, why India supports the territorial integrity side, despite its own decent record on human rights.
Judging from how much these countries invest in trying to hold themselves together -- how much effort, angst, money, and bloodshed -- they have a lot more to worry about in terms of coming apart than does the Concrete West.
And what of the BRIC group collectively? It too could come apart. Indeed, it is likely to come apart sooner or later, unlike the Concrete West. Its internal differences of interest are far larger; its lacks long term shared interests; its immediate shared interests are of the character of a negative coalition, and take the contradictory form of wanting to be united against the West without wanting to be hostile to the West. The BRIC countries are subject to a strong attractive pull by the Concrete West, one that can divide them from their already limited anti-Western unity; the West faces no comparable pull from BRIC. BRIC should be the last and least group to be counted collectively.
Perhaps, then, no collective entities should be counted, only sovereign states? That would be consistent formally, but only formally. It is not be helpful for understanding the balance of the world. And the balance of the world is the subject under discussion, the reason for our counting and comparing of weights.
Then there is the matter of the EU. It often is counted collectively, despite its risks of coming apart as seen in the recent euro crisis, while the other collective entities are not. The only error in this is that the EU is often counted misleadingly, as an entity to be weighed against America on the global balance, without acknowledging the primary locus where it lodges its weight in global affairs, which is as a part of the Concrete West. The EU should indeed be counted collectively; so should the Concrete West.
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