Gonzaga Debate Institute 13 Hegemony Core Brovero/Verney/Hurwitz
AT – Offshore Balancing Weakens Deterrence
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AT – Offshore Balancing Weakens DeterrenceOffshore balancing solves hegemony offense – it prevents us from being drawn into conflictsLayne, Naval Postgraduate School, visiting professor 98 (Christopher, World Policy Journal, “Rethinking American grand strategy: Hegemony or balance of power in the twenty-first century?” Volume 15, Issue 2, Summer, p. 22, Proquest, accessed 7/6/13, AR) Because of the interlocking effects of geography, nuclear weapons (which enhance insularity's strategic advantages), and formidable military and economic capabilities, the United States is virtually impregnable against direct attack. The risk of conflict, and the possible exposure of the American homeland to attack, derive directly from the overseas commitments mandated by an expansive definition of U.S. interests. In multipolar systems, insular great powers have a much broader range of strategic choices than less fortunately placed powers. They can avoid being entrapped by alliance commitments and need worry little about being abandoned by actual or potential allies. Offshore great powers also can choose to stay out of great power wars altogether or to limit their involvement--a choice unavailable to states that live in dangerous neighborhoods in which rivals lurk nearby. As an insular great power in a multipolar world, the United States would retain a free hand strategically: although it might need to enter into temporary coalitions, America would disengage from permanent alliance relationships. An insular great power like the United States need not subject itself to strategic constraints of this kind. The strategy of preponderance is based, in part, on the assumption that the United States must prevent the rise of a hegemonic challenger because other states either will not do the job, or at least will not do so effectively. In contrast, an offshore balancing strategy would recognize that, in a multipolar world, other states will balance against potential hegemons, and it is to America's advantage to shift this responsibility to them. In a multipolar world, the United States could be confident that effective balancing ultimately would occur because, to ensure their survival, other states have an incentive to balance against geographically proximate rivals, and great powers do not "bandwagon"--that is, they do not align with threatening, would-be hegemons. Transition now is key to offshore balancingLayne, Naval Postgraduate School visiting professor, 2 [Christopher, Spring 2002, Washington Quarterly, “Offshore Balancing Revisited.” http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/washington_quarterly/v025/25.2layne.html, accessed 7/12/13, AR] The events of September 11 make offshore balancing an attractive grand strategic alternative to primacy for two reasons. First, looking beyond the war on terrorism, the Persian Gulf/Middle East region is clearly, endemically unstable. If the United States attempts to perpetuate its hegemonic role in the region after having accomplished its immediate war aims, the probability of a serious geopolitical backlash within the region against the United States is high. Second, because the U.S. victory in the war on terrorism will underscore U.S. predominance in international politics, victory's paradoxical effect will be to heighten European, Russian, and Chinese fears of U.S. power. By adopting an offshore balancing strategy once the war on terrorism ends, the United States would benefit in two ways. First, others have much greater intrinsic strategic interests in the region than does the United States. For example, Western Europe, Japan, and, increasingly, China are far more dependent on the region's oil than the United States. Because they live next door, Russia, China, Iran, and India have a much greater long-term security interest in regional stability in the Persian Gulf/Middle East than the United States. By passing the mantle of regional stabilizer to these great and regional powers, the United States could extricate itself from the messy and dangerous geopolitics of the Persian Gulf/Middle East and take itself out of radical Islam's line of fire. Second, although a competitive component to U.S. relations with the other great powers in a multipolar world would be inescapable, multipolar politics have historically engendered periods of great-power cooperation. On the cooperative side, an offshore balancing strategy would be coupled with a policy of spheres of influence, which have always been an important item in the toolbox of great-power policymakers. By recognizing each other's paramount interests in certain regions, great powers can avoid the kinds of misunderstandings that could trigger conflict. Moreover, the mere act of signaling that one country understands another's larger security stake in a particular region, a stake that it will respect by noninterference, allows states to communicate a nonthreatening posture to one another. By recognizing the legitimacy of other interests, a great power also signals that it accepts them as equals. An offshore balancing strategy would immunize the United States against a post -- war-on-terrorism backlash against U.S. hegemony in one other way. By accepting the emergence of new great powers and simultaneously pulling back from its primacy-driven military posture, the United States would reduce perception of a "U.S. threat," thereby lowering the chances that others will view it as an overpowerful hegemon. In this sense, offshore balancing is a strategy of restraint that would allow the United States to minimize the risks of open confrontation with the new great powers. Being Panglossian about the reemergence of multipolarity in international politics would be silly. Multipolarity is not the best outcome imaginable. The best outcome would be a world in which every other state willingly accepted U.S. hegemony -- an outcome about which some may dream, but one that will never be realized in the real world. That outcome, however, is much better than the predictable outcome if the United States continues to follow a grand strategy of primacy. The outcome of that strategy will be really bad: not only will new great powers rise, they will also coalesce against what they perceive to be a U.S. threat. Notwithstanding the events of September 11, U.S. hegemony is the salient fact that defines the U.S. role in international politics. The articles in "Through the Looking Glass" reflect a deep mistrust of U.S. power that the temporary convergence of interests brought about by the war on terrorism will not wash away. Indeed, the reverse is true. In attaining victory in the war's opening round, the United States underlined its dominant role in the international system, and talk of a "new U.S. empire" echoes inside the beltway. Underscoring the paradox of U.S. power is the paradox of victory. Flushed with triumph and the awesome display of U.S. might, U.S. policymakers may succumb to hubris and overreach strategically in the false belief that U.S. hegemony is an unchallengeable fact of international life. Other states, however, will draw the opposite conclusion: that the United States is too powerful and that its hegemony must be resisted. Now, more than ever, having a great debate about future U.S. grand strategy is imperative. As that debate unfolds, offshore balancing will become the obvious successor strategy to primacy because it is a grand strategic escape hatch by which the United States can avoid the fate that has befallen previous hegemons in modern international history.>
AT – Withdrawal Causes Economic DeclineUS withdrawal won’t collapse the economy – global trade will continueLayne, Texas A&M Bush School of Government and Public Service professor, 6 [Christopher, Associate Professor in the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University 2006, http://nationalinterest.org/article/the-global-power-shift-west-east-6796, accessed 7-6-13 BLE] Advocates of hegemony (and selective engagement) also seem to have a peculiar understanding of international economics and convey the impression that international trade and investment will come to a grinding halt if the United States abandons its current grand strategy—or if a Eurasian great power war occurs. This is not true, however. If the United States abandons its current grand strategic role as the protector of international economic openness, international economic intercourse will not stop, even in time of great power war.110 If the United States were to adopt an offshore balancing grand strategy, its own and global markets would adapt to the new political and strategic environment. Finns and investors would reassess the risks of overseas trade and investment, and over time investment and trade flows would shift in response to these calculations. Instead of being diminished, international trade and investment would be diverted to more geopolitically secure regions, and these "safe havens"—especially the United States—would be the beneficiaries. Finally, the assumption that a Eurasia dominated by a hegemon would be closed economically to the United States is dubious. A Eurasian hegemon would have a stake in its own economic well-being (bothfor strategic and domestic political reasons), and it would be most unlikely to hive itself off completely from international trade. U.S. primacy is unaffordableLayne, Ph. D. Political Science, 12 [Christopher Layne, 4-26-12, The Atlantic, “The End of Pax Americana: How Western Decline Became Inevitable”http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/04/the-end-of-pax-americana-how-western-decline-became-inevitable/256388/?single_page=true, 7-5-13, JZ] But even during the Cold War's last two decades, the seeds of American decline had already been sown. In a prescient--but premature--analysis, President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger believed that the bipolar Cold War system would give way to a pentagonal multipolar system composed of the United States, Soviet Union, Europe, China and Japan. Nixon also confronted America's declining international financial power in 1971 when he took the dollar off the Bretton Woods gold standard in response to currency pressures. Later, in 1987, Yale's Paul Kennedy published his brilliant Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, which raised questions about the structural, fiscal and economic weaknesses in America that, over time, could nibble away at the foundations of U.S. power. With America's subsequent Cold War triumph--and the bursting of Japan's economic bubble--Kennedy's thesis was widely dismissed. Now, in the wake of the 2008 financial meltdown and ensuing recession, it is clear that Kennedy and other "declinists" were right all along. The same causes of decline they pointed to are at the center of today's debate about America's economic prospects: too much consumption and not enough savings; persistent trade and current-account deficits; deindustrialization; sluggish economic growth; and chronic federal-budget deficits fueling an ominously rising national debt. Indeed, looking forward a decade, the two biggest domestic threats to U.S. power are the country's bleak fiscal outlook and deepening doubts about the dollar's future role as the international economy's reserve currency. Economists regard a 100 percent debt-to-GDP ratio as a flashing warning light that a country is at risk of defaulting on its financial obligations. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has warned that the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio could exceed that level by 2020--and swell to 190 percent by 2035. Worse, the CBO recently warned of the possibility of a "sudden credit event" triggered by foreign investors' loss of confidence in U.S. fiscal probity. In such an event, foreign investors could reduce their purchases of Treasury bonds, which would force the United States to borrow at higher interest rates. This, in turn, would drive up the national debt even more. America's geopolitical preeminence hinges on the dollar's role as reserve currency. If the dollar loses that status, U.S. primacy would be literally unaffordable. There are reasons to be concerned about the dollar's fate over the next two decades. U.S. political gridlock casts doubt on the nation's ability to address its fiscal woes; China is beginning to internationalize the renminbi, thus laying the foundation for it to challenge the dollar in the future; and history suggests that the dominant international currency is that of the nation with the largest economy. (In his piece on the global financial structure in this issue, Christopher Whalen offers a contending perspective, acknowledging the dangers posed to the dollar as reserve currency but suggesting such a change in the dollar's status is remote in the current global environment.) America’s fiscal predicament constrains international influenceNeu, Senior Economist at RAND, 13 [C. Richard Neu, 1-31-13, US News, “U.S. 'Soft Power' Abroad Is Losing Its Punch” http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/world-report/2013/01/31/us-soft-power-abroad-is-losing-its-punch, 7-6-13, JZ] This is a small example of what may be a troubling trend: America's fiscal predicament and the seeming inability of its political system to resolve these matters may be taking a toll on the instruments of U.S. "soft power" and on the country's ability to shape international developments in ways that serve American interests. The most potent instrument of U.S. soft power is probably the simple size of the U.S. economy. As the biggest economy in the world, America has a lot to say about how the world works. But the economics profession is beginning to understand that high levels of public debt can slow economic growth, especially when gross general government debt rises above 85 or 90 percent of GDP. The United States crossed that threshold in 2009, and the negative effects are probably mostly out in the future. These will come at a bad time. The U.S. share of global economic output has been falling since 1999—by nearly 5 percentage points as of 2011. As America's GDP share declined, so did its share of world trade, which may reduce U.S. influence in setting the rules for international trade. Investors may be growing skittish about U.S. government debt levels and the disordered state of U.S. fiscal policymaking. And what about unmet needs at home—healthcare costs, a foundering public education system, deteriorating infrastructure, and increasing inequality? A strained fiscal situation that limits resources for action and absorbs so much political energy cannot be helping with any of these matters. But without progress on such things, what becomes of the social cohesion necessary for unified action abroad or the moral authority to lead other nations by example? Putting U.S. government financing on a sustainable path will require painful adjustments over a number of years—increased government revenue and painful reductions in government outlays, almost certainly including outlays for defense and international affairs. During the necessary period of fiscal adjustment and constrained government resources, U.S. international influence may decline yet further.
AT – Hegemony Key to the EconomyU.S. hegemony no longer key to global economyMandelbaum, John Hopkins International Relations Program Director, 11 (Michael Mandelbaum, the Christian A. Herter Professor and Director of American Foreign Policy at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, August 9, 2011, Foreign Affairs, “America's Coming Retrenchment,” http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/68024/michael-mandelbaum/americas-coming-retrenchment, accessed July 6, 2013, EK) Yet the 2008 economic crash was an unmistakable reminder that worldwide monopoly production is no longer stable. Rivalry between banks and hedge funds over investment in the most profitable companies destabilized the financial system, as one bubble after another burst. In the coming years, as Chinese economic growth and south-south economic ties begin to overtake U.S. leadership, the role of U.S. military might will also come into question internationally as an increasing number of countries and movements seek to arrange matters differently. The crash also raised questions in the minds of millions about the ability of the world capitalist economic system to deliver jobs, life, and prosperity to them. People are scrutinizing the desirability of capitalism and globalization as never before. Among the more than 99 percent of Americans who don’t own global companies, the question is there, waiting to be asked, of whether U.S. foreign policy actually serves their interests. The time is therefore ripe for the peace movement to offer a new foreign policy which serves the interests of the domestic and global 99 percent better than the hegemonic order. Security spending not justified – hurts the economy trading off with other programsBetts, Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow, 7 (Richard K. Betts, November/December 7, Foreign Affairs, “A Disciplined Defense,” Vol. 86 Issue 6, p67-80, ebsco, accessed July 7, 2013, EK) During the Cold War, the U.S. armed forces were constantly preparing for World War III. U.S. military strength was geared to be ready to battle an opposing superpower that had 175 army divisions, 40,000 nuclear weapons, and numerous allies. Yet even in the early phases of the Cold War, when tensions were highest and fears greatest, the value of economizing was not forgotten. Defense spending was kept in check by the limits on revenues, the extent of other government spending, and a serious commitment to balancing the budget. As the political scientists Glenn Snyder and Samuel Huntington noted in their classic studies of defense policymaking under President Harry Truman and President Eisenhower, those presidents calculated military spending using the "remainder method": they started with tax revenues, subtracted domestic spending, and gave whatever was left over to defense. Truman did this before the shock of the Korean War caused him to unleash a military buildup; Eisenhower did it to preserve a healthy domestic economic base for strategic competition over the long haul. The remainder method was a strategically arbitrary means of limiting expenditures and was not used for very long. It would not make sense to resurrect it now. But nor does it make sense to benchmark current defense spending against spending during any other phase of the Cold War, given that the Cold War is over. The last time the United States faced a multipolar international system, in the decades prior to World War II, its peacetime defense spending was usually no more than two percent of GDP. In 1939, the last year before U.S. mobilization for World War II began in earnest, it was only 1.4 percent. Such a level was certainly too low, and the United States learned that lesson for good after Pearl Harbor. But on what grounds can one conclude that the current level should be three times as high? Certainly, it cannot be justified based on any actual threats that the U.S. armed forces might plausibly be expected to encounter. The military capabilities of the United States need to be kept comfortably superior to those of present and potential enemies. But they should be measured relatively, against those enemies' capabilities, and not against the limits of what is technologically possible or based on some vague urge to have more. Defense spending trades off with social programsBetts, Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow, 7 (Richard K. Betts, November/December 7, Foreign Affairs, “A Disciplined Defense,” Vol. 86 Issue 6, p67-80, ebsco, accessed July 7, 2013, EK) TO ASK whether the United States can afford higher levels of military spending is stupid. It can, and if necessary, it would. The problem is that there are other important things that the United States wants and can afford too, and a dollar spent on one thing cannot be spent on another. Defense spending has to be balanced not simply against presumed military needs but against other needs as well. Those needs include not just bedrock domestic programs such as Social Security and Medicare entitlements, which are imperiled by looming deficits, but also other programs affecting national security. The State Department, for example, is comparatively starved. It is struggling to staff embassies and project the United States' message around the world with a Foreign Service of a few thousand officers and a requested operating budget of just over $7 billion. Its total budget request for 2008--including foreign aid, contributions to international organizations and peacekeeping missions, and supplementals for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan--is just over $42 billion, which is equal to 6.5 percent of the funding request for the Pentagon. For dealing with a world in which many threats stem from political and economic instability and anti-American sentiment, and in which the U.S. government has great trouble communicating at the grass-roots level, these numbers appear badly unbalanced. Even if there were infinite resources available to support them, military capabilities would still be useful for only some purposes. The ability to use military power to regulate the world according to American values is more limited than post-Cold War optimism assumed. Imperial policing is feasible where the problem consists of individuals or gangs of thugs rather than organized and trained armed forces. In most cases, imposing political order against resistance requires waging war--a much bloodier and more involved enterprise. The professional military understands this, which is why it usually tries to avoid such policing operations and usually argues for strategies that rely on overwhelming force. Civilians, in contrast, often prefer a lean and light application of military power, in the hopes that significant gains can be had on the cheap. Given the difficulties the United States has had with military interventions recently, there is reason to believe that it will resort to fewer such operations in the near future. Increased defense spending is unsustainable and kills the US economyMacdonald and Parent, Wellesley College and University of Miami Political Science Assistant Professors, 11 (Joseph M. Parent and Paul K. MacDonald, November/December 2011, Foreign Affairs, “The Wisdom of Retrenchment: America Must Cut Back to Move Forward,” Vol. 90 Issue 6, p32-47, ebsco, accessed July 7, 2013, EK) Beyond these challenges to the country's military dominance, a weakened economic condition is contributing to the decline of U.S. power. The U.S. economy remains the largest in the world, yet its position is in jeopardy. Between 1999 and 2009, the U.S. share of global GDP (measured in terms of purchasing power parity) fell from 23 percent to 20 percent, whereas China's share of global GDP jumped from seven percent to 13 percent. Should this trend continue, China's economic output will surpass the United States' by 2016. China already consumes more energy than the United States, and calls are growing louder to replace the dollar as the international reserve currency with a basket of currencies that would include the euro and the yuan. The fiscal position of the United States is alarming, whether or not one believes that Standard & Poor's was justified in downgrading U.S. Treasury bonds. Between 2001 and 2009, U.S. federal debt as a percentage of GDP more than doubled, from 32 percent to 67 percent, and state and local governments have significant debts, too. The United States' reliance on imports, combined with high rates of borrowing, has led to a considerable current account deficit: more than six percent of GDP in 2006. Power follows money, and the United States is leaking cash. AT – Military Hegemony Key to the EconomyHegemony doesn’t affect the economyDrezner, Tufts Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy international politics professor, 13 [Daniel W., International Security, Volume 38, Number 1, Summer 2013, “Military Primacy Doesn’t Pay (Nearly As Much As You Think).”, Project Muse, accessed, 7-9-13, EK] Each of these arguments is less empirically persuasive than is commonly articulated in policy circles. There is little evidence that military primacy yields appreciable geoeconomic gains. The evidence for geopolitical favoritism is much more robust during periods of bipolarity than it is under unipolarity, which suggests that primacy in and of itself does not yield material transfers. The evidence for public goods benefits is strongest, but military predominance plays a supporting role in that causal logic; it is only full-spectrum unipolarity—a condition in which a single actor is universally acknowledged to be the dominant actor across a variety of power dimensions—that yields appreciable economic gains. The economic benefits from military predominance alone seem, at a minimum, to have been exaggerated in policy and scholarly circles. While there are economic benefits to possessing a great power military, diminishing marginal returns are evident well before achieving military primacy. The principal benefits that come with military primacy appear to flow only when coupled with economic primacy. These findings have significant implications for theoretical debates about the fungibility of military power, and should be considered when assessing U.S. fiscal options and grand strategy for the coming decade. Hegemony is not key to the economyDrezner, Tufts Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy international politics professor, 13 [Daniel W., International Security, Volume 38, Number 1, Summer 2013, “Military Primacy Doesn’t Pay (Nearly As Much As You Think).”, Project Muse, accessed, 7-9-13, ] The evidence for geoeconomic favoritism is mixed. To be sure, some measure of military power is generally acknowledged to be a prerequisite for developing a reserve currency.26 There has been a powerful correlation between states with significant amounts of military power and economic wealth.27 Since the beginning of the modern Westphalian state system, leaders have equated military power with economic plenty.28 The direction of causality in this relationship is much more difficult to ascertain, however. It is possible that military power generates greater economic benefits, but most researchers draw the opposite conclusion: the primary causal arrow moves from economic vitality toward a strong military. This was Kennedy’s conclusion in The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, matching the general consensus of most scholars who work on hegemonic stability, power transition, or long cycles.29 Realists such as Barry Posen have reached a similar conclusion: “If the United States were not [End Page 59] the dominant economic and technological power, it would not be the dominant military power.”30 For the causal logic of geoeconomic favoritism to hold up, military power must generate concomitant economic gains rather than vice versa. There is modest evidence for this assertion. At a base level, geoeconomic favoritism clearly exists. As a necessary condition, a state’s ability to defend its borders determines its ability to develop its economy, capital markets, and regional economic ties.31 Thus, military capabilities can help to reduce political risk, which is a significant explanatory factor for cross-border capital flows.32 The necessary condition for this relationship is not military predominance, but some sufficient level of great power military capabilities. For geoeconomic favoritism to occur, military primacy and deep engagement must generate greater inflows of capital than would otherwise be the case. The relationship between military spending and the economy is severely overstated and fails to acknowledge alternate causes.Drezner, Tufts Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy international politics professor, 13 [Daniel W., International Security, Volume 38, Number 1, Summer 2013, “Military Primacy Doesn’t Pay (Nearly As Much As You Think).”, Project Muse, accessed, 7-9-13, ] Carla Norrlof’s work represents the most direct effort to test the relationship between U.S. military prowess and financial strength. She argues, for example, that since 1979 “funds have more readily flowed to the United States” when it has won its wars.33 When the United States has gotten bogged down in military quagmires, on the other hand, the reverse has been true. Her evidence for testing this assertion, however, rests solely on an annual bivariate comparison of U.S. military performance with financial flows into the United States. The failure to consider other causal factors in determining the flow of funds—such as economic growth, monetary policy, or fiscal policy measures—introduces significant omitted variable bias into her analysis. Other factors key – primacy doesn’t yield economic gainsDrezner, Tufts Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy international politics professor, 13 [Daniel W., International Security, Volume 38, Number 1, Summer 2013, “Military Primacy Doesn’t Pay (Nearly As Much As You Think).”, Project Muse, accessed, 7-9-13, ] The recent economics literature on the causes of national financial strength further downplays the role of military power and favors that of domestic political institutions. While both democratic and authoritarian great powers have possessed large military establishments, this literature concludes that inclusive, democratic political institutions play the crucial role in allowing large states to exploit their financial power. Because these institutions can allow political leaders to credibly commit, states housing such institutions are perceived as more likely to honor their debts.37 States with large militaries are also [End Page 61] more vulnerable to the development of “extractive” political institutions: politically powerful actors can exploit the coercive apparatus of a large military to develop political institutions that reward members of the selectorate with private goods, rather than the public goods necessary to attract inward capital flows.38 History suggests that absolutist leaders with large militaries have been far more likely to repudiate their debts.39 As Daron Acemoğlu and James Robinson have demonstrated, countries based on extractive political institutions are more likely to possess comparatively more sclerotic economies.40 For any national government, some degree of defense spending and military prowess reassures private-sector actors that their investments will be secure. Beyond that base level, however, all of the literature indicates that primacy yields little in the way of geoeconomic returns. Security is certainly a necessary condition for attracting foreign capital inflows, but predominance does not appear to be a prerequisite. If anything, an outsized military, by loosening constraints on the state to refrain from military adventurism, retards rather than enhances inward private capital flows. Hegemony not key to the US economy – studies proveDrezner, Tufts Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy international politics professor, 13 [Daniel W., International Security, Volume 38, Number 1, Summer 2013, “Military Primacy Doesn’t Pay (Nearly As Much As You Think).”, Project Muse, accessed, 7-9-13, ] For the past generation, U.S. military hegemony has been a concrete fact in world politics. The anticipated austerity of the defense budget has prompted concerns among some analysts that the costs of any reduction in defense spending outweigh the benefits to the U.S. economy. This article has assessed the merits and demerits of military hegemony for a superpower’s economy. Reasons have been put forward to describe how U.S. military supremacy represents a net economic gain: the inculcation of geoeconomic and geopolitical [End Page 77] favoritism, and the generation of greater benefits from global public goods under the shadow of military primacy. The empirical record suggests that many of the hypothesized benefits have been overstated. The private sector responds positively to a country’s military capability, but only up to a point; military primacy is hardly a prerequisite for attracting trade and investment. Geopolitical favoritism does occur, but only during periods of bipolarity. Economic exchange is actually less correlated with security ties under conditions of unipolarity. Finally, military primacy does appear to be an important adjunct to the creation of an open global economy and the reduction of militarized disputes and security rivalries, but military supremacy is only one component of unipolarity. A decline in the hegemon’s economic power undercuts many of unipolarity’s posited benefits. Both the public goods and geopolitical favoritism arguments have some validity, but both rely on the hegemon’s economic might as much as its military might for the causal pathways to function. Their evidence supporting the correlation between hegemony and economy comes from the Cold War era—newest evidence supports our claimsDrezner, Tufts Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy international politics professor, 13 [Daniel W., International Security, Volume 38, Number 1, Summer 2013, “Military Primacy Doesn’t Pay (Nearly As Much As You Think).”, Project Muse, accessed, 7-9-13, ] There are some significant flaws to this supporting evidence, however. Most of the data that support a connection between security alliances and economic integration come from the Cold War era, not from the post–Cold War era of U.S. military predominance. Theoretically, a bipolar distribution of power is most likely to lead to coherent and segmented blocs of countries. Structural realists predict that under bipolarity, relative gains concerns between the two blocs should be relatively high, leading to a tighter integration between security and economic blocs.49 Statistical tests confirm that it was during the bipolar era of the Cold War that foreign economic policies seemed to most strictly follow the flag.50 Indeed, whereas the 1990–91 Gulf War happened during the waning days of bipolarity, the 2003 Iraq War occurred during a period of un-contested military primacy—and yet the United States secured far less burden-sharing during Operation Iraqi Freedom than during Operation Desert Storm. A glance at the global political economy of the pre-1914 period or post-1990 era suggests that the linkage between security and economic ties has been much weaker during these eras. In the nineteenth-century era of globalization, trade agreements, trade flows, migration flows, and capital flows bore little relationship to emerging alliance structures.51 Indeed, economic interdependence was so strong among non-allies that it triggered security concerns among the great powers at the turn of the century.52 Most famously, Germany and the United Kingdom were each other’s largest trading partner immediately prior to the start of the World War I. The same pattern emerges in the post–Cold War global economy. During a period when the direct economic benefits from U.S. military primacy should have been at their greatest, China became the epicenter of the global supply chain and the largest foreign market for stalwart U.S. allies such as Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Furthermore, U.S. military primacy has not deterred China from dramatically expanding its commercial interests across the developing world over the past decade—nor [End Page 64] has it deterred countries in the Pacific Rim, Latin America, Africa, or the Middle East from welcoming Chinese trade and investment.53 AT – Military Hegemony Helps the Global EconomyHegemony results in instability in global markets—empirically provenDrezner, Tufts Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy international politics professor, 13 [Daniel W., International Security, Volume 38, Number 1, Summer 2013, “Military Primacy Doesn’t Pay (Nearly As Much As You Think).”, Project Muse, accessed, 7-9-13, ] The historical literature does not lend much support to geoeconomic favoritism. Jonathan Kirshner’s work demonstrates that financial interests are concerned with the minimization of risk. As part of ensuring global order, military hegemons frequently need to exercise their military power; such actions introduce the possibility of macroeconomic instability into financial markets and national economies. Kirshner shows that, historically, the financial sector has staunchly opposed initiating the use of force in world politics. Even military hegemons must therefore be wary of alienating global capital: “[S]tates,” he writes, “must be alert to the fact that by choosing a more assertive or ambitious national security strategy... they may be ‘punished’ by international financial markets, principally via capital flight, pressure on the exchange rate, [End Page 60] and greater difficulty in borrowing abroad.”34 At a minimum, this set of capital market preferences implies that hegemons receive negligible geoeconomic benefits from military primacy. The behavior of reserve currencies between the two world wars is another data point against geoeconomic favoritism. If this logic is valid, then military power should also be a principal factor in determining which state issues the reserve currency. Both the United Kingdom in the nineteenth century and the United States after 1945 meet this criterion. Because these states were also the largest economies and largest financial centers during those respective periods, however, the causal factors are overdetermined. During the interwar period, however, there was a significant disparity between the military capabilities of Great Britain and the United States; the former had far greater power projection capabilities than those of the latter.35 On other dimensions—market size, financial depth—the United States and the United Kingdom were more evenly matched. Despite the British military advantage, however, the most recent economic history on this subject shows that public- and private-sector actors began treating the dollar as a reserve currency as early as the mid-1920s.36 Economic and financial factors, not the military balance of power, primarily determine the location of the reserve currency. AT – Military Hegemony Helps JobsMilitary spending does not create jobsDrezner, Tufts Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy international politics professor, 13 [Daniel W., International Security, Volume 38, Number 1, Summer 2013, “Military Primacy Doesn’t Pay (Nearly As Much As You Think).”, Project Muse, accessed, 7-9-13, ] This article does not exhaustively survey every hypothesized relationship between military predominance and economic benefit. Fortunately, some arguments can be dispatched quickly. For example, the argument that military primacy promotes employment by providing a Keynesian or innovative boost to [End Page 57] the economy is unpersuasive. Economists have concluded that any employment effect from defense spending is inefficient compared to similar levels of tax cuts or civilian government spending.21 Similarly, arguments persist to this day that military primacy yields rents through the existence of “informal empire.”22 A quick cursory review of the literature, however, reveals that whatever imperial rents existed in the pre-industrial era have not existed for recent military hegemons.23 The failure of the United States to convert its postinvasion control of Afghanistan or Iraq into lucrative commercial relationships is the latest data point to contradict this hypothesis.24 AT – Hegemony Key to Oil StabilityUS hegemony not key to preventing oil shocksDrezner, Tufts Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy international politics professor, 13 [Daniel W., International Security, Volume 38, Number 1, Summer 2013, “Military Primacy Doesn’t Pay (Nearly As Much As You Think).”, Project Muse, accessed, 7-9-13, ] Furthermore, direct evidence exists that the exercise of military power to protect sea-lanes boosts global trade flows (though the magnitude of the effect [End Page 70] is disputed). The presence of naval forces during times of militarized disputes has reduced market expectations of supply disruptions.84 It could be argued, however, that concerns about energy disruptions have been overstated; even in instances when U.S. military intervention was absent, world oil markets have rapidly adjusted to price spikes.85 A similar story can be told when analyzing the naval reaction to the post-2008 surge in Somali piracy. Attacks spiked after the financial crisis and peaked in 2011. Attacks remain at an elevated level after peaking in 2011, but their success rate has fallen markedly. Between 2011 and 2012, the number of successful global piracy attacks declined by 67 percent. The presence of multinational naval patrols—including the U.S. Navy—in the most vulnerable sea-lanes has helped matters, but the improved private security on board the commercial tankers appears to have helped even more.86 AT – Hegemony BenignUS primacy fails—states are uneasy about so-called benevolenceLayne, professor at the George Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, 07 [Christopher, 2007 and Robert M. Gates Chair in National Security, American Empire: A Debate//, http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/international_security/v031/31.2layne.html, accessed 7-6-13 BLE] The claim that others regard American primacy as benevolent because of U.S. sot power and shared values is similarly dubious. And again, Iraq played an important role in exploding this myth. Beginning with the run-up to the invasion of Iraq to the present, one public opinion survey after another has revealed that a vast “values gap” exists between the United States and the rest of the world. Tellingly, this gap exists not just between the United States and East Asia and the Middle East, but between the United States and Europe. One would think that if there is any part of the world where shared values really do cause others to view American primacy as benevolent, Europe would be the place. Yet, a September 2004 poll of eight thousand respondents on both sides of the Atlantic found that 83 percent of Americans, and 79 percent of Europeans, agreed that Europe and the United States have different social and cultural values.48 On a host of issues—including the death penalty, the role of religion in everyday life, and attitudes toward the role of international law and institutions—Europeans and Americans hold divergent views, not common ones. he Iraq war has exposed the huge gulf in values that gradually is causing the United States and Europe to drift apart—in large measure because Europe regards the United States as being a geopolitical rogue elephant, rather than as a “benevolent hegemon.” the problem with rogue elephants, of course, is that when they are on the loose anyone nearby is at risk of being trampled. This is why other states are uneasy about American primacy. For sure, many states do benefit both economically and in terms of security from American primacy. And it also is true that not all other states will feel threatened by U.S. hard power. Eventually, however, some of the other states in the international political system are going to believe that they are menaced by American primacy. For example, far from being “of-shore” as the primacists claim, U.S. power is very much on shore—or lurking just beyond the coastline—and very much in the faces of China, Russia, and the Islamic world. And, in this sense, international politics is not a lot different than basketball: players who push others around and get in their faces are likely to be the targets of a self-defensive punch in the nose. Doubtless, American primacy has its dimension of benevolence, but a state as powerful as the United States can never be benevolent enough to offset the fear that other states have of its unchecked power. In international politics, benevolent hegemons are like unicorns—there is no such animal. Hegemons love themselves, but others mistrust and fear them—and for good reason. In today’s world, others dread both the overconcentration of geopolitical weight in America’s favor and the purposes for which it may be used. After all, “No great power has a monopoly on virtue and, although some may have a great deal more virtue than others, virtue imposed on others is not seen as such by them. All great powers are capable of exercising a measure of self-restraint, but they are tempted not to and the choice to practice restraint is made easier by the existence of countervailing power and the possibility of it being exercised.”49 While Washington’s self-proclaimed benevolence is inherently ephemeral, the hard fist of American power is tangible. Others must worry constantly that if U.S. intentions change, bad things may happen to them. In a one-superpower world, the overconcentration of power in America’s hands is an omnipresent challenge to other states’ security, and Washington’s ability to reassure others of its benevolence is limited by the very enormity of its power. AT – History Proves US Leadership GoodHistory proves the United States causes violenceWalt, Harvard School of Government professor of international affairs, 11 (Stephen M., November 2011, Foreign Policy, "The Myth of American Exceptionalism," http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/10/11/the_myth_of_american_exceptionalism?print=yes&hidecomments=yes&page=full, accessed 7-2-12, CNM) Declarations of American exceptionalism rest on the belief that the United States is a uniquely virtuous nation, one that loves peace, nurtures liberty, respects human rights, and embraces the rule of law. Americans like to think their country behaves much better than other states do, and certainly better than other great powers. If only it were true. The United States may not have been as brutal as the worst states in world history, but a dispassionate look at the historical record belies most claims about America's moral superiority. For starters, the United States has been one of the most expansionist powers in modern history. It began as 13 small colonies clinging to the Eastern Seaboard, but eventually expanded across North America, seizing Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and California from Mexico in 1846. Along the way, it eliminated most of the native population and confined the survivors to impoverished reservations. By the mid-19th century, it had pushed Britain out of the Pacific Northwest and consolidated its hegemony over the Western Hemisphere.
More recently, the U.S.-backed Contra war in Nicaragua killed some 30,000 Nicaraguans, a percentage of their population equivalent to 2 million dead Americans. U.S. military action has led directly or indirectly to the deaths of 250,000 Muslims over the past three decades (and that's a low-end estimate, not counting the deaths resulting from the sanctions against Iraq in the 1990s), including the more than 100,000 people who died following the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003. U.S. drones and Special Forces are going after suspected terrorists in at least five countries at present and have killed an unknown number of innocent civilians in the process. Some of these actions may have been necessary to make Americans more prosperous and secure. But while Americans would undoubtedly regard such acts as indefensible if some foreign country were doing them to us, hardly any U.S. politicians have questioned these policies. Instead, Americans still wonder, "Why do they hate us?" The United States talks a good game on human rights and international law, but it has refused to sign most human rights treaties, is not a party to the International Criminal Court, and has been all too willing to cozy up to dictators -- remember our friend Hosni Mubarak? -- with abysmal human rights records. If that were not enough, the abuses at Abu Ghraib and the George W. Bush administration's reliance on waterboarding, extraordinary rendition, and preventive detention should shake America's belief that it consistently acts in a morally superior fashion. Obama's decision to retain many of these policies suggests they were not a temporary aberration. The United States never conquered a vast overseas empire or caused millions to die through tyrannical blunders like China's Great Leap Forward or Stalin's forced collectivization. And given the vast power at its disposal for much of the past century, Washington could certainly have done much worse. But the record is clear: U.S. leaders have done what they thought they had to do when confronted by external dangers, and they paid scant attention to moral principles along the way. The idea that the United States is uniquely virtuous may be comforting to Americans; too bad it's not true. Most recent history proves heg is badWalt, Harvard School of Government professor of international affairs, 11 (Stephen M., November 2011, Foreign Policy, "The Myth of American Exceptionalism," http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/10/11/the_myth_of_american_exceptionalism?print=yes&hidecomments=yes&page=full, accessed 7-2-12, CNM) Finally, any honest accounting of the past half-century must acknowledge the downside of American primacy. The United States has been the major producer of greenhouse gases for most of the last hundred years and thus a principal cause of the adverse changes that are altering the global environment. The United States stood on the wrong side of the long struggle against apartheid in South Africa and backed plenty of unsavory dictatorships -- including Saddam Hussein's -- when short-term strategic interests dictated. Americans may be justly proud of their role in creating and defending Israel and in combating global anti-Semitism, but its one-sided policies have also prolonged Palestinian statelessness and sustained Israel's brutal occupation. The US got lucky to be successful - geographyWalt, Harvard School of Government professor of international affairs, 11 (Stephen M., November 2011, Foreign Policy, "The Myth of American Exceptionalism," http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/10/11/the_myth_of_american_exceptionalism?print=yes&hidecomments=yes&page=full, accessed 7-2-12, CNM) The United States has enjoyed remarkable success, and Americans tend to portray their rise to world power as a direct result of the political foresight of the Founding Fathers, the virtues of the U.S. Constitution, the priority placed on individual liberty, and the creativity and hard work of the American people. In this narrative, the United States enjoys an exceptional global position today because it is, well, exceptional. There is more than a grain of truth to this version of American history. It's not an accident that immigrants came to America in droves in search of economic opportunity, and the "melting pot" myth facilitated the assimilation of each wave of new Americans. America's scientific and technological achievements are fully deserving of praise and owe something to the openness and vitality of the American political order. But America's past success is due as much to good luck as to any uniquely American virtues. The new nation was lucky that the continent was lavishly endowed with natural resources and traversed by navigable rivers. It was lucky to have been founded far from the other great powers and even luckier that the native population was less advanced and highly susceptible to European diseases. Americans were fortunate that the European great powers were at war for much of the republic's early history, which greatly facilitated its expansion across the continent, and its global primacy was ensured after the other great powers fought two devastating world wars. This account of America's rise does not deny that the United States did many things right, but it also acknowledges that America's present position owes as much to good fortune as to any special genius or "manifest destiny."
History doesn’t prove that US leadership is goodPatrick, Program on International Institutions and Global Governance Director, 11 (Stewart M., 11-12-11, Council on Foreign Relations, "Still Exceptional After All These Years?" http://blogs.cfr.org/patrick/2011/10/12/still-exceptional-after-all-these-years/, accessed 7-2-12, CNM) Walt seeks to demolish the pillars of American exceptionalism, showing that the United States is neither particularly benevolent nor divinely predestined. He documents historical excesses of America’s global role, from its scorched earth atrocities in the Philippines from 1898-1903 to its controversial conduct in the global war on terrorism. He suggests that “America’s past success is due as much to good luck”—including a fortunate geographical location—“as to any uniquely American virtues.” Walt disputes the tendency of U.S. politicians and academics alike to attribute all positive global trends and outcomes—from the spread of democracy to postwar global prosperity—to U.S. global leadership. He points out that such analysis ignores the downside of U.S. primacy, like lack of progress on climate change. Finally, Walt dismisses the myth that God has somehow granted the United States a special providence, or “mandate of heaven,” to bring freedom, peace and justice to the world. AT – China DeclineEven if China has an economic crisis – it will still be number oneDrezner, Tufts Fletcher School international politics professor, et al., 12 (Daniel W., Gideon Rachman, Financial Times chief foreign-affairs commentator, Robert Kagan, senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, Foreign Policy, "The Rise or Fall of the American Empire," http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/02/14/the_rise_or_fall_of_the_american_empire?page=full, accessed 7-8-13, LLM) As for the U.S. pivot to Asia, I think it's a predictable and rational response to rising Chinese power. But I'm not sure it will work. America's allies in the region face an interesting dilemma. Japan, India, Australia, and South Korea have their most important trading relationship with China -- and their most important strategic relationship with the United States. Unless China grossly overplays its hand and terrifies its neighbors, over time those economic ties will weigh more heavily than the military relationship with the United States. As a result, China's influence in Asia will steadily increase -- at the expense of the United States. All this, of course, is posited on the continuing growth of the Chinese economy. So what about those "hints that China's economic growth is slowing down"? I wouldn't be at all surprised. Indeed, I would go further and suggest that both the Chinese economy and the Chinese political system are unstable and crisis-prone. If a crisis hits, plenty of people in the United States and elsewhere will eagerly proclaim that the rise of China was a mirage. They will be wrong. This is a long-term process of huge historical significance, comparable with the rise of the United States in the 19th century. U.S. history should tell you that it is perfectly possible to combine political turmoil with the rise of a dynamic, continental economy. After all, America fought a civil war and still emerged as "No. 1" by the early 20th century. AT – Military Primacy KeyMilitary primacy not key – China provesDrezner, Tufts Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy international politics professor, 13 [Daniel W., International Security, Volume 38, Number 1, Summer 2013, “Military Primacy Doesn’t Pay (Nearly As Much As You Think).”, Project Muse, accessed, 7-9-13, ] This observation is problematic for the present and the future. As previously noted, there is a broad-based consensus that the military primacy of the United States will remain uncontested for the next decade at least; indeed, even extrapolating current trends, it is far from clear whether Chinese military spending will catch up with that of the United States in the next generation.102 U.S. economic primacy is another matter entirely. Multiple private- and public-sector estimates suggest that China will overtake the United States within the next decade. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) projects that China’s gross domestic product will overtake U.S. gross domestic product, as measured using purchasing power parity, by the year 2016. At least one estimate posits that China has already overtaken the U.S. economy in terms of purchasing power parity.103 China has been increasingly willing to use its economic power to influence its near neighbors, such as withholding rare earth exports to Japan after it seized a Chinese fishing boat captain in disputed territorial waters.104 It has also attempted to use its economic power to influence U.S. economic policy.105 China’s economic rise has reintroduced uncertainty into assessments about the global distribution of power. This perceptual gap is revealed in the different national responses to the April 2012 Pew Global Attitudes survey.106 [End Page 74] When asked to name “the world’s leading economic power,” only Turkey and Mexico had majorities of respondents name the United States. On the other hand, in five of the original Group of Seven economies, strong majorities or pluralities named China as the world’s leading economic power. In other words, an increasing proportion of the developed and developing world thinks that economic primacy has shifted to China. One could argue that elite policymakers are immune from mass misperceptions; U.S. policymaking elites interpret China’s rise differently.107 Nevertheless, both public rhetoric and private diplomatic discourse suggest that U.S. policymakers share this view of China’s new economic status with the global public.108 This perception is wrong. By any objective assessment, the United States remains the world’s largest and most powerful economy; it is also more appropriate to measure economic power using market exchange rates rather than purchasing power parity.109 Furthermore, there are excellent reasons to doubt the straight-line extrapolation of China’s economic ascent.110 Still, according to Wohlforth’s logic, the shift in perceptions alone should lead to increases in status-seeking behavior by China. And, indeed, this argument parsimoniously explains the Sino-American relationship since the start of 2009.111 In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, China challenged the security status quo. In early 2009, Chinese ships engaged in multiple skirmishes with U.S. surveillance vessels in an effort to hinder American naval intelligence-gathering efforts.112 Beijing responded angrily and forcefully to the awarding of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize to Chinese activist Liu Xiaobo. China reacted to routine U.S. arms sales to Taiwan with extremely hostile rhetoric and threats to sanction [End Page 75] U.S. firms. China refused to condemn North Korea for the sinking on the South Korean ship Cheonan, frustrating Japan and South Korea. In response to push-back from the United States and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations on the South China Sea at the 2010 ASEAN Regional Forum, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi responded angrily, bluntly lecturing other participants that “China is a big country and other countries are small countries, and that’s just a fact.”113 The policy responses to China’s post-2008 policy shifts have been particularly interesting for the argument that military primacy generates stability. On the American side, the fall of 2011 saw a widely reported “pivot” or re-balancing by the United States toward the Pacific Rim that included a range of security-related statements and actions.114 The United States signed the ASEAN Treaty of Amity and Cooperation and began attending the East Asia Summit; Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that the peaceful resolution of territorial disputes in the South China Sea to be in the U.S. national interest; the State Department averred that the U.S. defense treaty with Japan covered the contested Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands; and the U.S. Navy ramped up activity in the region and announced that a greater preponderance of naval assets would be allocated to the Pacific. Washington facilitated or enhanced security dialogues and military exercises with friends and partners in the region; five hundred U.S. Marines were stationed in Darwin, Australia. In addition, the Obama administration fostered a diplomatic, economic, and security opening with Myanmar, a longtime ally of China. Although there have been economic components to the rebalancing toward East Asia, the most prominent elements have been military.115 Furthermore, most of China’s neighbors warmly embraced the U.S. pivot. If the public goods logic of military unipolarity held true, then these actions should have deterred China from further aggressive actions. Yet, despite the flexing of U.S. military power, China did not ratchet down its behavior in the region. As Wu Xinbo observed, “[G]iven the comprehensive rise in its national power in recent years, China feels more confident in confronting the U.S. rebalancing strategy.”116 Indeed, if anything, Beijing increased its aggressive [End Page 76] behavior. China ratcheted up tensions with the Philippines over the Scarborough Shoal in the spring and summer of 2012. In the fall of 2012, it escalated tensions with Japan over the latter’s claim of ownership of islands in the East China Sea. The pacifying effects of unipolarity appear to have dissipated. Instead, Chinese behavior is consistent with predictions of great power behavior under status uncertainty. Within the Chinese policymaking and scholarly communities, there is a growing obsession with measuring and comparing Chinese power to U.S. power.117 In one recent assessment, Wang Jisi summarized the worldview of the top Chinese leadership: “The rise of China, with its sheer size and very different political system, value system, culture, and race, must be regarded in the United States as the major challenge to its superpower status.”118 Heg Authors WrongProponents of deep engagement are wrong—they ignore the collapse of the Soviet Union which should have dramatically altered our understanding of international relations.Walt, Belfer Professor of IR at Harvard, 2013 (Stephen, 1/2/2013, “More or Less: The Debate on US Grand Strategy”, Foreign Policy, http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/01/02/more_or_less_the_debate_on_us_grand_strategy, accessed 7/9/13, DVO) Second, there is something deeply puzzling about B, I & W's devotion to what Ikenberry used to called "liberal hegemony," and what he and his co-authors now prefer to call "deep engagement." B, I & W argue that deep engagement has been America's grand strategy since World War II and they believe it was the optimal strategy for the bipolar Cold War, when the United States faced a global threat from a major great-power rival. Not only was the USSR a formidable military power, but it was also an ideological rival whose Marxist-Leninist principles once commanded millions of loyal followers around the world. Here's the puzzle: the Soviet Union disappeared in 1992, and no rival of equal capacity has yet emerged. Yet somehow "deep engagement" is still the optimal strategy in these radically different geopolitical circumstances. It's possible that U.S. leaders in the late 1940s hit on the ideal grand strategy for any and all structural conditions, but it is surely odd that an event as significant as the Soviet collapse can have so few implications for how America deals with the other 190-plus countries around the globe. Proponents of deep engagement attempt to divorce it from all of its disastrous consequences—wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan prove it’s bad.Walt, Belfer Professor of IR at Harvard, 2013 (Stephen, 1/2/2013, “More or Less: The Debate on US Grand Strategy”, Foreign Policy, http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/01/02/more_or_less_the_debate_on_us_grand_strategy, accessed 7/9/13, DVO) Third, B, I, & W give "deep engagement" full credit for nearly all the good things that have occurred internationally since 1945 (great power peace, globalization, non-proliferation, expansion of trade, etc.), even though the direct connection between the strategy and these developments remains contested. More importantly, they absolve the strategy from most if not all of the negative developments that also took place during this period. They recognize the events like the Indochina War and the 2003 war in Iraq were costly blunders, but they regard them as deviations from "deep engagement" rather than as a likely consequence of a strategy that sees the entire world as of critical importance and the remaking of other societies along liberal lines as highly desirable if not strategically essential. The problem, of course, is that U.S. leaders can only sell deep engagement by convincing Americans that the nation's security will be fatally compromised if they do not get busy managing the entire globe. Because the United States is in fact quite secure from direct attack and/or conquest, the only way to do that is by ceaseless threat-mongering, as has been done in the United States ever since the Truman Doctrine, the first Committee on the Present Danger and the alarmist rhetoric of NSC-68. Unfortunately, threat-mongering requires people in the national security establishment to exaggerate U.S. interests more-or-less constantly and to conjure up half-baked ideas like the domino theory to keep people nervous. And once a country has talked itself into a properly paranoid frame of mind, it inevitably stumbles into various quagmires, as the United States did in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Again, such debacles are not deviations from "deep engagement"; they are a nearly inevitable consequence of it. Download 1.85 Mb. Share with your friends:
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