Original Article

Persistent primacy and the future of the

American era

Robert J. Lieber
Department of Government, Georgetown University, Washington DC 20057-1034, USA.
E-mail: lieberr@georgetown.edu

Abstract Arguments are widely expressed that America is in decline, both at

home and abroad. These admonitions extend not only to economic, diplomatic and
geopolitical realms, but even to the cultural arena. The United States does face real
and even serious problems, but there is an unmistakable echo of the past in current
arguments. Antecedents of these views were evident in the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s, and
on occasion even in identical language. Indeed, declinist proclamations have
appeared on and off not only throughout the 20th Century, but also during
the 18th and 19th Centuries. Moreover, periodic crises in US history have included
challenges more daunting than those of today. It can thus be instructive
to compare the arguments and prescriptions of the new declinism with those of
earlier eras. The evidence suggests a pattern of over-reaction, a historicism, and a
lack of appreciation for the robustness, adaptability and staying power of the
United States.
International Politics (2009) 46, 119–139. doi:10.1057/ip.2008.44

Keywords: US foreign policy; primacy; American era; decline; staying power;

adaptability

Introduction

By virtue of its size, the breadth and depth of its power, and the indispensable
role it plays in world affairs, the United States possesses a unique degree of
primacy, that is, preponderance in comparison with other countries in those
dimensions by which power is commonly measured, especially economic,
military, technological and even cultural. With the end of the Cold War and
the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States was widely
depicted as the lone superpower. In recent years, however, many authors and
strategists have been predicting the end of the American era. They argue that
America’s very size and predominance, as well as its foreign policy conduct, the
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wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and its economic, structural and military
vulnerabilities, are triggering the emergence of an increasing number and
variety of stubborn challenges to US power and influence.
These voices have grown louder with the onset of a massive financial crisis,
both American and global. For example, in the words of German Finance
Minister, Peer Steinbrück, ‘The US will lose its status as the superpower of the
world financial systemyWhen we look back 10 years from now, we will see
2008 as a fundamental rupture’ (Benoit, 2008). And Iran’s volatile President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, speaking to world leaders gathered at the United
Nations, has prophesied that America’s empire is ‘reaching the end of the road’
(Solomon, 2008). Notwithstanding such views, counterbalancing and the
decline of US primacy have yet to take place and it remains a matter of
contention whether or when they will occur. Elsewhere, I have argued that the
threat from militant Islamic terrorism, the weakness of international
institutions in confronting the most urgent and deadly problems and the
unique role of the United States have made a grand strategy of superpower
preeminence a logical and necessary adaptation to the realities of the post-9/11
world (Lieber, 2005/2007).1
This leads, however, to the question of whether we may be witnessing a
major erosion of America’s capacity to play this role. (The question of whether
it should do so remains a separate matter and one that has been subject to
vigorous debate elsewhere.) One source of change could come from shifts in the
international distribution of power, so that other states, individually or in
coalition, come to possess power comparable to or even exceeding that of
the United States. In addition, there are the human and material costs of
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which together may be undercutting America’s
strength. At the same time, the United States faces current or potential
threats from regional powers as well as radical Islamist terrorist groups,
and more diffuse but no less real dangers from nuclear proliferation and failed
states. Moreover, the rise of authoritarian capitalist powers, especially Russia
and China, suggests the possible re-emergence of great power peer competitors
(see Gat, 2007).
Challenges to primacy can come from many different directions, not only
from abroad. A significant, yet often under-emphasized dimension concerns
the maintenance of a strong domestic foundation. Nearly a generation ago,
Michael Howard called attention to the ‘forgotten dimensions of strategy’
(Howard, 1979). These included not only the capacity to deploy and support
the largest and best-equipped forces but also the ability to maintain the social
cohesion without which national power and strategy cannot be sustained.
In this regard, there are long-term economic challenges in funding a robust
National Security Strategy (NSS) and meeting the needs of an aging
population while maintaining economic growth and financial stability,
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especially in the context of domestic dissensus and political polarization that

until recently was more pronounced than at any time since the Vietnam era.
In addressing the question of whether primacy is sustainable, I begin by
reviewing external challenges, including the threat environment, possible
alternatives to the American role and the extent to which the international
distribution of power may be shifting. I then examine past and present doctrine
and policy and argue that both have often been mischaracterized in recent
debates about strategy and foreign policy. Next, I address the problems of
domestic capacity, involving costs, public support and institutional capability.
I conclude that much of the debate about both the international and domestic
dimensions of foreign policy has given inadequate weight to more fundamental
questions while emphasizing those less likely to endure. Without minimizing
the very real difficulties in both the international and domestic environments,
and which most recently have been seriously exacerbated by a major financial
crisis, the underpinnings of American primacy remain relatively robust and the
country’s ability to maintain its international primacy is, on balance, more
likely than not to continue.

The International Context

Threats

Contrary to widely expressed hopes and expectations following the end of the
Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, a lethal and sustained threat
to America’s security and vital interests has emerged. This consists of three
distinct but interrelated elements: first, radical Islamist jihadism as ideology
and in its varied organizational forms; second, the persistent danger of mass
casualty terrorism; and third, the longer term peril that non-state actors may
eventually acquire and use some form of chemical, biological, radiological or
nuclear weaponry (CBRN). Within the American policy and strategic debate,
however, the reality of this threat has sometimes been obscured by the
bitterness and intensity of political polarization. As evidence, the partisan
division over Iraq is virtually unprecedented. In an August 2008 opinion poll,
asking whether the United States did the right thing in taking military action
against Iraq, the majority of voters (59 vs 37 per cent) thought the United
States should have stayed out. However, 70 per cent of Republican voters
answered that taking action was the right thing to do, whereas only 14 per cent
of Democrats agreed, as did a mere 2 per cent of delegates to the Democratic
presidential nominating convention (New York Times/CBS News Poll, 2008).
In contrast, during the Vietnam era, though there were disagreements between
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the parties, these were less wide and the divisions within each party were also
quite pronounced.
For America the 9/11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington
were a watershed event and deserve comparison with Pearl Harbor in marking
a turning point, but the peril had been developing during the course of
the 1990s. For example, a 1995 plot, the abortive Bojinka Plan, would have
destroyed 10 – 12 wide body passenger aircraft over the Pacific (see House,
2002; Senate, 2002; Karber, 2003). Even earlier, the 1993 truck bomb attack on
the World Trade Center in New York only narrowly failed in its aim. Had it
succeeded, it would have brought down the North Tower, possibly collapsing
it against its twin at a time of day when both buildings were fully occupied and
wreaking a casualty toll substantially greater than that of 9/11.
Abroad, particularly in parts of Europe, there has been a tendency to view
9/11 and radical jihadism through the lenses of earlier and more familiar
experiences with violent domestic groups such as Baader-Meinhof in Germany,
the Red Brigades in Italy, the IRA in Northern Ireland and the Basque
separatist ETA in Spain, and to imagine that the danger can be treated
primarily as a criminal matter best dealt with by domestic security, policing
and courts. Unfortunately, the scale of threat cannot be understood in such
limited terms, and though partially obscured by sharp differences about the
Iraq War and the conduct of the Bush administration, European governments
do appear to have become increasingly aware of the danger. For example,
the head of Britain’s MI5 revealed in November 2006 that as many as 30
‘mass casualty’ terrorist plots had been identified and that British security
services and police were monitoring 200 groups or networks totaling more than
1600 persons ‘actively engaged in plotting or facilitating terrorist attacks’
(Manningham-Butler, 2006).
Subsequently, in late June 2007, there were failed bomb attacks in central
London and at Glasgow airport, and in September of that year, German police
seized three Islamist terrorists planning massive bombings against targets in
Germany (Gebauer and Musharbash, 2007; Sullivan and Whitlock, 2007).
Moreover, no less a figure than Osama bin Laden, who had been preaching
war against the United States since at least 1996, has asserted that acquisition
of nuclear weapons is a sacred duty and added that al-Qaeda would be justified
in killing four million Americans, half of them children. In recognition of
this threat, the bipartisan 9/11 Commission stated in its unanimous report that,
‘[T]he catastrophic threat at this moment in history is more specific. It is the
threat posed by Islamist terrorism – especially the al Qaeda network, its
affiliates, and its ideology’ (The 9/11 Commission Report, 2004, p. 362).
It is also the judgment of prominent and largely non-partisan authorities on
terrorism and proliferation that the use of CBRN may well occur within
the next decade. For example, Robert L. Gallucci (2006, p. 52) has written that,
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‘[U]nless many changes are made, it is more likely than not that al Qaeda or
one of its affiliates will detonate a nuclear weapon in a US city within the next
five to ten years.’ In addition, a survey of 100 foreign policy experts by Foreign
Policy magazine and the Center for American Progress found that, ‘More than
80 per cent expect a terrorist attack on the scale of 9/11 within a decadey’
(‘Terrorism Index,’ 2007, p. 62). Similarly, there are the responses of 85
national security and non-proliferation experts to a survey conducted by the
US Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff for its then Chairman, Senator
Richard Lugar of Indiana, and published in June 2005. These respondents
were asked to predict the likelihood of a CBRN attack occurring anywhere in
the world within the following 10 years and their average probability estimate
was 29 per cent for a nuclear attack, 40 per cent for a radiological attack and 70
per cent for some kind of CBRN event (Senate, 2005).
Another reason for concluding that the threat is deep-seated and long term
has to do with the fundamental sources of radical Islamism. Those who
downplay the threat tend to argue that the most important causes stem from
specific provocations by America, Israel or the West, particularly the Iraq War,
the American presence in the Middle East, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and
the affront caused by ‘occupation’ of Arab or Muslim lands (see Pape, 2005a).
Such interpretations not only do not take into account the far deeper origins of
radical Islam, but they also tend to over-simply the explanation of
contemporary conflicts. In contrast, Assaf Moghadam of the Olin Institute
for Security Studies at Harvard has provided a compelling refutation of the
idea that suicide terrorism is primarily motivated by a resistance to
‘occupation.’ Instead he emphasizes the way in which it has evolved into a
‘globalization of martyrdom’ (Moghadam, 2006; see also Doran, 2002).
The fundamental causes of radical jihadism and its manifestations of
apocalyptic nihilism lie in the failure to cope successfully with the disruptions
brought by modernity and globalization and in the humiliation experienced,
especially by parts of the Arab–Muslim world, over the past four centuries.
These reactions have been expressed at both individual and societal levels. For
example, in an implied reference to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire
and thus the end of the Muslim Caliphate which had extended back some
13 centuries to the time of the Prophet, Osama bin Laden’s October 2001 video
invoked 80 years of Muslim ‘humiliation’ and ‘degradation’ at the hands of the
West (Al-Jazeera, 2001). In turn, the 2002 UN Arab Human Development
Report has described the contemporary Arab world as afflicted by profound
deficits in freedom, in empowerment of women, and in knowledge and
information. These failures have, in some cases, been amplified by the
experiences of individuals who have become detached from one world and yet
have been unable to integrate into another (see Lewis, 2002; Ajami, 2006;
Murawiec, 2008).
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It is noteworthy too that the 9/11 attacks took place before the US-led
invasion of Iraq, and that terrorist strikes against American targets abroad
were carried out in 1990s when the Israel–Arab peace process seemed to be
making real progress. Suicide terrorism elsewhere has had little to do with
‘occupation’ by the West or the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Attacks in Bali,
Mumbai, Istanbul, Jakarta, Casablanca, Amman, the murder of the Dutch
filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, the effort to blow up the Indian parliament, the
destruction of the Shiite golden dome mosque in Samarra, deadly Sunni–Shiite
violence in Iraq, mass casualty attacks on public transportation in London and
trains in Madrid, and numerous interrupted plots are among multiple indications
not only of the wider threat posed by radical jihadism, but also of a deep-seated
and fundamental rage against modernity and those identified with it.2
In addition to the threat posed by radical Islamist ideology and terrorism,
the proliferation of nuclear weapons is likely to become an increasingly
dangerous source of instability and conflict. Over the longer term, and coupled
with the spread of missile technology, the United States will be more exposed
to this danger. Not only might the technology, materials or weapons
themselves be diverted into the hand of terrorist groups willing to pay almost
any price to acquire them, but also the spread of these weapons carries with
it the possibility of devastating regional wars.
In assessing nuclear proliferation risks in the late Saddam Hussein’s Iraq,
in North Korea and in Iran, some have asserted that deterrence and
containment, which seemed to work during the Cold War, will be sufficient
to protect the national interests of the United States and those of close allies
(see Mearsheimer and Walt, 2003; Shapiro, 2007). Such views are altogether
too complacent. The US–Soviet nuclear balance took two decades to become
relatively stable and on at least one occasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis of
October 1962, the parties came to the nuclear brink. Moreover, stable
deterrence necessitates assured second strike capability, the knowledge that
whichever side suffered an initial nuclear attack would have the capacity to
retaliate by inflicting unacceptable damage upon the attacker. Importantly, it
also requires that one’s adversary is a value-maximizing rational actor and that
he be perceived as such.
A robust nuclear balance is difficult to achieve, and in the process of
developing a nuclear arsenal, a country embroiled in an intense regional crisis
may become the target of a disarming first strike or, on the other hand, may
perceive itself to be in a use-it-or-lose-it situation. Moreover, even if the
American territory may not be at immediate risk, its interests, bases and allies
surely might be. And careful decision-making control by rational actors in new
or pending members of the nuclear club is by no means a foregone conclusion.
The late Saddam Hussein had shown himself to be reckless and prone to reject
outside information that differed from what he wished to hear (see Woods
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et al, 2006a, b). And Iranian President Ahmadinejad has expressed beliefs
that suggest an erratic grip on reality or that call into question his judgment.
For example, he has invoked the return of the 12th or hidden Imam, embraced
conspiracy theories about 9/11, fostered Holocaust denial and called for Israel
to be wiped off the map.
One more component of threat to the global liberal democratic order
concerns what Azar Gat (2007, pp. 59–60) has termed the rise of authoritarian
capitalist powers. In his view, radical Islam is actually a lesser threat in that it
fails to offer a viable alternative to modernity, though he does take seriously
the potential use of CBRN, especially by terrorist groups. However, Gat argues
that the more dangerous challenge stems from the rise of China and Russia,
both of which represent an alternative path to modernity. He concludes,
that whereas either country could eventually evolve in a more democratic
direction, the United States continues to be the key actor for the future of
liberal democracy. In his words, ‘As it was during the twentieth century, the US
factor remains the greatest guarantee that liberal democracy will not be thrown
on the defensive and relegated to a vulnerable position on the periphery of the
international system’ (Gat, 2007, p. 69).

Alternatives

Almost every deliberation about foreign policy sooner or later gives rise to calls
for renewed or enhanced reliance on international institutions and multi-
lateralism as preferred means for addressing common problems and threats.
The emergence and expansion of international norms and regimes is seen as
evidence of a growing degree of global governance. For some, authorization by
the United Nations Security Council has come to be regarded as the litmus test
for the legitimacy of any foreign intervention. The UN specialized agencies are
pointed to, and global, functional or regional bodies such as the World Health
Organization, International Atomic Energy Commission (IAEA), World
Trade Organization and the European Union (EU) are praised for their roles
above and beyond the nation state.
Of course, international law does operate in multiple realms, and traditional
national sovereignty has eroded under pressure from the forces of modernity
and globalization. This is especially true for smaller and medium-sized
countries and for rules and practices involving trade, finance, investment,
intellectual property, air travel, shipping and sports, as well as for international
tribunals to punish a selected number of gross human rights violators from
conflicts in places such as Bosnia, Rwanda and Liberia.
Shared understandings and rules of the road are important, but by no
means do all societies accept the norms of liberal democracy, transparency
and the rule of law. Moreover, even shared norms and beliefs can sometimes be
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flawed. Why, for example, is a decision to act against threats to the peace more
legitimate when it is validated by the representatives of authoritarian regimes in
Moscow and Beijing than when merely agreed to by the elected leaders of
liberal democracies? In crisis situations the invocation of global governance,
international norms or treaty obligations is as much or more likely to be a
pretext for inaction than a spur to compliance. And the more urgent,
dangerous or deadly the peril, the less likely there is to be effective agreement
by the international community.
Consider a number of cases in point:

K Bosnia, from 1992 to 1995, where UN resolutions and peacekeepers

proved unable to halt the carnage or to rein in Serbia, and where UN
peacekeepers stood by impotently during the July 1995 Srebrenica
massacre.
K The Rwanda genocide of 1994, where the UN Security Council permanent
members consciously averted their gaze and deliberately reduced the small
UN troop presence.
K Iraq under Saddam Hussein, which from 1991 to 2002 failed to comply
with its obligations in sixteen successive UNSC resolutions passed under
Chapter VII of the UN Charter, and which from 1996 to 2002 used
bribery and corruption to undermine the UN oil-for-food program and
divert revenues for Saddam’s use.
K Syria and Hezbollah, which have repeatedly defied Security Council
resolutions concerning Lebanese sovereignty and the disarming of
militias.
K North Korea, which has – at least until very recently – systematically,
secretly and sometimes openly, flouted both IAEA and UN resolutions as
well as its obligations under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT).
K Iran, whose concealed nuclear program has violated NPT and IAEA
requirements for nearly 20 years, as well as recent Security Council
resolutions, and whose Revolutionary Guard Corps have repeatedly
intervened covertly in Lebanon and Iraq, and carried out terrorist
bombings as far afield as Argentina.
K Sudan, whose depredations in the Darfur region have caused as many as
400 000 deaths and the flight of some 2 million refugees, and which has
managed (with Chinese help) to minimize effective international inter-
vention by the UN Security Council.
K Russia, which has used both overt and covert means to intimidate or
coerce independent states of the former Soviet Union by such means as
arming separatist groups, refusing to withdraw its troops and bases,
and manipulating energy supplies, and which launched a manifestly
disproportionate attack against Georgia after that small republic reacted
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rashly to a series of provocations orchestrated by Moscow in the

separatist enclave of South Ossetia.

Not all of these cases are threats to America’s national security, interests or
allies, but they illustrate the limitations of the UN and mechanisms of global
governance. At times, it has been possible to work with allies outside the UN
framework in responding effectively to crises. An instructive case was the 1999
agreement of NATO member states to intervene in Kosovo in order to halt
ethnic cleansing and mass murder. This took place after it had become clear
that Russia would veto any UN Security Council authorization to act against
Serbia. Many, though not all, international law experts saw the intervention as
lacking international legitimation, but the American-led air war against
Serbian forces in Kosovo and targets within Serbia itself ultimately did bring
ethnic cleansing to a halt. The NATO intervention, however, exhibited military
and tactical limitations. The great majority of the air sorties were conducted by
the Americans, with some participation by the British and to a limited extent
others (French, Italian and so on), but most of the NATO contingents lacked
the advanced military technology and force deployments to be able to
cooperate effectively with the US Air Force. In addition, Serbia’s decision
to halt its actions in Kosovo may have owed as much to President Milosevic’s
fears that NATO might resort to the use of ground troops and that the
Russians would not come to his aid, as it did to the effects of the bombing
campaign.

Possible shifts in the international distribution of power

Despite expectations that a period of unipolarity would trigger balancing

behavior or that French–German–Russian opposition to the American-led
intervention in Iraq would stimulate the formation of such a coalition, effective
balancing against the United States has yet to occur. President Jacques Chirac
and Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder could not speak for all their EU partners,
and it is worth recalling that in the early months of 2003, on the eve of the
American-led coalition intervention against Saddam Hussein, some two-thirds
of the member governments of both the EU and NATO supported the Bush
administration’s decision.3 Despite arguments about ‘soft-balancing’, not only
has balancing not occurred, but also principal European leaders have either
maintained (as in the case of Britain) or reasserted (Germany and France)
pragmatic Atlanticist policies, and five of the largest EU member states (that is,
all except Spain) are currently governed by avowedly Atlanticist presidents or
prime ministers.4 And for its part, the EU has not distanced itself from the
United States let alone emerged as a strategic competitor.5 There are good
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reasons for this long-term continuity, including shared interests and values
as well as the inability of the EU member countries to create a military force
with sufficient funding, advanced military technology, power projection
and the unity of command that would enable it to play the kind of role
in the security realm that Europe’s size, population and wealth would
otherwise dictate.
Other major powers have actually tightened their bonds with Washington,
especially in Asia, where anxiety about the rise of China has shaped behavior.
For example, India in June 2005 signed a 10-year defense pact (‘New
Framework of the US–India Defense Relationship.’). In addition, it success-
fully concluded an historic agreement on nuclear technology with Washington.
Japan has developed closer ties with the United States than at any time in
the past, especially in the realm of defense. The Philippines, after having ousted
the United States from its longtime air and naval bases there, recently
welcomed a return naval visit, and Vietnam, Indonesia, Singapore and others
also have leaned more toward than away from America.
Despite a rise in expressions of anti-Americanism as indicated in opinion polls
(and more reflective of disagreement with Bush administration policies than
rejection of America itself), it would be a mistake to assume that the world has
turned against the United States. Indeed, wide-spread positive reactions to
Barack Obama’s election suggest otherwise. As for the leading authoritarian
capitalist powers, Russia has adopted a much more critical and assertive stance,
but the financial crisis has impacted Moscow in ways that are likely to encourage
restraint. Russia’s currency, banking, credit sectors and commitments by foreign
investors have been very significantly affected, and with world oil prices having
dropped by two-thirds between the summer and autumn of 2008, the Putin
regime is likely to have less latitude than when it was flush with oil revenues. For
its part, China, despite its booming economy and rapidly modernizing armed
forces, has yet to take an overtly antagonistic position toward the United States.
Its huge domestic export sector has been seriously affected by changes in the
world economy and Beijing has urged greater cooperation with the United States
and other countries to address the impact of the financial crisis.
Although a major balancing coalition against the United States has not
taken shape, the incoming Obama administration faces formidable challenges.
Though Moscow and Beijing have not formed an alliance against Washington,
not least because of their mutual distrust, both have acted to support regional
states that pose significant problems for the United States. For example,
Russia has engaged in talks about the sale of advanced anti-aircraft missile
systems to Iran and Syria, and has been discussing a major weapons sale to
Venezuela and an air defense system for Cuba. And neither Russia nor China is
likely to accede to Western urging for truly effective measures against Iran’s
nuclear program or Sudan’s depredations in Darfur.
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National power itself by no means guarantees the achievement of desired

outcomes. Nuclear proliferation constitutes a severe and growing menace. Iran,
Venezuela and Syria have proved difficult to influence or coerce. The war in
Afghanistan has no end in sight, and the willingness and ability of NATO allies
to provide sufficient numbers of effective troops remains limited. American
forces are likely to disengage gradually from Iraq as its government gains
greater authority and local forces assume more of the responsibility for security
throughout the country. During the 2008 election campaign, candidate Obama
committed himself to a more rapid drawdown than the Bush administration or
candidate McCain preferred. Nonetheless, the Obama administration is likely
to find that redeployment will take considerable time, especially if American
military commanders caution against the consequences of a too rapid
withdrawal, and this will constrain its ability to put more emphasis on
Afghanistan, where the Taliban has become an increasing threat and al-Qaeda
has reestablished itself in the tribal areas of Western Pakistan and the adjacent
border regions. Meanwhile, despite the desirability of progress toward a
meaningful agreement, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict remains unresolvable in
the absence of a coherent Palestinian leadership with the capacity and
authority to act on behalf of its population as well as the will to end terrorism
and to work toward a two-state solution and a durable peace.
In sum, the international environment in which the United States finds itself
is one in which there are both stubborn and lethal threats. Multilateral and
international mechanisms for responding to these perils can be effective, but
they are difficult to achieve. Meanwhile, in the absence of an effective
counterbalance, America maintains a position of primacy. The extent to which
it can continue to do so is, however, as much or more dependent on internal
and domestic considerations as it is on the difficulties it faces abroad.

Domestic Considerations: Doctrine and Policy

American national security policy since the end of the Cold War, and especially
since 9/11 has often been characterized as an aberration, either because it takes
place without the restraint required by adaptation to bipolarity during the
Cold War, or because the administration of George W. Bush was said to have
overreacted to 9/11 by adopting a doctrine of ‘aggressive war’ and by
abandoning past multilateral practice in order to act unilaterally. But these
depictions do not serve well as explanations of doctrine or policy. As John
Lewis Gaddis and others have noted, the United States has characteristically
reacted to being attacked by adopting strategies of primacy and preemption.
Its neighbors in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries found the United
States a ‘dangerous nation’ (Kagan, 2006). And since World War II, presidents
of both parties have invoked a sense of mission in describing America’s
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international role in ways that go well beyond the kind of limited engagement
that some critics insist is a more consistent or desirable strategy.
President Harry Truman, for example, in his March 1947 speech to a joint
session of the Congress setting out what became to be known as the Truman
doctrine, asserted that ‘it must be the policy of the United States to support
free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by
outside pressures.’ John Kennedy’s 1961 inaugural address proclaimed that ‘we
shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend,
oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.’
Ronald Reagan’s State of the Union address in February 1985 insisted, that
‘We must not break faith with those who are risking their lives–on every
continent from Afghanistan to Nicaragua–to defy Soviet aggression and secure
rights which have been ours from birth. Support for freedom fighters is self-
defense.’ Bill Clinton’s 1993 inaugural address asserted that ‘Our hopes, our
hearts, our hands, are with those on every continent who are building
democracy and freedom. Their cause is America’s cause.’ And in July 1994,
Clinton’s National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement
advocated expanding the community of democracies and market economies.
In view of these precedents, the Bush administration’s embrace of both
democratization and primacy in its 2002 NSS and in the second inaugural
address of January 2005 were not inconsistent with past rhetorical statements
of American doctrine.6
It is also a commonplace to assert that, before 9/11 American foreign policy
had been multilateral in character, in that Democratic and Republican
administrations built upon international institutions, embraced alliances, and
deliberately accepted a kind of ‘self-binding’ in order to secure common
objectives (Ikenberry, 2001, 2004). But the record of the past six decades is more
varied than a neat bifurcation between the multilateral past and the unilateral
present would imply. Harry Truman sent American forces to Korea in 1950
without awaiting UN authorization, President Dwight Eisenhower ordered US
troops to Lebanon in 1958, John F. Kennedy appeared ready to launch a
preemptive attack on Soviet missiles in Cuba had the Russians not backed down
during the October 1962 missile crisis. In addition, Presidents Kennedy,
Johnson, Nixon and Ford sent American troops to Indochina, Ronald Reagan
invaded Grenada and George H. W. Bush intervened in Panama. The elder Bush
also worked closely with Chancellor Helmut Kohl to achieve German
unification despite the reservations of Britain, France and Russia, and President
Clinton used Tomahawk missiles and combat aircraft to strike targets in Sudan,
Afghanistan and Iraq and launched the 1999 air war in Kosovo with NATO
agreement but without a formal approval by the UN Security Council.
Other evidence of policy continuity between the Democratic Clinton and the
Republican George W. Bush administrations can be found in the more or less
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bipartisan character of decisions to intervene with military force between 1989

and 2001. Ivo Daalder and Robert Kagan observe that out of eight such
interventions during those years, four were carried out under Democratic
presidents and four by Republicans. They add that the circumstances in
which a president may need to use force have increased since 9/11, these now
include terrorism threats, weapons proliferation, prevention of genocide as
well as in response to traditional forms of aggression. At the same time, they do
advocate a policy of seeking consensus among democratic states as a way of
securing domestic consensus for the use of force (Daalder and Kagan,
2007a, b).

Domestic Capacity

Can the United States sustain the costs of its global role and NSS? The answers
are not simple and the difficulty of the task has increased by an order of
magnitude with the financial crisis that erupted in September 2008. Viewed
historically the burden of defense spending as a percentage of GDP seems
manageable. Including expenditures on the Iraq and Afghan wars, America
now devotes approximately 4.5 per cent of its GDP to defense. This contrasts
with figures of 6.6 per cent at the height of the Reagan buildup in the mid-
1980s and up to 10 per cent and more during the Truman, Eisenhower
and Kennedy years. There are, however, important differences, that make the
financial problem potentially more difficult than it might seem. The defense
budget is unlikely to decrease significantly even as a drawdown of troops in
Iraq proceeds. Obama is committed to a strong and likely costly effort in
Afghanistan. Both he and McCain have called for increasing the size of the
Army and Marine Corps, and a volunteer army is much more costly than
the one based on the draft, which was phased out in 1973. The price tag for
replacing worn out or obsolete equipment will be enormous, and expensive new
weapon systems remain to be funded. Meanwhile, the pending retirement of
the baby-boom generation, looming deficits in the social security, Medicare
and Medicaid budgets, and a gradually aging population all make this task
significantly more difficult.
The problem is not merely one of numbers. Aaron Friedberg emphasizes the
long-term challenge of bringing means and ends into alignment. He observes
that this will be a daunting task, especially in view of the fact that since the
early 1960s, the government has been without a mechanism for sustained
interagency planning and for bringing the conflicting demands of finance and
strategy into some kind of long-term balance (Friedberg, 2007). The problem is
made still more acute by the intense partisan rancor that has characterized
American politics. Steadily intensifying animosity over the Clinton impeachment
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scandals, the contested outcome of the 2000 presidential election, the war in
Iraq and a heated 2008 presidential election contest have contributed to a
degree of political polarization greater than that during the Vietnam era. In
this acrimonious domestic climate, reaching bipartisan consensus on high-
stakes issues has become exceptionally difficult. The new Obama administra-
tion will experience at least a brief honeymoon, and without the political
baggage of the previous 8 years it should, at first, face fewer obstacles to
sustaining public and congressional support. Whether this can be sustained,
however, remains an open question.
Others have argued that domestic polarization along with bitter divisions
about Iraq and the war on terror threaten to erode America’s ability to sustain
its international role, and they argue for a scaling back of foreign commitments
in order to stabilize the political foundations for foreign policy (see Kupchan
and Trubowitz, 2007). However, it is not self-evident that a less engaged
foreign policy and reduced commitments are really what matter most. Political
dissensus and public judgments about whether foreign interventions will
succeed or fail matter more than the scale of intervention itself. Over-extension
is to be avoided, but this is a different matter. Domestic support is a sine qua
non for sustainable foreign policy commitments, and there is a tendency to
assume that public reluctance to bear the costs of foreign interventions is a
function of increasing casualties (see Mueller, 1973). However, Christopher
Gelpi et al (2005/2006) have shown that public tolerance for the human toll of
war is mainly affected by beliefs about the likelihood of success and the
rightness or wrongness of the war. And in their analysis, expectations about
success are what matter most.
In addition, there exists the problem of institutional capacity to manage,
coordinate and execute national security policy in its multiple dimensions. Not
only foreign policy and military spending, but force deployments, political and
military commitments, intelligence, counter-terrorism, public diplomacy,
foreign broadcasting, trade policy and economic sanctions are among the
elements that require coordination and skilled implementation (see Ross,
2007). Recent experience provides a cause for concern. Shortcomings in
intelligence coordination before and after 9/11, failure to plan effectively for
the occupation of Iraq, inept public diplomacy, dysfunctional immigration
policy, and inadequate local, state and national response to the Katrina
hurricane provide evidence that governmental capacity to manage large-scale
challenges is sometimes badly flawed. Yet, twentieth-century American history
includes massive undertakings that were carried out successfully, for example
mobilization of manpower and industry in World War II, the Manhattan
Project, the Marshall Plan, the interstate highway program of the 1950s and
1960s, massive expansion of higher education in response to the Soviet
launching of Sputnik in 1957, the Apollo project to put a man on the moon and
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successful waging of the Cold War. These precedents offer no assurance about
future successes, but they provide evidence that American government can
develop the capability for effective response and at times even do so with speed
and efficiency.
The intangible, yet indispensable element of domestic capacity is public
support and what Michael Howard has referred to as the social cohesion
necessary for sustaining national power and strategy. As noted above, the
expectation of eventual success is critical. So too are the political skills, and
leadership capacity of any administration as well as its diplomatic adroitness in
gaining support from other countries, not least to enhance the perceived
legitimacy of an intervention. Here, cooperation with the European
democracies becomes especially important in ways that go well beyond burden
sharing because in the eyes of American opinion makers and public, it
reinforces the perceived validity and acceptability of the action being taken.
There is one additional and often insufficiently appreciated element, the
urgency of external threat. During six decades, from Pearl Harbor to the end of
the Cold War, the United States faced successive and profound threats to its
national security and vital interests, first from Nazi Germany and Imperial
Japan, and then after a brief interlude from the Soviet Union. The substantial
domestic consensus about these threats, shared by the public, foreign policy
elites and decision makers, political parties and the media provided a solid
domestic basis for a robust NSS. This did not preclude domestic dissent
and disagreement, let alone insure unanimity of views, for example in regard
to the Vietnam War, but it did provide a basis for coherent and effective state
action in mustering the needed resources and maintaining sufficient public
support.
The post-Cold War era (1991–2001) provided a contrast. In the absence of
consensus about the existence of a profound overall threat, the salience of
foreign policy dropped quite noticeably. Election exit polls during the 1990s
found only single-digit percentages of voters identifying foreign or security
policy as among the leading concerns shaping their votes. Television and
newspaper treatment of foreign affairs also plummeted. Together, these factors
contributed to a weakening of the Clinton administration’s ability to muster
public and congressional support for foreign policy initiatives.
After 9/11, these circumstances changed dramatically, but with the passage
of time, partisan acrimony, disillusionment with the Iraq war and the absence
of another mass casualty attack on American soil have eroded both the sense of
threat and any consensus about strategy. That leaves a major uncertainty in
any attempt to gauge the future domestic policy environment. Here, the
reciprocal interrelationship and feedback loops between domestic and foreign
policy come into play. In view of the sustained nature of external threat
described above, the possibility of a future mass casualty attack within the
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United States remains significant, even though its probability is unknowable.

Were such an attack to occur, it is likely that there would be a domestic
resurgence of support for a very robust, even draconian, response and for
paying whatever price was required in the effort to prevail against lethal
adversaries.
Conversely, in the absence of another such attack, domestic support for an
interventionist foreign policy might be more contested. Even then, however,
voices on the left and right fringes of the political spectrum calling for outright
withdrawal or isolationism would remain limited. Illustratively, in the case of
the 2008 presidential primaries, as in primaries during the previous several
presidential election cycles, Republican and Democratic candidates arguing for
such policies or even for a significantly curtailed global role were relegated to
the political margins and did not gain sufficient support to become plausible
contenders for their parties’ presidential nominations. Indeed, the 2008 major
party nominees, John McCain and Barack Obama, were both committed to an
activist and leading world role for the United States, even while they promised
to carry out this task more successfully, with more support from international
partners, while avoiding what they identified as mistakes of the Bush
administration (Guantanamo, treatment of foreign prisoners, inadequate
response to global climate change and so on). Both candidates also pledged
to fight the war on terror more effectively, prevail against the Taliban and
al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, oppose Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons,
support Israel, work toward Middle East peace, increase the size of the US
Army and Marine Corps, strengthen cooperation with Europe, support the
admission of Georgia and Ukraine to NATO, and be prepared to intervene to
combat genocide if possible.

Challenges and Challengers

Can American primacy be sustained? Threats from radical Islamist groups,

nuclear proliferation, the potential use of CBRN weapons and competition
from authoritarian capitalist powers pose challenges that require assertive
American engagement. In addition, democratic allies and others have shown
few signs of wanting to forego the involvement of the North American
‘Goliath,’7 and despite heated rhetoric about ‘hyperpower’8 and real or
imagined excesses of unilateralism, a good deal of multilateral cooperation has
continued to take place. The NSS of September 2002 included a much-
overlooked endorsement of multilateralism and, at the time, the Bush
administration avidly sought to enlarge its coalition of the willing for the use
of force against Saddam. In recent years, there have been six-party talks with
North Korea, deference to Germany, Britain and France (the EU-3) for their
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ultimately unsuccessful negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program,

promotion of the multilateral Proliferation Security Initiative aimed at
strengthening the NPT, co-sponsorship with France of UN Security Council
Resolution 1559 calling for the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon, a
massive increase in funding to combat AIDS in Africa, an expanded NATO
role in Afghanistan and UN mandates – UNSC Resolutions 1546 (2004) and
1637 (2005) – for the US-led multinational force in Iraq.
The extraordinary financial crisis that has impacted the United States,
Europe, large parts of Asia and much of the rest of the world has provided the
impetus for renewed predictions of America’s demise as the preeminent global
power. Of course, present problems are very serious and the financial crisis is
the worst to hit the United States and Europe since the great depression began
some 80 years ago. The impact on real estate, banking, insurance, credit, the
stock market and overall business activity is quite severe, and a painful
recession is already underway. Yet by themselves, these developments do not
mean that America will somehow collapse, let alone see some other country
assume the unique role it has played in world affairs. Arguably, the impact of
the crisis upon the US economy is actually less than for the major European
powers. For example, the $700 billion bailout for financial firms approved by
Congress amounts to about 5 per cent of the country’s annual gross domestic
product, significantly less as a percentage than the burdens borne by many
countries. In addition, while the exchange rate of the euro declined sharply in
the early months of the crisis, as did the British pound, the Russian ruble and
many other currencies, the dollar rose sharply in value as foreign investors
sought a safe haven for their funds. (Among the other G-8 currencies, only the
Japanese yen experienced a substantial rise.)
The United States will eventually surmount the present crisis, the excesses
that helped to cause it will be corrected, and despite painful costs of
adjustment, its economy and financial systems will sooner or later resume a
more normal pattern of activity and growth. The new Obama administration
will continue and even intensify cooperation with other leading countries
in efforts to reform the international economic and financial systems. These
may or may not produce a new ‘Bretton Woods’ system, but agreements will be
reached and the United States necessarily will play a central role in this effort.

Past and Future Patterns

In general, effective alternatives to the role played by the United States tend to
be inadequate or absent altogether, and neither the UN, nor other
international bodies such as the EU, the African Union, the Arab League or
the Association of Southeast Asian Nations offer an effective substitute. As
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 Lieber

Robert Kagan has observed, ‘American predominance does not stand in the
way of progress toward a better worldy . It stands in the way of regression
toward a more dangerous world’ (Kagan, 2007). In short, on the demand side,
there is an ample need for America’s active engagement.
What then about the supply side? The domestic costs and complications are
evident but need to be weighed in context. The long-term reality of external
threats creates a motivation for engagement abroad, as does the possibility of
future attacks on the US homeland. During the 2008 presidential campaign,
and despite a heated domestic political climate and sharp disagreement about
Iraq and the foreign policy of the Bush administration, none of the leading
candidates of either party called for dramatic retrenchment. In addition, they
largely concurred on the need to increase the size of the armed forces. Indeed,
and unlike the Vietnam era, popular support for the troops has been
widespread, even among many critics of the Iraq war.
Constraints on the capacity of adversaries also need to be taken into
account. Russia under Putin has put pressure on its immediate neighbors and
seeks to rebuild its armed forces, but Moscow’s ability to regain the
superpower status of the former Soviet Union remains limited. The Russian
armed forces remain mostly in weakened condition, the total population is half
that of the USSR and declining by 700 000 per year, male life expectancy is
barely 60 years of age, the economy is overwhelmingly dependent on revenues
from oil and natural gas and thus vulnerable to softening world market
prices. The long-term stability of its crony capitalism and increasingly
authoritarian political system is uncertain. China, despite extraordinary
economic growth and modernization, will continue to depend on rapid
expansion of trade and the absorption of vast numbers of people moving
from the countryside to the cities. It may well become a major military
challenger of the United States, first regionally and even globally, but only over
the very long term.
Demography also works to the advantage of the United States. Most other
powerful states, including China and Russia as well as Germany and Japan,
face the significant aging of their populations. Although the United States
needs to finance the costs of an aging population, this demographic shift is
occurring to a lesser extent and more slowly than among its competitors. Mark
Haas argues that these factors in global aging ‘will be a potent force for the
continuation of US power dominance, both economic and military’ (Haas,
2007, p. 113).
Finally, the United States benefits from two other unique attributes,
flexibility and adaptability. Time and again, America has faced daunting
challenges and made mistakes, yet it has possessed the inventiveness and
societal flexibility to adjust and respond successfully. Despite obvious
problems, not least the global financial crisis, there is reason to believe that
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America’s adaptive capacity will allow it to respond to future requirements and

threats. None of this assures the maintenance of its world role, but the
domestic underpinnings to support this engagement remain relatively robust.
Thus for the foreseeable future, US primacy is likely to be sustainable.
America’s own national interest – and the fortunes of a global liberal
democratic order – depend on it.

About the Author

Robert J. Lieber is Professor of Government and International Affairs at

Georgetown University. He is the author or editor of 15 books on international
relations and US foreign policy. Most recently he authored the book The
American Era: Power and Strategy for the 21st Century (Cambridge University
Press, 2007). In addition, he is the editor of Foreign Policy (Ashgate Library of
Essays in International Relations, 2008).

Notes

1 I critique declinist arguments in Lieber (2008). See also Gaddis (2004), Rosen (2003) and
Ferguson (2004).
2 Jeffrey Herf (1994, 2006) has described as reactionary modernism the ideas of Nazi ideologists,
that Germany could utilize modern technology while rejecting the values of political modernity
from the enlightenment and western liberalism, and he identifies parallels between radical
Islamists and the ideology of European fascism.
3 Leaders of the Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Italy, Poland and Portugal signed a letter by
Prime Ministers Blair of Britain and Aznar of Spain. A similar letter was signed by 10 members
of the Vilnius group: Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia,
Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. The Netherlands, Iceland and Turkey also contributed to the
Iraq war coalition. For an official list of 47 countries supporting the Operation Iraqi Freedom
coalition as of 27 March 2003, see www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/03/print/20030327-
10.html.
4 Robert A. Pape (2005b) argues that balancing is taking place. For rebuttals see K.A. Lieber and
Alexander (2005) and Brooks and Wohlforth (2005). Also see Art et al (2005/2006).
5 For example, Charles Kupchan (2003, p. 25) had proclaimed that NATO ‘is soon to be defunct.’
6 Robert Kagan (2007) makes this point.
7 Michael Mandelbaum (2005) makes good use of this metaphor.
8 In the words of this late Clinton era oratory from former French foreign minister Hubert Vedrine,
‘We cannot accept y the unilateralism of a single hyperpower’ (in Krauthammer, 1999).

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