Strategic Vision: America and the Crisis of Global Power

If america falters, the world is unlikely to be dominated by a single preeminent successor, such as China. While a sudden and massive crisis of the American system would produce a fast-moving chain reaction leading to global political and economic chaos, a steady drift by America into increasingly pervasive decay and/or into endlessly widening warfare with Islam would be unlikely to produce, even by 2025, the “coronation” of an effective global successor. No single power will be ready by then to exercise the role that the world, upon the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, expected the United States to play. More probable would be a protracted phase of rather inconclusive and somewhat chaotic realignments of both global and regional power, with no grand winners and many more losers, in a setting of international uncertainty and even of potentially fatal risks to global well-being. What follows analyzes the implications of that historically ominous—though certainly not predetermined—“if.”

1: THE POST-AMERICA SCRAMBLE

In the absence of a recognized leader, the resulting uncertainty is likely to increase tensions among competitors and inspire self-serving behavior. Thus, international cooperation is more likely to decline, with some powers seeking to promote exclusive regional arrangements as alternative frameworks of stability for the enhancement of their own interests. Historical contenders may vie more overtly, even with the use of force, for regional preeminence. Some weaker states may find themselves in serious jeopardy, as new power realignments emerge in response to major geopolitical shifts in the global distribution of power. The promotion of democracy might yield to the quest for enhanced national security based on varying fusions of authoritarianism, nationalism, and religion. The “global commons” could suffer from passive indifference or exploitation produced by a defensive concentration on narrower and more immediate national concerns.

Some key international institutions, such as the World Bank or the IMF, are already under increasing pressure from the rising, poorer, but highly populated states—with China and India in the forefront—for a general rearrangement of the existing distribution of voting rights, which is currently weighted toward the West. That distribution has already been challenged by some states in the G-20 as unfair. The obvious demand is that it should be based to a much greater degree on the actual populations of member states and less on their actual financial contributions. Such a demand, arising in the context of greater disorder and percolating unrest among the world’s newly politically awakened peoples, could gain popularity among many as a step toward international (even though not domestic) democratization. And before long, the heretofore untouchable and almost seventy-year-old UN Security Council system of only five permanent members with exclusive veto rights may become widely viewed as illegitimate.

Even if a downward drift by America unfolds in a vague and contradictory fashion, it is likely that the leaders of the world’s second-rank powers, among them Japan, India, Russia, and some EU members, are already assessing the potential impact of America’s demise on their respective national interests. Indeed, the prospects of a post-America scramble may already be discreetly shaping the planning agenda of the chancelleries of the major foreign powers even if not yet dictating their actual policies. The Japanese, fearful of an assertive China dominating the Asian mainland, may be thinking of closer links with Europe. Leaders in India and Japan may well be considering closer political and even military cooperation as a hedge in case America falters and China rises. Russia, while perhaps engaging in wishful thinking (or even in schadenfreude) about America’s uncertain prospects, may well have its eye on the independent states of the former Soviet Union as initial targets of its enhanced geopolitical influence. Europe, not yet cohesive, would likely be pulled in several directions: Germany and Italy toward Russia because of commercial interests, France and insecure Central Europe in favor of a politically tighter EU, and Great Britain seeking to manipulate a balance within the EU while continuing to preserve a special relationship with a declining United States. Others still may move more rapidly to carve out their own regional spheres: Turkey in the area of the old Ottoman Empire, Brazil in the Southern Hemisphere, and so forth.

None of the foregoing, however, have or are likely to have the requisite combination of economic, financial, technological, and military power to even consider inheriting America’s leading role. Japan is dependent on the United States for military protection and would have to make the painful choice of accommodating China or perhaps of allying with India in joint opposition to it. Russia is still unable to come to terms with its loss of empire, is fearful of China’s meteoric modernization, and is unclear as to whether it sees its future with Europe or in Eurasia. India’s aspirations for major power status still tend to be measured by its rivalry with China. And Europe has yet to define itself politically while remaining conveniently dependent on American power. A genuinely cooperative effort by all of them to accept joint sacrifices for the sake of collective stability if America’s power were to fade is not likely.

States, like individuals, are driven by inherited propensities—their traditional geopolitical inclinations and their sense of history—and they differ in their ability to discriminate between patient ambition and imprudent self-delusion. In reflecting on the possible consequences of a change in the global hierarchy of power in the first half of the twenty-first century, it may be useful therefore to remind oneself that in the twentieth century two extreme examples of impatient self-delusion resulted in national calamities. The most obvious was provided by Hitler’s imprudent megalomania, which not only vastly overestimated Germany’s global capacity for leadership but also prompted two personal strategic decisions that deprived him of any chance of retaining control even of continental Europe. The first, when already having conquered Europe but still at war with Great Britain, was to attack the Soviet Union; and the second was to declare war on the United States while still engaged in a mortal struggle with both the Soviet Union and Great Britain.

The second case was less dramatic but the stake was also global power. In the early 1960s the Soviet leadership proclaimed officially that it expected to surpass the United States during the decade of the 1980s in economic power and in technological capability (the ambitious Soviet claim was dramatized by its Sputnik success). Vastly overestimating its economic capabilities, by the late 1970s the USSR was pursuing an active arms race with the United States in which its technological capacity for innovation was central to the outcome, but in which its GNP limited the practical scope of its global political as well as military outreach. On both scores, the Soviet Union overreached disastrously. It then compounded the consequences of its miscalculation with the calamitous decision to invade Afghanistan in 1979. A decade later the exhausted Soviet Union ceased to exist and the Soviet bloc fragmented.

Today there is no equivalent to either Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia. No other major power in the current global pecking order manifests the failed self-delusion of the notorious twentieth-century aspirants to global power, and none as yet are politically, economically, or militarily ready to claim the mantle of global leadership—nor are any endowed with the vague but important quality of legitimacy that was still associated with America not so long ago. None proclaim to embody a doctrine of allegedly universal validity reinforced by claims of historical (in Hitler’s case, one is even tempted to say “hysterical”) determinism.

Most important, China, the state invariably mentioned as America’s prospective successor, has an impressive imperial lineage and a strategic tradition of carefully calibrated patience, which have been critical to its overwhelmingly successful several-thousand-year-long history. China thus prudently accepts the existing international system, even if not viewing as permanent the prevailing hierarchy within it. It recognizes that its own success depends on the system not collapsing dramatically but instead evolving toward a gradual redistribution of power. It seeks more influence, craves international respect, and still resents its “century of humiliation,” but increasingly feels self-confident about the future. Unlike the failed twentieth-century aspirants to world power, China’s international posture is at this stage neither revolutionary nor messianic nor Manichean.

Moreover, the basic reality is that China is not yet—nor will it be for several more decades—ready to assume in full scope America’s role in the world. Even China’s leaders have repeatedly emphasized that in every important measure of development, wealth, and power—even several decades from now—China will still be a modernizing and developing state, significantly behind not only the United States but also Europe and Japan in the major per capita indexes of modernity and national power (see Figure 3.1).

China thus seems to understand—and its investments in America’s well-being speak louder than words because they are based on self-interest—that a rapid decline of America’s global primacy would produce a global crisis that could devastate China’s own well-being and damage its long-range prospects. Prudence and patience are part of China’s imperial DNA. But China is also ambitious, proud, and conscious that its unique history is but a prologue to its destiny. No wonder then that in a burst of candor an astute Chinese public figure, who obviously had concluded that America’s decline and China’s rise were both inevitable, not long ago soberly noted to a visiting American: “But, please, let America not decline too quickly. . . . ”

FIGURE 3.1 POPULATION-AGING-GDP COMPARED

SOURCES: UN projections, assuming medium fertility variant (EU is EU 27)

SOURCES: 5) CIA World Factbook; 1–4) UN projections, assuming medium fertility variant (EU is EU 27)

SOURCE: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s The World Order in 2050, February 2010

Accordingly, the Chinese leaders have been prudently restrained in laying any overt claims to global leadership. By and large, they are still guided by Deng Xiaoping’s famous maxim: “Observe calmly; secure our position: cope with affairs calmly; hide our capacities and bide our time; be good at maintaining a low profile, and never claim leadership.” That cautious and even deceptive posture happens also to be in keeping with the ancient strategic guidance of Sun Tzu who compellingly argued that the wisest posture in combat is to lay back, let one’s opponent make fatal mistakes, and only then capitalize on them. China’s official attitude toward America’s domestic travails and foreign adventures is suggestively reminiscent of that strategic guidance. Beijing’s historical confidence goes hand in hand with its calculated prudence and long-term ambitions.

It is also relevant to note that China—despite its singular domestic achievements—has until recently not sought to universalize its experience. It no longer propounds—as it did under Mao during its extremist Communist phase—ambitious notions regarding the unique historical validity for all of mankind of its progress toward modernity nor posits doctrinaire claims of the allegedly higher morality of its social arrangements. Its global calling card stresses instead one very prosaic but practical and widely envied theme: China’s remarkable GDP annual growth rate. That appealing message gives China a significant competitive edge, especially in Latin America and in underdeveloped Africa, as it seeks to increase its investments without pressing for political reforms. (For example, China-Africa trade grew 1000% from $10 billion in 2000 to $107 billion in 2008.)

In addition to taking into account China’s outlook and traditional conduct, note must be taken of the fact that some potentially major uncertainties hover over China’s own internal political and social development. Politically, the state has evolved from a radical form of totalitarianism—periodically punctuated by ruthlessly brutal and even bloody mass campaigns (most notably the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution)—to an increasingly nationalistic authoritarianism in charge of state capitalism. So far, the new formula has been a spectacular economic success. But its social underpinnings could prove to be fragile. As noted earlier, China’s economic growth and rise in social well-being has already generated sharp social disparities that can no longer be hidden from public sight. The new middle class in the major cities has gained not only a measure of prosperity but also unprecedented access—despite official efforts to constrain it—to global information. Such access does stimulate new political and social expectations. It also produces resentments over existing limitations to political rights and breeds individuals willing even to take risks as active political dissidents.

Such dissidents have a potentially huge clientage especially as the more privileged middle class is beginning to aspire to a freer political dialogue, a more open social critique, and more direct access to national policy making. Economic dissatisfaction is also beginning to surface among the much more numerous industrial workers and among the even more numerous peasants. The millions of Chinese industrial workers are just beginning to realize how underpaid they have been in comparison to the increasingly prosperous new middle class. The even larger masses of genuinely poor peasantry—some of whom make up the scores of millions of semi-unemployed workers free floating from city to city in search of menial work—are only beginning to develop their own aspirations for a larger share of China’s national wealth.

China’s preoccupation with its internal stability is thus likely to increase. A serious domestic political or social crisis, such as a repeat of Tiananmen Square in 1989, could do major damage to China’s international standing and set back the undeniable accomplishments of the last three decades. That consideration is likely to incline the Chinese leadership to remain discreet regarding a timetable for China’s more rapid ascent on the global pecking order. And yet they must also take into account the growing national pride among China’s elite, especially vis-à-vis the United States. Indeed, toward the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century semiofficial Chinese commentators (notably contributors to Liaowang, the weekly general affairs journal published by China’s official news agency) began to question more openly the overall historical legitimacy of the existing global status quo. Some Chinese observers of international affairs even began to postulate what could be the beginning for a doctrinal claim of the universal validity of the Chinese model. As one contributor put it:

Chinese commentators at times also became more outspoken in their direct criticisms of America’s global leadership. Thus another Chinese foreign affairs commentator asserted:

Particularly since the financial crisis of 2007, Chinese criticisms of the American system and of America’s global posture have become frequent and outspoken. America has been blamed for precipitating the financial crisis of 2007 and of failing to appreciate the vital Chinese role in developing a collective international response to it. The Chinese political media have also taken America to task with increasing severity for its alleged insensitivity to China’s interests and for injecting itself in 2010 into China’s dispute with its Asian neighbors concerning their prospective rights in the South China Sea. Some commentators even accused America of seeking to encircle China.

Such reactions reflect not only a rising historical self-confidence on the part of China—a confidence that could easily become overconfidence—but also a more assertive Chinese nationalism. Chinese nationalism is a potent and potentially explosive force. Though deeply rooted in historical pride, it is also driven by resentment over past but not-so-distant humiliations. It can be channeled and exploited by those in power. Indeed, in the event of internal social disruptions, the appeal of nationalism could become the expedient source of social cohesion for the preservation of the political status quo.

At some stage, however, it could also damage China’s global image, at some cost to its international interests. A highly nationalistic and assertive China—boastful of its rising power—could unintentionally mobilize a powerful coalition of neighbors against itself. The fact is that none of China’s important neighbors—Japan, India, and Russia—are ready to acknowledge China’s entitlement to America’s place on the global totem pole if it becomes vacant. Perhaps China’s neighbors might eventually have no choice, but they almost certainly would first maneuver against such an ascension. They might even be inclined to seek support from a waning America in order to offset an overly assertive China. The resulting scramble could become regionally intense, especially given the somewhat similar susceptibility among these three major neighbors of China toward passionate nationalisms of their own.

Even an informal anti-Chinese coalition of Japan, India, and Russia thus would have serious geopolitical implications for China. Unlike America’s favorable geographic location, China is potentially vulnerable to a strategic encirclement. Japan stands in the way of China’s access to the Pacific Ocean, Russia separates China from Europe, and India towers over an ocean named after itself that serves as China’s main access to the Middle East. So far “a peacefully rising China” (so self-described by Chinese leaders) has been gaining friends and even dependencies in Asia, but an assertively nationalistic China could find itself more isolated.

A phase of acute international tensions in Asia could then ensue. Such tensions could assume dangerous manifestations, particularly in the case of the developing China-India rivalry in South Asia specifically, but also in Asia as a whole more generally. Indian strategists speak openly of a greater India exercising a dominant position in an area ranging from Iran to Thailand. India is also positioning itself to control the Indian Ocean militarily; its naval and air power programs point clearly in that direction—as do politically guided efforts to establish for India strong positions, with geostrategic implications, in adjoining Bangladesh and Burma. India’s involvement in the construction of port facilities in these two states enhances India’s ability eventually to seek control over maritime passage through the Indian Ocean.

MAP 3.1 THE ‘ENCIRCLEMENT’ OF CHINA

China’s strategic relationship with Pakistan as well as its efforts to match India’s presence in Burma and Bangladesh also reflect a larger strategic design as well as an understandable intent to protect its essential maritime access through the Indian Ocean to the Middle East from the whims of a powerful neighbor. The Chinese have been exploring the possibility of building a major facility in Pakistan’s southwestern coast near Iran, at Gwadar, a peninsula jutting into the Indian Ocean, and connecting it by road or pipeline with China. In Burma, where India has been upgrading the port of Sittwe in order to obtain a shortcut to its geographically inaccessible northeast, the Chinese have been investing in the port of Kyauk Phru, from which a pipeline to China could also be built, thereby reducing Chinese dependence on a much longer passage through the Strait of Malacca. Political-military influence in Burma itself has been the larger stake involved in these geopolitically significant undertakings.

China, moreover, has a vital interest in Pakistan remaining a serious military complication for India’s strategic interests and growing aspirations. The Chinese desire to construct a naval facility in Pakistan was thus not only designed to establish a Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean but also to signal the importance that China assigns to a viable Pakistan and to a healthy Sino-Pakistan relationship. Though China and India have been careful to avoid a military clash since their brief collision in 1962, China’s engagement with Pakistan, Pakistan’s internal vulnerability, India’s and China’s naval competition in the Indian Ocean, and both nations’ rising global status could trigger a dangerous arms race or, even worse, a real conflict. Fortunately, so far, the leaders of both countries have shown that they recognize that a minor war would resolve nothing while a major war between the two nuclear powers could destroy everything.

Nonetheless, even some border incidents could generate intense Chinese and/or Indian nationalistic passions that would be difficult to control politically. In that respect, India could prove to be more volatile, because its political system is less authoritarian and the Indian public’s understandable fear of Chinese-Pakistani collusion makes it more susceptible to aroused anti-Chinese feelings than is the case with anti-Indian mass sentiments in China. Moreover, the Indian press—reflecting resentment of China’s much more impressive modernization, more productive economy, and higher global standing—has become increasingly explicit in publicizing China’s potential geopolitical threat to India’s security. India’s second-largest English-language daily read by its English-speaking elite thus interpreted for its readers the reciprocal IndianChinese rivalry in South Asia just described above:

It would be historically ironic, indeed, if the reemergence of China on the world scene resulted in conflicts to the detriment of Asia’s rising role in world affairs. But China’s rise so far has been impressive in its tangible accomplishments and somewhat reassuring in its calculated international conduct. Top Chinese political leaders appear to realize that China’s long-term ambitions could also be the victim of a global plunge into a post-America scramble.

In any case, irrespective of the calculations of top Chinese leaders and some symptoms of rising nationalistic impatience, it does appear that China’s ascent to global preeminence might encounter considerably more obstacles than was the case with America’s rise, and if pursued with evident impatience it could generate more active opposition than America ever had to confront during its ascendancy. China does not enjoy the advantages of America’s favorable geographical and historical circumstances at its takeoff stage in the early twentieth century. And unlike America’s emergence as the sole global superpower in the last decade of the twentieth century, China’s current rise is taking place in the context not only of rivalry with other regional powers but it is also highly dependent on the continued stability of the existing international economic system. Yet that very system could be in jeopardy if a post-America scramble generates a worldwide inclination toward a short-term but intense assertion of national interests at a time when the need for global cooperation is greater than ever.

2: THE GEOPOLITICALLY MOST ENDANGERED STATES

In the contemporary world, the security of a number of weaker states located geographically next to major regional powers depends (even in the absence of specific US commitments to some of them) on the international status quo reinforced by America’s global preeminence. The states in that vulnerable position are today’s geopolitical equivalents of nature’s “most endangered species.” Some of them have also come to be viewed by their more powerful neighbors as symbols of resented American intrusion into their existing or claimed regional spheres of influence. Accordingly, the temptation to act assertively toward them would rise in proportion to the decline in America’s global status.

While the existing major regional powers may resent that American role, they have a stake in not precipitating a chain reaction that causes the international system itself to break down. It was the possibility of such a chain reaction that constrained Russia in 2008 from crushing Georgia (during the brief Russo-Georgian collision over Ossetia and Abkhazia). Russia realized that its continued military operations could damage East-West relations in general and perhaps lead to some sort of a confrontation with the United States. Given its relative weakness, and the relatively unsatisfactory performance of its conventional forces, it decided to halt what could have become a pyrrhic victory and to settle for a minor territorial success. But an America in serious decline for domestic and/or external reasons would almost automatically reduce such inherent restraint. The cumulative result would be a wide-ranging drift toward an international reality characterized by the survival of the strongest.

A partial listing of the more vulnerable states, with brief comments, now follows (its sequence implies neither level of vulnerability nor geopolitical probability):

Georgia

An American decline would leave Georgia totally vulnerable to both Russian political intimidation and military aggression. The United States currently supports Georgian sovereignty and endorses Georgia’s quest to join NATO. The United States has also provided Georgia with $3 billion in aid since 1991, with $1 billion of that assistance coming in the aftermath of the 2008 war. The foregoing has been underscored by the official assertion that “the United States does not recognize spheres of influence.”[8]

America’s decline would obviously affect the credibility of such general commitments. The resulting limitations on American capabilities—especially those affecting NATO’s willingness to stand firm—could by itself stir Russian desires to reclaim its old sphere of influence, because of the diminished US presence in Europe, regardless of the state of US-Russian relations. An additional factor motivating the Kremlin would be the intense personal hatred nourished by Vladimir Putin toward current Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, whose removal from power has become something of an obsession for the Russian leader.

A further consideration motivating Russia could be the fact that the United States sponsored the development through Georgia of the southern corridor of energy supply to Europe, especially the existing Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline and the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum gas pipeline that is eventually going to reach Europe through Turkey. Russia would reap an enormous geopolitical as well as economic benefit from reclaiming its near monopoly over energy routes to Europe if the US ties to Georgia were severed.

Georgia’s subordination to Russia would likely lead to a domino effect on Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan is the key supplier to the southern corridor and thus to Europe’s energy diversification, which indirectly limits Russian political influence in European affairs. Thus in the case of an American decline, Russia, particularly if emboldened by a successful effort to control Georgia, would most likely use its greater freedom of action to intimidate Azerbaijan. And in such circumstances, Azerbaijan would not be inclined to defy a reinvigorated Russia. Europe at large would thus be under greater pressure to accommodate Russia’s political agenda.

Taiwan

Since 1972, the United States has formally accepted the PRC’s “one China” postulate, as outlined in three Sino-American communiqués (1972, 1979, and 1982), while maintaining that neither side shall alter the status quo by force. A peaceful “status quo” has been the basis for American cross-straits policy, since a relationship both with a growing China and an increasingly democratic and free market–oriented Taiwan is beneficial to a strong US presence in the Pacific and to American business interests in the Far East.

The United States justifies its continued arms sales to Taiwan by stating that it is part of its status quo policy, confirmed in 1979 at the time of the US-China normalization of diplomatic relations, and that updated Taiwanese defense capabilities are necessary for the protection of Taiwan’s autonomy until such time as the issue of Taiwan is resolved peacefully. China rejects that position and reserves on the grounds of sovereignty the right to use force. However, in the meantime it has been increasingly pursuing a policy of cross-straits accommodation. In recent years, Taiwan and China have been improving their relationship, signing the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) on relatively equal terms in the summer of 2010.

America’s decline would obviously increase Taiwan’s vulnerability. Decision makers in Taipei could then neither ignore direct Chinese pressure nor the sheer attraction of an economically successful China. That, at the very least, would speed up the timetable for cross-straits reunification, but on unequal terms favoring the mainland. And if America’s decline in the meantime adversely affected the strategic connection between the United States and Japan, China could even be tempted—especially given the depth of Chinese national feelings about the matter—to reinforce its pressures on Taiwan with the threat to use force in order to effect the “one China” that the United States accepted as a political reality back in 1972. A politically successful threat to that effect could prompt a general crisis of confidence in Japan and South Korea regarding the reliability of existing American commitments.

South Korea

The United States signed a Mutual Defense Pact with South Korea in 1953 and has been the guarantor of South Korea’s security ever since the 1950 attack on it by North Korea, with Soviet and Chinese collusion. Additionally, South Korea’s remarkable economic takeoff and democratic political system has been a testimonial to the success of US engagement in South Korea. But over the years, the North Korean regime has staged a number of provocations against South Korea, ranging from assassinations of its cabinet members to attempts to kill the South Korean president. In 2010, the North Koreans sank a South Korean warship, the Cheonan, killing much of its crew; and in November 2010 North Korea shelled a South Korean island, killing some soldiers and civilians. In each case, South Korea looked to America for assistance, underlining the degree to which South Korea continues to rely on the United States for its physical security.

North Korea has also been altering its military strategy to emphasize the possibility of asymmetrical warfare against South Korea, based on its development of short-range ballistic missiles, long-range artillery, and nuclear weapons. South Korea has the means to resist a conventional attack from North Korea, but it is heavily reliant on its alliance with the United States to deter and defend against a comprehensive attack.

A US decline would confront South Korea with painful choices: either to accept Chinese regional dominance and rely further on China to act as the guarantor of security in East Asia, or to seek a much stronger, though historically unpopular, relationship with Japan, because of their shared democratic values and fear of aggression from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea or China. But Japan’s inclination to stand up to China without strong US backing is problematical at best. Thus South Korea could face a military or political threat on its own, if US security commitments in East Asia became less credible.

Belarus

Twenty years after the fall of the Soviet Union, Belarus remains politically and economically dependent on Russia. One-third of all its exports go to Russia while Belarus is almost entirely dependent on Russia for its energy needs. Moreover, a majority of Belarus’s 9.6 million people speak Russian, Belarus as a national state has been independent only since 1991, and the depth of its people’s national identity has not been tested—all of which are factors that preserve Moscow’s influence. For example, in 2009, the Russian army held major maneuvers (with Belarusian participation) in Belarus designated as Zapad (i.e., “the West ”) in which it repelled a hypothetical Western attack, culminating with a simulated Russian nuclear attack on the capital of a bordering Western (i.e., NATO) state.

Nonetheless, Belarus’s dependent relationship with Russia has not been without conflict. Belarus has not recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states (which Moscow established after its clash in 2008 with Georgia) despite open pressures by Putin. At the same time, its lack of a democratic process, as manifested in the seventeen-year-long dictatorship exercised by President Lukashenko, has stood in the way of any meaningful relations with the West. Poland, Sweden, and Lithuania have been trying to develop some civic connections between Belarus and the EU, but with very limited progress.

Consequently, a marked decline by America would give Russia a largely riskless opportunity to absorb Belarus, with at most a minimal use of force, and with little other cost beyond its reputation as a responsible regional power. Unlike the case of Georgia, Belarus would have neither Western arms nor enjoy the West’s political sympathy. The EU would be unlikely to respond in the absence of American support, and some Western European countries would likely be indifferent to the cause of Belarus. The UN, in such circumstances, would be largely passive. The Central European states, all too aware of the dangers of an emboldened Russia, might demand a common NATO response, but with America in decline it is unlikely that they could muster a collective and forceful reaction.

Ukraine

Russia’s absorption of Belarus, without too much cost or pain, would jeopardize the future of Ukraine as a genuinely sovereign state. Ukraine’s relationship with Russia, since gaining its independence in 1991, has been as prone to tension as its relationship with the West has been prone to indecision. Russia has repeatedly tried to coerce Ukraine into adopting policies beneficial to Russia, using energy as a political tool. In 2005, 2007, and 2009, Russia has either threatened or actually stopped oil and gas flow to Ukraine because of price issues and Ukraine’s outstanding energy debt. In the summer of 2010, Ukraine’s President Yanukovych was pressured to agree to an extension of Russia’s lease of a naval base in the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Sevastopol for another twenty-five years in exchange for a preferential pricing of Russian energy deliveries to Ukraine.

Ukraine is a significant European state of some 45 million people, with a strong industry and potentially very productive agriculture. A union with Russia would both enrich Russia and represent a giant step toward the restoration of its imperial sphere, a matter of much nostalgia to some of its leaders. Hence it is likely that the Kremlin will continue to press Ukraine to join a “common economic space” with Russia, gradually stripping Ukraine of direct control over its major industrial assets through mergers and takeovers by Russian firms. At the same time, quiet efforts will go on to infiltrate the Ukrainian security services and military command, in order to weaken Ukraine’s ability to protect, when need be, its sovereignty.

Eventually—assuming America’s decline—a passive European response to the absorption of Belarus, not to mention an earlier and successful use of force to intimidate Georgia, could entice the Russian leaders to attempt at some point a more overt reunification. But it would be a very complicated undertaking, perhaps requiring the use of some force and at least a contrived economic crisis within Ukraine to make a formal union with an economically more resilient Russia more palatable to the Ukrainians. Russia would still risk provoking a belated nationalist reaction, especially from the Ukrainian-speaking west and center of the country. With the passage of time, Ukraine as a nation-state is gaining a deeper emotional commitment from a younger generation—whether primarily Ukrainian or Russian speaking—that increasingly views Ukrainian statehood as normal and as part of its identity. Hence time may not be working in favor of a voluntary submission by Kyiv to Moscow, but impatient Russian pressures to that end as well as the West’s indifference could generate a potentially explosive situation on the very edge of the European Union.

Afghanistan

Devastated by nine years of extraordinarily brutal warfare waged by the Soviet Union, ignored by the West for a decade after the Soviet withdrawal, mismanaged by the medieval Taliban rulers who seized power with Pakistani assistance, and exposed during the Bush presidency to seven years of halfhearted US military operations and sporadic economic assistance, Afghanistan is a country in shambles. It has little economic output outside of its illegal narcotics trade, with 40% unemployment and a global ranking of 219th in GDP per capita. Only 15–20% of Afghans have access to electricity.

The most likely results of a rapid US disengagement brought on by war fatigue or the early effects of an American decline would be internal disintegration and an external power play among nearby states for influence in Afghanistan. In the absence of an effective and stable government in Kabul, the country would be dominated by rival warlords. Both Pakistan and India would more assertively and openly compete for influence in Afghanistan—with Iran also probably involved. As the result, the possibility of at least an indirect war between India and Pakistan would increase.

Iran would likely try to exploit the Pakistani-Indian rivalry in seeking advantage for itself. Both India and Iran fear that any increase in Pakistani influence in Afghanistan would severely affect the regional balance of power, and in India’s case compound the belligerent stance of Pakistan. In addition, adjoining central Asian states—given the presence of significant Tadjik, Uzbek, Kirghiz, and Turkmen communities in Afghanistan—could become involved in the regional power play as well. And the more players involved in Afghanistan, the more likely it is that a larger regional conflict could break out.

Second, even if a solid Afghan government is in place at the time of currently planned American disengagement—with some semblance of central control—a subsequent failure to sustain US-sponsored international involvement in the region’s stability is likely to reignite the embers of ethnic and religious passions. The Taliban could reemerge as the major disruptive force in Afghanistan—with help from the Pakistani Taliban—and/or Afghanistan could descend into a state of tribal warlordism. Afghanistan then could become a still larger player in the international drug trade, and even perhaps again a haven for international terrorism.

Pakistan

While Pakistan is armed with twenty-first-century nuclear weapons and is held together by a professional late twentieth-century army, the majority of its people—despite a politically active middle class and a congested urban population—are still premodern, rural, and largely defined by regional and tribal identities. Together they share the Muslim faith, which provided the passionate impulse for a separate state upon Britain’s departure from India. The resulting conflicts with India have defined Pakistan’s sense of separate national identity, while the forcible division of Kashmir has sustained a shared and profound antipathy for each other.

Pakistan’s political instability is its greatest vulnerability. And a decline in US power would reduce America’s ability to aid Pakistan’s consolidation and development. Pakistan could transform into a state run by the military, or a radical Islamic state, or a state that combines both military and Islamic rule, or a “state” with no centralized government at all. The worst-case scenarios are that Pakistan devolves into some variation of nuclear warlordism or transforms into a militant-Islamic and anti-Western government similar to Iran. The latter could in turn infect Central Asia, generating wider regional instability of concern both to Russia and to China.

In the above circumstances, America’s decline would also increase Chinese security concerns about South Asia and could intensify Indian temptations to undermine Pakistan. China’s exploitation of any clashes between Pakistan and India would also be more likely, thus potentially increasing regional instability. Ultimately, an unstable peace or a wider conflict in the region would depend almost entirely on the degree to which both India and China could restrain their own increasingly nationalistic impulses to exploit Pakistan’s instability in order to gain the regional upper hand.

Israel and the Greater Middle East

In addition to specific states becoming immediately endangered, one also needs to take into account the more general probability that America’s decline would set in motion tectonic shifts undermining the political stability of the entire Middle East. Though in varying degrees, all the states in the region remain vulnerable to internal populist pressures, social unrest, and religious fundamentalism, as seen in the events of early 2011. If America’s decline were to occur with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict still unresolved, the failure to implement by then a mutually acceptable two-state solution would further inflame the region’s political atmosphere. Regional hostility to Israel would then intensify.

It is reasonable to assume that perceived American weakness would at some point tempt the more powerful states in the region, notably Iran or Israel, to preempt anticipated dangers. In these circumstances even cautious jockeying for tactical advantage could precipitate eruptions of local violence—say, involving Hamas or Hezbollah, backed by Iran, versus Israel—which could then escalate into wider and more bloody military encounters as well as new intifadas. Weak entities such as Lebanon and Palestine would then pay an especially high price in civilian death tolls. Even worse, such conflicts could rise to truly horrific levels through strikes and counterstrikes between Iran and Israel.

The latter turn of events could then draw the United States into a direct confrontation with Iran. Since a conventional war would not be a favorable option for an America fatigued by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (and by then perhaps also in Pakistan), the United States presumably would rely on its air supremacy to inflict painful strategic damage on Iran, and especially on its nuclear facilities. The resulting human toll would infuse into Iranian nationalism a lasting hostility toward America while further blending Islamic fundamentalism with Iranian nationalism. Islamic radicalism and extremism in the Middle East at large would also be inflamed, with potentially damaging consequences for the world economy. Under these circumstances, Russia would obviously benefit economically from the rise in the price of energy and politically from the concentration of Islamic passions on the United States as Muslim grievances shifted away from Russia. Turkey might become more overtly sympathetic to the Islamic sense of victimhood, and China could gain a freer hand in pursuing its own interests in the area.

In that geopolitical context, and contrary to those who believe that Israel’s long-term security would benefit from an America locked into a hostile relationship with the world of Islam, Israel’s long-term survival could be placed in jeopardy. Israel has the military capacity and the national will to repel immediate dangers to itself, and also to repress the Palestinians. But America’s long-standing and generous support for Israel, derived more from a genuine sense of moral obligation and less from real strategic congruity, could become less reliable. The inclination to disengage from the region could grow as America declines, despite public support for Israel, while much of the world would probably blame America for the regional upheaval. With the Arab masses politically aroused and more inclined to engage in prolonged violence (“people’s war”), an Israel that could become internationally viewed—to cite Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s ominous warning in 2010—as an “apartheid” state would have doubtful long-term prospects.

The vulnerability of the US–supported Persian Gulf states would also be likely to intensify. As US power in the region recedes and as Iran continues its military buildup and pursues greater influence in Iraq—which prior to the 2003 US invasion stood as a bulwark to Iranian expansion—uncertainty and insecurity within Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, and the UAE are likely to intensify. They may have to seek new and more effective protectors of their security. China would be an obvious and potentially economically motivated candidate, thereby altering dramatically the geopolitical configuration of the Middle East.

Just thirty-five years ago, the United States benefited from strong relationships with the four most important countries in the Middle East: Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Turkey. As a result, American interests in the region were secure. Today, American influence with each of these four states is largely reduced. America and Iran are locked in a hostile relationship; Saudi Arabia is critical of America’s evolving regional policy; Turkey is disappointed by the lack of American understanding for its regional ambitions; and Egypt’s rising skepticism regarding its relationship with Israel is setting it at odds with America’s priorities. In brief, the US position in the Middle East is manifestly deteriorating. An American decline would end it.

Unlike its impact on the especially vulnerable countries, America’s slide into international impotence or even into a paralyzing crisis would not significantly affect the scale of international terrorist activity. Most acts of terrorism are—and have been—domestic, not international. Whether in Italy, where in 1978 some 2,000 terrorist acts occurred in a single year, or in contemporary Pakistan, where the casualties from terrorist killings annually measure in the high hundreds and where high-level assassinations are commonplace, the sources and targets of domestic terrorism have been the product of internal conditions. This has been true for over a hundred years, since political terrorism first appeared as a significant phenomenon in late nineteenth-century Russia and France. Therefore, a precipitous decline in American power would not influence the scale of terrorist activities in, for example, India because their occurrence in the first place relates little to America’s role in the world. Because most domestic terrorism is rooted in radicalized local or regional political tensions, only changing local conditions can affect the scale of this type of terrorism.

America has become the target of a genuinely global brand of terrorist activity only over the past decade and a half. Its rise is associated with the populist passions that have grown because of political awakening, particularly in some Muslim states. America has become the target of terrorism because Islamic religious extremists have focused their intense hatred on America as the enemy of Islam and as the neocolonialist “great Satan.” Osama bin Laden used the notion of America as the embodiment of Satan to justify his 2001 fatwah, which led to the September 11 terrorist assaults on the United States. Further justification for the targeting of America by Al Qaeda has been the alleged desecration of sacred Islamic sites by the US military deployments in Saudi Arabia and by America’s support for Israel. Bruce Riedel, Senior Fellow at the Saban Center of the Brookings Institution in Washington, has observed that bin Laden in twenty of his twenty-four major speeches, both before and after 9/11, justified violence against America by citing its support for Israel.

The inspiration for these international terrorist acts has been the Manichean view of the United States held by extremist Muslim fanatics. Accordingly, an American decline would not serve to dissuade these groups. Nor would it serve to empower them because their message lacks the distinctly political aspects of other domestically entrenched groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. It is thus doubtful that such fundamentalist terrorism can gain control over the ongoing upheavals in the Islamic world. And even if it did, it is more likely to result in internecine struggles than in any united action against outside states. It is also noteworthy that in the years from Bakunin^{4} to Bin Laden, nowhere has terrorism achieved its political objective or succeeded in replacing states as the principal actor per se on the international stage. Terrorism can intensify international turmoil but it cannot define its substance.

In addition, the foregoing discussion points to the following more general conclusions:

First, the existing international system is likely to become increasingly incapable of preventing conflicts once it becomes evident that America is unwilling or unable to protect states it once considered, for national interest and/or doctrinal reasons, worthy of its engagement. Furthermore, once awareness of that new reality becomes internationally pervasive, a more widespread tendency toward regional violence, in which stronger states become more unilateral in their treatment of weaker neighbors, may ensue. Serious threats to peace are likely to originate from major regional powers inclined to settle geopolitical or ethnic scores with their immediate but much weaker neighbors. The fading of American power would create an open space for such an assertion of force, with relatively little short-term cost to its initiator.

Second, several of the previous scenarios represent the unfinished legacy of the Cold War. They are a testament to America’s lost opportunity to use the consolidation of a peaceful zone of security near Russia to engage Russia in closer security cooperation. That might even have involved a joint NATO-Russia treaty as NATO was expanding, thereby furthering a more enduring East-West accommodation while helping to consolidate Russia’s nascent democracy.[9] Perhaps such an initiative by the West would have been rebuffed, but it was never explored. Instead, after 2001 the United States became obsessed with its “war on terror” and with gathering support for its military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan to the detriment of any larger geostrategic designs. Meanwhile, Russia became focused on the establishment of a more repressive authoritarianism and on the restoration of its own influence in the space of the former Soviet bloc.

Third, East Asia and South Asia would be the regions most vulnerable to international conflicts in a post-American world. The rise both of China and of India as major regional powers with global aspirations is prompting shifts in the region’s distribution of power while their evident rivalry is generating unavoidable uncertainties. If America falters, weaker countries may be forced to make geopolitical choices in a setting of increasing instability even if China and India avoid a major collision. At the same time, pressure is rising in China for a pushback of US power in Asia while concern is growing in East and Southeast Asia over China’s potentially expansionist aspirations. Creating even more uncertainty is the reality of North Korea’s openly proclaimed quest for nuclear weapons in the context of internal political dynamics that are as undecipherable as they are dangerously unpredictable. America’s decline would diminish an external restraint that states considering the unilateral use of force normally have to take into account. In brief, America’s decline would inevitably contribute to a rise in the frequency, scope, and intensity of regional conflicts.

3: THE END OF A GOOD NEIGHBORHOOD

America is bordered by only two states, Mexico and Canada. Though both are good neighbors, Mexico poses a much more serious risk for America in the event of American decline because of its far more volatile political and economic conditions. For example, America and Canada share an enormous but mostly tranquil border, while the US-Mexico border, though much smaller, is the site of violence, ethnic tension, drug and weapons trafficking, illegal immigration, and political demonization. And, though both Mexico and Canada are economically dependent on the United States, with relatively similar GDPs, roughly 15% of Mexico’s labor force works inside America and Mexico’s percentage of population below the poverty line is more than double that of Canada. Furthermore, Mexico’s internal political dynamics are much more unstable and its relationship with the United States has been historically more turbulent. Therefore, while Canada would be adversely affected by an American decline, Mexico would likely plunge into a messy domestic crisis with seriously adverse implications for American-Mexican relations.

In recent decades, America and Mexico have succeeded in constructing a predominantly positive relationship. However, their economic interdependence, their demographic interconnection due to years of high Mexican migration to the United States, and their shared security threat emanating from the cross-border narcotics trade makes relations between the two countries both more complex and also more vulnerable to the impact of international changes. Americans tend to take Mexico’s relative stability for granted, assuming it poses little direct threat to America’s strategic position and to the security of the entire Western Hemisphere. A significant deterioration in the US-Mexico relationship and its resulting consequences would thus come as a painful shock to the American public, generally not aware that the Mexican and American versions of their countries’ past relations tend to vary.

Mexican-American relations have been historically both contentious and cooperative. Conflict has often occurred when Mexico was afflicted with internal violence and political turmoil, with America fearing a spillover into its territory but also exploiting the resulting opportunity to gain territory at the expense of its weaker neighbor. America’s inconsistent and sometimes self-serving application of the Monroe Doctrine, its wars of expansion that resulted in it seizing Texas, California, and the American Southwest in 1848—then over 50% of Mexico’s whole territory—and President Wilson’s unpopular occupation of Veracruz during the Mexican Revolution provide the most prominent examples. On the other hand, cooperation between the two (as well as Canada) led to the creation of NAFTA, now the single largest economic zone in the world.

The two centuries of both worse and better Mexican-American relations are a reminder of the inherent difficulty of managing such an asymmetrical relationship. Domestic fears on both sides, political instability in Mexico, and the periodic assertiveness of US power often constricted what should have been a burgeoning partnership. Their close geographic proximity only compounded those issues, making economic and security cooperation more essential to national success but political instability and cultural fears more inhibiting to their neighborly cooperation. Thus, with intermittent periods of great compromise and acute tension, sustaining a constructive Mexican-American partnership has been a challenge to the leadership in both nations.

America and Mexico share cultural and personal links as well as economic and security concerns, all of which make a regional partnership mutually beneficial. America’s economic resilience and political stability have so far also mitigated many of the challenges posed by such sensitive issues as economic dependence, immigration, and the narcotics trade. However, a decline in American power would likely undermine the health and good judgment of America’s economic and political system, therefore intensifying the particular difficulties mentioned above. A waning United States would likely be more nationalistic, more defensive about its national identity, more paranoid about its homeland security, and less willing to sacrifice resources for the sake of others’ development. Hence stable cooperation with Mexico would enjoy less popular support.

In such a setting, domestic politics in the United States would be likely to turn more protectionist, much like European powers did in the aftermath of World War I. The United States would be less likely to create institutions (such as the proposed North American Development Bank) to help foster regional—particularly Mexican—economic growth through jointly funded initiatives and more likely to impose subsidies to support powerful domestic constituencies to the detriment of Mexican exports. America’s role as global leader has often helped protect American trade policy from the effects of protectionist-oriented domestic interests.

The resulting consequences would severely damage the Mexican economy, creating social and political aftershocks that would complicate further the next two most important issues in the Mexican-American relationship: immigration and the narcotics trade. Both issues are the target of tense, sometimes begrudging cooperation between America and Mexico. America’s fair treatment of Mexican immigrants and its commitment to help Mexico combat the drug trade are essential to sustaining a productive partnership. However, the domestic and regional outlook of an America in decline would almost certainly increase American demonization of Mexican immigration and American skepticism regarding Mexico’s will to combat its drug cartels. The United States would be likely to pursue more coercive solutions to these issues (i.e., cut off or deport immigrants, build up or deploy troops at the border), thus scuttling the good-neighbor policy and possibly igniting a geopolitical confrontation.

Mexican immigration, especially illegal immigration, is the result of the sharp contrast between economic and political conditions in Mexico and the United States. Over time, these differences have led to massive Mexican migration to America, such that the population of Mexican immigrants in America was estimated at around 11.5 million in 2009.[10] The estimated population of illegal Mexican immigrants in the United States is said to be 6.6 million.[11] And, the total population of individuals who are ethnically Mexican in America is now around 31 million or 10% of the total US population, most of whom remain deeply tied to their families in Mexico. Likewise, citizens of Mexico and the Mexican government itself are understandably concerned with the condition of immigrants in the United States. For example, Arizona’s strict 2010 immigration law, aimed at increasing the prosecution and deportation of illegal immigrants, angered many in Mexico. Though President Obama denounced the bill, it still produced a sharp drop in the favorability with which Mexicans viewed Americans. According to the 2010 Pew Global Attitudes Survey, 44% of the Mexicans polled viewed the United States favorably after the enactment of the Arizona law, compared to 62% before.

A more coercive US attitude and policy toward Mexican immigrants would heighten Mexican resentment, adversely affecting the overall US-Mexico partnership. After 9/11, the issue of border security has come to be seen as essential to homeland security; the specter of an Islamic terrorist crossing the border from Mexico enhanced popular cries to seal off the border completely. America’s decision to construct a wall/fence to separate itself from Mexico as a mechanism to support border security has already stimulated anti-American sentiments. It evokes negative images of Israel’s construction of a “security barrier” in the West Bank or of the Berlin Wall. An internationally declining America is likely to become even more disturbed by the insecurity of its porous border with Mexico and the resulting immigration, inspiring a continuation of similar policies and creating a dangerous downward spiral for relations between the two neighbors.

Growing antagonism can also only further complicate both nations’ ability to cooperate on the narcotics trade, an issue already of acute mutual concern. As a result of America’s highly successful efforts to eliminate the Colombian drug trade, Mexico has increasingly inherited Colombia’s role; 90% of all cocaine bound for the United States now goes through Mexico. This new reality has escalated violence in Mexico, for example in Juárez, and created spillover effects in the United States. And while America and Mexico have made combating the cross-border drug trade a policy priority, the problem has proven difficult to solve. The related violence has intensified and the corruption has persisted. It has been estimated that since 2006 about 5,000 Mexicans have died in drug-related violence, with 535 Mexican police officers perishing in 2009.[12] In short, this has produced unsustainable pressure on Mexico’s local and national governments and on law enforcement in the United States.

Defeating the narcotics pandemic would become exponentially more difficult if the United States declined, its financial and military resources dwindled, and its policies became more unilateral. Should the current strong north-south partnership then cease to exist because of growing anti-Americanism in Mexico resulting from America’s economic protectionism and harsh immigration policies, the subsequent reorientation of the Mexican government away from full cooperation with the United States would weaken the effectiveness of any American counternarcotics efforts. Furthermore, a Mexican government lacking US support would find it impossible to defeat the drug cartels, and the political landscape in Mexico thus would become susceptible to political pressures for accommodation with drug lords at the expense of American security. This would return Mexico to levels of corruption equal to and beyond those present in Mexico prior to the shift of power from the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) to an open, multiparty democracy in 2000. A return to such a state would stimulate further anti-Mexican tendencies in the United States.

A waning partnership between America and Mexico could precipitate regional and even international realignments. A reduction in Mexico’s democratic values, its economic power, and its political stability coupled with the dangers of drug cartel expansion would limit Mexico’s ability to become a regional leader with a proactive and positive agenda. This, in the end, could be the ultimate impact of an American decline: a weaker, less stable, less economically viable and more anti-American Mexico unable to constructively compete with Brazil for cooperative regional leadership or to help promote stability in Central America.

In that context, China could also begin to play a more significant role in the post-American regional politics of the Western Hemisphere. As part of China’s slowly emerging campaign for greater global influence, the PRC has initiated large-scale investments in both Africa and Latin America. For example, Brazil and China have long been trying to forge a strategic partnership in energy and technology. This is not to suggest that China would seek to dominate this region, but it obviously could benefit from receding American regional power, by helping more overtly anti-American governments in their economic development.

In the longer run, the potential worsening of relations between a declining America and an internally troubled Mexico could even give rise to a particularly ominous phenomenon: the emergence, as a major issue in nationalistically aroused Mexican politics, of territorial claims justified by history and ignited by cross-border incidents. Political and economic realities have forced Mexicans to sublimate historical memories of territory lost to the United States for the sake of more beneficial relations with the most powerful state in the Western Hemisphere and (later) the sole global superpower. But in a world where Mexico did not count as much on a weakened United States, incidents resulting initially from the cross-border narcotics trade could easily escalate into armed clashes. One could even imagine cross-border raids made under the banner of “recovery” of historically Mexican soil; there are historical precedents for such a transformation of banditry into a patriotic cause. An additional and convenient pretext could be the notion that anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States is tantamount to discrimination, thus requiring retaliatory acts. These in turn could lead to the argument that the presence of many Mexicans on the formerly Mexican territory raises the issue of territorial self-determination.

Speculation along these lines reads today like futuristic fiction, unrelated to reality, but geopolitical realities would change dramatically in the event of America’s decline. That could well include the once-hostile but lately amicable relationship between America and Mexico. And if that were to happen, America’s geopolitically secure location free of neighborly conflicts, identified earlier in Part 2 as one of America’s major assets, would become a thing of the past.

4: THE UNCOMMON GLOBAL COMMONS

The global commons, those areas of the world that are shared by all states, can be reduced to two main sets of global concerns: the strategic and the environmental. The strategic commons include the sea and air, space, and cyberspace domains, as well as the nuclear domain as it pertains to controlling global proliferation. The environmental commons include the geopolitical implications of managing water sources, the Arctic, and global climate change. In these areas America, thanks to its near global hegemonic status, has had in recent years the opportunity to shape what has been called the “new world order.” However, while American participation and, very often, American leadership have been essential to reforming and protecting the global commons, the United States has not always been on the front lines of progress. America, like any other great power, tried to construct a world that first and foremost benefited its own development even though during the twentieth century the United States at times was more idealistically motivated than previous dominant states in history.

Today the world’s emerging powers—China, India, Brazil, and Russia—are playing a more integral role in this global management process. An American-European consensus or an American-Russian consensus alone cannot effectively dictate the rules of the commons. These new players are—though slowly—rising, necessitating a larger consensus group in securing and reforming the global commons. Nonetheless, American participation and co-leadership remains essential to solving new and old challenges.

The strategic commons will likely be the area most impacted by the shifting paradigm of global power, as relates to both the gradual growth in the capabilities and activism of emerging powers like China and India and the potential decline of American primacy. The sea and air, space, and cyberspace central to every country’s national interest are dominated for the most part by America. In the coming years, however, they will become increasingly crowded and competitive as the power and national ambitions of other major states expand, and overall global power disperses.

Because control over the strategic commons is based on material advantages, as other nations grow their military capacities they will necessarily challenge the omnipresent position of the United States, in hopes to replace the United States as regional power broker. This competition could easily lead to miscalculation, less effective management, or a nationalistic territorial interstate rivalry in the strategic commons. China, for example, sees its surrounding waters as an extension of its territory. It considers most of the disputed islands there to be its own, and China has focused on developing naval capabilities aimed at denying America access to the South and East China Seas in order to protect those claims and solidify its regional position. Moreover, China has recently escalated disagreements over the limits of its territorial waters and over the ownership of the Senkaku, Paracel, and Spratly Islands into international disputes. Russia has also recently decided to make the navy its highest military priority, heavily increasing the funding for its Pacific Fleet. India too continues to expand its naval capabilities in the Indian Ocean.

The key to future stability in the strategic commons is to gradually develop a global consensus for an equitable and peaceful allocation of responsibilities while America’s power is extant. For example, a peaceful maritime system is essential to the success of a globalized economy and all nations have an interest in seeing the air and seas managed in a responsible fashion because of their impact on international trade. Thus, a fair system for allocating management responsibilities is highly likely, even in the evolving landscape of regional power. However, in the short term, when such a system is only just emerging, one nation might well miscalculate its own power vis-à-vis its neighbor or seek to take an advantage at the expense of the greater community. This could result in significant conflicts, especially as nations press for greater access to energy resources beneath disputed waters.

America’s decline would have dangerous implications for this strategic common since currently the world relies de facto on the United States to manage and deter maritime conflicts. While it is unlikely that an American decline would severally inhibit its naval capacity—since it is central to America’s core interests—a receding United States might be unable or simply reluctant to deter the escalation of maritime disputes in the Pacific or Indian Oceans, two areas of particular concern.

Similarly, outer space, an arena currently dominated by the United States, is beginning to experience greater activity thanks to the growing capabilities of emerging powers. The two most pressing issues regarding space are the increasing presence of space debris and space weaponry, both of which are being compounded by the surge in international space activity. When China successfully launched an antisatellite missile in 2007, destroying one of its own satellites, it added an unprecedented amount of dangerous debris to the low earth orbit and raised the level of uncertainty regarding China’s intentions to militarize outer space.

While the United States has the most advanced tracking system of orbiting entities in the world and, therefore, possesses the ability to protect some of its assets, the rules regulating space activity need to be updated to reflect the post–Cold War environment, ensure the tranquility of space, and prohibit actions like that of China in 2007. But, if an American decline forces the United States to reduce its own space capabilities, or, much more likely, allows—in the midst of its decline—other emerging powers like China or India to consider space a viable domain in which to test their technology, herald their growing influence, and initiate a new strategic competition, the “final frontier” could become ominously unstable.

The Internet has become now what outer space used to be: the limitless frontier for commerce, communication, exploration, and power projection. Militaries, businesses, and government bureaucracies alike rely on a free and safe cyberspace for the successful execution of their responsibilities. However, maintaining the freedom of the Internet while simultaneously ensuring the security of information is a serious challenge, especially given the decentralized and rapidly evolving landscape of the Internet. American power in cyberspace, like in the oceans, has been essential to the fair regulation and freedom of the Internet because the United States currently controls—via a private nonprofit entity based out of California called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)—most of the access to and oversight of cyberspace. The world’s resentment of American hegemonic control over the Internet coupled with the nuisance of cyber espionage and the serious threat of cyber warfare complicates the difficult task of managing this strategic common.

While this system allows the Internet to function, it does not prohibit individual nations, such as China or Iran, from limiting their own citizens’ access to the Internet; although the United States has made it a priority to publicly oppose such restrictions. Thus, it is possible that in the absence of a strong America, emerging powers, particularly those nations not supportive of democracy or individual political rights, will exploit the lack of any political restraints and try to alter the working characteristics of the Internet, so as to more effectively restrict the Internet’s potential beyond even their national boundaries.

In addition, the control of global nuclear proliferation is essential to the stability of the international system. For some years now, the United States has been the most vocal proponent of minimizing proliferation, even setting as its goal a world with zero nuclear weapons. Moreover, the United States provides security guarantees to specific non–nuclear weapon states that fear their nuclear neighbors by extending to them the US nuclear umbrella. Because the United States is the largest and most advanced nuclear weapon state and because its global position depends on the stability provided by its nuclear umbrella, the responsibility for leadership in the nuclear nonproliferation domain sits squarely on American shoulders. In this domain above all others the world still looks to the United States to lead.

Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons today, combined with the possible American decline tomorrow, highlights the potential dangers of continuing nuclear proliferation in the twenty-first century: the fading of the nonproliferation regime, greater proliferation among emerging states, extensions of the Russian, Chinese, and Indian nuclear umbrellas, the intensifying of regional nuclear arms races, and the greater availability of nuclear material for theft by terrorist organizations.

An American decline would impact the nuclear domain most profoundly by inciting a crisis of confidence in the credibility of the American nuclear umbrella. Countries like South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Turkey, and even Israel, among others, rely on the United States’ extended nuclear deterrence for security. If they were to see the United States slowly retreat from certain regions, forced by circumstances to pull back its guarantees, or even if they were to lose confidence in standing US guarantees, because of the financial, political, military, and diplomatic consequences of an American decline, then they will have to seek security elsewhere. That “elsewhere” security could originate from only two sources: from nuclear weapons of one’s own or from the extended deterrence of another power—most likely Russia, China, or India.

It is possible that countries that feel threatened by the ambition of existing nuclear weapon states, the addition of new nuclear weapon states, or the decline in the reliability of American power would develop their own nuclear capabilities. For crypto-nuclear powers like Germany and Japan, the path to nuclear weapons would be easy and fairly quick, given their extensive civilian nuclear industry, their financial success, and their technological acumen. Furthermore, the continued existence of nuclear weapons in North Korea and the potentiality of a nuclear-capable Iran could prompt American allies in the Persian Gulf or East Asia to build their own nuclear deterrents. Given North Korea’s increasingly aggressive and erratic behavior, the failure of the six-party talks, and the widely held distrust of Iran’s megalomaniacal leadership, the guarantees offered by a declining America’s nuclear umbrella might not stave off a regional nuclear arms race among smaller powers.

Last but not least, even though China and India today maintain a responsible nuclear posture of minimal deterrence and “no first use,” the uncertainty of an increasingly nuclear world could force both states to reevaluate and escalate their nuclear posture. Indeed, they as well as Russia might even become inclined to extend nuclear assurances to their respective client states. Not only could this signal a renewed regional nuclear arms race between these three aspiring powers but it could also create new and antagonistic spheres of influence in Eurasia driven by competitive nuclear deterrence.

The decline of the United States would thus precipitate drastic changes to the nuclear domain. An increase in proliferation among insecure American allies and/or an arms race between the emerging Asian powers are among the more likely outcomes. This ripple effect of proliferation would undermine the transparent management of the nuclear domain and increase the likelihood of interstate rivalry, miscalculation, and eventually even perhaps of international nuclear terror.

In addition to the foregoing, in the course of this century the world will face a series of novel geopolitical challenges brought about by significant changes in the physical environment. The management of those changing environmental commons—the growing scarcity of fresh water, the opening of the Arctic, and global warming—will require global consensus and mutual sacrifice. American leadership alone is not enough to secure cooperation on all these issues, but a decline in American influence would reduce the likelihood of achieving cooperative agreements on environmental and resource management. America’s retirement from its role of global policeman could create greater opportunities for emerging powers to further exploit the environmental commons for their own economic gain, increasing the chances of resource-driven conflict, particularly in Asia.

The latter is likely to be the case especially in regard to the increasingly scarce water resources in many countries. According to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), by 2025 more than 2.8 billion people will be living in either water-scarce or water-stressed regions, as global demand for water will double every twenty years.[13] While much of the Southern Hemisphere is threatened by potential water scarcity, interstate conflicts—the geopolitical consequences of cross-border water scarcity—are most likely to occur in Central and South Asia, the Middle East, and northeastern Africa, regions where limited water resources are shared across borders and political stability is transient. The combination of political insecurity and resource scarcity is a menacing geopolitical combination.

The threat of water conflicts is likely to intensify as the economic growth and increasing demand for water in emerging powers like Turkey and India collides with instability and resource scarcity in rival countries like Iraq and Pakistan. Water scarcity will also test China’s internal stability as its burgeoning population and growing industrial complex combine to increase demand for and decrease supply of usable water. In South Asia, the never-ending political tension between India and Pakistan combined with overcrowding and Pakistan’s heightening internal crises may put the Indus Water Treaty at risk, especially because the river basin originates in the long-disputed territory of Jammu and Kashmir, an area of ever-increasing political and military volatility. The lingering dispute between India and China over the status of Northeast India, an area through which the vital Brahmaputra River flows, also remains a serious concern. As American hegemony disappears and regional competition intensifies, disputes over natural resources like water have the potential to develop into full-scale conflicts.

The slow thawing of the Arctic will also change the face of the international competition for important resources. With the Arctic becoming increasingly accessible to human endeavor, the five Arctic littoral states—the United States, Canada, Russia, Denmark, and Norway—may rush to lay claim to its bounty of oil, gas, and metals. This run on the Arctic has the potential to cause severe shifts in the geopolitical landscape, particularly to Russia’s advantage. As Vladimir Radyuhin points out in his article entitled “The Arctic’s Strategic Value for Russia,” Russia has the most to gain from access to the Arctic while simultaneously being the target of far north containment by the other four Arctic states, all of which are members of NATO. In many respects this new great game will be determined by who moves first with the most legitimacy, since very few agreements on the Arctic exist. The first Russian supertanker sailed from Europe to Asia via the North Sea in the summer of 2010.[14]

Russia has an immense amount of land and resource potential in the Arctic. Its territory within the Arctic Circle is 3.1 million square kilometers—around the size of India—and the Arctic accounts for 91% of Russia’s natural gas production, 80% of its explored natural gas reserves, 90% of its offshore hydrocarbon reserves, and a large store of metals.[15] Russia is also attempting to increase its claim on the territory by asserting that its continental shelf continues deeper into the Arctic, which could qualify Russia for a 150-mile extension of its Exclusive Economic Zone and add another 1.2 million square kilometers of resource-rich territory. Its first attempt at this extension was denied by the UN Commission on the Continental Shelf, but it is planning to reapply in 2013. Russia considers the Arctic a true extension of its northern border and in a 2008 strategy paper President Medvedev stated that the Arctic would become Russia’s “main strategic resource base” by 2020.[16]

Despite recent conciliatory summits between Europe and Russia over European security architecture, a large amount of uncertainty and distrust stains the West’s relationship with Russia. The United States itself has always maintained a strong claim on the Arctic and has continued patrolling the area since the end of the Cold War. This was reinforced during the last month of President Bush’s second term when he released a national security directive stipulating that America should “preserve the global mobility of the United States military and civilian vessels and aircraft throughout the Arctic region.” The potentiality of an American decline could embolden Russia to more forcefully assert its control of the Arctic and over Europe via energy politics; though much depends on Russia’s political orientation after the 2012 presidential elections. All five Arctic littoral states will benefit from a peaceful and cooperative agreement on the Arctic—similar to Norway’s and Russia’s 2010 agreement over the Barents Strait—and the geopolitical stability it would provide. Nevertheless, political circumstances could rapidly change in an environment where control over energy remains Russia’s single greatest priority.

Global climate change is the final component of the environmental commons and the one with the greatest potential geopolitical impact. Scientists and policy makers alike have projected catastrophic consequences for mankind and the planet if the world average temperature rises by more than two degrees over the next century. Plant and animal species could grow extinct at a rapid pace, large-scale ecosystems could collapse, human migration could increase to untenable levels, and global economic development could be categorically reversed. Changes in geography, forced migration, and global economic contraction layered on top of the perennial regional security challenges could create a geopolitical reality of unmanageable complexity and conflict, especially in the densely populated and politically unstable areas of Asia such as the Northeast and South. Furthermore, any legitimate action inhibiting global climate change will require unprecedented levels of self-sacrifice and international cooperation. The United States does consider climate change a serious concern, but its lack of both long-term strategy and political commitment, evidenced in its refusal to ratify the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 and the repeated defeat of climate-change legislation in Congress, deters other countries from participating in a global agreement.

The United States is the second-largest global emitter of carbon dioxide, after China, with 20% of the world’s share. The United States is the number one per capita emitter of carbon dioxide and the global leader in per capita energy demand. Therefore, US leadership is essential in not only getting other countries to cooperate, but also in actually inhibiting climate change. Others around the world, including the European Union and Brazil, have attempted their own domestic reforms on carbon emissions and energy use, and committed themselves to pursuing renewable energy. Even China has made reducing emissions a goal, a fact it refuses to let the United States ignore. But none of those nations currently has the ability to lead a global initiative. President Obama committed the United States to energy and carbon reform at the Copenhagen Summit in 2009, but the increasingly polarized domestic political environment and the truculent American economic recovery are unlikely to inspire progress on costly energy issues.

China is also critically important to any discussion of the management of climate change as it produces 21% of the world’s total carbon emissions, a percentage that will only increase as China develops the western regions of its territory and as its citizens experience a growth in their standard of living. China, however, has refused to take on a leadership role in climate change, as it has also done in the maritime, space, and cyberspace domains. China uses its designation as a developing country to shield itself from the demands of global stewardship. China’s tough stance at the 2009 Copenhagen Summit underscores the potential dangers of an American decline: no other country has the capacity and the desire to accept global stewardship over the environmental commons.

Only a vigorous Unites States could lead on climate change, given Russia’s dependence on carbon-based energies for economic growth, India’s relatively low emissions rate, and China’s current reluctance to assume global responsibility. The protection and good faith management of the global commons—sea, space, cyberspace, nuclear proliferation, water security, the Arctic, and the environment itself—are imperative to the long-term growth of the global economy and the continuation of basic geopolitical stability. But in almost every case, the potential absence of constructive and influential US leadership would fatally undermine the essential communality of the global commons.

The argument that America’s decline would generate global insecurity, endanger some vulnerable states, produce a more troubled North American neighborhood, and make cooperative management of the global commons more difficult is not an argument for US global supremacy. In fact, the strategic complexities of the world in the twenty-first century—resulting from the rise of a politically self-assertive global population and from the dispersal of global power—make such supremacy unattainable. But in this increasingly complicated geopolitical environment, an America in pursuit of a new, timely strategic vision is crucial to helping the world avoid a dangerous slide into international turmoil.