理解美国备受争议的主导地位
Understanding America's Contested Primacy
https://csbaonline.org/uploads/documents/2010.10.21-Understanding-Americas-Contested-Supremacy.pdf
Dr. Eric S. Edelman 2010 Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments
Eric S. Edelman 博士 2010 战略与预算评估中心
执行摘要
2008 年 11 月，美国国家情报委员会发布了《2025 年全球趋势》，其中指出“由于新兴大国的崛起、全球化经济、相对财富和经济实力从西方向东方的历史性转移以及非国家行为者的影响力不断增强，到 2025 年，二战后建立的国际体系将几乎面目全非。到 2025 年，国际体系将成为一个全球多极体系，发达国家和发展中国家之间的国家实力差距将继续缩小”[原文重点]。”
这一结论与四年前国家情报委员会在《2020 年全球未来规划》中得出的结论大相径庭，即单极化很可能继续成为国际体系的长期状态。
在两份报告之间，美国的时代精神明显发生了转变，原因是伊拉克和阿富汗反叛乱战争持续困难，对美国全球领导地位（国内外）的质疑不断增加，新兴经济体（高盛分析师暗示为金砖四国）似乎势不可挡地崛起，全球经济低迷和美国经济衰退。总体影响是创造了一种新的传统智慧，即预见美国将继续衰落，标志着后冷战世界的单极世界秩序将结束，以及可能背离冷战结束后三届总统政府外交政策中追求美国主导地位的理念。
关于单极化和美国继续保持主导地位的争论不仅仅是学术争论。对美国实力的认知将指导美国决策者和其他国家考虑其政策选择。自冷战结束以来，主导地位一直是美国大战略的基础，因为没有其他国家能够提供集体公共产品，这些产品维护了国际体系的安全，并使全球经济活动和繁荣急剧增加。美国和全球体系都从这种情况中受益。
关于美国衰落的论点并不新鲜，但在它们成为不容置疑的正统观点之前，最好仔细研究一下支撑新兴传统观点的许多关键假设。事实上，美国无可否认的相对衰落会导致单极世界的终结吗？金砖国家真的代表一个集团吗？多极化会是什么样子？无论如何，如何衡量国家实力？如何衡量全球权力分配的变化？全球竞争对手的崛起是不可避免的吗？
哪些弱点可能会阻碍潜在竞争对手保持目前有利的经济和政治轨迹？美国是否拥有一些未被充分重视的优势，这些优势可能成为其继续在国际体系中占据主导地位的基础？如果是，审慎的政府将采取哪些措施来将这种主导地位延续到未来？直线预测经济增长的历史和挑战美国主导地位的崛起，对那些先前预测美国衰落的人来说并不友好。美国不一定会在冷战后主导地位的“单极时刻”结束和全球多极世界之间陷入困境。新兴的国际环境可能与国家情报委员会在 2004 年的《全球未来规划》和 2008 年的《全球趋势 2025》中预测的未来有所不同。美国实力的相对衰落似乎更有可能使美国成为国际体系中最强大的参与者。但其他国家的经济崛起和核武器在某些关键地区的扩散可能会使美国面临新的严峻挑战。
美国衰落的观念再度兴起，再次引发了有关美国实力的目的和美国国际主导地位的价值的问题。寻求保持美国作为国际体系主要参与者的优势会给美国预算和纳税人带来成本。当然，我们应该问一问美国为保持第一而付出的努力能得到什么。还值得思考的是，如果美国只是众多强国之一，世界将会是什么样子，以及这种看法将如何影响国家安全决策者在未来二十多年将面临的战略和政策选择。
主导地位既允许国家推进其自身的特定政策目标，也赋予其更大的行动自由
追求这些目标。在二十世纪的大部分时间里，美国总统都认为寻求一个“自由世界秩序”符合美国的利益，该秩序由一个以开放、自由贸易和投资自由流动为特征的国际经济体系和一个以越来越多的自由民主国家为特征的国际政治安排组成。继续坚持维持主导地位的战略背后的理论是，只有强国或强国集团提供的安全才能支撑有利于经济增长、代议制政府和国际和平与繁荣的自由经济和政治秩序。自冷战结束以来，这一观点一直得到两党的一致支持。
尽管这一观点仍然存在争议，但似乎很明显，尽管美国的政策显然引起了一些不满，但人们（尤其是政府）仍然认为它在与其他大国的互动中相对温和。美国对世界的基本看法是，它植根于新自由主义的正统观念，即自由市场、开放社会和民主制度，这些观念在共产主义垮台后成为实现和平与繁荣的共识。这种“跨国自由主义”使各国精英倾向于与美国达成广泛的利益融合，并减少了他们试图制衡美国权力的倾向。作为国际世界经济的保障者，以及由于其联盟体系而提供安全和稳定的提供者，美国提供了其他国家无法提供的全球公共产品。
接受衰落和美国主导地位终结的新传统智慧很可能导致美国全球政策战略基础的改变，并可能成为一个自我实现的预言。
严格的评估应该考虑美国在全球舞台上假定竞争对手的优势和劣势，以及使美国能够扩大其主导地位并保持稳定的全球霸权地位的持久优势和韧性来源，出乎所有人的意料。
需要一个框架来指导美国政策制定者如何思考制定战略和政策以再次扩大这一角色的问题，因为至少有一条有争议的命题是，在当前的大衰退过去之后，全球体系将继续是单极的，而不是多极世界，但对美国领导地位提出了一些额外的挑战。
2008 年国家情报委员会的报告反映了一股“衰落论”浪潮——人们认为美国的力量正在减弱，其他大国正在崛起，尤其是所谓的金砖四国（巴西、俄罗斯、印度和中国），美国需要调整其国际野心，放弃继续保持主导地位，转而迎合崛起中的大国，以促进全球治理。关于美国衰落的想法可以产生两种结果。它们可以促使政策制定者采取实际上加速衰落的政策，也可以促使领导人采取行动，重振美国经济活力，从而扭转衰落。
了解衰落论是一种说服，可以帮助人们评估支持美国衰落论的论据。关于主导地位的争论不是党派问题。共和党和民主党在是否以及如何保持美国在国际体系中的主导地位的问题上存在分歧。由于美国要应对崛起的中国、其他所谓“金砖四国”日益增强的经济实力，以及多极世界的前景，这些争论无疑将继续下去。影响争论的一个因素是美国人民是否愿意支持这项政策，并愿意为继续保持主导地位付出代价。一些人认为，美国公众在伊拉克和阿富汗的八年军事行动中精疲力竭，经济大衰退又将注意力集中在创造就业机会和医疗保健上，他们可能愿意让美国的政策适应其他崛起的大国，放弃全球主导地位的政策。毫无疑问，这些因素塑造了公众对美国在世界上的角色的看法。长期以来，民意调查数据一直显示，当被问及他们的观点时，美国人会表示更倾向于在国际舞台上与其他国家协调行动。然而，公众也一直支持美国在全球事务中的领导地位。当面临衰落的选择时，美国人似乎很可能会选择继续保持领导地位。这当然是冷战后时期的教训。
20 世纪 80 年代末，反衰落论文献也出现了，如今随着《2025 年全球趋势》报告的发布，这种观点又重新出现。反衰落论者无疑更加坚定了自己的信念，因为衰落论者过去一直是错误的。
但仅仅因为衰落论者此前的预测是错误的，并不意味着他们这次的预测是错误的。
他们的论点需要认真对待。美国的适应能力不容低估，但美国持久的主导地位和单极时刻的持续时间显然将成为未来几年激烈争论的问题。正确的评估将取决于我们如何衡量那些可能成为多极世界中额外极点的国家的力量，以及我们如何评估美国的持久实力和复兴能力。
美国的衰落和单极世界秩序的寿命不会仅仅由经济收益或损失决定。国际体系的未来形态将取决于更广泛的国家实力衡量标准，而不是某个国家控制的全球生产百分比。然而，衡量国家实力是出了名的困难。在前所未有的单极局势下，由于几乎没有历史先例可以指导分析人士，衡量相对权力转移可能更加困难。
主要指标往往包括国内生产总值、人口、国防开支，以及各种其他因素。各种方法在量化或以其他方式衡量许多因素方面存在差异。但由于所有人都同意这些类型的测量本质上是主观的，因此略有不同的因素和对不同因素的不同权重会导致不同的结果也就不足为奇了。目前尚不清楚这些模型在多大程度上能够解释不连续性和动态变化，而不是直线预测和相对权力转移。也不清楚这些模型是否真的能够衡量世界领导人如何看待相对国家实力和权力变化这一至关重要的问题。关键因素似乎是了解各国将资源转化为可用力量的能力，结合硬实力和软实力。
归根结底，国际政治家和军事领导人对国际权力分配的主观评估至少与国家实力的客观衡量标准同样重要。这些判断不可避免地受到一系列文化、心理、官僚和政治因素的影响。关于美国衰落以及我们是否正在进入一个多极世界而非单极世界的争论本身将不可避免地对这些主观判断产生影响。
然而，我们对假定大国的评估将涵盖传统的竞争者欧洲和日本，也包括所谓的金砖四国。
中国
中国的崛起比任何其他所谓的金砖四国都更受关注。根据《2025 年全球趋势》报告，“如果目前的趋势持续下去，到 2025 年，中国将成为世界第二大经济体，并将成为领先的军事强国。”全球经济衰退几乎没有阻碍中国的崛起。中国官员一直在竭力向所有人保证，他们没有霸权或统治其他国家的野心。这场“魅力攻势”始于东南亚，但迅速扩展到非洲和拉丁美洲，展现了中国运用软实力的能力。但随着中国实力的增强，其意图和目标可能会变得更加广泛。国家对经济的强大控制以及将党和国家与主要行业联系起来的庇护关系，导致经济出现大量浪费和低效。收入差距的扩大和权力的任意滥用，造成了社会经济紧张和动荡的易燃组合。在中国，社会抗议的不断升级已成为家常便饭。然而，中国的人口结构可能给该国领导人带来最棘手的问题。在未来十五年里，中国人口将停止增长并开始下降。老年人与劳动年龄人口的比例也将发生变化，使中国形成所谓的“4-2-1”人口结构，即一个孩子必须赡养两个父母和四个祖父母。
中国即将发生的人口结构变化也将与其人口年轻群体中日益加剧的性别失衡相交叉。经济、人口和社会动荡可能引发一场完美风暴，这导致一些观察家推测，中国远非一个崛起的大国，实际上正濒临崩溃。然而，目前人们的焦点仍然是强大的中国，特别是因为其经济进步使其能够积累大量且不断增长的军事能力。即使中国在增长方面遇到的障碍比《2025 年全球趋势》中描述的要多，很明显中国将继续保持自信，但很难确切知道这种新的自信将以何种形式出现。一些人认为，中国不断增强的经济和军事实力将推动世界各国之间的权力竞争。
该地区与美国的长期战略竞争。
其他人认为，中国与多边机构的互动增多将有助于它以负责任的利益相关者的身份和平地融入国际体系。这在很大程度上取决于中国领导层对其全球角色的看法。关于美国和西方“衰落”的讨论越来越多，这可能会影响中国领导人的态度以及他们实现中国国际目标的方法。
我们考虑的所有国家都有实力和增强实力的潜力，但它们也肯定会面临严重的问题。单极时期基于一个事实：美国是现代国际历史上第一个在所有基本权力要素（经济、军事、技术和地缘政治）中都占据决定性优势的领先国家。除了巴西可能例外，所有其他大国都面临着严重的内部和外部安全挑战。日本面临着经济和人口方面的挑战，它必须应对附近一个事实上拥有核武器的失败国家（朝鲜），还必须对正在崛起的中国投以不安的目光。印度国内存在暴力，邻国（尼泊尔和孟加拉国）也存在叛乱，与中国的关系也一直处于安全困境。人口方面的挑战对于欧洲、日本和俄罗斯来说，在军事人力和经济增长方面尤其严重。结果要么会削弱整体军事实力，要么会像俄罗斯那样，加大对核武器的依赖。
新兴经济体面临的所有问题和不确定性，以及欧洲和日本等发达国家面临的巨大挑战，只有一件事似乎是肯定的：事件将推动国际经济和政治朝着目前无人预料的方向发展，而关于崛起和衰落大国的确定性可能会因变化无常和不可预测的命运而偏离轨道。
随着全球财富和权力流向亚洲，即使这种流向不像某些支持者所认为的那样迅速和彻底，美国的优势也会在一定程度上下降。然而，正如《全球趋势 2025》所预测的那样，国际体系是否会走向多极世界，在很大程度上取决于人们如何看待相对权力的转移，以及如何选择根据这些看法采取行动。
美国的地理位置是固定的，一直是力量的持久源泉。
正如塞缪尔·亨廷顿所指出的，美国的实力“源于其在世界政治中的结构性地位……地理上远离世界冲突的主要地区”，也源于“参与历史上独一无二的多元化联盟网络”。自然资源是美国另一个持久优势领域。美国的农民和生产者从未像今天这样高效或多产。农业一直是“美国竞争力的堡垒”。能源资源是另一个优势。媒体对美国对进口石油的依赖（这是真正的战略负担）给予了极大关注，但却忽视了煤炭和天然气资源。
事实上，美国（加上加拿大）的能源资源仅次于中东。工业产能是美国制造业衰退的一个领域，美国制造业的衰退被视为美国整体衰退的替代标志。美国向后工业化、信息技术导向和高度金融化的经济转型是避免 20 世纪 90 年代“帝国过度扩张”预测的重要部分。在大衰退之后，后工业化转型可能被视为美国经济的致命弱点。这些观点可能低估了一些因素，这些因素应该有助于美国从第一个单极时代过渡到其后的任何时代。
对创新的开放可以在扩大美国在世界上的领先地位方面发挥重要作用。一些学者认为，创新是国家在推动长期经济活动和增长的行业中成为系统领导者的关键。未能在这些行业保持系统领导地位是衰退的主要原因。另一个可能推动美国更快复苏的因素是所谓的“美国信条”，其中包括对国家在经济中的作用的强烈敌意。更大的私营部门可能会继续为企业家和创新者提供空间，以延长美国在国际经济中的领先地位。
另一个极其重要的长期因素是人口结构，它支撑着美国可能继续保持全球经济领导地位。美国的生育率在发达国家中名列前茅，几乎与发达国家持??平替代。
美国人口不断增长，且比其他发达国家（或中国）更年轻，因此似乎处于有利地位。除了美国众多优势外，政治和社会稳定也使其成为全球投资者的避风港。然而，包括美国军事实力在内的所有这些优势并不意味着美国注定会继续保持主导地位，也不意味着单极格局将无限期地继续成为国际体系的特征。许多领域的错误政策决策可能会抵消或浪费美国的优势。此外，美国还面临着许多自身的挑战。尽管美国人口状况良好，但随着婴儿潮一代的老龄化，美国将不得不承担无资金支持的养老金债务。伊拉克和阿富汗战争的管理不善也损害了美国的地位。如果没有美国的一致努力，国际体系可能会走向无极或无极化，没有一个国家在试图组织国际体系方面发挥明显领导作用。其结果将是领导权真空，无法应对当今世界面临的大量问题，如恐怖主义、核扩散、种族和宗派战争、人道主义灾难、犯罪、毒品贩运、流行病和全球气候变化等等。
如果美国接受“衰落”的诊断，并试图适应崛起的大国，那么它很可能会加速衰落和美国主导地位的消亡。如果美国领导人选择继续前几代领导人为保持美国主导地位所开辟的道路，他们将不得不利用上述优势来巩固和扩大美国的主导地位。
衡量国家相对地位的一个标准是考虑这个问题：“你更愿意遇到谁的问题？”经过上述调查，一个理性的人可能会得出这样的结论：尽管美国面临的挑战很大，但其他潜在大国面临的问题更加困难和棘手。尽管《全球趋势 2025》预测世界正在走向多极化，但美国的优势地位似乎有可能在单极体系中继续保持，尽管美国的霸权地位不如 1990 年代那么明显。然而，在这一轮循环中，美国的主导地位将更多地受到美国国内和国际经济限制的限制，并受到地区大国的更多争夺。中国将在亚洲构成最大挑战，但伊朗和朝鲜等潜在的新核大国也将对美国??在东北亚和西南亚的延伸威慑提出难题。其他棘手的挑战者也可能出现，包括西半球的委内瑞拉（特别是如果它与拥有核武器的伊朗结盟的话）。
衰落论文献对金砖四国的过度关注往往转移了人们对核武器扩散最有可能对美国继续保持主导地位构成早期挑战这一事实的注意力。正如查尔斯·克劳瑟默所写，“衰落是一种选择”，如果美国政府采取一些基本措施，衰落是可以避免的。首先，美国要整顿国内秩序。其次，美国需要直面声誉挑战。美国必须做好继续捍卫公共利益的准备。也许最重要的是，美国主导地位的下降和地区挑战者的出现，将使美国联盟和联盟管理成为美国决策者关注的焦点，这是冷战结束以来从未有过的。
除了改善我们传统的基于条约的非正式联盟的管理外，美国还需要认真考虑其联盟组合的形态，着眼于与可能比传统盟友贡献更大能力和效用的国家发展关系。我们已经看到，印度可能是与美国建立伙伴关系或联盟的唯一最重要的候选人。在西半球，巴西也可能能够与美国合作，发挥宝贵的地区稳定作用。
避免多极化或无极化的可能性显然是存在的。它需要决心保持美国作为“不可或缺的国家”的地位，并制定实现这一目标的战略。在第一个单极时代来临之初，五角大楼曾努力明确思考一项扩大美国在国际体系中主导地位的战略。尽管由此产生的文件《1992 年国防规划指南》成为许多不合时宜的批评和争议的主题，但它的主要大纲成为事实上的双极战略。
这项艺术战略支撑了单极“时代”，而出乎大多数人的意料的是，这一时代已经延续了一个时代。如果美国要成功应对争夺主导地位的挑战，那么现在就是开始讨论在 21 世纪推动美国力量发展的战略的时候了。
Understanding America's Contested Primacy
https://csbaonline.org/uploads/documents/2010.10.21-Understanding-Americas-Contested-Supremacy.pdf
Dr. Eric S. Edelman 2010 Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments
Executive Summary
In November 2008, the National Intelligence Council released Global Trends 2025 which argued that “the international system—as constructed following the Second World War—will be almost unrecognizable by 2025 owing to the rise of emerging powers, a globalizing economy, a historic transfer of relative wealth and economic power from West to East, and the growing influence of non-state actors. By 2025 the international system will be a global multipolar one with gaps in national power continuing to narrow between developed and developing countries” [emphasis in original].”
This conclusion represented a striking departure from the NIC’s conclusion four years earlier in Mapping the Global Future 2020 that unipolarity was likely to remain a persistent condition of the international system.
Between the two reports America’s zeitgeist had clearly shifted under the impact of persistent difficulty in the counterinsurgency wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and increased questioning of United States global leadership (at home and abroad), the seemingly inexorable rise of the newly emerging economies (suggestively labeled as the BRICs by Goldman Sachs analysts), and the global economic downturn and recession in the United States. The overall impact was the creation of a new conventional wisdom that foresees continued decline of the United States, an end to the unipolar world order that marked the post-Cold War world and a potential departure from the pursuit of US primacy that marked the foreign policies of the three presidential administrations that followed the end of the Cold War.
The debate over unipolarity and continued US primacy is not merely an academic debate. Perceptions of US power will guide both American policymakers and other nations as they consider their policy options. Primacy has underpinned US grand strategy since the end of the Cold War because no other nation was able to provide the collective public goods that have upheld the security of the international system and enabled a period of dramatically increased global economic activity and prosperity. Both the United States and the global system have benefitted from that circumstance.
The arguments for US decline are not new but before they harden into an unchallenged orthodoxy it would be good to carefully examine many of the key assumptions that undergird the emerging conventional wisdom. Will the undeniable relative decline of the United States, in fact, lead to the end of unipolarity? Do the BRIC countries really represent a bloc? What would multipolarity look like? How does one measure national power anyhow, and how can one measure the change in the power distribution globally? Is the rise of global competitors inevitable?
What are some of the weaknesses that might hamper the would-be competitors
from staying on their current favorable economic and political trajectory? Does
the United States possess some underappreciated strengths that might serve as
the basis for continued primacy in the international system and, if so, what steps
would a prudent government take to extend that primacy into the future?
The history of straight-line projections of economic growth and the rise of
challengers to the dominance of the United States has not been kind to those
who have previously predicted US decline. It is not necessarily the case that the
United States will be caught between the end of the “unipolar moment” of postCold War predominance and a global multipolar world. The emerging international environment is likely to be different than either of the futures forecast by the NIC in Mapping the Global Future in 2004 or Global Trends 2025 in 2008. It would seem more likely that the relative decline of American power will still leave the United States as the most powerful actor in the international system. But the economic rise of other nations and the spread of nuclear weapons in some key regions are likely to confront the US with difficult new challenges.
The revived notion of America’s decline has once again brought to the fore a
question about the purposes of United States power and the value of US international primacy. Seeking to maintain America’s advantage as the prime player in the international system imposes costs on the US budget and taxpayer. It is certainly fair to ask what the United States gets from exerting the effort to remain number one. It is also worth considering what the world would look like if the United States was just one power among many, and how such perceptions might affect the strategic and policy choices national security decision-makers will face over the next twenty-odd years.
Primacy both allows the state to advance its own specific policy objectives and
gives it greater freedom of action in the pursuit of those ends. Throughout most
of the twentieth century American presidents have considered it to be in the US
interest to seek a “liberal world order” comprised of an international economic
system characterized by openness, free trade and free flows of investment, and an
international political arrangement characterized by a growing number of liberal
democratic states. The theory behind the continued adherence to a strategy of
maintaining primacy has been that only the security provided by a strong power
or group of powers can underpin the liberal economic and political order that
is conducive to economic growth, representative government and international
peace and prosperity. Since the end of the Cold War this view has had consistent
bipartisan support.
Although the point remains controversial it seems apparent that America,
while clearly creating some resentments with its policies, continues to be seen
(particularly by governments) as relatively benign in its interactions with other
powers. America shares a fundamental view of the world rooted in the neo-liberal orthodoxy of free markets, open societies, and democratic institutions that
emerged as a consensus prescription for peace and prosperity after the collapse
of communism. This “transnational liberalism” inclines national elites to see a
broad confluence of interest with the United States and reduces their tendency
to try and counterbalance American power. As the guarantor of the international
world economy and a provider of security and stability because of its alliance system, the United States provides global public goods which others cannot provide.
Accepting the new conventional wisdom of decline and an end of US primacy
could well lead to an alteration of the strategic underpinnings of American global
policy and could become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
A rigorous assessment should consider the strengths and weaknesses of the
United States’ putative competitors on the global scene as well as the enduring
strengths and sources of resilience that have enabled America to extend its primacy and maintain a stabilizing, global hegemonic role against all expectations.
There is a need for a framework to inform how US policymakers might think
about the problem of developing strategies and policies to extend that role yet
again, since it is at least an arguable proposition that rather than a multipolar
world, the global system, after the current Great Recession passes, will continue
to be unipolar but with some additional challenges for US leadership.
The 2008 NIC report reflected a wave of “declinism”—the belief that American
power is on the wane, that other powers are rising, particularly the so-called
BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China) and that the United States needs to adjust
its international ambitions and eschew continued primacy in favor of accommodating the rising powers in the interest of greater global governance. Ideas about American decline can cut two ways. They can predispose policymakers to pursue policies that actually accelerate decline or they can spark leaders to pursue courses of action that renew American economic vitality in order to reverse decline.
Understanding that declinism is a persuasion can help one assess the arguments that are adduced to support the proposition that the United States is in decline. The debate over primacy is not a partisan issue. Both Republicans and Democrats have been divided over the issue of whether and how to maintain America’s primacy in the international system. As the country contends with a rising China, the increased economic clout of the other so-called BRIC countries, and the prospect of a multipolar world these debates will undoubtedly continue. One factor that will shape the debate is the willingness of the American people to support the policy and pay the attendant costs of continued predominance. Some believe that the American public, exhausted by eight years of military exertion in Iraq and Afghanistan, and focused by the Great Recession on job creation and health care, may be willing to accommodate US policy to other rising powers and forego a policy of global primacy. There is no doubt that these factors have shaped the recent public perception of America’s role in the world. Poll data has long shown that, when asked for their view, Americans will express a preference for acting in concert with other nations in the international arena. There has also, however, been consistent public support for US leadership in global affairs. It seems likely that when faced with choices about decline Americans are likely to opt for continued leadership. That certainly is the lesson of the post-Cold War period.
An anti-declinist literature also emerged in the late 1980s and is now reappearing in the wake of the Global Trends 2025 report. The anti-declinists undoubtedly feel strengthened in their convictions because the declinists have been consistently wrong in the past. But simply because the declinists have heretofore been wrong does not mean that they are not correct in their prognosis this time.
Their arguments need to be taken seriously. America’s ability to adapt should not be underestimated, but America’s enduring primacy and the length of the unipolar moment are clearly going to be a matter of intensified debate in the next few years. A proper evaluation will depend on how we attempt to measure the power of those countries that might become additional poles in a multipolar world, and how we evaluate America’s enduring strength and capacity for revival.
American decline and the longevity of a unipolar world order will not be determined purely by economic gains or losses. The future shape of the international system will depend on broader measures of national power than the percentage of global production that a given state controls. Measuring national power, however, is notoriously difficult. In an unprecedented situation of unipolarity, with little historical precedent to guide analysts, the measurement of relative power shifts is perhaps harder still.
The main metrics tend to include GDP, population, defense spending, and then
a variety of other factors. There are differences among the various methods as to
how one might quantify or otherwise measure many of the factors. But since all
agree that these kinds of measurements are inherently subjective it is not surprising that slightly different factors and different weights to different factors
can lead to differing results. It is not clear how much these models can account
for discontinuities and dynamic changes as opposed to straight-line projections
and relative shifts in power. Nor is it clear that the models can really measure
the all-important question of how world leaders perceive shifts in relative national strength and power. The key factor would seem to be getting at the ability
of countries to convert resources into usable power combining both hard power
and soft power.
At the end of the day, at least as important as the objective measures of national power are the subjective assessments of international statesmen and military
leaders about the international distribution of power. Those judgments are inevitably affected by a range of cultural, psychological, bureaucratic and political
factors. The debate over American decline and whether or not we are entering a
multipolar, as opposed to unipolar, world in and of itself will inevitably have an
impact on those subjective judgments.
Our assessment of putative powers, however, will cover the traditional contenders, Europe and Japan, and include the so-called BRICs as well.
China
The rise of China has attracted more attention than any of the other of the socalled BRICs. According to the Global Trends 2025 report, “if current trends persist, by 2025 China will have the world’s second-largest economy and will be a leading military power.” The global recession has barely put a dent in China’s ascent. Chinese officials have been at pains to assure one and all that they have no aspirations of hegemony or dominion over other countries. This “charm offensive,” beginning in Southeast Asia but rapidly expanding to Africa and Latin America, has demonstrated China’s ability to wield soft power. But China’s intentions and aims may become more expansive as its power increases. The strong hold of the state on the economy and the patronage relationships that link the party and state to major industries have generated massive waste and inefficiencies in the economy. Rising income inequality and arbitrary abuses of authority have created a combustible mix of socio-economic tension and unrest. Rising levels of social protest have become an everyday occurrence in China. China’s demography, however, may present the country’s leaders with the most intractable issues of all. In the next decade-and-a-half China’s population will stop growing and begin to decline. The proportion of elderly to working-age individuals will also shift, giving China a so-called “4-2-1” population structure in which one child will have to support two parents and four grandparents.
China's approaching demographic shifts will also intersect with a growing gender imbalance in the younger age cohorts of its population. The potential for a perfect storm of economic, demographic, and social unrest has led some observers to conjecture that China, far from being a rising power, is actually on the verge of collapse. For the moment, however, the focus remains on a strong China, in particular because its economic advance has enabled it to amass significant and growing military capabilities. Even if China experiences more obstacles to growth than described in Global Trends 2025, it is clear that China will continue to be assertive, but it is hard to know exactly what form that new assertiveness will take. Some suggest that China’s increasing economic and military strength will drive a contest for power in the region and a long-term strategic competition with the United States.
Others believe China’s increased interaction with multilateral institutions will help it integrate peacefully into the international system as a responsible stakeholder. Much will depend on the ideas that China’s leadership develops about its global role. The increasing discussion of the “decline” of the United States, and the West more broadly, could have an impact on the attitudes of Chinese leaders and the methods they will employ in accomplishing China’s international objectives.
All the countries we have considered have strengths and the potential to increase
their power, but all of them are also certain to face serious problems. The period
of unipolarity has been based on a singular fact: the United States is the first leading state in modern international history with decisive preponderance in all the underlying components of power: economic, military, technological and geopolitical. With the possible exception of Brazil, all the other powers face serious internal and external security challenges. Japan, with its economic and demographic challenges, must deal with a de facto nuclear-armed, failing state (the DPRK) nearby and must also cast an uneasy glance at a rising China. India has domestic violence, insurgencies in bordering countries (Nepal and Bangladesh) and a persistent security dilemma with respect to China. The demographic challenges will be particularly acute for Europe, Japan, and Russia in the areas of military manpower and economic growth. The results will either diminish overall military strength or, in the case of Russia, impose a greater reliance on nuclear weapons.
With all of the problems and uncertainties that the emerging economies face
and the enormous challenges that bedevil the developed world in Europe and
Japan, only one thing seems certain: events will drive international economics and politics in directions that no one now anticipates and the certainties about rising and falling powers are likely to be knocked askew by a fickle and unpredictable fate.
As global wealth and power flow to Asia, even if it does not occur as quickly
and completely as some boosters maintain, America’s margin of superiority will
decline to some degree. Whether the international system moves toward a multipolar world, as forecast by Global Trends 2025, however, will depend to a large degree on how people perceive the relative shifts in power and how they choose to act on those perceptions.
America’s geographic position is fixed and has been a persistent source of
strength.
As Samuel Huntington has noted, US power “flows from its structural position in world politics ... geographically distant from most major areas of world conflict” as well as from “being involved in a historically uniquely diversified network of alliances.” Natural resources are another area of enduring advantage for the United States. America’s farmers and producers have never been more efficient or productive than they are today. Agriculture has been “a bastion of American competitiveness.” Energy resources are another advantage. The media have lavished a great deal of attention on the United States’ dependency on imported oil, a true strategic liability, but they have neglected coal and gas resources.
In fact, the United States (combined with Canada) trails only the Middle East in
the wealth of its energy resources. Industrial capacity is an area where the decline
of the US manufacturing sector has been seen as a surrogate for broader US decline. The United States’ transition to a post-industrial, information-echnologyoriented and heavily financialized economy was an important part of avoiding the predictions of “imperial overstretch” in the 1990s. In the wake of the Great Recession the post-industrial transition is seen as perhaps an Achilles’ heel of the US economy. These views probably underestimate a few factors that should help the United States navigate the current transition from the first unipolar era to whatever follows it.
Openness to innovation can play an important role in extending the United States’ leading role in the world. Some scholars believe that innovation is the key to countries emerging as system leaders in sectors that power long waves of economic activity and growth. Failure to maintain system leadership in these sectors is a key cause of decline. Another factor that may propel the United States to a more rapid recovery is the so-called “American creed,” which includes a very heavy dose of hostility to the role of the state in the economy. A larger private sector may well continue to provide entrepreneurs and innovators the scope to prolong America’s leading sector primacy in the international economy.
An additional, and extremely important, long-term factor underpinning likely
continued US global economic leadership is demographics. The US fertility rates
are among the highest in the developed world and are virtually at replacement.
With a growing population that will be more youthful than other developed countries (or China) the United States would appear to be in a favorable position. One could also add to the long list of US advantages the political and social stability that has made it the safe haven for global investors. None of these advantages, however, including the United States’ military power, mean that the United States is destined to remain the preponderant power or that unipolarity will continue to characterize the international system indefinitely. Bad policy decisions in a number of areas could negate or squander US advantages. In addition the United States faces many of its own challenges. Despite its demographic health the United States will have to meet the unfunded pension liabilities represented by the aging of the baby boom generation. The nation’s standing has also suffered from the mismanagement of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Without a concerted effort by the United States, the international system could move in the direction of nonpolarity or apolarity with no nation clearly playing a leading role in trying to organize the international system. The result would be a vacuum of leadership unable to manage the plethora of contemporary problems besetting the world like terrorism, nuclear proliferation, ethnic and sectarians wars, humanitarian disasters, crime, narcotics trafficking, pandemic disease and global climate change to name just a few.
If the United States accepts the diagnosis of “decline” and seeks to accommodate itself to rising powers, it will likely hasten the timing of that decline and the passing of American primacy. If US leaders choose to continue the path that earlier generations of leaders have blazed in seeking to preserve the US position as the preponderant power, they will have to build on the advantages described above to bolster and extend US predominance.
One measure of the relative standing of nations is to consider the question:
“Whose problems would you rather have?” After the survey above, a reasonable person might conclude that, as great as the challenges are for the United States, the other potential powers face even more difficult and intractable problems. Notwithstanding the prediction of Global Trends 2025 that the world is moving toward multipolarity, it seems likely that US predominance could continue in a unipolar system, albeit one where US hegemony is less clear than it was in the 1990s. In this iteration, however, American primacy will be more constrained by US domestic and international economic limitations and more contested by regional powers. China will pose the biggest challenge in Asia, but potential new nuclear powers like Iran and North Korea will also create difficult questions about US extended deterrence in Northeast Asia and Southwest Asia. Other troublesome challengers may arise, including Venezuela in the Western Hemisphere (particularly if it aligns with a nuclear-armed Iran).
The overwhelming focus on the BRICs in the declinist literature has tended to
divert attention from the fact that the proliferation of nuclear weapons has the
greatest potential to pose an early challenge to continued US primacy. As Charles
Krauthammer has written, “decline is a choice,” and can be avoided if the United States government takes some basic steps. The first is to get America’s house in order. Second, the United States will need to meet the reputational challenges it faces head on. The United States must be prepared to continue to defend the commons. Perhaps most important, the decline in the margin of US dominance and the emergence of challengers at the regional level will make US alliances and alliance management central concerns for US policymakers in a way that theyhave not been since the end of the Cold War.
Beyond improvements in the management of our traditional treaty-based and
informal alliances, the United States needs to look seriously at the shape of its alliance portfolio with an eye to developing relationships with countries that might contribute greater capability and utility than the traditional allies. We have seen that India is perhaps the single most important candidate for partnership or alliance with the United States. In the Western Hemisphere, Brazil may also be able to play a valuable regional stabilizing role in collaboration with the United States.
The possibility of avoiding multipolarity or non-polarity clearly exists. It requires
xx Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments resolve to maintain the United States’ role as the “indispensable nation” and a strategy for doing so. At the dawn of the first unipolar era there was an effort at the Pentagon to think explicitly about a strategy for extending US predominance in the international system. Although the document that resulted, the 1992 Defense Planning Guidance, became the subject of much misplaced criticism and controversy, its main outline became the de facto bipartisan strategy that underpinned the unipolar “moment” that, against most expectations, stretched into an era. If the United States is going to successfully manage the challenges of contested primacy, the moment to begin the debate on the strategy that will carry US power forward in the twenty-first century is now.
