US HEGEMONY IN WORLD POLITICS
Beginning of the “New World Order”
The US hegemony began mostly in 1991 after Soviet power disappeared from the international scene but we need to keep in mind two riders to this.
Firstly that some aspects of hegemony began after 1945 and the US did not start behaving like a hegemonic power right from 1991; it became clear much later.
In August 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait and annexed it. The United Nations mandated the liberation of Kuwait by force. The US President George H.W. Bush hailed the emergence of a ‘new world order’.
A massive coalition force from 34 countries defeated Iraq in the First Gulf War. The First Gulf War revealed the vast technological gap between the US military capability and that of other states.
The Clinton Years
During the Clinton years, it often seemed that the US had withdrawn into its internal affairs and was not fully engaged in world politics.
The Clinton government focused on ‘so issues’ like democracy promotion, climate change and world trade rather than of military power and security.
Nevertheless, the US on occasion did use military power even during the Clinton years. For example military action by NATO forces in Yugoslavia in 1999.
Another significant US military action during the Clinton years was in response to the bombing of the US embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar-is-Salaam, Tanzania in 1998 by a terrorist organization Al-Qaeda.
It led to a series of cruise missile strikes on Al-Qaeda terrorist targets in Sudan and Afghanistan. It was alleged that some of the targets were civilian facilities unconnected to terrorism.
9/11 and the Global war on ‘Terror’
On 11 September 2001, hijackers took control of four American commercial aircraft and crashed them into the World Trade Centre in New York and Pentagon building in Arlington.
The attacks killed nearly three thousand persons. In terms of their shocking effect on Americans, they have been compared to the British burning of Washington, DC in 1814 and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbors in 1941.
However, in terms of loss of life, 9/11 was the most severe attack on US soil since the founding of the country in 1776.
As a part of its ‘Global War on Terror’, the US launched ‘Operation Enduring Freedom’ against all those suspected to be behind this attack, mainly Al-Qaeda and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
The Taliban regime was easily overthrown, but remnants of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda have remained potent.
The US forces made arrests all over the world, transported these persons across countries and detained them in secret prisons. For example in Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba where these prisoners have no rights.
The Iraq Invasion
The US along with 40 other countries invaded Iraq in March, 2003, after the UN refused to give its mandate to the invasion, on the pretext of preventing Iraq from developing weapons of mass destruction.
Since no evidence of WMD has been unearthed in Iraq, it is speculated that the invasion was motivated to control Iraqi oil fields and install a regime friendly to the US.
More than 3000 US soldiers and 50000 Iraqi civilians have lost their lives since 2003. It is now widely recognized that the US invasion of Iraq was, in some crucial respects, both a military and political failure.
What does Hegemony Mean?
In the case of world politics, countries constantly try to gain and retain power. This power is in the form of military domination, economic power, political clout and cultural superiority.
During the years of the Cold War (1945-91) power was divided between the two groups of countries, and the US and the Soviet Union represented the two centers of power. Hegemony is used to describe an international system with only one center of power.
Hegemony as Hard Power
The first meaning of hegemony relates to the relations, patterns and balances of military capability between states.
It is this notion of hegemony as military preponderance that is especially germane to the current position and role of the US in world politics.
The bedrock of contemporary US power lies in the overwhelming superiority of its military power. The US today spends more on its military capability than the next 12 powers combined.
US military is strong in terms of conquering a territory, deterring and punishing the enemies. But it has weaknesses in terms of policing a conquered territory.
Hegemony as Structural Power
The second notion of hegemony emerges from a particular understanding of the world economy. The basic idea is that an open world economy requires a hegemon or dominant power to support its creation and existence.
Hegemony in this second sense is reflected in the role played by the US in providing global public goods. The best examples of a global public good are sea-lanes of communication (SLOCs), the sea routes commonly used by merchant ships.
Free trade in an open world economy would not be possible without open SLOCs. It is the naval power of the hegemon that underwrites the law of the sea and ensures freedom of navigation in international waters.
Another example is the Internet which is the outcome of a US military research project that began in 1950. Even today, the Internet relies on a global network of satellites, most of which are owned by the US government.
The US share of the world economy remains an enormous 21% and 14% in world trade.
The Bretton Woods system (World Bank and IMF), set up by the US after the Second World War, still constitutes the basic structure of the world economy.
A classic example of the structural power of the US is the Master’s in Business Administration (MBA). The first MBA courses in the USA were initiated around 1900 and outside the USA, only in 1950 . Today, MBA is a prestigious academic degree everywhere.
Hegemony as So Power
The third sense of hegemony is about the capacity to ‘manufacture consent’.
This notion of hegemony suggests that a dominant power deploys ideological resources to shape the behavior of competing and lesser powers.
The behavior of the weaker countries is influenced in ways that favor the interests of the most powerful country. Consent, in other words, goes hand-in-hand with, and is often more effective than, coercion.
America is the most seductive, and in this sense the most powerful, culture on earth. This attribute is called ‘so power’: the ability to persuade rather than coerce.
For an entire Soviet generation blue jeans came to represent aspirations of the ‘good life’ and many youngsters often spent over a year’s salary to buy blue jeans from foreign tourists on the black market.
During the cold war years, it was in the area of so power that the US was ultimately triumphant. The US was able to engineer a generational divide in Soviet society on the basis of a cultural product (for example blue jeans).
Constraints on American Power
The first constraint is the institutional architecture of the American state. A system of division of powers places significant brakes upon the unrestrained exercise of America’s military power.
There is a deep skepticism regarding the purposes and methods of government in American political culture. This factor, in the long run, is a huge constraint on US military action overseas.
The third constraint is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The US has an enormous interest in keeping the alliance of democracies alive and therefore its allies in NATO will be able to moderate the exercise of US hegemony.
India’s Relationship with the US
During the Cold War years, India found itself on the opposite side of the divide from the US as Soviet Union was its closest friend.
However, post 1991, India decided to liberalize its economy and integrate it with the global economy. This policy and India’s impressive economic growth rates have made the country an attractive economic partner for the US.
Two new factors have emerged in Indo-US relations in recent years: the technological dimension and the role of the Indian-American diaspora. For example:
(a). The US absorbs about 65 per cent of India’s total exports in the software sector.
(b). 35 per cent of the technical staff of Boeing is estimated to be of Indian origin.
(c). 300,000 Indians work in Silicon Valley.
(d). 15 percent of all high-tech start-ups are by Indian Americans.
Within India, regarding the Indo-US relationship, the debate is around three possible strategies:
(i). India maintains its aloofness from Washington and focuses upon increasing its own comprehensive national power.
(ii). A strategy that would allow India to take advantage of US hegemony and the mutual convergences to establish the best possible options for itself.
(iii). India can take the lead in establishing a coalition of countries from the developing world. Over time, this coalition would become more powerful and may succeed in weaning the hegemon away from its dominating ways.
Thus, India needs to develop an appropriate mix of foreign policy strategies to deal with the US.
How can Hegemony be Overcome?
In international politics, very few factors formally curtail the exercise of military power by any country as there is no world government like the government of a country.
There are some rules and norms called the laws of war that restrict, but do not prohibit, war.
In the short term, no single power can balance the US militarily. A military coalition against the US is even less likely given the differences that exist among big countries like China, India, and Russia that have the potential to challenge US hegemony.
Thus, it is suggested that instead of opposing the hegemonic power, one should extract benefits by operating within the hegemonic system. This is called the ‘bandwagon’ strategy.
Another strategy open to states is to ‘hide’. This implies staying as far removed from the dominant power as possible. For example, China, Russia, the European Union, are seeking to stay below the radar and not unduly antagonize the US.
Some argue that, resistance to American hegemony may not come from other states, but rather from non-state actors.
These challenges to American hegemony will emerge in the economic and cultural realms, from a combination of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), social movements, and public opinion.
These may form links across national boundaries, including with Americans, to criticize and resist US policies.
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