United States – The Global Power Dynamics & USA’s Strategic Choices

UNITED STATES – THE GLOBAL POWER DYNAMICS & USA’S STRATEGIC CHOICES

By Dr. Subhash Kapila

Introductory Observations

American foreign policy analysts seem to have hit a panic button these days prompted by their perceptions that United States global standing as the lone superpower is declining or threatened by the resurgence of Russia and a not-so-benign rise of China. This panic has prompted American foreign policy analysts to come out with analyses of the likes of “The Post-American World” as if the United States is on the verge of power oblivion and others elsewhere talking of the 21^st century as an “Asian Century” as if to say an “Asian Century” would or could eclipse the global power standing of the United States. The latter stands analyzed and dismissed as a myth in this Author’s SAAG Paper No. 2677 dated 22 April 2008, "Asian Century is Strategically a Myth”.

The next myth that needs to be dispelled is that the United States as the global super power is on a glide path to decline.

Well past into the first decade of the 21^st Century the global power dynamics in operation and which provide the basis for a perspective look strategically for at least the next two decades for sure, there are no indicators to suggest the strategic, political, military or even the economic decline of the United States to a level where the other contenders like Russia or China can displace the United States from the pinnacle of global power.

A point stands already made in the Author’s earlier Papers that in a US Presidential election year, American national security issues like Iraq and Afghanistan and economic issues get over-analyzed and over-sensationalized in US domestic politics. This is precisely the cause for the present panic button.

On United States involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan this Author has already commented in his SAAG Paper No. 2671 dated 16 April 2008 that: “More importantly, the United States policy establishments and strategic community should stop viewing Iraq and Afghanistan military interventions as policy failures. In terms of United States strategic future in Greater South West Asia, Iraq and Afghanistan should be viewed as the future “Twin Pillars” of US security, and it should positively work for the achievement of the same.”

The United States must strategically move past Iraq and Afghanistan. The American “Global War on Terrorism” has blinkered US global strategic perspectives into narrow confines. It has prevented US strategic planners from thinking big strategically and thereby creating strategic vacuums in East Asia and South East Asia, benefiting China. The United States strategic planners must divorce themselves from their fixations on the “Global War on Terrorism” and resume their widened global strategic thinking as to how to prevent the emergence of wider strategic challenges to US global predominance.

United States current economic woes are transitional in nature and the US economy can be expected to bounce back with traditional American resilience.

Moving further in terms of comments on the ongoing debate of US foreign policy analysts on the future of the United States, this Author would like to make the following comments in point form:

United States global predominance may be under challenge but the crystallization of the challenge may take more than half of the 21^st Century.
Despite United States strategic distractions in Iraq and Afghanistan and a slow- down of its economy, the contending powers like Russia and China could not exploit the situation to their strategic advantage. No dents seem to have been made by them.
Global power dynamics and the exercise of global power cannot be likened to a “corporate high table” as is the habit of US foreign policy analysts.
Nor can global power dynamics and management of the global power system be viewed through the prism of “corporate governance” which again is a drawback in US analyses.

The global power system is hierarchical and the pinnacle of global power cannot be shared like the pinnacle of high mountains which have space for only one summiteer to stand. And therefore, whoever has to stand atop the summit has to accept that summits are lonely and one has to stand firmly and withstand the buffeting by strong winds. USA has therefore to stand alone.

Similarly, global power dynamics cannot be analyzed in purely economic and political terms or in terms of the new found meaningless term of “soft power”. Global power and especially “superpower” is an absolute in terms of hard power.

Global power dynamics do not operate in a vacuum. The resultant dynamics spring not only from the inter-play of the predominant global powers and the contending powers but also on the churning of the global power dynamics to its strategic advantage by the predominant global power. The United States should not forget this.

A contemporaneous review of the global power dynamics would suggest that in both the above contexts, the United States stands unchallenged.

This Paper attempts to examine the main theme being discussed under the following heads:

United States-Russia-China: The Strategic Relativity
Russia-China Strategic Nexus: Can it Displace United States Global Predominance?
United States-Russia Bipolar Global Template: A Desirable US Imperative for Global Stability
United States-China Strategic Nexus: An Unworkable US Strategic Option

United States-Russia-China: The Strategic Relativity

The United States stands majestically at the summit of global strategic, political, military and global power. The United States enjoys a global pervasive influence comprehensively in all these fields. It deploys its strategic and military might in forward bases around the globe in the exercise of its global power. Economically, its hold on global financial institutions provides it with global financial and economic controlling clout.

The United States even in contested regions around the world like the Middle East and the Islamic World has dominating strategic and political clout.

The strategic strengths of the United States are reinforced and contributed to by its Atlantic Alliance and NATO linkages and its web of bi-lateral security pacts in East Asia.

With the mightiest Navy in the world the United States enjoys unquestioned maritime supremacy across all the Oceans around the globe. US Navy Aircraft Carrier Battle Groups along with nuclear powered submarines with strategic nuclear missiles establish undisputed strategic control of all the Oceans.

Russia in a resurgent mode fuelled by rising oil revenues is refurbishing its strategic assets and modernizing its military inventories. It is striving for strategic parity with the United States globally but would need time.

Relative to the United States, Russia does not enjoy the same global political and economic influence. Even though there is an ongoing Russia-China strategic nexus in operation, Russia’s relationship is a tenuous one with China. Russia’s strategic and political influence today is confined to pockets in the Middle East and the Central Asian Republics.

Russia’s strategic clout stands greatly reduced with the erstwhile Warsaw Pact countries having moved into the US-led NATO orbit.

China was never a strategic and political equal of the United States or Russia. It is at best a regional power despite the possession of strategic nuclear assets. In China’s own estimates it can only rival the strategic strength of USA in another two decades or so. But the moot point is that the United States would not sit idle and not build American strategic power. USA would not let China catch up or outstrip it.

China’s burgeoning strategic, military and economic might has not translated into global political influence whereby it can undermine or limit US corresponding influence.

China’s one-point strategic blue-print is to create strategic pressure points against the United States in the Middle East and Islamic World by providing nuclear weapons and ballistic missile arsenals as in the case of Pakistan, Iran, Libya etc.

However, it has yet to face the strategic heat from the United States when USA starts creating strategic pressure points against China in Xinjiang, Tibet and Taiwan.

American analyses of China’s strategic significance and potential in the global power dynamics tend to get over-blown by captive Cold War mindsets in USA when China was viewed as the counter-weight to Russia.

American analyses need to correct their perceptions of China. In the global power dynamics, China can never ever be a strategic asset for the United States.

Russia-China Strategic Nexus: Can it Displace United States Global Predominance?

In the analysis of global power dynamics this is a legitimate poser which needs to be examined, both by global and American foreign policy analysts.

Undoubtedly, a strategic nexus exists today between Russia and China. They are also the prime movers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a grouping with aspirations to emerge as a collective security organization.

However, in the opinion of this Author, the prime determinant of forming the SCO was the respective national security interests of Russia and China, rather than an integrated response to militarily limit or confront the United States.

The glue that holds Russia and China in a strategic nexus presently is strategic expediency and does not have the convergence of strategic interests that hold NATO together.

China’s propensity to act as a strategic “swing state” swinging from one global pole to another during the Cold War is an established fact. China did not hesitate in discarding its ideologically ally to swing towards the United States. This would deter Russia from any strategic formulation where a combined Russia-China effort could seek to displace United States global pre-dominance.

To that extent, American analyses should discount any prospects of China singly or in concert with Russia attempting to displace United States global predominance.

United States-Russia Bi-polar Global Template: A Desirable US Imperative for Global Stability

In the evolving global power dynamics the picture that emerges of the global power line-up is of the United State as the lone superpower, Russia as the erstwhile superpower which disintegrated and now in the process of resurgence and of China as a regional power bestowed with superpower potential by American foreign policy analysis.

Two more powers as emergent global powers are being mentioned, namely India and Japan to begin with. The European Union too is an emergent global power and considered as a potential superpower by some.

In this global power line-up the United States enjoys a singular advantage that by political inclinations, in any future. US-China confrontation, it can count on the European Union, Japan and India to go along with the United States.

And here in lies the challenge for the United States policy establishment. How does the United States ensure that Russia does not gravitate strategically towards China?

Present United States policy formulations tend to play China against Russia. Russia is even discounted by recent US foreign policy analysts as an emergent superpower. That honour US policy analysts unrealistically bestow on China.

The United States and Russia even at the height of Cold War strategic confrontation and divide ensured global stability and kept regional conflicts within manageable limits by mutual consultation. The United States-Russia (then Soviet Union) bipolar template provided a predictable strategic global stability template. Therefore, the United states and Russia have a shared history of managing the global power system.

In an era following on which global strategic power could possibly become diffused by multi-polarity and which is a pressing concern for US foreign policy analysts, a workable US-Russia bipolar strategic template could provide the strategic answer. It could also prevent the strategic gravitation of Russia towards China.

The United States therefore needs to reformulate its policy orientation towards Russia. It should not be viewed in the erstwhile Cold War mould of confrontation.

Russia needs to be viewed by United States foreign policy planners and analysts as a prospective partner in the global power calculus for striving towards global stability. Globally, this a view that would be shared by many.

United States-China Strategic Nexus: An Unworkable US Strategic Option

Some in the United States could be tempted to explore this strategic option prompted by old Cold War mindsets which do not favour Russia.

This is an unworkable and undesirable strategic option for the United States for a host of reasons, the more important ones being:

Russia may have been involved in an ideological conflict with the United States, but never in a direct armed conflict.
China was involved in a direct military conflict with the Untied States in Korea
China poses the challenge of escalating the Taiwan conflictual flash point into an armed conflict with the United States.
China has exploited the Islamic World to confront the United States.
China is a competing strategic power at the global level with the United States and unlike Russia, stirring up not only America’s backyard but also in other critical strategic regions.

More importantly, the United States strategic allies like the European Union and Japan and friends like India would strategically shirk away from the United States in case it opts for a US-China strategic nexus.

China is a revisionist power with strong underpinnings of imperial grandeur arising from fabricated history. Ideologically, it is today the only Communist power and claims it as such. US policy analysts have maintained for decades that China first aspires to displace USA from East Asia and thereafter challenge it globally.

On all these counts, therefore, US foreign policy analysts should logically dismiss this option as strategically unworkable.

Concluding Observations

The global power dynamics do not suggest that there is an imminent decline of the United States or a down-slide in its superpower status. Nor do present indicators suggest that prospects exist on the horizon for such an eventuality.

Global power dynamics can never be stagnant or static. Obviously, the established global order will come under challenge from newly emerging global powers. Such challenges will have to be met squarely and resolutely and not by pressing panic buttons.

Of all the emerging global powers, it is China that will throw the gauntlet against the United States. Its current policy initiatives suggest that the process is in motion.

If that be so, then global power dynamics suggest that it is a strategic imperative for the United States to reorient its foreign policy which strategically prefers China over Russia. The United States and Russia have a shared history of management of the global power system.

(The author is an International Relations and Strategic Affairs analyst. He is the Consultant, Strategic Affairs with South Asia Analysis Group. Email:drsubhashkapila@yahoo.com)