11: US Power, The American Century and Its End Flashcards
where did the American century come from?
notion was popularised in a 1941 article by Henry Luce
idea that US had a vital interest in the global environment and having such a vital interest should accept responsibilities that came alongside power superiority and should play an international role in politics
what are the key elements of the US global hegemony and the American century?
military superiority
- ability to deploy violence
- in terms of ability to inflict devastating military strikes and damage
economic behemoth
- military strike superiority from 1940s-1970s matched and made possible by economic might
industrial superiority
- military superiority centred on industrial superiority
- empire of production
- based on a unique domestic market, which acted as an engine multiplying economic growth
cultural hegemony and soft power
- e.g. Hollywood
US-centric network of international institutions
- network of institutions created to govern world affairs and to provide a basic form of global governance
- US always counted for much more (e.g. UN SC)
primacy of the dollar
three pillars of US hegemony
arms
- military power and superiority
words
- ideological allure and discursive clarity
- clear way of narrating/presenting the international system
dollars
- economic might, industrial superiority and central fundamental dominance of the dollar
how were the three pillars of US hegemony contested and weakened in the 1970s (the decade of limits)?
military power: Vietnam, nuclear parity and strategic vulnerability
- challenged, discredited and delegitimised
- suffered from the worst foreign policy and military fiasco when intervening in Vietnam
- USSR gradually caught up and developed the ability to retaliate
- novel condition to vulnerability for the US with domestic consensus on Vietnam and strong pressures to reduce military spending
ideological allure: Failure of modernising crusades, contestation of liberal democracy and domestic turmoil
- American model contested outside and within the US as never before as the consequence of dramatic failures of modernising crusades
- ideological dimension of the US and American model/democracy shattered by divisions
economic might: end of BW, devaluation of the dollar, trade deficits, inflation, beginning of outsourcing and deindustrialisation
- economic superiority in the US vanishing
what were the main elements of the discourse and policy of the limits of the 1970s?
Nixon/Ford/Carter - policy and discourse of limits
downsizing US global commitments
- significant burden sharing, delegation of responsibilities, etc.
detente and MAD to reduce military spending
- promotion of detente to reduce tensions/risks and stabilise the international order
- signed ADM treaty in 1972 to be vulnerable to each other and avoid war
pressure on allies to contribute more to defense and growth
opening to China
- practically and symbolically overlooking/sidelining ideology as a key driver in foreign policy
- limits imposed a more unscrupulous and principled way of foreign policy where you engage with countries that should be your archenemies
the end of exceptionalism
- discourse and policy of limits common across the political spectrum
- new global conditions made the discourse of possibilities and unlimited opportunities of the 1950s-1960s not credible/replicable anymore
what were the limits and flaws of this strategy/discourse of limits?
ideology: rejection of normalising, non-exceptionalist discourse
- exceptionalism means you are exceptional but also that you are an exception
- idea that the US should be normalised and that limits had to be accepted
strategy: rejection of vulnerability (and curtailment of sovereignty)
- acceptance that the US had to be structurally vulnerable to total destruction
- both sides accepted a major loss or relinquishment of sovereignty with vulnerability being the condition for avoiding war
economy: rejection of frugality
- idea that Americans should be frugal, accept a reduction of living standards, consume carefully, etc.
how was US hegemony and a discourse of unlimited possibilities relaunched post-1970s?
Volcker shock (1979) and the return of a super dollar
- between 1979 and 1981, to take inflation, the Fed increased short term interest rates to unprecedented levels
- kept reducing/increasing interest rates to use the monetary tools to reverse the high rate of inflation, provoking a major economic recession between 1981-1983
- US attracted many investments worldwide so with so much liquidity going to the US, the value of the dollar boomed in the first half of the 1980s
US as a net importer of capitals/investments and goods: an empire of consumption
- American domestic market drove global economic growth, especially the accelerated growth of China
- US used this for financial speculation and to consume even more
- post-1980s, thanks to the strong dollar and willingness of the rest of the world to lend to the US, this meant that America’s ability to consume was subsidised
- domestic market driving global export and export-led economies
- US hegemonic because of how it consumes, technological change/innovation and the transformation of the American economy into a service-based economy
- high level of consumption made possible by deregulated credit and significant collapses in savings
ideology and hypernationalism
- ideological exception centred on possibility and the necessity to reacquire/regain lost sovereignty
defense spending, attempts to escape MAD and strategic interdependence
US as a uniquely powerful empire of consumption with the 3 pillars of American hegemony
dollars
- hegemonic currency which provided the means for consumption
- dollar as the most reliable, strongest and dominant currency
arms
- reinvestment into military spending, acquiring a clear total superiority which became unprecedented with the collapse of the USSR in 1991
words
- exceptionalist/nationalist language
- mobilising the domestic public opinion to generate consensus around a proactive interventionist and costly/ambitious foreign policy
what are the limits and contradictions of this new hegemony post-1970s with the 3 pillars of American hegemony? what are the structural weaknesses of the empire of consumption?
dollars
- high deficits and growing reliance on external lending
- acceptance of permanent structural external deficits by consuming so much
- US became more and more indebted publicly and privately, with more reliance on external lending
- first paradox is that while dollars still represent a pillar of American hegemony, they are even more dependent on others and embroiled in a web of multiple interdependencies
words
- hyper nationalism and exceptionalism tend to alienate/ostracise international public opinion
- when the hegemony speaks, they have to address both the domestic and international (mobilising domestic opinion means alienating international opinion)
arms
- asymmetric warfare and necessity of zero-casualty wars
- mismatch of spending and what you get in return
- desire/ambition to somehow regain lost sovereignty, to be fully sovereign/independent and therefore free again of a possible nuclear attack
- US still operates in a system of nuclear interdependence
